First of all if you don't know what the big news is then I should probably tell you...We got central air!!!  

The story went like this...A weeks back Autumn starting getting on a kick for central air and telling me all the reasons we needed it.  Considering the expense I tried to shrug off the suggestion, to no avail.  Since I could tell this was not going to go away and it would increase the resale value of our house I thought maybe I should make my wife happy and go with it this time.  The next day I emailed my friend (yes that friend, my man Greg) to get a quote on getting it installed.  He gave me the quote and asked me if I wanted it, I asked him how soon he could do it and he said he could do it before the end of the month.  After him hawing around I finally said do it.  Autumn wants to so lets do it.  I set it up but decided not to tell her about it.  I then talked to my mom and my sister about helping me get Autumn out of the house so it could be a surprise.  They agreed and we set up tentative plans...it was all falling into place. 

A couple times we had issues come up were I thought Autumn might figure it out but she didn't and the surprise prevailed...until tonight!  She got up this morning and I tried franticly to get her out of the house so Greg could show up at 10 and I had to leave the back door unlocked so that he could get in, but she was running behind (as usual!).  As soon as I left to go to work (I couldn't stay home forever)  I called Greg and told him he would need to arrive 15 min. late and that I hadn't been able to  leave a door unlocked and that he would need to close some windows for me, he agreed.  He also found his way into our home with a trusty credit card (I guess they are good for something even if you don't use them for debt!).  Then he worked tirelessly until he had installed our central air and new water softener (due to the house mess, see below). 

It was about the time that Greg called to tell me he was done that Autumn called to ask if I wanted to meet her and the Metzgers for dinner...I agreed as this would help me keep her out of the house until I could go home with her.  After dinner I convinced her to go back to the store with me and hang out (to stall once again) and see my beautiful daughter Becka Joy!  When Autumn finally couldn't take it anymore I let her take off for home and I was able to leave mere minutes after her in my pursuit to beat her home.  TO my good fourtune my little girl Becka was missing me beyond belief and was asking Autumn to wait for daddy.  This worked to my advantage since Auutmn called me and asked if I wanted her to slow down so I could catch her and Becka could see me drive next to them...no problem with that I thought, no problem at all!  

While I was on the phone with Autumn I told her I would need to pull in the driveway first so I could get things out of the garage (this didn't make any sense to her, however this was only so she wouldn't see the unit in the back).  When we arrived I was able to get Becka out, unlock the door and then follow Autumn inside, but she wasn't able to feel the cooler air since it had already cooled down outside.  She did however, notice the weird odor coming from the new unit.  In order to find the smell we went to the laundry room to see what was going on.  I showed her the new water softener that Greg had installed and she noticed the central air pipe coming in from outside but she didn't know what it was.  She then asked were our old softener was, so I said probably outside and I opened the door and I pointed to it and she stepped outside...and that's when she saw it!  At first she was speechless...then it hit and I thought she would cry, she was going crazy and starting giving what Becka and I like to call 'lots of kisses'.  I am pretty sure she liked it, and we didn't stop talking about it for like half an hour.  She was ecstatic...

All in all this was great, normally I do a great job of keeping secrets but she is able to figure it out (through no fault of my own) but this time she was clueless to the (expensive) surprise!  Anyway, that's how the BIG NEWS went...at least that's how the SHORT version of the BIG NEWS went 

I don't remember if I mentioned this yet or not, I don't believe I did, but our hot water heater hasn't been working for the last week or so...which means 3 very, VERY COLD SHOWERS!!!  Let me tell you, those are something you would rather live without.  However, today my main man Greg Colvin once again came over to save the day and fix it!  He is also heading to our house sometime soon to install a new water softner...let me tell you, I am not digging the hard water.  There is now bounce or fullness to my hair, it looks flat and stuff.  Anyway I will be looking forward to a return to a (semi) normal house!

Well after finding the water in our house here is low down on what happened...

The day after we found the water mess I had to go to Grand Rapids for training for a position I am excepting (yes that's right, not many of you new I was taking on a new position did you?)  This new position is honestly not worth the title on a business card as all it does is increase my responsibilities and not any new pay.  Why take the position? (well now I am off topic because this is suppose to be about our house mess) because I can put it on my resume (and business card) and I can possibly receive more exposure.  That's about it.

Anyway, while I was in training my mom (mad props to her) called our insurance to find out what to do about our mess (I probably wouldn't have called, what a mistake that would have been!) and they sent someone to our house in under a hour.  The people analyzed our (now big) mess.  Anyway, I don't know a ton about the whole situation because it involved me very little.  My wife kept up with most of the contacts.  So anyway, we found out about 4 days to late that we could have been staying in a hotel (we had been at my sisters...mad props to her and Mateo), so after booking it we had to cancel it, boooo.

