After getting at most 4 hours of sleep last night, I ended up driving all day long.
A call came in late - late for deliveries anyway, after 11:00 am, that a contractor needs pipe and materials. The continuance of that was that if we couldn't get it there today, they were going to call someone else. My manager is asking me if I want to do it. Umm, I'm not used to management asking me if I want to do something or not, I just get it done regardless of whether I feel like it or not.
Admittedly, I was tired but my mouth spoke completely opposite: Let's get it done. Downtown, then off to Florence, otherwise known as prison town. I believe there are 6 prisons in that town (at least). LARGE facilities, all of them, included a Department of Homeland Defense "detention facility". A nice drive even if tired, I left there and took the back way back to the yard - much faster.
Umm, excepting the fact that there was a serious accident on that road further down the way and DPS shut it down. I ended up going around 20 miles out of my way to get back. It's all farm land out there. 2 lane highways and a lot of back roads. If you know the back roads, you can beat everyone else by far. I know ALL the back roads in that entire area - I have spent considerable time out there over the last 6 or 7 years. So, I'm toodling along and finally get to I-10. I'm on there for a minute and come up to another accident. A semi, rolled over on it's side, in the middle median. There was another semi parked next to and and a huge crew of people transferring material from the wrecked truck over to the "good" one.
Wow, is all I can say about that. An eerie site to see a semi rolled over on it's side. There was a huge tow truck that, from what I could tell, had tried to upright it and couldn't, it was sitting idle waiting for them to empty the contents of the trailer. My mind imagined what could have happened to cause that. In that area, huge wind gusts come up unexpectedly and that kind of accident has happened many times before out there. But, it could also have been a cutoff. Or perhaps a shutdown. Who knows.
Umm, as usualy with my entries, long interlude. I get distracted by something and hours pass before I come back to this.
Probably sometime this week I am going to buy all the items necessary to build my new computer. This is really what's on my mind right now. I just haven't decided whether to buy the stuff online from Newegg or Tiger Direct or buy it from Fry's electronics. I'm the kind of person that will wait for a while and see if I can find some other venue to get what I want at cheaper prices. So far, the pricing is marginally different from all sources and in that case, having the personal interaction at Fry's with someone who really knows what they are talking about and will spend the time is far better than blindly and coldly buying it online.
Whatever the case, it is my bedtime.
G'nite.
ben
Monday, October 25, 2010
Monday 10/25/2010
Monday:
I've been sleeping fairly well for several days in a row - until last night. Wake up at midnight, back to sleep around 3:30 am. I've gotten so used to not having enough sleep that I'm mostly able to perform at work anyway. If worse comes to worse,I take my 30 minute break in the form of a nap.
Fortunately, there is plenty to do today as well. A trip the Indian reservation; a delivery of copper material to another site and probably a trip downtown. That should eat up most of the day. I say fortunately because it is much easier to get through a work day when busy as opposed to not being busy at all.
Well, anyway. I was looking this morning at a "huge sale" by a company discount thing - the huge sale was not that huge and the components in the computers weren't anything even close to what I am looking at doing. I do admit some amount of trepidation at building a computer - I have never done one before - but the benefits outweight any cons. You just end up with such a far superior computer than what you are going to pay at the same price for an - inferior model. Upgraded processor; upgraded motherboard; upgraded video card.
Anyway, I'm just biding my time with this thing. I want to make sure my bills are covered before diving into this project, which I will probably do anytime now. Prolly not today for lack of sleep.
Election rhetoric continues to spew forth out of the garbage machines that manufacturer such filth. I say that for both sides. Dems are obviously afraid. I personally do not think it health that any one party control the House and the Senate plus a president in a 3-some of all 3-somes. They can basically do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it and there isn't much to stop them.
That is, until election day arrives and voters undoubtedly are going to create huge lines and large backups to even get to a poll. I do hope that doesn't sway anyone from taking however much time it takes to cast your vote, regardless of your political views. Let the people speak and let it be as much of the voting public as possible. I would love to get there early - but they don't open up until I'm already at work.
I don't know what happened to an entire entry I made yesterday, just sorta disappeared. I have decided that it is very possible to have a nice water garden without any fish in it for the small pond that I was going to get rid of. Just put an aerator in it and maybe a small pump - of which I have both already - to keep the water from getting foul and full of mosquitos. I also have plants I can break apart to use for such.
In other words, there is nothing I have to buy for such a setup, I already have everything. Where to put it poses an entirely different question, but I think I will put it out front where I was going to put a slightly larger pond for fish. I can put mosquito eaters in there and perhaps, maybe some small - very small goldfish as a stock tank sort of thing, but that's it. I think if set up right, it would look totally cool.
Also, I popped off the panel on the outdoor breaker box to take a peek inside - running a line off of that thing is going to be a piece of cake. I need to get that done soon. I would think about stopping at Home Depot on the way home today - but - again - I doubt I will want to do anything but go home and take a long nap this afternoon after getting off of work.
Well, work day approaches and I'm off to look at more "junk" in the news, lol.
G'day.
ben
I've been sleeping fairly well for several days in a row - until last night. Wake up at midnight, back to sleep around 3:30 am. I've gotten so used to not having enough sleep that I'm mostly able to perform at work anyway. If worse comes to worse,I take my 30 minute break in the form of a nap.
Fortunately, there is plenty to do today as well. A trip the Indian reservation; a delivery of copper material to another site and probably a trip downtown. That should eat up most of the day. I say fortunately because it is much easier to get through a work day when busy as opposed to not being busy at all.
Well, anyway. I was looking this morning at a "huge sale" by a company discount thing - the huge sale was not that huge and the components in the computers weren't anything even close to what I am looking at doing. I do admit some amount of trepidation at building a computer - I have never done one before - but the benefits outweight any cons. You just end up with such a far superior computer than what you are going to pay at the same price for an - inferior model. Upgraded processor; upgraded motherboard; upgraded video card.
Anyway, I'm just biding my time with this thing. I want to make sure my bills are covered before diving into this project, which I will probably do anytime now. Prolly not today for lack of sleep.
Election rhetoric continues to spew forth out of the garbage machines that manufacturer such filth. I say that for both sides. Dems are obviously afraid. I personally do not think it health that any one party control the House and the Senate plus a president in a 3-some of all 3-somes. They can basically do whatever they want, whenever they want to do it and there isn't much to stop them.
That is, until election day arrives and voters undoubtedly are going to create huge lines and large backups to even get to a poll. I do hope that doesn't sway anyone from taking however much time it takes to cast your vote, regardless of your political views. Let the people speak and let it be as much of the voting public as possible. I would love to get there early - but they don't open up until I'm already at work.
I don't know what happened to an entire entry I made yesterday, just sorta disappeared. I have decided that it is very possible to have a nice water garden without any fish in it for the small pond that I was going to get rid of. Just put an aerator in it and maybe a small pump - of which I have both already - to keep the water from getting foul and full of mosquitos. I also have plants I can break apart to use for such.
In other words, there is nothing I have to buy for such a setup, I already have everything. Where to put it poses an entirely different question, but I think I will put it out front where I was going to put a slightly larger pond for fish. I can put mosquito eaters in there and perhaps, maybe some small - very small goldfish as a stock tank sort of thing, but that's it. I think if set up right, it would look totally cool.
Also, I popped off the panel on the outdoor breaker box to take a peek inside - running a line off of that thing is going to be a piece of cake. I need to get that done soon. I would think about stopping at Home Depot on the way home today - but - again - I doubt I will want to do anything but go home and take a long nap this afternoon after getting off of work.
Well, work day approaches and I'm off to look at more "junk" in the news, lol.
G'day.
ben
Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Tenant
I am hardly going to say here that I am surprised at anything that tenants bring forth when it comes time to paying rent and - sometimes - one of them not paying it.
It is not pleasant business to have to get blunt with a person that is living in your home - which was my intial objection to engaging in such, long ago, but not now, not ever again.
