Happy Birthday, Crappy Birthday

Part I: Happy Birthday...

Wow. What a fucking day. I try to refrain from cursing on here, but after the events of today, I may let the expletives fly. It was a pretty good b-day weekend more or less. Friday I got out of work early for the first time in months. I shit you not. I haven't worked early on a friday since February. More on that later. It was a little rainy, so Kerri and I had move part 1 of out co-birthday weekend at Nautical Mile to the more land locked location of Rockville Centre. After sending out texts, emails and phone calls, only TWO people responded, one of them was my sister. Jen couldn't make it Friday b/c she had work early on Saturday and Saturday looked to be more fun anyways. So our celebration consisted of Me, Kerri, Breanne and Dave. We still had fun, went drinkin' and had dinner at Cabo, then hit up Champs and some other bar. Good times. The next day in the city, Kerri and I find that just Jen will be joining us for dinner. Between Kerri and I we invited 40 people. Close to a month before. Over the course of 2 days, only three people felt they could make it to dinner. One was my sister, the other my girlfriend. Of the people who couldn't make it to dinner, only a handful had a legitimate reason they couldn't attend. More people did make it out to Brother Jimmy's for live band Karaoke which was just uber fun. There were 8 of us, plus another b-day party going on who we had a small back and forth with, everyone was drinkin', laughing, talking & singing. It was a blast.

Sunday Breanne surprised me with tickets to see American Idiot on Broadway. Fucking awesome show. I loved it. As we were heading out, we signed our name on the walls of the lobby (its cool, its encouraged, they even provide the sharpies) I signed in 2 places. One was on the lowest part of the wall, i signed my initials and the date. Then, I see it, the spot where a lot of people will see my signature and say, WTF? Right on top of the main exit sign, SUPER 579. You literally can't walk out without seeing it. And its high enough that not too many people will be able to write near / on it. Anyways, Breanne hears someone say she met Billie Joe Armstrong. So, not having anyplace to go, we "stage doored" it and hung around for the cast to come out. We met a few of them, all super nice and really appreciative of the fans. Then, after a while we started getting ready to go and out walks Billy Joe! I pushed Breanne over to him, snapped a couple of candid shots and Bre got his autograph right as he was leaving. Awesome night, and a great way to end a pretty cool weekend.

Ah, now comes Part II: Crappy Birthday

Allow me to sum up my work schedule the past 4 1/2 months: January, my counterpart at work took off for 3 weeks, during what would have been my winter break. I worked 10-8, Tues - Fri and 830 - 430 Sat. for the first 3 weeks of January. When she came back I changed my schedule to work early that Friday and put in for early the night of my sisters b-day and the night before i took 2 teaching certification tests. After coming back from 3 weeks vacation, after the first friday night she had to work, she complained that i was taking advantage and she was working too many friday nights. So I was basically told I wasn't being fair and to work Friday nights. My schedule for the semester was Tuesday 12-830, Wed 9-430 (so i could get to class from 530-730) Thursday 10-830, Fri 12-830 and Sat 830-430. So I went from working open to close 5 nights to closing 4 of 5 nights. I was being REALLY selfish there wasn't I? So I stuck with it, worked all but 3 Friday nights from January till last week. My manager tells me to work out a schedule for the summer with my counterpart. We worked out that Id work Monday - Friday and shed work Tuesday - Saturday She hates working Mondays, I hate working Saturdays. We each get 2 days late and 2 days early during the week. I put myself down for early Fridays. Which works out good b/c she's very lazy, can never finish her work and leaves stuff for the next day and sometime can't do it till the day after. I, on the other hand, get literally twice as much work done in a day than she does. Friday nights its a light load, one doctor leaves early so there's nothing for her to get backed up with. Also, its balancing out the fact that I worked all those prior Friday nights.

Guess who complained about the schedule AFTER I SHOWED IT TO HER. She waited till I left, to go out for my birthday no less, and before her first Friday night was over, complained to the bosses that I was taking advantage and she was working too many nights. So yesterday I was told we'd all sit down and work it out. I reminded my assistant manager that I worked the open to close shift for 3 weeks & closed 4 out of the 5 days I worked during the semester. She said we'll all work it out tomorrow. Well, it was a rainy crappy day, but I was getting tons of Happy Birthday texts and Facebook messages so I was in a good mood. I was stuck with a patient a little longer than I wanted, which lead me to staying at work literally 5 minutes too long. This is when my manager and assistant manager and counterpart decide to say I'm being unfair with the schedule. I remind them that:

1) I went made the schedule asking her about the days and hours, all of which she said yes to.

