2012-05-20T23:58:37Z Charlie Dango admin@gonadsgo.com Copyright 2012, Charlie Dango SPHPBLOG
Mom is moving back in with Sariah and I. This puts me in an awkward place because for the past year or so, I've been sleeping in her old bedroom on her old bed due to my back. Now I'm going to have to start sleeping in our bedroom again with Sariah and the dogs. I may have to put my foot down about the dogs sleeping upstairs as I find I can't really get to sleep when they're in bed. I'm always afraid that I'm going to crush one of them. Well, that or Goliath barks his ass off at any noise he hears all night long.

It's nearly been a full week since the last CCCW show and I still haven't got paid. I sent them my invoice on Tuesday and called Jeff yesterday, but haven't heard a peep. I'm not hurting for money or anything, but it does irritate me that despite new ownership, I'm still dealing with the same headaches as before. I'll give it another week and if I haven't heard anything by then, I'll pretty much be forced to start contacting Jeff on a daily basis until I get paid. If it comes to that, I'll have to make sure I get paid for jobs I do before I do them.

So....what am I going to do this weekend?
Hmmmmm.......Sariah is off Sunday, but that doesn't really help matters much. I might have to start cleaning up that bedroom to prepare for my mom's arrival. I kind of feel bad that she has to move in because I know she doesn't want to drive back and forth to Springfield all the time. I feel worse because the reason she's moving back is because she can't afford my student loan payment and her rent. So, yeah! It's kind of my fault she's in the situation she's in. No matter how much I try, I never seem to get ahead.]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120511-065716 2012-05-11T00:00:00Z 2012-05-11T00:00:00Z
What has helped advance the "losing my mind" feeling is the recent release of Minecraft for Xbox360. I've been waiting on this game to reach Xbox Live Arcade for months now and finally it was released yesterday. To my surprise, it's nothing more than the beta they released on PC a couple years ago. I've been playing Minecraft on PC for over a year now and have followed it through it's beta all the way to it's official release and subsequent updates. To pay $20 just to start from scratch on the 360 is kind of a kick in the nuts. Not to mention the game is currently plagued with numerous glitches that need to be ironed out in patches. Hopefully they're planning on patching it very soon because these glitches are pretty bad.

Assuming they patch all the glitches soon, I'm sure I'll be playing Minecraft quite a bit at home. I'm hoping Jake gets it so we can work together to build shit. It's always more fun when you're working with others, but not too fun when a random stranger comes in and destroys all the stuff you've spent months working on. Hell, worrying about random creepers is bad enough, I don't need to add Xbox Live scumbags to the mix. The online gaming community as a whole suck balls. We're all jerks in real life, why be one online?

Speaking of jerks, this Sunday is going to be different. I sent Sean a message on Facebook about the show, but I guess he doesn't check his messages even when he posts to Facebook. I brought up possibly taking this weekend off and wanted to know if that was cool with him. I know he's been having some personal issues related to the show and I didn't know if taking a weekend off would help ease some tension or if that was something he was even concerned with. I don't care if we do the show or not. I do, but I don't.

Last weekend we discussed format of the show. I didn't really think about it until listening back to the episode that I tend to babble a lot, especially when I'm drinking. Perhaps the next episode we do I'll try to compose myself a bit more and stay focused on the topics. It hurts when we don't have many topics to work with, or the topics we have fall flat. It would be interesting to see how the show goes this weekend since it's just going to be Sean and I. It might prove to be more focused than our last few episodes and help provide a clear outline to base future shows off of.

