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Rock busting and deck building

The weekend before last I attempted to start work on my deck. This weekend the family helped set posts and frame our entire deck.


Janidek

Dad, my brother Keith, John and I did the majority of the work. Elise shed a little sweat herself when she wasn’t at work.Building a deck in central Texas sucks. We had to set ten 4″x4″ posts 2-feet into the ground. That meant digging through rock. It was so bad that John and I drove over to the HoPot and rented a jackhammer and an auger. We used the auger to dig an inch into the ground until we hit rock. Then the jackhammer. Then the auger. The jackhammer worked great at breaking rocks, but it’s not fun to lift out of a hole while standing under a Texas sun.

We worked extrememly hard the entire weekend. We’re all sore as hell and I’m indebted to my family (yes, that’s you too Englers) for all their hard work. I’m looking forward to finishing the deck planks so we can begin enjoying our new deck.

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What I said I would do

I decided on a new employee and she started her new job today. I called the 13 other individuals who I interviewed last week to thank them for meeting with me and to wish them luck in their search for employment.

Long ago I pledged to myself that if I am in a position where I interview candidates and hire employees, I would call each and every individual who didn’t “make the cut”.

So many times I have interviewed for a job and waited for that call when I was told “we’ll call you next week”. I wouldn’t get any call at all. I had to hunt down the lazy, inconsiderate person who interviewed me to find out “Oh. Yeah. Right. Hi. Umm, we hired someone else”.

It’s inconsiderate of other peoples’ time and energy. If you’re not going to hire someone, let them know so they can be done with it and move on. Managers who have no common courtesy shouldn’t be in a position hire employees.

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Dead Slut

Someone in the office brought me the local paper so I could see how my recent employment ad looked. Two columns to the right of my ad was an ad for the metal band Dead Slut. Mr. Slut is seeking a drummer, guitarist and bassist. He has his own rehearsal and recording studio in the area. Potential Dead Slut rockers are pointed to deadslut.com.

Curiosity got the best of me because I’m all about deceased, easy women so I checked out the website. I once thought about starting my own metal band, Whores Who Sleep with the Fishes. Or maybe the Tomb Skanks.

Anyway, I checked out the website. I read Mr. Slut’s bio. One of his influences is none other than Wednesday 13. I wrote Mr. Slut and told him that my childhood best friend is the guitar player for Wednesday 13. Mr. Slut and I exchanged a couple e-mails. He grew up in Houston as did I.

I wished Mr. Slut luck. Now if you’ll excuse me, the tour bus is waiting. I’m going on the road with Deceased Fornicatress.

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Label tech interviews: Day 2

My first interview was at 11:30 this morning. After that interview I thought, “What the hell am I doing? I’m spending a lot of time interviewing people for a minimal skills, no experience required, repetitive position.” The requirements for this job are:

    Pulse
    Can count to 165
    Has opposable thumbs [Insert your own bad manager primate joke here]

I interviewed seven people today. That consumed my entire work day. Interviewing people is a blast. I’ve met some great people these past two days. The first girl I interviewed I decided I’m going to hire unless someone really impresses me tomorrow. I’m going to continue with the interviews so I’ll feel like I’m getting my money’s worth for placing my ad in the paper. So anyway, this girl is living in Marble Falls for the summer to stay with her dad. She’s a junior psychology major at Sam Houston State. She’s eager, bubbly, intelligent and most importantly, she was the first person to say “I’d really like to work for you” as I was shaking her hand and saying goodbye.

I’ve interviewed two entrepreneurs. They were both great to talk to but I don’t think this is a position where their skills would be utilized.

The second person I interviewed will be starting classes at the Texas Culinary Academy in the fall. We had a great one-sided conversation. I told her how much I enjoyed cooking and that I aspire to be a chef. She stared blankly and said, “yeah”. If you want a job and can find such an intimate mutual interest in the person that’s interviewing you, milk that for everything it’s worth.

The only male I interviewed today was quick to point out that he recently had a run in with the law. He was droning on when I interjected by saying, “Why are you telling me this?” I then found out that his court appointed duties would affect his work schedule. Honesty: good. Run in with the law: not good.

Being on the other end of the desk has been a great experience for yours truly. Here are my observations on interviewing potential employees; some of them you would think would be common knowledge.

Dress nicely. I don’t care if you’re interviewing for a job as shit sweeper, dress up for your interview. Frayed jeans and flip flops aren’t going to get you the job. Yes, someone came in today wearing frayed, dirty jeans and flip flops.

If you’re a male (and might have had a recent run in with the law), tuck your damn shirt in.

Be polite and respectful. Say “yes” or “no”, not “uh huh” or “uh uh” and don’t nod your head in response – that means you have rocks in your head.

Don’t cuss.

I like to think I don’t have a big head but those who said “Yes sir” stuck out in my mind.

Don’t wear cologne, perfume or oils. You think you smell great but it’s offensive. One interviewee was great but her “oil” stunk. I had to wash my hands after she left because a scent lingered.

Spaghetti strap tank tops aren’t proper attire unless you’re interviewing for a job as a stripper. What’s worse is when you have a large back-piece tattoo of a butterly.

Don’t wear different colored contact lenses. A girl that would have been great for the job had one brown eye and one blue eye. It was distracting and annoying as all hell.

All in all, I love interviewing people. Folks are nervous during an interview and I really enjoy breaking the ice and allowing them to take a breath and loosen up. I like to find out about previous jobs and their skill sets, get through that crap and find out about the actual person who I may be working with. Common interests outside of work are more interesting than those of the inside.

People are fun.

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Hiring for fulfillment

I lost one of my fulfillment employees back in March. Since then we’ve been very lean and it’s been pretty tough. I commissioned the local employment agency to find a replacement employee for me. In three months I’ve interviewed two people for the fulfillment position. I interviewed three people for the marketing/accounting/everything-else-I-need position. I hired on who I thought was best suited for this position. I was right and then some. Saying she does a fantastic job is an understatement. I couldn’t be happier with this hire.

So this employee has helped me out significantly but I still need an additional staffer in fulfillment. I called the employment agency a couple weeks ago and said, “What gives? I need someone ASAP” They said there weren’t that many job seekers right now.

The two full-time fulfillment employees are stressed and errors are starting to pop up. I really need a third person… So I wrote a great help wanted ad and ran it in three local papers. The phone has been ringing non-stop. I’ve had five interviews this week so far. I have seven interviews tomorrow and five interviews on Friday.

Interviewing folks is fun, especially if you have a few in a day and can get into a rhythm. I like when I strike that perfect balance where I can break the ice, make the interviewee feel comfortable and then conduct a productive interview that doesn’t warrant an awkward, cookie cutter conversation.

This is a general labor, no experience necessary position so I get an exciting array of applicants. Some are scared shitless, some are bubbly, some are assertive and some are confused. One was 15-minutes late for her interview with a poor excuse. I had planned on immediately sending her away but she looked down on her luck. I don’t like to assume or pigeonhole people, but it’s fairly simple to determine “types” by asking a couple simple questions.

The next two days are going to be full of interviews. In the meantime, my workload is piling up. Yee haw.

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Run for the new border

I took a break from work late this afternoon and drove around the block a couple times. Marble Falls has a new Taco Bell. They tore down the old, traditional Taco Bell and built a modern Taco Bell in its place. By modern I mean the facade is more vibrant and architecturally redesigned to entice those who crave only the finest in irritable bowel syndrome.

As I drove by I could see that the parking lot was packed. The inside was crammed with patrons. I don’t get it. It’s Taco Bell.

A few years back we lived in the bustling town of Temple. Months after making our daring move, a Chili’s restaurant opened. Everyone was so excited. Chili’s was the talk of the town. Everytime I drove by, the place was packed. You apparently had to know someone to get in the door. I mean, come on, it’s a Chili’s! You would have thought that Christ himself was in there serving up the Extreme Fajitas and Pizza Shooters.

I just don’t get it.

Honest recollection: I’m sitting in the back seat of a buddy’s car. He and his girlfriend are in the front seat and we’re driving to some inconsequential location…

“Hey Brent, we haven’t eaten at that McDonald’s yet!!!”

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Deck building skills

Elise and I like to entertain. We’d like to entertain more frequently. In the year and a half that we’ve lived in our house we’ve had a good number of get-togethers. When the weather is nice and we want to be outside, we’re limited to a 10-foot by 8-foot concrete patio. One of the things I noticed when we first looked at this house while house shopping was that it needed a good deck.

So I designed a deck. It’s a great design, too. Multi-leveled, built-in benches, railings, rafters. I found myself at the HoPot early this morning picking out lumber for my deck. I came home and dropped off my lumber and started laying out my framework. I found myself at the HoPot shortly after to exchange the screws that were too short. I found myself at the HoPot shortly after that because I realized that screwing the frame of my deck would work better with nails.

Six hours later I had a dilapidated frame, two busted toes from a falling 2×4, a broken flower pot, a sunburn and I was pissed.

