Day 6

This is the orange grove that I have talked about before. You can click on any of the pics for a MUCH larger view. That's "my" truck and I backed that sucker a long, long ways in there.



Hol'on a sec while I get my hand oxygen gauge I happen to have in my back pocket....seriously, this is the "thing" they were adding on to in the middle of the orange grove. Why they have that sign there - well no-one there could answer my question, but I didn't die of asphyxia while there.



This is near Tucson. This was the day that I-10 was shut down by Casa Grande and the ONLY way back was to go around. Actually, that pic is showing near Oracle and leaving Tucson. There had been a major crash on I-10, 3 people killed a semi actually blew up all kinds of carnage and waste.



This is the highway - SR77 I believe it was - it was very windy that day. The picture doesn't do the scenery justice - it was a total brownout and it was quite eerie out there in the middle of the desert with the sky all brown and everything around brown as well. This road usually doesn't have anything near the traffic that was on it that day, but it was one of the few roads to take to get to Tucson from Phoenix or vice-versa.

Yesterday, I didn't do quite as well as the days before it, but I'll still take it. A ham sandwich - 2 slices of bread, 1 slice of ham; a can of Chunky Soup - a little calorie laden and probably fat too, but I was very hungry at that point - and I ate a few slices of raw potatoes while making a pot of stuff for the kids to eat - I ate none of that stuff though it was very, very tempting.

Actually, I was working all day long and went into overtime because there was a lot of freight to put away - I was not feeling well for lack of eating. Only after I got home and wolfed down that sandwich and yes, then ate that can of soup did I feel better.

Anyway, I don't remember how to add pics to this site, so I'm going to add one, see if it works, if it does, come back and post more with commentary....here goes:

...well it put the pics at the top of the post. I guess I could have copied and pasted them down here, but what the heck. Wanted to get a few pics up since I haven't posted any in a long time. Going to take some pics of the work we did last weekend on spreading around all the rocks maybe later today or tomorrow.

Computer totally crashed yesterday. Virus. I don't even fool with trying to fix viruses anymore, I have wasted far too much time in the past in trying to deal with them. I just immediately reformat the harddrive and reinstall windows at this point. I can have it down in less than an hour and have enough software installed to be back to normal. I've gotten pretty good at it - I paid someone once to do it for me a long, long time ago, but realized that this was probably going to happen again and again - you get the picture, no way could I afford to have someone come out and fix this thing everytime a kid downloads something stupid on my computer (which always gets them banned for at least a week, sometimes as much as a month) or perhaps I have gone to a website that starts putting stuff onto your harddrive before you even know what's happening.

I have to take the blame for yesterday's junk. Some "thing" popped up on my computer screen and told me I have a virus. Yes, I thought, YOUR virus. Sure enough, this is the same virus that hit it about a month ago. It virtually takes over you computer - you can't access your control panel, well you really can't do anything after a while except to shut the computer down.

Well, anyway, today will probably be something of a battle in the diet world. I'm home, it's the weekend, I usually like to make a pot of something or other and eat it. I'm mildly hungry right now, mornings aren't usually an issue, it's the afternoons, especially on a Saturday or Sunday. Since I figure I will probably end up eating something, I will have to figure what I can make that isn't full of fat and laden with too much calories. I'm leaning towards a chef's salad. I've done the diet thing before - if I start feeling I'm depriving myself, then I start getting hungry even if I'm not, it's all in the mind, just have to figure out how to fight the battle and win.

Prolly a meet-in-the-middle, have a couple of calories, work outside and burn them off type of deal. I have plenty of work to do outside in pulling more grass and getting the rock spread around the plants.

Anyway, hope you are all doing well, I'm outta here.
ben

Day 5

I'm not sure I'm going to keep posting day this, that and the other - just doing it at the beginning of this to try and get a handle on this dieting situation and keep the momentum flowing.
Yesterday's total food intake consisted of the following:
2 slices 9 grain bread
3 thin slices of ham
1 small chunk of sharp cheddar cheese
2 glasses 1% milk

Fry's ran out of skim milk, which is what I usually drink, so I opted for the 1% - milk is on sale and I'm always good with sales.

There is less than 1,000 calories on the above-mentioned list. It's funny when you start actually keeping track of your caloric intake as to how much you are really eating. You think you aren't consuming that much, but when you break it all down, item by item, you begin to realize you are eating far more than you should. In the 5 days I have been on this diet, I normally would have consumed a total of around 15,000 calories by now. If I've even topped 5,000 I would be surprised.

This is really nothing different than budgeting. You get a notepad and start writing down every single thing you buy for a month, sit down after that month is over and make sure you're holding onto something, because you're probably going to be shocked at the amount of waste and excess you will find within the pages of that notebook - same thing with eating, I do believe. Once you realize on your budget where you are throwing your money away - well then you have to decide whether you can live without whatever that thing is or those things or activities are. I've done this budgeting thing a hundred times, I don't recall doing anything like this for dieting.

In fact, this dieting has motivated me to go ahead and get another notepad and start a 30-day write-up of my financial expenditures - all of them whether in person or online - and see if there is anything I can do to cut back. Unfortunately, when you own a home, there are going to be things on that notepad that you spent money on that you probably wish you wouldn't have to, but have no choice in the matter. There will also be things on there that you bought for your house - inside or out - that prolly - you could have lived without.

THAT is what I need to pinpoint. How much am I spending on household items that maybe I could live without. I really see a great connection between spending and eating now that I am writing it all out. Yesterday, I was going to stop at a Subway and get a 6 inch wheat something or the other - I never had time to do it. This morning I am hopeful to change that, I am a bit hungry this morning and a nice sandwich - no cheese or dressings - would be good to help stifle that little nagging that is telling me to eat something.

Well, I would go on with this but I just realized it's almost 6:00am and I need to get offa here and started on the day's work.

ben

Thursday

Some pretty horrific images emerging from that 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. Lots and lots of dead bodies laying all over the place. I can't imagine the horror for those that survived and have no food, housing, nothing. Pray for these people - hopefully help gets there quickly.

Nothing much on the homefront. Michael isn't going to school that I know of and JD's younger brothers - 2 of them anyway - are still in Juvenile Detention. JD says they are getting out - on my birthday, lol. My birthday's the 5th. Birthdays are nice, a good day to celebrate one's own life, but when you start racking them up - you don't really look forward to too terribly many of them. Tenants are mostly behaving, the ex-Marine has landed a new job - but is stone broke. I am going to help him out by giving him whatever food I happen to be making. Yes, his rent is paid up until the 1st.

I'll enjoy the lull - a break in anything significant going on in my life - while it lasts. Still dieting, in fact, I only ate a sandwich and less than a handful of potato chips yesterday. Yes, I know, potato chips are laden with fat calories, but when you have only eaten maybe 400 calories total for the entire day, I doubt that matters too much. The funny thing is that I'm not hungry this morning. You'd think after going that long without eating much of anything a person would be ravenously hungry, instead, I have nothing but a little gurgling going on in my stomach - I guess it's reminding me that it's still there and would like a little business to deal with. Customers will be going into it a little later, lol. I figure to get a 6 inch Subway sub sometime this morning - probably chicken - with wheat bread, all the veggies but no dressings on it.

That should keep the caloric and fat calories down on it and give me enough to feel like I've eaten something. I won't eat again until I get home, and then I'll probably make some more chicken - or - if I don't feel like cooking, I will have another ham sandwich and that will be it for the day. I'm not trying to starve myself, but I am trying to get a kick-start on this thing going and drop some pounds quickly. Considering I've been working my @$$ off since I started thing 3 days ago - burning lots of calories - I have to imagine I've already dropped a couple as it is. I will be at the main branch later this morning and will weigh myself on the industrial scale.

As for now, work is about to start and there's plenty to do today - which is nice, keeps my mind off of food - so, c'yall later and have a great day!
ben

The Bug Has Finally Hit/The Casino

I have not been to a casino in quite a while.

I don't go unless I get that feeling. I have to say that, after all of this time, it has finally come back to me. I haven't even thought about going to that place. I am not into losing money, I am not addicted to gambling and I will NOT go unless all parameters are in place.

I have written about this several times, but for me, it's worth going into for fact (for me anyway) of difference between those that want to go to have a good time; those that go frequently because they are addicted; those that go because they are broke (or almost broke, anyway) and are trying to make "mortgage money"; and me - the person that is totally superstitious about the matter and won't go unless all points of the superstitious matter are, in fact, met.

I will NEVER go to a casino out of desperation. It is a losing proposition - the casino will get your money just BECAUSE you are desperate. You play whatever game in a different mindframe. It's not the same as being relaxed and enjoying the experience. I rather enjoy watching people, I always have, there is ample opportunity for such in a place such as that.

I refuse to allow myself to get addicted. Ask Charles Barkley about his 10 million plus losses to gambling addiction. Probably not devastating to him. Any great amount of money is a loss to me. Let me give a face to that: I'm out fifty bucks and I'm reeling. Why did I do that? I could have paid a bill with that money - whatever. Losing is not an option and I do not go into a casino with that fear in my mind, if that fear is present, I won't even leave the house.

There is more. The only problem is the bug is - now - I don't do casinos worknights. I only go on weekends and let me say again, my visits are VERY infrequent. I could tell of the visits of winning this, that and the other, but, the point is made without it - go when you feel the going is good. Beyond that? Learn how to count cards. I haven't done that and I know that the time and money spent would be money earned - and being kicked out of casinos all over the place, but still.

