We had another front desk meeting. One positive comment before I unload and let me just say that the old me is back. I really do like the new front desk manager. She is a nice person who’s trying to do what she’s told to do.

Where to start? Let’s start with the metaphor this article’s title came from. Since this nice young lady came aboard I’ve heard “it’s time to get on the bus” time and time again and I’m getting sick of fucking hearing this tripe. She needs me on the bus or off, it’s my choice. Can you all what choice I’m going to make? Because it’s an easy choice. I don’t belong on the goddamn bus. I don’t want to be on the bus as long as these fuckers are all on it. I’ll walk thank you very much.

Next subject. There is a new hotel (policy?) and it involves farming e-mail addresses from our guests for the sole purpose of spamming the fuck out of them. I got one for them and it’s brand new, offthebus at hotelblues dot com and I can be reached there. I flat out refuse to take a part in this new spam campaign. And the person who collects the most e-mail address’s will get a prize. Brings back that gay points system.

Another thing is all of the goddamn paper work we have now. And it’s not just having all of these wasted paper. It’s all the fucking initialing one has to do in a day. I’m getting sick of all of it. They also don’t like my messy hand writing. I’m going to start signing my name minus the vowels. I’m a lazy fuck I admit it. We have like four binders we have to look at and initial. It’s insane. I’ve never seen any management company try so hard to have a paper trail made for the soul benefit of firing someone.

What else? Oh yeah when I do something for a guest I’m supposed to say “It’s my pleasure” and I’m guessing I’m supposed to say it with some honesty. Which is the biggest problem for me. I can’t say that without it coming out like I’m being sarcastic. It’s fucking gay. It ain’t my pleasure, it’s my fucking job. That’s what we should say. No problem Sir it’s my job. It just so much more honest than that My Pleasure bullshit.

Back to stepping off the bus. I’ve set a date for when I would like to get off the bus. I’m going to try really to get off the bus on November 28th of this year. Every day it’s harder and harder to just come in. The best part of my day is when I walk out of the front doors of this place. And I have no idea of what I will do. With any luck I won’t have any choice and they will be kind enough to fire me again and then finally it would be my pleasure.

The wedding is coming up really quick. And I’m really looking forward to it. It’s been a long time since me, Troy, and his wife Bob had a fun night out. They got a babysitter for the kids already lined up. It’s going to be like a little reunion for us old time Holiday Inn people.

It’s funny how long it has been since the time I often refer to as the good old days. Those days were over a decade ago and to me it seems just like yesterday. Back then I was just starting out at the front desk. The guy getting married was the guy who trained me and back then the front desk manager used to say he was a bad influence on me.

I can’t stress enough how fun it used to be working at that hotel back then. I feel sorry for all of these people working at this place now. They have no idea what it was like then. All they know is the horrible time it is now. But they do say all good things come to an end and this time now is a perfect example of that saying.

But for just two nights I’m not going to think about any of this shit. I’m going to forget about any troubles I think I have and just have some god damn fun. I’ll go back to worrying about shit on sunday. I just wish the weekend could come a little faster.

I decided to open up a Cafepress.com webstore. I figured if it works for Gawain it can work for me. You can find my shit right here. It should be mentioned that these three items I’m selling are at cost. I not looking to make any money with this site. You got your standard white t-shirt, a cute number for the ladies, and finally a baseball cap. The t-shirt is 8.99, the ladies t-shirt is 16.99, and the baseball cap is 12.99.

I plan on getting one of the normal t-shirts and the baseball caps as soon as I have some money so I’ll let you all know how they turn out. But if for whatever reason you would want to wear something with my sites name and slogan on it by all means go for it. And of course send in some pictures sporting my shit if you do buy any of it (especially any cute single ladies out there).

I just can’t stress enough how much fun I had saturday night at the wedding. It was more fun than I should be allowed. I don’t even know where to start. How about my duties as an usher? At first I thought it was going to be a cake job. But after it’s all said and done I’ve decided it’s a lot easier being a groomsman. They just have to stand up there. The usher has to deal with the people. Seating them as they come in. It’s a lot of pressure. I worried the entire time if I was doing everything the way it was supposed to be done. It’s all confusing having to remember which mother you have to seat first and then which one gets brought out last.