However, today's encounter was a new one on me. I claim no life-long authority on this type of situation, I do claim a 2-1/2 year tenure in dealing with such and I am prepared for whatever comes against me, even such that occured today.
For 2 weeks, the individual has told me he is going to pay back the $85 in arrears, today, he started a discourse. His discourse was that he is supposed to be paying X amount per month and that today? X amount has been paid. He did not venture into the realm of "therefore I don't need to pay the other $85".
I did ask him anyway. "So, are you saying now that you don't owe me the $85 that you missed 2 weeks ago?". No. He admitted such. Then what, exactly, ARE you saying? He "didn't understand" that he would have to pay "more" than the amount of rent accrued in one month. Oh? We are on a weekly deal here, you are paying by the week, not by the month. If you were paying by the month, then you would pay me a month's worth of rent at the beginning of the month.
This is simple logic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. But this went back and forth for quite a while. I ended the stalemate. You owe me $85 in arrears PLUS this week. That's a fact, you haven't disputed it. If you can't afford to pay it up all at once, I'll work with you - pay it back in payments. X amount over the weekly rent until you are caught up.
That was that. He handed me a money order for the amount of $90 - $5 over what he owes for a week and that was that. Oh, I see. Well, if he didn't think he owed me more, why then did he give me more, even if only $5? I didn't ask him that, but the reigns are going to be pulled much tighter on this individual. He promised me the full amount owed for the past due and current due - but did not deliver it. That has me on "flag". Meaning, this guy is going to have to be pressed.
No biggies. I can do that and will. I have the advantage over a person that wants to get their own apartment: you going to do that, you don't want what I can put on your record. That would be a judgment for forcible detainer/eviction. A vast majority of apartment properties are going to reject anyone with such, or, force far more money down, like first and last month's rent plus deposit.
I can't possibly write here the entire dialect between us, take too long. It might be entertaining reading to certain individuals, however, I have had a full weekend and I think I've had enough.
The fact of the matter is, it was the boost I wanted to get on with this computer project AND be able to pay my bills. The $325 water bill really hurt this month, I admit I have myself to blame, but that does not ease the pain.
Umm, so it's drawing to a close, the day that is and I have plenty to do.
C'ya tomorrow.
ben
It is not pleasant business to have to get blunt with a person that is living in your home - which was my intial objection to engaging in such, long ago, but not now, not ever again.
However, today's encounter was a new one on me. I claim no life-long authority on this type of situation, I do claim a 2-1/2 year tenure in dealing with such and I am prepared for whatever comes against me, even such that occured today.
For 2 weeks, the individual has told me he is going to pay back the $85 in arrears, today, he started a discourse. His discourse was that he is supposed to be paying X amount per month and that today? X amount has been paid. He did not venture into the realm of "therefore I don't need to pay the other $85".
I did ask him anyway. "So, are you saying now that you don't owe me the $85 that you missed 2 weeks ago?". No. He admitted such. Then what, exactly, ARE you saying? He "didn't understand" that he would have to pay "more" than the amount of rent accrued in one month. Oh? We are on a weekly deal here, you are paying by the week, not by the month. If you were paying by the month, then you would pay me a month's worth of rent at the beginning of the month.
This is simple logic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. But this went back and forth for quite a while. I ended the stalemate. You owe me $85 in arrears PLUS this week. That's a fact, you haven't disputed it. If you can't afford to pay it up all at once, I'll work with you - pay it back in payments. X amount over the weekly rent until you are caught up.
That was that. He handed me a money order for the amount of $90 - $5 over what he owes for a week and that was that. Oh, I see. Well, if he didn't think he owed me more, why then did he give me more, even if only $5? I didn't ask him that, but the reigns are going to be pulled much tighter on this individual. He promised me the full amount owed for the past due and current due - but did not deliver it. That has me on "flag". Meaning, this guy is going to have to be pressed.
No biggies. I can do that and will. I have the advantage over a person that wants to get their own apartment: you going to do that, you don't want what I can put on your record. That would be a judgment for forcible detainer/eviction. A vast majority of apartment properties are going to reject anyone with such, or, force far more money down, like first and last month's rent plus deposit.
I can't possibly write here the entire dialect between us, take too long. It might be entertaining reading to certain individuals, however, I have had a full weekend and I think I've had enough.
The fact of the matter is, it was the boost I wanted to get on with this computer project AND be able to pay my bills. The $325 water bill really hurt this month, I admit I have myself to blame, but that does not ease the pain.
Umm, so it's drawing to a close, the day that is and I have plenty to do.
C'ya tomorrow.
ben
Sunday
What an unbelievable amount of rigarmoroo to do the fumigation of this house!The prep work is incredible. Pulling everything out of your kitchen cabinets is much more of a chore than one might imagine if one has a lot of them. I have no idea what the final verdict is. Did it get all of them? Judging by the choking sensation I had when I walked in here after 4 hours of it - I would say the poison certainly had it's opportunities to kill them out. I also pulled of several electrical outlets in hopes of that stuff getting into the walls.
Honestly? There was only some fogging for a short period of time after setting off those bombs. I thought maybe they were making claims that were far beyond reality. Looking through the windows, after maybe 30 minutes, you couldn't see anything in here. However and again, walking in here after 4 hours of setting them off and choking - coughing, hacking, I was running through here to open up the windows and air the place out - well that made a believer out of me, at least to the longevity of the poison's ability to stick around. The dead roaches on the floor this morning was further indication that yes, it had to at least partially do it's job. I'm considering doing it again - though getting tenant cooperation with such may be a bit difficult.
I'm certainly not calling it a waste of time. For the roaches I found dead on the floor, I'm assuming much more dead out of sight. BUT, it was "the" project of the weekend. I was going to run a line and get another electrical box going outside for the ponds, NOT. Wait til' next weekend. Looking at this week's projected low temps, I'll be safe. I don't want to load anything more onto that extension cord - 300 watt heaters will be too much amperage combined with the pumps and aerators on that one cord. The pumps and aerators are very low wattage, no problem with current setup but it's only a temp deal.
Enough about roaches and electricity (though, the electric usage was $5.40 yesterday!). Computers. If you've never entered the world of attempting to figure out what to put into a computer to build one yourself, well, unless you are going to blindly go in swinging, you are in for quite an education. I have spent days and even a couple of weeks now poring over an unlimited amount of websites, blogs and internet store pages reading about everything the mind can imagine. Yes, I want to become well-versed on core components, no, I can hardly say I have any amount of expertise, I am relying on opinions and reviews of others.
Well, I've read hundreds of them so far. That is no exaggeration. I'm seriously telling you that there must be millions of pages out there - you can find opinions up the ying-yang ad-infinitum. I neither have the time nore the desire to do all of that, BUT, I definitely have the desire to go ahead and do at least some research. I want the best machine I can build for the money I have to dump into it. Motherboards and processors and video graphic cards. PCI Express, how much wattage in a power supply, do you want to overclock, on and on and on. It's unbelievable the amount of different technology out there. Almost equally as unbelievable the amount of people that actually KNOW - ALL - of this stuff.
I talked to one such individual today. My quest: go to Fry's electronics, pick the brain of whatever computer geek I could find. Well, I found a doozy. The guy was a walking encyclopedia. He had opinions on everything. No, more like, he had EXPERTISE on everything. I spent an hour standing there listening to this guy showing me everything and attempting to show me what I could get with the budget I have in mind. The quest included getting pricing on pre-selected items that I found the experts to agree on - at least to some degree so I could compare pricing with online stores; glean as much information as I could from the guy - especially about motherboards because I find the "expert's" opinions on that to be confusing at best; and possibly even buy the setup then and there and just get it over with.
I ended up being bombarded with information from 2 fronts: the store employee and an older gentleman who knew more than the store guy, which in itself I found quite amazing. He was listening to the store guy talking and just had to chime in. In a scenario where I really don't have a clue, I'm going to take all sides even if unasked for. He apologized for nosing into my business - I replied I was glad to hear the information. He WAS impressed by the motherboard I was looking at buying. He suggested a processor to go with it - WAY out of my budget, lol, at $250. He started laughing as well, "Well, I AM good at spending other people's money!".
