Hitek Homeless » holiday

Party over here!

johnny — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:12:45 +0000

So, it’s kind of last minute notice, but today is Jenn’s Birthday Anniversary. To celebrate, we’re throwing a burrito bash. At 2pm PST (yes, an hour from now!), anyone that wants to wander over for a couple of burritos is welcome. We recommend bringing your own chair.

Place: Slab City, USA. Corner of East Beal and County road.

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Christmas Snow!

johnny — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:51:51 +0000

Well, Frosty here isn’t really made from Christmas snow. I built him a couple of weeks ago when Jenn went in for extra overtime and I stayed home doing laundry and stuff. I don’t think any of the neighbors noticed me building a snow man at 2 AM, but if they did, they probably decided I was the kind of person it’s best to avoid.

Sadly, he is a bit worse for wear after two weeks. His face fell off as soon as the sun came out the following day and his back side gets most of the afternoon sun, so he’s acquired a definite lean. Meanwhile, someone’s dog decided to mark him, so he appears to have peed himself a bit. Anyway, Merry Christmas!

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Thanks, But No Thanks

jenn — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:34:36 +0000

Tonight, I worked my final night at amazon.com. They are unaware of that fact. It would appear that they had planned on hiring me on full time, but neglected to tell me. Now they want two weeks notice if I am going to leave. They aren’t getting it. Apparently that means that I will not be welcome back. So be it. While its a nice compliment to be chosen out of the 1000s that wanted to stay, I had always planned on leaving after the holiday. I never asked to stay. I was just myself. I feel like they are the ones that broke our deal, not me.

Image from www.toothpastefordinner.com

Integrity treats their people like crap and the only way I would work for them again is if I was COMPLETELY desperate or they were the only means to a job I really, really wanted. One example of their total disregard for people: Last night they let 100s of people come in and then laid them off before they even got 5 minutes on the clock. Most of those people had just driven 30-40miles to come in. It sucks being laid off when you want the job. It really sucks when you waste hours and dollars only to be told you no longer needed.

Integrity played so many unnecessary head games. They would write people up for things that were completely out of their control. Almost everyone who started the night I did got wrote up for not making their week four numbers (270) during week one. In orientation, they handed out a piece of paper that said what our expected UPH (Units Per Hour) was. In your first week, you were supposed to make 120 (I don’t have the sheet with me so that’s from memory). Each week it would ramp up. I think it was 180 in week 2 and 230 in week three. At the end of week 4, you are required to be at the same as the full time employees 270.

By the time my week 4 rolled around, there were too many people on the floor for anyone to get the UPH. Still, they kept writing people up for not getting their numbers. They didn’t write everyone up either. Just the majority. It was painful watching friends who really needed/wanted the job get picked on.

I wouldn't call it the best way, but it sure is different

But, I do hate to burn bridges. And, its my understanding that in addition to my attendance, attitude, and numbers, someone had to stand up and speak highly on my behalf in order for me to make the cut. I would really hate to make that person look bad. The individual people there are nice, and I got along with everyone. I will miss them.

But, I will not miss the Integrity head games. Amazon seems like a decent company to work for. After what I experienced tonight, they do take good care of their employees and most of them are happy with their jobs. It was a completely different environment tonight after the temps had cleared out. Everyone was joking around and having a good time. And, even though there wasn’t any work, they found ways to keep us busy and paid. It didn’t seem like such a bad place after all.

This will probably be my last post about Amazon.com.

We discovered a pipe in our camper that had busted due to ice tonight. It is still frozen. I guess I know what we are going to be doing tomorrow .

We hope everyone is enjoying their holidays.

