A Few Good Men - My Day At Work

Since retiring from the Navy I have found myself in the mysterious world of sales. For the first six years I sold software and for the last four I have been selling services (people). It’s a completely different mentality than flying jets in the Navy.

Out here there are two sides of the equation – those of us that bring in revenue (sales reps and Business Developers) and those that depend upon that revenue (Finance and Accounting – F&A). I'm a Business Developer.

Here is a meeting I had today with them set to the tone of the movie "A Few Good Men".

F&A: “I still need clarification on this expense report.”

Me: "You want answers?"

F&A: "I think we are entitled to them!"

Me: "You want answers?!"

F&A: "I want the truth!"

Me: "You can't handle the truth!!!"

Me (continuing): "Lady, we live in a world that requires revenue. And that revenue must be brought in by people with elite skills. Who's going to find it? You? You, Ms. Finance and Accounting? We have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom.

You scoff at Business Development and you curse our lucrative incentives. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know: that while the cost of business results are excessive, it drives in revenue. And my very existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, drives REVENUE!

You don't want to know the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at staff meetings ... you want me on that call. You NEED me on that call!

We use words like Long Term Agreements, Productivity Improvements, discounts, Just In Time, global purchase agreements. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent negotiating something. You use them as a punch line!

I have neither the time nor inclination to explain myself to people who rise and sleep under the very blanket of revenue I provide and then question the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way. Otherwise I suggest you pick up a phone and make some sales calls. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!"

F&A: "Did you expense the lap dances?"

Me: "I did the job I was hired to do."

F&A: "Did you expense the lap dances?"

Me: "You're goddamn right I did!"

A-6Dude


Key Lime Martini Recipe

Graham cracker crumbs, for rimming the glass
2 lime wedges
6 Tbs. vanilla flavored vodka
¼ cup key lime liqueur
2 Tbs. pineapple juice
2 Tbs. heavy whipping cream

Pour the graham cracker crumbs into a shallow dish. Rub a lime wedge around the edge of a martini glass and roll the edge in the graham cracker crumbs. Chill the glass for 30 minutes or until ready to serve.

Combine the vodka, key lime liqueur, pineapple juice and cream in a shaker. Fill the shaker half full with ice and shake until COLD. Pour into prepared martini glass, garnish with a lime wedge and serve immediately.

This was not plagiarized. This was composed using repeatable best practices. They're just words.

Supreme Court Rejects ACLU Challenge to Wiretaps

This is why it is important to have a constructionist majority on the court. Score one for the good guys! Check out the article.

A-6Dude

Vesper:
3 measures of Gordon's Gin
1 measure of vodka
1/2 measure Kina Lillet
lemon peel for garnish

Shake over ice till COLD! Strain into a COLD martini glass and garnish with a lemon peel.

Obama and Che?

A Houston campaign office for Barack Obama displaying the Cuban flag with murderous thug Che Guevara superimposed.

Maybe he didn't know about this but has anyone heard of him telling anyone to take it down? I'll reserve comment until I hear the answer to that.

A-6Dude

Real Life Quotes - Funnier Than Fiction

Have you ever spoken and wished that you could immediately take the words back... or that you could crawl into a hole?

Here are the Testimonials of a few people who did....

FIRST TESTIMONY:

I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly, "How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?" I turned around and walked back out and never went back. My husband didn't say a word... he knew better.

SECOND TESTIMONY:

I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls. I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using. After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who worked at the store. He asked if he could help me. Without thinking, I looked at him and said, "I think I like playing with men's balls."

THIRD TESTIMONY:

My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts. As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help. I replied, "No, I'm just looking at your nuts." My sister started to laugh hysterically. The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away. To this day, my sister has never let me forget.

FOURTH TESTIMONY:

While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving"right now" she would be punished. To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, "If you don't let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!"

The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing. I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me, were screams of laughter.

FIFTH TESTIMONY:

Have you ever asked your child a question too many times? My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training, and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch, in between errands. It was very busy, with a full diningroom. While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean. The realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while. I asked him if he needed to go, and he said "No."