Nother' long break, stuff happens and I have to deal with it.

G'nite.
ben

Wednesday

Hump day already.
A very large order going out today. In fact, I have serious doubts that all of that pipe plus all of those fittings are going to fit onto one truckload. It's 50k worth of material, very good for our branch. Hopefully take up most of the day in getting all of this done - though, in reality, there is plenty of clean-up still left to do around the branch.

BTW, all the Cafe World posts I have been doing is more of a interest thing for me than anything - how many people will come to this blog from all over the world looking for tips and secrets for that game? Feedjit is very helpful in telling me where people are coming from and how they got here - almost always a google search or even twitter page results. Feedjit also tells me what the question or words were in the search. I have really started turning this blog into a composite of critiques of companies - good and bad, my Cafe World endeavors and still, of course, my daily life, since I figure that's what a journal is all about.

I am always surprised as well the number of visits of people coming here looking at my Fry's Food Stores entries. Mostly in-state searches, but again, Feedjit tells me where these people are at. I don't think Fry's is anywhere but AZ - it's owned by Kroger and I know Kroger has all kinds of different stores/names all over the U.S.

Coakley v Brown. Talk about political entertainment. It took me by great surprise to read yesterday that there is an inkling of a possibility that a republican could actually win the now-empty (well there is an interim dude) seat that Senator Kennedy used to occupy. The hype is that if Brown wins, he could possibly be placed into office before the "Big Vote" occurs on health care and he would, of course, vote against it.

For the record, I no longer consider myself republican but I also certainly do not agree with the liberal slant, either. I actually have no party at this point. I could say independent, but I haven't really done the research on that "party" to come to any conclusion as to whether I would want to identify myself with them or not. I am definitely on the conservative side of things, but I have found that the republican party is no better at the table in speaking the truth and doing what they say they are going to do than are liberals.

However, I am totally opposed to aspects of this health care bill. I have repeatedly stated my opposition to ramming a bill through just to get one - through, regardless of how much of mine and yours money is going to be spent. For something so enormously huge (yes, repetitive and improper grammer, I make my point) I figure a good year, 2 years however long it takes to look at all the implications and the money and everything it's going to affect before getting a final bill on the President's desk to sign.

Well, anyway, work day is here and I must be offa here.

C'ya later.
ben

Cafe World Tips and Answers Part 3

Question:
cafe world..why have my buzz rating going down since I added another oven

Probably your oven has nothing to do with it. But if it does, it's simply - probably anyway - that you have more customers coming in than you have seats to sit them down at. They stand there, tap impatiently, then leave, bam, your buzz rating goes down. So, watch your game for a while. If there are any customers standing there without a seat, try adding more tables. Sometimes they sit down and have to wait too long to get served. Make sure your serving counters are close enough to the tables and definitely, make sure your waiters/waitresses aren't blocked from getting to your tables. Of course, you could do "auto-serve", where the waitresses magically fling the plates from the counter to the tables without moving.
This is accomplished by blocking your counters in. However, I do not have a buzz rating problem and I do not use fling magic.

Question:
why don't my servers in cafe world on facebook serve everyone.

Either you don't have enough servers or they are blocked from getting to the tables. Again, make sure your counters are close to the tables. I've seen all kinds of cafe layouts, my favorite is a giant U-shape setup where the tables are lined next to each other in - you guessed it - a U shape. The counters are put in the middle. Your servers have fast access to getting the food on the table. If you have more customers than the servers can handle, you'll have to slow down the customers some how. One easy way is to have only one entrance door. Of course, check and see that you aren't able to level up and hire another server.

Question:
how to get rid of neighbors on cafe world.

This is a commonly asked question and there is no way, yet to do that. I do have an idea though, that if you dump them as a friend on Facebook you will probably see their stuff disappear on Cafe World as well, but don't quote me on that as I haven't tried it yet. I don't really know why anyone would want to get rid of neighbors - even if they aren't playing the game you can still get 20 gold coins from them every day and 5 Cafe Points as well.

Question/statement:
setting up cafe world so chef doesn't throw food.
Actually, you want your chef to stand in one place and serve the food and cook it. It saves a LOT of time in having to watch your chef - which would be you - walking back and forth and back and forth, it more than quadruples the time it takes to prepare food or serve it. But, if you REALLY don't want him/her to do that, simply make sure your ovens are not blocked. I block all of my ovens to force the chef to "throw" (I like to call it flinging) the food.

Question:
facebook cafe world samples. I assume the person was asking how to get them. You can get 100 free samples from your neighbors on your Facebook wall whenever any of your Cafe World Neighbors prepare a dish and the application gives them the option to post it on their wall - allowing all neighbors to grab up 100 free servings. I currently have 19,000 free servings in my gift box. You can also get free servings by gifting. You gift your neighbors, hopefully they gift you back. I FAR prefer getting my free samples from my Facebook wall because it's MUCH faster to do than trying to collect all those gifts from neighbors.

Question:
Cafe World don't get points when visiting neighbors
I have no idea, honestly, why you wouldn't get points when visiting neighbors. The only thing I have had happen is that it goes down from 5 Cafe Points to 2 after you have visited enough of them. I have never had that problem, I have no context to give an opinion.

More questions? I'm at level 63 and have figured out quite a lot of this game - though I'm sure there is some I don't know. Still, if you have a question about Cafe World I will be happy to try and give a good answer.

Tuesday

Day 2
I usually don't eat anything in the mornings anyway, so who knows how I'll fare today on the "reduced caloric intake" plan. Otherwise known as a diet. It isn't really that hard, it's mostly just watching the portions sizes of what I may happen to be eating and also eliminating eating anytime near bedtime. Meaning - for me - about 3 hours minimum. I put the number at 6:00pm and if I go over a little, not the end of the world. I stepped up my output yesterday after getting home from work. I also pushed a broom for about an hour yesterday at work, that's got to count for something as well.

Well that's cause' it was kinda slow at work yesterday. Today looks to be an all-day marathon. 1 pickup at a jobsite; 2 deliveries; and a trip downtown. That should pretty much consume the entire day. Take that back, I just looked into the truck routing system, now there are 4 deliveries instead of 2 plus more pickups. Yes, the day should be cashed in pretty fast.

Well - back to the dieting junk - I am totally bypassing any restaurants that start with a J and has a dummy in a box/B and has a porcelain statue for it's ads/Giant yellow M and has a clown as it's mascot. And other places like that. In fact, if I don't come across a Subway somewhere, I just won't eat. Subway finally got in their version of a light ranch dressing - of which I have them put on sparingly anyway. I mostly do salads there - vegetables do not usually have much calories attached to them.

That should focus me for a while. My tenant is using a place called 24 hour fitness. I thought he was going to Lifetime Fitness. He says there are no contracts and you only pay first and last month's monthly fee in advance. $70 upfront. Not bad, really. I'm assuming the days of contracts at those places are over - people do not want to get locked down into a long-term contract for a - fitness center. I also gaffe at the thought of putting down $75/$100 plus just to register you. It's simply going into a salesperson's pocket. Bunk. So, I think I am going to check out this place, see if what he says is true and then make a decision. I gotta have a good boost in this workout situation, a couple of months worth of a fitness center would help me along considerably.

Well, as normal at this early hour of the day, the work day is almost here and I must be offa here.

G'day.
ben

Monday

Yesterday, I took no small amount of pleasure in watching fully 5 teenaged boys attempting to push my old Buick back up the driveway into it's parking space. The battery is dead and I will have to get a new one for it, it simply won't hold a charge.
The humor was because of their words: "This car doesn't look that heavy" after I told them it was going to be hard to get it up the driveway. After 5 attempts to just get the thing up over the curb, my neighbors came running over and yes, we got the car up the driveway. BTW, how does a car "look" or "not look" heavy?

There are people in our neighborhood that would have reported it to police, who would have come out and put a red sticker on it and eventually, have it towed off for not having current registration. In fact, one individual makes it a habit to turn in every neighbor on the street for alleged blight violations. I had no idea I wasn't the only one that had received such notice in the mail from the city. There were no violations on my property, nothing ever happened. I tend to like to keep my property maintained, no looking like s***.

The weekend flew away like a jumbo jet taking off at the airport. All that rock stuff was definitely worth the effort, but - it's like there never WAS a weekend.

The man that started the stuff the other day when I pulled up in the truck apparently had a sudden change of view as well. Perhaps because I threatened to call the police if he ever threatened me again. It's much easier, in dealing with an ex-con, to simply say you're going to call the law than to try and butt heads. He was at my next-door neighbor's house, talking away with me as if nothing had ever happened. I went along with it - easier to be friendly than not - to see where it would lead.

Well, I ended up leaving anyway and that was the end of that. This is the dude that was taking pictures last week of me and the truck. Whatever.

The rock project is almost done, but - I can't go on any further with this, it's time to go to work!

Ava' great day!
ben

Sunday

It was very nice, yesterday, to get all those boys out there working, without complaining, working hard for at least 4 hours. Maybe it was longer than that, I didn't check the clock, I only know that around 5:00pm or so, they were visibly worn out and I ended it there. There is still several thousand pounds of rocks to haul all over the place, but it will get done and I will be happy.

Fact, I'm already happy, the east side of the house is starting to finally look something like I envisioned it to. I did want to erect some sort of overhand or awning over there for shade purposes in the summer and move my BBQ grill over there. Not yet is all I can say, not yet. There are still plenty of other things to be done over there and it's all about hours spent at this point, not money.

