What is Matt up to?

All year, Matt has been telling Sandy that he has no money because he is paying for his mothers medical expenses. Matt's mother has diabetes and has been in and out of the hospital.

Last week Sandy talked to Mom. Apparently Matt hasn't beeing paying for her medical expenses.

So where has the money gone? Sandy and Matt's mom want to have a good talk with Matt. They aren't returning RO's and my calls. I hav been getting some text messages from Sandy though...

Sunday...

Matt's mom and I need to have an important talk with him tonight.

Monday...

Matt's mom wouldn't come out of her room last night, so I'm hoping we can talk tonight. Thanks for the support.

Today...

Things are not going well. We won't be able to have dinner with you soon. I miss you guys. Sorry.

Sandy emailed RO after this. Matt is not talking to either his Mother or Sandy.

At my day job, the company is talking about lay offs. It may be contingency planning. It may be reality. I won't know for sure until it happens.

My boss and I have identified one person on my team who could be laid off. This fellow is on the cusp of being fired anyways. If he improves he'll stay. He'll be fired if he does not.

The unintended consequence-- I no longer want to coach him to improve his performance. I am hesitant to spend much time with him because I'm not sure my effort will pay a long term dividend. I have many things to do. I can only afford to work on that which will grow in the long run.

And thus I doom him. He'll either be fired for not being good enough, or he will be laid off.

RO is getting the store ready for the holidays and hurting his back badly in the process. It is very frustrating to watch him do this. He feels very responsible for the sucess of the store. The economy ways heavily one him. And the only thing he knows he can do for free is to work harder.

We made apple crisp last night; from apples we picked off the tree in the back yard.

And we met the new neighbours. They seam nice, though we didn't talk long.

Porno Story...

On Thursday, RO invited a couple of people he met on Bear 411 over for dinner. It was very nice. I knew one of the couple from way back when I played softball.

A few years ago this couple was at a gay resort. One night the resort held a contest where one lucky fellow could win $500.00 and star in a porno filmed by Chi Chi LaRue. Chi Chi is an aging drag queen and director of porno is about as famous as one could be if one were to be famous for being a drag queen that directed porno's.

The winner was a handsome young man. They filmed the next day at the resort's pool. Chi Chi showed up-- bald and with a towel wraped around this head.

As they started filiming, Chi Chi barked out orders in gravely and nasally voice "Stand over there! Your arm is in the way! Bend over more!" Order after order. There is a reason they play lots of music in porno's; it's so you can't hear the director.

At one point the film star slipped and hit his head on the cement floor. You could see the bruise. Chi Chi shouted "Let's keeping going! We are on a schedule. If you want your $500.00 you're gonna have to finish filiming."

Last night, RO and I toured around the gay bars of Kent. We were originally going to go to bear night at a bar in Tacoma, but everyone we invited to come along essentially said "You will be very disspointed. Only druggies and the homeless go to that bar."

Instead we went to the local bars. The first bar had very bad service. Rumor has it, the lesbian bartender doesn't want men in her establishment. She certainly treated us that way. At one point, I wanted another beer. I waved my empty glass to the bartender who was no more than five feet away. She looked right at me for several seconds, or rather, she looked right through me. I never got my beer.

The second bar was much more friendly, although we know the owners. They had a drag show on. RO and I watched a while.

RO is back and C2 is gone. Fall is here. It's cold even when you are in the sun.

For the first time in years, we went to Van's breakfast kitchen. Bruce, C2 and I used to go there for breakfast every weekend. That was so long ago.

The weird part about being in my late thirties is that it has started to hit me what it means to be old. I see that I'm turning into my father. Amost an curmugon, but not quite. I notice waste more, of time and of money, and I try to ride it from my life. When I see people being foolish, being young, I sometimes think "One day you will have goals so big that they will push you to the limit. Then you will wish you had used your time more productivly."

RO is off to AZ for a few days. A client hiered him to design her house. He's very nervous. This is a very rich client and he really wants to wow her.

Last night we bought RO a few new and nice dress shirts for the trip. This morning as he was packing he discovered that the anti-theft devices were still attached to all the shirts! He tried to remove them from two of the shirts, but ended up getting dye all over.

RO was very pissed. I'm sure the store will get a blast when he gets back.

RO just called. He lost is wallet on the way. I hope nothing else goes wrong.

C2 is in town from Iraq for a few days. With all his savings, he's looking for property to invest in. And with the market beeing what it is, now is a good time for him to buy.

RO and I took a day off work and we drove out to the Hood Canal with him and looked at a few places. The homes were nice-- all were on the water front, but none of them screamed "Buy me now."

In the evening we met up with Matt, Sandy and Steven for dinner at Siam's. It was a fun evening. That part of town is going through a lot of development. Old buildings are now ten story condos.

Saturday night, RO and I went to a nice mexican restaurant. The owners of this restaurant are good customers of ours. They treated us well. They upsized our margaritas. I'm sure the margaritas were 90% booze. RO couldn't finish his. I was very tipsy after mine.

We started talking about the store and what needs to be done. RO isn't ready to take action. This is risky. Some day soon, in the next six months, the money runs out. If we don't take action now, then our hands will be tied next year.