I kept thinking "Oh Lord, that child has had an accident and I don't have any clothes with me." Then I said, "Danny, are you SURE you didn't have an accident?" "No," he replied. I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse.

Soooooo, I asked one more time, "Danny did you have an accident?" This time he jumped u p, yanked down his pants, bent over, spread his cheeks and yelled "SEE MOM, IT'S JUST FARTS!!"

While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better, thanking me for the best laugh they'd ever had!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST TESTIMONY:

This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for 2 days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks. What happens when you predict snow but don't get any! We had a female news anchor that, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked: "So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?"

Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!

Real life is way funnier than fiction.

A-6Dude

Pina Colada Martini
1 part Vodka
1 part Malibu Rum
1 part Pineapple Juice

Shake over ice until very COLD! Strain into a chilled martini glass

The 11 Rules of Reality – Mandatory Posting for all Schools

This is supposedly attributed to Bill Gates as part of a speech he gave to a high school recently. I cannot verify that but it matters not. Whomever wrote this hits the nail on the head.

But as the story was given to me, Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a high school about things they did not, and will not learn in school. He talked about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. Here are the 11 Rules of Reality:

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you can read this - Thank a teacher!

If you are reading it in English -Thank a Vet!

A-6Dude

Spiced Apple Martini

2.5 parts 10 Cane Rum

2 parts Apple Juice

splash of Amaretto

2 pinches of ground cinammon

cinammon/sugar mixture

Cinammon Stick

Shake rum, apple juice, amaretto and ground cinammon over ice till COLD! Strain into chilled martini glass rimmed with cinammon/super fine sugar mix and garnish with a cinammon stick.

The Party’s Over?

I live in Loudoun County, VA. It’s ranked one of the fastest growing and richest (whatever that means) counties in America. I like it here. It is close to DC (45 miles) and yet, far enough from the DC area to be a great place to live.

I also own a house here (well, the bank does for a bit longer). Like every other part of the country we are experiencing the effects of the housing slump. New building permits are down and my house has decreased in assessed value by almost $200,000 in the last 2-3 years.

Granted, the housing boom had the value of my house somewhat inflated but nonetheless that is a significant drop in value. I am not worried. I don’t have plans on moving anywhere in the next 5-10 years so I know that the market will cycle back up again.

Aside from the fact that I cannot make as much profit on my house were I to sell it right now, the County Government can’t make the amount of money off of it either, based on the declining value of the assessment. So, instead of saying that we (the County Government) will have to do with less and figure out where to cut expenses (government giveaways, that is), they just presented a proposed fiscal year 2009 budget that would require a 25.6-cent increase in the real estate tax (up to a bit over $1.26 per $100 of assessed value).



If the board of supervisors approves the budget as it is being recommended it would mean a 13.6 percent increase in the average homeowner's tax bill, an increase of approximately $640 (mine would be higher).



"The party's over," Chairman Scott K. York (I-At large) said. "The party that we've had over the last few years is probably over for a little while." Scott, there has been no party.

But the last election we had in November brought back a Democrat majority to our Board of Supervisors and guess what happens when you let Democrats have power – we get higher taxes and more government spending on things that aren’t necessary or a priority.

Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, 2008-2011

Front Row (l. to r.): Jim Burton, Vice-Chairman Susan Klimek Buckley, Chairman Scott K. York, Sally R. Kurtz;

Back Row (l. to r.): Kelly Burk, Stevens Miller, Eugene Delgaudio, Andrea McGimsey, Lori Waters

Just like in the 2006 elections, in our local elections last November I heard plenty of people say that they wanted to teach the Republicans on the Board a lesson and vote them out of office. These aren’t Democrat friends I am hearing say this, these are so-called Republicans. I guess they haven’t been paying attention to what that philosophy did to us in the state and federal elections in 2006. Perhaps they think that a Democrat controlled government can better decide where my money should be spent that I should.

But, they did it and now they are already complaining. And what happened?

As expected, the Board of Supervisors is proposing a $27 million increase in spending for general government programs and an $81 million increase in school spending. With a few other proposals we get $99.6 million increase in local tax funding which represents an overall 12 percent increase. They called the upcoming budget cycle a "balancing act between affordability and the public need".