It would be nice if everyone contributed content to site independently as well as possibly develop offshoot shows. The goal as I see it is to truly make this whole process podcast based, so I don't see why we all can't record our own show topics and post them to the site? If nothing else, contribute independent articles to the site. Maybe I'll email everyone and make sure they know that. Ugh! It's only 9:14!!! Today is going to be a long day!
]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120510-071427 2012-05-10T00:00:00Z 2012-05-10T00:00:00Z
Today Sariah worked a day shift so I need to leave about now to go pick her up. Tomorrow I pick Payne up from B-town and go check out the garage my mom wants to tear down. Saturday myself, Payne and apparently Sariah are going to Springfield for the CCCW event. Sunday is Jerkcast. Monday I get the bearings on the car replaced. GRRRRRRR!!!!]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120503-144636 2012-05-03T00:00:00Z 2012-05-03T00:00:00Z
I don't know why, but I am still surprised by my alcoholic behavior. Yesterday, I drank 12 beers. By the end, I wanted to go get more, but restrained myself. Today I feel like poop. I've noticed before that even when I don't drink that much, I still have bad hangovers the following day that only get worse the more I drink. Knowing I had a shoot today, I honestly don't know why I try to sabotage myself like that.

Sariah is in St. Louis with Jill today and will be down there until tomorrow night. I've got leftover chicken and rice to eat tonight. Tomorrow is Wednesday......even though I'm only working 4 days this week, I know this week is going to drag. Hell, it's only 3PM right now and I already want to leave. I just can't stand hanging around this office anymore. It's kind of windy out.

Saturday is CCCW 8. I've got to pick Payne up Friday afternoon so we can leave from my house that day to go to Springfield. Hopefully he picks up on camera operation fairly quickly and it sticks because I'm trusting him a great deal with this responsibility. He'd like to brag about how he's never let his friends down, but he can't back that statement up with fact, especially not with me. Still, I'll give the guy a chance. He could end up becoming a permanent camera operator for these things. Who knows?

Ugh! I'm picking up my car and going to the gas station!!!]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120501-130400 2012-05-01T00:00:00Z 2012-05-01T00:00:00Z
So, here I sit, continuing to wait on a plumber and pissed because I'm using up another PTO day for nothing. It does make me wonder if perhaps I'm just being paranoid about my situation at work. I mean, it is clear that my boss is stepping up his micromanagement of the department and while it does irritate me that the changes he's making are merely for his own benefit, I still cannot argue that he doesn't have the right to do so. I also can't argue that my job is oppressive in any way. Sure, I have to come under fire for things I haven't done, but it's not like I face this kind of treatment all the time. I have to constantly remind myself of how much different it would be for me if I had to return to a "regular" job. Honestly, I don't think I could handle the rigorous 8 to 5 schedule 5 days a week non-stop.

$280 dollars to replace the drain to my kitchen sink? Plumbers are rip-off artists! I could only imagine what he would have charged me to do that fucking faucet! Hell, he even told me that he would just cut through the faucet itself with a reciprocating saw, then install the new one. I bet it would have been $200, not including roll out/not including parts. The guys alright though. He's already told me a bunch of ways to take care of my own plumbing problems. When it comes to the upstairs shower, I'm taking his advice as opposed to paying him the $300 plus that he quoted me to do that job. FUCK THAT! This is why I don't call contractors, plumbers or electricians.

We had an interesting show this Sunday. The show wasn't really interesting, but the post-show conversation we had was. I like that everyone is taking the show seriously and are concerned about their contribution to it. It makes the whole process a lot easier overall. Now that we've settled on a time, it should be much easier to promote the show as well. Granted, 2 PM on a Sunday isn't particularly ideal when it comes to building an audience, but we'll have to make it work. I think now that we can promote a specific time and day of the week, it will help grow the audience for our live show, assuming we keep our show entertaining and original enough for people to get interested in it. There are still a lot of rough edges, but we're smoothing them out with each passing episode.

I guess I'll cut up yesterday's episode (since I accidentally left it running for a half an hour after the show) and upload it to YouTube today. I would much prefer to just do it as mp3s in a podcast scenario, but I haven't found a place to do it yet that doesn't gouge you for money. This might all be addressed by the site once I get it set up. Since it's a Wordpress shell, I'll be able to generate an rss feed of all our podcasts making it much easier for people to download and listen to our shows whenever. I believe I can also embed the JTV player in the page for when we go live....just have to wait and see on that. Soon the show will fit like a glove and our resources for self-promotion will fully be intact. Then it will be time to move on to the hardest part: finding someone to pay for this shit.]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120430-063105 2012-04-30T00:00:00Z 2012-04-30T00:00:00Z
Sariah is upset with me because I've been drinking more frequently. Frankly, I'm upset with myself too. I made such a gradual and non-spectacular transition back into drinking that I didn't even realize how much I had been drinking lately. I drank a 12 pack yesterday and have felt sick all day today. I had no desire to drink today and I'm not drinking tomorrow either, which will make it the first completely sober Jerkcast episode for me. Speaking of which, I don't even know if Sean is showing up. We all agreed to do the show on Sunday, but I haven't heard back from anyone other than Jake, so I'm just going to move forward with that.

