Okay so this morning Brian got an email from his girlfriend Stephanie saying that someone she works with heard that they are going to close our call center down.  I know that sounds very he said/she said but The person she heard this from just happens to be the live in boyfriend of the woman that works under our operations manager.
To cease any more doubts that I am just being a drama queen, about an hour ago a mass email was sent out stating that we are having an “All team meeting” at three today.
Dum de dum dum. The last time we had an all team meeting it was to tell us that they were laying off the logistic and accounts payable departments.
So needless to say this place is a SuperRumorMill right now.  Everyone is freaking out. At this point I am trying not to lose my mind.   I mean, I don’t want to lose my job, but I’m not going to sweat over it until I absolutely have to. I have to admit though that it doesn’t really make me want to run out and do all my work right now. The desire to do my job has been zapped from my body(and let’s face it there was never much desire to work *in* my body)
This company is going under anyway. They are all about finding new little ways to bill the customers for false fees. *sigh*
On a lighter note.  Peanut Butter Shakes from Sonic are the best!  Hey I have to find joy where I can right??

Later…

Sixty days.
They gathered us all up in the former A/P department and told us that they were consolidating the call center. Time frame: 60 days.
They told us we would find papers with our managers that would give a date on it. That date is our last day. Some people’s last days will be as soon as Friday but they will be paid for the 60 days.
After the meeting our manager pulled us all into her office and let us know that we don’t have papers. Mainly because corporate doesn’t know what to do with us. We will be on for longer than sixty days but they don’t know how much longer. Corporate thinks that we do a better job than the other offices but they don’t know if they can keep us in the Western division.
So, while I am going to keep my job longer than most in this call center, it doesn’t matter to me.  Either way, they are going to break up our little family.

Rob wants to go to a movie tonight but I am going to try and convince him not to go.  I am too tired.  The thought of sitting through a two and a half hour movie about killing people really doesn’t appeal to me right now.

The other day Rob found two random rolls of film on the table and dropped them off to be developed.  He surprised me with them on Friday night.  The first roll was half of work people(How old were these pictures? Well Renee and Mike still worked here!) and the other half was Maine in July of 99 when we went out for Mags’ wedding. The other roll was Maine in November of 2000 when took our annual trip and most of that was when we went to the Oakland Legion to see Jeremy’s band play. Some of them are quite funny.

It got me thinking  how much vacations have changed now that we have the digital camera. Before we took pictures miserly, afraid to use all the film on bad pictures and you never knew how the picture turned out until you went to your local photo place and got them developed.  Now with the digital camera we get instant gratification not only with making sure the picture came out okay but just being able to view and post your vacation shots on the internet for your friends to see.  It is truly amazing to me how far technology has taken us.  Not to mention the fact that our digital camera has already paid for itself in film and developing costs!

I so love living in the “gadget” era.

Oh, what a day, what a day!

We woke up this morning and Rob announced that he was going to take me to dinner at the Top of the World restaurant at the Stratosphere.  He had wanted to keep it a secret so I would be surprised but he remembered my intense fear of heights and had to make sure I was okay with it.

Let me just tell you, it was wonderful!

There was a bit of a wait for the elevator and then they can only fit so many on it.  The elevator freaked me out a little because there were so many ppl crammed together on it and it rises at an extremely rapid pace.  Your ears pop instantly once it gets going but I guess it would take forever to get to the top at a regular elevator speed.  At any rate, it was totally worth it!

The restaurant itself revolves 360 degrees an hour and is completely encased in glass.  Just Vegas scenery as far as the eye can see.  It was also very elegant compared to what I am used to.  Rob and I don’t usually dine anywhere that actually has cloth napkins so I was impressed.   I ordered a turkey club on a croissant with fries and Rob ordered a half a chicken cashew sandwich on a croissant with the lobster bisque. Everything was wonderful.  The wait staff was attentive without being overbearing and the deserts looked fabulous.  Too bad we were too full from the meal to get one.

Once lunch was done we played a little at the Strat and found it pleasant.  Not too fancy for us, a bit of a downtown feel.  From there we headed to the Venetian for a very anticipated trip to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. I had been wanting to go here for the last two years but we have never had the time/motivation in the past trips to do it.  It was very much worth the wait.  I have so many pictures!  It was really creepy at first because you can’t tell what is real and what isn’t until the person moves, but it was so great!

We joined the Venetian slot club and then played some nickel Yahtzee machines. I bought in for twenty and left with seventy-five dollars and a new feeling about the tightness of slots on The Strip. Maybe they aren’t so bad after all.  Currently we are back at the Four Queens and Rob has won us some money on our new favorite Regis machines. We will soon be heading back down to see our favorite bartender Dan and play some more slots.

I just thought I would update really quickly.

It has been a wonderful day so far!

We left the house around seven fifteen in the evening. Not as early as we would have liked but with my new schedule at work it was all we could do.

We made our traditional stop in Wickenburg, AZ at the Basha’s there to get munchies and some sandwiches since we were starving. Also we picked up four gallons of water. We learned long ago not to drink the water in Vegas.

We ate the sandwiches in the car and then headed back out. I was dead tired but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get to sleep.  I fear the days of sleeping in the car for long stretches on road trips might be a thing of the past for me.   Another stop, this time  in Kingman for gas and then we were onto the final leg of the trip where I finally did manage about a fifteen minute nap.

We stopped at the Hoover Dam to put the top down on the Mustang.  I didn’t matter that it was freezing.  We had a convertible and we were going to experience it in all it’s glory!  Shivering a little we made our decent into my favorite city in the world.

We checked into the Four Queens in downtown Vegas and headed up to our room. I was so tired at that point that I wasn’t into the whole Vegas mood. This happened to me last visit but I shook it off then. I figured I would do the same this trip once I had a few drinks in me but the opposite happened.  My stomach started to turn on me.

Rob figured I just needed to walk around so we went downstairs to the nickel palace. I got a mai tai and settled down at a Price Is Right machine, but the price was clearly wrong.  Ten dollars quickly donated to the Las Vegas economy.  I moved over to a Press Your Luck machine and Rob took a seat next to me on a Let’s Make A Deal slot. We both got some bonus rounds but it was still twenty dollars gone too soon for me.

Rob went off to get a drink and I sat down at a Regis machine. Ireally liked it. I put in Ten and got a lot of play off of it. Rob came back and also had luck on the Regis machine next to me, cashing out ten bucks ahead.

I was finally feeling better so I told Rob while he waited for his hopper change I was going to go up to the room and use the bathroom. Strangely enough, as soon as I got back up to the room I started to feel sick again. It was about 80 degrees in our room. We know the deal with this particular tower at the Four Queens because we have stayed in this tower before in the winter and it was explained to us that they shut off the air conditioning in this tower during the season and apparently crank the heat. Rob came back up and we took the window off the hinges so we could get some fresh air.

He convinced me that I needed to get out again so we went down to Fitzgerald’s next door. I held down a Monopoly nickel game while he tried twenty on blackjack.  Overall I just wasn’t enjoying myself. It was boiling in there and I wasn’t feeling good so after losing twenty more dollars we went back up to the room.

Rob got some food from Magnolia’s downstairs so I ate some and went to bed.

I woke up at two this afternoon and feel decidedly better having gotten a lot of sleep.  Not a great start to the trip but who knows?  Maybe our luck will change.