Famous People

We get a few phone calls and orders from famous people here at work. I've mentioned before that Nextel Cup Driver Ryan Newman and his Crew Chief Matt Borland order from me (totally cool), I've spoken with Big Daddy Don Garlitts (a famous drag racer) and some of the guys from ZZ Top sent us their latest CD after we took good care of them. Here recently, I got an internet order from Brian Setzer - as in The Brian Setzer Orchestra. He ordered something wrong so I had to call and verify. They were so ecstatic that I called to help them get it fixed that he sent an autographed picture with a small thank you note. I thought this was cool, so I shared it with Jeff. He's not a big Brian Setzer fan, but he thought it was cool just the same.

This leads in to todays Jeff story. Jeff and I were working at Historic Engel Stadium a few summers ago when Randy Owens of Alabama came in to sing the National Anthem. The game was sold out and he obviously did a great job. Jeff was sortof my boss so he arranged for the two of us to take him dinner. We thought it'd be great to meet him since we were such big country music fans. Well, we get up stairs, he's just staring at the game that hadn't started yet, and we said "Hi Mr. Owens. That was a great National Anthem you did." He looked back at us and said "Uh huh," and turned away. We set his food down and turned to leave when we were greated by his wife. She said "Hi guys! Did you all want an autographed picture of Randy?" Jeff looked back at her and said "What for???" She pretended not to hear that so we gave her our addresses. Six weeks later we both had an autographed picture that we promptly threw away. I remember the call from Jeff when his picture showed up. He said "I think I'm going to go zero in the scope on my air rifle with this one." We talked about this the other day and I'm pretty sure both of us threw away our pictures some time ago. The moral of this story is that no matter how important you are - you are never too good to say Thank you. Any time I've heard Alabama on the radio, or seen that goofy bastard on TV, I've changed the channel. Perhaps I should get over it, but if he didn't have time to say thank you, then I've got no time to fill my life giving any attention to him.

Today is the last day of work until Christmas so I'm excited as all get out. We got paid a Christmas visit from Hooters last night, so it was great to get to see a very pregnant version of Jenn. If I don't get to blog again, Merry Christmas everybody!