Some Reunions Just Shouldn't Be Planned

I open up Yahoo! this morning on the web going through my usual cyberspace motions to check my email, check my mySpace, yadda, yadda, yadda... when I happen to see the "big" headline for the Entertainment section on Yahoo! ... New Kids On The Block are reuniting! The article described this reunion like it was the second coming ... The author who wrote the article must be a HUGE fan of this past boy band... but, let's remember that that is exactly what they are... a PAST boy band... from a LONG time ago... and they are no longer boys... they are in their mid-to-late 30's by now... maybe even 40's? And their music was not even that good even back then! Their fan base in the late 80's and early 90's was mostly middle school age girls and those girls are all grown up now in the their mid-to-late 20's and have married and had their own children... Maybe the old fans could push their pre-teen idols onto their children now? "Look honey, Mommy used to be in love with Joey Mc.... isn't he a doll????"
It will be hard to imagine what Donnie Wahlberg and Co. would even look like now dancing around a stage at their age... not pretty I am quite confident. I guess what I am trying to say is that boy bands are for 20-somethings.. not 30 and 40 somethings...

99x Is Gone

What the heck is going on in radio world? I could not believe it when I heard today that 99X is gone! Yes, gone! How can you just delete a radio station? Or should I say what bad mistake was made that caused them to get rid of the radio station? I have heard of shows getting the boot but not the whole darn station!! So I googled 99x earlier today and all of the articles pretty much sum it up that the station was bought out a couple of years ago and things have only gone downhill since. Now I remember when they were Power 99 back in the day when I first arrived in Atlanta in 1991... they played popular Top 40 tunes- pop, hip-hop, fun music. And then they changed to 99X and turned alternative.... back then, I loved them. I had the 99x card, their Live X CD's, went to their Big Day Out concerts, the whole nine yards... I listened to the Morning X radio show religiously back in the late 90's while at work. Barnes, Leslie and Jimmy were too funny and did crazy stuff that I laughed out loud at... but, then one day either I changed or grew out of it... their music seemed just a tad too indie for me... too grunge, too alternative... not enough rock-n-roll... the DJ's got on my nerves... I no longer desired the concert band line-ups any more...I quit listening and started listening more to z93 or 95.5 the beat... rock or rap were my choices... I guess my tastes just changed... of course, they have changed since even then too... I did occasionally stop by their last morning show a few times in the past year or so... just could not get into the show... didn't seem the same without Jimmy... when Barnes left it didn't really bother me, but why Jimmy? Heck, he was the most entertaining person at the station in my opinion. I don't know all the details of what exactly happened with the station... probably never will. I do still have the CD's to remember them by... I just wonder what will happen with Leslie Framm??? She was like the cornerstone for that station! I did hear that Q100 will be moving into the 99.7 slot on the FM dial... I am not a fan of their morning show either... I suppose the only show I can really tolerate is the Giant Show these days... But, to be perfectly honest I just listen to the radio for MUSIC... isn't that what radio started from originally anyway? If all stations would just play music and not talk at all, that would be best in my book. Oh well, that is why I have satellite radio...too bad I have to pay for it!

Kelly's Movie Reviews

The Bucket List

We saw this film on opening night a couple of weeks or so ago… This has to be one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time… I laughed the entire first ¾ of the movie and then cried the last ¼ of the movie… Jack Nicholson is one of my favorite actors of all time and he did not let me down with this performance at all. Morgan Freeman played his character beautifully as he does in all of his works. I still love him best in Shawshank though… This movie is a must see for all adults- young and older. The story is a classic tale from an old idea that we all have thought about in some way or another in our own lives… The one thought I did leave the theater with was wondering exactly how much money did it cost for those two to complete their bucket list???!!
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars*****


I Am Legend

After seeing all of the ads for this so many times before it came out in theaters, we just had to go see what it was… and this movie was NOTHING like what I thought it was going to be about. The plot was sort of a twisted idea of what would happen if the citizens of an entire city were infected with a deadly virus. NYC was the city of choice in this film, which is convenient since it sits on an island, and could be quarantined from the rest of America physically. Will Smith was excellent as the only person who is somehow immune to the virus and decides to stay and search for a cure to this viral plague. The whole concept of what “could” happen if this type of plague occurred on us as a nation. Definitely makes you think about some serious what-ifs… the movie kept me on the edge of my seat… but in the end…. All was well with the world… well, at least in the film…?
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars***