Changing the subject, the ex-Marine lost his job. He apparently had a scuffle with the Ops Manager of the company he was working for and now he's unemployed. One thing I can say is that he is paid up for the month of January and also he gets a check from the military every month for his disability - whether I see any of that next month or not remains to be seen. It's obvious he's hurting financially because he isn't going out much at all - quite abnormal for him but it costs money to go to bars and karaoke and all that stuff. I'm not sweating it - yet. It's only the 10th, he has time to find a new job - yet - but as we all know, jobs aren't exactly available in excessive amounts right now.

Meanwhile, I am still receiving $100 per week from one tenant and the other switched from weekly payments to bi-monthly. I give regular room rates for paying bi-monthly, he was paying a full $65 more for the "priviledge" of paying weekly. No big deal.

Today - going to continue work on getting the rock hauled all over the place. I'm attempting to decide what to make for Sunday dinner - I usually do something a little more extravagant than other days worth of eating, but I have no ideas popping into my head yet. I was thinking a roast, but it's alreayd almost 10:00 am - getting a little late for that. The usual suspects are just not clicking - I want something different today. Maybe go to the store and look around and get some ideas just standing there - looking.

In fact, great idea, I think I'll head up there right now before all this work business gets started and I won't have time!

C'yall later
ben

Cafe World Tips - Part 2

Edited: I found a link to Zynga for a fixit-ticket. Basically you fill out a form or something on Zynga about whatever's happening in your cafe that is not working, which is usually connectivity issues. http://zynga.custhelp.com/app/utils/login_form/redirect/ask
If you don't have an account with Zynga you will have to create one, no big deal. It's the only real thing I know of you can do to complain about issues that are affecting the way the game is playing.


Anyway my first post about Cafe World with tips has generated quite a lot of interest. If you are here from a Google search or Twitter reference, please do a search for Cafe World on my site and you will find the other posting about it.

Today someone posted on Facebook their answer to losing a lot of servings due to a connection error - immediately refresh and usually that brings back your lost servings. Well, Cafe World definitely has some serious issues, but a lot of people are complaining to them about it and I do hope they are making it top priority.

I'm currently at level 62. I have about 175,000 servings of food on my counters. I leave one counter open so that all the free 100 servings that are available from your neighbors can be used. That's my biggest tip right there. GET NEIGHBORS. You don't need to purchase an e-book to figure this game out, you just have to play it and stumble across stuff until you have your own system down.

You can easily get neighbors by visiting Cafe World's Facebook wall. Everytime Cafe World posts something on there, people leave comments - thousands of them - to add them as neighbors. Adding neighbors is tedious work but it's worth it. I have 104 of them right now, my goal is eventually to get to 1,000.

The point of getting neighbors is what I already touched on. When you are cooking something on your stove, you usually get a pop-up that says something like congrats, you have just done a dish of the day, do you want to share with your neighbors? ALWAYS click accept. It posts on your Facebook wall and all of your neighbors can get 100 servings of it. I currently have around 15,000 servings of food in my gift box simply from acquiring those 100 serving portions. They seem to be able to stay in there indefinitely. I have on counter that I use for those dishes, the rest of my counters are all full of stuff I have been cooking for - a couple of months now, I think.

I'm totally out for Cafe points. I like the competition with my neighbors to stay ahead of them, lol. Plus, of course, you level up on counters and ovens. I have gotten all the counters and ovens that you can currently get, the only thing I have left to acquire is the lobster dish which I think is at level 63 or 64, can't remember. The levels take more and more points to get to as you move on up. The next level for me? I have to get 30,000 Cafe Points to get there. A bit ridiculous when you figure that the only reward you get for doing all that cooking is 5,000 gold coins and nothing else. A lot of people are complaining about that, too, hopefully they'll give more incentive to keep cooking.

Now, the next biggest complaint I see is your buzz rating. People complain that it is always low. Well, if it is, there is something wrong with the layout of your cafe. That's plain and simply all there really is to it. I have an almost constant 105 rating, the highest you can get. If yours is low and you would like some help, you can send me a pic of your cafe or ask to become neighbors and maybe I can take a look and see what's the deal with it. But, I would suggest you rearrange stuff in your cafe and get your serving counters as close to the tables as possible. Buzz rating goes down because customers are waiting for a seat to get food. You'll see them stand there, tap impatiently and then leave. You also see your rating go down when they leave, pissed off because they had to wait too long.

Lol, well that's what they are intoning, you don't like to wait forever to get seated at a restaurant either, do you? I didn't think so. One tip that helped me when I was having trouble was to get rid of extra entrance doors. I had 3. When I got rid of 2 of them, my buzz rating went up to 105 in less than a half an hour. The point is that it takes longer for your customers to get to the tables - you don't get buzz scrapped for that, they just don't want to wait too long for a table. You can try adding more tables as well.

The game is addictive, that's all I can say about it. I have stuff cooking all the time. I love the way they have different amounts of time set up for different dishes. There are lots of improvements they could make and they have compiled a list of the most popular things people are asking for, but really, the biggest thing is to get the game running smoothly. It's a beta application and I have found that stuff always has some kinds of problems attached to them.

If you have any questions or want to become neighbors, simply leave a comment below and I can try to help you, especially people just starting to play the game and trying to figure it out.

My New Account

Chase Bank sends out a coupon regularly in the mass mail for $100 for opening a checking account with them.

I had a Chase account long ago before they closed their doors here, packed their bags and totally left Arizona. I liked that bank then, I have heard they are a big bank mentality now. Well who cares, they are all like that anymore. I currently have a Compass Bank account - I also like Compass but the nearest branch is 6 miles away - in a direction I mostly never go.

There is one on the way home from work, however. I have thought about having an account somewhere where there is a branch close to my house - the nearest Chase is 2 miles away. I'm not a fan of having to drive long distances to do much of any kind of business unless it's something like a Craigslist deal where the gas spent is nothing compared to the deal I'm getting in money saved.

Well, really, the allure is a hundred bucks free. Yes, you have to deposit $100 plus the opening deposit, yes you have to keep the account for at least 6 months, but what the hey. I figure to use that account as my "savings" account. Sorta. I don't have much to save, but what I do, I'm doing it.

Anyway, had the rock truck here this morning. I spent the $100 my dad gave me for Christmas on it and some other money I got from tenants. I know, I was supposed to do something for myself with that Christmas money - well, really, I did do something for myself - I was hating the looks of that side of the house.

I have, however, created a ton of work for myself - make that 8 tons of work, lol. Carry all that stuff in little plastic pails? Good workout! Might lose a few pounds hauling all that stuff over there!

Well, I have to twist it somehow to make it sound appealing, cause' honey, carry 16,000 pounds of rocks in little pails for the next couple of days? Not too appealing to me at all.

Anyway, I have to get my mind into that mode - working that is - I'm outta here.
ben

Friday

I have a few minutes before the work clock starts.

Yesterday, on 2 occasions, I thought I was witnessing the end of life for 2 people on 2 different occasions.

1. About a 16 year old boy gets off a city bus and starts running across this major and very busy street - without looking to see if there was any traffic. I'm serious, how that kid wasn't run clean over by that car, I'll never know, but that boy just barely escaped with his life.

2. Car comes up to the street I'm driving the semi. I have no clue why people see a truck and automatically think they MUST cut it off, pull out in front of it, do whatever - apparently we're just a nuisance. This driver flies up to this stop-sign, sees me coming and starts pulling out - without looking the other direction, where a car is coming at around 50 MPH. So, this woman is driving her car out into traffic without looking. Her head snaps the other way and again, I'm telling you - just BARELY gets it stopped in time. A T-bone collision at that rate of speed? She's dead, maimed, whatever, life ain't gonna be the same.

Is it really worth risking and possibly losing your life just to get ahead in traffic?

I don't think so.

I think everyone's license should be revoked and we should all be forced to go in for month's worth of driver training. Just the numbers in physical property damage going down would be worth the expense, not to mention the lives saved. The Department of Transportation is doing ads now to try and tell people not to text while driving.

I mean, really. Should anyone HAVE to be told not to do that? I know, thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions - who knows? - of people do it every day while driving. I watch these people and I agree with the conclusion that it's as bad as drunken driving. Cars weaving in and out of their lanes, trucks driving in and out of the emergency lane, all kinds of craziness in the name and for the sake of texting. I thought using a cell phone while driving was bad enough, this stuff is crazy.

Well, I had other thoughts but time has run out.

Have a great day!
ben

BenB's Made-Up Word Of The Day: Dissment/s

Thank you, thank you, oh yes, thank you very much, you can stop the applause now. Yes, indeedy folks, I have made up yet another word. Okay, I didn't really make anything up, it just popped into my head, I was trying to say "dissing statements" and dissment came out of a brain cell somewhere up there. Amazing I have any of those left. I was writing a reply to a lady on Craigslist who was bashing other posters who were writing about tenants who make demands and do "stuff" to their homes.

Well that's a long story not even going to go into. That situation on Craigslist IS entertaining, however. As I have stated numerous times before, I am easily entertained. Try not to equate that with stupidity, okay? I like being in my own world on my own cyber-planet.

Regardless, it's hump-day. I had something planned for after-work today but it has totally eluded me. OH, yes, now it has resurfaced: another battery for the old Buick. I need to be able to move that car this weekend. I cannot stand the appearance of the east side of my property, and for all the hard work I have put into that area, it still looks like crap cause' the ground is just plain ole' dirt with some strands of grass growing. Now, all the plants I have planted over there look wonderful - which is what is eating at me.

