Friday, April 8, 2011

Friday 4/8/2011

Friday

Got up late - got dressed, skipped half of my pre-work rituals and rushed to work. Still got 10 minutes left anyway : )

A government shutdown. Will it happen or not? I will certainly looking at the news on and off today to see what's going on with that mess. I heard one Democratic senator give and excuse yesterday as to why they didn't bother to pass a budget when then they had a super majority: they were too busy with the healthcare bill and other measures to have to bother with the budget.

Yes, well I'll bet they're kicking themselves now.

Umm, well limited time here. On the crisps of the weekend, I am paying for the taxes to be done and getting it sent through today. Either heading downtown Phoenix after work today or Monday for the fire investigator's report. Proof the fire even occured apparently must be included with the tax information. They called yesterday and said it was ready. That's a whole lot faster than what I was prepared for: up to 45 days it said online. $1.30 for the report, the only bummer is driving to downtown Phoenix to get it.

Oh well, a trip worth the time. Actually, it's not for from our main branch, if I get a chance I might even be able to stop by there on the way downtown. There isn't anything to do in the truck routing system today - but - the AC went on the semi 3 days ago and I don't drive vehicles without air conditioning in the summer time - which isn't too far away.

Call me spoiled, but when it's 110 degrees outside, imagine what it feels like in an un-air conditioned vehicle. Been there, done that, not interested. I insisted this thing get pushed up the priority ladder as I didn't want this problem existing if it's "only" 90 degrees outside. Still QUITE warm inside of a vehicle without AC.

I didn't think he would be so cheap. I can't comment on it on a public venue, so I won't. Just a bit unnerving a particular situation that I don't want to discuss in case there are certain eyeballs that may have found this page.....

Ummm, that's it. No great plans for the weekend, I usually don't have any, but I do have Monday off. I had to take a vacation day before the end of the month, I left it up to the powers that be which day would work best for them: Any Friday this month or any Monday so that I get a 3 day weekend. I didn't care which, honestly, and Monday actually works better - don't have a Monday work day? Indeed.

Next month I am taking 3 days off for Caleb's graduation: my dad is showing up the day before and I will have to transport him around that day, the day of the graduation which STARTS at 7:00 pm (kinda late, but I think the reasoning is that it will be warm by then, better to do it after sundown since it's probably an outside affair), and then take him back to the bus stop the next morning. That requires taking those days off - which will be worth it to see my dad.

Well, my time is up, time to get offa here.

G'day.

ben

Thursday 4/7/2011

Thursday

Has an odd ring to it - it's Thursday already. Okay. It sprinkled yesterday, a bit, it wan't supposed to rain at all. Not that I mind, I just wish the forecasters in this area would do a bit better job of determining what, exactly the weather is going to be. Saturday there are supposed to be thunderstorms, I'll welcome that.

Next door neighbor - the one to the east of me that calls the police for parking on the street and for them flipping me off......lol.......- I'm out there fiddling around on the east side of my house - I spend a lot of time over there since that's where 2 of my ponds are.

There is a portion of chain link fence that between our properties that juts out beyond the front of his house so that his driveway and front yard are exposed. Not by design, mind you, trust me, if I had the money to build a block fence all the way down that property on that side, I would build it 10 feet tall if the city would let me and 3/4's of the issues with those people would be done and over with.

Well, he comes walking up the driveway. I look up to see him looking at me - the feeling-eyes-staring-at-you feeling. So I looked at him in the eyes, right back. He throws up his hands, I mean, all the way up, like if the cops were pointing guns at you and you are surrendering.

If that's what he meant, I sincerely hope it is true and that it sticks. In other wars, stop the BS, stop calling the police because the police aren't going to DO anything. Not only that, but if they stop, I won't respond in kind. The only issue that would remain are the completely untrained dogs that bark and bark.....and bark..........

After that encounter was done, their dogs got beyond their make shift fencing and yes, started barking at me through the fence. "You need to deal with your dogs", I always say now very loudly towards their house. It works, too. Amazing, in about 30 seconds time, those dogs disappear and I don't usually hear anything again from them either the rest of the day or until the next day - when it starts all over again.

The old saying that money doesn't buy happiness isn't completely true. It has elements of truth to it, don't get me wrong, but there are situations where money can do wonders to restore peace. In this case, yes: a block fence would deal with much of this situation. About $500 worth of block, plus cement and of course the skilled labor to put it up.

Yeah, not exactly in the cards any time soon. It's a nice pipe dream, though. In fact, there are so many things I would love to do with that property........no use lamenting forever about it, I guess, I'm stuck there, though, for now anyway.

Now then, is the government going to "partially" shut down? If that's what it takes to even begin to start to get this debt and deficit under control, then so beit. In other words, get both sides to talk some REAL numbers, not just a few billion dollars. I mean, in terms of the federal government and the staggering debt we are loaded under right now, 61 billion dollars is like finding a penny on the street. Do you even pick it up? It's chump change - now the 4 trillion they are talking about attempting to get passed for 2012 is something entirely different.

Anyway, it is nice, at least from my view of it, to see that one party isn't able to just ram whatever they want through whenever they want to. I continue to ask the question, though: why didn't the Dems pass a budget when they had a Triangle control? They could have done whatever they wanted, the GOP wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, the only constraints would be voter approval or disapproval of whatever they might have done.

I take that back, there is a proposal that slashed SIX trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Now THAT is significant.

Whatever. Plenty to do today in the truck routing system, which is always a good thing - for me anyway as I hate not having something to do and having to "invent" things to do to pass the time.

G'day.

ben

 Sunday - early 20 minutes until departure time.  I don't much care for delivery on Sundays for it takes a while to get security to the ...