Here is the result:  Our kitchen, living room, and hall floor has to be replaced.  Our carpet has to be replaced due to reoccurring salt stains that would never go away, and part of our walls have to be chopped out and re-done so that they will not harbor moisture, and more importantly fix the damage that has already been done to them.  In addition to this we must replace the water softener and we will probably go ahead and repaint our entire house since we will be re doing all the floors and stuff.  This is a good thing (a blessing in disguise) and if you don't believe me just ask my sister.  I think she will tell you that we live in a pretty hideous house (Don't get me wrong, I like it, it's just...shall we say lacking).  Then she will go ahead and tell you that it's a darn shame, darn shame that none of our furniture was damaged (as it's pretty hideous also, according to her).  Sometimes one must suffer in one area in order to excel in others, Dana will tell you we suffer in the furniture category.  

Anyway, we are a mere months away from normality due to the extended nature of replacing our entire flooring and parts of walls, as well as the rolls of tape that will be wasted that our rep's will have to cut through in order to get all of our expenses approved.  Then there is the contractors and purchasing to due, as well as the insulation and prepping that will have to be done.  Once everything is accomplished we should be sitting in a pretty good place...And in my opinion it will be time to sell :)  We will see.  For more info you can visit www.inyourdreamsifyouthinkireallycreatedawebsiteforthis.com however I may post pictures at some point soon.  Later.

Well we got home tonight from being out of town for the weekend only to return and see 3 inches of water in our laundry room and more in the kitchen, living room, and bathroom.  Needless to say we were not exactly thrilled.  So not only were we not able to start unpacking for quite some time but we also were not able to do the immediate cleaning that needed to be done.  We do have this one friend Greg Colvin (mad props goes to him) that came out and helped us turn off the water softener and show us how to resolve the issue.  He is absolutely an amazing guy to know.

On another note I received an email today from Phizer saying that while they were impressed with my past accomplishments and my interview, that I was no longer being considered as a candidate due to their decision to pursue other candidates at this time.  They encouraged me to wait a year and then to re-apply with them in the future...maybe I will, I doubt it though.  By that time I will be a nationally known entrepreneur!  Anyway, I am cool with the decision and look forward to other opportunities....more later.

Up until now we had been doing the South Beach Diet, in which I had lost 10 pounds...however Friday's on Saturday, Pizza Hut on Sunday, and Hacienda on Monday means that while I ate fairly heathy (for restraunt food), if I intend to keep those pounds off then it's time to get serious again...So I will, starting tommorow.  

Anyway, I guess you could say that we just had one real big welcome back to reality, after we arrived home from our weekend away

So the Thursday I am at work and a guy comes in who is upset because he claims to have come into my store and made a payment that didn't get applied to his account...I would be upset to, so I sympathize with him and try to help him out, here is how the story goes:

I asked him for his receipt of payment (a natural first question), to which he pulls it out of his wallet (and the paper looks damp from sweat...gross huh?) and there is something odd about the receipt he gives me...There is nothing on it!  Nothing, nada, zip zilch...To which I reply, 'Huh, there is nothing on here...You would think there would at least be something, a smear, a partial letter, a black hue on the paper, something'.  He says, 'I know, the ink disappeared from the dampness'.  Before you go crazy, let me just say that this does happen...to some extent, and what I mean by that is our receipt can fade a little, sometimes I have a hard time reading it...But his receipt he claims in only from the end of May.  While it could fade fast, and it could be enhanced by the dampness (reasonable) it would be hard to go to a completely empty paper.

He then tells me he made the payment sometime after May 12th and before June 1st, probably around the 24th.  Ok, sounds good...so I ask him 'How much did you pay?'  He says '$181 and change plus the five dollar fee, so $186 or $187 because I remember telling the guy to go ahead and put the change on the account'.  So I search our computer system for the amounts that he says and I find nothing.  There is only one instance of a payment between $186.00 and 187.99 in the date range given and it was on another account.  So we pull up that account and the transaction was for purchases NOT paying a bill.  So in our entire company no one processed a payment for that amount in his time frame.  I asked the guy if he used a check or credit or something were he could prove his payment some other way and he said it was a cash payment.  I asked him if he was sure about the amount because I wasn't finding any transactions like that and he said yes.  I asked him if he was sure it was our store because there are other Sprint stores in the area whose transactions we can't see, he said yes it was our store.

I really wanted to see anything on the receipt at all because if we posted the transaction to a different account (which happens every great while) then we could pull up the transaction that way.  There was nothing it was blank.  So I pull up the notes on his account...The only humans to touch his account during the time frame he gave me were customer service reps, no one in our store did (which would be likely if the payment posted to the wrong account).  Unfortunately without an account number or the right time frame or the right amount it is impossible to find the transaction.  