So, 8 more tons of Palomino Gold are being delivered early Saturday morning. I didn't really want it that early, but that was their schedule. Apparently, not that many people want to rise at 6:00 am to greet a truckload of material. Heck, it will still be dark out there! Oh and this project? Going to be a pain in the @$$. There is no way to get a truck to that side of the house. I have to have it dumped on the west side and will have to wheelbarrow it to the east side. Yes, folks, I should be losing a few pounds of weight on whatever days I decide to go forth with that project.

However, a couple of tons will be distributed on the back and west side - where I already have that kind of rock. I didn't put enough down the first time - money restraints - just enough to get it covered and looking good. I don't doubt that this 8 tons won't be enough, either, but it WILL be enough to sufficiently cover the ground over there and make it look nice. Very nice.

This is my idea of pleasure? No, but I can hardly think about going on a vacation or some other waste of money right now - or anytime in the near future that I can see.

Well, enough for this entry, my moments before work starts are rapidly disappearing and I haven't checked the news yet.

G'day.

ben

Semi V Car

I was driving to a delivery this morning in Apache Junction. I have been to this site before, a long time ago actually - it's a water pumping station with giant tanks and also additives are put into the water. Anyway, it's a narrow street - but there is a rather large housing complex that this street is a feeder for. In fact, there are only 2 streets in and out of this housing complex, making the street I was turning onto a rather busy one at that.

Well, I'm approaching this side street and hoping no-one comes up to the light from that street so I don't have to bother with the people that refuse to move out of the way. I mean, on a street that narrow, making a right-hand turn, I have no choice but to "take out" the lanes from on-coming traffic. This isn't illegal, either, in fact, you are trained to do this when the situation calls for it.

A late-model Mustang pulls up to the white line to wait for the light to turn green. I've had more than my share of unwilling motorists who simply refuse to back up. The man driving this car was one of them. I swung wide - and stopped -right in front of his car. He sits there and looks at me, I smile back at him - this isn't some ego trip, I actually HATE having to do this just because of the attitudes I get back in return sometimes, but - I have no choice.

He continues to just look at me. He refuses to move. Well, I ain't backing up and the only direction I'm going is forward. I have 160 gallons of fuel in my tank, odds are good my vehicle will far outlast his in terms of sitting there forever waiting for someone to make a move. But really, I am never out to start trouble with people while driving the semi - never. I just sit there and look at him back. He finally motions me to move back to my lane. Yes, I would love to do that if I could. I point at my trailer.

A good minute has passed. He gets this look on his face - indescribable - puts the car in reverse, proceeds to back up - 5 feet. Not NEAR enough room for me to clear his car and finish the turn. Quite begrudgingly, he backs up further. I expected the finger - mostly people do that - he didn't, he was just disgusted that a truck driver had the gall to - follow procedure really - and force him out of his comfort zone. Or pride zone. Or ego zone, whatever.

Again, truck drivers are trained to do that. You are not supposed to drag your trailer wheels over the sidewalk - for obvious reasons. My trailer would have taken out the traffic light had I attempted to simply make an L-turn - as many car drivers think we should be able to do.

You see signs on some trailers? "WIDE RIGHT TURNS" or something similar with a picture. It means the truck needs a lot of turning space to be able to make the turn. The driver prolly isn't wanting to get into a fight with you or make you mad, it's simply that he or she HAS NO CHOICE IN THE MATTER. Were that the general motoring public would have JUST A LITTLE MORE PATIENCE with trucks that are on the road with them.

I truly wish the trucking industry would just completely shut down for a week.
You would be awestruck at what would happen to the entire economy. When's the last time you saw a train pulling up to the loading dock at a grocery store with groceries? Those stores rely on daily shipments of goods to keep their shelves stocked. It didn't come in by oxen pulling a cart.

Do you know how many times a week a tanker truck has to go to each gas station to keep each station's underground tanks filled? A couple of days and they would be done, closed for business. Wal-Empty; Jack-With-Nothing-Box; Emptyway; United No-Fly; Sears - Has Nothing stores. Oh, they might have something left after a week, but it would be next-to-nothing and people would be panicking. Especially for groceries and gasoline.

WHAT, exactly, is it going to take to get people to see trucks and their drivers as their friends, not their enemies? It didn't used to be that way.

Tuesday

In local news - my version of it - Juice and Darnell are going to spend quality time in the local Juvenile Detention hall. Word about such things travels quickly in these "parts". These are the younger brothers of JD - the oldest kid who spends a lot of time at my house playing video games and such with my son. Apparently Darnell has already been on house arrest for some time. These are the 2 boys that tried to steal games from a Fry's Electronics.

The deal with further trouble is that they apparently have been smoking pot, their probation officer puts them through the urine drug testing once a month - and of course it's been "hot" every time for both of them. Their court date before a judge is tomorrow. I expect these boys may find that their free stay at Juvi is not a party and perhaps a short period of time spent in there will give them a change of view about smoking dope while on probation and totally dissing their probation officer in doing such. Well I would call it dissed since those boys know the urine test is going to come back positive for pot use.

Hmmm, well this is an interesting week at work, anyway. When you're regular manager is gone on vacation, it basically means - I - end up doing most everything. Just about guaranteed the guy coming in today will get nothing done around here per se - he will do the invoicing of any tickets that come in but that's about it. I am still attempting to get yesterday's deliveries completed today.

In my own faux pass, I realized this morning that the power reader has only $1.67 left on it. With no hot showers, that could last a long time, but - of course - morning is time to take showers, now isn't it? I'm hoping against hope I get dispatched downtown to do a transfer so I can take a few minutes of my break time, stop at the house and load money onto it. I have Michael to thank for this one - even though it IS my responsibility. The card reader always starts beeping at the $10.00 mark. It will continue to beep until someone pushes the button to stop it. The beeping is the annoyance to let you know that you are, indeed, almost out of power - $10 is enough to last more than 2 days right now - and you'd better do something about it.

Last time Michael did this, I warned him to NOT do that again. So, I figure he needs to pay somehow - I'm sure I can think up some chore that needs to be done that will reinforce the idea of not pushing the button on that electronic device not matter HOW annoying it may be.

Well, I also figure to put a couple hundred on that card this time and not have to worry about it for quite a while.

Work day approacheth. I know of 3 deliveries so far, but I haven't checked this morning. The second delivery is almost nothing in terms of material, that one will be easy. The first one is the huge order from yesterday - it's pulled but not wrapped or loaded. I dunno what the third one is.

I'm outta here.
Ava' good one.
ben

Monday

The bantering continues. Iran is playing a game - or is playing games - with the entire international community. It would be comical if it weren't for the fact that all of this entails the possibility of nuclear warhead capability in the future for that nation. Any humor in it certainly dies when considering what the Iranian government is doing to it's own people - or at least those that are taking a stand against it and - getting killed in the process.

Monday hath arrived. Not that it's the "Dreaded Day" - just that there is so much work to do, I am not sure that one day will suffice in completing it. So why am I sitting here, typing out an entry? Cause' I ain't signed in yet and I won't be for another 14 minutes.

The last couple of weeks have been nice in terms of having several days off. I intend on asking for a week off here in the next month or 2 - I have plenty of vacation hours saved up and now my floating holidays are reset. Actually, I get a day off for my birthday, perhaps I'll just ask for that entire week off.

Lots of stuff floating through my head these days. Life isn't quite what it needs to be right now. Eeking out a living, having 3 strangers living in my house and basically accomplishing nothing in terms of any eternal sense is not setting well with me. This has nothing to do with New Year's Resolutions, btw. My only resolution started already - to dump some pounds gained after the house fire. I have tried a few times, lost the weight and put it back on, I'm going to try again. I'll undoubtedly break the resolution - but hopefully not before I shed at least 10 pounds, I have 20 that needs to go. I was tipping the scales at 210, it's around 205 right now, getting to at most 190 would be a nice start.

Speaking of weight loss, the newest tenant took all 3 dogs for a walk yesterday. He wanted to do it - you get all kinds of attention when walked dogs that are that large - and yes, he's definitely capable, the man works out daily and has huge arms. Prolly if I started walking those dogs every day I would help myself get some pounds dumped. I'm in some sort of rut that I am finding difficult to break for whatever reason.

Anyway, I haven't much more time this morning, so I bid you a good day and a Happy New Year.

The Face Of The Recession

Do you see it?

It's all around you. They're there. At the convenience store, at the grocery store, the gas station. They're all around you yet you'd never know it.

They might be driving an Escalade or any kind of late-model, shiny, glitzy looking vehicle. You look at something like that and see wealth, not poverty.

You might see one pull into the driveway of a huge, 2 story house. There's nothing wrong there, those people are well off.

A U-Haul truck appears in your neighbor's driveway. You wonder what's going on there, they haven't said anything about moving?

Do you see the news reports of the food banks desperate for donations?

Churches asking for help?

Do you ever see the ads on Craigslist? People asking for food or shelter - or both?

I will continue to state that we are in a depression until I see something otherwise.

Perhaps, for New Year's Resolutions - we should be thinking about how we can help our neighbors - if in the position to do so - instead of looking at what we can do for ourselves.

BTW, those people driving that fancy SUV? That thing is scheduled to be re-po'd and the house they walked into is in foreclosure - they will be homeless and without transportation soon. The parents lost their jobs and unemployment hardly scratches the surface of living expenses. Better than nothing - yes - but.

