Do you know what grinds my gears...

If you are at the salad bar don't talk to your frickin' buddy beside you. See all these people behind you? Yeah they are waiting for you because you're slowing down the line asshole! Get your damn salad then you can talk to your pen pal. BTW you don't need 6 scoops of bacon bits!

Another thing...I decided to lay up on the small tomatoes because the last few times they tasted a bit gnarly. So I went over to the condiment counter, got 4 slices of a tomato and they charged me $.85 for it! Come on! It's not my fault your employees don't know how to change out the tomatoes at the salad bar.

Son-of-a-'B'…sorry for using such harsh letters.

Best Buy to "Cut The Fat"

http://www.startribune.com/535/story/336906.html

The media just got a whiff of what we were told 1 week ago. Best Buy needs to cut 300 million dollars because our SG&A (Selling, General and Administrative Expenses) sky rocketed last quarter due to how much it cost to switch existing stores to 'Customer Centric" stores. In other words Best Buy is just putting it nicely that there will be some lay-offs. I have heard through the grapevine that 1,200 people will be let go company wide starting Monday. Each store will lose 1 manager (700+ stores), some district & regional staff will be cut and then there will be cuts here at corp. They are looking at positions where people are working on projects that are not part of BBY initiatives. Lucky my position is very important to keeping the stores running properly day to day so I believe our team is safe but we do have 3 managers managing 10 people. I would be worried if I was one of those managers. One guy in our dept had a good idea. Bring in a beer on Monday then if you are let go (which I doubt I will be) we can crack open a cold one before leaving the building.

The CLAW!!

Funny story from Austin, MN - I think the same thing happened about 1 year ago at a Perkins somewhere else.

"It was the funniest thing I ever saw," said Austin, Minnesota Fire Chief Dan Wilson, one of three to respond to the non-emergency call. "I mean this is Mission: Impossible stuff."He was referring Sunday's call to an Austin pizza parlor about a boy inside one of those pick a toy claw machines. The three-year-old apparently got inside by climbing up the toy discharge chute.When firefighters arrived, the boy was inside the machine enjoying himself and patrons were taking pictures with their digital cameras, Wilson said."The kid was in there playing, smiling, and laughing. He thought it was fun," said Chief Wilson, who added, that the child wasn't in any danger, "There was plenty of air in there."Firefighters pried open the door to the toy compartment and got the boy out. Shift commander Ted Gilbertson said he's heard of similar incidents in the national news, "It must be easily done."




Links
Munchy Mole - I totally brought on the suck with this game but maybe you will do better.
$4,334.33 for 4 Burgers - Does that come with fries?
2006 Backpacker Editers' Choice Award Winners
REI Camp/Hike Expert Advice

At Work

Oh the joy, I'm at work right now. The good news I only have to do this every 6th weekend instead of every 3rd. Soooo...I have that going for me. Nothing really new to report other than I finally got a 0 degree sleeping bag from REI. No more freezing my butt off at night during paintball & fishing opener.

I watched The Squid and The Whale yesterday. It was a pretty good movie if you dig indie movies. Noah Baumbach writes and directs this film. He also wrote Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The movie is about two young boys dealing with their parents divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980's. Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney star in the movie as the two soon to be divorced parents. You can view the trailer here.


Edit: Oh great...the main pricing system is down and may be down until noon. I'm glad I woke up nice and early to come into work. I guess I will be leaving a little early today.

Random Picture

The Simpsons Real Life Intro

Tax Refund!

Tax refund finally showed up while we were out of town. Thank god! I need a new steering set-up bad for the Jeep. I'm going to buy the ORO U-Turn system used from Rich. Steve at ORO is going to help me install it just to make sure everything is set-up correctly. Also after my issues with my rear pinion gear breaking I thought it would be a good investment to buy some Alloy USA outer axle seals for the front axle. These seals will help protect the diff from letting water and gunk in and destroying my ARB.


Links:
Funky Truck Arizona Game
Jewelry Recalled for Lead Poisoning Danger
St. Paul City Office Boots Easter Bunny
Dutch Family Taxed for Barking Doorbell
Porn star hits it big as wine-maker
Woman's sink taps beer

That's all for now kiddies...
MikeyB

Back Home

Aimee & I got back from Indiana around 7:30pm last night. It was great to see everyone even under the circumstances. It would be nice if we had more family reunions because I haven't seen some people for a good 10+ years. Now that Grandpa is gone I'm afraid we may not see each other for a long time.

I created a photobucket account for the Boehnlein family to use so we can at least keep in touch via the internet. ( CLICK HERE ) If you need the password to the account you can e-mail me. Also if you want to create your own Blog you can do it at Blogger.com. It's easy to do just follow the instructions.


Later Y'all
-MikeyB

Grandpa pasted away this morning at 1:06am. Arnold Frank Boehnlein November 27, 1919 - March 16, 2006.

Aimee and I will be leaving Saturday morning for Michigan City, IN. Funeral is on Monday and we will be returning Tuesday.

Grandpa

My mom called tonight to let me know Grandpa was not doing so well. She thinks he only has a few more days left. I guess he hasn't eaten in the past 4 days & had a very high fever for the past couple days.