I also took a second trip to see the pre-built systems they had. One advantage is they are, of course, already set up. The huge disadvantage is you are paying the same price or even more for a system that is far inferior to one you can build yourself. The money you save in building it yourself is the money you spend on better components. There was nothing there under $900 that was worth spending that kind of money on. Even the more expensive systems - they had better components, but for THAT kind of money you could build your own system that would be doubled the computing that those things offer.
So, here I am with about $400 sitting in my pocket. Waiting on one particular tenant's money - he will be addressed personally today if he doesn't ante up. He left yesterday and I have had no opportunity to - discuss - this issue with him. Money in the bank is for bills - can touch a bit of it but not too much. I haven't gone off the cliff yet - I am still considering my options. I will undoubtedly not be able to buy or build another computer for a long time, this one is going to have to be able to tide me over for quite a while.
The HUGE water bill - 2 months worth is -paid. Felt good to pay it, yet it felt bad to have a bill THAT big just for water, sewer and trash. Criminy. Water consumption is way down, I haven't watered plants in 2 weeks. The next water bill should be as shockingly low as the low amount of electricity that is being used : )
Oh, Direct TV. Yes another run-in with Direct TV. I decided that if they weren't going to give me new equipment (and in exchange, I would sign another 2 year contract), then they ARE going to continue to give me free movie channels. This was one of the worst interactions with Direct TV employees I have encountered yet and with the LONG list of encounters I have had with them in over a decade, that IS saying something.
These people are getting ruder, more condescending and being very flippant about the fact that you are their customer. They could CARE LESS. Their policies are their policies, if you don't like them, tough. But, experience that I always fall back on, persistence is key. Not with the same person who is mouthing off to you, get beyond that and call again. And again. And again. I spoke with 3 separate "supervisors" which in my view are nothing more than a glorified incoming 800 call center operator - they have no powers to speak of. After all of that, I finally ended up at the Office of the President. I was - getting pretty upset at that point - about the way those people were talking to me. This guy says he's in Iowa somewhere. I had to ask how he could be in the same office as the president is in considering the present's office is in California.
Ohh, sir, but this IS the right department. I had gotten the runaround so much, I didn't even want to talk to this guy. I had specifically asked, after being transferred off to Iowa the first time, to speak with someone in the office that I had called directly, which, btw, was NOT an 800 number. It's in El Segundo, to be precise and yes, the number to headquarters is listed online (albeit ifyou ask any Direct TV employee, they are going to tell you they don't know or have access to that number).
I finally relented and gave him my information. This was after 10 or 15 minutes of me telling him about the previous phone calls, the length of time I have been with this company on 2 accounts for over 10 years, and the fact that I had been PROMISED free movie channels by the 1st individual I had talked to (whose manager came on the line and retracted). I "earned" 6 months of free Starz channels for that. Look, they all occasionally have some great movies and the rest are junk you don't want to watch anyway, which is why I refuse to pay for them. I can't always just turn on any movie channel package and find something I want to watch, not at all. I actually did it for the trailer tenants who told me the Showtime channels had been shut off. Yes, I replied, it was a 3 month freebie, but I'll try to get some more.
Anyway, it was worth the effort. I guess. I mean, it helps my bottom line and that's what counts.
It's 3:00pm Sunday afternoon, the weekend is winding down, they always disappear like lightning. Mind filld with all kinds of stuff. I'm going outside shortly to take care of more landscaping issues.
G'day.
ben
Honestly? There was only some fogging for a short period of time after setting off those bombs. I thought maybe they were making claims that were far beyond reality. Looking through the windows, after maybe 30 minutes, you couldn't see anything in here. However and again, walking in here after 4 hours of setting them off and choking - coughing, hacking, I was running through here to open up the windows and air the place out - well that made a believer out of me, at least to the longevity of the poison's ability to stick around. The dead roaches on the floor this morning was further indication that yes, it had to at least partially do it's job. I'm considering doing it again - though getting tenant cooperation with such may be a bit difficult.
I'm certainly not calling it a waste of time. For the roaches I found dead on the floor, I'm assuming much more dead out of sight. BUT, it was "the" project of the weekend. I was going to run a line and get another electrical box going outside for the ponds, NOT. Wait til' next weekend. Looking at this week's projected low temps, I'll be safe. I don't want to load anything more onto that extension cord - 300 watt heaters will be too much amperage combined with the pumps and aerators on that one cord. The pumps and aerators are very low wattage, no problem with current setup but it's only a temp deal.
Enough about roaches and electricity (though, the electric usage was $5.40 yesterday!). Computers. If you've never entered the world of attempting to figure out what to put into a computer to build one yourself, well, unless you are going to blindly go in swinging, you are in for quite an education. I have spent days and even a couple of weeks now poring over an unlimited amount of websites, blogs and internet store pages reading about everything the mind can imagine. Yes, I want to become well-versed on core components, no, I can hardly say I have any amount of expertise, I am relying on opinions and reviews of others.
Well, I've read hundreds of them so far. That is no exaggeration. I'm seriously telling you that there must be millions of pages out there - you can find opinions up the ying-yang ad-infinitum. I neither have the time nore the desire to do all of that, BUT, I definitely have the desire to go ahead and do at least some research. I want the best machine I can build for the money I have to dump into it. Motherboards and processors and video graphic cards. PCI Express, how much wattage in a power supply, do you want to overclock, on and on and on. It's unbelievable the amount of different technology out there. Almost equally as unbelievable the amount of people that actually KNOW - ALL - of this stuff.
I talked to one such individual today. My quest: go to Fry's electronics, pick the brain of whatever computer geek I could find. Well, I found a doozy. The guy was a walking encyclopedia. He had opinions on everything. No, more like, he had EXPERTISE on everything. I spent an hour standing there listening to this guy showing me everything and attempting to show me what I could get with the budget I have in mind. The quest included getting pricing on pre-selected items that I found the experts to agree on - at least to some degree so I could compare pricing with online stores; glean as much information as I could from the guy - especially about motherboards because I find the "expert's" opinions on that to be confusing at best; and possibly even buy the setup then and there and just get it over with.
I ended up being bombarded with information from 2 fronts: the store employee and an older gentleman who knew more than the store guy, which in itself I found quite amazing. He was listening to the store guy talking and just had to chime in. In a scenario where I really don't have a clue, I'm going to take all sides even if unasked for. He apologized for nosing into my business - I replied I was glad to hear the information. He WAS impressed by the motherboard I was looking at buying. He suggested a processor to go with it - WAY out of my budget, lol, at $250. He started laughing as well, "Well, I AM good at spending other people's money!".
I also took a second trip to see the pre-built systems they had. One advantage is they are, of course, already set up. The huge disadvantage is you are paying the same price or even more for a system that is far inferior to one you can build yourself. The money you save in building it yourself is the money you spend on better components. There was nothing there under $900 that was worth spending that kind of money on. Even the more expensive systems - they had better components, but for THAT kind of money you could build your own system that would be doubled the computing that those things offer.
So, here I am with about $400 sitting in my pocket. Waiting on one particular tenant's money - he will be addressed personally today if he doesn't ante up. He left yesterday and I have had no opportunity to - discuss - this issue with him. Money in the bank is for bills - can touch a bit of it but not too much. I haven't gone off the cliff yet - I am still considering my options. I will undoubtedly not be able to buy or build another computer for a long time, this one is going to have to be able to tide me over for quite a while.
The HUGE water bill - 2 months worth is -paid. Felt good to pay it, yet it felt bad to have a bill THAT big just for water, sewer and trash. Criminy. Water consumption is way down, I haven't watered plants in 2 weeks. The next water bill should be as shockingly low as the low amount of electricity that is being used : )
Oh, Direct TV. Yes another run-in with Direct TV. I decided that if they weren't going to give me new equipment (and in exchange, I would sign another 2 year contract), then they ARE going to continue to give me free movie channels. This was one of the worst interactions with Direct TV employees I have encountered yet and with the LONG list of encounters I have had with them in over a decade, that IS saying something.