Oh, and about helping your neighbors - well - you'll probably have to look for clues about whether there is something going on financially over there or not - they probably won't say anything to you about it. You'll have to reach out and offer the help, they most likely don't even want to talk about it to anyone, much less ask for handouts.

Not judging anyone. But it is time that we all come out of our shells and start to SEE what's going on around us. People are suffering. Possibly, if you see the need, there is something you can do about it. The government? can only do so much.

Just sayin'.

ben

Wednesday

Today and tomorrow left of the work week and it's over.
Supposed to get off early tomorrow, like half a day, but I don't necessarily see that happening when looking into my company's truck routing system and seeing the stuff that's in there to do.
Who knows.
I do know that I'm extremely tired this morning. Woke up at like 1:30 am and don't think I ever got back to sleep. This will be an eternally long day, feeling like this is the only time when I'm glad that I am only working 7 hours.

Whatever the case, that ordeal with the mortgage company yesterday is still eating at me. Rather unbelievable the amount of incompetence, crassness and disprespect you can find in the employees of one single company.
Ahhhh, got started late today gonna have to cut this one short.
Later.
ben

Tuesday

This week's hump day - would be today : )
A call the mortgage company yesterday confirmed that a second, notarized copy of the mod agreement would have to be sent in, and after talking to a manager - no, it being late isn't going to nix the deal.

Good. Then a call to the auto insurance company - my rate went from $70 and change to almost $100. Insurance agent checked into it - a one-time fee was added to "renew" the policy. I think I'm going to start getting quotes for new insurance policy.

GM is apparently dumping Pontiacs at up to 47% savings for consumers- they're doing away with that line completely and want them gone, so I read online this morning. That deal is good through the 4th of next month. My car is nickle and diming me to death, I would love to get a new car at half off - the ONLY way I would ever buy a new car. Flip side is usually much higher insurance premiums.

I will be checking into that possibility this week - just to see if there are some options out there. I haven't checked my credit report in a while so I have no idea where it stands in terms of the score right now, guess I better do that first. I would actually far rather get a pickup truck - but I fear the 4 dollar gasoline so I probably otter stay away from that idea. I will say that a new car would afford a pretty low monthly payment. I would love to get away from monthly car payments, but - no choice in that matter right now.

Yet another "warrant has been issued" report for Anthony arrived in my mailbox. I assume he is not going to see the probation officer. Actually, I think his deal is that he wants to smoke pot and they do monthly drug testing - a good thing. I have also heard that they are now implementing drug testing for people receiving food stamps. If this is true, it's the best idea I've heard yet for weeding out the people that are simply living off of that kind of government handout and spend their time - high all day long.

Work day approacheth. Enough to do today, I believe anyway, to keep me busy until sign-out time. I'm 2 hours over from yesterday, I hope to be able to leave early today.

Take care, Happy New Year's and have a great day!

Cafe World On Facebook Tips

This will serve as my tip post for the Googling world who are just starting to play Cafe World and want to learn how to play the game in a way that makes it go faster and causes you to acquire experience points as fast as possible.

First, get neighbors. The more the better. You need at least some neighbors to be able to upgrade to a bigger cafe, but here's the real reason you want as many neighbors as you can possibly get:
You know when you are cooking something and a window pops up and tells you this is your dish to share with everyone for the day? It has a share tab at the bottom? Make sure you always click on it to share. If your neighbors do the same - share their daily special, then you simply go to your facebook home page, click on live feed and start collecting 100 samples of whatever it is they have posted!

I currently have 4,000 free samples in my queue. Those free samples keep all of my serving tables full. I want all of them full because I don't want the stuff I am cooking to disappear too fast - if you keep the freebies out on one or two tables, the rate at which the dishes you actually cooked disappear goes down dramatically.

THAT is the benefit of neighbors - every day you can gather up 1,000's of free dishes and hopefully alot of the same dish over and over.

Next, your buzz rating. I have seen so many people whining and complaining because their buzz rating is low and they blame the game. Blame YOURSELF. You do not have something set up right in your cafe. Buzz rating is critical. The higher it is - tops out at 105 which is where mine is sitting almost all of the time - the more customers that come in to your cafe.

First off, if you have more than one door, get rid of the extras. You should only have one door to your cafe. If you have 2 or more, then more customers may be coming in than your servers can handle. If customers stand there too long waiting for a table, they leave and your buzz rating goes down.

Second, set up your cafe so at least some of your customers have to walk a long way to get to a table. This does NOT affect your buzz rating and they don't get mad and storm out, it takes them longer to get to tables and gives your servers enough time to serve everyone.

Third, look at the layout of your tables and serving tables. There are so many different ways people set them up - I have no idea if they work or not. I have my serving tables in the middle of the customer tables. I have customer tables lined up side by side in a giant U shape with the serving tables in the middle. The servers need to be able to get to the food quickly and get it to the tables quickly.

Fourth. Block your ovens. Make sure your doofus chef - which would be you, btw, lol - can't get at the ovens. I call him doofus cause' he takes SO terribly long to serve all the food you have cooked to the serving tables. I accidentally figured out that if you simply block the ovens, he will just stand there - wherever he's at in your cafe - and all of your food will get served 10 times faster - it just goes from the oven to the table - and also preparing your food to cook will also go MUCH faster as you don't have to wait for him to walk to each oven. You can set your ovens up in a giant block, put them side by side - block them with plants, whatever, just keep him from them.

Fifth. I haven't tried this and my buzz rating is good so I don't really care, but you can block your waitresses from getting to the tables as well, forcing them to "throw" the food to the tables. I have heard there is a down-side to this method, I don't know. I have enough servers to deal with the customers so I don't really care, mine works and that's all I need. The only reason you would want to do this is to keep your buzz rating high. I think if you have your cafe set up well enough, you won't need to do this.

Sixth. The game has me addicted because I am in a "contest" sort of with other neighbors to get ahead of everyone else. I have been gaining on all of them and passed a BUNCH of them up simply by making sure I always have food cooking on the ovens - but also - should I tell the world this? This is a kind of tip they probably make you pay for in those books they are selling on how to play Cafe World. Well, I get plenty of gold coins every day, so, if I'm close to catching up with someone or they are trying to pass me, I just buy food to cook, prepare it until it's cooking and then delete. I get the experience points for preparing the dish - the dish I use is 20 points for each phase of the preparation. I can rack up a couple thousand points pretty fast.

One guy was 50,000 coins ahead of me at one point, now he's at least 30,000 BEHIND me. Not just from "cheating", mostly just from cooking, cooking, cooking away. They do have the game set up well for anyone's schedule. When I started playing the game, I was just cooking hamburgers and stuff that only takes a few minutes. After a few weeks of that, I got sick of having to do all that prep work and started doing longer cook-time dishes. Now, the shortest cook time dish I do is 45 minutes, the longest is usually 18 hours on Peking Duck. That particular dish works well for me because I can start cooking it at 8pm or later on a work night and come home from work the next day and it's ready to serve. I also have several 8 hour dishes - start those at night as well, but get up a few minutes early before work and serve them up and start more 8 hours dishes. Also do some 12 hour dishes such as overstuffed peppers. I'll put those on in the morning before going to work and serve them at 5 pm later that day.

I'm currently at level 57 with a little over 310,000 experience points. I came close to acquiring 1,000,000 gold coins, but I did a total cafe makeover which cost me ALL of that. Now, I buy an item here and there for my cafe, but I am going to get it up to over 500,000 coins. I want enough coins available for whenever they decide to allow us to get the next sized up cafe - the next available is the Extrvagant Cafe - but, no-one can get it yet, and yet, a lot of people are complaining about it.

When will I quit this game? Dunno. Sooner or later I'll get burnt out on - but it probably will take a while because you really don't have to sit here and play it constantly, you get your dishes cooking and then you click out of it. The only real bummer about the game is that it runs so slow- and lots of people complain about that, too. I have never found these types of beta applications to run fast anyway. Maybe better computer hardware - more virtual memory - I dunno. Mine runs okay most of the time. When mine does run slow, I get out of the cafe right away. For whatever reason, when the game is running slow, I notice my buzz rating starts plummeting. I just come back a little later to hopefully find it back up to par.

There are undoubtedly more secrets to this game that I haven't stumbled across yet. I know there are "neighbors adding" groups where you can allegedly get hundreds of neighbors in one fell swoop - but you still have to go through the process of adding them as a friend and sending them an invite -etc etc etc. I just add neighbors here and there. The Cafe World Facebook wall has entries put in there by Cafe World and then usually thousands of comments under it with people asking for neighbors. That's where I find new neighbors. It's been kinda cool, actually, because some of these people I have had opportunity to chat with in that little chat window at the bottom of Facebook. People all over the world, actually. It's amazing how many people speak these "alien" languages also speak fluent English.

Oh - and yes, you can acquire more experience points by visiting neighbor's cafes. I don't do it. It takes WAY too long. I mean, getting into another person's cafe is what - 20 or 30 seconds? I have 92 neighbors, this would take forever. Some things I am simply not willing to do in this game - wasting a lot of time is one of them. I enjoy the game and am enjoying passing all kinds of people without having to spend every waking moment at it. It's just a matter of fine-tuning the game to your schedule.

Anyway, to the Googlers that found this entry for tips, I hope I have helped you. If you have any tips, feel free to leave them in the comments section below this entry.

Electric Consumption

I've learned a few things about electric usage when coupled with having tenants in your home over the last almost 2 years that I have had tenants in here.