Some of my best childhood memories happened while I stayed with Grandpa & Grandma. My parents would drive me down to Michigan City, IN for a few weeks in the summer to stay with them. I always kept myself busy because my cousins lived next door and we would always hang out together. We would either be by their pool swimming or heading down to the mini putt course down the street where my dad once worked at when he was a kid. We would always get free buckets of balls for the driving range. It may not seem like much but when you're 12 that’s like someone handing you a hundred dollar bill. On a few occasions Grandpa & I (along with a few other relatives) would go perch fishing on lake Michigan. Sometimes we would come back with a couple dozen and sometimes a couple hundred. Grandpa always enjoyed fishing. I remember in 8th grade woodshop class we had to make our final project. A lot of kids ended up making clocks but the first thing I thought of was making him a fishing rod holder. He still has that fishing rod holder to this day.

I’ll always remember Grandpa as a handyman. He was always in the garage fixing something. That’s just what Grandpa did. If something needed to be fixed he would be the first person you would call. He would try to fix it first and if he couldn’t fix it he would try a second time and if he still could not fix it he would try again but this time he might think about buying a new one before trying a fourth time. That was just the way he was.

I’m very happy Grandpa was well enough to come to our wedding and also my sisters wedding just a few months before he became ill. It means a lot to me to have those memories & to see Grandpa happy. I know he is not happy right now being bed ridden & sick but he will be once he passes and gets to see Grandma again.

He will be missed.

Icehouse Hockey

Here is the link to the Icehouse Hockey from last weekends trip to Lake of the Woods. This is what happens when cabin fever and boredom sets in for 2 grown men while ice fishing.

Peace out walleye cheeks
-MikeyB

MSR Hubba Hubba

I sold my MSR Zoid 2 tent on eBay last week for $176 shipped so it was time to search for a new small backpacking tent. The one thing I did not like about the Zoid 2 was that it was not free standing. I asked around and it seemed that that Hubba Hubba tent was my best option. Rei is offering 20% off a single regular priced item if you are a member. The Hubba Hubba retailed for $299.99 so with the coupon code I got it for $239.99. I took my $170 I got from the Zoid 2 tent and put it towards the tent plus a $50 gift card PLUS my dividend so I ended up only paying $3 and some change after tax. I just need to buy a foot print which runs $34.99 at Gander Mountain and I am set. I will mostly be using this tent when I go up to Gilbert off-roading & if I ever do any backpacking some day with Aimee.

MSR Site

Here are some pics

St.Pauli Girl Poster

Get your free St.Pauli Girl poster through March. Link

RULES AND REGULATIONS:
40 posters given away each day for the month of March.
Log on to order at 9pm (EST), 6pm (PST).
Only one poster per household.
Order while supplies last

Lake of the Woods

After arriving at Arnesen's Rocky Point Resort at 11:30am we headed straight out onto the lake even before we got our bags into the cabin. Dad & I got split from the group and ended up fishing with the most redneck hillbilly guys we have ever seen. I don't think one of the guys, who we nicknamed ‘Goober’ had brushed his teeth since 1982. You could see chunks of tobacco oozing from his gums. The best thing to do was just keep quiet and concentrate on the fishing at hand. We ended up with a few walleyes and I caught an eelpout. It seemed that most of the icehouses had some trouble finding some fish. After rolling in around 6pm it was time for some dinner. Some tasty chili subsided my hunger. Then it was off to the bar for some Bulldogs. I personally didn’t care for the Bulldogs because of the way the bartender made them. I don’t know what it was but something just didn’t taste right.

When Saturday rolled around we were out waiting to be taken out to the icehouse at 7am. This time we made sure we could get a 6-man icehouse so we could stay away from the redneck twins. In the morning we caught a couple fish and then the Arnesen guys moved the icehouse to a new location about 100 yards away. After the move we caught 1 more fish so we moved again to another icehouse where we ended up catching nothing for the remainder of the day. Even though we caught nothing it was still fun to hang out, have some beers and enjoy some snowball fights. That night the guys fired up the deep fryers and we cooked up the days catch, which really hit the spot with some freedom frys. Everyone got sucked into a food coma causing us to catch some Z’s at 9:30pm.

After going to bed exhausted the night before we all woke up again to enjoy a new day of fishing. I had hoped they would have moved some of the houses around the night before but they put us back in the same spot we were in the day before and we only caught 3 fish all day. This was the worsted fishing we have had up on Lake of the Woods. The year before we would be coming back with almost a bucket full of fish. Some icehouses did ok and when I say ‘ok’ I mean little more than 10-15 fish. After we got off of the ice it was dinnertime again. This time we had…more fish but with some tots instead of frys. I can’t remember the last time I had tater tots. We ended up at the bar again that night for a couple drinks. I decided on a White Russian instead of a Bulldog, which is basically the same thing without the coke.

Once Sunday arrived we left earlier than we have ever done before. It had snowed the night before about 6 inches and all you saw was a beautiful blanket of snow on all the trees. It looked like something out of a postcard. We all jumped into our trucked for the 7hr drive back home. My iPod saved me from listening to country music all the way home. I can't wait for next year.

Here is the link to all the pictures.

P.S. and yes Corey they are called FRS radios which stands for Family Radio Service & GMRS stands for General Mobile Radio Service :)

Work Work Work

It's been very busy at work lately. We reorganized the pricing dept by product domain. Basically I do bricks pricing, .com pricing, bundle pricing and rebates for Home Entertainment & Movies. We made this move to better serve our domain customers (buyers & buyer analysts) so they have 1 point of contact for any pricing related questions & issues. It is a nice change of pace…and as that dorky McDonalds kid would say…"Change izzz goood".

BTW I was able to weigh myself and Jason & Suzzies last night…I'm down to 217. That's 17 down and 17 more to go.

Peace out lazer lips
MikeyB