so its been a week since i posted last....here's whats new....

justin (the guy i was supposed to go to the mall/whatever w/, the one i really liked) he messaged me sunday night saying that he got back together w/ his ex, after being broken up for a year. needless to say he's gone. but i'm over it.

got home monday night around 9. the first leg of the trip (from asheville to charolette) went just fine). the second leg (from charolette to dulles) was horrible. u know those flights where there is a screaming kid that yells and whines the whole trip and the mother is just like "kids will be kids". mean-while u just want to strangle the kid. well i had one of those. and the kid was directly behind me. on the way down the isle the lady even said "who's the lucky winner today?" and saw that i heard here and said "no its not u." i wanted to turn around a be like it apparently i am the winner.

went into work on tuesday to check in and get a schedule. got roped into opening thursday morning. i got to work thursday morning and the power was still out from the night before. the over night crew was asleep in the dinning room boths lol.

so earlier in the week my friend erin said that she had someone that she wanted me to meet friday night when we go out to dinner. so we went out to dinner at ihop in fredericksburg. i meet the cutiest, in a somewhat dorky way, guy that i have met in a long time. anyway he was our waiter for the night. me and erin helped him with some of his side work so that he could leave early. then after he got off work the three of us went to starbucks to have some drinks and talk for a bit. we then went back to the restaurant so the me and him could pick up our cars, having taken erin's car. i said good night to erin and gave him a hug good night, which he gave me a kiss on the check :D then we went our separate ways.

Current Location: home-bedroom
Current Mood: content
Current Music: none

fyi: no real mentioning of work in this entry.

so here's the deal. i'm coming home monday night. me and my friend were supposed to hang out tuesday morning and i was goin to help him study but that changed bc he had a dentist appointment. so then he says to me, i want to skip class on wednesday, so we're goin to go to tyson's and meet up at 1030. then he tells me, well i got to be home by 1:30/2:00ish. and he lives a good hr or so away from tysons. so lets do the math. i leave my house at about 9ish to get there around 1030. we hang out for about 2 hrs and then go our seperate ways. hmmm hr and a half of traffic to spend two hrs hanging out and walking around the mall.....um not sure about that one. i mean he cant even tell his rents that he's goin to go shopping w/ one of his friends bc he usually goes straight home from school, so there fore they'll think that something is automatically going on....wait this just in...now we're goin to fair oaks. i'm just so tired, this is not the first time that we've tried to make plans and they change and change and change. then we finally settle on something and then a day or two later, or even at last moments notice they get canceled bc something always comes up on his end. and i really really do like this guy, but as much he is a major, and one of the only reasons, y i dont want to travel for work, he is also one of the reasons y i do travel. everytime he cancels on me i feel like i'll never really be able to get close to anyone... and then i just want to get away; far far away. i dont know what to do

Current Location: hotel...still
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: through glass-stone sour

monday:
well we opened today...everything went smoothly, at least to the naked eye. but behind the scenes, total chaos. half the food prices were either wrong or just not there, then towards the middle of the day we noticed that we were having tax problems. either people werent being taxed or they were being taxed to much. we even noticed that the taxes werent applied until the fifth item was put in. well we got that settled and taken care of. other then those small problems everything went relatively smoothly, the newbies took just fine to the computers and to taking tables.

tuesday:
i was scheduled to work from 10-8 again today. me and jose got there at 10 and as we were walking in dave stopped us and took us back outside. he asked us what he thought of the weather outside and we said it was nice and of course wanted to know y he wanted to know. he then looked at us and said, enjoy ur day, no work for u. so we went back to the hotel. i ended up walking to best buy and the mall again. bought X-Men 3 and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

in general:
it almost the end of this training...now i'm wondering if i should call sona and ask her to just send me on to the next training. part of me doesnt want to go home, other then family i dont really feel like i have anything to look forward to. i'm starting to think that i'm just going to go non stop from one training to the next, until spring semester starts.

Current Location: hotel
Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: none-watching crouching tiger, hidden trage

ok so my posts have become somewhat irregular and that is likely how they may be for a little while. the restaurant is set to open (of which i am shocked). the roads r paved the staff trained and the restaurant set up. tomorrw is opening day. i'm a little skeptic about the older staff bc they dont know SOP(standard operating procedure). if u think about it they follow the SOP of the original staff from the old restaurant from 35 years ago, and over time not only has the SOP changed, but the staff has probably shifted from that SOP. so now it falls to us, the trainers, to try to retrain the older staff. now the newer staff can help but the older will be somewhat against having to listen to, and learn from, newbies. we're expecting some good business tomarrow and probably the rest of the week.

