Blog Number 114

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

I have been putting a lot of hours in at work lately.  It is probably something like 60 hours if you count the work I do at home most evenings and some weekends.  This time of year is just busy and there is nothing really that can be done.  You suck it up, work more, and wait for January when things will slow down.  This busy time is further complicated by people choosing to take vacation time as well further complicating things.  I remember this time last year telling my (then) team leader that NEXT year, no one should get any vacation in December.  So much for that idea.  Plus, now I am the team leader (for one whole week now) and I admit I would not have the heart (or guts) to tell my teammates that they had to work most of the holidays.  So I just work more to try to pick up the slack.  Actually, my team is great in this aspect.  When I log in at night or over the weekend, there are usually several people working as well.  Given that we are salaried and do not get paid any overtime, this says a lot of the team work ethic.

Anyway, tonight I got home about 5:30 to discover that there was no dinner started.  I am 3 months shy of my 10 year wedding anniversary so I know from experience that this means that we are going out to eat at a restaurant of (not) my choosing.  We ended up going to Chili's and both kids wanted (very badly) to sit by daddy (maybe I am working too much).  Fortunately we got a big booth and there was plenty of room on my side of the table for both kids.  Before we got seated though, we were waiting by the front door.  There were 2 people immediately in front of us and they appeared to me mother and teenage daughter.  As they were being led to their seat, I noticed the teenage daughter grab a children's menu and a crayon from the slot by the front desk.  This girl had to be 15 years old!  Does she need to color THAT badly?  They sat close to the front and sure enough, right when they sat down she opened the menu up and began to color!

Anyway, we did our typical "order 2 adult dinners and 2 extra plates" and shared some burgers and (way too many) fries.  We also did our favorite appetizer (the Triple Play).  The southwestern eggrolls are just toooooo good!  With approximately a 19% tip, the bill came to $30.00.  The food did take quite a while to come but since I was sitting next to both kids, I got a chance to color.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon