You know, I really don't like talking to people on the phone. I’ve never liked the phone. When I was younger I would not, under any circumstances, answer a ringing phone. I’m not so bad now, and I actually have to answer the phone for my job, but no matter how much, or how little, I do it, I still can’t stand it. I think part of the problem is the people who are calling on the phone. People call here at the hotel for any number of reasons, and to be honest, most of them are stupid. People will call me and ask me where we have hotels in Texas, or they want to know the rates of different hotels here, or they want to know if I know what year the hotel across the street was built. Normally these questions don’t really bother me, but we’re getting into the busy season now and I’m getting really irritated when I have a lobby full of 20 people and someone calls to ask me what our full breakfast menu is. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time to list everything on the menu, I tell them they can go online and look at a list of our amenities, but they’re in North Dakota in the car on the way to Wal-Mart so they can’t check right now. I just don’t understand people I guess.

I once had a lady call me to make a reservation, and when I asked her for her address, she said she couldn’t give me one because they were in the car. So I told her that I needed her mailing address. Again she tells me they are in the car, she isn’t at an address. So I tell her again, I need a MAILING ADDRESS, not where you are NOW, but where you LIVE. I said, you do live somewhere right, or do you live in your car. She finally understood and I got an address, but that goes to show me that people have no common sense. That really is the major thorn about this job, I see between 20 and 100 people a day who have no common sense. It can be frustrating.

I guess I’m a little crabby too because the Kentucky Derby is this weekend and I know those people are going to be a handful. I’m hoping it won't be too bad, but I prefer to prepare for the worst. If it’s not as bad as I expect, that’s great, but if I expect the worst and it is, I’m prepared.

The weather is nicer today; it was like 40 degrees here yesterday. Its up in the high 50’s, maybe low 60’s so I’m happy about that. I did not get my pretzel yesterday, we had the marketing manager from a local restaurant come into the hotel and she brings by discount cards for us to give to the guests, but yesterday she brought some food by too. At first I thought she just brought a few containers of buttered rolls, but then I discovered there were cheese fries in there too. I was excited. They were really good. I’m still getting my pretzel on Friday, I already told MD and he said we could definitely get one. Well, I guess I should go grab the cookies before they burn, another perk we offer here at the hotel, fresh cookies daily for guests. I fell pretty good today, I hope this is a new trend. If I could feel this good or maybe a smidge better for the next month or so, I think I could get almost everything done for muffin :)

And I wanted to thank you all at JS for everything really. The support that I get here is wonderful, the kind words, the answering of lots of questions, the input on things I really don’t know a whole lot about, and the caring about muffin has been really great. I don’t think I realized how much help a little support could be, but I’m so glad I’ve found it here.