sunday night is my last night here, this past week has gone by pretty fast. i can only hope the next one goes by just as fast, i'm starting to feel a little home sick and really want to get back to bristow (for my own reasons, not just homesickness).

today was my first (and likely only) day off. i slept in, damn did i sleep in, till about 3ish. got up took a shower then went out to see the sights. since i'm not 25 i cant drive, so that means i had to walk. i hit up the mall and checked out the stores in there, then went to books-a-million and finally after looking everywhere for one, found an issue of xy :). checked out best buy and barnes and noble (found it fucking hillarious that the gay & lesbian section was right accross from the christian section lol). then i went back towards the hotel, and then past the hotel. went down to mcd's and got some food. then made my way back to the hotel, stopping off at blockbuster and buying stick it. well i'm goin to go to bed pretty soon, but first talk to one of my friends. catch ya laters, cant wait till tomorrow :)

Current Location: hotel room
Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: none

so obviously i didnt post an entry yesterday...i wasnt in to great of a mood, and i'm kinda depressed and getting a little home sick right now, so this is goin to be short and to the point.

highlights-
-got to talk to john for about an hr last night
-the trainees r picking stuff up rather quickly
-um sadly i think thats it

down side-
-work is goin slow
-i'm UNBELIEVABLY bored, there is fucking NOTHING for me to do here other then work.
-i'm starting to get homesick :(

the pay is awesome and i love getting to train new people and sharing my experiences and what-not....but it is so lonely doing this, i dont know if i'm goin to keep doing it. one of the other trainers told me that i am the youngest corp trainer by about 11-12 years, how much does that suck?

Current Location: hotel
Current Mood: depressed
Current Music: fur elise-beethoven

well i slowly rolled out of bed at about 7:10ish. i quickly took a shower and ironed my clothes. then ran downstairs to meet the other trainers and get some breakfast before goin to the restaurant. the new restaurant is only new in terms of the building...it is right across from the old building, they're just moving to a biger one.

we have to train about 12 people for front of house(11 servers, 1 hostess....guess what, they're all women :( not one hot guy in the bunch [speaking of i have yet to see any hot guys in asheville hmmm...]), this obviously wont be a problem seeing as there r three corp trainers (me, jane, and mary) and one franchise provided trainer(cant remember her name). we had the training at one of the franchise owner's other ihops bc the new one wasnt and still isnt finished enough to have the classes in. the franchise trainer didnt do much, we (the corp trainers) did pretty much everything...no actually we did everything. we went over the host/hostess position in detail, and covered the pancakes, omlettes, french toast, blints, senior and kid's foods. covered the 6 server steps and gave them all a small quiz.

then we left around 245ish and went to the new store(corp trainers only) and caught up w/ our team leader(dave-pretty cool guy, so far). the building-wow, is so not ready to open monday.
THINGS TO BE DONE-
a)get everything hooked up(i.e.-grills!)
b)um how about a fucking parking lot??
c)u know it would probably be a good idea to get the health inspector in there
d)but first u need the fire marshal
e)and before that u need plumbing
anyone else think that this place wont be ready in 5 days? so....afterwards me and the two back of house trainers went up to wal-mart. once there i got a call from dave saying that he needed my w4 and I-9. so i called up to my home restaurant, centreville, va, and talked to one of the managers there. i had to walk him threw where to find my file, and how to fax my tax info to my boss in corp that handles all that. so then i get a call from grace(the lady at corp) saying that she didnt get my I-9, apparently my restaurant didnt have it, which they didnt tell me. so i had to get her to fax me one to the hotel, only to find out that she didnt send it. so i got one from the hotel manager(smart me). so then i sent that back to her.

then me and fred(back of house trainer, very laid back and cool dude) went to carrabbas to get some food, he even offered to buy me a drink, but i politely turned him down. then we went back to our rooms and that as they say is that. oh actually i'm so happy, i found out that i have bravo!!! YAY.

Current Location: hotel room
Current Mood: calm
Current Music: none

i woke up to the usual "david get out of bed" screach that is my mother's wake up call at about 8:00. ran around cleaning my room, finishing my packing and what not. 9:40 came around and my grand mother came to pick me up. we took 29 all the way to 28 bc for w/e reason 66 was backed up...but then again it is 66, enough said. we got to the airport at about 10:50, which we actually made good time.

the damn people at the check-in pissed me the hell fuck off! United airlines...thats who i was flying. i get up to the self check-in station and the comp asks for my confirmation number so i punch it in and it says please ask for assistance. so i spend 10 minutes trying to get the attention of one of the people that r working there to come over and help me out. so the guy looks at the screen and says to me, litterally, "u have to go stand in that line that hasnt moved, but two feet, in 15 min" and points to a line that probably got about 45 people in it. so i go stand in the line, lucky for me it starts to move, maybe about 1 person every 3 min (do the math). so finally when i'm almost there they decide to have another person come and help out, bc at this point the line is about to go out the doors. i get my ticket which took about 10 min bc i had to show my i.d. not once but twice. the lady then said that i would have to get my other ticket when i landed (different airline). then as i was goin threw security i forgot to take my laptop out of the case (*slaps hand* bad david) so i got pulled to the side and they had me take out my laptop and dusted it for any traces of a bomb, then ran it threw again.

