And here's a rare point where I agree with President Obama

Ain't this just a grand country for allowing me the freedom to disagree with the guy in charge with out the risk of getting myself in a lot of trouble?

Yeah, well I'm not disagreeing with him on something he said in his 9/11 speech -

"As Americans we are not — and never will be — at war with Islam," the president said. "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day — it was al-Qaida, a sorry band of men which perverts religion."

Source

I really wish more people would understand that. I don't hate Muslims, I hate al-Qaida. Just the same, I don't hate Christians, I hate Westboro Baptist Church.

There's no sense in hating a religion as a whole just because some assholes that pervert the religion do very awful things. Hate only those that committed the act, not the faith they claim as theirs. Why does this seem to be so hard to understand?

For once I'm not bitching about my co-workers, but still bitching about my job at the hotel

I don't know if there's any way to completely avoid having parties in rooms, but if there is, I'd like to know.

Honestly, I don't care what people are doing in their rooms, even if it is a party. I've been to quite a few parties in hotel rooms, even hosted a few. Never was a problem for hotel staff and certainly was not at all rude to them. However, when my phone rings at the desk and there's a guest complaining about noise on the line, I HAVE TO care.

I have a splitting headache right now. Been dealing with drunk, stupid, and just flat out annoying people all night. Had the police here three times so far. I'm just sick of it all. So sick of it.

I'm going to take a little bit of time for some therapeutic venting about some of the more ridiculous things I hear from guests when I have to tell them they need to shut the fuck up, erm I mean quiet down.

Which room was it?

No, I'm not telling you which room. Does it fucking matter? You need to shut the fuck up that's all you need to know, that simple. Now shut the fuck up. No, you can't smooth it over with them. You woke them up or you are keeping them awake. Shutting the fuck up is the best way to smooth it over. SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Do you know how much I spent? Do you know how much my group has spent?

I don't give a shit. If I really want to know, then I can look it up. I'm the auditor, I can do that. Turns out, I don't care and it doesn't make a difference. You need to shut the fuck up. Do you think there's some point where you have spent enough money that you can be allowed to do whatever you want and ruin someone else's stay in the process? Am I supposed to tell the person being deprived of a night's sleep that their complaint is irrelevant because of how much money you spent? If they or their group spent more, does that make their complaint more relevant? Just shut the fuck up, you are making yourself look more like an asshole.

Go ahead! Call the police!

OK. Start packing your bags now. Could have been avoided if you just shut the fuck up.

I'll have your job!

You really want it that badly? I'll take a night off, I need it. You can tell people to shut the fuck up. How about that? Oh? you want me fired? For doing my job? Good luck with that. My manager will be here in the morning and I'll still be here at night. Seriously, has any hotel employee that works in any security capacity been fired for addressing a noise complaint? No, they haven't. Save yourself the waste of time. Have a Coke and a smile, and shut the fuck up.

But it's a wedding!

Yes it is, and you had your reception in one of the banquet halls. Now you are in your room, now you need to shut the fuck up. Does that negate the fact that you are keeping people awake? And what are all these people doing in your room anyway? Party's over, get to fuckin and shut the fuck up.

I'm calling my lawyer! I'm suing you!

Cool. See you in court. I'll bet the judge tells you to shut the fuck up.

I know the owner!

So do I. If he were here right now, he'd tell you to shut the fuck up. (OK, I don't know that for sure, but if I were the owner, I'd tell them to shut the fuck up.) - True story, I called a guest's buff one time and told them I was the owner's son and this hotel would be mine someday. Know what they did? They shut the fuck up.

But what if.....

The only "what if' you need to be concerned with is what if you don't shut the fuck up. I'm not here to talk hypotheticals, I'm here to tell you to shut the fuck up. What part of "Shut the fuck up" don't you understand?

How about I....

How about you shut the fuck up? This isn't a negotiation, I'm telling you to shut the fuck up. It's not a topic for discussion, you need to shut the fuck up.