These people are getting ruder, more condescending and being very flippant about the fact that you are their customer. They could CARE LESS. Their policies are their policies, if you don't like them, tough. But, experience that I always fall back on, persistence is key. Not with the same person who is mouthing off to you, get beyond that and call again. And again. And again. I spoke with 3 separate "supervisors" which in my view are nothing more than a glorified incoming 800 call center operator - they have no powers to speak of. After all of that, I finally ended up at the Office of the President. I was - getting pretty upset at that point - about the way those people were talking to me. This guy says he's in Iowa somewhere. I had to ask how he could be in the same office as the president is in considering the present's office is in California.
Ohh, sir, but this IS the right department. I had gotten the runaround so much, I didn't even want to talk to this guy. I had specifically asked, after being transferred off to Iowa the first time, to speak with someone in the office that I had called directly, which, btw, was NOT an 800 number. It's in El Segundo, to be precise and yes, the number to headquarters is listed online (albeit ifyou ask any Direct TV employee, they are going to tell you they don't know or have access to that number).
I finally relented and gave him my information. This was after 10 or 15 minutes of me telling him about the previous phone calls, the length of time I have been with this company on 2 accounts for over 10 years, and the fact that I had been PROMISED free movie channels by the 1st individual I had talked to (whose manager came on the line and retracted). I "earned" 6 months of free Starz channels for that. Look, they all occasionally have some great movies and the rest are junk you don't want to watch anyway, which is why I refuse to pay for them. I can't always just turn on any movie channel package and find something I want to watch, not at all. I actually did it for the trailer tenants who told me the Showtime channels had been shut off. Yes, I replied, it was a 3 month freebie, but I'll try to get some more.
Anyway, it was worth the effort. I guess. I mean, it helps my bottom line and that's what counts.
It's 3:00pm Sunday afternoon, the weekend is winding down, they always disappear like lightning. Mind filld with all kinds of stuff. I'm going outside shortly to take care of more landscaping issues.
G'day.
ben
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Our version of chilly has arrived. It's 59 degrees outside. I turned the AC off yesterday afternoon around 2:00 pm and I haven't turned it on since. The electric use yesterday was a little over $6.00 - YES!! - slam dunk, wham, bam thank you ma'am!! If I can get it down to $5.00 per day, that would be about the best it's going to get. The high today is going to be 79 degrees, I figure there will be a couple three hours this afternoon that I will have to close up the house and turn on the AC - it always gets warming inside the house than the ambient temperature outside if, for nothing else, the fact that the sun is baking on the roof and heating things up inside.
I am reminding myself here that I need to buy a couple of thermometers for the ponds today, want to ensure that the temps don't get too low. That water felt pretty cold this morning, but the ambient outdoor temps aren't low enough to cause any great alarm, yet. I have all of those heaters, 300 watt versions, prolly 1 or 2 in each pond, on at night time should suffice. I'll start with one since I do want to keep electric usage down.
I am researching computers and whether I should buy one pre-made or build one myself. I have never built one but there are step-by-step instructions on how to do it online. In fact, I found a very good site and it has pics, very clearly communicating how to go about each step and what order to do it in. I'm considering building my own because I will end up with a better machine for lower price. I have written down the expert's advice for the type of computer I want as to what hardware and even brands should be bought. I am going to Fry's electronics again today with this list in hand to see if it really will be better to build my own, though, there are a couple of online sources for computer compenents (Goodegg and Tiger Direct) that have pricing right there. I would, however, rather buy locally in case I have a problem I can take the machine in and have it looked at. Fry's has such techs available, not for free of course, but if worse came to worse at least I would have that option.
The research is starting to give me a better understanding of how these things work. The motherboard appears to be the component that needs a lot of consideration put into it. DDR3 memory, DDR SDRAM with at least 1 gig. Will I ever want a Firewire port? How many PCI slots does it have? What kind of processor will I want to use, and found out I HAVE to determine that first before getting a motherboard. I like Intel but AMD has almost the same performance at lower prices. So, probably AMD Phenom X4 series, versus Intel i5 or i7. The video card is also a factor - what do I want in one and will it be compatible with the motherboard I buy? Experts seem to lean towards the newer technology that everything is eventually going to go to in PCI Express video cards.
Again, the geeks at Frys will be able to tell me if whatever I am thinking of buying is compatible with each other, versus me trying to figure it out myself. I didn't even know there WERE variances, on another note, of hard drives with RPM speeds. I've been spending, really, a GREAT deal of time in persuing message boards and sites with experts that are giving all kinds of opinions, but much of it seems to agree with each other.
I am now a racist and a bigot. For once, just once in a great while, I wanted a hamburger. I left in the middle of writing this entry because I had to go to Walmart and get the bug bombs. I bought 6 of them, more than enough to cover this house. The house is, however, going to have to be shut for 4 hours. No people, no animals, not even plants. Taking out all food stuffs that could be contaminated by it, opening up all cupboards, drawers and doors. That even is taking place in about - an hour and 15 minutes.
Anyway, I stopped at Jack in the Box. I ordered some tacos for Caleb and I ordered a Jumbo Jack - no mayo and no cheese. The woman at the counter? Didn't understand. That's because she doesn't speak English. Well, she speaks very broken english and understands even less. I repeated myself 6 times at least to try to get her to understand. No, it was more than that. Between the tacos, the jumbo jack and asking for salsa on top of hot sauce, I had to repeat myself more like a dozen times.
I forgot. I made it a point that if I ever go into that place again (last time I went in there and yes, they totally screwed up the order) I was going to pull everything out of the bag, open it all up and make sure I am getting what I asked for. I didn't do that this time. I said "No mayo" 3 or 4 times to this woman because she did not understand me. She apparently thought she "got it" and proceeded to ring up the order. Fast forward, I'm home, pull out the Jumbo Jack and what does it have on it? Not just a little mayo, it was SLATHERED in it. I like mayonaisse, but not THAT much even if I HAD wanted it on there.
I called the manager. I asked for the general manager, I was informed the general manager doesn't work at that store. I then proceeded to verbalize my complaint: You have people working the counter that do not speak english. We went back and forth. I was NOT rude to him, he was very rude to me. I was appalled when he got to his "belief" about this: "I am not going to fire an entire crew of people simply because they don't speak English. That would be bigoted and racist and I am not going to do it".
My jaw dropped, I am sure. "PLEASE explain to me how it is racist and bigoted to ask for people who speak clear and plain English in an Enlish speaking society?". The man called me ignorant, told me I don't understand English either, I mean, this guy went to town on me. I asked for the name of the general manager. Refused to give it to me. No worries, I told him, you haven't heard the last of me. You are going to wish to high heaven that you hadn't called me names and called me a racist and a bigot for asking you to employ people that speak English.
That was that. For now. Jack in the Box corporate is closed until Monday. I have half a mind to forward this story to every local news source in town to see if they would be interested in what is, apparently, Jack in the Box's stance on people who asking for an English speaking customer service representative only to be told that for asking for such, you are racist and bigoted.
Well, onto other things, I'm not going to fume over an idiot, which is what this "manager" is. I just spent half an hour getting all the food together that is going to need to go outside. Put it all in a large plastic bag and securely seal it. Actually, I just had the thought that any opened boxes I am going to throw out in the trash in case there are roaches in there and then, I will have this problem all over again even IF this fumigation works. Yes, there isn't anything there that costs that much - instant potatoes and instant rice.
What am I going to do for 4-1/2 hours? First, I am going up to Fry's electronics and get pricing on the parts that I will need to put together my own computer. I am not going to buy anything today, just want the prices. Then I can compare Fry's prices to Tiger Direct and Newegg. If the prices are the same or close, Fry's it will be.
