So on Thursday I get a call from a head hunter about some positions, they sound interesting then he quotes me a figure – uh I don’t think so.  I tell him, sorry too low.  He is taken aback because there are a lot of people out of work and willing to sacrafice a bit.  Okay in some cases $10,000-30,000 – I am not one of them because the minute you sell yourself cheap you NEVER get it back (I learned that early on)

Back to the story, guy asks me what is my minimum and I give him a figure, he says how about we meet halfway, I tell him minimum is minimum sorry.  He tells me economy bad blah blah blah.  I tell HIM that my minimum is the LEAST that I am worth and that I will wait for the right job.  And end the call.

An hour later he found a way to meet my minimum…I swear some head hunters are like bad used car salesman.

Two hours later he has an interview for me.  Cool.

Three hours later a gal I used to work with has an opening on her team and wants me to apply for it.  Cool!  so I apply.

I call my friend who I used to work with to tell her and her boss hears us talking and takes the phone from her and wants to know if I would come work on their team if he can get funding.  I tell him I have a few irons in the fire but sure.  He is a great guy.

Have the phone interview with job one and it seems to go well.  Two hours later they offer me the job.  I tell them I need to talk to the other two and see what is up before taking it.  Head Hunter says they loved me (DUH!  I am of course ME!)

So I have at least one offer and two potentials.  None from Wachovia lol.  Guess it always happens that way.

I am not exactly sure what is worse – that they found MY website or that the were looking for them in the first place.  I will tell you that we have no historic dutch pictures of goat houses on the website so they should have been dissapointed but hey a visit is a visit I guess.

Just strange what people search for.

A request to the group called “I support Cleve Wells”

Seriously.

At first I thought it was a joke since everyone knows that I have been an advocate for Slow Lopin Scotch. It was not just a request, the guy went on and on about the idiots who were a “lynch mob” and knew nothing about horses and how they were stupid wannabe’s and bitter because they cannot win so they pick on Cleve and threatened the AQHA to condemn an innocent man.

I actually had to laugh…

My first thought was what my friends would think (scary but yes I know people who stand up for him and argue it was the Assistant with the Spur in the Arena but hell I survived as the only Republican in San Francisco for years so it is not really a stretch) if they saw my name on there… Or Cleve himself…would the boil on his butt he named after me become inflamed and his left eye twitch?

I mean I WAS invited LOL…..

Pretty funny to me. And instead of saying anything in a reply, I simply hit ignore.

Then laughed….

Then blogged about it.

I am also the busiest unemployed person alive LOL!

The Pinto World was…painful  Painful in the way that I had the go of my life until the end and watched a buckle disappear.  I guess that is the way shows go.  I am still disappointed but I will live.  Everyone here knows how hard I worked and it just sucks when it does not work out.

I will say I was thrilled that Kathryn Stanley won – a better gal cannot be found.  She is a great competitor and a beautiful person inside and out..I cheered for her as her and Whinne went out for their bow.

Not going to say I was not disappointed but thanks to Laren (who threatened me with Chewy AFTER lending a shoulder to cry on) I am living.

So I have been super busy with our web busines.  We have jumped head first into eCommerce.  I am happy to report I have picked up my most favorite business Harris Leather.  Check out their blog – I am putting up video now of my last tour and we have some other great stuff like their online catalog and a revamp of one of their other websites on the way.

The Harris family truly are the coolest people on earth and when I go in to their shop I drool…So look for some really GREAT video coming.  They are also on Facebook and Twitter .

We have some new eCommerce sites coming online that I will be putting on the side.  PLEASE click and look – I am poor and need money and Ace needs shoes LOL.  Did I mention North Carolina has one of the highest unemployment percentages in the country and I specialize in BANKS????

Seriously, we are okay, we planned for a rainy day but I am hoping some of our website will take off.  I do promise not to use this one to market off of.  Okay maybe if some of my distributors are really cool and work for horse stuff then yes…but I will keep it to a minimum.

I will be posting regularly again now.  We just got back from Aruba (I want to go back) and I actually have a TAN.

Okay so here is a cool company – the are called JC Bling and let me tell you they have some seriously COOL bling.  When I talked to the distributor he was wary of horse people and so I showed him the Chronicle and he had a big ole smile.  Don’t let me down gals!!!

Free Shipping in the USA. Swarovski Crystal embellished Sunglasses. Customized Online by you and for you. Save at JC Bling

I went out and hung out with Ace – she looks GREAT!  She is boarding at my friends place which is nicer than most houses.  Between the food and the grass she has gained a TON of weight.  I went out last weekend and had to give her a bath so I could give her a bath – she was that dirty!

This weekend I went to the barn and lo and behold Derek was having a clinic so Ace and I snuck in.  I had to laugh as at one point I think there were two WC paints in the arena – in fact we probably would have had a 2-3 point class for every event.

Ace rocked – I had not ridden her in three weeks and she was just great!  We had a great time and it was so fun to hang out with people and enjoy my horse!

Today in the mail I got my number for Pinto World – 1316.  I LOVE that number – as 13 is my favorite number in the world!!!  Jaime and I will be hauling Ace and Aspen out together.  We have our room reserved too so Pinto World here we come!

Life is good!

I am off to California to be with my cousins.

I literally shut the browser – I did not want to know.

David Poole and I became friends from The Morning Drive show on Sirius.  I called in after Michael Waltrip’s illegal fuel issue and David and I hit it off.  I became a regular caller and usually agreed with DP although a few times I would call him on being dead wrong.

