WhiteEagle’s Aerie and Blog

I may be getting a Chess.com membership sooner…

I may be getting a Chess.com membership sooner rather than later. Why? I think I may have figured out why Joffee Hosting is not selling any hosting space, thanks to a friend of mine who messaged me on Facebook the other day sugguesting I add the following three items to it’s website:

1. Live Chat (to talk to people about what Joffee Hosting offers and for live support of customers)
2. Support Ticket system (always a great idea - worth a sub-domain in itself)
3. Frequently Asked Questions (I can already think of two I will put on this page!)

As far as I can tell, he’s right on all three points. Plus he purchased hosting from me for five sites, worth one hundred twenty-five dollars this first year, and one hundred twenty dollars every year afterwards. That works out to three months of hosting bills paid for Joffee Hosting. I will be sure to mention all of his suggestions to my web designer, who’s redoing Joffee Hosting for me.

I will probably be less available on my days off in the weeks ahead, as I recently successfully installed Civilization IV and it’s expansion pack, Beyond the Sword. I have played 8 hours so far, and I have still to finish my first game. This means that I may take longer to move in my Chess.com games. I recently installed Xfire and added a widget to the About Me page, so you can use it to see when I’m playing a game, doing something else, or just online.

Started earlier, finished earlier

I was supposed to work 12 to 8 pm today at the main store, but I started earlier thinking I worked an 11 to 7 shift instead. I went over to the Wal-Mart location (I loved most of the shift there, except for during the cleaning of the grease trap. What a smell!) and finished my shift shortly after 7 pm. When I had started, my bro said I was late by a minute, but actually when I look at it, I was fifty-nine minutes early! Thanks to me starting early, I got a ride home from a friend of friend who happens to also work with my mom. Talk about good luck, as otherwise I would have been stuck in town until 11pm.

I got a trophy on Chess.com from a recent opponent. It was the “Great Endgame Play”, and he applauded my moves at the end of our first game, which I won. It’s great to see my hard work paying off. I am hoping to win more games, as my current ranking is 1248. I know I will be definably be getting myself a premium membership to Chess.com after I pay off a bit more debt.

I recently picked up the latest Holiday edition of Maximum PC. My favorite article was on how to customize and streamline my PC’s Windows desktop, and I will definately have to try a few out, like RocketDock and WindowBlinds. I also like the reviews of the latest hardware, as I’m always trying to keep my “Ultimate PC” build list up to date. Besides that build, I have quite a few others planned, and each one I must keep up to date as well, so Maximum PC is my #1 source off-line for doing so. Online, it’s HardwareLogic Forums, which is in my list of “Cool Sites”. Back to magazine, I think I may have found the perfect PC for my future kitchen: one of the HP TouchSmart series I think will do the trick.

I’m kind of back to blogging regularly.

I’ve noticed that I’m kind of back to blogging fairly regularly. My personal guess is that helps me relieve stress by writing it down, as I don’t like a journal as it’s too private, therefore a blog is my way to write down my feelings. Some would say take a risk writing about my feelings towards my workplace, but right now I could not care very much. Since this is my way to relieve my stress, and work causes most of the stress, it only makes sense that I blog about it.

It’s great to finally get a Sunday off from work. I have worked so many of them lately that working them is no longer as relaxing as it once was. It’s nice that I always close on Sundays, but soon that will be worthless (see previous post for a full explanation why).

I lost my company’s main domain becuase I did not have enough money to pay for it. I am planning on repurchasing it on payday from where I have purchased most of my other domains from, Idotz.net. It’s a great place to get a domain from, and they accept Paypal to boot.

I don’t like my options for travelling to and from work in the new year.

My dad’s house, where he works at (I won’t say his employer) is closing at the end of the year so he is being transferred to work in Wetaskawin starting January 1st. This means I will have two transportation into and from work and Camrose:

1. Get up to go in for 7am, and go home around 11pm.
2. Take a taxi at $25/each way.

I don’t like my options. Option one means I spend most of my time in town, most likely hanging around McDonalds. Option two gets very expensive very fast ($50/day), becuase I usually work five days a week, and sometimes six. I think I need to save up and move into town, as it will be the best in the long term. I think I will try and use option one for now, as I have to pay off credit card debt (at ~$8,100 currently) before I can move into town.

My company is supporting Covenant House next month!

Press Release: December is Covenant House Month at Joffee Publishing Inc. - Check this link to read my company’s latest press release. To sum it up: Purchase anything from Joffee Publishing Inc, Joffee Hosting, Leet Link, or Writers Zone (or continue a current subscription), and Joffee Publishing Inc. will donate 25% of it to Covenant House. They are worthy of our help, and deserve our support. Most of their funding comes from private sources like you and me, so why don’t we give them a hand?

In the last ten years alone, Covenant House has helped over 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 escape the streets to begin a new life. These young people chose originally to live on the streets to escape some form of abuse, or were forced to leave their homes. Let’s help Covenant House keep on helping these young people!

I can’t access Civiziation Fanatics Forums tonight.

I visit Civilization Fanatics Forums every night, mostly because of the chess sub-forums are pretty good, but also because I play Civilization IV every so often. Tonight however, I keep receiving the “Bad Response from Server” error message. Normally, I can press F5 to refresh and get to where I’m going, but no matter how many times I’ve tried to refresh, I cannot access the site. Kinda makes me disappointed in a way, because I love getting advice on my chess game there. That reminds me I still have to install Tournament Chess on my computer, but I have a valid excuse: I have been working odd hours at McDonalds lately.

I finally figured out why I like working in one location over the other.

To start things off, I decided to start posting on my Chess.com blog as well as on WhiteEagle’s Aerie and Blog, because more people will read what I post if I use two blogs instead of only one. So if I have something come up and I post it to my blogs, my friends [both online and in RL ;)] will know what’s going on that much sooner.

Now for the main reason I am posting. I always now I’ve liked working in the Wal-Mart location of McDonalds over the main store. The answer: Simple! People at the Wal-Mart location know that they are getting paid to work, and not to talk. I get way too frustrated at the main store because it always takes 30 minutes to close the place. Why? People are talking and not working as well. I would not mind half as much the talking, if they would work at the same time. At least at the Wal-Mart location, people tend to work while they talk. It is not all the time, and I don’t mind, because I know I can get the place closed before 11pm. I just don’t like working that much after 11pm, because the more time I have to work, the less time I have at home before I should go to bed. (I tend to be in bed by 2am, but there are always exceptions!)

It’s time for me to find a new job.

It’s high time for me to find a new job. A friend once told me:

When the bad days outnumber the good ones, it’s time to find a new job.

That is exactly the kind of situation I’m in right now. The bad days are outnumbering the good ones by at least a factor of 2 to 1. Add the fact that the scheduling manager keeps threatening to reduce my hours, and it’s definately time for me to find a new place of employment. I should get treated with a little respect at my current place of employment, because I have worked there for the last 4 1/2 years, and have only missed a shift or two when I’m really sick. Don’t you agree I should find a place of employment where that much loyalty gets rewarded? I’m also tired of working with my brothers. Hopefully it won’t take me long to find a new job, so I can leave my current job for good!