I feel so much better now. For the record, I have never actually said "shut the fuck up" to a guest. I may have been holding back the urge to once or several times. I really feel I have to say that. Sometimes the things I say here get back to those I work with. I wouldn't want them thinking that I get as foul with the guests as I do in my blog. And if they are reading this and not having a good laugh, they really need to just shut the fuck up.

$578M school? You have GOT to be kidding me

I saw this in the newspaper this morning and it about blew my mind.

Yes I still read an actual newspaper, I'm kinda old school.

Yahoo News linkage.

Now most people that know me know I'm going to school to be a public school teacher and I substitute in public schools currently. I'm all for improving education, but L.A. is doing it wrong.

From the linked article-

"New buildings are nice, but when they're run by the same people who've given us a 50 percent dropout rate, they're a big waste of taxpayer money," said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution who sits on the California Board of Education. "Parents aren't fooled."

I certainly hope they are not fooled, especially after reading this -

The pricey schools have come during a sensitive period for the nation's second-largest school system: Nearly 3,000 teachers have been laid off over the past two years, the academic year and programs have been slashed. The district also faces a $640 million shortfall and some schools persistently rank among the nation's lowest performing.

Am I wrong when I say this is like slapping some bling on a rusty old beater that barely runs and overheats on the way to the corner store?

Did I just say "bling"?

These "Taj Mahal" schools as they are being called make even the colleges I went to look like slums and I would be hard pressed to believe the children attending them are going to get anything close to the education I had. Even if they did, that still doesn't justify the price.

I think the money could have been better spent on several smaller, simpler schools. Schools with relatively small classroom sizes. Better yet they could take it a step further and on the high school level have career specialized schools. Something like one for the arts, another for trades, another for science and engineering and so forth. These are just ideas that are bouncing around in my head that seem to work pretty well in other parts of the world where the schools don't have massive atrium's, parks, food courts, and buildings that resemble modern art masterpieces.

Here's a really radical idea in education. No text books, no computers, none of the modern "Taj Mahal" school things. Teach the way it used to be done, through lecture and have the students take notes. As archaic as it sounds, it worked great at one of the colleges I went to - Cambridge University. I learned more there than at any other school I attended and I was there the least amount of time, just a summer. I retained most of it too. I was hearing it, seeing things on boards, slide shows, pictures, diagrams and the like and writing it down all the way. Filled up 3 notebooks while I was there! In addition to that I also hand wrote 5 research papers, each about 2,500 words in length. My research was done the old-fashioned way - in a library with books. Part of that was in the same library that Newton calculated the speed of sound in, but I got myself permanently banned for reenacting his experiment.

There's a point to be made with such a radical, yet very ancient, idea. Students to not need all the expensive things that "Taj Mahal" schools have to learn. These things are nice, but are not going to do diddly for education. If I were a taxpayer in California, I would be totally fucking outraged. If I were a teacher in that school system, I'd switch to a private school if not open up my own. With 3,000 teachers laid off, it wouldn't be a bad idea for them to band together and show their former employer how it should be done.

A few muslims are terrorists, so let's burn a Quran!

Let's not.

Before I get started on what I know is going to be a long rant, take a look at these links-

http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68592

http://www.facebook.com/pages/International-Burn-A-Koran-Day/134718123226530?v=wall

Yeah, I know the first one is a forum post that links to the second, but there are quite a few people there that are all for this. If I were not currently banned from that forum, I'd post a link to this if not just post the whole thing there. If anyone would like to do that on my behalf, I'd be pretty cool with it. I'd like to get some comments from those that support burning the Quran or any other book. You know, have like a discussion?

I'm very against this. I know not all Muslims are terrorists. The people behind what happened on 9/11/2001 were, but they only represent a relative few that are extremist fanatics. Nearly all Muslims I have encountered are pretty nice. Aside from that I am against book burnings in general. Nearly all books serve either a purpose of education or entertainment. I think it's completely asinine to to burn a book because you don't like it or don't agree with it. Burning a religious text carries a bit of added weight as that text hols a pretty special meaning to those who are members of the religion that is attached to that text. Burning a holy text is purely an act of hate and ignorance.

