Other Peeps

  • The Law of Circle K Registers

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal, Work

    Circle K LineCircle K always has way more employees working at any given time than the number of registers open. I believe they pride themselves on how long they can back the line up at the register. There were four employees there today, including the manager. I took the picture at the right today! I complained to him and asked him to open another register. He said it was shift change time and that they had to keep one register closed. The only problem with this is that it is always shift change time.

    Chris Leon and I go often for ICEE time, and at different times of the work day, but we’ve always run into this, and we came up with The Law of Circle K Registers:

    1. Let n = number of Circle K employees on the clock
    2. Let r = number of Circle K registers open
    3. n >= 2r + 1

    It’s really annoying, and I wish there was a Valero near my work.

  • Do You Have a Job???

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal

    Those radio commercials are pretty ubiquitous.  Every car dealership wants to know:

    Do you have a job??? Do you have $149??? Then you could be approved for a brand new Kia from Elkins Kia!

    What occurred to me the other day was that a person that doesn’t have one or both of those might get upset at having the radio rub it in their face.  That cracked me up in the car on the way home, and I thought I’d share it here.  Imagine the following:

    Radio: Do you have a job???
    Person: No…
    Radio: Do you have $149???
    Person: No… I just said I don’t even have a job.
    Radio: Then you could be approved!…
    Person: Sigh.

    I know that blog post was of little substance, but it still amused me, and as Chris and I always say, something is always better than nothing.

  • MBA, Obama, and Water

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal, School, Work

    MBA

    Today, I finally was able to register for LSUS‘ Masters of Business Administration program.  I had to go to a stupid orientation that wasted 30 minutes of my life and then had to go across campus to a computer lab to waste another 30 minutes of my life where they showed people how to register.  I just needed them to unlock my Compass so I could register.  I’m not a retard so I knew which classes I wanted.

    Jenny is also starting the MBA program, though she is doing pre-requisites, so she was able to already register for her classes, and they made her go to it too.  We then went to get our new Pilot Cards made which took forever, and then to the bookstore to find out how ridiculously expensive books are.

    All in all, I paid a little over $1500 for school and $400 for books.  I hate school.

    Obama

    Conservatives will believe almost anything that another one of their kind makes up about a non-conservative candidate, so it shouldn’t surprise me that people would believe absolutely fabricated lies about Obama‘s background as a "radical islamist" and things like that.

    Today at work, someone forwarded around that lie, so I did reply to all, and I set the record straight:

    That story about Obama is not true, even though it claims “We checked this out on "snopescom".”

    See the snopes article:

    http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

    Chris Benard

    Not surprising, I suppose.  I just get irritated by people spreading lies, especially when the lie even says it was verified by Snopes, which it obviously wasn’t.  People will actually believe these things without looking them up like I do.

    Shreveport Water

    Well, you know what they say about Shreveport: it’s a nice place to visit, but don’t drink the water.  We’re the new Mexico.  They don’t really say that, but they might now.  Today, we had a serious water situation.  It’s still not back to normal, and a boil advisory is still in effect.  I won’t be drinking city water for a long time.  Luckily, we have bottled water at work, and I have bottled water at home.

    Fatburger was closed when I went by today, and Moe’s was only serving bottled drinks.  Circle K wouldn’t sell ICEEs or fountain drinks.  All the children were sent home from school and won’t be returning tomorrow.  Lots of people are being affected by this, and it shows how serious of a problem it is to have a single water treatment facility.

  • Zero Gravity!

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal

    After ice skating last week, Chris, Jen, and I were going to go to Dallas to The Galleria to go ice skating there on a better rink.  Jen sent me a link to a nearby place, where you can do all kinds of fun things that involve jumping from high altitudes, called Zero Gravity Thrill Amusement Park.

