Well, it looks like I will be looking for a new job, shortly. Bob decided to let me go. It wasn't much of a surprise. Apparently, he has impossible expectations for all of his employees. He could never decide on what he would finally pay me, so I got to pin everything on the slim chance he might decide to pay me a decent salary one pay period to the next. And then there was such a big surprise when he'd decided to screw me over another week.

I have come to this conclusion - Bob is a cheap bastard. He had no clue what he wanted from me and no clue what he was going to pay me. I guess I should have been more assertive with my salary, but he was sure he knew exactly what he would pay me and that it would be the "big bucks."

I was actually supposed to be motivated by what I was paid to do all of this work in the time I was given? And I was supposed to finish what I couldn't finish on my own time? Yeah right!

The most frustrating part of this entire ordeal is the fact he would so easily fire me on the spot, placing all of this work on his shoulders. What the hell? And any new guy he had coming in would have to take on all of this crap by himself.

I figured up the amount of hours I worked there and am submitting them to Jennifer. Hopefully, I will get paid something decent.

Well this weekend certainly took a turn for the worst. I ended up with a nasty cold and have been laid up in bed for the last two days. I finally get the finishing touches on the eBay ads so that I can start updating ads, and I end up sick in bed for two days!

Kris's Mom had to be taken to the nursing home for rehab therapy after suffering a stroke and falling down. She is doing better, but the family all think it may be time for mom and dad to move to the nursing home. They aren't invalid or anything like that, but it is difficult for them to take care of themselves and if either of them fall down, they will be stuck until someone can check on them.

Andrea has been sick all week and is most likely responsible for me being sick as she slobs her way around the house sneezing and coughing on everything. She leaves a trail of carnage behind her wherever she goes and is just about frustrating the hell out of me with the constant whining.

Kris has really been frazzled being stuck in the middle of all of this. I hope to take her out for dinner next weekend and maybe help her relax with a nice warm bath and some foot massaging. That usually helps, especially if I happen to sneak some chocolate into the mix!

Jake has spent most of the week at his friends house, which has helped him avoid getting sick, but I'm sure he will be next. He had some statewide test all week and has really gotten some good from letting off some steam after school. I think the nationalized tests are a big joke. All they do is make sure teachers are doing their job so the country can brag about our education system.

What the "Leave No Child Behind" Program really does is shortchange poorer schools which may not be able to attract the talented teachers that would do a good job. I really think there is no excuse for such an idiotic idea to come out of a man whose wife was an elementary teacher in one of those crummy school systems - Midland.

And if schools fail to perform on the level, they don't get additional funding which might have been used to attract some talent to the school. Its a typical Republican solution to a problem that isn't political. If something is broke, rather than actually trying to fix it, they cut it up and kill it completely. And strongarming a school to simply teach testing materials does nothing but limit the child's education.

A child's education is supposed to stimulate their mind and actually educate them. Nationalized Testing simply narrows what teachers can teach based entirely on a person's own political agenda. Yeah, increased scores may look good in the papers, but Statstics shouldn't be a teacher's defining factor in doing their jobs.

Maybe its time more politicians leave the important stuff out of the political process. Education is one thing that needs to be fought for from both sides with no political bias. If they really want to help improve the education system, they can start by insuring that no child is left behind by providing needed materials, by helping school provide a better working enviornment that might attract teachers, instead of scaring them off in droves.

Politicians should know when to draw the line with their bullshit political garbage. These decisions they are making in the name of "good" don't always affect their targeted items in a good way. If politicians can't have enough sense to actually do something helpful, they need to be booted out of office. Put someone in office who is willing to give school what they need, not simply threaten to take away materials based on a test score.

Well, this week has been interesting - it actually started last Thursday. We awoke to find the truck tire flat. The temperature had dropped and squeezed the rest of the air out of our poor front, drivers' side tire. So Kris and I scrambled to get her parent's truck and me to get to work. Bob moved me to the new store to help out and so that we could work closer to get the new pages up.

Monday, Bob announced he had to let Russ go. Russ was the shipping manager. He's a really good guy and I'm gonna miss him, but apparently Bob was having trouble with him. We had gotten several screwed up orders and I guess Bob was tired of dealing with them. I don't know what else was involved, but the rumors I had heard about a horrendous turn-over rate at the company seem to be true.

I'm still trying to get the eBay stuff finished when Bob annouces he had decided to totally revamp the website, taking it offline, and sort of backing up all of the eBay orders. I have been trying to get rid of several eBay ads which had been showing up on eBay. I was just about finished with the eBay stuff when Bob tells me we had a new site to work with. I basically have to redo everything I had done on the new design to match the new site design. On the positive side, I get to ditch alot of crap I hadn't really liked working with. On the negative side, I have to redesign everything.

I'm not sure when I will be able to do it, but I need to get some new product pictures of the big sellers for eBay - drum sets, guitars, and music stands. I may have to come in Saturday to do it, but I have to schedule it so that I can get the tires fixed and then schedule an afternoon photoshoot - somewhere!

On a plus side, I have considered teaching trumpet lessons at the store. I am still trying tofigure this out, but I would really like to give it a try - perhaps 5-6 students would be nice. It sure would be nice to start teaching, but we'll see what Bob has to say about it.