For the past few years, our kitchen sink has sucked, but I put off actually doing anything about it. It wasn't until the past couple of months that we've been having issues with the sprayer in which Sariah and I decided it was time to get a new faucet. Still, we continued to put it off. Today, I couldn't take it anymore and decided I would take care of the faucet situation once and for all. It was one of the toughest things I've done in a long time! I'm a very big guy so it's difficult for me to squeeze myself under a kitchen sink, but it had to be done or we wouldn't be able to do dishes until I could get a plumber over to fix it. Lots of running all over the place for parts and some creative destruction and I was finally able to get the old faucet off and the new one on. I'm tired, but happy. It's not something I plan on doing again for a long time.

I've got to go pick Sariah up now.]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120428-192037 2012-04-29T00:00:00Z 2012-04-29T00:00:00Z
First, I was sick last week and took two and a half days off from work. When I returned, I figured my boss was going to scold me for not bringing in a doctors notice because I not going to the doctor anymore unless I break something or am dying. Instead, I find out that he has a whole other surprise ready for me: an interrogation about my PTO usage. First and foremost, my personal time off is just that MINE. I can use as much or as little of it as I want. The problem is that my boss hasn't been paying attention to any of the time I've taken off or the overtime I've worked in the past 3 months until right now. Why? Because he was concerned for my health.

See, according to my boss, I had taken 15 sick days this year already and he felt that this was cause for concern. So much of a cause for concern that he went to our HR department to check on how much PTO time I've reported...because that's what you do when you're concerned with someone's health. Upon returning, tired and still kind of sick, my boss's welcome back speech consists of telling me that he's going to turn me in for abusing the PTO system. When I explained to him that some of the time I had taken was comp time, he then told me that he was not going to count those days as comp time. This is when I had had enough.

Upon becoming management, I was told that I would be reporting my PTO usage to HR. When I submitted comp time I had accrued, I was told only that the company trusted me to maintain my own records of comp time, which I did for 4 years up to this point. I fire back with my own version of what I've been told over the years. Suddenly my boss's story changes to how concerned he was for my health since I had reportedly taken 15 sick days. Again, he had the upper hand because I hadn't spent my sick days compiling emails I'd sent to my boss regarding taking personal time off. When I finally looked into it, imagine my surprise to learn that my boss, once again, was not telling the truth.

The meeting ended with my boss and I agreeing to modify the wording of future PTO notification emails to simply "PTO" instead of "sick". This would clear up confusion on his end....that was until the next morning when he decided that it wasn't and he, in fact, wanted me to report my comp time usage to him going forward. I felt this was in direct contradiction to what I was told by HR, so I sent and email to HR for clarification. Low and behold, my boss had already spoken with HR before I even started typing my email and they were validating his request. I didn't find out until 4:58 PM that day (Friday) of their decision on the matter.

Needless to say, I've had some time to think about this and I've come to the realization that there is no winning move here. Once I've sent enough emails to my boss stating that I'm taking a comp day, he'll begin to call into question the amount of comp time I'm calculating and we'll be right back to where we are today. Once again my privileges will be reduced and the so-called "trust" the company has afforded me over the years will be called into question. Out of 15 sick days taken off this year, 6 of them were comp days. Had I reported them as comp days instead of PTO, the issue we would be having now would not be over my "sick" time usage, it would be over the comp time calculation I previously mentioned. That is how my boss does things.

Oh, and the 15 sick days I took off, well after checking into that myself, I learned that only 5 of the 15 days I took off were reported as sick days, 4 of them occurring in April, because this month hasn't been too grand for me on the health side of things. According to both my boss and HR, I reported all 15 days as sick days. If I attempt to draw attention to this, they will quickly cover their own tracks and say that they never said "all" 15 days were sick days, just a lot were used in April, even though that's not what they said, nor is it reflected in the email I received from HR.

