Hey guys,

Some of you know others will be finding out with this post, I now work for Direct TV as an installer.  I am still in the training program right now.  The pay is pretty good and the work is hard, (keeping/getting me in shape I hope).  I will have a company vehicle and some tools issued to me and of course they provide me with the boxes and dishes and equipment for the customer calls.  I will have to pay for a few uniform shirts and a couple of tools I will need to do the work.  They will pay to get me the licence test for the national satellite installer licence (so long as I pass it in one of two tries, after that I will have to come out of pocket $200.00 to take it again).  I get paid for referral sales and installs (so if you know of anyone looking to get Direct TV after Monday when I get my Tech number, send them my way please).  I also get paid extra for doing certain jobs at the customers home.  Digging a trench or doing a pole install if the house does not have line of sight to the south sky, doing a wall drop, extra boxes installed and set up, etc etc…

One of the perks I am told is that after working there 60 days I get FREE basic Direct TV… Here’s my dilemma and where I am looking for input from you my friends and family.  I currently have Comcast Cable handling both my Internet and my TV with HBO and the digital package.  I really like having only one bill to deal with for the cable & Internet, I did hear from work that there is a package coming that will include high speed Internet with your Direct TV, but right now they don’t have anything that compares to the speed of cable Internet.  We don’t have a phone at all in our house preferring our cell’s.  To install satellite you HAVE to have a home phone line.  So I could keep Comcast for the Internet get a phone line and dump my cable bill only paying the fee for HBO…

is it worth all this effort though?  With all the rain we get here in Houston and the problem of  “Searching for signal” from satellite, is it worth it?  I can’t remember the last time cable went out, if we have power we have TV.  And when its raining outside, what else is there to do but watch TV?  You don’t want to go anywhere.  I can’t ride my Harley…

What is your opinion on the pros and con’s of cable vs satellite TV?

Comment’s appreciated, no membership required.

Its the silly season again.  Folks out shopping for family and friends, buying gifts and creating havoc with the traffic.  Those of us on bikes hate traffic this time of year even more than most.  Peoples minds are never on the road when they are out running their Christmas errands.   Do an old biker a favor and give us a break will yah?  I’m not asking for you to stay home and shop online (although that’s what I did this year), just that you keep you mind on the road and your eye on your surroundings.  The best Christmas gift you can give yourself and the folks like me on bikes this year is not to hurt or kill someone while out there.

Well the next thing I will write about here is a recent trip to a friends house for a Christmas party.  Boy did I learn some things!  First impressions are great, and talking with a guy for years can tell you a lot, but you never really get to know a guy until you see his house. 

This guys home was like a little piece out of the mind of Jimmy Buffet.  His back yard alone was by far the coolest I have ever seen.  It was a little island get away built into a suburban neighborhood.  When I knocked and rang the bell no one answered, I knew we were doing grilled steaks so I wandered around to the back of the house.  There looking through the garage I could see my fellow employees chillin’ around a garden table and drinking while the grill heated up.  

The relaxing tunes of the beach and classic rock played through speakers all around the yard.  There was not just a patio and a gazebo, there was three separate little deck areas.  The patio had the grill and ice chests, the corner gazebo (really more of a grass hut or cabana) had speakers of its own and lighting plus signage that really expressed a lot about our host.  Then just behind that there was a smoker hidden away.  Between that hut and the patio is what I can only describe as “the deck”.  Two lounging lawn chairs sit beside a couple of small tables, each chair giving you a great view of the pool and at least this night a soft warm breeze crossed the deck. 

We sat fat and happy after some of the best home cooked steaks I have ever devoured courtesy of my boss, and listened to the guys tell their tails and chat casually about work and life and really nothing at all.  It was the kind of place you go to disappear from all the turmoils of life, a place where nothing from work or home or family ever touched that short little fuse in your anger, or your last nerve.  Nobody was worried about anything, we just were. 

Some would say Christmas was meant to be cold winter in front of a warm fireplace.  Others would say they love their white Christmas.  Me? I’m a good ol southern boy.  I don’t live in Texas cause I like cold.  No, I think the Santa I saw in my friends bathroom summed it all up for me.

Well guys I escaped another close call today.  I don’t really know why I write this here other than to just get it off my chest.  I got a call at home yesterday from the receptionist at work who told me that our HRM (Human Resources Manager) needed to see me in her office.  I explained I was off on Tuesdays but would check in with her first thing this morning.

