Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Feedjit/Boeing

I was over at Fin's journal and saw the Feedjit thing he put on there - seems to me the next best thing to what JS used to have in being able to see all of your visitors for that day, and on your blog, the last 10. Well, whatever. I just put that up.

I just read this rather long article about Boeing's intention of ridding itself of fully 10,000 employees. I remember when those machinists went on strike - and even made an entry on my JS journal about it - that they shoud be THANKFUL they even have jobs and can the BS with pay and all that jive.

They shot themselves in the foot and stuck a toilet plunger up their rear. Nice going, Boeing Machinists Union - you are mostly responsible for the reason that 10,000 of you folks are going to lose your jobs.

BenB is NOT clapping. I thought they were idiots then, I think that now. Boeing is a good company - my brother works for that company over in Mesa (AZ of course) building those crazy helicopters for the military. I have NO clue whether his division will be affected by this, and if so, whether he faces a job loss as well.

He has survived several layoff bouts in the past when it was McDonnel Douglas - I hope he gets through it this time as well, if it even hits there.
I'm still reeling at the staggering loss of jobs: 10,000. That's a LOT of jobs and a LOT of people that are going to lose good paying jobs for - what? There ain't nothing out there, Jack. You wanna work at Burger King, great, otherwise, good luck with that.

I feel a little more trepidation every single day when I see this continuing parade of job cuts coming from all kinds of different companies that exist in all different trades/services/whatever. My company continues to either lay people off or simply not rehire for those that leave on their own. You think I'm not sitting here fretting along with everyone else? I am not consumed by it, no way - I won't go that far with it - but I definitely think about it and often.

How many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of yearly pay does 10,000 jobs equal? Or is that in the billions? We don't wonder why the economy is totally trashed right now, we see how it's only going to get worse when news like this is unleashed upon an already tense, nervous and hurting society and economy.

And with that, I continue on with my campaign to store up food stuffs. I am now putting it in another location besides my kitchen for fact of certain tenant eating my food. Okay, eat my food - but only that which I have for the week at hand, not the stuff I am using to store up for a potential catastrophe in the near or not-so-near future. I dunno - but I don't want to starve finding out.

Fry's is having yet another awesome sale on things I will be dumping into that little storehouse. They got this deal where you buy 10 items and the price varies - but the Hormel chili goes down to 50 cents per can, a LARGE box of Captain Crunch goes from almost 4 per box down to $1.50 and a lot of other things. Hey, cereal lasts a long time in storage, it's one of those things recommended to buy for such an endeavor. You have to buy 10 - and it can be mixed - anything that's on the 10-for sale you can buy as long as there's 10 of them. Not 9 and not 11, I found out the hard way. You can buy 20, 30 whatever, that's how they're doing it. They've never done a sale like this before, but the savings are QUITE substantial.

Well, anyway, I hate to see Boeing going through the same crap as everyone else. It doesn't make sense - it does but geeze. I have never been in a union, so maybe I'm just ignorant. I just don't see unions going on strike when one of the worst economic environments ever is occuring. What, they don't need the income? I have strong opinion about people who are making googles of money yet act like babies cause' they don't think they're getting a big enough piece of the pie - while the rest of the world around them is falling into the hell-hole of financial disaster.

I think I'll stop that at this point, because the more I think about it, the more outrageous their actions become - my view of it anyway.

Sighhhhh. I'm just glad to still be employed.
No Mary report today, either, I haven't seen her as she hasn't been home. Ken - left who knows where before I got home, Wednesday and Thursday are his version of a weekend. I did speak to Ken today on the phone as he had left me several messages last night wanting to know what happened in court. I missed the calls cause' I had the ringer turned off when I was in court yesterday and forgot to turn it back on until this morning.

ben

Wednesday/It Dawned On Me........

............today that I could blow Mary's work for reduced rent and the "fact" - according to her - that I haven't given her sufficient credit right out of the water. Not that I don't have ample proof of her saying 2 completely different things already, but - let's just say the judge sees things her way in this deal and wants to give her January for free - rent that is.

It occured to me today that Mary actually took over that family room a long time ago, like within weeks after moving in - by filling it up with her stuff. All kinds of stuff - 2 chairs; an antique dresser with mirror; 3 tables and various this and that. She was using it to store her stuff. She also brought in 4 barstools at one point and had those sitting in the middle of the room. I never actually gave her permission to put that stuff in here - but regardless of whether I had or hadn't, there is certainly a huge rent concession right there: the use of a second room, rent free. That room is at least about 245 square feet - the room she was in is about 160 square feet of living space. 6 months times $500 = $3,000. She also used my car for a month. What's the going rate to rent a 4 door, full sized sedan? $30 a day anyway. Times 30 = $900. I am going to use that to show what I've actually done for this woman in terms of use of my house and even my car.

Mary intends on paying me - so she says - for February. I am not going to accept it. How can I accept rent for the next month when I am filing for an eviction against her? I desperately need the money - yes, but - I need her out of here worse.

Well, anyway - nice day today. Weather is beautiful. Oh, speaking of Mary, she has stopped working out front altogether. Which means I need to go out there and water some plants. I watered everything in the back yesterday, but some of the stuff out front looks to be getting a bit dry, want to make sure to keep up with that. I don't think they need too much watering in the winter, but still. It's warm enough that all the plants are growing anyway - the only thing that stopped was the tree I planted. It's a deciduous tree, it dropped it's leaves and I guess it's waiting until it believes winter is over before putting out new leaves.

Actually, it was cold this morning. Cold by my standards, anyway. Anytime I can see my breath floating through the air, it's cold.

4 days until the Superbowl. I had thought about throwing a Superbowl party over here, but - people don't do parties like that in these days unless you have a big-screen TV. The biggest screen around here is 32 inches, hardly a big-screen TV. Oh, how I miss that TV I paid for and then burned up in that house fire. It's one of the things I REALLY miss. Ken has a friend that's selling one just like that one I had for $200. That's a bargain - too bad I don't have $200 to spare right now.

Well, I have things to get done before the sun sets, c'yall later or tomorrow.
ben

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