I Give You The Finger, Chicago

I take that back. Chicago isn't such a bad place. It's just bad when you're there for 4 solid days of corporate indoctrination. As most of you know, I was there last week for my graduate intern training for my wonderful employer, Corpopharm.














The company orientation wasn't as bad as you might think. Corporate people love to tell all us burgeoning pharmacists how great we are, and for the most part we're all glad to hear it. They also love to tell us how our patients are priority one and that they are the most important part of our job, and that profits and prescription volume are second. One of the pharmacy supervisors (our bosses, who like to refer to themselves as 'pharm soups' *sigh*) explained how our annual bonus situation is calculated. Ready for hypocrisy at it's best? Here's how it breaks down:

• 50% comes from prescription volume of my store, and if I'm filling as many as corporate thinks I should
  
• 30% comes from performance measures of my pharmacy, like if I'm keeping up with my paperwork and maintaining adequate drug stock
  
• 20% comes from your how people view the service of my pharmacy (based on phone surveys)

At first I thought that there was some of what I like to call 'fuzzy math' going on here. Notice anything awry? I just got done telling you that corporate told yours truly that patients come first and profits are second. That makes it awfully funny that our incentive bonus is based primarily off of sales, doesn't it?

I didn't let Corpopharm ruin what was sure to be loads of Windy City Fun, though. I made sure to experience Chicago (pronounced shickaaaaaago) to the fullest with lots of other fun activities. Enough about work. Here's the things about Chicago that I really enjoyed.

1. Chicago White Sox Vs. New York Yankees. Yep, my first major league baseball game. I got to see Arod jack a 9th inning grand slam. Here's a helpful hint: don't clap for him in the midst of Sox fans. They will not be pleased. You may get something thrown at you.
2. White Castle. This was another first. People weren't lying, those little burgers are delicious, and nutritious! Well, maybe not nutritious.
3. Binnys Beverage Depot. This store had a such a variety of booze that I wanted to move in and call it Mother.
4. Rush hour traffic! I've never contemplated suicide quite so earnestly.
5. Homeless people that try and sell you stuff instead of just asking for money. Hey, at least they're trying to provide a service.

There you have it. Chicago beguiled me with here charm and mystique, but I must say I'm glad to be home.

Blood, Sweat, and Tech Support: Confessions of a Star-Crossed Gamer

Persistence will get you 3 things: results, results and, uh, results!

After many calls, death threats, and IMs to Bill Gates, it appears that my Xbox will be receiving the red carpet treatment straight to Microsoft's repair facilities. After ripping apart my Xbox not once, twice, but thrice I uncovered this little gem on the good ol' interweb:

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/09/microsoft_dismi.html

You read correctly. All units purchased before Jan 1 2006 will be repaired/replaced free of charge with a 1 year extension to the warranty. My prayers have been answered.

Here's the rub: I've had my Xbox apart 3 times now, and obviously the security seals have been removed. That means my warranty has been raped, pillaged, and plundered. Microsoft is sending me a box to return the unit for the above mentioned special circumstances, so I'm hoping that they're just planning on sending me a new one and only want the old one to research the problem associated with the first release units. If they decide to go poking around and dismantle it, I'm finished.

Here's hoping. Wish me luck. Vaya con dios.

Bestill my icy heart...

For those of you who are not a nerd, this is the innards of the life stealing video game console, the Xbox 360 by Microsoft Inc. More specifically, the Xbox of yours truly.














Fearing no technological exploit and having little pride left to damage, this was my vain attempt to repair the video game console I've spent so much time using to procrastinate more productive tasks like studying, cleaning, and practicing my unicycle routine. I've actually had this damn thing apart twice now with similar results each time: I cannot fix it. It is dead. The Mob has spoken.

Don't go thinking I was opening up the hood of my car that was dead on the road and scratching my head on this one. I did extensive internet research (we all know that's never wrong) to diagnose the problem and find a proper treatment plan to get my lil' buddy on the road to recovery. I even got out all my fancy computer tools and said a prayer to God, Satan, and any other deity I happened to see cited on Fox News that evening. No dice.