2) The 3 weeks I worked open to close

3) that I worked till close 4 of the 5 nights

I was told fair is fair and it's not fair to make her work Friday nights all summer. I interjected, saying "at the risk of me repeating myself, that I worked till close 4 of the 5 nights, and all but 3 fridays since January." I got "Fair is fair" again and was told that we should alternate Friday nights. This girl does nothing. She can;t handle the workload and has been pushed from position to position for some reason. She cant handle working here? put her there. Can't handle that? move her over there. They never remove the problem, they move it. So now I'm getting screwed, again. I'm PISSED. Red. They basically said, I'm being unfair when I ask for reciprocation. Lets say I worked 12 Friday nights, is it wrong to ask her to work 12 friday nights? I don't think so.

I need to find a semi-decent M-F job for the remainder of the summer and I'll just save up what I can and take out a slightly larger student loan for the coming semester so I wont have to work and can totally focus on school. If I can get a job by mid June that would totally fuck this place over. They would BEG to have me back. People keep leaving and they don't replace them. We are so short staffed if one more person leaves, they won't be able to handle the amount of people we see. I can't say the name of the company I work for but it sucks. And might I add, fuck 'em.

Meanwhile, over the past 2 weeks...

It's been a hell of couple of weeks! It started out O.K., as I was on spring break, though I didn't know it was when it was. Not like I could go anywhere as I still have my online Spanish class with assignments due every Mon, Wed and Fri... also, I don't have $ to go anywhere... nor did I have anyone to go anywhere with. So I just ended up spending Monday relaxing, trying to get ahead in my Spanish work because after work on Tuesday, I had tickets to see Henry Rollins do his spoken word show, and let me tell you, it was awesome. He was on for 3 hours and I could have listened to him for another 3. If you've never heard his spoken word stuff, go to itunes, limewire, wherever and download anything. You won't regret it.
Of course the next day was St. Patricks day. After punching out of work I was able to hang with Dave, Tony and Christina at Croxleys in Frankin Square. We spent a good 4 hours there drinking Guinness eating wings and having a fun ass time. The rest of the week went without incident, until Friday. My counterpart at work "forgot" she had extra overtime hours and wanted to come in late on Saturday. I had no problem with this as I was planning on cutting out early on Saturday so I could join Jen at her friends daughters 1st birthday party. Unfortunately, my boss said "No" because we have our weekly meetings Saturday morning and that she would have to leave early instead. This sucked big time because I had to break it to Jen that again, I would have to bail on meeting her friends and joining her for a fun time. Jen didn't take this well, which I don't blame her for and caused a bit of a fight. I feel horrible, but there was nothing I could do. It happened last minute and Jen & I get screwed yet again. The rest of the weekend was salvaged as we went out for Rockville Centres St Pats celebration that night. The usual crowd of Dave, Jay and Kerri joined Jen and I for drinking, capped by a diner run. Sunday we relaxed and had a b-day dinner for her grandmother, I passed out on the couch shortly after dinner, guess it was a longer weekend than I thought! I ended up taking Jen back to Bklyn and headed home to face another week.

This past week wasn't too exciting. School and work and back. I wasn't able to go out or do anything as I'm getting prepped for projects and need to save some $$ for the summertime, weddings, bachelor parties, and other fun things. Good news this week is that Adam is coming up from VA for his break. I got to hang with him and his friends for a belated birthday dinner at Cabo in Rockville Centre and spent Sunday afternoon with Jen gettign lucnh and picking up her kitty from her apt which is being fumigated. Sunday ended with Adam and I heading over to Chris' house ot watch WrestleMania XXVI.

Yes, I still like wrestling. Yes, I know its fake. I am aware of that factoid and have been aware for very long time. I find it funny how the people who tell me "You know wrestling is fake" are the same people who talk about the characters from Gossip Girl, Twilight, One Tree Hill, or Generic Mindless "drama" like they're real. Anyways, Mania was pure awesome and aside from a few short matches, and a meh match or two, the show was great. The 2 title matches didn't disappoint. McMahon vs Bret Hart was as good as it could be considering the age and condition of the participants. And for the 2nd year in a row, Michales vs Undertaker stole the show. Great match start to finish, it had a holy $hit moment, chants of "this is awesome" (it was) and Undertaker extending his streak to 18-0 "retiring" HBK. While I know nobody ever stays retired in wrestling, it was shocking to see the match end this way and was a great end to the show.

So now, the past 2 weeks have been briefly recapped and I'm off to start another. Todays been rainy and crappy and I don't feel like heading out to class, but I will. Looking forward to coming home for dinner, my fantasy draft and watching the post-Mania Raw.

Till next time, peace out ya'll!

Let the blogging begin...

Well, I was going to put up a whole bunch of info and stuff about me on here, but I have facebook for that. Also, you can ask me things. I guess for this post I'll just recap my weekend and anything else that pops into my head. I can go off on a stream of consciousness tangent, if I do, come a long for the ride cause I can go just about anywhere.

