My 2009 in Review

This is my 3 year of doing an overall year in review on what's happened in my life (1st year on Blogger). I am highlighting some of what happened in some of my bloggs first, and what wasn't blogged about toward the end of this blog.

I made my first resolution list for what I'd like to do in 2009. I never got that bike that I wanted to get. So I never accomplished that one. I did visit my Maternal Grandma a bit more this year than I did in 2008. She just celebrated her 86th Birthday on Christmas Day. I did make some of my own meals later in the year. While I didn't lose any weight. At least I didn't gain any weight either. I also felt more full on my own meals than my mom's meals. I did stay away from drag shows until early July, and went to 2 shows this year. I will cover that part later in my blog.

I blogged about losing my favorite pizza buffet, Cici's Pizza. I got a comment from someone who bought the Cici's location in Portage Indiana. This owner is also planning to open a second location, and this one will be in Schererville Indiana. This one will be closer to my home. The only clue I have is that the second location will somewhere around US 30 & US 41. For now, I'm just glad that Cici's is back in business in Portage Indiana. That location wouldn't have closed had Jamison Burrick not been running his drug operations within the restaurant. I believe that was why Ruben left before. He's managing the location again.

I copied this from another site about the rules of the baths. I won't go too much into detail, but you can checkout this blog from my myspace page at this link.

On January 26th, Ashland Hardware switched everone over to 8 hour shifts. That didn't affect me, as I was already on 8 hour shifts. Richard was constantly bitching that he wasn't getting overtime. I was bitching too, but I was thankful at the time I did have a job. I also wasn't happy that corporate, Newell Rubbermaid froze our wages. So I got stuck staying at $8.50 an hour, instead of going up to $8.76 an hour. Business eventually did pickup, due to production was slowed down too much, that production had to be run at full capacity. So overtime returned for us. In March, Chris Hayes got fired, due to continuously showing up to work drunk. It was unfortunate that it happened, but he refused to get help. I only hope he has gotten help by now. So when his position opened up, I put in for it, though I originally wasn't goona put in for it. I really wanted the same job I had on afternoons on days. That wasn't gonna happen, since the ladies that work in shipping on days aren't leaving anytime soon. I put in for it partially because it was a day job. I also put in for it because Dick Pedersen always bitched at us (me, Richard, Bryce, & Joe) for not receiving shipments in properly. For everyone who put in for the receiving clerk job, I was the only one not interviewed for the job, and he gave it to me. The only reason I got the job was because he didn't like the people from production who put in for it, and Don, the temp, took a pass on the job. He decided to focus on getting back into truck driving once his CDL endorsements were reinstated.

