Taken from another blog I found, which was siting from an article in Cosmopolitan..... Interesting.. O.o  I wish they had an explanation for females.  Why do we always get info about the other sex, and not for ourselves?  Dammit guys!  Start sharing your mags!

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A guy may talk a big game and wear jeans that are tighter than Adam Levine's, but that doesn't mean he has what it takes to keep up with you in the sack...or get you knocked up when you're ready. The real signs of a highly sexual male are a lot more subtle and surprising. According to urologist Harry Fisch, the following six traits and behaviors indicate that a man is truly made for action.

He's Trim Around the Middle

You've no doubt heard that a dude with a gut is more likely to keel over from a heart attack later in life, but it's also a bad sign in the sexual realm. Testosterone is broken down more quickly in belly fat. So that big stomach? It's literally sucking him dry of the stuff.

"Testosterone is the gas that drives the car," Dr. Fisch says. "If it's low, he's going to be low on gas. He'll be tired, he's not going to be able to exercise very much, he's less likely to be in the mood, and his fertility will be lower because a guy needs a certain level of testosterone to produce sperm."

Waist size is especially a concern if your guy is over 30, when metabolism slows and testosterone levels decrease by about 1 percent each year.

He's Got Guns

If a great sex life is high on your list of priorities, find a guy who's trim and jacked. "Someone who regularly works out and lifts weights is likely to have a higher libido," says Dr. Fisch. That's because the body needs testosterone to build muscle mass, so if he has Mario Lopez-like biceps, he usually has more of the hormone. You can't say the same for men who are "skinny fat" — you know, the tall, thin guy who has a body like a noodle. "If he's too scrawny, he's not going to have a lot of testosterone or a strong s e x drive," Dr. Fisch says. "Unfortunately, working out can only boost a guy's testosterone levels to a point, and some men will never build big muscles because they don't have high enough levels."

He Parties Smart

Smoking and heavy drinking have the same effect on a guy's mojo as a Rosie O'Donnell striptease. "Smoking constricts blood vessels, which means there's less blood flowing to his p e n i s," Dr. Fisch says. This may cause him to have problems getting — and maintaining — an erection. Downing more than three drinks also can leave him limp because alcohol is a central-nervous-system depressant, which once again, limits blood flow to his p e n i s. So a guy who knocks back lots of cocktails? He's probably not going to be the life of the party in bed.

His Testicles Are in Top Shape

You can learn even more about a guy's long-term sexual potential once his pants are off. First, check out his testicles: Each should be the size of a walnut, says Dr. Fisch, and they should be nearly equal, though small differences are normal. If one is considerably smaller — say, the size of a cherry — then that's a fertility red flag. Around 95 percent of a testicle is made up of sperm-producing cells, and 5 percent is made up of testosterone-producing cells. A smaller testicle makes for a smaller sperm factory.

While you're feeling around down there, note how heated his boys get. "If his testicles run hot, it could be due to a group of pronounced veins in the scrotum, called a varicocele," says Dr. Fisch. "These veins are filled with warm blood, and the extra heat reduces s p e r m count." A varicocele can be flat or raised and can look similar to a group of varicose veins in the legs. To find out for sure if he has one, cup his balls and firmly — but gently — run your thumb along the scrotal skin, being careful to check for raised portions or lumps (which may feel like coiled string).

He Has Stellar Semen

You can glean a lot from the volume, clarity, and taste of a man's s e m e n. A guy's ejaculate should be about half a teaspoon. If he's producing less, it could mean he's been ejaculating a lot from s e x or masturbation or that he has an infection or blockage of the ejaculatory ducts, Dr. Fisch says.

Semen is mostly fluid, but about 1 percent of it is sperm, which is what gives it a cloudy appearance. If you notice a man's ejaculate has a watery consistency instead of a creamy one, he likely has a low sperm count and he may have difficulty fathering kids. As for taste, "a guy's semen is a mixture of fluid that contains sugar — fructose — from the seminal vesicles and a salty taste from the prostate," Dr. Fisch says. If a man is having sex or masturbating frequently, as in every day or several times a day, he's going to deplete the fructose-containing fluid, so his semen will taste saltier. If he hasn't ejaculated in a while, it's going to be sweeter.

He Takes Just Long Enough

You don't need a PhD to know that a guy who comes too fast can put a damper on your sex life (anything less than 2 minutes is considered premature ejaculation). But a man who takes forever to peak despite being hard also may be cause for concern. For one, he may be giving himself a hand too often. "Some men masturbate so much that they know their trigger points and it becomes more difficult for them to come inside a woman," Dr. Fisch says. It could also indicate that he's on an antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication, which can cause prolonged ejaculation.

