Wanted to quickly share something I heard prior to the start of a showing of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

There was a group of 4 guys sitting behind me. One of them proved to be an example of the shortcomings of public education (they mentioned their high school, so I know it's a public school):

- He disparaged the members of one of the soccer teams participating in the most recent FIFA tournament, because he didn't know why they were wearing jackets in the middle of summer.

- One of his friends told him it was because they were in South Africa, whereupon he proceeded to demonstrate that he didn't know that the Southern Hemisphere's seasons are opposite of ours.

- He lapsed into silence as his friends, quite patiently, explained it to him. I got the feeling that he didn't believe them, even though they showered him with facts (a little of astronomy, as well as stating that it was 37 degrees when they finished.)

- He then proceeded to ask what country the tournament was in. His friends had to explain that South Africa is the country that they were in. He then tried to justify it because the city name was different (he apparently thought that Johannesburg is a country).

If that wasn't enough, he later stated that a baseball coach for a Division I school called and was giving him a private try-out very soon.

I sat in my chair and thought to myself, "Good luck, because you clearly are not getting into college because of your grades."

And to that unnamed university (I do know the name, but will not share) - good luck with this kid, because he's going to pull down your team's GPA.

I'm just saying.

Just a short observation, made during my interval training tonight.

I was forced to go to a track at a local college campus, since the one that I would normally use was filled with kids doing organized summer activities. The track was empty, which was nice. As I did the 18 laps, I passed the 4 permanent barriers and 5th barrier with water pit that are an integral part of the steeplechase.

Every single time I went by the barrier with the water, I wondered why the hell this was incorporated in a track event in the first place. I mean, the runners have to sprint around the track jumping over the barriers and have to long jump as much as they can of the 12 linear feet of water on one of them. It just seems so crazy to me.

No offense to those who partake in the event, especially Brian Diemer, silver medalist in this event in the Olympics and resident of this area. It's fantastic that he did so well with it. Managing the broken rhythm that this race induces is a very admirable feat.

But still, this is one of those things that makes me go "WTF?"

Hey there, sports fans!

I must admit that Twitter is eating my time and my brain. I seem to spend an awful lot of time there, distilling my thoughts into little 140 character nuggets.

I noticed the date of the last post and realized that it was high time to update.

Let's see. ( Red Wings )

( Running )

Finally, I've only seen one movie since Star Trek, and that was Terminator: Salvation. I wish I could say it was great. I didn't hate it, but I was holding it up to T2 for comparison and it didn't pass that litmus test. However, I do hope that they make a sequel. I am interested to see how the next chapter unfolds.

This weekend, I hope to see UP! And I expect that I will be nothing but pleased. :-)

My attentions have clearly been elsewhere, for it took a phone call from a friend to fill me in on this piece of news, dated May 15, 2009.

Dematic may move Grand Rapids manufacturing facility to Tennessee

I am so behind.

I know I didn't review Star Trek, so I'll make up for it right now: Star Trek is made of awesome. Go see it. Right now.

In other news, @GeekTyrant just broke the news on Twitter that Marvel has cast Thor for the upcoming movie!

Although it may not seem it, Star Trek and Thor are related: the actor was in Star Trek for a brief, but highly moving, part.

Here's the link to the news!

To briefly follow up the post about my cat: he got better. Not so much that he's home, but will probably be home in the next few days. *happy face*

And now to other important things... (nerdiness alert begins now!)

Just read a lovely interview with Leonard Nimoy pertaining to the new Star Trek film, published on Geek Tyrant's site. I'd been looking forward to the film since the first trailer; the fact that it's sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes has my inner fangirl giddy with anticipation!!!

May 8 cannot come fast enough!!!!

I also want to point out that Geek Tyrant found me on Twitter, and I have not regretted one minute of following him! If you're into sci-fi and fandom, do yourself a favor and follow him... he's got the latest dish on tons of things!

My cat is sick.

Renal failure.

Again.

It started out great: me and the Shadow, going to the AT&T store to trade in the case I got with the iPhone for something more... well, something else.

Trip was good, transaction was good, talked motorcycles and the MSF training course with the salesman, and then left. Headed towards home and thought, "Cool, I've got over 15 miles left til I have to fill up. No worries!"

And then it happened: I started to lose power. "Oh, noes," I think. I pulled into a parking lot just as the bike dies, switched the tank to reserve and pushed to restart.

Nothing happened. Well, the engine tried to turn over, so the battery was working. But other than that, nada.

So I waited, thinking it might be vapor lock. Hit the start button again. Still nothing.

I then took off the helmet and check out the tank. It was almost completely bone dry. Which is weird, really, since the reserve is supposed to be over half a gallon.

And then it hit me: I've run out of gas.

Oh, crap.

Then I realized that JT is, quite conveniently, several states away on business.

Oh, shit.

I sheepishly called a friend and sent out an SOS. In the meantime, my mind was racing.