I started in early May on days, and it initially went well. However, I was already having problems trying to work with Delfina Alvarado. I had the impression that she didn't want me knowing her job, since Chris was trying to get her fired, so he could take over her job. That didn't work out for him. I wasn't interested in taking her job, as I wasn't looking at being at Ashland Hardware long-term, like she has. I only wanted to learn her job just as a backup, and not to actually be Chris. I personally think Delfina was threatened by my presence in the job. I also believe that she had a problem with me being gay. People usually don't have a problem if a woman is a lesbian, but if a man is gay, then it's not ok. I hate the double standard. Not learning the entire job, Dick overworking me with other jobs that had nothing to do with receiving or shipping, and worse yet, I was still expected at times to work afternoons. All that, and eventually, my desk was trashed to the point that I didn't feel that it was worth keeping the job. If I stayed, I wanted back on afternoons. Dick allowed me to go back to afternoons, but he was pissed off at me for it. He never gave any reasons as to why I should stay on afternoons. I thought it was for the best. Besides, Delfina & I had some problems working with each other, I didn't get along with Gina Robison's husband, Greg Robison (arrogant stuckup ASSHOLE), Tony Peronis's FAT ASS with sitting on his FAT ASS in front of a pc, and not physically working, and if there were other problems, I would be so stressed out that I snap at people. I originally thought that Donald Ford trashed my desk, but I really believe that Steve Castady trashed my desk. He was nothing, but trouble. He never listened to anything that people told him to do, or how to do, came & went as he pleased (along with lying on his time card about his hours), and Dick refusing to do shit about troublemakers. Dick even signed off on forged timecards. He has the nerve to think that I'm nothing but a whiner. He may know how to do shipping, but he doesn't know shit about management. He is that bad of a manager that people can get away with anything. He doesn't fire people. Had Dick been at work the day that Chris got sent home, and later fired, Chris would still be there today. Dick would have made sure Chris still had a job. I eventually had to walk away from the job since Dick created too much trouble for me. He hated me for going back to afternoons, and was looking for a way to have me leave. He got his wish, and now, his department is suffering. He never replaced me, which has put a lot of stress on Richard, Bryce, & Joe, that they work a lot of overtime (sometimes until 6am). That pushed Joe over the edge too, that on December 22nd, he went back into retirement. He retired back in 2002, but the person who took over his job was in a car accident, and he was asked to return to work. He came back, and worked part-time. He went full-time in January, but only wanted to work 40 hours a week. That happened until around the time I went to days. Then he stayed over. That continued even after I returned to afternoons. He stayed even longer after I was gone. Since he'll be turning 70 in April, he decided that the job wasn't worth it anymore. So he's now in retirement again. I don't believe Dick will replace him either, since Dick doesn't consider Joe's job of handling boxes a priority. He doesn't have Terri handling the boxes from production on 3rd shift either. So he's leaving it to Arnold Patrick to handle on days. Dick better not blame this one on me. He did this to himself. When I'm done with this blog, I plan to e-mail the HR manager as to why I'm not working there anymore. I had hoped to transfer to another Newell Rubbermaid company (particularly Shurline in St. Francis, WI, a Milwaukee suburb). Now, I don't care if I never work for any Newell Rubbermaid company again.

I covered work in 2 paragraphs (even if I didn't type up proper paragraphs or proper English). Onto other stuff. I went t Touché on Valentine's Day for their dungeon master night, and their twisted romantic version of Valentine's day. He showed candles, oil, chocolates, Instead of massaging oil, there was a bottle of Wesson cooking oil for body rubs (more like light fires to the oil (OUCH). For chocolate, there was chocolate syrup for pouring into your mouth then swap spit with it (yuck). For candles, the candles for those into BDSM are letting melted wax be poured onto the slave. That was for the most part, all I did there was watch the demo. I'm not that cheap. If I want to be roamntic, I will spend the extra money for chocolate candies, massage oils that I find worth putting on me, and have a candlelight dinner (maybe let candlewax be poured onto me, or the other guy. That would be as far as I would go with that. Earlier in the day, I took my mom out for breakfast. Valentine's Day happens to be my mom's birthday, and she wanted to go to Old Country Buffet for breakfast. I wasn't gonna question it. She enjoyed herself.