I'm going to respond to HR today, but it's pointless to expect anyone to actually understand what is going on. The fact is that I've taken off 15 days this year and comp time or not, that's a lot of days. See, it's not an issue of legitimacy, it's an issue of personal perception. My boss was upset in my absence because something he wanted done immediately didn't get done to his satisfaction, so he spent the rest of his day fueling his own anger with plans of retribution.

With that said, I'm currently looking for a new job. I don't know how long it's going to take to find one, but I'm getting less picky as the months roll by. I do the job I was hired to do and then some. I've done it for years without question. My problem remains, as it has always been, with my boss's horrible management skills and tendency to blur the lines of personal/professional relationships. If the company wants to back his play, then so be it. Today is the beginning of a new day for me. I'm not fucking around anymore. Everything will be documented. Everything accounted for and reported. I'm not going to allow myself to be ambushed by my boss again.

Unfortunately I know that's not good enough. My boss wants one thing and one thing only; complete obedience. Pulling a hard line is my way of thumbing my nose at him and he will do his best to make me pay for it. I'm looking forward to it. Next time, I will be prepared. This was the first time in the 8 years I've been with the company that the company has arbitrarily sided with my boss for no other reason than he sold them a bill of goods and they bought into it. If that happens again, I will quit that day.]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120423-052422 2012-04-23T00:00:00Z 2012-04-23T00:00:00Z
More and more I find that this is the case most often. The urge to drink is strong, but I'm not going to buy any beer. I really take no pleasure in sitting at home drinking by myself. It's just the kind of thing that is going to grow into me drinking all the time again. Could I just pick up a six-pack and be content? I imagine so, but I don't care. It's times like these that where my weakness becomes glaringly apparent to me.

I got the second episode of Jerkcast uploaded to YouTube today. It's alright, but I was drinking on a 12-pack of Amber Bock during that show and I think it made my delivery a little sloppy. Next time I would like to not drink at all, which won't be a problem if we could get started at a reasonable time of day. I guess it really all depends on who is going to be involved this Saturday.

I let my feelings on the matter spill out a bit into the show, which is going to happen when I've been drinking. Things are going to be a bit rocky at first until we can build up enough momentum for the show to really take off. Who knows, we could eventually have our own studio and do shows throughout the week and shit. It's a dream right now, but you never really know.

Alright. I'm out!]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120416-140531 2012-04-16T00:00:00Z 2012-04-16T00:00:00Z
Jerkcast did it's first live show last weekend. I'm gearing up for this weeks episode. Everyone already knows that I'm down for whatever so it's really just a matter of other people's involvement. With Sean and Chad living in Beardstown, all of us having full-time jobs with differing schedules and everyone's personal lives, it can get a little complicated. If we got paid to do this, the complication would diminish considerably.

One of my old Drinkin' Beer followers asked if we were doing an actual podcast or not. It would be nice to do one, but we don't have enough material, I don't feel like cutting together episodes all week and I certainly don't feel like paying for the service. I mean, I would LOVE to do Jerkcast every day and get paid to do it, but I'm not going to be driving the cast in that direction. Right now I just want to have fun with my friends and build an audience. Sure, I care about the show, the content and whether or not we're being heard, but I don't want that to interfere with our enjoyment of the process. A weekly show shouldn't be a big deal if everyone involved wants to do it.

I've started drinking again. I had a 6-pack of Belgo last Saturday, a 6-pack of Boston Lager on Wednesday because I finally heard back from the Capital City Cage Wars guys and worked out getting paid (celebration deal) and a six pack of Modelo Negro on Thursday because Sariah was in St. Louis and I was just bored. Today I bought a 12-pack of Amber Bock to share with Jake during the show. Doesn't it just sound like I'm slipping right back into the old John? I could say that I can keep control of it, but I know that I can't. My decision was to never drink again and I've already broke that promise to myself.