Now, those that know me know that i dont like taking off or landing, but i love flying. i had two planes to be on, the first was from dulles to charlotte. the second from charlotte to asheville. the first flight was a little bumpy, but i was ok w/ that, i just listened to my ipod nano (which i finally got working) and relaxed, as much as i could (flight time-1h 10m). i had to litterally walk almost 1/2 a mile to the gate that my plane was leaving at, in 25 min. and get my other ticket to that flight. so i'm standing outside the gate and its starting to load, and i still dont have my f-ing ticket, y u ask, well its simple. none of the ladies that r supposed to be at the little desk thing to give u ur ticket r there. so i have to get the lady thats doing the bording to give me my ticket. the second flight was in a small ass plane that still had a propeller. i was in the very back, and the see went all the way across the plane, fitting in 5 people. the dude that sat next to me smelt of major b.o., i wanted a shower so bad. then during landing i sware the pilot almost tipped the plane when he landed on ONE wheel (flight time-25min).

so i got into asheville around 3:15ish. found my suit case and a subway ( :) ). while i was inline i asked the lady if there was wireless internet, and finally luck was on my side, there was! so i talked to some people for a bit then one of the ladies i was meeting there called me and asked where i was. we chilled in subway, talking shop, and then finally the other lady got there (after me waiting litterally 3 hrs).

we get to the hotel and check in. my room is fucking sweet (see the link below for pics, also have a few from the flights). my room has a kitchen/office, nice bathroom, queen/full bed, "living room". after i got unpacked me and the other trainers went to dinner at outback where we had to fill out some paper work and what not. we then went to wal-mart where i got some soda, puding, pringles, and a new shirt and pants. and thats about it folks, all in all it was an ok day.

ps-did anyone hear about the bomb threat at the manassas nova campus?

( pics! )

Current Location: spring hill suites marriot. asheville,nc
Current Mood: drained
Current Music: chasing cars-snow patrol

so ya its 3 days before i leave for nc, wont be back for 2 1/2 weeks. so me and this friend, who i've really only talked to online or on the phone, decide that we should meet before i take off. we figure that friday would be the best time. then today i ask him what he wants to do tomarrow being friday and his response is "oh well its my friend's b-day tomarrow and he's having a party at his new place, i havent decided if i'm going yet" but based on his track record he was goin to go to his friends place. however on the bright side there is this "curious" guy that i'm kinda getting interested in, we're goin to hang out tomarrow instead....i think i traded up.

but still...u know its kinda sad that none of my "friends" r to keen to do anything w/ me this weekend before i leave, especially since i wont even be here for much of the next few months.

regarding college....i've decided, after much thought, what exactly i'm goin to do. obviously, since i'm goin to be traveling the country for 3 months, i'm not in school right now due to two reasons:
1)needed a break from school
2)didnt have the money
however i'm deffinately, as sad as it is, starting to miss school and, yes, even homework. so what i'm goin to do is this, i'm goin to go back to school in the spring semester. me and justin were even talking about taking that wilderness class, the one where u get to go camping. then, depending on what my finacial possition and my work condition is w/ the wilhelm group ("doc" wilhelm owns 7 ihops: fredericksburg, woodbridge, chantilly, centreville, warrenton, gainesville, stafford) i may or may not go back to working w/ corp in the summer. well i guess we'll see what happens, i'll keep yas posted

Current Location: home
Current Mood: peaceful
Current Music: none....kill bill v.2

so ya this is my first journal entry. for those of u reading this that dont know me to well i am david. i live in the manassas area of va. i currently work full time as a server at an ihop in centreville. however recently i was givin the opprotunity to travel the country and do new store openings working for ihop corporate as a trainer. i would be training new front(host/servers)/back(cooks, bussers) of house employees. i take my job somewhat seriously (i also like it from time to time, as long as my bosses dont fuck w/ me). one of the main reasons y i've started this is to keep my friends and family posted on how everything is goin w/ my new store openings. well i think thats enough for right now, its kinda late an i'm tired :-P so its off to bed to wake up in 4 hrs for work (oh joy...one of the times that i'm not happy). well night all!

Current Mood: chipper