I think they are right there. But what they need to do is manage the government the way they would manage their household finances (without the benefit of a credit card or a loan). Our taxes are their salary/income. Just like any family out there with those constraints (no credit cards, etc), they should have to budget and save to do thing they want to do. This will force them to do a much better job prioritizing and allocating where money is spent – just like we have to do at home.

But they don’t. They just say I need a raise (more taxes) and then try to figure out how to spend more so that they can ask for another raise. Even with the large increase in the tax rate, the County says that the proposed budget does reflect an amount of fiscal restraint. They don't define what that amount really is though.

In anticipation of the upcoming budget, county departments found $5 million in cost savings in their current budgets. You can’t tell me that there was only $5 million in cost savings to be found. They knew that assessments were going down. They have for the last three years. Knowing that, why did they keep adding to the expenses they have?

But we’re told that of the $31 million county departments identified in ‘new’ resource needs by county departments, only $4 million are included in proposed budget. I used to be in the government. I know how that game is played. You ask for 4 to 5 times what you really want knowing that you’ll be lucky to get 20% of your request, which is about what you really needed in the first place.

There is an $81 million increase in the school operating funds for fiscal year 2009. This represents a 5 percent increase per student, but school system leaders and members of the school board are still hoping they can get full funding of their proposed budget. Every election we have there is a school referendum for new schools and rehabbing old schools. Every single election!

But what does our County do? They (the Dems) want ‘slow growth’. We can’t grow too fast. And at the same time, they don’t do anything to bring in some industry to broaden the tax base. I am hoping that they are smarter than I am but it seems to me that we should be trying to attract a larger business tax base. I’m not for unfettered growth but we should be looking at what we want his county to look like in 25+ years and follow a plan to get us there.

But the Dems in charge now are going to do little more (at least this is the indication) than go down their ‘slow growth’ road, increasing services and raising our taxes to fund their fiscal irresponsibility.

Try doing that with your home finances – do what you can to prevent your income from increasing and then start spending more. The problem with that analogy is that at home we have credit cards and other ways to do this (however irresponsible those ways are). Even so, we can still get in trouble at home with few ways to get out of it.

The County just increases taxes. I wish I could just go to my boss and demand a pay raise that he couldn’t refuse.

There was some reality/sanity in the discussions, though. Some supervisors indicated they were not convinced that the school is still growing at the projected rate of 3,000 new students annually. Supervisor Jim Burton (I-At large) said he did not understand why the number continued to be high when the number of building permits given in the county has continued to decrease over the past few years. Good point, Jim!

"Appears to me now for many, many years, the number of school children was related to the number of building permits, and now it appears unrelated," he said. "I don't understand that and I would hope that we would get a good explanation for that."

We probably won’t, Jim. It’s not about fiscal responsibility. It’s about growing the services we provide and taxing anything that moves to pay for it.

Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) also said he would like to see an overview of the fiscal year 2008 budget and how the previous board arrived at its decision. He also asked if it was possible for the board to get a listing of how different tax rates could be achieved. "It would help board members and the public to have some of those options for a lower tax rate," he said."We have to recognize the tax rate, the ability to pay is a lot about the affordability, the ability to live in Loudoun County," York said. "We have to be well aware that things are serious. It's going to take some restraint on our part."

Sounds good, York. But you won’t do it. You will do everything to grow the government instead of minimizing it. We all want nice cities and safe environments to raise our families. But we also need to able to afford to live there too.

Perhaps the county entities should be forced to do business the way commercial companies do.

I would rather see the following: put a stop on all non-critical growth funding and identify every organization that receives tax money. For each of them I would develop a return on investment (ROI) metric that they must meet. If they don’t meet it then they lose money. If they continue to fail to meet the metric then they lose all funding. I don’t mean to make this simplistic but the discipline is sound, and sorely needed.

I think it’s time for the state to impose local tax caps. Many other states have these in place. Loudoun is beginning to border on New Jersey and New York property tax burdens at 1.21% In NJ (the highest in the nation the average around 1.5% of market value.) "

So again, to you that elected the new Board of Supervisors with their promise of fiscal responsibility, this is what you got.

The reality is that the party isn’t over, and with the way the new Democrat controlled Board of Supervisors wants to spend, I think their party is just about to begin.

