Greg's General Store

Less than 13 hours left in 2007. I have been working on my goals for 2008 and I think I have them ready. Actually I have decided on only one for next year. It's too early to let the cat out of the bag though so you will just have to drop by in 2008 to see what it is. I will give you some hints but no fair guessing. I had about 5 on my list and was trying to make them all positive. In a nutshell they were things that would make me a better person, physically, mentally and spiritually. All would be challenging and I would need a lot of help to make them happen. I still couldn't decide which ones I really wanted to commit to because I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew. There is nothing worse than setting your sights on a goal and then not being able to make it. (see 2007, 2006, 2005, etc goals) Anyway I finally took a break from all my goal setting and that's when it hit me. The one goal for 2008 that would really mean something to me. It would make me a bette...

As the year comes to an end, I am again thinking about my goals for the coming year. I have some already in my head but I think I need more. So far most of mine are general and I do want to pin myself down to some specific ones. You don’t want to just have those “ Miss America” goals like; “ I want to do good things for good people and be a sugary sweet person blah blah blah. “ Goals need to be specific and measurable. That is something I learned in Management class. They must also be achievable so no goals of becoming the next President although I do think I am as good of a candidate as the ones we have. Wait, I am not worth 208 million dollars. This year all my goals are going to be positive. I want to start things and do things and go places. In the past all of mine have been negative like lose weight, Stop doing this or that or be less of something. In general I want to make a positive impact on the world. I know, I am only one person but a little positive change is better than no...

Did you ever have one of those job interviews where they ask you: “Where do you see yourself in five years?” This is one of those questions where there is really no right or wrong answer. You start second guessing yourself wondering if you should say that you will still be where you started or really lay it on the line and tell them that you hope to be the CEO in five years. As someone that was forced to ask such ridiculous questions, the best thing you do is give a wishy washy answer about doing positive things for the company. The wrong answer is: “God willing I will be laid up at home drinking beer and watching television while waiting on a compensation check from some work related injury.” It may be true but that’s not the right answer. The truth is who knows where we will be in five years or even one year for that matter. As we end another year, every radio and TV show is focusing on: 2007 the Year in Review. They cover the best and worst happenings of the year on everything fro...

Hello everyone. Having a great Christmas here so I don't have a lot of time to write. We went to a very nice dinner party yesterday and I ate enough for 10 men. Then the hostess brought out the main course. After dinner we met another friend for the evening Christmas service at Church. Good thing the lights were on because I was a little sleepy after eating all that food. It ended with a lovely candle light message and prayer with everyone singing softly in the candle light. I could have never made the midnight service as sleepy as I was. The boys let us sleep late which was nice and then we all opened presents and had home made banana bread and beverages. Lunch is going to be early this year so you better get moving if anyone wants to eat with us. :) The house already smells like ham. We are also having crescent rolls, string beans, Potatoes and a salad. Its diet tomorrow so eat up today people! Merry Christmas Greg

I took the day off yesterday from work and also from blogging to get some rest and relaxation. As luck would have it though my sons muffler decided it was a good time do dye so I started my day out in the muffler shop. We left his car there though and headed out to go fishing so I did have some relaxation. I forgot to bring my camera though so there are no pictures of the fish we caught. We caught 6 Sheepshead and ended up keeping 4 for dinner. The weather was about perfect and my sons and I had a great time. For those that have never seen a Sheepshead, here is a picture I took last year of some we caught. Notice they really don’t look like sheep but do have some big buck teeth for eating crabs and barnacles. They are a very difficult fish to catch and I was glad to see that both my sons caught some. I fished just until I caught one just to make sure I could still do it. I looked up Sheepshead on Google and this is what I found. Ha ha ha. The only bad part of the day was that it got so...

I don't read many books these days. I guess because I have to do so much reading at work. My sister let me borrow a book on tape recently and I have to tell you about it. It was "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls. It is about Jeanette's childhood and the things she went through. Her family lived like nomads and the things that she went through made my childhood look great. After listening to this book, I felt better about my own childhood and the struggles we had. I also came to terms with the fact that some people live like they do out of choice and are happy being the way they are and don't want to improve. I won't give away the ending but I highly recommend this book. There is some adult language so be forewarned. It reminded me of a story. A frog and a scorpion come to a river. The frog is about to jump in and swim across and the scorpion asks if he can ride on the frogs back to get across. The frog hesitates at first because he knows that the scorpion c...