So I did what any downtrodden deck builder would do. I threw my hammer across the yard, threw my hands to the skies, yelled f***, s***, a***, and then called my dad and requisitioned his infinite lumber wisdom and deck building skills. He and Mom will be here on Friday night to help build my deck next weekend.

Somewhere between f*** and s*** I went inside and made a great roasted turkey, aioli and avocado sandwich.

In my many years in college I wondered what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I made it through college and now maintain a good job. For many, many years I tried to find my niche. What is it that I’m good at? I have an air pocket in my tear duct that squeaks if I press on it. Poking myself in the eye to make a sound is cool and all, but it’s not really a skill; more like a devine gift. Look for my country & western CD in September: “Josh Janicek: Beer Drinkers and Tear Squeakers”.

So I’m not carpentry inclined. It took me six hours to figure that out. I can cook like a tear duct squeaking madman though. I’m confident in that. I have that skill that I’m proud of.

Deck building – I’ll see what I can pick up from Dad this weekend.

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EPA stops Hartz

I’ve owned and operated HartzVictims.org since November of 2002. Yesterday Hartz agreed, at the EPA’s request, to stop production and sales of several flea and tick products by year’s end.

I can’t begin to explain how happy this makes me. It’s been a long battle. I’ve received over 800 unique and sad stories about how a Hartz product has injured or killed a beloved pet.

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Cayenne pepper bite

I’m growing six varieties of peppers this year. The first to ripen are my cayennes. I picked a beautiful, low-hanging red pepper with purple top today. I held it in my hand and my mouth started watering. The red and purple colors were gorgeous.

I walked it into the kitchen and gently set it on the kitchen counter. I had to taste it. I debated on slicing it. I opted to bite into it. I knew it would be hot, but I wanted to taste the fruit of my labor.

I took a casual bite into my pepper and immediately tasted it. It had a great floral flavor matched with tang and bitterness. I basked in the flavor for .08 of a second before the capsaicin clocked in.

My forehead immediately beaded with sweat, my mouth flooded with saliva and my throat stung like I’d swallowed a yellow jacket nest. But man, did that bite taste good. So I took another bite.

I’m going to make hot sauce when more of the cayennes ripen.

When the habeneros ripen, I’m just going to make hot sauce. I won’t taste test them first.

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Memorial Day weekend babysitting Jack

John and Christine are in Mexico for a wedding this weekend. Back in February, when John asked me to be Godfather, he nonchalantly asked if we’d be willing to babysit Jack over the Memorial Day weekend. I said yes without hesistation.

A week later John asked, “Are you sure you guys are willing to babysit Jack for four days? I don’t want you to hate me when we get back.”

I said, “I said I’d do it, so I’ll do it.”

Here it is, Memorial Day weekend and day one of babysitting Jack. John and Christine came over at 6 a.m. this morning to drop off Jack on their way to the airport. Elise answered the door and immediately took over on morning duty. John woke me up and said something to me. I said, “yeah” and went back to bed. I woke up to the alarm, took a shower, etc. and staggered to the living room to say hi to Jack. I showed him where I keep the scotch, gave him a cigar and a bag of gummy bears, kissed Elise goodbye and went to work.

Elise played mom all day and must have done a good job because she’s conked out on the couch next to me right now. She’s exhausted. I’m pretty tired too because Jack ate all of my gummy bears and I have no source of sugar.

Thankfully Mom & Dad are here for the weekend so I can try to delegate poo duty.

The next three days should be interesting…

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Graduation dinner at PF Chang\’s

Elise and I had dinner at PF Chang’s last night to celebrate our neighbors’ daughter’s high school graduation. We ate at the PFC on Jollyville Road six or seven years ago and I remember the Lettuce Wraps. We thought they were good so I made my own a few days later. They were just as good if not better.

We’d been to PFC a couple times since. I don’t think the food is anything to write home about. The thing about Chang’s is the atmosphere and attention. The waiter leads you to believe that this is the most unique dining experience you’ll ever know.

Elise had the honey shrimp last night. I had the wok seared lamb. Before our meal I asked our waiter to recommend a nice, creamy chardonnay. When he brought our bill he asked “Wasn’t that the best, creamiest, buttery chardonnay?” I said “No.” He didn’t know what he was recommending.

I thought this discussion of PF Chang’s was pretty funny.

Anyway – we were there to celebrate with Theresa. The food was okay but the company was better. We had a chance to talk to our neighbors who we hadn’t seen in a while and to congratulate Theresa.