A-6Dude

Fudge Swirl Martini

1 part Chocolate Vodka

1 part White Chocolate Liqueur

1 part Vanilla Vodka

Shaked ingredients with ice until very cold. Strain into chilled martini glass rimmed with cocoa powder.

A Dirty Martini

This site was not started to be only me opining about issues of the day. I want to make sure I balance it a little with other topics about which I am passionate.

So, today, I will talk about martinis (my wife, my kids, cigars and scotch and other passions will come in later posts).

The Dirty Martini is the namesake drink of my blog site. It is my favorite martini.

Martinis were an American invention. There are several theories about the origin of the martini. The most accepted account is that the Martinez (the original name for the drink) was most likely invented in Martinez, California, where a plaque commemorating the birth of the martini can be found on the north-east corner of the intersection of Alhambra Avenue and Masonic Street.

The current day martini is a descendant of the Martinez, an older, sweeter cocktail consisting of two ounces of sweet vermouth, one ounce Old Tom gin (a sweetened variant), two dashes maraschino cherry liquid, and one dash bitters, shaken with ice, strained, and served with a twist of lemon. The earliest known reference to the Martinez is found in The Bon Vivant's Companion: Or How to Mix Drinks (1887 edition), authored by "Professor" Jerry Thomas, the head bartender at many famous watering holes, including the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco.

Thomas had a client who took a ferry from the Occidental Hotel on Montgomery Street to Martinez, then the state capital of California, every morning. Thomas mixed him the Martinez to keep the morning chill off, and named it after his client's destination. Distilled spirits in the 1800s were not regulated as they are today, and were sold at cask strength—upwards of 135 proof. Over time, the strength of the spirits decreased and smaller quantities of mixers were needed to make them palatable. Now it is more common to see a martini made with little or no vermouth.

Today we also see that Vodka has replaced Gin as the predominant ingredient in a martini. Purists, however, still believe that a true martini is made with Gin and not Vodka. Personally, I like them both but I lean toward Vodka as my main ingredient.

Here is the thing about martinis: as with any other drink you make the key to a great cocktail is the use of QUALITY ingredients. Life is too short to drink cheap booze, unless your budget can only afford the call brand varieties.

Using the lesser quality ingredients can be somewhat rectified by the next most important ingredient in making a martini – make it COLD! When I shake my martinis I do so until I can no longer hold the shaker in my hand. I mean that literally.

Next, I like to chill my cocktail (martini) glasses in the freezer. You may also chill one by adding ice and water to a glass but I find the freezer just makes it taste better. There is something about the martini glass fogging up after I remove it from the freezer that makes the anticipation of the martini more heightened.

I have a spread sheet with almost 700 recipes that I have been accumulating since 2000. When I see and interesting recipe I add it to my list. There is no way I will be able to drink all of them (without a liver transplant) but they’re fun to collect.

The last element of a martini is the garnish. In that list of recipes I have garnishes that include lemon twists, orange twists, olives (with a variety of stuffing’s), chocolate syrup, candy canes, various rimming sugars and the list goes on. I also purchased some stainless steel martini olive skewers in the shape of swords. They are cool!

Another thing I have found is a lady named Tracy Lolita Yancey that designs themed, hand painted martini art glasses. On the bottom of the glasses is a recipe to try. These are way cool and make great gifts for the martini lovers in your life.

So, here is the namesake recipe for my blog site:

The Dirty Martini
3 parts Vodka or Gin (make them the best quality you can afford)
½ part dry vermouth (personally, I either use a vermouth spritzer, or swirl the vermouth in glass and drain it, or use no vermouth at all)

Olive brine

Olives (either pimento stuffed or bleu cheese stuffed – and stuff the bleu cheese in yourself. Don’t buy the bleu cheese stuffed olives that are stored in oil)

Add the vodka or gin and your vermouth preference to a shaker filled with ice. Shake it until you cannot hold the shaker in your hand anymore. Strain into your very chilled martini glass. Add 2-3 tsp of olive brine (more or less to taste) and garnish with your olives.

Find a place to sit, relax and enjoy! You earned it.

A-6Dude