Every Year I Forget at 7:56 PM

Being a manager, January and February are absolutely insane months. Especially January, but the first half of this month is also no joke. Performance reviews, setting goals for the next year, accounting for what happened last year, meeting with the boss and the boss's boss (that one's not every year, but it was this year,) etc. Not to mention I'm the spreadsheet guy for the region, meaning I put together all the new spreadsheets to track stats, attendance, marketing, and everything else for all the Indiana centers and pretty much for anyone else who likes to use them.

And the problem is that most of my New Year's Resolutions have to do with dedicating time to things. So I always pledge to do things - get in the habit of doing things - that take time. So by the time things die down at work, the resolutions are gone from my mind. But this year I'm not forgetting. It's been a couple of weeks (like I said - the end of January is ridiculous), but I'm back. It may not be much of a post, but a post it is. My bigger writing problem is that I can't dedicate a lot of time to writing columns at MMATorch. I enjoy doing it, but it takes a good couple of hours of solid thought research and writing. And if I don't do it all at once, it makes things a lot tougher. But right now I'm working at work, then bringing my work laptop home and working some more after the kids go to bed. Or falling asleep - whichever comes first. Oh, and that's not even including the fact that it's the season for 24, Lost, and American Idol, among others. So this is not an interesting post, but it's here to make sure I don't stop posting before I forget.

Remember how we were going to drive to Delaware if the Eagles made the Super Bowl? Well, we went anyway. Last week was the visit with my boss's boss, and it went really well, but there was so much preparation involved, not to mention everything else that was going on, so I just wanted to get out of town for a few days. We conducted an experiment on the way out, making the 12-hour drive overnight on Thursday night. It actually went much better than I had expected. I'm a late driver and Jessica is an early driver, so I drove till about midnight and then she took over till about 5am. And the kids slept for most of the ride, so that made it even better.

The trip was nice; blissfully uneventful one might say. Some shopping, some hanging out, and watching the Super Bowl, followed by the second 12-hour drive in four days. That one wasn't actually too bad either. Really they were better than two drives of that length with two kids should be. So no complaints here. The other nice thing was that when I got back, it felt like I'd been gone for way longer than I actually had, so I was only backed up a couple of days, but it felt like a longer vacation. Good times.

Now, speaking of the Super Bowl. A lot of people talked right afterward about how great the game was, but I thought the first three quarters were horrible, followed by a great fourth. It was poorly officiated and poorly coached. Also, the Cardinals were robbed by the touchdown at the end of the first half. Harrison didn't get the ball across the goal line. I'm just sayin.

Rolling Again at 12:29 AM

I'm finally packed and ready to go. I'm heading to Florida tomorrow for the company's annual manager meeting. As is the case with most meetings, I expect great boredom during the day, with a few fun things at night. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Had I gotten around to it earlier, I'd have already told the story of what happened this morning (actually I'm not sure when it actually happened, but I discovered it this morning). That story will have to wait for tomorrow. For now, it's time to get to bed. I've got an airport shuttle coming to pick me up at 6:00.

Intermission at 6:00 PM

Well, I'm in between the meeting and the dinner today, and Zimm and I will likely catch a movie after dinner, so I'm posting now just in case. I literally have nothing to report about the meeting other than I'm not a fan of meetings. We're going to a jazz club tonight for dinner, so that should be fun. I'll let you know how that goes. Also, to respond to my mom's comment: medium was pink all the way through, so I figured medium rare might start to get cold. I like pink, but I'm not down with losing heat. I'm just sayin.

Mmmmm.....Steak. at 12:43 AM

Zimm and I drove up to Fort Wayne today for the meeting that we have tomorrow and Friday. To start things off, we all went to Eddie Merlot's, a steak and seafood restaurant. The meal lasted about three hours between the appetizer, salad, main course and dessert. I started things off with some calamari and spinach & artichoke dip. Both (especially the dip) were fantastic. The salad was good, but a little heavy on the red onions. I've never been a big fan of red onions (too strong for me.) Then of course, the steak. Good grief, the steak. I had two four-ounce fillet medallions. One of them had a bleu cheese crust, and the other had a peppercorn thing going on. I've never had good experiences with bleu cheese, but this was an exception. It was very, very delicious. The peppercorn, though, was the highlight. The steak was seasoned and cooked perfectly (medium) with a nice kick. Fantastic. Along with the steak, we had some asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, and fries. Good stuff. Finally, I got the apple and peach crisp for dessert, which was an enormous container full of apple and peach crisp, topped with vanilla ice cream. All in all, everything was excellent. The steak, though, may have been the best I've ever had. I've been eating healthier this year so far, but man that was worth the lapse. Gotta love business dinners.

Tomorrow and Friday will inevitably be annoying, as the meeting is all about planning the year and setting goals. But hopefully the food will continue to be the highlight. I had to do some work when I got to the hotel room tonight, so hopefully that won't continue either. Until tomorrow.

At the Wire at 11:50 PM

Just got home from work...I'm trying to use the time while everyone's gone to put in some long hours at the beginning of the week and get caught up on things at the office. Today I did some out-of-my-office things while everyone was gone (since that's the only time I can really get some peace and get things done outside my office), so tomorrow I'll look to close my door and pretend I'm not there so I can catch up on paperwork and such. Not my favorite, but if I do it all at once and get to a nice starting point, hopefully I can stay caught up this time. It should be a bit easier than it has been, since I'll be getting some more help.

Since you asked, I'll tell you. At my job, the management team consists of the manager (me), two assistants, two center supervisors, and at least one training supervisor. Since April, I've only had one assistant. Since August, I've had no training supervisor. So my assistant and I have essentially been doing the job of four people (the center supervisors can't do a lot of what assistants and training supervisors do.) And now my one assistant is taking another position, and one of my center supervisors is stepping down because the position got to be too much for her. So it's just me and one other person. On the bright side, I've got a new assistant that started today, and I hired a training supervisor as well. There's also a guy coming down from Fort Wayne (I hired him when I was up there), and he wants to apply for my vacant second assistant position. So if that works out, I'll go from almost nothing to almost everything in the time that it takes to train an assistant and a training supervisor (about two or three months, depending on certain things.) And now you see why I never talk about work. You're welcome. Back with more tomorrow.