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Happy Birthday Patrick (aka Mik)!

johnny — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:33:56 +0000

The attacking thug is barely worthy
of notice as he is much lower level

Oops. We missed Patrick’s 40th birthday by a few days here on the blog, but that’s because we were hanging out with the old man himself, along with many of his family and friends near Seattle, WA. Patrick is a friend I met playing City of Villains a couple of years ago. In a game that had amazing PVP and a strongly PVE oriented community, it was great to find a like-minded soul that was more interested in beating up on real live hero scum than fighting the AI. Patrick was the driving force behind organizing and training one of the few villain PVP groups and the only one I’m aware of that could challenge and beat the experienced hero groups. He also has a wicked sense of humor that kept us all going during the long leveling grind.

Since we were ‘in the neighborhood’, you know – west of the Mississippi and north of California, we had to drop in for the little shindig he was throwing. His family is just as great and it’s easy to see how Patrick has become such a gracious person, surrounded by so many warm and friendly people. They were kind enough to provide us a place to park for three nights in a wonderfully quiet clearing within sight of the Puget Sound. I don’t think it would be possible for a group of people to treat complete strangers any nicer than they treated us. By the end of the weekend, we felt as if we’d known everyone for ten years instead of three days.

Roman and Jaden attack!

In fact, the entire weekend became a mini City of Villains reunion. Morgan, another of Patrick’s friends and gaming buddies recently moved to Seattle from Juneau, making three of us. Morgan also helped set up the surprise guest, Jeremy’s arrival from Colorado. Jeremy was yet another of the guys we used to play City of Villains with. By mid-day Saturday, we could have been geeking out hardcore if we’d only had enough machines for everyone to play on. Fortunately, we didn’t and the rest of the party wasn’t forced to watch Patrick playing video games for the entire weekend. =)

The weekend was a non-stop riot of amazing Alaskan seafood, games of all sorts (except video games!), fun and interesting people, and for anyone that stood still too long – swarms of ninja kids looking for attention, caffeine, sugar, or preferably, all three! We’re going to be in the area for a few weeks waiting on passports and hope we can get together with Patrick, Caro, Tony, Siobhan and Roman again before we head across the border.

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Happy Birthday Anniversary Jenn!

johnny — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:00:34 +0000

Today, Jenn is celebrating the *CENSORED* anniversary of her 24th birthday! Somebody help me light all these candles. Sorry for the late post hun, I’ll get in the kitchen and burn you a birthday dinner right away to make up for it.

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Update

jenn — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:42:34 +0000

Well, we have been sitting in the same place so long I think I have a root or two starting. We need start moving before that root makes contact with the soil. The two main reasons we have been here so long are my new web page and the fabulous hospitality of my Aunt and Uncle. And, well a little lack of motivation on my part compounded with being sick.

Being with family has been great. It was nice to be able to spend the holidays with loved ones. What is Christmas w/o excited little children ripping open presents? My relatives provided that and much more. Roasted lamb, spiced eggnog, rum cake, holiday cheer, and much more. We have had some nice times while we have been here and really appreciate their concern and hospitality. We will miss them for sure. But, now its time to ramble.

I really wanted to get the website live before we hit the road again. Being on the road can provide a lot of wonderful distractions, and I wasn’t sure that I would get it done otherwise. The possibility of no Internet access would have put a damper on it, too. Once I got it online, it was very well received. By most folks anyway. There are a one or two people, namely pianotuna and dumolebob, who have taken an active interest in the site. Many thanks go out to them. The other users have been keeping me busy with features and requests, too. Its great.

Hooray! We are almost germ free. I was worried that I was going to have to go get some antibiotics. Thankfully, 1 1/2 weeks later, we are almost healed! I can’t remember the last time I was (flu type) sick. Johnny got over it pretty quickly. For me, it got worse every day. Finally, yesterday was so bad I couldn’t even sit up to use my computer. Today, I fell 70% better. I am still pumping the hot fluids into my body. Hopefully it will be 100% gone tomorrow.

The good news is I am feeling well enough to get us ready to leave. The bad news is that there are going to be strong/severe thunderstorms for the next few days followed by freezing temps. Fun.

Well, I must be off. I have lots to do.

Best of luck to eveyone in this new year.