First, I should NOT have "upgraded" the house to a 40 gallon water heater when I bought the place. I figured more people, need more hot water, right? Well, what actually happens is that everyone takes a shower or bath that conumes all 40 gallons worth of hot water. A 30 gallon heater = 10 gallons less of hot water being consumed, the heater being on less - less water and over time, far less electricity being used. I mean, who in their right mind is going to stay in a shower after the water turns cold and it's cold out and inside? I don't have it particularly warm in here, it's 60 degrees, I think, by Phoenix standards that's the ice age come visited your house.

2. It's worth the extra money, if you have such, to buy energy efficient washers and dryers. I was looking at the M-Power reader - it shows me how much electricity is being used at any point of time I want to see it - both of those machines were on yesterday. Well, I turned one off, the usage went down considerably, the other, same effect - I didn't turn off the water heater - it was running re-heating water being used by the washer. You get all 3 of those things running at the same time - it's $1.14 per HOUR worth of use. That's what the reader told me, I assume it to be true. On top of that the water being used. Well, water isn't particularly expensive, but it's still an expense.

In an attempt to get electric usage under control, I'm going to have to try and find some way to get a brand new washer - and the only thing I want is a front loader. They use FAR less electricity. They also use far less water - meaning water heater isn't going to run as long to reheat it's tank full. From what I have been reading about those things, the extra money spent is money saved and then some, X2.

As for Christmas lights - I'm taking them down. I cannot afford the extra electricity and since Christmas is over, goodbye until next year. I usually run them until New Year's. Actually, I may leave them up and then run them on New Year's Day and take them down next weekend. But - ONLY for New Year's Eve. Those lights are also consuming a lot of electricity and my time of wasting electricity on such is over.

So, my next quest is to find a new washing machine and somehow pay for it. I will probably have to settle for a used one - hopefully in good condition. I can sell the set I bought from my boss for probably $125 to $150. They work great - they just aren't energy efficient models. Better than nothing, definitely.

I just spent an hour - yes, an entire hour - scrubbing the main bathroom. The bathtub and walls were filthy. I let it go for a while to see if ANYONE would lift a finger to help with cleaning around here besides me making the boys do stuff. I'm referring to tenants. Not a single one of them does anything around here. I put the trash against the wall in the kitchen yesterday afternoon - just seeing if one of them would even think about carrying it out to the trash can. Yup, it's still sitting there.

Okay, I'll give one tenant a pass - he's hardly EVER here. The newest tenant is mostly here, and though he's clean - it's only with his room and his stuff. The ex-Marine - not a chance. He doesn't keep his room clean, it's a no-brainer he doesn't help clean anything else. He isn't exactly a slob, but still.

It took quite a while to get that sludge off the bathtub floor and the walls. I give this comet stuff a hand - it dissolves it pretty good, but there was so much of it, just plain NASTY.

Well, I'm not going to let it go anymore. I will scrub it once a week and I am not going to say anything to anyone about it. Tenants are hard to get right now - all 3 of these guys pay their rent on time. They don't cook - they just use the microwave. They DO put their dishes into the dishwasher. So, really, the only - but grossest - issue is the main bathroom that is theirs to use. The toilet gets so nasty that I have to clean it every couple of days. I am writing it off as the price I have to pay to keep people here. As for the 2 newest tenants, they are paying me $400 a month, one room I usually only get $375, so I'll keep his other $25 as payment towards "maid service". I was actually thinking about advertising on Craigslist to have someone come over here and I would pay them to clean that stuff - but my good sense prevailed. I can hardly afford that right now, though I could probably get someone to do both bathrooms for $20.

Times are THAT hard, I have seen people on there advertising to do just about anything in your home at dirt cheap prices.

OH!!! I found a 12X16 shed, they are calling it, on Craigslist for $800. It's not totally finished. It has a regular house entry door and a window. I could easily convert the thing into a living quarters. That's almost 200 square feet. That's a good sized room. In fact, my rental bedrooms are 11X15 and I consider them big, excepting the 3rd room which is 13X15. I have asked the person if they have sold it, and if not, how much they will actually take for it. It needs siding, some roof shingles and probably finish the interior.

At the right price, I will take it. I mean - how many people are going to be willing to try and move a thing that size? I don't even know how I would get it onto the trailer to bring it over here. Maybe it isn't so heavy that 5 or 6 men can pick it up and load it. I would have to go get a half dozen illegals over here to unload it and move it to where I want it. I don't even know if the guy has or hasn't sold it, yet, and I have no clue if this person would want to bring it down to - my - price, lol. I've been getting stingier and stingier on my offers. Persistence pays off sometimes, just have to be patient.

Anyway, I want to scrub my bathroom the same as I did the main bathroom today - I had to use almost an entire bottle of that Comet cleaner to get the main one done, meaning I need to go to Fry's and get another bottle, along with some other things.

C'yall later.
ben

Christmas At Big Bro's

Nice time. Big bro was behaving - a few snide comments here and there but nothing to set off the next World War. I got some cool gifts - including cash, lol. My sister-in-law got me a whole - huge - new set of cookware - ladels and all kinds of stuff in that thing. Pretty nice - didn't ask for it but she seems to know what I need.
Caleb was literally floating on Cloud 9. When he found out I had gotten him an 80 gigabyte iPod, he went bananas. After a while he was looking like he was high on drugs - which I know he wasn't, but it was interesting to watch the expressions on his face. When my middle brother brought in a .22 caliber bolt-action rifle - a vintage mode that had been checked out by a gunsmith to make sure it's safe to fire - it added to the high. Pretty cool stuff.

The only really odd thing was my sister-in-law's sister. She had been there - apparently long before I got there - and had obviously been tipping the bottle - more like putting it upside down in a vertical position and draining it. She was hitting up on me in no unsubtle way. She's a nice girl and all, but she's not my type. I uhhhh - had to sort of hold her at bay. Alcohol can make people do that - the inhibitions disappear into thin air.

Anyway, it was a nice time, I wish our family would do it more often, that's a pipe dream, that was Christmas for me. Tomorrow IS Christmas, I know, and I intend on cooking the standing rib roast/prime rib that I bought at Basha's on the way home. That place was PACKED full of people. I mean - all checkouts were open, all lanes had long lines in them - but the cashiers were either in a good mood or faking it pretty well. They only had one half rib roast left and I was hoping for another. The man that was running the show - literally a show - looked at me inspecting that roast, said he has more in the back, didn't ask whether I wanted a different one or not, just went back there.

Well, the one in my hand had WAY to much fat on it. Now, prime rib fat IS good, no doubting, but I want more meat than fat. He had already wrapped one up and was wrapping another. The second one was perfect and yes, that one came home with me. Once a year, folks, just once a year. That stuff is like $8 to $10 per pound normally. My bro giving me that cash paid for that roast and then some and that's what I did with it - there is nothing like prime rib, nothing. If it's cooked correctly, it's heaven on earth.

I had to call my boss to refresh my memory on how to do it the way my old boss does it. Rub in garlic/salt/pepper. Take kosher salt and add more garlic/salt/pepper, mix it with water and make a paste. Cover the tops and sides of the roast as best as possible with that paste, stick it in the oven with a meat thermometer in the middle, cook at 300 to 325 degrees until the center of the meat is around 145-150 degrees. Pull it out - the paste is now a solid mass, simply remove it and discard. The meat is perfect. The inner portions are pretty rare, the outer portions are fairly well done - good for everyone. That with baked potatoes and gravy and a vegetable, that's plenty of food.

I have put off giving the ham to the family I promised to because I have been so busy. This morning was a rush of getting my middle bro's present - met in a 5 & Diner parking lot to make that exchange, a Gold Canyon Candles distributor met me there and that was his present. Stopped at the post office to mail off the loan mod documents that I had notarized - which has to be there by the 29th. Went to Caleb's mom's, got Caleb, headed to Walmart. He has outgrown his shoes. I allotted him $40 for shoes, he spent something like $27. Got the guest at today's function a Christmas card and a gift card, have spent far too much money on Christmas, but - it's all good. No more presents need be bought and I'm done. I simply intend on spending a quiet time home tomorrow with whoever's here.

As for right now? I must head out to deliver this ham. They live like 4 or 5 miles from here, no big deal. It's all I'm giving them is the ham and I bought that on sale. I don't want to feel like a cheap skate - but - I have helped plenty of people this year with food and I had really scaled back when my hours were cut at work. She had an ad on Craigslist - though I have helped her once before - I hope someone else might have been moved to help her as well.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve Day to everyone, I hope this time of year finds you well and rested.

ben

Frys Food Stores

I have an on-going love-hate relationship with Fry's Food Stores.
Mostly, I only write about them when some ridiculous or outrageous thing occurs when I go there.
Just one, eensy teensy tiney example would be yesterday when I was walking out of the store and the dreaded alarm goes off.
It happens to me frequently anymore. I do not appreciate it, either. I have been going to Fry's since I was 10 years old, meaning I am a 35 year shopper at their stores. I do not recall ever stealing anything from them, even as a teenager, but certainly I do NOT steal items from them now, neither will I ever do so.

I am not that kind of preson, I still have morals and a conscience. That alarm going off is not only annoying, it is also at least somewhat humiliating. It announces to the Fry's shopping world that: "Hey, looky there, that guy is a thief, he is trying to steal something, tackle him to the floor" - or certainly that's the feeling one gets when that very LOUD thing goes off and then some dude standing there starts raising his voice at you and chasing you out the door, demanding to see your receipt.