Then, I am going to go buy a pair of gloves, go home and continue working on the landscaping out front. Everything needs a good pruning. I got a good start earlier this week on it, just need to continue on with that.
I also have plenty of work left to do on the pond I just installed. I have some digging to do to let a couple of the shelves down so that it is all even at the top. Tuck the plastic beside the pond and then fill it in with dirt. That will take quite a while and I don't even know if I will finish that this weekend. I also have to run a line and install another electrical box to get sufficient electrical outlets for the ponds to run the aerators, pumps and soon, probably a couple of heaters. So, I have PLENTY to keep me well occupied.
It's a beautiful day out, being out there even during the hottest part of today will be no problem at all.
Finishing up, waiting for Kirby to get back from his bike road so he can get his stuff and leave. He was going on a 25 mile ride, but he left 2 hours ago so hopefully he'll be back soon as I want to get this up and going and get it over with. I don't REALLY feel like doing this - AT ALL - but I have no choice in the matter. Well, I guess I do have choices but they aren't anything I want to engage myself in.
OH, I was going to pull some of the electrical covers off in the kitchen to make sure that stuff can find a way into the walls...............outta here!
ben
I am reminding myself here that I need to buy a couple of thermometers for the ponds today, want to ensure that the temps don't get too low. That water felt pretty cold this morning, but the ambient outdoor temps aren't low enough to cause any great alarm, yet. I have all of those heaters, 300 watt versions, prolly 1 or 2 in each pond, on at night time should suffice. I'll start with one since I do want to keep electric usage down.
I am researching computers and whether I should buy one pre-made or build one myself. I have never built one but there are step-by-step instructions on how to do it online. In fact, I found a very good site and it has pics, very clearly communicating how to go about each step and what order to do it in. I'm considering building my own because I will end up with a better machine for lower price. I have written down the expert's advice for the type of computer I want as to what hardware and even brands should be bought. I am going to Fry's electronics again today with this list in hand to see if it really will be better to build my own, though, there are a couple of online sources for computer compenents (Goodegg and Tiger Direct) that have pricing right there. I would, however, rather buy locally in case I have a problem I can take the machine in and have it looked at. Fry's has such techs available, not for free of course, but if worse came to worse at least I would have that option.
The research is starting to give me a better understanding of how these things work. The motherboard appears to be the component that needs a lot of consideration put into it. DDR3 memory, DDR SDRAM with at least 1 gig. Will I ever want a Firewire port? How many PCI slots does it have? What kind of processor will I want to use, and found out I HAVE to determine that first before getting a motherboard. I like Intel but AMD has almost the same performance at lower prices. So, probably AMD Phenom X4 series, versus Intel i5 or i7. The video card is also a factor - what do I want in one and will it be compatible with the motherboard I buy? Experts seem to lean towards the newer technology that everything is eventually going to go to in PCI Express video cards.
Again, the geeks at Frys will be able to tell me if whatever I am thinking of buying is compatible with each other, versus me trying to figure it out myself. I didn't even know there WERE variances, on another note, of hard drives with RPM speeds. I've been spending, really, a GREAT deal of time in persuing message boards and sites with experts that are giving all kinds of opinions, but much of it seems to agree with each other.
I am now a racist and a bigot. For once, just once in a great while, I wanted a hamburger. I left in the middle of writing this entry because I had to go to Walmart and get the bug bombs. I bought 6 of them, more than enough to cover this house. The house is, however, going to have to be shut for 4 hours. No people, no animals, not even plants. Taking out all food stuffs that could be contaminated by it, opening up all cupboards, drawers and doors. That even is taking place in about - an hour and 15 minutes.
Anyway, I stopped at Jack in the Box. I ordered some tacos for Caleb and I ordered a Jumbo Jack - no mayo and no cheese. The woman at the counter? Didn't understand. That's because she doesn't speak English. Well, she speaks very broken english and understands even less. I repeated myself 6 times at least to try to get her to understand. No, it was more than that. Between the tacos, the jumbo jack and asking for salsa on top of hot sauce, I had to repeat myself more like a dozen times.
I forgot. I made it a point that if I ever go into that place again (last time I went in there and yes, they totally screwed up the order) I was going to pull everything out of the bag, open it all up and make sure I am getting what I asked for. I didn't do that this time. I said "No mayo" 3 or 4 times to this woman because she did not understand me. She apparently thought she "got it" and proceeded to ring up the order. Fast forward, I'm home, pull out the Jumbo Jack and what does it have on it? Not just a little mayo, it was SLATHERED in it. I like mayonaisse, but not THAT much even if I HAD wanted it on there.
I called the manager. I asked for the general manager, I was informed the general manager doesn't work at that store. I then proceeded to verbalize my complaint: You have people working the counter that do not speak english. We went back and forth. I was NOT rude to him, he was very rude to me. I was appalled when he got to his "belief" about this: "I am not going to fire an entire crew of people simply because they don't speak English. That would be bigoted and racist and I am not going to do it".
My jaw dropped, I am sure. "PLEASE explain to me how it is racist and bigoted to ask for people who speak clear and plain English in an Enlish speaking society?". The man called me ignorant, told me I don't understand English either, I mean, this guy went to town on me. I asked for the name of the general manager. Refused to give it to me. No worries, I told him, you haven't heard the last of me. You are going to wish to high heaven that you hadn't called me names and called me a racist and a bigot for asking you to employ people that speak English.
That was that. For now. Jack in the Box corporate is closed until Monday. I have half a mind to forward this story to every local news source in town to see if they would be interested in what is, apparently, Jack in the Box's stance on people who asking for an English speaking customer service representative only to be told that for asking for such, you are racist and bigoted.
Well, onto other things, I'm not going to fume over an idiot, which is what this "manager" is. I just spent half an hour getting all the food together that is going to need to go outside. Put it all in a large plastic bag and securely seal it. Actually, I just had the thought that any opened boxes I am going to throw out in the trash in case there are roaches in there and then, I will have this problem all over again even IF this fumigation works. Yes, there isn't anything there that costs that much - instant potatoes and instant rice.
What am I going to do for 4-1/2 hours? First, I am going up to Fry's electronics and get pricing on the parts that I will need to put together my own computer. I am not going to buy anything today, just want the prices. Then I can compare Fry's prices to Tiger Direct and Newegg. If the prices are the same or close, Fry's it will be.
Then, I am going to go buy a pair of gloves, go home and continue working on the landscaping out front. Everything needs a good pruning. I got a good start earlier this week on it, just need to continue on with that.
I also have plenty of work left to do on the pond I just installed. I have some digging to do to let a couple of the shelves down so that it is all even at the top. Tuck the plastic beside the pond and then fill it in with dirt. That will take quite a while and I don't even know if I will finish that this weekend. I also have to run a line and install another electrical box to get sufficient electrical outlets for the ponds to run the aerators, pumps and soon, probably a couple of heaters. So, I have PLENTY to keep me well occupied.
It's a beautiful day out, being out there even during the hottest part of today will be no problem at all.
Finishing up, waiting for Kirby to get back from his bike road so he can get his stuff and leave. He was going on a 25 mile ride, but he left 2 hours ago so hopefully he'll be back soon as I want to get this up and going and get it over with. I don't REALLY feel like doing this - AT ALL - but I have no choice in the matter. Well, I guess I do have choices but they aren't anything I want to engage myself in.
OH, I was going to pull some of the electrical covers off in the kitchen to make sure that stuff can find a way into the walls...............outta here!
ben
Friday, October 22, 2010
Friday
I can't believe it's Friday already. Seems like this week has just blown by. I'm still thinking of getting a computer even though yesterday's fiasco ate up a bit of my "free" money. I am going to negate it by transferring some savings money to my checking account to make up the difference and hopefully still be able to get something. Or not. I really don't know yet, gotta sit down and do the math.
So, what to do this weekend? Dunno yet. Last weekend was not a weekend, it was just 2 more workdays around the house. I'm edging towards just doing some easy stuff around the yard and normal cleaning duties and call it a wash. I started on pruning trees and bushes last weekend out front, there is still a couple of hours worth of work out there at least.