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A few family recipes

johnny — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 03:07:28 +0000

This will probably be our last week in Tennessee before we head out for warmer climes sometime next week. Jenn’s aunt and uncle have invited us to Thanksgiving dinner, and there’s no way we can refuse, considering the spread they put out. In the spirit of traditional Thanksgivings, we figured we’d share a few more homemade recipes: my grandmother’s chocolate pie recipe and Jenn’s uncle’s recipe for limoncello.

Grandma’s Chocolate Pie

2 cups of sugar

6 teaspoons of cocoa

1/2 cup of corn starch

4 eggs

4 cups of milk

1 stick of butter (or margarine if you insist)

dash of salt

1 8 ounce container of Cool Whip (thawed)

2 baked pie crusts

Grab a medium sized pot and toss in everything but the pie crusts (duh!), Cool Whip and butter. Set your stove to medium or medium high heat and begin mixing it together. Once the mixture seems to be warming up a bit, toss the stick of butter in and keep stirring. You’re going to do a lot of stirring. Basically, you want to keep stirring until it achieves the consistency of a thick pudding. I recommend a whisk for this… or even a small hand mixer if you can keep it from splashing all over.

Once the mixture thickens up, remove it from heat and pour into a couple of pie shells. Personally, I like Oreo or graham cracker pie crusts, but it’s pretty hard to ruin this pie by picking the wrong crust. Next, I like to leave the pies sitting out under a paper towel so that the steam doesn’t form condensation and make the crust soggy. About an hour should do it. Once they’ve cooled a bit, toss them in the fridge or freezer to cool further. Before serving, cover them with Cool Whip and grab your own fork and plate so as to be sure of getting a slice.

Uncle Mike’s Limoncello

Limoncello is a fashionable after dinner drink all over Italy. There are many commercial limoncellos sold today, but only the homemade liqueur has the fresh and refreshing edge that makes it such a wonderful drink. The popular way to serve limoncello is from the freezer and syrupy thick, but it is often served at room temperature as well.

The key ingredient to limoncello is, of course, the lemons. The fresher the lemons, the more oil can be extracted from their skins and the more flavorful the liqueur. Traditional recipes call for a few green lemons as well as the yellow, but green lemons are difficult to find in the US. Mottled yellow and green lemons are an excellent choice. Green (or mottled) lemons will add more fragrance to the drink, while yellow lemons will add more flavor.

3 pounds of lemons

1 liter of grain alcohol (190 proof)

5 1/2 cups of water

3 3/4 cups of sugar

Peel the lemons, being careful not to remove any of the white pith along with the lemon zest as it gives a bitter taste. A lemon zester works best for this task, however a potato peeler or knife will do in a pinch.

Put the lemon zests into a half gallon container along with the grain alcohol. Store this in a cool, dark place for 3-4 days, taking out to shake several times a day.

Once the lemon zests become pale and crisps, you’ve extracted all of the lemon oil from them. Strain them out of the alcohol and discard the zests.

Grab a pot and mix your sugar and water together. Heat this on the stove over medium-low to medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves. Do not let the water boil. You are aiming for a clear sugar syrup. Once achieved, let the sugar water cool down to room temperature.

Mix the alcohol with the sugar syrup and you’re all set. You’ll need a couple of liter bottles to store the limoncello. You can drink it at this point, but the flavor will round out a bit if allowed to sit for a week. As for the leftover lemons, need I suggest lemonade?

Happy turkey day everyone!

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On the nature of campgrounds

johnny — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:21:15 +0000

We just finished up a week long stay at a commercial campground with Jenn’s family. The entire week was a blast. There was good food, good company and plenty of kids to keep things interesting. However, after spending the prior month in the middle of the national forests, we had a bit of culture shock coming back into ‘the city’.

It started as we came into Pigeon Forge, which is about as big a tourist trap as Myrtle Beach. Six lanes of traffic, giant signs on both sides of the street and lots of useless shops and attractions. Thankfully, we got out of the Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg areas and back into the National Park lands for the last few miles.