From the Facebook link -

On September 11th, 2010, from 6pm - 9pm, we will burn the Koran on the property of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam. Islam is of the devil!

Did I read that right? In remembrance? That alone is something I've got a pretty big issue with. There's a lot better things one can do in remembrance of those that died that day than commit a blatant act of hate. It's total disrespect! Why not have a big group prayer for those that died, their families they left behind and the soldiers still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan? I don't believe in praying as I am an atheist, but I do understand that most people that belong to one religion or another do. That's at least respectful. Or how about some big charity fund raiser for the families of the victims? Or send care packages to the soldiers? Or just do something positive and respectful?

But there's other problems I have. As I said, not all Muslims are terrorists. Islam is the second largest religion and accounts for 23% of the worlds population, about 1.57 billion people. At least that's what Wikipedia tells me. It's only a relative few, pretty much their equivalent to militant fundamentalist Christians, that do commit terrorist acts. It seems rather asinine to burn Qurans over a few when many of them are not bad people at all. It would be like burning KJV's because the members of Westboro Baptist Church are total fucking douchebags. In other words, committing a hateful act toward a large group is just ridiculous when only a few are the problem.

And about burning the Quran. It's a religious text. Just a book to anyone else, but to a Muslim it's pretty special. Burning it is only going to make the terrorist fanatics fell justified in their actions and at least annoy the rest. Not to mention make those doing the burning and anyone even remotely associated look bad. Great move there folks, you are doing America a real solid. If any reading this is planning on participating in burning Qurans, before you do, think about how you would feel if it was your holy text that someone was burning.

Another thought on this, where are they going to get the Qurans from? If they are going to acquire them legitimately, well that's a lot of sales of Qurans. The people publishing them and the bookstores I'm sure will appreciate your money. Heck it may even look like a lot of people just converted to Islam. And if they are acquired not so legitimately? Well isn't there something in the Bible that says "Thou shalt not steal"? Hmmm Exodus 20:15, Matthew 19:18, Romans 13:9. And it's usually in the front of the Bible with the rest of the 10 Commandments. So if you are not purchasing your Quran before you burn it and you believe what the Bible says, you are going to Hell. Why not give that money to a charity? You know, do something positive with it? A Quran costs between $8 and $40. You could feed or clothe some people with that. Heck if a large enough group gave that each, they could probly put a child of one of the victims through college, if not a few. Just another thought.

Another thing to those that are planning on burning a Quran. Have you read it? If you are going to buy it, you might as well read it before tossing it in to the fire. If anything so you really know what you are burning and why you are burning it. You might learn something. I suggest you not burn it. Read it and keep it as a reference. It may come in handy in a theological debate with a Muslim. It's why I keep a Bible handy as well as having BibleGateway.com bookmarked. This quote from Sun Tzu's Art of War comes to mind.

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

Not that I consider Muslims or Christians to be enemies of mine, but I do get into debates with them, mostly the latter. Getting back to the point, burning any text without reading and understanding it is just ignorant.

In closing and to sum it up, anyone that is participating in a Quran burning is only exposing their hate, ignorance, disrespect and just being a total douchebag. I feel like for the most part I'm preaching to the choir here, but if I change someone's mind or cause them to think, well them my time wasn't completely wasted. At least I got it off my chest.

One of my more amusing quotes as of late.

At least I think so.

On arguing with conservative Christians online -

Arguing with conservative Christian windbags is fun. But if you are doing it on the interwebs, make sure your spelling and grammar are absolutely perfect. This is more important than your actual argument, especially when they are wrong or have no real argument and are too full of themselves to admit it. Eventually they will resort to some form of childish name calling, that's when it starts getting funny.

I don't think I have ever said anything more true.

A few things going on

I'm just the talk of work when I'm not there.

Well maybe not, but I was informed that someone at the hotel is looking for my blog to see if I said anything about them in it. Well this particular post I'm not going to say anything bad about anyone. There's a guest that said he's going to do that. He also said he was going to say something good about me.