No Country For Old Men

I know one of my dear friends who is a HUGE Cormac McCarthy fan is going to kill me for saying this… but, I did not like this movie… I do think Josh Brolin was wonderful in the role as the main character… I thought Javier Bardem was creepy (as always) with his 70’s child-like bowl hair cut and this role for Tommy Lee Jones should have been a cakewalk for him. By the end of movie, there were still a lot of unanswered questions. All I kept thinking the entire movie was why Brolin’s character did not put the money in a different bag and would someone hurry up and please kill the killer??? And I am still wondering how in world Bardem is nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar?… who did he support? I just wanted to punch him into next week. The movie has 8 (count them, 8) Oscar nominations… Wow.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars **

Parking Wars

I discovered a new television show this morning that is playing on the A&E channel. It is called “Parking Wars”… after watching 2 or 3 back-to-back episodes this morning (they were playing 6 or 8 shows straight through this morning for whatever reason) I am hooked! This show is about the daily ups and downs in the life of a parking ticket writer, a meter maid, a tow truck driver, the “boot” installer, etc. What a concept for a reality show! Now some of you that have known me for a long time, remember that I used to work the parking patrol beat when I was a student at Georgia Tech… back in the good ol’ days of college… I was young and poor, fiercely loyal to my employer, a huge believer in the greater good and fast on my feet… everything one needed to possess to write parking tickets on a college campus that had 12,000+/- students and faculty and only about 8,000+/- parking spaces. Yes, it was a challenge to play student by morning and then be the parking enforcer by afternoon and night… I could write about so many episodes that I experienced in those 4 years that could fill an entire year of blogs… I was not liked by many, loved by a few, but supported by most… And loved every minute of it! I made about $5 an hour and got called every name in book along the way by quite a few parking law breakers… but it was well worth it. I wore my uniform proudly. I ducked every time a bottle was thrown at me. I ran for the hills successfully every time a football player chased me from his newly ticketed vehicle. I could slim-Jim just about any vehicle driven on campus with my eyes closed. I could install the boot on a car in about 45 seconds flat. And I ALWAYS finished a 5-hour shift with at least 50 tickets issued… Yes, I was KM-231 and every one either respected me or feared me. The campus police loved me and the athletes hated me. That was the best job I have EVER had in my entire adult life…. EVER.
So back to my original thoughts… Parking Wars is about the life of the parking officers and tow truck drivers on the streets of Philadelphia and each incident on that show takes me on another wonderful trip down memory lane…. Thanks, A&E.

Managing From The Bottom Of My Heart

So my company distributed their quarterly inter-company news update/letter this week to all employees with the latest company info/for their reading pleasure. These updates are usually 10 or so pages long and always highlight one or two ongoing projects from each of our divisions. There is usually a write up on some community service project, an up and coming department or policy committee and maybe some kind of safety article. Well this quarter’s update highlighted not only my community service project but both of my ongoing projects too! Yes, my two little rinky-dink projects represented our southeast division in the update, going up against much more vast projects out west in the $50-150 million range… how is that for scary? But, the coolest part was the write-up on my community service project. We scored an entire page! The project consisted of a group of us (7 total from my city of Atlanta project) demolishing and hauling off old, dilapidated playground equipment and other unused hazards from a playground behind a classroom building on a church campus in the midtown Atlanta area. And, we also raised over $8,000 from our project vendors and subcontractors to pay a professional fencing company to come demo the old 4 ft high chain-link fence around the perimeter of the playground and replace with a brand spanking new 8 ft high chain-link fence! The church campus has quite a time keeping the nightlife out of the playground and leaving their “paraphernalia” behind for the children to discover each day. The old fence was bent and broken and just not doing its job… The classroom building houses two different non-profit organizations that help the homeless or children with special needs…. So our team was proud to help them out! The bottom half of the full-page layout on the news update had a nice big picture of all seven of us standing on the playground after our day of work… I look at each face in that picture and it brings sadness in my heart… because all four of the men from our field crew that did the majority of the manual labor on that day have all been laid-off since then… How sad is that? And what makes it even more upsetting is that I KNEW on that day that their days were numbered with our company. I was guilt-ridden the entire time… I thanked them for all of their hard work on the playground and on our project… I gave them gifts with our company logo on them out of my secret stash of gifts I keep in my truck toolbox… I felt so bad that day. It is so hard to do my job and not carry guilt every time I am required to lay someone poor soul off. And during these days and times in our company, it seems to be happening WAY too much! Being a manager just absolutely sucks! I remember when I was a level below manager and did not have the responsibilities that I do now… life was carefree and fun… I had no idea that the golden award of a promotion to project manager was not just the title, the money, the company truck and all the other perks… it also came with a price… a price that I seem to pay dearly almost every day… and it sucks the life out of me…