    Chris isn’t able to go, but Jenny is going to go with me this Saturday.  She doesn’t want to ice skate, but we’re hopefully going to be doing the 4 things that Zero Gravity offers.  I’ve been wanting to bungee jump since my skydiving trip, but there’s nowhere to do it locally.  Zero Gravity offers that and so much more.

    animated_bungee_small Bungee Jumping

    Bungee jumping is done from an Air Boingo tower. It is not a crane, but a seven-story permanent platform especially for bungee jumping. We have a triple safety system:

    • Super-elastic bungee cords – our bungee cords are so elastic they give you a ride that is much smoother than an ordinary rollercoaster ride.
    • Nylon safety backup straps – the safety straps are strong enough that they would catch you even with no bungee cord attached
    • A professional stuntman airbag underneath you – the air bag is rated for a fall even greater than the height of the tower

    Of course I’m going to do that, but in addition, they have something that looks even cooler!

    animated_net_big Nothin’ But Net

    Zero Gravity is proud to offer the ultimate thrill ride: Nothin’ But Net. This ride is the the tallest in the park at 16 stories high. We lift you to just below the top of the tower and then release you 100′ into a net below. That’s right – no bungee, no parachute, just you and the air. And the landing is smooth as silk.

    The patented release system insures that you land on your back – even if you try to twist or turn. The landing is so smooth you will hardly notice it. When you land there are actually two Nets, one under the other, and each corner has a safety backup.

    The Nothin’ But Net is the first ride of it’s kind in the DFW area!

    Additionally, these look fun: Skycoaster and Texas Blastoff.

  • Wedding and Ice Skating!

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal

    Today, at 3 PM at the Randle T. Moore Center, Joey and Natalie got married!  I got to witness it all, and it’s pretty weird to think about "Natalie Wall", but I’m extremely happy for them both.  I’m sure I’ll add pictures to this post later when I have some.  I didn’t bring my camera, but there were plenty there.  I wore fancy clothes that I never wear, so that’s always fun, but those fancy shoes hurt my back a lot.

    I helped mess up Joey’s car and that was a lot of fun and then we didn’t get to throw anything at them!  They only had bubbles!  I wanted to hit Joey with rice really hard!  Oh well.  I think they’re going to Rexburg, Idaho now for a gathering with Natalie’s family or something.

    Shreveport Ice Rink After the wedding, for which the reception ended around 7:15 PM, Chris, Jen, and I went ice skating downtown.  That was fun?  I’m not sure, really.  I thinkIce Skating Fake Action Shot I had fun, but I also got cold and wet.  Overall, I guess it was fun.  Chris did really well, because he has rollerbladed a lot.  Jen and I sucked hard at it.  It’s a lot easier when you go faster though.  I fell a couple of times because I tried to go too fast and the first time I fell on my butt and my wallet pressed into my ass and my ass still hurts from it.  Ouch.

    The second time I fell was because a little kid was going the wrong way and we had an unavoidable (due to my lack of control over direction) collision and I fell on my knee that time and did a nice little twirl around my knee that looked like a trick one might do on purpose, if not for getting wet at the same time.  That little kid tried to make me run into him again, but the second time as we were about to collide, I just picked him up.  That cracks me up.  So instead of us colliding, it was just me taking him in the direction I was going until he could get his footing again and then I put him back down and he almost fell again!  He pretty much just fell from place to place on the ice.  It was cute.

    Update: Jen blogged about our adventure too.

    I’d also like to point out that Seth blogged again, thanks in no small part to Windows Live Writer.  It’s an amazing tool, and I’d really recommend it to everyone that blogs.

  • Independence Bowl

    Chris BenardGaming, Other Peeps, Personal, Television

    Independence Bowl Ticket My work allowed all employees to sign up for two free tickets for the Independence Bowl.  I’m not normally into football, unless it’s LSU playing, but I figured it was free, and I’ve never actually been to a football game in real life.  It was pretty fun.

    It was Alabama vs. Colorado.  Apparently, I’m supposed to cheer for Colorado, since Bama is LSU’s arch enemy or something.  Colorado kinda sucked, especially their weak offense, and they lost 30-24.  Colorado did take an actual buffalo and parade it all around the field, so that was pretty neat, and I think we were on TV for a few seconds, but I’m not sure.