This past weekend I had decided I would take off work on Saturday and join my friends for a St. Patricks day bar crawl around the South Street Seaport in NYC. Mother nature had other plans and decided to monsoon all over our plans. Now, when the weather reports said it would be rainy and windy, I don't think anyone predicted it would be the worst storm we've had since '92. Thats right, its been 18 years since we had a storm as bad as this. My friends are persistent, and to quote from Rocky Horror "they weren't going to let a storm spoil the events of their evening... it was a night out they were going to remember for a very. long. time."

We decided to meet up in the city and hit up a bar in midtown. Jen, Jenn, Summer and I went to Third and Long and after getting soaked, decided to stay until 7 when their good drink specials ended and head further uptown for dinner and more bars. We coaxed Dave and Kerri to come out from the Island, and bless their hearts, they made it thru the storm. It wasn't till after we had a few drinks and some dinner that we realized when Mother Nature doesn't want you to go out, she makes sure you get the message until you decide "well, I better get home."

Just as we finished dinner and were getting ready to head to the bar next door, Dave gets a message about the LIRR losing service on multiple lines. Jay calls us and tells us how trees and power is dropping all over the Island and 6 of the 7 horsemen of the apocalypse were spotted galloping around the tri-state area. We finally decided to take Dave to the LIRR while his line still had service and we got Kerri back to her car so she could sail home. We ended up getting back to Jen n Jenns Apartment around 11ish and we basically crashed shortly after SNL started.

Sunday didn't appear to start much better as we heard the rain pounding on the windowsill. We were kinda bummed as it was bad weather all weekend and Jen, Bre and I had tickets to see "Extinction" with James Roday from "Psych". Walking around the Village before the show was not an option and we decided to just hang in the apartment until Bre came. Thankfully, the drive to the city wasn't too bad as it was just a light rain. We found the theatre thanks to my GPS and were able to park just a few blocks away. We head into the lobby and standing right next to us is Maggie Lawson, Juliet from Psych. She and co-star James Roday are dating and as this was the last show I shouldn't have been too surprised to see her there. First impressions: she's short, tiny, I'd say 5'4" tops. She's a brunette now, weather its her natural look or if she was being incognito I have no idea but she looks good either way. Also, she's adorable. I wanted to go up and say hi, but I'm sure she was happy to be "unrecognized" by the masses.

We get to our seats (third row from the stage, and 3 rows in front of Maggie) and the show begins. James Roday seemed short as well, I'd guess between 5'7" & 5'8". The show (produced by Psych co-star Dule Hill) was excellent. I'm really regretting getting tickets to the final performance as I would see this show again. Extinction is about two friends, Max (Michael Weston) and Finn (James Roday), in their 30's who meet up once a year in Atlantic City for a weekend of drinking, drugs and chasing women. Max wants to party like they did back in college while Finn wants to evolve and leave his partying days behind him and start a new life with his wife whom he doesn't want to cheat on. Max leaves Finn to sulk in the hotel room as he goes out and picks up two casino employees (played by Amanda Detmer and Stefanie E. Frame) who are willing to "go the extra mile" to get some extra cash while on hard times. As the night progresses, more of Max and Finn's secrets are divulged, resentments are expressed, and both men say and do things that will permanently alter their friendship.

Should this play come back again, I would be the first in line to get tickets. I found the performances all around to be phenomenal and the cast has such a rapport that I hope the original cast brings about the next incarnation. However "Extinction" is such a great work, I believe any cast will do it justice.

Moving right along, we, well I, opted out of waiting after for the cast to get autographs. Now anyone who knows me knows that I'm an autograph hound and will go the extra mile to get a pic or signature from a celeb. My sister and I arrive at Met games 2 1/2 hrs early to get into bp. This time, I felt weird. Maggie was harassed, kinda, by an entire row of girls who wanted her autograph. I just felt that she, James and the rest of the cast would rather pack up their stuff and be on their way. Had the weather not been so bad I would have waited, but it just didn't feel right. So off we went to Thailand Cafe which was excellent as well as affordable. To cap off the night, we headed to Max Brenner's. If you've never been, its chocolate heaven. Better than Hershey. I had the spicy Mexican hot chocolate and the Banana Split Waffles. Neither of us could finish our desserts, so we headed home.

It ended up being a great weekend on what could have been a disappointing one. The week ahead looks to be busy but fun as well. I get to see Henry Rollins at the Boulton Center in Bay Shore doing his spoken word schtick which is always amazing. Wednesday is St. Pattys Day which should prove to be fun should anyone be around, Thurs and Fri I'll end up working open to close and Saturday, if all goes well, I'll get to punch outta work early and meet Jen at her friends daughters 1st b-day party. Again, looks to be a fun, busy week but I'm lookin forward to it.

Peace out ya'll!