The news is rife with absurd, outrageous and extremely entertaining blips. This Governor Christie? I would vote for him in a heartbeat if he ran for president. I don't care if he comes across as obnoxious, his view of government and keeping it within the limitations of the money that is available to be able to operate are exactly what this country needs. That's WHY he comes across as obnoxious, he takes very weighted stands against government waste and spending.
Obama? I will say it again, as I have for quite some time now: he will go down as the worst president that has ever occupied that office. His statements that we are all afraid and not in our right minds - equating that we are stupid and have no idea what's going on - was the best thing he could have said, cause' it makes him look like the complete and unmitigated @$$ that he is. The man is in a world unto his own.
Reid hopefully is going down in flames. Angle is lambasting his policies and challenging him on all fronts. The faces I associate with this health care fiasco bill are Reid, Pelosi and Obama. The Democratic party is in such disarray, they are falling all over themselves to distance themselves from any of those three "characters". Companies across America are now proclaiming that health care costs are going to rise substantially BECAUSE of this bill.
Umm, well, I'm out of time. The car drove perfectly to work today, I wanted to throw that in there cause' I had a little trepidation this morning. There are 2 problems left - there is at least one bad tire on it and I think the exhaust has a leak.
Anyway, I gotta get offa here, wish I had more time, really, I was just getting fired up :
G'day.
ben
So, what to do this weekend? Dunno yet. Last weekend was not a weekend, it was just 2 more workdays around the house. I'm edging towards just doing some easy stuff around the yard and normal cleaning duties and call it a wash. I started on pruning trees and bushes last weekend out front, there is still a couple of hours worth of work out there at least.
The news is rife with absurd, outrageous and extremely entertaining blips. This Governor Christie? I would vote for him in a heartbeat if he ran for president. I don't care if he comes across as obnoxious, his view of government and keeping it within the limitations of the money that is available to be able to operate are exactly what this country needs. That's WHY he comes across as obnoxious, he takes very weighted stands against government waste and spending.
Obama? I will say it again, as I have for quite some time now: he will go down as the worst president that has ever occupied that office. His statements that we are all afraid and not in our right minds - equating that we are stupid and have no idea what's going on - was the best thing he could have said, cause' it makes him look like the complete and unmitigated @$$ that he is. The man is in a world unto his own.
Reid hopefully is going down in flames. Angle is lambasting his policies and challenging him on all fronts. The faces I associate with this health care fiasco bill are Reid, Pelosi and Obama. The Democratic party is in such disarray, they are falling all over themselves to distance themselves from any of those three "characters". Companies across America are now proclaiming that health care costs are going to rise substantially BECAUSE of this bill.
Umm, well, I'm out of time. The car drove perfectly to work today, I wanted to throw that in there cause' I had a little trepidation this morning. There are 2 problems left - there is at least one bad tire on it and I think the exhaust has a leak.
Anyway, I gotta get offa here, wish I had more time, really, I was just getting fired up :
G'day.
ben
Thursday, October 21, 2010
THursday
I'm writing this "distracted", so sorry if there are erros. I'm on hold with DriecTV, attempting to bget 3 more months of movie channels for free.
I got up for work this morning, as is normal for me, did the normal tings, got into the car and left. 1/4 mile down the road, the car stalled. Pulled over and tried to restart - fired right up. Another 1/4 mile and it stalled again. This time I barely made it off the main road, onto a side street near businesses and theo nly parking space was in a "No Parking Zone". the car, after numerous tries, fired up again, but imeediately stopped.
I decided to call a cab to take me to my son's mother's house to get my other car. I called Discount Cab. I gave them the location, they refused that, they wanted an address. Well, I was at 46th Street and Baseline in Phoenix, what else do you want me to tell you? Their system takes addresses, not locations. Unbelievable. I ended up hanging up on her - she refused to budge and the huge building had a name on it, yes, but NO street number posted anywhere.
I got to thinking about it and changed my strategy. I would end up paying $20 at least to get to my other car, this car would end up being towed because it's in a no-parking zone. I would have to pay for that tow plus a tow to the repair facility. So, a cab ride and 2 tows? No thanks. I walked in the rain - yes it was also raining - to the nearest convenience store about 1/4 mile away, got a phone book, found a tow company with a 20% off coupon in there. They were there in half an hour. Now, I get the car towed to the repair facility and a ride to work since the 2 are 200 feet apart.
I come back 8 hours later and they hadn't even looked at the car. I sat down and made myself at home. Didn't get angry, didn't start trouble, just sat there and talked with the owner - as I did last time. He got up , went over to a mechanic, got him started on the car. Virgil - Highland Auto - Chandler, AZ - the owner, doesn't sit in an office separated from workers in air conditioning, no, he sits there in the shop, summer included, heat included, and deals with everything as it comes along.
I was there - ohh - 3 hours anyway. I encountered some interesting individuals. However, Virgel and I had several conversations about this, that and the other thing while fully 4 different mechanics looked at my car. It turned out to be the crank sensor - which I replaced 2 years ago, but which I also suspected was the culrpit this time because of the way the car was acting. $169 for all of that. And it isn't over, either. I could clearly hear an exhaust leak that is going to need to be fixed.
Anyway, that was the start and end of my day, which totally drained me. I am tired, very tired, just waiting another few minutes before going to bed, plus I am conversing with the 5th rep from Direct TV so far. I just call and call until I get the "right" person and then, I get freebies. I'm a now 11-year customer with that company, they aren't going to give me new equipment then they are going to give me free movie channels and reduced pricing, period.
Well, hunky dory. Got home, nothing had happened around here- thankfully. Just rain. I haven't watered plants in a while and I won't need to a while longer.
I could write more, but, I am listening to music on the phone that is COMPLETELY annoying and I am starting to get cranky.
Good evening.
ben
I got up for work this morning, as is normal for me, did the normal tings, got into the car and left. 1/4 mile down the road, the car stalled. Pulled over and tried to restart - fired right up. Another 1/4 mile and it stalled again. This time I barely made it off the main road, onto a side street near businesses and theo nly parking space was in a "No Parking Zone". the car, after numerous tries, fired up again, but imeediately stopped.
I decided to call a cab to take me to my son's mother's house to get my other car. I called Discount Cab. I gave them the location, they refused that, they wanted an address. Well, I was at 46th Street and Baseline in Phoenix, what else do you want me to tell you? Their system takes addresses, not locations. Unbelievable. I ended up hanging up on her - she refused to budge and the huge building had a name on it, yes, but NO street number posted anywhere.
I got to thinking about it and changed my strategy. I would end up paying $20 at least to get to my other car, this car would end up being towed because it's in a no-parking zone. I would have to pay for that tow plus a tow to the repair facility. So, a cab ride and 2 tows? No thanks. I walked in the rain - yes it was also raining - to the nearest convenience store about 1/4 mile away, got a phone book, found a tow company with a 20% off coupon in there. They were there in half an hour. Now, I get the car towed to the repair facility and a ride to work since the 2 are 200 feet apart.
I come back 8 hours later and they hadn't even looked at the car. I sat down and made myself at home. Didn't get angry, didn't start trouble, just sat there and talked with the owner - as I did last time. He got up , went over to a mechanic, got him started on the car. Virgil - Highland Auto - Chandler, AZ - the owner, doesn't sit in an office separated from workers in air conditioning, no, he sits there in the shop, summer included, heat included, and deals with everything as it comes along.
I was there - ohh - 3 hours anyway. I encountered some interesting individuals. However, Virgel and I had several conversations about this, that and the other thing while fully 4 different mechanics looked at my car. It turned out to be the crank sensor - which I replaced 2 years ago, but which I also suspected was the culrpit this time because of the way the car was acting. $169 for all of that. And it isn't over, either. I could clearly hear an exhaust leak that is going to need to be fixed.