    Cold Weather Clothes It is cold outside, and I don’t really have any cold weather clothes.  I was wearing my normal Old Navy jacket and my City Name Sports Team T-shirt (apropos).  When I arrived at Jenny‘s apartment to go shopping, eating, and to the game, Rachel informed me that I’d be freezing.  I thought we were just going to get a new jacket with a hood and some gloves for me, and Jenny and Rachel were going to get gloves.

    Me, Jenny, Rachel Independence Stadium View From Our Seats Jenny let me know that hoods aren’t cool and made me get a pea coat.  I’d never even heard of such a thing.  I also got a sweater from Marshall’s and a hat and gloves from Wal-Mart.  I like the sweater, and I’ve never had any of those either, but I don’t know how I feel about the pea coat yet, and that stupid thing was $50, even at the cheap store, Ross.

    Bama FansThe pea coat, hat that covered my ears, sweater, and gloves kept me nice and warm, and I drank a little which helped too.  Now I have cold weather clothes and I’ve been to a football game!  We got there right as the 1st quarter was ending, and left 3 minutes into the 4th quarter to beat traffic.  We caught the end of the game on ESPN HD and watched Colorado lose.

    Then I played some kind of gun game on Jenny’s Wii.  I think it’s called Crossbow Training or something.  There was no Mii for me on the Wii, so I created one of those first.  That was the hardest part!  I got silver on my first try on the game, but it’s not as fun as shooting real guns. 

  • Near Death Experience?

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal

    graduation I finally had my graduation ceremony Wednesday, December 19th.  Some friends and family went with me to Buffalo Wild Wings afterward, and that was fun.  I had a lot of leftover wings though, and against Bill’s advice, I ate them Saturday for lunch.  I think I might have gotten food poisoning.

    Last night, I went out for a little while and then went to sleep around 3 AM.  I felt fine at the time.  However, I woke up at 5 AM shivering and convulsing.  I got up, moved the thermostat from 73 to 76, put on more clothes, and got back under the covers, still incredibly cold for some reason.  I went back to sleep.

    I woke up a little while later burning up.  I went back to sleep.

    I then woke up again shivering and convulsing, cold for no reason, but I had to use the bathroom extremely badly (I’ll spare the details).  While traveling to the bathroom, I felt faint; I couldn’t even focus on my own image in the mirror.  While using the bathroom, I literally passed out on my shower doors to the left of me.  I couldn’t even stay conscious.  I finally came to and went back to bed again, but I was still fainting on the way.  I even passed out while laying flat.  It felt like I was actually going to die.  I couldn’t even sit up without like passing out.  I woke up finally at 10 AM feeling fine, except for a headache and being incredibly thirsty.

    So, I have no idea what happened, or if it was food poisoning or what.  I thought maybe it was a drug interaction with alcohol, since I take Singulair at night, but the Internets say that there is no such interaction.  I just know I thought I might actually die, and that was kinda scary.

  • Operation: Bachelor’s Degree – Mission Complete

    Chris BenardOther Peeps, Personal, School

    I can’t believe it’s over.  I had my last final tonight and I ended up not even having to take it!  My teacher decided to let us drop our lowest grade, and I had an A in the class already, so I didn’t even take the final.  That leaves me with 2 As and 2 Bs, on a semester when I didn’t even try that much!  Haha!

    After the final, Sabrina, Ashley, Kristina, Bill, and I all went to What’s On Tap to celebrate!  I don’t even think it’s quite hit me yet that it’s actually over.  It’s hard to comprehend not going to school for my BS, since I’ve been doing it seemingly forever.  I guess it’ll pretty much be the same thing, now that I’m starting my MBA, but it feels really good to have accomplished my goal, after all these years, of getting a Bachelor of Science.  The real celebration is the weekend after next.  We’re going to do it up big, I hope.

    I smell like cigarettes, thanks to my friends Kristina and Sabrina (and Sabrina’s friend Zach), but that’s cool.  It’s better than dead carcass, and thankfully that smell has already died down a lot.