Busy Week

Last week was an uncharacteristically busy week for me. Here's the highlights.

Wednesday night, I went out with some buddies to a concert featuring The Cure. Since I lived under a rock during the 80's and 90's, I was never familiar with their music until '99 or 2000, at which time I became a fan of their atmospheric pieces like "Fascination Street" and "Pictures of You." I associate them with the loneliness paired with the joyous freedom I felt after moving away to college, especially while walking around the city at night. So watching the show recalled those emotions. Unfortunately, the show was 4 hours long, and most of my favorites were played during the first hour. Therefore, after an emotionally draining hour, I spent the remainder of the time distracted by cute girls in the arena. At the beginning of the show, I really enjoyed the opening band, 65 Days of Static.

Thursday, I watched the new Indiana Jones movie. It was mostly good. My favorite part of the others in the series is the humorous, fast-paced action sequences and the smart-alack personality of Indy. This new movie contained these same elements. However, the movie also contained a bit too much sap for me, and (spoiler alert) I would have preferred the movie not to contain space aliens. But for the most part, if you enjoyed the prior installments, I recommend you see "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."

Workplace drama continues, but things have gotten much, much worse. All of us employees have severe problems with our boss, which makes the office a terribly poisonous environment to be in. I'm not sure it's even worth confronting it with him, because things got much worse after we tried to address the last issue I mentioned. Our sales guy (hereafter "Peter") brought up the issue to our boss ("Erik") that our graphics designer "Corey," who has sacrificed a lot financially to be with the company, feels under-appreciated. Peter mentioned it because he knew that it was negatively affecting Corey's work, and his only expectation was that Erik would try to do something to reassure him. Instead, our boss got very angry and defensive about it. This became apparent when Erik wrote the check out to Corey to reimburse him for the $1000 enrollment fee for COBRA, which they had agreed on months earlier. While handing over the check, Erik told Corey, "listen, I know you're struggling and have sacrificed a lot for this company, so I put some extra on this check to help you out." Corey thought to himself, "say, that was a really nice thing for Erik to do for me," and he was feeling much better. However, when he looked at the check, it was made out for the astonishing amount of $1007.63! Wow! It boggles my mind that Erik is so much of a jerk that he would be so insultingly dismissive of Corey. Peter and I wonder if we can and should put up with Erik's personality.

There's other shocking stories I could share about the horrible personality flaws we're having to deal with from our boss, but I'm trying to focus on the positive; I've invested so much of my time and energy in this company, that I'm not sure it's worth throwing it all away. At least one good thing is coming of this; while commiserating we've become better friends. Corey and I went out Friday night, and it was a lot of fun.

Well, sorry for the text-heavy post. Here's a picture for you.

The photo didn't turn out legible at all, but I liked this woman's solution to the fact that motorcycles don't have much room for bumper stickers. Her exposed back was plastered with tattoos containing such White guilt messages as "Trail of Broken Treaties" and "The Sioux: The Forgotten Veterans."