catch up

well, it's been a while since I've updated the ol' blogbert so here I go. what've I been up to you ask? well, mostly work but I did manage to sneak in a little bit of fun. Andrea, her mom, sister, and I went down to Branson for a couple of days and played at Silver Dollar City and we stopped by a couple of outlet malls including a Disney outlet mall where we found a Davy Jones hat thingy. for the record, I didn't get much sleep the previous night and andrea put the hat on me which is why I look pretty drunk in the picture.

we also stopped by a fruit stand in Osceola on the way back. here's a picture of the watermelon we got. well, it's technically only half of the watermelon we got. the guy we got it from said it was 40+ pounds. for reference, to the right of the watermelon is a blueberry (also purchased from the Osceola fruit stand). it was HUUUUUUGE!!!!

after that trip there was a lot of work and then this weekend, shannon and nicole came up and we played pirates. here's a picture of my armada so far.

I'm still waiting on my box of South China Seas cards (ebay is a good thing). then this thursday, shannon, nicole, nette, chris, and aaron came up here to watch a concert and we (andrea and I) met up with them at Perkin's. more info at Shannon's blog.

disclaimer: the rest of this post is about work so feel free to skip it.

on thursday I got called into the office during work after I got back from lunch. let me preface this story a little bit. since april, corporate has been trying to increase production and collect 3.3 million liters of plasma so they've been doing a LOT of promotions and trying to get new donors in which has been keeping us very busy especially since we've been understaffed. well, back to thursday. I walked into the office and the manager tells me that the company made the 3.3 million liter mark and as a thank you gesture from corporate, all the employees involved get a cooler/picnic basket thingy complete with plastic plates, knives, forks which is pretty cool but in addition to that, everyone that has been working for the company since april gets a $100 american express gift check. so thursday was a pretty good day for me.

in other works news, I've been trying to get all my training done for the Compliance Specialist Alternate position but that's been kind put on the backburner since the reception supervisor has been gone for the month and I've been taking over for him in addition to signing off on the books, and training four people in reception, and screening, and taking care of new donors.

final work related news. we got paid today and I was looking at my check and it looks like I got a raise somewhere in between last paycheck and this paycheck. no complaints from me. I'm just not sure whether the raise was our annual raise or the raise was from me moving to a different position in the company. if the raise was from our annual raise, I may be getting another one in a couple of weeks when I start/get fully trained as a compliance specialist alternate.

well, that's probably more than you wanted to know so I'm off to bed now. got to get up early tomorrow so I can go in early tomorrow to train some people on opening duties.