I refuse to stop anymore. I don't even acknowledge that they are saying anything to me, or if I do, it's not anything that would be deemed nice or amenable. Nowadays, the store I shop at has a police officer standing out front. They are off-duty cops doing store security. Although I mean no disrespect to the officer, I will also ignore them as well. If they want to tackle me to the ground and arrest me, the City of Tempe and Fry's Food Stores will be slapped with a lawsuit so fast you'll wonder how I even had time to get home to call the lawyer to file the complaint.

Seriously. Dead serious. I am SICK of that damned alarm and yes, I did call Fry's corporate headquarters yesterday - and not surprisingly, I am definitely not the first person to call and complain about it. I have stood there and watched - for years now - that alarm going off on the elderly, young couples, all kinds of people who freeze in their tracks at the loudness of the sound going off and look around wondering what the bleep to do next. I am going to start making a big issue out of this until they change their modus operandi. I have seen those kinds of alarms all over the place at all kinds of different stores, I have NEVER seen them going off even close to as much as they go off at Fry's.

I will give Fry's one round of kudos today. I was in there waiting in an obscenely long line - there were only 2 full service registers going and the self-service registers were also backed up. The lady from the Service Department counter came up to me and said as long as I don't have anything that needs weighed - like veggies and such - she could help me over there. For as long as the wait would have been, I would have dumped anything that would need to be weighed just to get out of there. It's hardly set up for doing groceries - making her job even more difficult - but she did it cheefully and I was amazed at how long it was taking for the line I was originally in to get the one grouping of people that were first in line done with.

It never ceases to amaze me that a person forgets something, so - they leave the line, walk to the other side of the store - get what they want and come strolling back as if there was nothing else going on. Notwithstanding the fact that the line is being held up for everyone else that is waiting. This is another thing I have never understood why these stores allow to happen. There were 5 ladies that were buying something like 20 pies, 10 bags of potatoes and some other things that decided that they needed more pies - and had no qualms taking their sweet old time going to get them. The pies were half a store away from where they were.

Another thing that gets me are the people that apparently think all of this stuff they are buying is free. They MUST think that, because they don't even begin to get out their wallet until AFTER - EVERYTHING - is scanned, the total is rung up and the cashier is standing there, looking at the person blankly while asking for payment. I am guessing they aren't allowed to say anything negative to these people, that's no problem, I have no qualms identifying the fact that it's pretty much a sure thing that, if they get into line and all of this stuff is scanned and added up with tax, that they are probably going to have to pay for it.

Yes, I've pissed more than a few people off with my statements - and this should bother me? "Excuse me, miss, did you think you were going to get all of this stuff for free?" - and other little points that I like to make. They usually look at me funny at first and then realize what I am saying - and get mad of course. I am no less put off by their lack of action, ESPECIALLY those that are getting out checkbooks. If you are writing a check for your purchase, PLEASE GET IT OUT AT THE TIME THE CASHIER STARTS TO RING UP THE GOODS, not AFTER she/he is done with everything.

When this cashier was done and I paid for everything and was leaving - these people were STILL there, holding up the line. I can assure you right now that if I had had to stand there and wait for all of this nonsense, choice words would have been expressed at my displeasure - they had made at least 2 trips to get more pies.

Unbelievable.

Saturday

I did not get my paycheck yesterday. I'm not sure which is more unbelievable - that I forgot to ask for it or that my manager forgot to give it to me. Not the end of the world, it just dawned on me that my mortgage payment is still sitting at work. The mortgage company sent me a PILE of papers to read and sign. Ridiculous. I've ALREADY read, signed and sent more paperwork than it should take to buy 50 homes. Well, this paperwork is worth signing since it reduces my interest rate by 1.5 percentage - doesn't sound like much but when it comes to a loan that big, the savings both monthly and over the life of the loan are substantial.

Well, 2 days off. Non-paying tenant - paid last night. I have 2 weekly renters in here. I have no idea why this guy couldn't pay last week, but at least he communicated with me about it. I can deal with that - as long as there is an intended date to pay it up. The other weekly renter doesn't come "home" until - well today or tomorrow usually. He'll hand over $100. That's $275 total and some of that is going to Christmas presents.

I have a bunch of stuff to do around here - but I'm not even thinking of getting it all done this weekend. Just on-going projects and such. More walls in the house needed painted and I need to continue on with the drip system which was put on the back-burner while I was doing other stuff. I'm thinking of having my neighbor's son install a new condensor in my car - save a ton of money doing it that way versus having a shop do it - and then take it into a shop to have the system vacuumed and then recharged with freon.

Ummm, so today I think what I'm really going to focus on is trying to get my son's present. An iPod. A used one, and no, I'm not shelling out the money for an iPod touch. An amazing electronic gadget, yes, but - it's way too much money. No, he said he would be happy with one of the older models. Craigslist here I come, basically, see what I can find and if I can make deal today.

I would really, though, like to spend some time outside today working around the plants and yard. I have put all of that on back burner as well trying to get other stuff done. I am only having to water plants maybe every 4 days now. The ground stays moist and that's all it needs. I can't imagine how much lower my next water bill will be, but I'm sure it will be a pleasant surprise.

Umm, just rambling, really. I haven't read the news yet today, I'm sure there is some entertainment to be found there. Instead of getting mad at the stupidity - especially what our elected politicans are doing - I find ways to look at through humor. The health care bill - nothing humorous about it, but the way these people are acting is quite entertaininig. Like a bunch of kinder-garteners falling all over themselves, trying to all get their names out there so they can go down in history as part of "The Group" that will get this thing passed.

I wonder, however, how favorably history will actually look back at them. They will undoubtedly get this thing shoved through and I fear the financial chaos that will ensue. I have nowhere to go. People talking about leaving this country because of everything going on. Well, nice, but wherever you go, you are going to find problems - maybe different sets of them, but never-the-less, problems. Maybe go live in Somalia........lol.

I'm done - for now. Going to get started on getting things done around here plus have to go shopping.

Have a great day : )

ben

Let's Get On With It, Shall We?

I am sitting on the threshold of a 2-day weekend - as normal, then 2 days of work and then........5 days off! YEEEEHAAAAAAAWW!!

And Lord knows I need it. Another of our drivers is currently off and will be off until after New Year's!??! Okay, my turn's a coming. In a couple of months from now, I intend on taking a full week off plus weekends cushioning both sides which would make a full 9 days off.

I am again being entertained by the daily news I find on the internet. This time, a Senator was told he could not go on any further with his speech he was delivering, he was cut off. The reason? They wanted to get done with a defense bill they were trying to get passed and rush to get started on the health bill.

Isn't that the problem here? They are so full-blown into wanting to get this thing done, yet from what I have read, many of these senators haven't even bothered to read the entire script of the thing. They want to get this bill passed before or even ON Christmas Day.

Thanks, politicians, just what we need. Yours and Obama's legacy of casting trillions of dollars worth of debt that will never see and end. How much taxation will it take being dumped on each individual before we all stand up and say enough is enough? I dunno. I know the "taxation without representation" movement - if you don't know what I'm talking about then you must have missed high school entirely - well, elementary school as well for that matter - must have taken some serious guts to actually initiate and engage in.

I would like to see HOW it is that not passing this bill will cause the federal government to go bankrupt. Obama likes to throw out stuff to make people afraid - I'm not buying it.

Today's fare includes a trip to Scottsdale and then an attempt to pull, load and deliver a rather large order. Yes, well we'll see about that. The order may be put off until Monday because as far as I know, nothing has been done on it yet. My limited hours at work usually have me cut off from even starting on the next day's deliveries in terms of pulling the orders - I get off of work about the time that normally used to start happening when the hour reduction came.

Weekend plans are nothing more than attempting to find Caleb the Christmas present he wants, doing whatever as Secret Santa to someone on KCL - the person never did fill out the survey so I'm going to get "something" and if they don't like it, tough. I also have absolutely no clue what my middle brother wants, I have asked him several times. My mother's present is done and my oldest brother's present is on it's way. I have very few people to buy for - on purpose. I am not going to go broke spending money on presents that, mostly, have no meaning to the recipient. Christmas has mostly lost it's meaning to individuals who see it nothing more than a spending spree to get things. I'm more into the giving side of things than the receiving side, but I was most appreciative of mother's gift of a carpet cleaning machine.

Anyway, I'm outta here - work day is almost here.
Have a good one!
ben

Free Shipping Thursday - Today Is Free Shipping Day

.......and I intend on taking advantage of it.
Allegedly, hundreds of internet sites are coming together, so to speak, to all give away free shipping.
Omaha Steaks is on that list. Since my oldest brother and his wife are going to bother to do Christmas this year, I am going to continue on with my now-yearly tradition of sending them a steak package from Omaha Steaks. The free shipping will save a lot of money right there - they have to ship it in dried ice and that shipping isn't cheap.
Some of the sites are giving away free shipping for any amount, some are giving it away if you spend X amount of money.

Onto other things. "The Federal Government will go bankrupt" if the health care bill fails. He blames an "unsustainable path" for medicare and medicaid if no action is taken. Gee, there, Mr. President, we are throwing TRILLIONS of dollars at everything BUT those systems, if we would have just paid for those things and fixed Social Security, maybe this country would be far better off.
I don't know that the federal government going bankrupt is such a bad idea.