Anyway, that was the start and end of my day, which totally drained me. I am tired, very tired, just waiting another few minutes before going to bed, plus I am conversing with the 5th rep from Direct TV so far. I just call and call until I get the "right" person and then, I get freebies. I'm a now 11-year customer with that company, they aren't going to give me new equipment then they are going to give me free movie channels and reduced pricing, period.
Well, hunky dory. Got home, nothing had happened around here- thankfully. Just rain. I haven't watered plants in a while and I won't need to a while longer.
I could write more, but, I am listening to music on the phone that is COMPLETELY annoying and I am starting to get cranky.
Good evening.
ben
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
We tried to give this guy some information, that's it. He NEVER listened to any of us, 3 of us attempting to inform him what we have learned, some of us the hard way. He was going to do things his own way, didn't care what anyone thought about it and now? A $250 fine.
I'm referring to another truck driver in our company that works out of our Tucson branch. He drives up to the main branch often enough and we - other drivers - see how he has his load strapped.
He actually started arguing with me about a year or more ago concerning straps and not having to put them under the rub rails. Besides Federal law, or own company's driver training program requires that drivers use rub rails if a truck is equipped with them.
But, that's now what he got caught on. Another rule about strapping loads is if the trailer doesn't have a bulkhead on the front (a big piece of metal basically that's on the front of the trailer designed to keep loads from shifting forward in case of accident/extreme braking events). The rule states that you have to put an extra strap - 1 more than would be required for whatever it is that is on there.
In the case of a regular pallet, that, therefore, would be 2 straps instead of one. Well, he was pulled over near Casa Grande I believe it was on I-10 and handed over a ticket for not having 2 straps on the front pallet. I saw the item on the front, plastic material. The driver was mad at D.O.T. because the item was "less than 5 feet in length". Yes, I said to him, but there is no bulkhead on the trailer, THAT is why you got the ticket".
He got mad at me and walked off. Tough. The new rules coming out? Retroactive, that violation will put 10 points on his driver record. It's a different point assessment than the regular one. It doesn't mean you lose your CDL, it targets you as a problem if you start racking those points up. It also affects the entire company. Yes, one driver here getting pulled over for that violation will put that information in a MUCH larger database and a cop in Virginia might see one of our trucks (we are a national company with a huge fleet) and pull it over to check - straps.
So, not only is this guy's insolence against the rules, cops and other drivers attempting to help him out going to cost HIM, it will also begin to rack up against the entire company. The new rules have provisions to actually shut an entire fleet of trucks - the whole company's worth - down. No, this one single individual isn't going to cause that, but if there are enough more like him, yes, that can happen. Then what? Hopefully corporate will jump all over this.
Corporate gets these notifications from the DOT about any warnings or tickets given to CDL drivers. There will be a notice of this violation that is automatically generated from corporate sent to that driver's management structure - which include the ops manager here in Phoenix and probably the GM as well.
I don't want to be a rat and say anything about the rest of what this guy does, so for now, I won't. The fact of the matter is, though, that all 3 of us drivers tried to inform him that his load was improperly secured on several different occasions of seeing this stuff, this guy just gets attitude. It's not like he didn't KNOW that he could get a ticket for such is the point.
Onto other things. $250. This is Obama's new ploy to buy a guaranteed control of the Senate and House. Nice. It's so OBVIOUS that this is what he is doing, it is nothing about trying to help the American people, it's ALL about buying votes. Totally outrageous, frankly. I hope those that were going to vote against entrenched, almost life-long politicians aren't swayed by this newest attempt to deceive, is what I call it.
I'm referring to the $250 he wants to give to Americans who are on Social Security and didn't get a cost of living increase again this year. $250 is not that much money and even for people on fixed incomes, I can't imagine it going THAT far. If it was $2,500 I could see some political damage, but hopefully that amount is so small it won't change anyone's minds. I would to see a total changeout of every politician that is in there, regardless of party, and replaced with new faces. Would that make a difference? Probably not, to be realistic, but it would be worth a try anyway.
Well, the elections are soon but I expect the political bile to only get worse, especially from the party that apparently is facing the inevitability that they are going to lose seats and perhaps lose too many seats to stay in control.
I'm still seething that the Obama administration would invite the Iranian president to ANYTHING - much less talks on how to deal with a war and cause it to end. It's like invited the devil to return to heaven, it ain't gonna work out too well.
Whatever.
Work day is here, albeit the fact there is nothing in the truck routing system to do (unlike the last 2 days where I have been extremely busy). Oh well.
G'day.
ben
I'm referring to another truck driver in our company that works out of our Tucson branch. He drives up to the main branch often enough and we - other drivers - see how he has his load strapped.
He actually started arguing with me about a year or more ago concerning straps and not having to put them under the rub rails. Besides Federal law, or own company's driver training program requires that drivers use rub rails if a truck is equipped with them.
But, that's now what he got caught on. Another rule about strapping loads is if the trailer doesn't have a bulkhead on the front (a big piece of metal basically that's on the front of the trailer designed to keep loads from shifting forward in case of accident/extreme braking events). The rule states that you have to put an extra strap - 1 more than would be required for whatever it is that is on there.
In the case of a regular pallet, that, therefore, would be 2 straps instead of one. Well, he was pulled over near Casa Grande I believe it was on I-10 and handed over a ticket for not having 2 straps on the front pallet. I saw the item on the front, plastic material. The driver was mad at D.O.T. because the item was "less than 5 feet in length". Yes, I said to him, but there is no bulkhead on the trailer, THAT is why you got the ticket".
He got mad at me and walked off. Tough. The new rules coming out? Retroactive, that violation will put 10 points on his driver record. It's a different point assessment than the regular one. It doesn't mean you lose your CDL, it targets you as a problem if you start racking those points up. It also affects the entire company. Yes, one driver here getting pulled over for that violation will put that information in a MUCH larger database and a cop in Virginia might see one of our trucks (we are a national company with a huge fleet) and pull it over to check - straps.
So, not only is this guy's insolence against the rules, cops and other drivers attempting to help him out going to cost HIM, it will also begin to rack up against the entire company. The new rules have provisions to actually shut an entire fleet of trucks - the whole company's worth - down. No, this one single individual isn't going to cause that, but if there are enough more like him, yes, that can happen. Then what? Hopefully corporate will jump all over this.
Corporate gets these notifications from the DOT about any warnings or tickets given to CDL drivers. There will be a notice of this violation that is automatically generated from corporate sent to that driver's management structure - which include the ops manager here in Phoenix and probably the GM as well.
I don't want to be a rat and say anything about the rest of what this guy does, so for now, I won't. The fact of the matter is, though, that all 3 of us drivers tried to inform him that his load was improperly secured on several different occasions of seeing this stuff, this guy just gets attitude. It's not like he didn't KNOW that he could get a ticket for such is the point.
Onto other things. $250. This is Obama's new ploy to buy a guaranteed control of the Senate and House. Nice. It's so OBVIOUS that this is what he is doing, it is nothing about trying to help the American people, it's ALL about buying votes. Totally outrageous, frankly. I hope those that were going to vote against entrenched, almost life-long politicians aren't swayed by this newest attempt to deceive, is what I call it.
I'm referring to the $250 he wants to give to Americans who are on Social Security and didn't get a cost of living increase again this year. $250 is not that much money and even for people on fixed incomes, I can't imagine it going THAT far. If it was $2,500 I could see some political damage, but hopefully that amount is so small it won't change anyone's minds. I would to see a total changeout of every politician that is in there, regardless of party, and replaced with new faces. Would that make a difference? Probably not, to be realistic, but it would be worth a try anyway.
Well, the elections are soon but I expect the political bile to only get worse, especially from the party that apparently is facing the inevitability that they are going to lose seats and perhaps lose too many seats to stay in control.
I'm still seething that the Obama administration would invite the Iranian president to ANYTHING - much less talks on how to deal with a war and cause it to end. It's like invited the devil to return to heaven, it ain't gonna work out too well.