Since I don't have cable TV or satellite TV, I receive my TV with an outdoor antenna. As we all know, people like me had to get prepared for the digital TV transition. For those with cable or satellite weren't affected at all. Since I can't afford a new TV set, I had to get a DTV box. I bought mine in 2008 when I got the coupons from the government. I got what was available at the time, which was the Magnavox DTV box, Model# TB100MW9. I wasn't able to get them hooked up until this year in April (June 11th for my mom, as she kept stalling me on hooking it up). When I worked lateone day in April, she left for the grocery store early, and I used that time (when I woke up) to hookup the outdoor antenna. I got my box hooked up, and scanned for channels. The pre-transition wasn't all that great, but I did get most stations. For Pre-transition, WBBM-DT was on channel 3 (the only DTV station on VHF), WGBO-DT was on 53, and WYCC was on 21, and all 3 of these stations were on the John Hancock. All other stations, except for WYIN-DT were on the Sears Tower. For pre-transition, the only channel that gave me problems was WLS-TV on channel 52. Most people complained that they couldn't get WBBM-DT on channel 3. For most people, they were either using rabbit ears, which are overall ineffective with DTV, or using an outdoor antenna that wasn't optimized for 2-6 (worse yet, most people I came across with outdoor antennas had UHF only antennas). I was one of a few who did get WBBM-DT on channel 3, and had little trouble with it. On June 12th, stations slowly started shutting off analog, and all hell broke loose for most stations. 4 stations were changing channels. WLS-TV had their digital channel on 52, and it was out of core, as the TV dial is now 2-51. They didn't put in for another channel early on, so they had to return to channel 7. That one went smooth for me. Other people complained that they couldn't get WLS-TV once they went to channel 7. Even after a power increase, most people couldn't get them. So they resorted to getting another channel, and they now use channel 44 for their main channel, but channel 7 is now a full market translator. WBBM-TV worked out a deal with WTTW to acquire their antenna that they used for analog, and use that for DTV. WTTW remained on channel 47, and WBBM-TV was gonna move to channel 11 after june 12th, but changed their mind after they learned that they wouldn't have been able to keep the original signal contour that WTTW originally had. That was due to WGVU in Grand Rapids Michigan & WLFI Lafayette Indiana also being on channel 11, and had to protect those stations. There was also WWTO LaSalle Illinois on channel 10, and they chose to stay on that channel. That resulted in that station reducing the coverage of the original channel 11. So when WISN in Milwaukee decided to vacate channel 12, and remain on channel 34, WBBM-TV took over channel 12, and kept their original coverage. It was cheaper for WBBM-TV to acquire WTTW's old antenna instead of spending money to put a new antenna on the John Hancock for channel 12. Not as many people are complaining that they can't receive WBBM-TV on channel 12. WXFT was on 59/60 & WGBO was on 53/66 (for WGBO & WXFT, digital channel first, then analog channel) had to turn in both licenses as both channel were out of core. So WGBO-DT acquired WCPX's old channel of 38, since WCPX stayed on 43, and WXFT acquired WPWR-TV's old channel of 50, since WPWR-TV stayed on channel 51. Everyone else stayed on their pre-transition channel. I have a full blog on the topic. WCIU 27(Ind), WMAQ-TV 29(NBC), WJYS 36 (Ind religious), WCPX 43(Ion), WSNS (Telemundo), WTTW (PBS), and WXFT 50 (Telefutura) were the stations that gave me problems on reception. All of these stations broadcast from the Sears Tower. WYIN-DT 17 was another station that's had problems too (continues to do so today), but they can't afford to relocate their transmitter to a Chicago skyscraper, but the channel spacing does allow it today than it did prior to digital. Their tower is in Cedar Lake Indiana, and the digital antenna is on the side of the tower, and not on top, like the old antenna is, which is optimized for 56, and the new antenna is optimized for channel 17. Despite operating on new channels in most cases, the FCC mandated for DTV with the ATSC standard (digital TV) that there be PSIP, which maps the actual channel to a channel that the system tells it to call itself. For WBBM-TV, they're physically broadcasting on channel 12, but PSIP tells it to call them channel 2.1. WLS-TV has been the only one that has been on the channel that the PSIP system tell it it is. WLS-TV is physical channel 7, and the PSIP tells it that it's channel 7.1. Since WLS-TV is also on channel 44, that also maps to 7.1. So for some TV's & converter boxes, there's 7.1, 7.2, & 7.3 twice.

