Jet Girls Win

The last decade has not been kind to Altoona-Midway athletics. While the boys’ football and basketball teams ended multi-year losing streaks four years ago, the girls’ basketball team started the season with a six year losing streak, seven years if a forfeit win is not included.

The girls picked up a win against a homeschooling team during a December tournament. Last night they beat Oswego 42-38, ending a ten year conference and home losing streak. Senior Mariah Stackhouse led with 19 points, which is the most any A-M girl has scored in the last nine years. It is also more than the girls’ team averaged during the 2012-13 season.

Colliwobbles, NFL version

Just woke up and found out that the Colts found a way to miss the pl ayoffs. The Dolts simply needed to beat the worst team in the league to get in. They didn’t blow a big lead like Collingwood in the 1970 VFL Grand Final. The Dolts never led. The didn’t lose a heartbreaker at the end. They trailed by 20 late in the game and didn’t get a touchdown until the final quarter.

The Colts were eliminated when the Steelers won. The Steelers have to wait until tonight’s game to learn their fate. They need a win. It doesn’t matter who wins, they just need the Chargers-Raiders game to not be a tie.

Looking Back at My Career, Part 1

With two more weeks of nothing growing because Persephone Days are still here, I have decided to make filler posts. With 40 years of work experience, I have a lot of stories that can be used as posts.

My last job before moving to Kansas was picking orders at the Petsmart warehouse* in Phoenix. I was there when the name was changed from Petsmart to PetSmart. I used a two-pallet pallet rider to pick what the voices in my headset told me to, and how many. When I was done, I took them to the staging area, wrapped them, labeled them, then picked up the next pallet(s) as a forklift driver put them on a truck bound for several stores. In other words, this is trained ape work.

A guy from the neighborhood needed a job and PetSmart needed help, so I put the two together, with a temp agency in between. “Rick” had no car, so I gave him a ride to work. Rick was a good worker when sober. Unfortunately, he would get his paycheck, get drunk all weekend be broke Monday morning and call in sick on Monday afternoon.

When Rick was down to his last strike, I went over early to get him sobered up enough to go to work. His daughter said he wasn’t that drunk. He was. He had three stages of drunkenness. The first was a mellow stage with the catchphrase “It doesn’t matter”. The second was an angry “LEAVE ME ALONE”. The third was “Lalalalala”. By the time we got to work, he seemed almost okay ,although the workers looked at him funny. My shift started a little earlier than his. I left the breakroom and heard this voice saying “LALALALALA” as one of the foremen* was walking in.

I didn’t see Rick at work, so I used the payphone we had to use at work for personal calls to call home. I could hear my roommate, but he couldn’t hear me at all. When I got home, I told him what happened. He told me that Rick got on the bus, went to the liquor store, spent his last dollar on beer and came to our house. If I had come home a few minutes earlier, I would have seen him. Rick was a good worker, but he just couldn’t do Mondays.

* I speak and write English, not HR. I use terms humans would use, not what human resources people would use.

BRRRRR….

Got our first snow of the season, not enough to cover the ground, but enough to make the roads slick. Temperatures dropped below 10 degrees and may do so again tonight.

This wouldn’t have been so bad if my door handle did not break off last night as I was going to work. Trying to get in from the other side in pitch darkness is not fun. Because I left early, I still got to work on time. I will dothe same tonight.

Shrinkflation Plus Price Increase.

At work I saw a 32 ounce Gatorade I had not seen before. When I checked my handheld scanner to locate it, I checked the location and realized Gatorade radically changed their bottle design. They also shrunk the bottle to 28 ounces, the same as Powerade. They also increased the price from $1.18 to $1.98.

If you like Gatorade, get the bell shaped bottles while you still can. The ones that are curved in the middle are the expensive ones.