The thing about Self-Control is that it takes more than just saying you're going to do something about your situation. You have to do it and stick with it. I'm a conflicted guy. I don't want to abuse alcohol, but I don't not want to drink. I am always convinced that I can find a middle ground in this mess and once again I'm trying to test that theory. I keep telling myself, as long as I'm not drinking a 12-pack every night like I was, everything will be okay. That's bullshit and I know it. Sariah is my anchor though. I don't slip when she's around. Unfortunately, Jill has been having more surgeries on her eye which requires Sariah to take her down to St. Louis. It's at these times that I'm my most weak and lately, I've been letting that weakness get the best of me.

I care about my sobriety and I care about Sariah. I don't want to return to the bad old days. I have to believe that if I stay vigilant in my quest for self-control that I can maintain a balance that is acceptable by all. If things start to get out of control, I fully intend to stop drinking again. Will it be permanently? No, but the best effort I can give is to keep trying even though I know I'm fighting a battle I'll never win.

I was stressing the communication void I was experiencing with the CCCW guys over the past couple of weeks, but now I'm fine. There is always this phantom tension that builds when I am waiting to be paid. It's not unfounded, after all I did get screwed over by the last iteration of CCCW. It's all about keeping one's composure in the stressful times that best represents their true character as a competent professional. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. You know! Anyway, I'm pretty confident that things will run smoothly going forward and am looking forward to a lot more activity on that front as well.

I'm about to head to the kitchen to start a jambalya. Should be tasty!]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120414-082635 2012-04-14T00:00:00Z 2012-04-14T00:00:00Z
Anyway, after the police arrived, I suffered yet again another round of embarrassment as I didn't have the current sticker on my license plates and my insurance card that was in the car had expired 3 days prior. Luckily the cop was cool and didn't give me a ticket for either. Once the tow truck got there and got me out, I panicked at first because something ripped off the car. Turns out the front bumper was damaged (although it didn't look like it was) and the front passenger-side wheel well came off. Once the Scion was back on the highway, I panicked further because the car was wobbling ferociously. I calmed myself because I remembered that I had this experience before and the culprit could be nothing more than just mud in the wheels.

Sure enough, after power washing the rims, the wobbling stopped, but I could still hear an audible warble from the rear tires. It was pretty much a no-brainer at that point that the tires needed to be changed so I went home and set up an appointment to have new tires put on the back. After an extremely frustrating day that could have very well cost me more than just a couple hundred dollars, I decided that I needed to relax the old fashioned way and picked up a 12-pack of Sam Adams. Sariah wasn't thrilled about this, but there was nothing she could really do about it. Funny thing is that I'm so used to buying 12-packs that the notion that I wouldn't drink all of them never occurred to me until later that night while I was nursing my sixth and final beer of the evening.

A strange thing has happened. After about 3 beers, I was fine. I felt like I was really forcing the last 3. The next day, I didn't even think about drinking the remaining six. I ended up drinking them throughout the day on Sunday, just to get rid of them, but it took me the entire day. I think I was finishing the final beer at 7:30 when I had started at 1 PM. Even though I was able to maintain a seemingly normal composure while drinking, I could feel the old me lurking in the background. Whenever I feel those old urges I know I've went too far and need to pull back hard. I won't be drinking again for a long time and I know that I don't feel the need to drink either. I prefer getting through my day without having alcohol in my system, making me tired, giving me a headache or making me have to crap constantly.

This is kind of the point I wanted to get to with the whole thing; to be able to have a drink here and there and not turn it into a binge session. My main fear was that I was placing too much of an emphasis on not drinking that was building up into an issue all it's own. Granted, I know I am an addict and I must always be conscious of every decision I make involving alcoholic beverages now and going forward. It sucks having to treat something like drinking so seriously that it truly makes it no fun, but I know what happens when I don't and I don't like it. When it all comes down to it, I didn't drink last weekend because I wanted to or felt I needed to, I just did it to do it. It felt good to feel normal for a change and not worry about the consequences of those actions.]]> http://www.gonadsgo.com/index.php?entry=entry120327-115431 2012-03-27T00:00:00Z 2012-03-27T00:00:00Z