Sunday, August 14, 2016

Well....my bacon wrapped chicken and jalapeno poppers turned out very nice, I dunno about the pary.  The man of the house was completely stone drunk by 8 pm and was throwing up 10 minutes ago - 9:40 pm.  In fact, there was no small amount of debauchery going on which finally got me headed back to my bedroom.  It's just that it was the last weekend they are going to be here.  The lady of the house was ignoring him - she is pregnant and not drinking at all I think they were disappointed that a large number of people who were going to come - didn't, including their best friends.  I mean, they're going to be gone  for quite a while, you'd think their friends would show up, especially with that kind of advanced notice.

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But, that's none of my business and last night is  now Sunday morning.  A HUGE mess in the kitchen, just got done cleaning all of that up. The lady of the house would have done it, but I just can't stand seeing piles of plates and pots and pans laying all over the counters and the sink, so I cleaned all of it up, which earned me free breakfast at IHOP so I'm not going to complain.  Not that I would have complained anyway.

This is going to be a busy day and busy week, at least until after Wednesday as they are preparing to move out - almost ready and they are leaving Tuesday night.  I have to move out of my bedroom and into the one across the house, but I can't do that until Wednesday morning.  Actually, I can move some stuff over there but it's the baby's room and even though the baby went home with Grandma yesterday, all of the baby's clothing and furntiure are in there, so I don't want to move anything in there until they are out of it.

It's going to be a lot of work that will need to be done in a short period of time, I wish I could hire someone to come over and help me, but this area is lax on the amount of help you can find with people who actually want to work.  Which just now prompted me to write an ad in Craigslist anyway and see if I get any replies.  I would really like to do a thorough cleaning of the entire house, but that would take more time than I have doing it alone.  The college students are flooding the town again, school must be starting soon, perhaps one of them needs to earn some extra cash, who knows.

After Wednesday things should settle down quite a bit, but adjustment to "new" life without my landlords/friends.  Said goodbye to the baby yesterday - he's 1 going on 2.  I hope these new people are what they appear to be - normal, quiet people.  They know each other which is fine I don't care about that.  It's a large house and plenty of breathing space for everyone to have their own space when wanted.  Everyone will have their own bathroom which is a huge plus.

One of them wants to pay the extra it's going to cost for all the movie channels.  More power to him, we all get to benefit from that but I'm not paying the extra, not even a portion of it.  I'm happy enough with what we've got already and frankly, I don't watch a lot of TV. I like watching movies and I'm a big fan of the Walking Dead - but the next season of it doesn't start for a couple of months.  Other than that, I can live with out it.  I'm more of an internet junkie than anything and I've been trying to taper back on that as well.  Well excepting Bible Gateway - it's got a bunch of versions of the bible and that is one internet activity that I can justify to myself if no-one else in using.  Facebook is starting to get old.  There's too many people full of anger and hate and using far too much foul language for my tastes.  I'm not quitting FB, I have just been cutting back my time on it.

My title for the trailer came in yesterday, meaning I can get that thing sold whenever my mom gets back up there, which she said would be this week.  Well I can try to sell it anyway, it's off the beaten trail and back in the woods quite a bit, not sure how far anyone is willing to go out of their way to buy something like that. But, there are a lot of people that have those things on their property up there, perhaps someone needs one in that area.  I'm giong to advertise in all local venues as well as Craigslist. up there as well as Craigslist in Phoenix.  My mom got a guy up there to fix 2 leaks that had developed in the roof and that guy said the thing is worth $2,500, list it for 3k and come down.  It's got a few minor problems but I really put alot of work into that thing incluidng new wall paper throughout and new carpet.  A good mattress and repairing the ac plus other stuff.  Just not going to give it away.

My LTC - concealed carry - still hasn't come through and fixing to call them again this week. It's been 2 months, I've been told it can take 3, but I'm still going to find out if they've even gotten to it yet.

I also applied for a passport yesterday. I was going to wait until I got my LTC, but forget that.  They said a passport takes at most 4 to 6 weeks but many people get them sooner than that.  I actually don't need it - yet - I just want it.  Bucket list stuff, you know?  If an opportunity comes up, I'll be prepared.  I really want to visit Europe, but more importantly to me, I really want to experience flying over the ocean!  I absolutely love flying, though it's a little much nowadays with crammed full airplanes.  But, I'm happy if I can get a window seat, which always happens.  Many people seem to want the aisle seat so they can get out of there faster? I dunno, but you don't get out faster, lol, you might get a few people ahead but that's it.  I'm not one of those first class flying people - the cost of flying first class is just too much for my wallet.  Still trying to decide whether to go to Hawaii in January.