I called Dale Jr – Paris and made him laugh.

He called Michael Goofy and I laughed.

It was all in fun and all because I loved sparring with him – I have a pretty strong personality and definite opinions and DP was the same.  We had some great intellectual/philisophical discussions off air.

I commented to him that I wanted his Tim Richmond book but could not find it anywhere – he met my husband one night driving out of his way and for Christmas I got a complete set of books autographed.  When Steve tried to pay he told him, don’t worry the publisher screwed me out of most of the money…a few more freebies won’t hurt.

That’s the DP I know and love.  The book sits on my bookshelf and I look at it all the time.

In the last year my visits to the show have been few and far between – but DP and I touched base a lot.  Not really Nascar although any Mikey article I got a sneak peak of.  Usually we just talked about normal stuff.  He was supposed to bring his grandson to one of my shows so he could meet the horse.  He loves that little boy…and I hurt for him losing his Paw Paw.

He was going to be in my win picture at the World Show since there was a race the same weekend.  He wrote it down and said sure why not it would be fun.  He thought it was funny horse people could do a win picture and not even have to win.  I guess to a NASCAR person it would be strange to have all 43 cars roll into the winner’s circle.

DP is a big time guy who treated everyone the same – he was not an elitist he thought all of us were important.  He never got how important he was because that’s just who he was – he had an opinion and if you had an opinion he would give it.  And give it.

Oh and give it.

My niece died last week – in fact last Tuesday.  DP was one of the first to reach out to me.  I wrote a blog about her and DP told me he read it and thought it was a shame I did not stay in Journalism.  Nothing anyone will ever say to me will ever mean more.

We last spoke on Monday – I was giving him a hard time on not wanting my friend who writes NASCAR romance books to come on TMD and he said no – it was hilarious.  Typical DP being stubborn.

As far as I am concerned we just lost the best writer in any sport, scratch that the best writer period.

Lots of people way more important than me will wrote words better than me about David Poole – I know that.  But David was a good person.  A kind person. A person that cannot be replaced.

Right now the world does not make sense to me.

The world of Journalism lost a great writer, NASCAR lost their voice and I lost my friend.

What happens at the training barn does not stay at the barn.  I hope the other brutal trainers take note of this and are afraid…VERY afraid.  And you know who you are.

People kept saying this was a *joke* and who cares if he lost his membership in the AQHA Professional Horseman’s Association,  In fact I was told that by a Cleve apologist.  Slap on the wrist…boo hooo.

I guess I can stop worrying about the lawsuit threats – oh yeah by some of the same people and others for putting the FACTS out on my Blog for people to read.  Whew I was really scared!!!  LOL

So now what becomes of Cleve and his people?  NSBA has a reciprocal agreement – I am hoping APHA and ApHC do as well.  He needs to understand that even *legends* have to follow the rules.  Imagine that, rules ARE for everyone.  Personal responsibility do count.

I will offer my statement I made for him again….heck just put in tiny 3 pt font that I wrote it.  But take your time Cleve thinking it over.

You now have a year to try and save your business.  I suggest using the time wisely.

I rarely ask anyone to forward my Blog, but if you know a teenager or a parent of one or are either of those please really read this.

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you wonder what the outcome would have been had she worn her seatbelt….

• Would she have walked away without a scratch and not learned a thing?
• Would she have been shaken up and straightened out her life?

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you wonder about what the future would have been…

• Would she have finished her nursing degree?
• Would she have had a family of her own?
• Would she have looked back and wondered how she made it through her teenage years

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you read the police report online…

• You find a one line police report that tells you a life is gone.
• You are horrified to know that she is the 37th fatality for that trooper that year and it is only April
• You read that she was airlifted to the hospital
• You learn her car was totaled
• You find out that the trooper had to rifle through her things while her life drained away to get contact information to let her parents know their daughter was dead.

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you read the newspapers online to get information because you live 1000 miles away….

• You see a three paragraph write up based on the trooper’s report.
• You wait for an update then realize that another teen in another accident is not anything new.
• You get incensed at someone commenting, “if only her parents would have taught her to wear a seatbelt”

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you run across her My Space page when looking for information about her death.

• You wonder what happens to it – is it a frozen moment in time.
• You read every line and cringe at flippant comments like “live another day” when you know that will not happen.
• You see that she and her friends have no understanding of how precious their life is

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you think of their friends

• Are they mourning her loss?
• Are they realizing that teenagers are not made of Teflon?
• Are they learning anything or will they continue their wild ways

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you think of her family and their pain

• Her Mother
• Her Father
• Her older Brother
• Her younger Brother
• Her Grandmothers
• Her Grandfathers
• Her Uncles
• Her Aunts
• Her Cousins

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you think of how things will never be the same because someone will be missing….

• Birthdays
• Holidays
• Births
• Weddings
• Every other day

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you don’t know how her family will cope…

• With her not walking through the door.
• With her not on the other end of the phone.
• With her not driving them crazy as every teen will do.

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you wonder could anyone have changed the events…

• You know that teenagers believe that they are invincible
• You know teenagers know a lot but do little of it.
• You know that when you were their age you were the same way.
• You know that your niece will soon be just an additional sad statistic that will be told to a group of teens that won’t pay attention and continue the cycle of unnecessary deaths.

When Your Niece is Dead at 19 you wonder if the 164 minutes between the accident and her death were painful or if even for a moment she had regrets and are haunted because you will never know.

Life is precious people – treat it as such.