This model of Honda Shadow didn't come with a fuel gauge, so I reset the trip meter every time I fill up. It read 90.2 miles. I usually fill up somewhere between 100 and 105 miles. Farthest I've gone is 115. So what the hell happened? I KNOW I filled the tank up all the way; the motorcycle takes so little fuel it's stupid not to do so.

And why the hell wasn't there any gas in reserve? None of this made any sense!

My friend arrived and gave me enough fuel to get me to a gas station. I thanked him and immediately flooded the engine trying to restart it.

Oy vey.

I told my friend that it's ok to leave, that it'll be fine if it sits for a few. He left. I waited 5 minutes, and the bike finally started.

Gassed up and went home. And then JT, who I tried to call first to no avail, finally rang in on my cell phone. I proceeded to regale him with today's reason as to why it sucks to be me. In mid rant, he stopped me with this statement: "You know that you get worse gas mileage in cold weather."

D'OH!!! I DID KNOW THAT! I'D JUST COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN!!

That doesn't explain the reserve. Turns out, when JT owned this bike, he ran out of gas even though he hadn't set his tank to reserve. Twice. I seriously think that the fuel selector switch is broken.

Oh well. At least it provided a great deal of comedy for my friends on Facebook. My update read:

Motorcycle FAIL!!! *hangs head in shame* Note to self: next bike MUST have a gas gauge.

I've never gotten so many comments to a single status update in my life!

Since I was so loud in complaining about the walkers from Team in Training obstructing the way during the Disney Half Marathon in January, I thought I'd provide the link to this article, where someone else complains about the problem with walkers there. They just don't call out Team in Training. And, to be fair, I don't recall any walkers with balloons who were wearing purple.

But it's still a huge problem in my mind and I hope that someone tries to rectify this.

Runner's World article by way of Active.com

Based upon the comment made about Michael Cherthoff, the article is older but the 10 points are all still relevant. Thanks to the Fifth Third Riverbank Run for tweeting about this article.

Ok, I think it's time to close the door on the Dematic layoff thing.

I hadn't posted in a while about it because I learned from a fairly reputable source that Dematic had created a statement but waited for someone (i.e. the media) to ask for one.

No request came.

I don't know what's more infuriating: sitting on the news until someone catches you (Dematic), or being so apathetic that you don't even care to ask (the media). Either way, the news didn't get out except on the pages of this blog. And that's a crying shame.

I appreciate the updates and info I've been getting from folks in my comments section. I won't reprint any in the main blog because I only write stuff that I can get from known sources. However, I will continue to monitor the situation over there and will make posts when I hear of additional layoffs.

Expedia's trip to Mars is well done. Nothing quite comes close to Google/Virgin's joke last year on the same topic, though.

It's on sale for $3 Trillion off the regular price!

The phone number even works !

I've made it pretty clear that I'm a fangirl of traditional type: comics, sci-fi, fantasy. I have not emphasized lately how much of a sports nerd I am. Or how much I love the original programing on ESPN. Both Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn joined Twitter not long ago and I've been following ever since.

I have to share a tweet sequence that happened over the past couple of the days.

First there was this.

To which I responded with this.

And then today, THIS HAPPENED!!!

Ok, it might have been happened anyway. I might have been one amongst thousands (and they do have thousands of followers) who asked for Lane Kiffin. And there was a day lag between the request for a guest and Lane Kiffin being added so my original tweet might have gone unnoticed. BUT I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IT WAS ME. ALL ME.

Why would I delude myself in such a way? Because it makes me happy. And that is good enough for me.

BTW: my two cents was this. I also hope that Mister Tony will put his unique spin on the question for maximum awkwardness.

With regard to the Dematic layoff, I found out 1 more name today, bringing my list to 65. However, I know that there were 70 people, so I'm still missing 5 names. And the stony wall of silence still stands over at Dematic. It would be comical if it weren't for all of the people who are looking for jobs in this economy.

( On to more pleasant things )

I feel obligated to report that there is still no news on Dematic.

And now that I've got that over with... got a random musing.

It's this Twitter thing. I've noticed that folks post their usernames in places (like the linkedin groups to which I belong) specifically so that they can increase the number of their followers.

I don't get that. I mean, I don't mind watching a few somewhat famous people. Especially because all of the somewhat famous people I follow are writers. As John ("I'm a PC") Hodgman put it today in two consecutive tweets,

Like Q1. Twitter appeal=a chance to listen in on other lives, and a chance to let others listen in on yours.

and

But what I really love is a) the harsh discipline of 140 char. b) the playfulness. It's a parlor game w/1 rule, inf. variations.

I would have to agree.

I am continually surprised that there are people who are following me, at this moment all unsolicited. I suppose they find me based upon who I follow or what I post. The first two followers I got were after I added @wilw and @neilhimself. Both of them are fanboy bloggers (which, in retrospect, makes total sense).

Then came two who are into high performance road cycling. I have no idea why they're following me, but I admit their posts are interesting. Then a completely random guy (who I'm not following back), then a motorcycle enthusiast (added me shortly after a tweet about the bike show).