Perhaps some entity would then force us to change our outrageous spending habits. Or perhaps our lenders would take everything over? Now wouldn't that be fun, the United States of China - or - The United States of America run by the Chinese Federal Government. Turn us all into a bunch of communists and blatant socialists. How would you like to be told how many kids you can have, or how many pets you can have? No guns. No freedom of religion - they claim such over there but in reality, if you want to express your religious views, they force you to do it in state-run churches. If you go outside of them, you risk getting killed, basically.

Whatever. I drove over 300 miles yesterday - all over the place. A trip to Tucson - I-10 was pretty much open season for high speeds and I was going high speeds. There just wasn't that much traffic out there to slow everything down. It's funny to pass a cop sitting on the side of the road going 75mph or even a little faster and have them do nothing about it. Because it's legal, yes - just sayin' it's pretty good speed for a semi. A couple of small deliveries today - so small they are going to be done in the pickup truck. There is plenty to do around here - the yard that is - if nothing else comes up. We are slowly moving all material from the back yard to the front yard. Inventory is coming soon - we have to get the stuff moved and then located in the computer system.

Ummm, work day approaches, I must get offa here.
ben

Wednesday

I wonder what kind of contingency plan is in place when these pilots are testing new commercial jets in case the thing fails and crashes and burns. I assume this first Boeing 787 that took off - was it yesterday? - must have been flying over water or uninhabited land. Still, I would think there would be some sort of edginess on part of the pilots who - from my view - are risking their lives to fly for the first time a totally untested aircraft.

Who knows if the thing's wings are going to fall off after the behemoth gets off the ground? Especially with this composite material they are using to build these things now - even moreso when you consider that had to delay the first take off the plane on more than one occasion - but one of them being that they had to strengthen the area where the wings are attached to the fuselage.

At least the figured this out BEFORE the plan ever took off. It's fascinating stuff to me - I wouldn't want to be on that first takeoff - but I would have loved to stand there and watch it.

Today is allegedly another trip to Tucson. Apparently they couldn't fit the pipe onto the transfer truck that comes up every Wednesday. Yeah, I'll bet. Load the truck correctly and that pipe could have been draped over the top of everything, securely tied down and safely transported up here without a hitch. I know the driver - I'm not a big fan. I dunno, but I have to go to the jobsite first with another load, then another jobsite and THEN head to Tucson. If the Tucson trip is still a go, this is going to be a long day. I don't mind going down to Tucson, that isn't the point - the point is a waste of man-hours, fuel, wear-and tear on the truck - etc etc etc when it could have just been brought up on the truck that is already coming.

Oh well. I don't run the company, I do express my views at times. The contractor is apparently not happy that they have to wait for the rest of the pipe - though, from the beginning - the contractor was informed of the time it was going to take to manuacture this pipe and get it ready to go, it is no surprise. The contractor, howwever, apparently has a crew of people who are going to be doing - nothing - apparently.

By the time I get everything done and get back from Tucson, this day will be cashed and that pipe will probably not get delivered until tomorrow morning.

Well, onto other things. Not much else going on, really.
In fact, I have only a few minutes left and want to read about the now widely held belief that Iran is on the brink of being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

THAT is a bit scary.

G'day, folks.
ben

Obamaism

The news, as always, is a source of great entertainment. Lol. A statue of Obama erected in Jakarta? Lol. Now, of course, there is an outrage in that country by citizens who say that there are leaders from that nation that a deserving of such a statue but none of them have one. What IS the craze about Obama? The Nobel Peace Prize? ROFL!!! I am in no way racist and surely saying what I am about to will label me as one, I couldn't care less: this is more about the color of the man's skin than the alleged "greatness" of the man himself. There, I said it and I most certainly do not feel bad about it, because I happen to believe that, to a very great extent, it's true. Much of the world views Obama as a wimp, not as a great leader that has done - what? Let's see a list of things, folks, I would love to review it.

Next is Lieberman. He is dissing his own party, lol!!! Democrats are "furious" as the news puts it about his stance on the health bill and the desire to increase Medicaid benefits - as well as other issues. What always grasps my attention are the words "1 TRILLION dollars". This is what they believe it will cost to implement this program for the next 10 years. 1,000,000,000,000. Look at that number. Mark my words, if this thing passes and surely it will - they are hell-bent on it - it will end up costing DOUBLE or TRIPLE that figure. NOTHING the government EVER does stays on budget.

Where are we headed, people? I'm serious - how is all of this going to be paid for? How is all of this money already spent going to be paid for? The nation is UNEMPLOYED, taxes are NOT being paid right now, but these people in-charge think it a grand idea to burden the deficit and the public debt to the point - it's gotta break somewhere, sooner or later. WHAT happens when "it" breaks, I have no clue, but there is going to a point where we are no longer going to enjoy the lifestyle that we have fought and worked so hard to get that we have right now. The people that are making these decisions are RICH people, they don't have to fear and worry about the things the average-Joe like me has to, ie: how are we going to survive this?

I read in Craigslist ads every day the desperation of entire families that are broke, about to lose whatever dwelling place they have and can someone loan them the money or just plain give it to them so they can pay the rent? No, I am not trying to help these people, I am reading the stories, though. It gives a face to the seriousness of the situation that we are in, the same situation that our nation's so-called leaders apparently have forgotten about. Those people get the best health care coverage on earth - free. They don't pay a dime for it. It's like they get elected into office and then leap to another planet, leaving planet Earth and America FAR behind in their thoughts and actions.

I am fortunate enough to be able to say that if it really got THAT bad - where I lost my job, my home, everything, at least I have parents that would help me out. I know, it would be the lowest low of my life, but it would be better than living on the streets. Not everyone can say that they have that kind of backup. My brother is ALWAYS asking me what my backup plan is. Whenever I see him - which isn't that often - but whenever I see him, that's his question. I have no clue, dude. What is YOUR backup plan? Who has a backup plan in a recession or really, a depression such as what we're going through?

I'd be pounding the pavement like everyone else and take what I could get. That's my backup plan. I hope to hope's sake for sake's sake that I don't have to go there. I work my butt off at work, I press forward and I get the job done, do everything that's asked of me and go well beyond that without complaining and hope that, at the end of the day, I am still employed. What else am I supposed to do? Have we lost sight of the fact that there are still hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their jobs EVERY single month? And yet our clueless government keeps wanting to dump TRILLIONS of dollars into things that may have merit - I am not opposed to everyone being able to get health-care - but are TOTALLY ill-advised at this point. We don't HAVE trillions of dollars is my point. We aren't likely to have it any time soon. Let's just sell America to the world!!! Yayyyy - get taken over by the Chinese and whoever else is "investing" in America. The Canadians are coming to these parts in droves picking up cheap homes.

Whatever. My rant is over.
ben

Friday

Slept pretty well last night - that happens far less frequently than not. I did wake up at around 2:30 am but managed - somehow - to get back to sleep. If the alarm didn't go off this morning I would have slept many more hours, I am sure. Normally, I am awake well before the alarm goes off.

I got most of the Christmas lights up for my front yard yesterday afternoon. It looks pretty good - just a few dark spots I need to address and it's done. I would like to get a "Merry Christmas" sign - maybe someone's selling one on Craigslist. I forgot to check this morning and see how much electricty those lights are using - but I am not using anything near the 8,000 lights I got in that package deal. Some of the rest of those lights well be used indoors.

I still can't get over the fact that Midland Mortgage company actually reduced my loan interest rate. I have been riding on this one for days now. It's almost scary - like they were taunting me and in a week, they're going to call me back and say April Fool's in December.

It's funny that I am close to 2 years worth of payments on that house and the priniple amount has only come down maybe 2 grand. Hey, a lower interest rate will allow for more of the monthly payment to go to princple reduction. Or is that principal? I could never remember the 2, I have always goofed those 2 words up all my life.

We have 2 rogue nations that are nuclear weapons bound. I don't wonder if neither is doing anything to listen to the U.N. on the subject because - they can see that the other has had nothing done to it. N Korea has snooted UN resolutions for - a long time. Iran is so full of rhetoric - you wonder if those are manniquens you are looking at speaking on the TV instead of real Iranian officials. Certainly their president looks nothing short of a goofball. Actually, when I first saw that man, I immediately thought of a homeless person living on the streets.

No, really, that's the first thought that entered my mind. The guy LOOKS uneducated - whether he is or isn't, I don't know. Of course, our president is viewed as lame, weak and timid the world over at this point. Great portrayal for the greatest position of authority and power on the face of the earth, IMO anyway.

Umm, well that wasn't really a political rant, just more observations. Until the world really does something besides sanctions against these nations, they are going to continue to defy everyone. If Iran ever gets it's hands on nuclear weapons - I predict WWIII. I could be wrong, but the world will have to line up either for or against them, I have no doubt in my mind that those people would fire off a rocket with a nuclear package on it without thinking too terribly much about it. In fact, I think they would relish the idea of war and dying for their religious beliefs.

It would be Iran V Israel and then - of course - the world would have to get involved unless they just totally destroy each other. I have serious doubts, however, that Israel will ever be destroyed. Yes, that belief is steeped in religious belief, but I reserve that belief in certain biblical statements.

And since it' the CHRISTMAS Season (versus the Holiday Season, or Happy Holidays, or whatever other rubbish the world wants to come up with, I could care LESS if anyone gets offended that I say MERRY CHRISTMAS to them) I will take a few moments here and there to speak about religious beliefs and that's that.

Regardless, the work day is starting and I just found 2 deliveries that need to be pulled, loaded and taken to a new jobsite. Woohooooo! Gotta love it!
I do love my job, did I ever say that? Oh yes, like a thousand times!
C'ya later.
ben