Biggest Guy Sex Myths

We felt compelled to clear up some misconceptions.

-Despite common belief, the size of a man's hands and feet has nothing to do with the size of his p e n i s.
-If a guy is big all around — say, he's a 6-foot-4 football player — that doesn't mean he's going to have a humdinger of a hummer. And a small guy could be very well hung.
-A veiny p e n i s does not indicate that a guy has a problem. In fact, it's totally normal.
-Hairiness has zero correlation with virility. Men with hairy chests are genetically predisposed to it — it has nothing to do with testosterone. Similarly, if a guy is balding, it's not a sign that his libido will be lacking. In some cases, it actually may suggest that he has more testosterone.
-Not every man masturbates regularly. About 5 percent of the male population doesn't do it.

One thing about me and shopping : I dislike it.  

I have the attention span of what is more common for guys: 10-30 minutes max (at a mall), especially if I have nothing I need off the bat.  

On top of that, I despise the people.  They walk around like they drive, aloof and not caring if they are disrupting the flow of traffic.  And oh have you seen them when there are sales?  They are savage beasts that will stop at nothing to get their greedy little fingers on the latest fad on sale for a meager $1 off!  People die for their selfish covetousness.

Now that the background is out of the way...  Yesterday, of all days, I somehow managed to convince myself that it was time to go shop for new jeans.  Also figured I might look into getting shorts and/or a skirt in the process.

Jeans and me:  
I usually try to wait it out at a certain size before I finally decide to buy jeans, because almost EVERY time (and it has yet to prove me otherwise) I buy new ones, my size changes AGAIN.  So the last time I bought jeans was last summer and since then, well for the past half a year, they've been getting saggier and saggier on me.  So after I left the gym yesterday morning, I figured I may as well go get new ones cuz I hate wearing belts.

So I despise shopping, and jeans are the worse to shop for (tops I have a similar issue with but I can find ways around it and can make it work).  And with my stature and physique of my legs, the new "in" style of jeans does not work well with my figure: Skinny jeans and boot cut.  I am a slightly flared jeans kind of person to give me an hour glass'ish figure rather than a pear on toothpicks.

In the end, after almost 2 grueling hours at 3 different stores trying on arm loads of pants, skirts and shorts, I have come to the following conclusions:

-  Gap needs to bring back the ultra low rise, ankle length, flare jeans (the only jeans that ever worked with me time and time again).
-  Ecko needs to make more jeans for women again.
-  More places need to make more Ankle / Short length jeans (especially in high filipino populated areas - we ain't all that tall!)
-  Jean skirts and shorts are big no-no for me.
-  There's no such things as in between daisy dukes/mini skirts and board short length / knee length skirts in jeans anymore.  (I'm sure there are, but in 100 pieces, that's about 3 that everyone else in my predicament has already bought out leaving me with the sizes that do not fit me.)

I wear between a size 4-7 depending on the brand and/or material (yay!  back to a 4 again).  I have thick thighs but that is on account that I used to be a strong runner in XC and track, and lately have been dancing a lot (I tried to re-confirm this for my own personal satisfaction when I had on one of the shorts by flexing my thigh muscles and shaking it around to see just how much was flab - alas, dam my muscular legs!).  I have short legs as well.  

Yeah, my frustration levels just rose ever so much more slightly with the assistance of the overpopulation of people wandering the malls.  

Ah the joys of shopping.  I'm glad it's over.

Spoils of my adventure:  Total Damage = approx $100
-  Old Navy : jeans "the Diva" cut (where the hell did all these new nicknames for these dam cuts come from?  grr), shirt from the boy's section with print of turntables/speakers/tape player/and other electronics
-  Tilly's : daisy duke'ish length fabric short, soft fabric above the knee length floral print skirt, tie-dye looking black and white floral dress, flip flops.

About work:  This is mostly to collect my thoughts together, but if you have any say, go ahead.  *sigh*

So I'm the General Manager and in charge of Human Resources.  I have no solid educational background other than 1 course I took last year at a community college (Management of Human Resources).  Other than that, everything is purely from experience off of nothing else, no training, no one to follow, start from zero.

As the company grew, I found the holes and tried to fill them in to the best of my knowledge and research.  One of those holes at the time was H.R.  We have since grown from 2 employees (not counting the owner) to 7+ (+ indicating our temps/seasonal help from time to time).