And that's about it. I don't have friends who tweet (yet) so I rely on my tweets to post in a box on FB via an app. I DON'T update my FB status with it, though; I figure people would find it as annoying as I do. I mean, with Twitter, one expects a LOT of posts. In FB... well, for me, not so much.

I like the random Twitter posts and the unexpected hilarity I find during the course of the day. But as much as I'd like a dialogue with lots of people, I just can't bring myself to post to a group and ask random people to follow me. It's like begging for people to be your friends.

Plus, you could end up attracting the classic internet troll. Yuck. *shudders*

Just checked the usual suspects again (MLive, WOOD-TV, etc.). Still no word on the Dematic Layoffs.

In the meantime, I'd like to give a shout out to all of the folks who've been dropping in on this blog lately. I notice from the domains that a not-insignificant portion of you are from the competition or are customers of Dematic.

I suppose you've been perusing Google to try to find out more info on the layoffs. Fact of the matter is, this blog is apparently the only place that is talking about it.

I've been corrected with regard to my previous total (and many thanks to the person who set me straight - I want to be as factually correct as possible). It's not 64 people who were laid off, it's 70. Yes, that's right, seven - zero. I don't know the exact # of white collar folks working for them at the end of 2008, but that has to be darn close to 10% of the work force.

I'm not certain what the rules are with regard to notification of a force reduction in a publicly held company. My beef with the whole situation is that there is precedent when they announced cuts of significantly smaller numbers.

70 less people work for Dematic than started they year in their employ. They can fool themselves into thinking that they can slide one in past the goalie and keep this information to themselves.

The # of unique visits here every day since this happens tells me that they aren't succeeding in that plan. And I thank all of you for that.

We interrupt the ongoing Dematic Layoff thread (still no news, btw) to bring you a little bit of Fangirl Glee.

Yesterday I went to the Motorcycle show here in town, partly to ogle at the bikes and partly to just get out of the house. I hadn't considered that I would be seeing anything that was photo worthy, so I left my good camera at home. A very regrettable circumstance, since there quite a few pretty bikes out there.

And the bestest part? There were 3 bikes that spoke to my inner Fangirl... bikes with designs inspired by comic book characters!

I must first apologize for the not-so-great quality of the pics. I used the camera that I carry in my purse, which is NOT nearly as good as the one the SLR I normally use for pretty pictures. NOTE: I am currently conducting a losing battle against both Photoshop Elements and Photobucket, so the sizes may be inconsistent. I promise I will fix soon. Update: FIXED!! :)

( Click here for photos of the pretty bikes )

Told you they were pretty.

... unfortunately, it's not from any news source.

I promise that at some point I will go back to regularly scheduled programming (true random blathering). However, I'm still ticked off about the whole situation. So for today, more rant-age.

Yes, there is still no information on the layoff from last week; all searches on the local paper brings articles from last November (when they let 30 people go) or older.

I received an e-mail today from another former employee (his point of departure is further in the past than mine) who had received a list of names for the folks who had been let go. It had 62 names on it. Yes, that's right, the list had over twice the number of people on it than the layoff in November!!!

Oh, and come to find out, the list was not complete. On Monday, two people went back to the office after traveling and left shortly thereafter, possessions gathered into plain brown boxes.

Let me do the math. Hmm... 62 + 2 = 64.

And I have to double check: 64 > 30. Yes, pretty sure that statement is true.

So to complete the theorum:

30 = press release

64 = no press release?

Huh? How does that make any freaking sense? I know that people are tired of hearing about layoffs every day, but COME ON!!! Not mentioning it seems like they're hiding the true state of affairs. How very unethical deceptive clever of Dematic. Really.

*submits entry in disgust*

First off , I need to mention that I perused the usual news sites this morning and still found nothing about the lay-off this week at Dematic.

Then I checked my stats and found something curious.

Hmm.

I noticed that I get a spike in visits when I use 'Dematic' in my posts. Even more so if I combine it with the word 'layoff'.

And the most hits of all when I use that combination in the title as well as the text.

For those of you who found this via search engine... gotcha.

I initially was ambivalent to the whole Twitter thing. However, I realized yesterday how delightfully amusing it can be, courtesy of the wonderful Neil Gaiman. And thus my attitude changed from ambivalent to whole-hearted endorser.

( Click here for tweet goodness )

There was a layoff on 2/17/2009, but there was nothing in the news at all. There's STILL No news as of today. I was told that the reason that the press release was delayed because they hadn't gotten everyone (some folks were out of town).

First: how goddamned piss-poor of you, Dematic. You should have the decency to make the announcement in timely manner. To not do so whilst your neighbors (such as Herman Miller and Haworth) are releasing statements on their drawdowns smacks of deception (intentionally trying to hide your true state of affairs from the public).

Second: wtf is up with letting people go out of town when you KNOW they're going to be laid off?

I don't know what's going on in the heads of those who manage that company anymore. If they wanted to give the impression that the layoff was being handled by a bunch of idiots... well, they succeeded.