So I tell the guy, 'Listen, something your telling me is not adding up, you either didn't pay here (hence the amount not showing up in our system), or you have the wrong amount (hence it not showing up in our system) or didn't pay during the time frame you gave me (hence the amount not showing up in our computer) or it wasn't paid, because at this point there is no evidence that it was paid.  He then precedes to ask me, 'Are you telling me I made a payment for $186-7 and you aren't going to help me find it?'.  To which I respond, 'No sir, that's not what I am saying, I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to find your payment.  What I am saying is that if you could show me proof, like a receipt...with writing...or a check or credit statement, or we could find the right amount in the time frame you gave us, then we could correct the mistake, but at this point I have shown you everything, every step of the way and it's not here'.  Then I asked him if he was sure on ALL details and he said yes (that WAS his opportunity...oops).  Then he begins to change and get very upset, he calls my manger the goofy guy over there in the corner, he precedes to talk about how he had to travel over 30 miles to get here and he works from 6:30 to midnight everyday (Huh, he doesn't eat?) and that we are going to fix it and someone is going to find his money.  He also tells me that tomorrow he is coming in and my manager, me and him are all going to sit down in a room and figure out what to do about this (I am?  Because he said so?).  He also tells me to tell my boss that it needs to be fixed in the morning or we are going to have to call the cops because he is going to go off on someone (can you say PHYSCO?)  

So anyway, he didn't come in today...and I think he truly does think he made the payment...But he didn't.  Allot of times I think that if someone is trying to pull a fast one they start to get defensive the more you push, but he got more aggressive, since he truly thinks he did.  Sometimes though people put money aside for things and think they are going to use it for something and they may even go out to get it but then something will happen and the money is gone but what happened doesn't keep in their memory and they still think they used the money for it's intended use.  At some point they are usually bolted back to reality when something happens (much to late to go back to a store and apologize) but it becomes a learning lesson and they move on...and seriously, this guy needs to move on.  I think this explains what happened to the guy, I think that he thinks he made the payment, but he didn't.  Anyway that was an interesting story.  Especially since I would tell him 'If you had a receipt...' and he would say 'I do have a receipt, it's just blank'....It was hard to keep a straight face :)

Moral of the story, when you are out in public be conscious of what you say and do, because you may sound as ridiculous as that guy.  More stories to come later. 


Good Night.

P.S. A big shout out goes to my bro in law Mateo for helping set up the software that I will build my website with.

Today I had my Phizer phone interview...and if this was not a pharmaceutical company I am sure I would have nailed it.  Since Phizer is a pharmaceutical company I have no idea, but I don't think it looks good.  One of the questions Beverly asked me was what research did I do for the phone interview?  Needless to say this caught me completely off guard.  I think I recovered well by telling her that I spent time at the Phizer website, viewed many other pharmaceutical companies websites and job positions to better understand the industry, and that I spent time talking to as many people as I new or people I knew of who were in the pharmaceutical industry...all of these things I have done, not completely in preparation for the phone interview but still...It's just things like that, you know?  Totally unprepared but still a good talker, just not sure if I told her what she wanted to hear.  

Like I said, and retail sales, entry level sales, and some mid level sales (assistant manager, manager, etc) these things would have worked on them, but alas, pharmaceutical sales is not entry level sales or middle management, they are usually the best and most professional sales people out there.  Anyway, I will hear something in two weeks or less regarding my status with them.

Anyway, part of the reason I am not feeling so confident is that some questions caught me off guard and I would ask her to repeat them so I could come up with an answer (this happened twice), there were also many vague gernaralities designed to enhance my current skill sets but by placing them into a field/industry that I have never worked in, so in effect I was trying to tell her what she wanted to hear without having any idea what that was...Needless to say it leaves you in the dark as to how the interview went, since I was trying to tell her what she wanted to hear and I didn't know if I was spot on or not it would be difficult to determine if I hit the nail on the head...wouldn't you agree?

At the end of the call...this is the thing that makes me most nervous, she asked if I had any questions and I asked if I could follow up with her later and she said no we will contact you, which was just a stupid get comfortable transition phrase, get on your good graces thing that turned out annoying her because she had just said we will contact you.  Then I asked her if the position they were still looking to fullfil was in the greater South Bend area since she asked me if I would be willing to relocate...it was after this question that there seemed to be lots of clunks and noises on the other end as if she dropped the phone or something before the phone went silent and the call ended (she was on speaker phone), but I dare not call her back because she had already told me twice they would call me back...

I have never not got invited to a second interview after a phone interview, but I think this will be my first, which is ok because realistically this job is out of my league, sure I can learn on the fly and probably/would become very successfully, but really, I don't have any training for it or anything.

The other thing about this position is that I was thinking about Dan Millers book 48 Days to the Work You Love, and I am not 100% sure it would be the work I love, there are things I would and after today at work I am more ready than ever to leave, but I guess I just want to make sure...

I am at the point about it were I think I won't and if I do...I will be very happy.  Lately I have really been trying to ask God everyday what is it that you have for me today?  If I do that faithfully then He will guide me and take care of my job and career, it's when I do things on my own that I get in trouble...and this Phizer job I did on my own.  So, if I get it, it's by God's grace and He allowed it, but if I don't then great and I will countinue now more than ever to seek God and allow for Him to decide where I turn up next...

It's late and I am sure that this is a more than adequate description of the whole 20 miniute phone interview so... Good Night.