See what happens when you do your job right?

That was kind of a dig, wasn't it? Oh well. Moving on.

And the first thing I want to accomplish for the new year...

I want to get my bike back on the road. I miss riding my bike. And it makes me less dependent on the bus. More exercise and less bus riding makes me happy.

My AngelSpit 40K Army is coming along nicely.

Really nicely. Seriously, have a look. I've also completely changed my list. Big thanks to Fritz for helping me with that. BTW, if you like 40k you should seriously check out Fritz's vids on youtube. Seriously.

40K, serious business, seriously.

One bit of annoyance.

In a previous blog I asked for comments if any one read it, no one dropped a comment. I'm just trying to figure out how many people are reading this thing. I don't get any comments, so I can't tell if it's being read.

I feel like a prom night dumpster baby.



That's all for now.

Hotel stories - You are an idiot and so is your kid edition

I just had a feeling it was going to be a bad night, and that was before I left my apartment.

I hate it when I'm right.

The first thing I was greeted with tonight was a note for the management and an incident report. A guest's 12 year old child was in the hotel's fitness center, unsupervised, and hurt them self on the treadmill. Somehow this is the hotel's fault because we don't have any warning signs in the fitness center.

Then I had to deal with a room that was being a noise problem. Sure enough, party room. Sure enough, they have a pretty girl answer the door. Doesn't make any difference, she still gets told the diplomatic version of shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. I've not had any complaints yet. Bummer, I wouldn't mind an eviction.

And most recently I had a lady at the desk looking for a room. We don't have much left tonight. what few rooms we do have are smoking rooms and despite that they seem to be going quick. While she was at the desk, my co-worker was selling 2 rooms to another guest. I quoted her the lowest rate I had for the types of rooms I had. She tried to get me to cut her a deal. Can't do it. I think anyone that's taken a basic course in economic can understand why. That and I really can't change the rates anyway. She asked me about other hotels. I told her which ones had availability and where they were. She left.

Then about 15 minutes later she comes back with her boyfriend. In the mean time I had sold another room. At this point I have 2 left, gave him the rates for each. Both were smoking rooms. He proceeded to ask me if I was sure. Yes. Then if I was serious. Yes. Then if I could cut him a break because it's midnight. No. Then if I could cut him a break because they are smoking rooms. No, non-smoking is the same price. He asks me if there's anything I can do about the rate. No, lowest rate I have, it's actually less than the AAA rate. He again asks me if I'm sure. Yes. And if I'm serious. Yes. Then he decides he doesn't want to talk to me anymore and wants a manager. I am a manager. So he wants my business card and tells me that he's never been treated so poorly. I don't have one of my own, but I did give him a plain hotel business card and wrote my first name only on it. He wants my last name too because according to him I don't know who I just messed with. Not getting it. I don't give it out, ever. Especially to someone who just made that remark at me. He keeps thrown a fit about how badly he thinks he's being treated. I guess I should have been kissing his ass or something. He leaves telling me that he will be calling to complain.

But wait! There's more! He comes back in like a few seconds later all pissed off and asking me if I gave "his girl"attitude like I gave him. I didn't give either of them attitude. He goes on to tell me that I don't know who I messed with, again. Even my co-worker stepped in and said I didn't give either of them attitude. Again he said he was going to call and complain. And that I really don't know who I messed with. I wished him a good night.

Whateva.

All nice and quiet now. And those 2 rooms I had left? Sold!

Moral of tonight's stories - Don't be an idiot, keep an eye on your kid, don't be a cheapskate.

Quick bit of hotel advice

Talking to someone on your cell phone when you are at the front desk checking in to a hotel takes longer than if you are not on the cell phone. It also annoys the clerk at the desk in front of you and the other guests waiting on line behind you.

Also, don't get mad at the front desk because we cannot locate your friend (who is part of a large group) that changed rooms with someone else (who is part of the same large group) and didn't bother to let the desk know. It's not my fault you are a dumbass and your friend is an irresponsible asshat.