I've been offered a Great Dane for free - but - one of these new people is bringing a dog so I'm going to see whether Addler and the new dog get along first. But, I'm concernend that the owner is simply going to have the dog in the house all the time, meaning Addler outside alone all day long.  Both of these people are on disability and  they don't work.  The disability check is substantial enough to be able to live off of though.  2 grand a month.  If you spend $500 on your living place you have $1,500 for everything else, which is more than enough, the dude doesn't have  a car payment, so yeah, I know I could make that work if I was forced into such a position.  Well back to the dog, I really don't want to get another dog, but there's no way I'm leaving my big boy out there for 10 plus hours a day alone, he'll go crazy and he may try to get out of the yard.

I'm also considering some options of building a stand-alone "apartment" so to speak.  I could build it with the money from the trailer and live here for free.  It would pay for itself in 5 months.  This is something they already wanted to do anyway so it's not like I"m doing something against their wishes.  But that would be a lot of work so that is just in the consideration department at the moment.
Final payment in the trial run of the mortgage modification coming this week and then I can not only rest easy in a greatly reduced mortgage payment every month, I also will get my credit back up afrter some time of on-time payments show up.  It starts the mortgage over to 30 years, but I have paid it down quite a bit from where it was at at first.  I'm not really concerned about owning that house, I just  want it to get me a good credit score.  I don't really think my landlords are going to stay there forever, no idea. If they leave, I have to sell the place.  So I'm hoping they'll stay at least a couple more years.  I was able to bring their rent down to $175 per month.  They are doing a wonderful job of running that place and they still like the arrangement.

Oh, and I finally had the pleasure of telling Directv goodbye!  After months and months of making phone calls to them to try and get a better deal and get  new equipment in there, I finally caved in.  My landlords agreed to the switch, I had a whole new Dish Network system installed in there under a 2 year contract.  It has a full house hopper that records from any tv in the house, up to 2,000 hours and all tv's can record at once.  I also have a 2 year price lock plus free HD for life.  Directv refused to offer me anything, even told me if I wanted to upgrade they would charge me more per month! They were so rude on the phone plus now you are automatically connected to call centers in the Philippines. The funny part?  When I said I wanted it shut off immediately, THEN they made all kinds of offers.  Helllllllllo? I have been calling since last year trying to get a better deal.  The dude said he wished he could have talked to me before we made the switch, he was offering $40 per month plus upgraded equipment.  I was already done with them at that point, though, the supervisor I had spoken with a few weeks previsouly had hung up on me and that was it.  I invited him to have management review all the calls I have made in the last 10 months and find out how their customers are being treated over the phone......

Now, the best part: the landlords say they love the new system and it's only missing one channel that they were watching.  I offered to upgrade to the next package but she said no, it's the Chiller channel, she hates it but he watches movies  on it sometimes, please don't upgrade!  Good enough, try to keep them happy and they will stay and continue to very nicely maintain my house.

On the job front, still putting in applications here and there at places that look like they might be a good fit for me.  I won't quit for just any job, but a good offer I won't turn down.  My coworker is allegedly putting in his 2 week notice sometime this coming week.  HD Supply is a big company and they have all the paperwork and junk to deal with in hiring a new-hire like all the rest of them.  His final required paperwork was turned in on Friday, now he's just waiting for confirmation of employment and he can issue his notice to current employer.  I would like to think that would help my situation there and it might temporarily, but they will just go out and hire someone to take his place.  The warehouse manager is hating life there now.  He thought it would get much better when the new manager comes in, but intead, the new manager literally gives him hell every day. He's at retirement age soon, it wouldn't be shocking to see him quit.  For 25 years of working there and being a big part of why contractors come in there, they are paying him less than $18 per hour.  I know this because he left his screen up - like he always does - and his paycheck was right there with earnings and everything on it.  I made this case to my coworker who is wishy washy about quitting: there is no future here.  Unless you somehow make it into outside sales, you are wasting your time here.  2 of the outside salesmen are getting up there in age, in their mid 60's, no idea how long they intend to stick around.  There may be opportunity there, even with the new manager.  But if and when are a totally different story.

My newest goal is going to remain in place until/unless something changes it.  That is, a mobile home park.  There's some property I am extremely interested in. Zoning available for MH park.  28 acres, plenty of land. Right on the outskirts of town.  Getting the land would only be part one, though. Hvae to pay someone to disign and draw up the plans for the city to consider and approve.  That's rather expensive from what I hear.  Then the cost of "building" the park, consisting of infrastructure, pads, and road.  Office would be a mobile home or modular structuree.  Have to factor in insurance and taxes. First year would be a write off though.  Lots of trees would have to come down - though it doesn't matter where they fall so I could do that myself, but you still have to get a stump grinder in there and tractor to operate it.

Well that's enough of that for  now.  I am going to have to spend some time educating myself on the business end of it if I am really going to follow through with it.

And with that, I am done with this one.










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