Ponds

Feeling motivated, I went outside to start cementing in the pieces for the waterfall.
Ummm, what did I do with the last bag of cement?
Oh, yes, I already used it.
Darn.
No, I don't feel like going to the store, it can wait until tomorrow.
Definitely, this waterfall is far disproportionate to the size of the ponds.
I will redeem that by having a pool at the top of the waterfall. I may actually be able to have it semi-deep - a foot anyway, and have some small fishies in there. The birds can use it as a bird-bath, eat the fish for dinner and have a great time!
Oh, well strike the eating fish part.
Still, it can definitely be a nice looking feature in itself, while aerating the water and cooling it at the same time.

It will have to be a cement lined thing - but the size of it is small enough that it won't take much cement.

However, it will also create more work, now that I think about it. To have a water feature at the top of the waterfall, I will have to also build a retaining wall on both sides of the structure. This isn't a problem, it's just going to cause me to have to spend even many more moons on getting it done.

Well, that means buying a few more blocks while I'm at it. 6 more, to be precise.

I just got news that the older lady across the street - who has lived here long before I moved into this neighborhood - is moving. She is still ill and is moving in with her daughter. Undoubtedly a good move - but - she is selling that old mobile for an attempted 27k.

I'm sorry. What kind of people do you attract for 27k? I've had enough of the trailer trash mentality coming in here, I want no part of any more of them. 2 people were intersted but "failed to qualify". It's a 39 year old, metal walled mobile home.

It isn't a problem with your financial status, it's a problem with some sets of mentalities that go with a certain financial status' group. Meth-heads, pot smokers, trashy properties with garbage and junk laying around everywhere. Weeds and grass growing wild - up to 6 feet and more tall.

Look, this isn't a fear thing that probably won't happen. These old, empty mobiles have attracted numerous sexual predators - those that are on life-time monitoring, basically. 4 of them. 3 of them within 1,000 feet of my house, of those 3, one of them within 200 feet.

Whatever. Not great news. Well, it IS great news if cool people move in there. I don't care if it's a family with a bunch of kids, or a couple or a single person, just be NORMAL people, PLEASE!!!

3 work days until another 3-day weekend. Totally cool.

Just bidiig my time until the Suns V Lakers game starts. This is really a must-win. Yes, the Lakers still have to win 2 more games to win the series, but if we don't win this game, I believe it's all over, as the rest of the games are in enemy territory. It would tie up the series and take some of the oomph out of the Lakers stampede to victory. Definitely - well hopefully - should be an intense nail-biter for both sides of the fan equation.

The news? Just a pathetic mumbling and jumbling of garbage, nonsense, political grandstanding and aggressive nations speaking out more and more of the same rhetoric that they have always spewed forth. Oh, and the oil spilling into the Gulf. I am more concerned about THAT little scene right now than any of the rest of it. I wonder if that much oil could eventually have world-wide implications if that stuff were to eventually spread everywhere? I don't have the answers. I am sure that at this point, the government better come up with some pretty stringent rules for the potential of another catastrophe of this nature to happen again. Failsafes better be just that: FAILURE PROOF. Whatever valve assemblies that should have kicked in better be - inspected closely and monitored at all levels from this point forth. Perhaps new technologies are necessary and prudent.

Well, that's enough. I must go out and water a few plants. I have done 2 good waterings this week and it should be good for several days - but the tomoato plants need daily watering. Nothing major, there are 17 plants, I think 10 of them have tomatoes growing on them.

Anyway,

G'day.

ben

Tuesday

So, yesterday, I pull up to a jobsite. It's a different deal - the entrance is off of the private property of another building's parking lot and/or driveway around the back.
Whatever goes on in the building, there is heavy security. Well, I didn't see the contractor anywhere, made a phone call and was informed that they already left. Okay, buy-bye. I was taking off when I saw a loader and it's operator frantically trying to get my attention.

Long story. I can't get into the site. I can do a lot of things with a semi, but that truck was not going to fit through that space with that kind of turn. The normal truck entrance was blocked. They wanted to unload it in that driveway, fine by me.

I start unstrapping. The foreman comes driving up, telling his workers can't do it there. A security guard comes up and starts grilling me. My name, work, what am I doing, yada yada. Get done with him, the foreman comes walking up. Gets mad. Told the salesman to tell me to come in from the other direction - was mad because I didn't follow his instructions. Gee, if I had KNOWN his instructions, I might have had an opportunity to FOLLOW this instructions. This guy has been getting mad and throwing hissy fits for the 4 plus years I've worked at the company I'm at.

I said okay, I'll go turn the truck around and see if I can make it through there. "Well are you SURE you can?". No, I won't know until I start attempting to make the turn in there, but I certainly can try. This guy is popping a fuse. His circuits are shorting out. The old saying "he has a short fuse" doesn't apply here. He HAS no fuse, just get out the lighter, light it up and kablaam, he blows up. I always try to diffuse a situation, but it wasn't working yesterday. He informed me that I would be leaving and bringing the material back in a smaller truck.

Yes, well our yard has a pickup truck. We are going to transfer the material from the semi to a smaller truck this morning. I went back to our yard and went home - it put me in a bad mood and I wasn't able to shake it. I have no clue about people who are perpetually in a very, very bad mood. I don't understand how those people - enjoy life. Maybe they don't and that's the problem.

Consolation? I don't have to drive the smaller truck back there, someone else does. This guy treats everyone equally - rotten.

Taxes. Phoenix imposed a 2% food sales tax, another 1% sales tax and now they want to hike property taxes. Voters in AZ apparently thought a statewide tax was good, too. Instead of decreasing the size of government - which is what needs to happen anyway (No, I am not a proponent of having huge, excessive, wasteful and very controlling government at ANY level) - they just want to raise taxes. Not withstanding the fact the city has a huge reserve they could draw on.

Whatever. Where does it end? My take-home pay is way down, yet taxes continue to go up? Meaning my take-home pay goes even FURTHER down, or when I visit the grocery store or go to buy something at a retail store, I pay more even though the price never changed. This is a good thing? I think Mesa is the only city left around here that doesn't force you to pay a food sales tax. I'm thinking I should start driving through there on the way home from work - there is a Fry's that IS on the way home, actually.

I really can't dwell on those types of things too long, I start getting mad. Getting mad doesn't do anything, although it will get me to making phone calls to the city council members, I WILL be letting them know what I think about their property tax hike plan and also the fact that they are VOTED in, not assigned to their positions. I think they have already screwed themselves, though, considering the taxes already imposed.

I'm a big fan of doing AWAY with property taxes altogether. Your home should not be put at stake because the government doesn't know how to come up with a budget and stick with it. No-one should ever lose their home because they couldn't afford to pay the property tax that is associated with it forever.

Well, work-day is here and I must be about the company's business.

G'day.

ben