Long story short, I'm going to be much more productive for the next few weeks until I break down and buy another one. My hands are alreeeady shaaaakkkiiiinnnnngg...

Boundary Waters Hijinks

I've just returned from my BWCAW vacation, and there's simply no other way to describe it than as a rousing success. Aside from cold, rain and rampant bear attacks everyone enjoyed themselves to the fullest.

Weather

In this aspect, I think we could have asked for better. The temps averaged around 50 and got down into the 40s and nighttime. I was very glad that I had brought some thermals, otherwise I would have been miserable. It rained most of the second day and my rain gear has never been quite up to spec. The rain ended up helping us out, though. Our water pump died after only 5 gallons so we had to collect rain water off of a tarp to make up for that loss. When you have to work hard for it, rain water tastes pretty good.


Food

As always, the food was great. Cookie did a great job of selecting and preparing our grub. I was a bit miffed when I saw that we carried in whole potatoes rather than instant, as this becomes a weight issue. The food packs were HEAVY. Fare included steak, deer jerky, a variety of potato preparations, eggs, bacon, pancakes and of course lots of trail mix. Of course we dined on the many fish that Fisherman 1 and 2 caught. Fresh Pike and Walleye are hard to beat. Feedbag was able to stay on full feed the whole time. This is fortunate, because he gets rather cranky when he's hungry.


Wildlife

This is one of the coolest parts of the Boundary Waters experience. We saw moose, deer, bald eagles, cranes, snapping turtles, loons, chipmunks and of course all the fish. A moose and her calf were actually in Nina Moose River as we were trying to leave and delayed our progress. When you're in a shallow river where the moose can run and you cannot, you keep your distance. Moose are pretty aggressive creatures and have been known to trample people just because. There were also some loons in Nina Moose Lake. There's no better sound to fall asleep to than a Loon call. A snapping turtle stole some of our fish off the stringer we had on the shore of our camp. Fisherman 1 and 2 actually caught it later that night. Cookie forced them to let it go before they could exact their revenge, but I personally feel that justice was done. On the way in to the drop off at Nina Moose River one member of our group thought he saw a bear and we actually stopped the truck and went back to look. It turned out to be a stump. We are dumb. Oh, and I found a tick when I was undressing for my first shower after getting back to Feedbag's house. Nice.

Boundary Waters Pearls of Wisdom

Here's a few tips for success for all you BWCAW novices:

1. Pack it in, pack it out!
2. Take only pictures, leave only footprints.
3. Bring a fully stocked bar. When it rains, there's little else to do than get loaded.
4. Don't feed the wildlife. They may eat you instead.
5. Don't try to go the whole trip without defecating. This will result in you being sick and the rest of your group making fun of you.

House Progress

So here's what the new house looks like so far. This is all work I've done myself, of course. The construction schedule we managed to hornswoggle from one of the design consultants slated for construction to be complete around the end of October. Hopefully we'll be able to move in by Halloween so I can hand out lots of healthy candy alternatives to the neighborhood kids. You know how much they like that.
















I was able to snap a few photos before I was chased off by a construction worker wielding a board with a nail in it. Last time I try to help.

Only In Missouri

So Applephiliac and I have been making a list of the funny things we've been seeing since we arrived in Missouri, the finest state in the union. Here's what we've got so far:

1. Mullet walking down the interstate. There's A LOT of people using the interstate like a sidewalk around here.
2. Company employee using a Segway for transportation (not novelty) downtown.
3. Grown man on a tricycle, in a city street!
4. DMV is located in the back of a Petco (pet store). I'm not making this up. Instead of smelling body odor while waiting ten hours in line for your new plates, you get to smell dog food as well.
5. Skateboard gang making a sick skate video in a Ruby Tuesday parking lot.
6. 2 story beer bong (that was me).
7. Drug deal on a front porch.
8. Escalade up on blocks cuz it's dubs wuz broke.
9. Lady buying $220 worth of cigarettes and chewing tobacco at a T-Rex Mart, making sure to use a $3 coupon (thanks SuperTech).

Unfortunately I did not have my camera available for any of these amazing events. I've been thinking of getting a new one that's thin enough to keep in my pocket so that I'll be carrying it more often. More to come.