smeared

Kevin is running for office. He ran about 10 yrs ago but didn't make it for whatever reason. When we were dating I asked him if he'd ever run again and he said he probably wouldn't because he thought the other side might take his divorce and use it against him.

Three years later I round the corner and see a campaign sign with a familiar name on it. A quick instant message confirmed that it was him. A few weeks later his campaign manager comes over with a stack of returned postcards and access to a statewide database of voters. I go through the postcards and mark the names as bad addresses. Scott is none too happy about this.

earlier this month I get an email from Scott while I'm at work and he says he returned home from the parts store and saw a sign in the yard from 'my boyfriend' that went immediately into the trash. I call Kevin. He said his volunteer team must have done that. Since those signs are $5 each to produce he asked if I could salvage it. It wasn't damaged and I put it in my trunk. The next day Scott asked why it wasn't in the trash where he put it.

Yesterday as I was coming home from the dogpark with Whiskey I call Kevin and ask if I could drop it off. We stand in the driveway and chat for a few minutes. He told me that his opponent is doing a literature drop of Kevin's divorce and is slanting it in a horrible way. The divorce wasn't bitter, they grew apart. He's still friend with his ex who lives in the same neighborhood and endorses his run for office.

The opponent went on a 5 week vacation after the runoffs. When he came back all his signs were gone. He blamed Kevin, but the city took them down because they were in the right-of-way and they couldn't get a hold of him to move them. Kevin went out and took pictures of them in a dumpster that the city uses when they pick up trash like that.

The opponent has since put up homemade signs that say 'integrity matters'.



listening to: the dishwasher
reading: Count of Monte Cristo
Whiskey is: chewing on his canvas man

debating

Don't know if I should do the nanowrimo thing this year. I tried it 2 years ago. Don't remember what I wrote, but I think my word count was around 500. Kinda pitiful, but it was all I could manage considering I was working on catalog at the time.

Working on catalog now. It's due at the publishers 10 Nov, but I only have 32 pages to do, 10 of those are table of contents. There is another 100-150 pages of indexing to do, but I'll get help on that so it shouldn't be a problem.

Mom called today and I told her about the weasle getting fired. She was kinda upset that they didn't offer me the promotion considering I'll be there 5 years next month. Uh, no. My first supervisor was fired because he did his job which made some people have to do their job and they didn't like that. The weasle got fired because he did a half-ass job, when he actually did anything. No. Thank. You.

Once catalog is done, the new supervisor is settled in and things return to what can be called normal, I'm going to see if I can't move over to design development or software and get out of graphics. I don't do anything creative in there. Probably won't get a raise.

Am thinking about submitting artwork for next season's licensed collections. Of course if I'm still working here I'll submit under a psydonymn. If they knew right off that it was mine, they would not pay me as much for it or say, 'since you work here, just let us use it for free'. bullshit.

One of our artists created some designs that are now being endorsed by a famous entertainer. I was handed a thick folder of stuff as I was doing some of the packaging. In it was her contract. We're paying her $100,000 to put her name and face on this product. $20,000 of it was in advance. Our artist probably gets $12 an hour and worked over two months on that project. But we could either sell it for $45 or slap a famous face and name on it and sell it for $69. All hail the almighty dollar.

And the way the packaging reads, it sounds like she designed and created these herself. She didn't. We sent a bunch to her, she approved the ones she liked, was photographed with them and had us touch up an ad because she (or her handlers) thought it made her butt look big.

checking in

My weasely boss finally got fired yesterday. Was it his fuck-ups? no. Did they get tired of his endless and totally transparent brown-nosing? no. Did they ask him to pee in a cup? yes. Three days later he was gone. It's common knowledge that him and one of the guys in the art dept smoke their lunch. When they were called in together for a 'random' drug test the artist looked scared. Someone overheard both of them in the hall saying they didn't have to go. The artist eventually went then later was seen going into his supervisor's office shutting the door and they were in there whispering for quite awhile. (The walls for most of the offices don't go all the way to the ceiling so nothing is private really). The weasle however was tracked down no less than 4 times asking if he had to go. Finally he was told, go or else.

The artist is still employed, the weasel isn't. I do feel bad for his wife and 3 kids though. They've been looking at houses the last few weeks.

Whiskey graduated puppy class. He's around 55 lbs now and is 8 1/2 months old.

Still living with Scott.

Have managed to save a few thousand dollars since moving in with him. Although if you walked in here you'd never know I did live here. Last month I asked him if I could have a shelf of his built in bookcase to put my books, figurines on. The first thing he said was, 'Where am I going to put my stuff that's there now?'

'if you don't want me to have it, just say so'

'what are you going to put on there?'

' I don't know. books, maybe a cow or two. if you find some papers put them there and I'll sort through them'

'I don't want you to clutter it up with junk'

'I'm not planning on it, I just want somewhere to put my books and magazines to get them off the coffee table'

'are you going to put books or junk on there?'

This went back and forth until I told him I wanted to put clutter there so I could end the conversation.

About three quarters of my stuff is still in boxes in the spare room. The rest is in storage. As I have time I've been going through the boxes and throwing out stuff and repacking and labeling the boxes. He wants me to stay for quite awhile, but I feel very temporary here.

The little old lady in accounting was fired yesterday at 6pm after working a full day. They like to do that where I work. Fire you after putting in a full 8 hour day. They also like to wait until you come back from vacation and fire you at the end of your first day back.  She was quiet and very friendly. If someone consistantly screws up their job word gets around, especially in a small company of about 50 employees. No one ever heard or said a bad word about her. Not good for morale. Not good at all.

In puppy news, which I'm sure you're sick of hearing about, Whiskey is practicing hiking a leg when he goes out for a whiz. Not every time he goes out, but I'd say 1 in 5 trips. It's so funny because he'll raise it a bit and he'll wobble to keep his balance. One day he was feeling very confident and hiked that back leg as high as it'll go. But that honor only went to the last few drops.

I'm sitting here telling you about my dogs latest bathroom habits. I need to get a life.

 

A pedigreed mutt

I checked out a puppy/dog training class today. It was very odd to be in a large room with 30+ dogs and not one that was barking, running wild or pissing everywhere. I was there for half an hour and only heard 2 barks. One was when I was outside walking toward an open door wondering if I was in the right place. The other one was from a dog in the beginning class that didn't want to 'stay'.

The next puppy class starts in mid-August. I'm mailing out my application sometime this week since I have to go to the vet's and have her sign a statement that my pup has all necessary shots and that they are current.

On the form it (of course) asks for the dog's name. Whiskey. Then it asks for the breed. When people as me I say 'mix' or 'mutt' but I don't like the sound of either one. So I listed his breed as "North American Short-Haired Hybrid Standard."