RO's point is that if we lay people off just before Christmas, then our customer service will be bad and that will hurt Christmas sales. He doesn't want to make layoffs till next year.

So we gamble on Christmas then. 2009 will be a very interesting year.

And how is Gordon? He is OK now. He is very quiet around me and he usually doesn't look me directly in the eyes. He was always a quiet man, but never this quiet. Fortunately, he still is doing a good job.

I'm hearing much more about what he wants. He desperately wants a promotion. He desperately wants people to tell him how to get ahead. That's the problem. His career is as high as it can be without being a leader. To get his next promotion, he has to turn his question on its head. He has to decide what needs to be done and work with the team to make that happen.

The store is hurting.

Sigh.

The store is hurting.

RO and I need to do some serious planning. If Christmas is not great, then we are in trouble. We need to figure out how to make Christmas great.

Bitterness Part III.

Gordon is off work today-- sick. I hope he is sick for real. He says he has a headache and neck pain. Which could be stress sickeness.

Bitterness. Part II.

The re-org was announced this morning. All is not well. Gordon, the most senior of the new people, is bitter that he doesn't have my job-- I think. It's all hearsay and the stories don't line up.

On Friday, before the official announcement, my boss talked with Gordon about the re-org. My boss says they agreed that Gordon would report to me because Gordon's work is heavily used in one of my projects. Gordon says they agreed that Gordon would get that project and people from me and become a new manager in the process.

Right now I need to listen and not pass judgement. I don't understand how such a misunderstanding could occur. I also need to be careful about what I say to Gordon in private.

It's good that I'm a fresh face that Gordon can't blame for what happened in the past.

It turns out that I have a secret management power and I didn't even know it-- I'm nice and people like to work for me.

My boss and his boss are going to to take advantage of this.

Some of the managers that report ot my boss have a few bitter employees that are threatening to leave. My boss is moving these employees over to me and my team. If I can make the bitter people a little less bitter, convice them to stay just a little bit longer and get a little more work out of them, then every one wins.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I know that it's my job as a manager to make sure the company gets value from its employees and I don't disagree with that task. It's just that, I can no longer smile and say "Hello!" to someone without thinking "I'm being nice to you so that you will work here longer and harder!"

Steven was over for dinner last night. It was the first time that he's been to our place in over a year.

He recently, regretfully, signed his divorce papers. He still wants to get back together with Vic, but Vic no longer trusts him.

Other than that, we talked about the market and economy. Steven is a real estate agent so he very senstitive to such things. It's going to be a lean year for both Steven and RO.

Bad Genes and Family secrets.

On one side of my family, I have a few married uncles and cousins who never had kids. They didn't want kids they said. With a little disappointment, the rest of the uncles and aunts accepted this. There was no shortage of children anyways-- their brothers had faimilies of 3 to 7 children.

Now my brother wants a baby. He and his wife are having problems conceiving. For answers, they went to a doctor for tests.

The test results are back. It turns out my brother has a bad gene; a gene that makes him sterile. The Doctor also said that about quarter of the relatives on one side of the family should also have this gene, should also be sterile.

My brother now feels closer to the cousins and uncles who don't have kids and is tempted to confide in them.

I'm wondering about myself. Am I shooting blanks? I've never wanted children, so the answer is academic. But still... so much of a mans ego is tied up in his virility.

I had lunch with Steven today. He is adjusting well to single life. The extra freedom has allowed him to work out regularly and now he looks great.

He is a bit lonely though. And his new job has a realestate agent is taking up many hours, so he isn't spending as much time with friends as he wants.

Gossip. Work Gossip.

I don't know why he does this, but occasionally BK will stop by my office and tell me too much information about the powers that be.

It's interesting when his information aligns with other gossip, I end up learning more than he knows.

In this case, a few months back, I heard that the a couple in our division, CE and DE, were having marital problems. CE was having an affair with our VP.

Then, today, I hear that DE is promoted to partner. Many people in the higher ranks are livid. Partners earn seven figures. While DE is a great guy, great isn't good enough to be a partner.

The VP apologized and admitted that DE was promoted too early.

One has to wonder why DE was promoted early. Why would our VP decide to highly reward him?

Hmmmm.

This is why I try not to gossip. One bit of information is innocuous. Two tidbits start a story and end with questions that have obvious, but potentially wrong, answers.

RO and I spent muc of the weekend on LCN and Brewer's boat. It was fun, but, I am not convinced that I don't want to own a boat. I want friends that have boats.

Pleasure boating is mostly about hanging around and drinking. The crowd is a little more successfull than your regular bar crowd-- since you either have to own a boat, or be friends of the boat owner-- however, it's still a heavy drinking crowd.

It may be different if I got a sail boat. That, however, is a life of it's own. I wouldn't have time to work around thouse.

Back to boating. There was a lesbian there who took off her bra and gave it to RO. RO and she danced together.

RO has always wanted to know if I have bi tendances. He convienced the lesbian to cuddle up against me, topless. It didn't do anything for me, althought this lesbian was mid 40's and a smoker.