I am now at a point where everything I've tried to build, feels like I'm failing.  I can't shake that I feel like I really suck at this position.  I've just recently been given a raise that is finally closer to what I deserve for the million hats I have to wear, but I feel like resigning because I feel like I'm not sufficient enough.

Our HR is about 3 yrs old.  I've been here for 4.5 years.  I try to do everything right, but I am bound to the law and the final say of the owner.  

For the past 1.5 years, I've been trying to tighten up the leniancies within the company, wanting to be stricter disregarding too much of the personal levels of each employee, yet taking them into consideration as needed.  Owner tells me to back off a little due to the fact that (at the time) there were too many (better) jobs available out there and it would be too difficult to lose someone to one of those jobs (hence leaving the rest of us with additional responsibilities) and spend time training someone new.  So, leniency and freedom was our "benefit" over what other companies would offer.

That's 1.5+ years of leniency, with mentioned strictness that was very loosely enforced.  (i.e. Allowance of 3 mistakes in the policies, was in reality nearly 50.)

Now that the economy is bad, we HAVE to be tighter and the job market being smaller, we have the power to be more strict.  However, now we have to deal with "unlearning" the bad habits we had previously allowed.  Solution: Reiterate old policies with minor changes but tell employees that we will be more on the ball with the enforcement.  However, all employees will be given up to a certain time to adjust to the strictness we should've had from the get-go.

So far... Okay.

But the frustrations of certain employees are already there and difficult to shake off.

My other issue:  As the General Manager, I'm mostly in the Customer Service side about 75% of the time, and 25% in the warehouse fulfillment.  Thus, I am highly depending on my Warehouse Manager to manage the warehouse for me and report to me issues that come up and they cannot resolve.

Our current Warehouse Manager is a little difficult to work with, but again, owner gives me the "back off" thing and so this manager has learned to be a manager HIS way.  I understand his point of view, but I also don't fully agree with it.  I still believe a manager should be there for his/her team during very critical / important times.  Given he sacrifices on the back end where no one looks (where his belief a manager should be doing and does not need to be parading around what he's doing when no one looks), but at the same time he's not there on the front lines when his presence is needed (i.e. coming in early every day during our warehouse move).

We try to tell him to be there more, but he thinks we are now harassing him to do work just because the lower employees say so.  Thus his argument "you give everyone too much say in everything, you're making everyone into mini-managers which basically means Management is thrown out the window.  They shouldn't have to question what their managers are doing.  We're supposed to be filling in the holes that they don't complete, and I don't think I have to keep reporting to them when I do each of those things."

This week, one of our employees gave his 2 week resignation.  

What triggered his decision:  

1) The assistant WH Mgr was on vacation for 2 weeks and returned last week on Thursday (my day off).  Prior to his vacation we had agreed that upon his return, that he would not take his normal Friday off so that the WH Mgr could take that day off since he would not be able to take his days off during the 2 weeks the assist WH Mgr would be out.  That didn't happen last Friday.  So a misunderstanding led to the absence of both WH Mgrs on Friday and Saturday when we were scheduled to do inventory.

2) The resigning employee has had many absent days in the past year, yet when he is here he busts his butt off working as hard as he could to get things done.  However, he does end up taking a lot of time off during Mondays, our busiest day of the week, and a lot of times has to do a lot of last minute notifications.  Given 90% of those last minute emergencies are warranted emergencies since he is the primary caregiver for his GF who is considered to be on disability (thus often times must go to the ER).  It is becoming an issue both for us and for him.

3) Well, the following Monday from the assist. WH Mgr's return, he had to call the day off again.  The assist. WH Mgr was pissed because just before he left for his vacation we had just discussed getting tighter on our attendance and everything.  He appeared to be mad that we hadn't done anything about it and it was going to seem that all we had discussed before was pointless, but we were going to give him a verbal/written warning upon his return the following day.  Well, the next day this guy comes in to work, and the assist. WH Mgr blows off on him.

4) Overall he felt he was singled out and did not like how things were going.

In our exit interview, most of his issues were about the main Warehouse Manager.  He said that I am the main reason why he enjoyed working here despite his physical pains/condition because he liked the fact that I am focused and on point, when the WH Mgr is not here.  I explained to him that we are aware of the issues happening and working on making the changes, but certain changes will take time, and results of those changes will also take time.  Nonetheless he is still resigning, but for one thing I'm glad he pointed out the areas where we need fixing (backing me on the things I've been wanting to do a long time ago).

