It was more than a week ago when I said, "I'd follow this up with something more." Yeah, that didnt happen so much I guess. Just been caught up working. Ofcourse, once its my weekend, its slammed busy. Plus we had Thanksgiving holiday, and Black Friday in there as well, and those pretty much stripped me of any days off last week... leading me back to the current point in time. So.



Wisconsin.

What can I say really? It was exactly as people told me it would be... yet altogether lacking. To give a generic overview; its about 20 hours worth of company training [the vast, vast majority of it spent in direct vendor/product training workshops], crammed into two days... and... when I say two days, I really mean... We are flown in at noon, stay till midnight, start at 6am then are flown out home by 2pm. Its a whirlwind to say the least. Anyways. Doing my best not to compromise anything here...

We catch a flight from the local /international/ [read: non-international] airport commercial wing, which, cool enough to say, they land the fucking plane about 10 feet from the doors, and you walk right on board.... no tickets, no luggage checks, no security. Private industry is great like this! Anyways, the company plane already has other people on it, we get crammed in the back and we're off! Which, to me, was the best part. I'd never been on an airplane. So everything was new. Well, the sudden urge to vomit when you take off wasnt new... but newly induced. Its a short approach, and since im sitting on the tail, I get the bumpiest ride of anyone... I wasn't expecting it. But nothing happened. But once airborne, I'm somewhat taken back by just how magnificent flight is. I can't find any other words really... majestic maybe. But it was just so surreal coming up above the clouds watching the cars and people shrink to nothingness. Then the idea of just cruzing up above the high clouds just gave that idea of something angelic. I dunno. I was actually fine with just flying around. But eventually it ends... We land at the whopping metropolis that is Chippewa Valley Regional. Wheeee. Its a happening place. Obviously, the only time this place sees this many planes is when Menards flys everyone in. We are taken on buses directly to the "complex" as I heard it referred to.

Menards general offices are much larger than I thought. The reason why, I presume, is that it also houses the main distribution site for product to the retail stores... Which, honestly, is massive. They also have some odd things on the "complex" grounds... a nail stylist, a barber shop, gift shop, restaraunt, and race track. Besides the general office areas. None of this was accessable for me. We were herded directly inside to a convention center wing of the "complex" instructed to dump luggage and take seats in a large lecture hall. From there I met Larry Menard. Then a whole bunch of other people, then some opening comments and pretty much dismissed to start the vendor fair. That involved a large number of the product vendor's from my department, all providing about 40 minutes on topics as they saw fit. It took until 11 something at night to finish up, which we were herded back onto the bus and taken to the hotel... which was miles away from anything... until we were picked back up before 6am to start again doing more of the same, plus with more time from different Menard's people on company related policies and information. Before we knew it, we were herded on a bus again, and shipped to the airport to depart. Seriously, it went very fast.

We had a tremendous amount of information thrown at us in a very short time frame, and I got the impression most people couldn't handle it. Well that, and I walked away with the sense of how incompetent my peers are that work in other stores... people in my groups had very little understanding in products, sales techniques, company policies and none of them seemed to put forth any effort or attention. While I have to admit, most of the information was rudimentary, and not designed to be the be-all-end-all source of knowledge for any thing; I doubt very much that alot of usefull information gets retained in such a short time frame. Well that, and they send the same people to it every year... so many of the department lifer's have done this 10 to 15 times already.

Anyways, that was it. I was back on the ground the next day. Back in Illinois. Somewhat void of the drama or excitement that I was looking forward to finding. The only thing of real excitement was meeting my possible boss and coworkers. The more they talked to me, the more they seemed interested in bringing me up for an opening to interview. Probably as a merchandiser, but maybe as an analyst. It also gave me a brief look at Eau Claire. To a lesser extent, I knew about as much going in as I did coming out, and with out any good looks at the town, I dont have any real impressions about it. It looks to be similar to Iowa City in size, slightly lacking in accomodations thoguh. From the conversations I had, most people spend their free time out on the lakes around the area. Housing looked like a big mix... older houses, with new rentals mixed in hap-hazardly. Supposedly it has a college in the town somewhere. But it doesn't offer any masters programs that interest me; so scratch that possibility. I dunno. I guess Ill find out more about that stuff later on. But that was the trip in a quick burst of sentences.



Things of Other Variety.



I picked up a copy of Cradle of Filth's new cd before I left town. Im trying desparately to like it. Much like Ive been struggling with the new Black Label cd. Its not that either of them are bad. I think its just that I like the preceeding catalog so much, that these dont seem to do much. Thornography is very mellow, compared to some of the old work; like Damnation... or Dusk and Her Embrace... While its an extension from Nymphetamine [their last cd], its not taking it as far as that cd did. Sure, the elements are there. Yeah, the same themes are there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when do I get hooked on this one, like I did with Nymphetamine? Answer is I havent. Im trying. I think this one just goes into the pile. Its been produced to be a logical successor by doing what Nymphetamine did, but it seems repetitive here. Not forced. But not unique either. Its something I'd say is now more gothic metal... not at all the black metal they were at one point in time. Haters say they sold that out for mainstream recognition and popularity [hence people know this band for 2 reasons... the t-shirt with "Jesus Is A Cunt" written on it, or for their appearnce on Viva La Bam on MTV]. I dunno. Same thing with Black Label's Shot To Hell. While Mafia wasnt great, it has alot of stuff I really dig. STH seems to be pushing the ballads more than I wanted... which, dont get me wrong, I love Hangover Music V. 4; but these are a different kind of animal. I was hoping this would turn out more like e. 1919 or the self titled. Not so. So lately I've been playing alot of older stuff from all over.

Anyways... Ive eaten up a bunch of time tonight writting about nothing new. Something interesting... uhm. I had to take in Big Red for the first time. I had an oil pressure sensor go out... she'd run fine, just I had [according to the panel] zero line pressure; however it was running at a nominal temperature! Funny. Since it reads the oil temperature as it passes through the block, it would have to be getting pressure in the line to pump it up to that point. I hoped it wasnt an oil pump going out, which gladly it was not. So that was a first.

Hmm. I bought a new mp3 player. Mainly for the trip to Eau Claire. Partly because I wanted one. I had a cd based one most of the way through college, which was crapping out, so I thought Id splurge a bit to upgrade. No ipod. Those are "teh gax0r" indeed. Instead I have a Zen Touch 40 gig. Works well. All hard drive based, so its heavier and can skip some, but the battery life is fantastic. Something like 20 hours per full charge! Thats what impressed me the most.

I also bought a new coat. It was something I'd wanted for a long time too. So I thought I'd buy one. Its a dress coat, so I really don't many opportunites to wear it now, but it looks good. Classy. Definitely a Scott kind of buy. I've heard that from about 4 people now.