Life Just Doesn't Get Better Than This

My work life right now is such a rollercoaster these days it seems. Our company has not landed a project here in the southeast division since last February 2007 and it was a small sized one at that. The last one before that was the July 2006 and it too was small sized. Well I happen to be the PM on both of these projects and the one from 2006 is complete and the other one from last February should be over but with all of the delays and issues that have occurred throughout the course of the project, we are FAR from being over! So, that being said, I am “technically” still busy but most of our folks (that are still employed) are not busy. And that makes work not-too-exciting these days for all of us! Those folks that do not have a project to work on gripe and moan day in and day out that they want something to work on… and those of us with a project to work on moan and groan because we are covered-up with work and need some relief… or maybe that is just me doing all the moaning and groaning because most of the others are too afraid to complain for fear of getting let go…? I just don’t think about the big “what if?” any more… I learned a long time ago that worrying all the time about what might happen down the road is just too time and energy consuming… and it is just not healthy for me to keep stressing over what I cannot control! Some days I wish I could cruise into the office, fix myself a cup of coffee, sit down at my desk and wonder what the heck am I going to do with myself today??!! I almost welcome it at this point… some folks would say that I am lucky because my company has kept me busy for the past 5 years of my employment… Lucky? Maybe not lucky but more like fortunate I suppose… yet, I still feel like I am burn out because I have been so stretched and busy for 5 years straight… or maybe that is just the difference between me and the rest of my co-workers… that is what sets us apart… I do not know what the future holds for our division… others like to make unnecessary assumptions and predictions… I look at it like an eventful soap opera… and I have a side line seat watching the drama unfold each day… why would I quit and give up that opportunity? I am getting paid to watch what most folks would KILL to see on television for crying out loud! Life just doesn’t get better than this….

Loving the Winter Season

After two visits from the snow gods in the past two weeks I am really wondering or more like hoping there is more in store for us this winter. I just love the winter season! And being from Georgia and having lived in the South my entire life, I feel like we get cheated out of a lot of winter fun because we do not get snow hardly any more. Ice maybe... but not snow. Yet, for some reason this winter has brought us snow... now granted it really was not enough to do some serious sledding in... but enough to throw snowballs and maybe construct a small snowman.... IF you had the energy to scrape the entire yard up and could stand the cold temps long enough to build it. I can remember the winters as a child in the late 70's and early 80's when Georgia actually scored some serious snow... even it was only once a season! It got us outta school and we freaking sledded! My brother made us a homemade sled out of a piece of sheet metal siding and we had a ball!! Dangerous sport but we still had primo fun... Maybe with the whole global warming deal, we will do a 360 and start seeing more snow??!
Another thing that goes hand-in-hand with rollercoaster weather in the winter season is having colds and sickness randomly during this season. Now for me in the past, I hardy EVER got sick... maybe once a year and even then it was just a head cold... but, the older I get and now that I am married, I seem to be catching colds and sinus infections more and more! Another reason I am constantly sick these days could be because there are certain co-workers in my office that are ALWAYS sick! Yes, these certain folks are fine one week and sick the next.. and every one else always makes excuses for them by saying that they have small children at home and that is why they are always sick... and that's makes it okay.... HUH? Are you kidding me? Half of America has children at home and the parents do not walk around sick 50-75% of the time because their children are sick! This one employee in particular's kids do not even go to daycare or school yet! They are always at home in their own house... not out mingling with others catching their ailments... at home with Mom or Dad... all day and night... so tell me how the children are always sick unless they are not clothing them enough for the temperatures or they are not eating the right nutritious foods for staying healthy? If they don't go around other children and they are kept warm and fed right, then sickness should not be an issue! And then the parent brings that sickness to work and touches the community files and office equipment and gets me sick too!!! It is just not right... But, I cannot say anything about it either to the carrier of the germs... would'nt that be hypocritical of me??