Monthly Archives: December 2006

Santa came early this year…yeehah!

The UPS guy banged on the door on Thursday evening while we were prepping for dinner. Boys went wild, two minutes later came back to the kitchen. I asked DB who was that, he told me the Santa brought me my gift. I asked him what did Santa bring. DB said he don’t know. Santa said I can’t open it till Christmas – 5 days to wait. So, I kept asking DB what is it. He refused to tell me…kept saying gotta wait till Christmas. Went out to the entry way where the parcel is still sitting. Big parcel and heavy, too, plus it’s from Tiger Direct, a bunch of codes, labels, and Made in China on the box. I kept pestering him to tell me the entire evening what the heck is in the box. Told him to give me hint…he said “You might not like it at first, but you will later”. Asked him is it a printer, a scanner, monitor….he said “No. You might not like it, but you might like it later or you might not at all “. So, yesterday, Friday morning, he said I can open it.

Friday Evening came I asked DB how come Santa had to bring the truck to deliver the gift. He said the reindeers are Union, they don’t work on Christmas weekend! After dinner, I opened it…and in the box were Logitech SPEAKERS for my office. Beautiful speakers with the big-ass woofer and all the surround sound thingys. Damn exciting about it coz I wanted to know how good it will be when I listen to my music when I’m in the office compare to the two little ibdy POS speakers that came with the computer.

DB asked if I want to install them, I told him, “you can set them up”. No problem, he went ahead and set them up….and the results were awesome. Good job. Listened to Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3….nice. Sounded so much better.

Right now, I’m listening to Malt Shop Memories, you know all the oldies from the 60′s and 70′s. There’s umph to the music now. Yes, thanks Santa. I have been good this year! Thank again Santa!

Our HR department had our annual holiday potluck today. What a spread of food, a variety of food – chicken wings (BBQ, roast), Swedish meatballs, lasagna, nacho dips, cheese and more cheese, deli meat, croissants, holiday sugar cookies, chocolate fudge, dips and more dips, salads, cakes and a ton of other cookies and cakes. We ate so much till we didn’t want to do anything…just goofing off. It’s the holiday season, there’s always good food during this potluck occasion. How in the world can I not try them? They sure look good, and tried them, mmmm….yummy for the tummy!! Wanted to make curry chicken for this potluck, but on second thoughts, I said forget it….too much damn work.

Came home and didn’t feel like going for my run. I did though. Walked/ran about 2.5 miles and that was it. Wanted to go over to the trails, belly has too much food in it, had to change directions to 134th/Nicollet/McAndrews. I had to do the shorter version. In spite of eating so damn much during lunch, I had dinner with DB….well, it’s the only time we sit down together and update and give each other hell.

It rained a little this afternoon. It still feels like spring today. Snow is on its way from Kansas. Colorado got hammered today. The cities is still waiting for its first major snowfall. When? Local meteorologist said it will be Friday with snowfall amounting to 1 – 2 inches. Will see. Maybe a white Christmas for us?

Was reading 5xmom‘s blog…. she is giving away two RM50 to two bloggers who can guess which lines she sang in this song Rudolf

In addition, bloggers have to complete the slogan Reading 5xmom is so………..(fill in your own words, 15 words max).

The dateline to submit this contest is Dec 24.

Just received an email from my boss’s boss that her mom in-law passed away early this morning. My prayers and thoughts are with her. It’s sad to hear but yet it’s a blessings in disguise. Her mom in-law had Alzheimer’s disease for quite some time and was in a nursing home. She could not recognized anyone except her husband. However, at times she would be able to recognize the sons but after about 5 minutes or so, she would ask her husband who they are. She could not remember where she is, what she had done…just can’t remember. I really hope my parents will not have this kind of disease. I know my No. 3 granduncle had Alzheimer’s, too. It’s so unreal how a person who is so active and always alert will get this type of sickness. Makes you wonder how we will end up with one day.

I’m on lunch break right now from my MS Excel Advance class. The class is good, learning a lot of stuff which I can utilize them at work. But the breaks seem too long for me. Maybe I just want to get it done, go home and finish my final paper which is due on Monday night. I still have to elaborate 4 more points and though I’m half way there, I want to get it done and email it to the writing center at University of Phoenix to get some free writing advice. I’m pretty stressed out, too. It’s showing on my face – ZITS, the deadly ones. Hate them coz they take forever to go away and leave scars on my precious face. Vain, huh? Oh well, most females are just vainpots!!!

Two more weeks to go and school will be done for this semester. I’m currently working on my synthesis paper on recruitment and retention. There is so much to write about on this subject. Recruitment and retention is becoming an issue in the HRM environment. Recruiting and retaining high-quality employees is now a top concern for almost every company. Managers are challenged by turnover rates and how costly the problem is which will drive the workforce efficiency down and business growth. With baby boomers retiring from the workforce soon, HR needs to find solutions to hire the right skilled candidates to replace the retiring baby boomers, or put in place a retention program to retain the highly skilled baby boomers. Demographic trends that are affecting organizations and their workforces are the aging baby boomers; need for elder care; changing family patterns; increase rates of immigration; and work/life styles. In addition, global competition is another trend. Labor costs – lower cost of production – many companies are setting up their production in India, China and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Thailand). Will companies go off-shore to reduce labor costs? If so, what will happen to the company in US? Will the company have a downsize (reduction in force) or outsourcing some of their units?

I have been through an outsourcing process and the quality from the outsource firm was horrible. Some of the areas were good, but majority of the areas were just out right bad. Customer service from that firm was bad, too. In my opinion, companies should only outsource one area at a time to check out the performance of the firm they hired to do the work.

Yes, I’m off today, however, it sure seems I’m busier then when I’m at work. Got up at 5:30, had breakfast, did some outline for my paper, checked emails and took the boys to the hiking trails. I was surprised how many people and dogs were out on the trails. It was windy but I warmed up fairly quickly. We ran about 4 miles today on the trail. I wanted to run the smaller trail after the 4-mile run, but my face got too numb for us to go any farther. Ranger seems to be kinda lethargic; he was not as spunky as when we were at the dog park yesterday. Maybe he is still tired. Well, he is 7+ years old. Age is catching up on him. Cooper is 6+. He is forever a hyper dog.

I just gave them some rawhide and Ranger is so darn proud of it. He picked it up and is walking back and forth my office. I sent him out so he can chew it in peace without Cooper staring at him! Good thing about Labs, they don’t mind the cold and wind at all. They can stay out there forever. If I have that kind of coat on me, I wouldn’t have a problem with the cold either.