All night I worried about what she was going to tell me.  I logged onto City of Heroes (an MMORPG I like) but my head wasn’t in it and I died several times.  I tried to sleep and spent the whole night in an uneasy rest.  I arrived at work today and began my day as normal, checked my online finance applications (there was none as usual) went about helping them push the used bikes out onto the lot and thought about all the bikes we had recently gotten out of service that I still do not have pictures of for our website.  By the time I decided to just go up and get it over with I was sure today was my last day at this company.

When I walked into the office there were two large boxes on the floor.  I immediately jumped to the conclusion they were to help me clean out my desk.  HRM asked me to come in for a sec while she finished a quick phone call.  By now I was close to breakdown with panic.  Only 20 days till Christmas and me without a job…

HRM told me to get into the boxes and get out my new uniform shirts, I was to sign for three short and three long sleeve shirts.

Whew… I left the office much relieved.  When I got downstairs I stopped to speak with Johnny one of our other salesmen to relay the experience to him.  He smiled and relayed a similar experience of his own just yesterday when he was called to the office.  He had actually started cleaning out his desk before he went up.  We both stopped for a moment of retrospective thought and I concluded that my time here really is short.  I don’t want to work anywhere that I feel as if any second the axe could drop.  Maybe I’m asking too much, but I would like to feel that when I get to work my job is not being held over my head.  That so long as I am working at getting the task’s they place before me done to best of my ability, my job is secure.

I guess in today’s workplace that’s asking too much though.  Oh well breathe in breathe out, repeat as needed… life goes on.

Okay, no fancy research this time.  No here’s the facts.  This time I write to you from the heart.  Yeah I know not what you expect from this site based on its current content.  Here’s the thing, I’m tired of it already and I’m the one putting it together.  That being said, I read somewhere that if its not fun for you, then why do it.  Further if you don’t like it, most likely others will get that impression and not like it as well.  Thus I break with my current content trend and go another route.  Figuratively as well as literally

I am a motorcyclist.  Not just any motorcyclist, I am a Harley Rider.  Some may ask why?  I ask them why not?  The fast response is, “Its dangerous!” My reply is life without risk is not life at all.  No I’m not the first to say it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  Why Harley?  Well, its kids dream.  I have wanted a Harley-Davidson motorcycle ever since I can remember.

I grew up in a regular neighborhood, with mostly normal friends and family life.  I played air guitar with my friends in a back yard with Kiss rocking our phonograph or cassette tape deck.  I wanted to be Gene Simmons, but play Ace’s guitar and sing all the songs.  I wanted the fame, I wanted the girls, I wanted to be cool like they were.  And I wanted to ride up on stage on my Harley, throw the kickstand out and step off to jam the audience till my fingers bled and I couldn’t sing any more, then I would take my pick of the girls throwing their unmentionables up at me and ride off stage into the sunset with her.

Parts of the dream faded with age, but the bike remained.  I still see the girl in my dreams too, but I know now that for me cool wasn’t about her.  It wasn’t about the music, or the fame, or even the bike really.  Cool was about the freedom of that moment.  The way a child’s imagination took him to a place where he was a part of everything there.  You can’t be there in a car.  In a car you are not truly part of the environment.  You are seeing it through a window.  You are watching it happen, but you aren’t in it.  On a bike its different.  Your eyes feel the crisp cool air in the winter mornings, they tear up and squint even behind the glasses or goggles.  You breathe that air, you feel it penetrate your clothes and touch you.  You sense the road, you smell the fields, grass, the city.  You and your bike are one with the road, the environment, and for the short time you are out there you are free in every sense of the word.

Problems from work, family, and life in general for that ride seem to melt away.  My life is still there waiting for me when I get to my destination, but now its not about getting there, its about the trip.  Its about getting time to feel free from the bonds of responsibility and duty and what you know you have to do for others and just getting back into being a kid pretending to be riding a Harley up on stage in front of millions of screaming fans.

Motorcycling is a hobby, its a sport, its a means of transportation, but its so much more to the open mind.  Ride safe, ride well, but ride.  Ride your imagination, ride your dreams.  Breathe life with every inhale, and let worries and problems fall to the side of a winding road to nowhere.  Dare to live life around the curves.  Your boss and your family, even you will appreciate it when you come back more focused, lower stress, and able to tackle the hardest parts of your day in the knowledge that soon you’ll get a chance to see another open road.  Get lost on that dream dude… I do.