I had the opportunity to give Theresa my very worldly and renowned high school graduation advice: If you trip while walking across the stage, you will lose all of your friends, your parents will disown you, you’ll never get into college, your boyfriend will dump you and you’ll grow hair on your back.

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Assuming Elise

Many, many years ago, back in a time that we referred to as “The Nineties”, I lived in an apartment complex that was affectionately referred to as “The Method“.

Some of my closest friendships are biproducts of the days at The Method. We threw footballs to each other from the third floor of adjoining buildings. We played games like “Chenga” (Cheesy fell asleep on his birthday so we attempted to strategically stack household items on top of him without waking him) and Hacky Trash (a complex game of tennis requiring two empty pizza boxes and empty aluminum cans). We once put a scooter in the dumpster, removed it from the dumpster, jumpstarted it and returned it to the dumpster. We made a fancy plastic lawnchair bonfire in the breezeway. We would have regular competitions of Who Can Throw This Over the Roof of the Stripmall Across the Alley? We would order twelve pizzas to James’ apartment while he was at work. We would all hide in our respective apartments. When the pizza delivery guy would show up, we’d congregate in the breezeway and say that James was just hauled off to jail. We would get free pizzas.

It was a great fraternity. We were all free-spirited bachelors who were living in “The Nineties”; a time when men joined together, threw caution to the wind, passed wind, raised their fists into the air and belched.

Then a girl moved into building 4 just below your humble narrator. We never saw this girl. I’m pretty sure she was scared of us.

We liked to keep our sector of The Method relatively tidy. That girl below me left a pair of muddy hiking boots just outside her front door for a really long time. I immediately assumed and attributed this to lesbianism. Keep in mind that this was “The Nineties” and all lesbians wore muddy hiking boots. I know this because I once was a lesbian. I think.

Being the motley crew that we were, we contemplated using those muddy boots in a game of Hacky Trash. We thought about loading them with fireworks and seeing if we could launch them over the roof of the strip mall across the alley. It wasn’t that we were homophobic bigots, we just got tired of walking past dirty hiking boots everyday. We didn’t yet know this new neighbor and wanted her (and her hot lesbian friends) to feel welcome at The Method. We let the boots be.

Weeks later that dirty booted lesbian became my girlfriend. That was, of course, after learning that she wasn’t a lesbian. Then I married her.

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Spring house work

I ran over to the Bicycle Sport Shop and picked up my mountain bike on Friday evening. I’m yet to ride it – that’s on the agenda for this evening. After washing the truck I sat down to watch “Saw” again. Elise came home from work midway through the movie and I got up and made her dinner as she hadn’t eaten in a day and a half.

Elise had to go to work before sunrise on Saturday. I woke up not quite as early, worked in the yard a bit and then drove over to the Four Hands warehouse to pickup the dining room chairs and buffet table that Elise bought Friday afternoon. Now we have a buffet table. I don’t really understand why we have a buffet table. I didn’t grow up with a buffet table in the dining room. We don’t serve buffets. Am I required to have a sneeze guard and an endless supply of banana pudding with Nilla Wafers®?

I stopped at World Market and bought some cool dinner plates to use when we entertain. I drove up north to Fry’s with an 800 lb. buffet table in the back of the truck to get some stuff for work. I made it home just as John, Jack and Elise were getting back from house shopping. Elise met up with John & Christine late Saturday morning to look at the layout of a house that they’re thinking about building.

John and I went and picked up lunch at Fu Lai. The owner of the restaurant kept trying to sell us “crap puffs”. We weren’t in the mood for tempura poo. We got our to-go order and went back to the house.

After lunch we commissioned Theresa’s boyfriend, Seth to come over and help move the buffet table from the truck and into the dining room. John & Jack went home so Jack could go to sleep. Elise and I rented “Ocean’s 12” and drove over to John’s to watch the movie and to keep him company since Christine was in Dallas for the weekend.

I woke up early on Sunday, washed the other truck, mowed, edged and treated the front and back yards for fire ants. Marc & Cyndi came over later that morning and Marc helped me install the new base boards in the guest bedroom. Thankfully Marc brought his mitre saw and nail gun. A project that would have taken me all day took approximately an hour with the right tools.

We went to Cypress Grill for lunch. Cypress Grill has the best muffalettas in town. They actually won the Austin Chronicle’s “Best Muffaletta this side of I-10” critics poll this year. Unfortunately they didn’t have their Italian bread so we had ours on po-boy bread. Still a great sandwich nonetheless.

We went back to the house and I watered the lawn while Elise caulked the base boards.