I also went to a psychic fair in August. Since Melody Joy ended the J&M Enterprises Psychic Fair in June or July of 2008, I hadn't been to a psychic fair. melody Joy even stopped doing readings at Hunters Nightclub. Anyway, I found True Psychic Fair on the internet, and it's held every other month at the Best Western in Kenosha Wisconsin (usually the 3rd Sunday of every even number month). I saw a numerologist named Lily. It was the first numerologist since seeing Rosemary Fletcher in 2000. Lily asked me for my date of birth. All I will say is that I'm a Scorpio. She was saying that she's seeing another job coming up, but said that she sees a possible job transfer. I never thought it would be within Newell Rubbermaid, as the Shurline division gave me the impression that they wanted me to quit my job, and go thru a temp service they use before getting hired into their company. Since I'm no longer a Rubermaid employee, that's not the employer. I believe if anyone is getting a job transfer, I believe it's my sister. She wants to transfer departments within Purdue University West Lafayette. I don't know what my next job will be, but I believe it'll be something that'll last for a while. I don't see my next job being long-term. If this is a job that'll be long-term, then it has to be a job in the distant future. My number is a 4 calculated from my date of birth. I never asked about love, as it's not a priority. Even if I had asked, I would have been told that I would be with a blonde haired blue eyed person. I know that the person would be a Virgo and lives in Milwaukee Wisocnsin. I already have an idea of that person. I came across 3 Michael's online. One who went my mikegm68 on yahoo had the name, Mikhail Girgis. It turns out that it isn't him, though he has resided in Waukesha Wisconsin, and had numerous addresses in Illinois, included Zion, Crystal Lake, Rockford, & Roscoe Illinois (not Roscoe Village in Chicago). I then came across on facebook a guy named Michael McGavock from a school search of Waukesha South High School. He is listed as having to lived in Waukesha, Elm Grove, Oconomowoc, Milwaukee, and Dousman, Wisconsin. It's hard to say if this is the Michael I'm looking for. I hope not. I only know that he was born in September 1968. What has me concerned if this is the Michael I had previous contact with, is that this Michael is married to a woman named Yvonne McGavock. There is no way I want to be involved with anyone who's married, and worse, have children. I then came across another Michael by the name of Michael Mahoney. I found him in a listing on the Waukesha South High School website. He also was born in September 1968, and I know he's a Virgo. Michael McGavock might be a Virgo too. For Michael Mahoney, he's listed as living in Waukesha & current place, Milwaukee Wisconsin, but also lived in San Francisco, Berkley, & El Cerrito, California. I believe the California cities were probably for college. This Michael is single, and is blonde. I don't know about the other Michael. I will only say that regardless of which Michael, there's some issues I have with one of them. I don't know which Michael is the one I had contact with on match.com, but I didn't like it that he wanted someone who had a college degree before he would date that person. I don't know if he changed his mind on that one, but that was why I didn't contact him before. He also wants kids, but I don't, and would like it if I'm not involved with someone who has kids. He's insisting that the person already live with the Milwaukee area. That there is something I don't like, as I haven't had any help with relocation there. So if I ever Meet either one of those Michaels, I will throw that in his face.

I also got around to reviewing a polish buffet in Chicago by the name of Czerwone Jabłuszko (Red Apple), though I dined there on Memorial Day. I was so busy that I didn't put in my review sooner. For my first time eating polish food, it was good. I will one day get around to trying out other polish buffets, and as I get used to polish food, then I want to go to a polish restaurant and order from the menu. Here's the full review.


My last blog I did was Thanksgiving Day. I went to a church for a charity Thanksgiving dinner. While we weren't really hurting for money, I felt ashamed to be at the church for a charity dinner. Some of the people there were worse off than we were. At the table I ate at with my mom, one lady has to rely on various churches for survival. She lives in a housing project near Downtown Hammond. She got a ride to St James Church in Highland Indiana for their dinner. It was an all you can eat dinner. I just grabbed a plate, and people on the other side of the food scooped it out for people. I made 2 trips, and ate everything, while a black couple wasted food, and seemed unappreciative. The lady in the housing project was thankful for the meal, as she wouldn't have had dinner otherwise.