“My” Pahthers won !!! Well they aren’t actually my Panthers, they are the Carolina Panthers but I am going to take credit for the win. Since they won, I am going to bathe in the glory of the win and associate their name with mine. Last week though, “they” lost. Those darn Panthers lost. They weren’t My Panthers then. When they win, I am willing to take credit for the win but when they lose it is all their fault. That seems to be the norm these days. Whenever something good happens, we want all the credit but when things go sour, it is someone else’s fault. I have a little joke that I say at work from time to time. People are always afraid of getting fired and I tell them that I am not afraid of it. Seriously I know I could always find another job but this is what I tell them. If I quit, I have to go home and tell my wife and family that I gave up a perfectly good job and lets just say I won’t be on Their “good” list this Christmas. There might even be some negative words spoken abou...

Wanda made me think about Christmas traditions. When we were young,we would go to Grandma's house for Christmas and she would always make party mix and popcorn balls for us kids. She knew that party mix was my favorite. Later on in life when the big dinners were long gone, we would go up and see her and exchange presents. She would still make the party mix for me each year. She didn't have a lot of money and usually someone else would buy her the ingrediants to make it. I still make party mix each year but I wish I had a good popcorn ball recipe. I tried to make them several times and they came out tough. Hers were always chewy but never tough. Maybe it was the love she put in them along with some good gum drops.

Mom always said that. But don't cry for him, things are looking up. First off my brother is a drug and alcohol addict. He has been this way since high school and he is now 55 years old. Wait I forgot, mom says he doesn’t drink and only takes legal drugs. He lives with his 80 year old mother, on her social security check. He hasn’t had a real job in over 15 years. About a year ago, we thought he had hit rock bottom. He had run out of friends and money and because of this had to cut down on his booze and drugs. I mean he was able to bum a small amount of money from mom but she wouldn’t give him enough to support his habit. After all she did already buy his cigarettes. Because he was out of money, he was starting to dry out. For the first time in as long as I can remember, he wasn’t drunk or high when I saw him. He kept talking though about all this money that he was going to get and I believe that was what was keeping him going. Since he was a child, he complained about aches and p...

I hear that a lot these days, especially at Christmas time. Life just isn’t fair. So what does it mean when someone says that? For starters you never hear people at the top saying that. I doubt if any corporate executive ever looked at their lowest paid employee and said that. No, it is usually said when someone sees that another person has something that they want. So in essence, they are saying “Hey, he got more than I did.” So fair isn’t even the right word to be using. If you truly feel that way, then what you should actually be saying is “life isn’t equal”. I know you have heard the saying “No one said life was supposed to be fair.“ But just so that no one can ever say that again, I am saying it now. Life should be fair. So there you have it. I said it and you may quote me on that. Greg said “Life is fair” Notice I didn’t say life is equal, because it isn’t. So who out there wants less? Not many of us I am afraid so what we need to change our statement again. Admit ...

Well that’s what they told us at the “trial” yesterday. Ok it wasn’t a trial it was a parent/teacher conference but it more closely resembled a trial. First off you would expect it to be a one on one meeting between teacher and parent but it’s not that way anymore. To start out with all the 5th grade teachers participated as some kind of unified front. Then they brought along the guidance counselor, the student psychiatrist and the principal for good luck. That makes it 6 to one odds. Pretty even I must say. So what is "not normal" about our son you might ask? Well he just isn’t like the other kids. First off, he likes people and tends to get close to them and look them in the eye when he talks with them. He also smiles a lot which makes the other students as well as teachers nervous. As one teacher put it, he gets in my “space” when I am talking to him. To put it another way, most kids and adults don’t like it when you are less than 3 feet from them. He needs to be more no...

This morning someone sent me a link to a list of where all the "speed traps" are in the area. Along with this email I also got a few replies from some others that got the same email thanking the person who sent it to us. Obviously these people don't know the difference between "reply to sender" and "reply to all" but that is neither here nore there. What gets me is how many people think it is ok to speed and are very excited to know where these traps are so they can slow down in those areas. Here are a few other ideas I have that some people may be interested in. What about a list of where the cameras are located in Walmart so that people that want to shop lift can do so without fear of getting caught. They could also post on a website pictures of all their undercover workers so that we can watch out for them too. The site could be called www.ItsOkToSteal.com How about a website that tells you how to get out of paying child support. That would be very ...