Plethora

Video Tour

Again, we don’t have any pictures from France up…yet. Waiting till after Christmas because we want everything framed.

So, here is a new tour for you losers who don’t visit.

3 comments December 18th, 2006

ABC

I’m in sales. I have made a decision that with my background and energy that I would engage in sales. A career in sales is known as the lowest paying job and the highest paying job in the country. This is because you are in charge of your own destiny. If you outsell everyone else, you make more money than everyone, you move up the ranks, and then you don’t ever have to sell again cause you tell young peeps like me how to sell.

I’m all about the future, big dreams, moving up, being successful. Very much a career guy. Big dreams. So is Lindsey, she’s in grad school to assure she could be management sooner in a lab doing what she always wanted to do. With an MBA I can assume I’ll be making around $85k starting out, with Linds’ masters she’s expected to make $60k. You combine those incomes, that’s not bad for a young couple. My point is, Linds and I are both trying to set ourselves up for a better future.

Today was a bad day for Bryce, but also a good day, but a bad day.
Explanation:
If you recall, I managed to be “the guy John Gleason mentioned in his press conference”, who is my boss’ boss’ boss’ boss. Today him and his boss, and everyone on down the list, were in Allentown. They wanted to see what it was like in Allentown on a regular day. Gleason remembered me, that I was from a Dakota, and that I had my tractor, I had no effect on his boss, Mike Martone, but take what you can get. My boss’ boss-ish and I have good rapport, too. So, we chatted. They wanted people to have calls within this hour time-frame while being monitored by the uppers. I happen to be one of the few in SBS (Small Business Services) who was running an appointment at that time. So, they listened. They were using our most similar competitor, Paychex, and there was no pain (when they’ve had a problem we call that pain). The only thing, we can get cheaper rates than them. So, they listened to a lot of, “who stuffs the checks for confidentiality? Paychex does that for us” The only good part was, the lady tried a typical escape tactic, “Oh, sorry Bryce, I’m really busy today” so I followed that up with, “Alright, I understand, tell ya what, let’s do the analysis for as long as we can, and once you have more stuff on your plate, let me know and we’ll pick it up where we left off later”. They were impressed with that. Nothing else. Self burn.

To add insult to injury, of the three of us newbie’s, I am the only one who hasn’t closed anything. Today Shannon closed 2 deals and Melanie closed her first. That’s 5 for Shannon. Wow. I need to start closing things quick. I’m one of just 3 SBS agents that haven’t closed anything.

So, I went for a run tonight. I’m already sore. It feels good. (that’s what she said)

6 comments December 13th, 2006

Happy Birthday Mom

I am jumping the gun, but when most of you read this it will be my only mother’s birthday. She is 30 and we wish her many other good years, like 10 at least.

In Philly news: Lindsey and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary by going out on the town. For the first time since moving to Philadelphia we explored the city in a non-tourist way. Linds said I was in charge of planning the evening since she asked me out 6 years ago. Which means I will never have to plan another anniversary date again since I asked her to marry me. Am I right?

When Linds says a decision is up to me, it comes with undisclosed limitations. Basically, I have to guess what she actually wants or else I might as well have called in sick. For example, “I don’t care where we eat for lunch” so I’d decide on Dairy Queen, “Oh, I hate Dairy Queen.” Then, we’d get into an argument about why she said she didn’t care when she actually did. Because of this I figured I should go by word-of-mouth rather than finding out where to go based on my own googling.

The nominees: The Continental, Kamatura (or something like that), Dave and Buster’s, Iron Hill Brewery, Bensi, Applebee’s, or any place we find one downtown.

I decided on Dave and Buster’s (originally written: Barry’s), a chain that is a combination of bar, restaurant, and arcade. It’s right on the river that runs under the Ben Franklin Bridge and is a pretty trendy place. More kids there than I thought would be there, since you can only get in the door if you have an adult. We tried an appetizer and drinks and then went checking out the arcade games. We did some racing games, fighting games, trivia games, and just random games to get tickets for prizes. Got some shot glasses and went for our entree. We split a salmon, fries, and green bean meal, I told Linds I would take care of everything and to order whatever woman-fruity-drink she wants. She had a weird snow cone thing and some other fruity drink and a shot or something.

We spent like 4 hours there, and we both had a good time. Linds said, “could you ever imagine when we started going out that we would be spending out 6th anniversary in downtown Philadelphia”. Craziness.

Good luck with finals everyone, Miles, good luck with doing your thing. Mom, good luck making Hogan obedient.

9 comments December 9th, 2006

Back in the day

I came across a video today on youtube that brought me back ..back..back.

I was already in college, perhaps a sophomore, coming home for winter break and working full-time at Bill’s. I was also beginning to think that David and his friends, Tony’s brother Tyler, and Chris Smith, might not be so bad after all. I remember specifically picking on Chris because to me he was just a young kid who talked shit alot at the Rolfes house that I would occasionally feel the need to wrestle until he took back whatever he was saying. He had just sort of grew out of that, or grew significantly bigger than me, I should say. I am pretty sure Tyler was bigger than me shortly after he was conceived so I don’t think I’ve ever tried to take him out.

Anyways, Rick and I are bagging away, cleaning up the trailer, or just trying to organize the back over Christmas break and Chris is working up front when I’m called up there. And he’s rushing around working hard but singing/muttering to himself something like, “ding fries are done” and something about a “paperhat”. And I had no clue what this was from and thought it was some weirdo song he was listening to.

Here it is.

8 comments December 4th, 2006