However, as soon as we arrived at the campground, we ran into the owner who quizzed us about pets and whether or not we were planning to ride our moped in the campground. She then pointed us at the site we were to occupy; it was, in fact, next to the creek, but the creek was very low. It was also thirty feet from the entrance to the campground and as close as you can get to the road. At least, we had three sites together, so that we only backed the truck camper in halfway, turned around the pop-up camper on one side with the class A on the other and had the creek to form the fourth ‘wall’ of the compound.

In the middle, we threw a dozen chairs around the fire with picnic tables off to the sides. Being centrally located and having outside speakers, we were elected DJs for the week and were regularly criticized by music connoisseurs ranging in age from three on up. The physical arrangement made the campsite feel pretty private, but a quick stroll through the campground was enough to remind you just how many campers were crammed into such a small area.

As the week went on and the Fourth approached, campers kept rolling in. Eventually every full hookup spot was taken as well as the bulk of the tent sites. In addition, Camping World brought out a bunch of units and had a camper show right in the middle of the campground. By the afternoon of the Fourth, the swimming hole was so crowded you would be lucky to fully extend both arms and not hit someone else. Jenn pegged it when she said, “To these people this is camping and to us, its going to town.”

One of the odd things was just running across people in the campground. After so long in the woods, we were used to people stopping to talk even if they were just driving through or out for a ride. In the national forests, it seemed that people always had time to stop and chat for a bit, or at the very least wave if they were working like Wayne and Joe. Back in ‘civilization’, everyone seemed to be on their own agenda, without time to even nod on their way to the bathhouse.

Overall though, we had a great time. The kids ran wild in the campground, there was plenty of shopping nearby for the ladies and the fishermen barely caught enough fish to say they went fishing. I just sat around and enjoyed the food and company. Jenn and I are trying to talk everyone into going to one of the large primitive sites we’ve found for next year. Who needs air conditioning anyway?

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Happy Independence Day!

johnny — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:09:13 +0000

Don’t let me take you away from your 4th of July celebrations, but when you have some spare time, sit back and read the Declaration of Independence again. In fact, read as much American Revolutionary history as you like. Its fascinating stuff; full of smugglers and privateers (pirates!).

It’s not something you hear about terribly much, but for nearly half of our country’s existence, we employed privateer ships as part of our naval force. In fact, both sides of the conflict used privateers during the Civil War. Countries with a large naval power refused to recognize privateers as prisoners of war when captured and treated them as common pirates.

What’s my point in all of this? I don’t really have one except to remind you that the price for independence was paid in a large part by privateers, smugglers and first and second generation transportees. We’ve put on a lot of airs in the past two centuries, but when you get down to it, most of us are just plain folks.

Like my flag? Chris Whitten has an excellent article on the history of the Gadsden flag.

Now get outside and blow something up! If the neighbors come out to yell at you, I’m not saying you should hit em with a bottle rocket, but a warning shot across their bow might be in order.

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Happy Birthday, Johnny!

jenn — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:39:39 +0000

If I had an oven, I would so make you a cake! I know, I am supposed to be using the solar oven, but babes, it wouldn’t be very effective here in the rainforest anyway. Oh, and the fact that we used up all of the sugar and eggs feeding the local folks pie doesn’t help much either.

That’s our new life hun. I hope you’re loving it as much as I am.

Glad to be spending another birthday with ya. I am sorry that all I have to give you is this stolen birthday card.

xoxox Happy Birthday, Baby! xoxox

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Happy New Gregorian Year!

jenn — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:23:00 +0000

We spent the absolutely beautiful first day of the year trying out Johnny’s new metal detector and exploring a nearby park. We discovered that the park has camping facilities. Pictures of the booty and the park will be posted shortly. I hope everyone has a happy new year.

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Hitek Homeless » holiday

Party over here!

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