And the whole ordeal of this thing called the runner. The runner is that thing the bride walks down when it’s show time. Well the ushers had to pull this damn thing out right before the bride made her walk. This thing was pinned down at the altar and in theory me and the other usher were supposed to just pull this thing down the isle. Of course as we started to pull the runner one side gets unpinned. So Karsteadt (the other usher) stands on the end by the altar and I start to try to pull this damn thing out. The cord I used to pull it as it turned out was all wrapped around itself. So here I am trying to yank this bastard without ripping it off so the bride could do her business. I was sweating like a pig as I worried if this thing would get ripped off as I pulled it. And everybody was focused on me, at least thats how it felt as I tried to get the damn runner down the isle.

After that it was all fun. The reception was a blast and we all boozed it up. Kevin (the lucky groom) beat out Tanya (the beautiful bride) when it came time for the dollar dance. He won because they charged any guy that danced with him five bucks. And of course Troy, me, and Karsteadt all paid five bucks to dance with Kevin. I consider it a good purchase. The pictures below show me and Karsteadt dancing with Kevin:

So as you can tell form these pictures we were all well on our way. And it was some of the little things that made me laugh the most. I was standing in the bathroom at one point and Mr. Rindfliesch (Kevin’s dad) had been doing his business and I flashed back to something from a long time ago that just about made me cry from laughing so hard. Quite a few years ago for one reason or another I had been looking for Kevin. I don’t remember why. So I called his parents house a few times. And this was just a little after bartime. By the third or forth call I was told by Kevin’s dad that if I called again he was going to call the cops and report me for phone harassment. After that incident I had always been more than a little scared of Kevin’s dad. It was a lot of fun to spend the evening drinking with him. He isn’t as scary as I had imagined. In fact he pretty damn cool.

And there were many little things about the evening that I enjoyed. Meeting all of the relatives of both Kevin and Tanya, giving Karsteadt shit about being a Barry Manilow fan, doing some Sinatra tunes at karaoke, and telling Kevin’s mom and dad all about the exploits of their son when he worked at the hotel. Yep all in all it was a great night.

And one final thought before I finish up. Whoever it is that makes the shoes that come with tuxes should tortured very badly. The shoes I got were a size fourteen and any other time this size shoe should fit no problem. But these bastards were tight as hell. By the time I was finally able to take those things off my feet were killing me. In the morning when I finally got up and out of the tux I saw that my feet were red and slightly swelled up from these shoes. My little pinky toe on my left foot even had a nasty looking welt on it. Over a day later my feet still hurt. But it was well worth it for all the fun I had.

One more post for the night. This one is for Bob so she can print out these pictures at work. The first one is from a long time ago. The last two are the reenactment of that picture.

And just for those of you not keeping score at home that’s me on the left, then Bob, and then finally Troy.

It’s funny how my past has a way of coming back to remind me of the mistakes I continue to make over and over again. I haven’t talked to her in a number of years. Not that I have any problems of talking to her. She lives far from here and comes to town every now and then.

Except it’s not really funny at all this time. Her dad died recently. I had heard not to long ago that he was sick and that bit of info just got pushed to the back of my mind. There was other shit going on and it didn’t seem all that important at the time. But it kinda bums me out. Her dad was a stand up guy and he was always nice to me.

So she called the hotel about getting a room for when she brings her dad back home. She called and she said who she was. It was funny because she even told me her maiden name as if to make me remember just who she was. Years may have come and gone, but I still remember the sound of her voice. I doubt very much I will ever forget her and those times.

She was surprised that I would so willingly override inventory so her and her family can stay in the hotel. Despite everything she has always remained my friend, so I can’t say no to a friend at a time like this. I don’t think I could tell her no anyway.

I’m still playing the shit out of the World of Warcraft beta. I just can’t say enough good things about this game. Below are 4 videos I made for my guildmates in the Acolytes of Destruction that I posted in the forums.

You will need at least the DivX 5.1.1 codec to be able to view these videos. You can grab the free version of DivX right here.

WoW Vid 01 (7.8 MiB, 58 hits)

WoW Vid 02 (20.8 MiB, 52 hits)

WoW Vid 03 (18.7 MiB, 46 hits)

WoW Vid 04 (12.3 MiB, 47 hits)