Now, everyone below the WH Mgr has been complaining about his absences since the Holidays, or lack of appearance I should say.  When we met with him though to discuss the issues, he also felt singled out, and, well pretty much what I wrote above.  Right now he is planning on resigning himself.  He mentioned if he is offered a job one day, he's there the next and will not give a 2 week notice here (this was told to me in confidence as a friend though so I can't really put it on record, although he has said this many times in the past and never went through).

Given how things have been this week and this year so far with all our changes we are trying and have no choice but to do, I have a feeling the assist. WH Mgr is doing the same thing as the WH Mgr.  I'm sure he is also frustrated at how we are.

That currently makes it 3/7 employees resigning or planning on resigning soon.  And they are all the ones who have been here the longest.  The remaining 3 (not including myself) have been here barely a year.

With that many employees wanting to resign, I can't help but think I am failing in managing and am not sufficient for the job.  I've already considered resigning from the position, but right now, no one here is well equipped to take over, and the owner will not want to hire someone new and give them such a high position so quick.

Between the owner, me, WH Mgr and Assist. WH Mgr. it almost feels like there are 4 different managing styles/ideas, and I'm trying to make it in a way that will work for all.  But it doesn't seem that anyone below me is willing to discuss (which does include arguing at times until the resolution is found) openly with each other.  It's always ended up being said after the fact or when it's really too late.

>.<

Grrr....

Plus side, if all 3 do resign, I am able to restructure from the ground up and be able to rebuild the company the way it should have been from the beginning.  But man, if I fail again..... *sigh*

Courage

Courage is the strength to stand up
When it's easier to fall down and lose hold.

It is the conviction to explore new horizons
When it's easier to believe what we've been told.

Courage is the desire to maintain our integrity
When it's easier to look the other way.

It is feeling happy and alive, and moving forward
When it's easier to feel sorry for ourselves and stay.

Courage is the will to shape our world
When it's easier to let someone else do it for us.

It is the recognition that none of us are perfect
When it's easier to criticize others and fuss.

Courage is the power to step forward and lead
When it's easier to follow the crowd; their pleas resound.

It is the spirit that places you on top of the mountain
When it's easier to never leave the ground.

The foundation of courage is solid,
The rock that doesn't roll.

Courage is the freedom
Of our mind, body, and soul!

~~ Author Unknown ~~

TGI Friday's Closes Down

Lay-Offs. We'll be hearing that a whole lot more in the coming time. I know of 2 friends who just got laid off from their jobs back in October/November. In the past week alone, another got laid off from his job, and another is on the "high possibility" list at her job. She called her parents and they just told her that her dad just lost his job as well. That's 5 within my known circle.

So where does that put me? I need the money (as do many other people), and I'm getting offers every now and then, but then I have to consider the question: How stable will it be compared to what I have now?

Yes I get paid practically sh*t prices here and do way more than what I'm getting paid for, but it's stable. I work so high up the ladder I know what's going on if we're about to suffer or if we're okay.

I just saw the remake of the movie "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (do not pay to watch it, thank goodness for joox), and there was a scene where I liked what they said (I think the only best part of the movie), regarding how humankind can change their ugly habits for the better during a drastic low point of their life.

Professor Barnhardt: There must be alternatives. You must have some technology that could solve our problem.
Klaatu: Your problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change.
Professor Barnhardt: Then help us change.
Klaatu: I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other.
Professor Barnhardt: But every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually.
Klaatu: Most of them don't make it.
Professor Barnhardt: Yours did. How?
Klaatu: Our sun was dying. We had to evolve in order to survive.
Professor Barnhardt: So it was only when your world was threated with destruction that you became what you are now.
Klaatu: Yes.
Professor Barnhardt:
Well that's where we are.
You say we're on the brink of destruction and you're right.
But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change.
Only at the precipice do we evolve.
This is our moment.
Don't take it from us, we are close to an answer.

That has some truth to it. Look at 9/11 - Suddenly (although for a short lived time) people were helpful, caring all over the world, although at the same time, a different kind of racism popped up. Now we're going through an economy crisis, people are starting to be more frugal again (and all those times you people were on my case for being "cheap" now you know I was being practical, and now you are trying to follow suit - HAHAHA!).

Balance. That's just how things goes. For every up, there's a down, but with every down, there will be an up.

But yeah, I guess I'm stuck at this job, although moving away to start new sounds sooooo refreshing, it may just lead me to more stress than not. I just hope I can afford to help pay for what I need to pay for at home. *fingers crossed*