Monday
Ummm, got busy this morning looking at all the news online and here we are, 12 minutes from work starting time!
Let's see here: the rebel in Libya are allowing oil exports - that's a good thing considering everyone in the entire world is hiding in closets, mortified of rising oil prices.
Amazingly, governments are sending in planes, secretly, to get workers out of that country in secret military missions. Kudos.
Ummm, 40,000 pounds of mayonnaise on the highway? Yuck. Seeing stories like that - a truck driver losing control of his truck and resulting mayo-chaos - sorta helps keep me on my toes when driving, especially in this crazy city. I don't want the same fate.
Why would anyone poison trees? Much less 130 year old Oak trees. I don't get the reasoning for people's stupidity these days, but then again, the rash of parents killing their families and then themselves defies logic as well. Times we're in, I guess.
Somali pirates have seized another ship. Well, I just gotta think after this latest deal of theirs - killing innocent civilians - that the stakes will be raised on what extent Navy ships/crews are willing to do in order to extract hostages.
As for this weekend that is now history? Uhhh, not too bad. I was going to go to my mom's house but rain cancelled that. We decided to do it next weekend. My dad wrote and said he and his current wife are going to move into an assisted living center. I suppose that's a good idea, I guess my dad really can't drive too much anymore and getting around is getting - harder. The place they are looking at has all kinds of amenities. I'm glad they have enough financial resources to be able to afford such a thing.
That's it.
Plenty of work in the truck routing system for today, today is the end of the month so they will be pushing to get whatever we can - out and delivered, invoiced and billed.
Have a great day.
ben
9 comments:
Monday
Ummm, got busy this morning looking at all the news online and here we are, 12 minutes from work starting time!
Let's see here: the rebel in Libya are allowing oil exports - that's a good thing considering everyone in the entire world is hiding in closets, mortified of rising oil prices.
Amazingly, governments are sending in planes, secretly, to get workers out of that country in secret military missions. Kudos.
Ummm, 40,000 pounds of mayonnaise on the highway? Yuck. Seeing stories like that - a truck driver losing control of his truck and resulting mayo-chaos - sorta helps keep me on my toes when driving, especially in this crazy city. I don't want the same fate.
Why would anyone poison trees? Much less 130 year old Oak trees. I don't get the reasoning for people's stupidity these days, but then again, the rash of parents killing their families and then themselves defies logic as well. Times we're in, I guess.
Somali pirates have seized another ship. Well, I just gotta think after this latest deal of theirs - killing innocent civilians - that the stakes will be raised on what extent Navy ships/crews are willing to do in order to extract hostages.
As for this weekend that is now history? Uhhh, not too bad. I was going to go to my mom's house but rain cancelled that. We decided to do it next weekend. My dad wrote and said he and his current wife are going to move into an assisted living center. I suppose that's a good idea, I guess my dad really can't drive too much anymore and getting around is getting - harder. The place they are looking at has all kinds of amenities. I'm glad they have enough financial resources to be able to afford such a thing.
That's it.
Plenty of work in the truck routing system for today, today is the end of the month so they will be pushing to get whatever we can - out and delivered, invoiced and billed.
Have a great day.
ben
Tuesday
I continue to read the news about the standoff in Wisconsin between the governor and the unions. I hope the governor stands his ground and starts a nationwide trend: the gravy train is over. The more I read about the absurd amounts of perks and benefits these people get simply because of "collective bargaining rights" - well, I can only say I'm glad Walker has the intestinal fortitude to, so far, stand up to them.
Nothing much new going on. I came home yesterday from work and took a look at the hummingbird nest. She was in there, keeping those eggs warm. There are 2 tiny eggs in it. She wasn't looking too comfortable with me coming up too close, but, I just wanted to see if she was still tending to those eggs. It seems awfully early in the season for a bird to be nesting eggs? It's still quite cold outside, I thought this stuff occured in spring or even summer. What do I know, lol. It will be very interesting to see if the eggs are hatched and what happens with the hatchlings.
Our store posted the best month in quite a long time in terms of sales for February. I hauled $331,000 worth of materials all over the place on the semi, delivering the stuff to mostly new construction job sites. The only downside to that number is the GP - it wasn't really that high. That's the salesmen's fault - or liability - or whatever you wanna call it. We have nothing to do with how much profit they are going to make off of anything, but 13% isn't really all that great.
Off to the races, I don't feel much like writing this morning for whatever reason.
G'day.
ben
There is no stopping the pirates. I'm telling you. No stopping them. Slow them down but you can't stop them. If you heard the logistics of covering the area you would realize that we are helpless against those bastards.
I had a friend command a post at sea specifically for the mission in question. PIRATES! Listening to him talk about it was upsetting.
Bobby
Bobby, if they deal with the nation that is the homeland of those pirates, then they deal with the pirates. Somalia is just a wild, rogue nation with no real leadership/government. I'm not saying to go take over Somalia, just an observation: until there is a credible government that has control of the nation, that place is never going to change.
ben
Wednesday
Just a quick one here, I got involved - again - in other online activities and now my pre-work time is about gone.
But no biggies. Hump day. Worked out yesterday, 30 minutes on that Stairmaster machine. That was it, too, I was finished after that workout and left, sweating profusely. I had hoped to do some free weights but not in the cards yesterday.
This roommate of mine is avidly attempting to hook me up. I dunno about all of this, lol, this guy gets around, I'll say that much. He has "too many that I need to deal with".
Stopgap bill. 2 weeks worth. Are they going to come up with a budget in 2 week's time? I doubt it - there is too much contention and fighting going on over how much to cut/not to cut. They may be dumping these 2 week bills forever, lol.