Now here's a few things I didn't get a chance to blog about. When I went to work on days, I thought I was gonna get a chance to see Fierce Cabaret at Spin Nightclub, hosted by then Lady Vera Parker. Everytime I thought I would have a chance to see the show, Dick mandated me to work on afternoons, and would work for 12-14 hours that night. By the time I would get off work, I was too tired to see the show. The one time I did get a chance to see the show on July 3rd, I find out that there was no show. There was supposed to be a show that night, but it turned out that Thomas Flanagan (a.k.a. Lady Vera Parker) was arrested for fraud. Only Chicago Pride & other gay media covered the story. I cna't understand why the regular media didn't cover it. Even ABC7 didn't cover it. Was it because they didn't want to admit that they were surprised by what happened, since ABC7 interviewed Lady Vera Parker. Who knows what's gonna happen with Lady Vera Parker, but I doubt I'll even trust the bitch again, after learning that she was charged with fraud in Massachusetts as well.


I got a chance to see Regina Upright perform on July 8th at the newest gay bar in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago, called Cattle Call (or as they're wanting to be called, The Call). It's a Country/Western bar, which indirectly competes with Charlies. I say indirectly, because they're not in the same neighborhood. Charlies is in Lakeview (a.k.a. Boystown), while Cattle Call is in Andersonville. Every Wednesday at 9:30pm, there a drag show hosted by Angelique Munrow, and there a regular cast, and a guest each week. Regina Upright is a featured guest, and is typically scheduled every other Wednesday. I like Ashley Morgan along with Angelique Munrow. That's all I'll say who I like for drag queens & tranny. It's a place I'd like to go to more often, but I'm not working at the moment, and would need money to go there. I would also need a day job to go back. I hope to go back there soon.


I decided to reactivate my facebook account (though I really didn't want to, as I don't like facebook) in order to be back in contact with Rick & Bryan of Wheaton Illinois. I have Rick & Bryan, Cattle Call, Chazonator, Red & Nater, & a Jeremy Andrews in my facebook friends list. I don't know who else I'll add, but my brother & sister are NOT allowed to be in my friends list. Neither are any of my former classmates from Calumet High School or Merrillville High School.


I never got around to finding time to blog about being pissed off with Russ Conte of Kelly Services. He didn't like before when he was the recruiter at Hidden Valley, but couldn't easily get rid of me, since Tammie Matthews wanted me to be there. My job was filled by someone off the street, and resulted in me being moved to manual packing line, but Star Staffing called me up for a job, and gave Russ his wish to be removed from the Hidden Valley job. He transferred to their office in Frankfort Illinois, and decided he wasn't gonna help me out at all. He held it against me on the Hidden Valley job that he didn't want to work with me this time around. Had I not been rejected, I would have been back to work in October. I still wish I could get out of the Chicago market, as too many employers want me to move out of Indiana, and live in the expensive communities that the jobs are located in. The jobs don't pay enough for me to live near the job sites, and my own mother refuses to move out of Gary Indiana. With that, I'm stuck where I'm at. While Kelly Services normally doesn't require a person to live in certain communities or a certain radius of the job site, I'm not happy that Kelly Services isn't willing to help out this time around. The office near my home deals more with office jobs, and for the 2 warehouse jobs they do have, they can't send me to either job. So if I wanna work for Kelly Services, I have to go thru another office, but the next nearest Kelly office has me on ineligible status, which pisses me off. I keep wishing to get out of Chicagoland, but for some reason, people don't want me to leave.


I visited my Grandma on Christmas Day, and she turned 86 on Christmas Day. Out of my family, I didn't see my Aunt Dawn, since she's always late for family gatherings. I was surprised that my Aunt Nancy gave me $50. I never got that much cash for my birthday, or Christmas. For being 36 years old, I'm surprised I'm still getting gifts from my Aunt Nancy.


With the new year being an hour away, I hope that sometime in January, I'll be back to work. I plan to let my former employer know how I feel about them, and don't care if I never work for Rubbermaid again.


Have a Happy New Year everyone.