Vicki Hamilton

We have a 4 day convention in Nashville this week, so I’m driving up there tonight. The convention was going to be at the Opryland hotel, but it got flooded in May when Nashville had that terrible time with the Cumberland River flooding the downtown and hundreds of homes and businesses along the river. So we are having the convention at the Renaissance Hotel instead.

The best part is that I will get to see one of my college friends while I’m there. Alexa works in the Nashville suburbs and is going to drive downtown to meet me for lunch on Friday. I wish we had more time together, but this convention is a pretty full schedule.

Good grief. This Letterman joke and Palin overreacting is getting ridiculous. The Chicago Tribune site calls out for Letterman to offer a formal apology. His aired apology pretty much covered it. The joke was a joke. Palin needs to get over it. Her remarks to Matt Lauer this morning were out of line and typical of a redneck getting all het up over nothing.

I’m SOOOO glad that she is not our Vice President. I hate to think that this white trash hussy could have been one heartbeat away from actually being President and shaming us all. I’m not even a political activist. But my goodness, don’t you agree that this woman and her trashy family are a train wreck?

I am sick of hearing all the girls at the office complaining about their husbands and boyfriends. The crap they put up with it totally unbelievable to me. I would kick a man to the curb before I would put up with the stuff I hear about in the break room.

I am starting to wonder if there are any decent men out there any more.

I hope you have a Hoppy Easter, today. If the Easter Bunny finds your house, save some candy for me! I miss having little kids around to hunt for Easter Eggs and share their candies.

This morning I arrived downtown early for an appointment so I stopped by a coffee shop just a few doors down and had a nice cup of coffee. It was extremely quiet in the coffee shop – everyone but me had a laptop on the table in front of them and were busy clicking and tapping keys.

This new year is supposed to be one of great change and new hope for America. I plan to incorporate that into my own life, too. I am going to seriously search for a new job and if that means that I have to move to another part of the country, so be it. I want to find a job that I am good at and enjoy doing, and not just be a paycheck that keeps me trapped in a dysfunctional office. I already have some great ideas. . . .

Here’s hoping that we all have a very Happy New Year!

Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my car. I bought my Malibu brand new, off the lot, with everything I wanted in it except for leather seats, and I was able to talk the dealership into having aftermarket leather seatcovers put on it – at no extra charge!

But with the cost of gas going up and up, I’m starting to wonder if I really need to drive this car every day and every where. Since my house is only 5-6 minutes from the office, it’s a little too far to walk (especially in the summer heat) but it’s close enough that I’m thinking that a quick scooter ride to work might be fun and it will save a bunch on gas.

I’ve seen a couple really nice Vespa scooters and they don’t cost very much. They get really great gas mileage – I’d only have to fill it up once or twice a month, and it’s a tiny gas tank! Of course, my Dad will freak out – he hates motorcycles. But its not like I’m turning into a Harley rider or anything.

Yesterday was all about food since it was my birthday.

My boss took me out to lunch and we invited his secretary and my friend in human resources to go with us. He wanted me to pick the restaurant, so I picked one that I know he likes – the Macaroni Grill. I think almost everyone likes good Italian food. We all ordered a different entre and then when it came out to our table we all shared between ourselves. That was really cool and one of the great things about working with these guys. We are a strong team and I think of several co-workers as fondly as I do my own brothers and sisters.

When we got back to the office, there was a surprise waiting for us – a birthday ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. Everyone popped into the main conference room to wish me a happy birthday and get themselves a big piece of cake. So of course, I had to eat a slice – to hell with the diet on my birthday!

Then last night my parents wanted me to come over and I was hoping for a home cooked meal, as my mom is a great cook and there’s things she can cook that I can’t manage to have turn out any where near as good as hers. But my dad wanted to go out, so they told me to pick a restaurant. One of my favorites is an Asian Fusion restaurant, but it’s a little expensive for my budget and I would have loved to go there, but Dad doesn’t really like Asian food and he didn’t want to go there, so I just picked the Longhorn Steakhouse. My Dad is pretty much a meat and potatoes guy, and he likes just about everything on the Longhorn menu.

So I stuffed myself like a pig yesterday and had a very nice day celebrating my 30th birthday. Now, back to the diet!

Today is my birthday. The big three-oh.

I’ve always like the way my birth date writes out: 5/6/78 and if I ever have the urge to play the lottery, those are the numbers I pick. But I’ve never won anything from them – yet.

I’m smack dab in the middle of the Taurus sign, so there’s no fudging my horoscope like my sister does. She was born “on the cusp” which means on the day that the signs change from one to the next, and she reads both horoscopes each morning and believes them both. I read my horoscope once in a while for entertainment – I just don’t take that stuff very seriously.

I know the guys at work know it’s my birthday. Our human resources manager sends out an email to every on the first of every month to wish all employees with birthdays that month a collective “Happy Birthday!” My boss wants to take me out to lunch and I have to pick the restaurant. That’s kinda stresses me out, as I don’t think my favorite restaurants are the kind that he likes to go to. So I have to decide, should I go to one of my actual favorite restaurants? Or should I pick one that I know HE likes?

Most Fridays we all get together at work and pick a restaurant to go out and eat lunch together. I really like this way of celebrating the end of the work week. I also like the way this forces some of my co-workers to get up off their duffs and go be sociable. It’s so easy to just get to work and hunker down at your desk or cubicle and not get up until 5:00. People need a certain amount of social interaction. Humans are social being by nature. It’s not good to isolate yourself from your co-workers. We are a team and it takes a little effort by everyone to keep the team spirit alive and I think you will find that everyone is more productive if they are emotionally secure. I know you can’t be best friends with everyone, but you need to make an effort to be polite and respectful and it won’t kill you to be pleasant to people that you see every day.