Now Ohio is under the union spotlight, whose proposed bill would ban worker strikes and punish walkouts. Yes, well if I walk out of my work cause' I'm unhappy about something, I might as well take all my stuff with me, cause' I'm pretty sure they will tell me to keep on walkin' and don't let the door hit you on the backside.
I find it humorous that these people look at this as a "right".
Well, work day is here - though - our system is void of anything to do, unfortunately :(
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Thursday
It would be nice if I would post all these into their own entries, wouldn't it? LOL, I keep forgetting when I get home from work.
Anyway, last night. Sleeping away. Ear plugs in, box fan running - helps me sleep at night. Something woke me up. I turned on the bed lamp. Dogs were alerted, but they weren't growling. I didn't hear anything else, so, I turned the light off, put my earplugs back and was going to go back to sleep.....when......
I heard a noise at my bedroom door. I get up - it's Lynnette, rather excited, telling me the next door neighbor's house is on fire. I put on socks and shorts and went out there to see flames leaping out of the roof of the structure, smoke billowing.
I was immediately taken back to when MY house burned down on July 15, 2007. Funny how you can remember things like that with such clarity. 110 degree day, clothing that was on me? The ONLY clothing I had left.
Anyway, the fire department wasn't there yet, but Mark was OVER there, on the other side of the wall, with my garden hose, spraying water at the roof. The amount of heat and flames coming out of that roof made it quite obvious that that fire was laughing at a garden hose, no only that, but he was standing too close to the structure. The fire department would be there within minutes - or less.
Hey man, that hose isn't doing anything. Not only that, but that house is a total loss, just get out of there. This neighbor - like all of them - has junk laying everywhere. You can't just walk in and out of the back yard, you have to climb over things to get in and out of there, which is why I strongly suggested HE get away from the house and OUT of his back yard. If all that junk goes up, he's going to be in for some problems.
The only fortunate thing about this scenario is that the owner is in Las Vegas. He was not home at the time. IN fact, I doubt he came home. What's to come home to? Okay, I would be heading out on the road right away if I received such news, but that's me.
Well, I ran and got my camera and started videoing it. One fire truck arrives. They scramble. Their air tanks were on as well as the rest of their gear in a flash, had the adapter hooked up to the hydrant in a flash, were already tearing out chunks on the roof - in a flash. Broke out all the windows. Another fire truck, then another, then another, then the fire chief, police, ambulance, all kinds of equipment showed up.
One of those fire trucks parked right in front of my house. They ran a hose all the way down to the end of the street to the next nearest hydrant, the one the first truck was using is across the street. These guys have their stuff down, that's a fact. No messing around, no games, they were all rushing and running around.
Well, the wind was changing directions. Black, thick smoke started to replace the less thick stuff and I got a whiff of it. That's when I realized I had left the sliding glass door open in the excitement of the moment and some of that black nastiness was going directly into my house. Well, I rushed over there, shut the door and stayed inside until that stuff started blowing the other way.
Yes, my house smelled like smoke this morning when I came out of my bedroom, but, it isn't bad. Just open the windows this afternoon and that should air it out.
Back outside and of course the entire neighborhood was out at that point, watching the show. Took those firefighters a while to put that one out. Single-wide, old mobile home. Once they catch on fire, it's over. The fire department could be there in 2 minutes and that house would be done.
One of the tenants comes walking down the street - they wouldn't let her drive to my driveway. I have read that you are not allowed to run over those fire hoses, if you do, it can mess up the pumps in the trucks. So, the police just shut the street down.
I stood out there for quite a while watching all of this when it dawned on me how cold it was. Yes, dumb-dumb, that's because you (me, talking to myself) don't have anything on but shorts and socks in 49 degree temperatures. Oh well.
Of course, that kept me up for a while. I am not going to just try and sleep while a house next to me is on fire. Screw that. I'm making sure my house doesn't go up along with it and if it does, I'm not INSIDE of it, me, the tenants, dogs, etcetera.
This will be a good time to send a message to the tenants: get renter's insurance. If you have anything worth anything, get the insurance because if something like that happened to my house, your personal belongings would NOT be covered.
Well, work day is here, I'm freaking tired - result of being awakened and staying up too long - this may end up being a rather LONG day today.
ben
Friday
Got home from work yesterday, got out of the car and...........smelled the smell of burnt wood. That such of wood that has burned and is wet. Walked into my side yard - same smell.
The house also still smelled. I opened the windows on the other side of the house, by this morning that smell was gone, thankfully, but not outside. I don't know if, when it dries out, it will stop smelling so much. I do remember that the day after my house burned down, the wonderful City of Phoenix had already slapped a notice on the house. Fix or demolish.
He - my neighbor - had JUST gotten home before I got home from work. He was not in a good way. It was sad to watch him break down in tears. I have no idea what kind of settlement the insurance company gave him, they also showed up shortly thereafter.
I don't have much more time this morning - I did not get a late start getting out of bed but, I must have stayed in the shower too long this morning. Plus, when I came out to get on my computer at the house, the "kid" tenant was on the old computer. I announced quite forcefully that he needed to vacate the area immediately as I only have a few minutes in the morning to check things online and then get to work. He said something, to which I stated "I only have a few minutes". He got off.
I dunno where this kid's mind is at sometimes, especially when using someone else's computer. It is not a part of the rental agreement. He has not been pushing it at all, lately, after we went a spate of rounds of head-butting. My house, my rules, my computer. Not sorry. But, to have to deal with that kind of thing first thing in the morning?
Well, it isn't going to ruin my day by any stretch of the imagination.
However, time is up.
With that, I bid you....
g'day.
ben
Poor neighbour! But glad that nothing happened to your place.
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