Whatever.
Work day is here, albeit the fact there is nothing in the truck routing system to do (unlike the last 2 days where I have been extremely busy). Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Visiting With Dad
My dad called me at work - wanted me to stop by and pick him up on the way home from work. Millie - his wife - was not feeling too well and didn't want to go anywhere. They ARE older folks - I don't get too hyped up about the older generation doing whatever makes them happy, regardless of what the might mean to plans that have been made.
So, I stopped at Walmart - I have one good pair of jeans and one pair of dress slacks and that's IT for pants. I have several pairs of blue jeans with holes or rips in them. Oh, dog food, roach killer, new windshiel wipers for both cars.........ummmm, oh and more pond clear. I usually only need to use "Pond Clear" at the start up of a pond. After it clears the pond out, it's not necessary again as the filtration unit keeps it clear from that point forth.
Stopped at their hotel - a nice place and visited with both of them for about an hour and then took dad to my house. He wanted to see all of these plants and trees I have been talking about forever. He was pleasantly surprised to see the fish ponds. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mark had done even more cleaning in the kitchen. First impressions - sort of anyway, my dad was here a couple of years ago I guess it was with Millie - are always important. I mean, between Mark and I cleaning in this place for 3 solid days, it's freaking awesome in here. I did not ask Mark to do anything in here - he saw what I was doing this weekend in spending hours and hours of relentless cleaning and picked up where I left off.
We left and went to dinner without Millie, who wasn't feeling up to coming. Spent a good hour and a half, maybe it was 2 hours there, visiting. Dad is very interested in what is going on with Caleb, who is beginning to show more and more confidence in himself and speaking up - not in an obnoxious way either - about what's going on in his life and what he's up to. It was a great time and I hope to make it down there either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I don't know that Caleb will be able to go either time - that's up to him. He has work and that is very important to him as it should be. I don't know that it takes more precedence than family, but I consider the economy and the fact that people my age that are unemployed are willing to take the same job he got. Keeping a good impression with an employer is even more important now than ever. Again, I'll leave that up to him and hold no ill will with whatever decision he makes.
For me, my dad is getting old - but - he looked good today. A bit slower, yes, but still very talkative, looked healthy, I was glad to see him still getting around.
We left - Caleb went to his mom's house, I took dad back to the hotel, but I went back inside with him as I wanted to bid Millie a goodbye. She's a good lady and I'm glad she and dad found each other. They get along well - at least what I see when the doors aren't closed - but it is a good match I think and they have been together awhile now. Quite a while, actually. We talked a while longer but I could see they were both wearing out so I bid them well, a safe trip home and hopefully see each other at Christmas or Thanksgiving.
That was it. I'm pooped. I drove all day long today, it was nonstop and grueling. Not complaining, just saying that getting up early, working, stopping at stores, going out? I'm not 20. But it felt good anyway. It felt even better today at a jobsite. Most jobsites we have don't have forklifts,they have fork attachments that are put on backhoes. One of the forks was bent so that getting both forks into a pallet was almost impossible. On the last pallet, they operater basically destroyed the pallet and all the very heavy parts were laying all over the bed of the semi.
The backhoe operator and his helper - both in THEIR 20's - grimaced and started complaining, what are we going to do now? I smiled - easy, put the bucket of the backhoe up next to the trailer and we will throw the parts in there. These are people that don't know me. I have seen the look before - WHO is actually going to end up doing the work? These aren't 2 pound parts, they're 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 50 pounds and up, a varying allotment of different sized things.....and as if I'm just going to stand there, an "old" guy and direct them. Not at all. But I always read that. I got up on the trailer and started pickup up those things by 2's, chucking them into the bucket and going at a rapid pace until it was done. The helper was also up there - going about an 1/8th of the pace I was. I thought nothing of it, this goes on everywhere. When I was through, this guy exclaims: "HOW did you do that so FAST?".
Took me by surprise. Didn't know what to say to that, so I just remarked that we have to throw this stuff around all day long. I thought about it later, he was paying me a compliment and for that I am appreciative. For good health I am far MORE appreciative.
It's the end of the day. I hope tomorrow is busy, but there was only one thing in our truck routing system and I believe that is being put off as the vendor has not finished manufacturing the part needed for our contractor yet and may not have it done until Friday.
I would get into politics - the Obama administration inviting the "president" of Iran to talks about Afghanistant is unconcsiounable, but why ruin the rest of a good day? Go to bed in peace.
G'nite.
ben
So, I stopped at Walmart - I have one good pair of jeans and one pair of dress slacks and that's IT for pants. I have several pairs of blue jeans with holes or rips in them. Oh, dog food, roach killer, new windshiel wipers for both cars.........ummmm, oh and more pond clear. I usually only need to use "Pond Clear" at the start up of a pond. After it clears the pond out, it's not necessary again as the filtration unit keeps it clear from that point forth.
Stopped at their hotel - a nice place and visited with both of them for about an hour and then took dad to my house. He wanted to see all of these plants and trees I have been talking about forever. He was pleasantly surprised to see the fish ponds. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mark had done even more cleaning in the kitchen. First impressions - sort of anyway, my dad was here a couple of years ago I guess it was with Millie - are always important. I mean, between Mark and I cleaning in this place for 3 solid days, it's freaking awesome in here. I did not ask Mark to do anything in here - he saw what I was doing this weekend in spending hours and hours of relentless cleaning and picked up where I left off.
We left and went to dinner without Millie, who wasn't feeling up to coming. Spent a good hour and a half, maybe it was 2 hours there, visiting. Dad is very interested in what is going on with Caleb, who is beginning to show more and more confidence in himself and speaking up - not in an obnoxious way either - about what's going on in his life and what he's up to. It was a great time and I hope to make it down there either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I don't know that Caleb will be able to go either time - that's up to him. He has work and that is very important to him as it should be. I don't know that it takes more precedence than family, but I consider the economy and the fact that people my age that are unemployed are willing to take the same job he got. Keeping a good impression with an employer is even more important now than ever. Again, I'll leave that up to him and hold no ill will with whatever decision he makes.
For me, my dad is getting old - but - he looked good today. A bit slower, yes, but still very talkative, looked healthy, I was glad to see him still getting around.
We left - Caleb went to his mom's house, I took dad back to the hotel, but I went back inside with him as I wanted to bid Millie a goodbye. She's a good lady and I'm glad she and dad found each other. They get along well - at least what I see when the doors aren't closed - but it is a good match I think and they have been together awhile now. Quite a while, actually. We talked a while longer but I could see they were both wearing out so I bid them well, a safe trip home and hopefully see each other at Christmas or Thanksgiving.
That was it. I'm pooped. I drove all day long today, it was nonstop and grueling. Not complaining, just saying that getting up early, working, stopping at stores, going out? I'm not 20. But it felt good anyway. It felt even better today at a jobsite. Most jobsites we have don't have forklifts,they have fork attachments that are put on backhoes. One of the forks was bent so that getting both forks into a pallet was almost impossible. On the last pallet, they operater basically destroyed the pallet and all the very heavy parts were laying all over the bed of the semi.
The backhoe operator and his helper - both in THEIR 20's - grimaced and started complaining, what are we going to do now? I smiled - easy, put the bucket of the backhoe up next to the trailer and we will throw the parts in there. These are people that don't know me. I have seen the look before - WHO is actually going to end up doing the work? These aren't 2 pound parts, they're 20 pounds, 30 pounds, 50 pounds and up, a varying allotment of different sized things.....and as if I'm just going to stand there, an "old" guy and direct them. Not at all. But I always read that. I got up on the trailer and started pickup up those things by 2's, chucking them into the bucket and going at a rapid pace until it was done. The helper was also up there - going about an 1/8th of the pace I was. I thought nothing of it, this goes on everywhere. When I was through, this guy exclaims: "HOW did you do that so FAST?".
Took me by surprise. Didn't know what to say to that, so I just remarked that we have to throw this stuff around all day long. I thought about it later, he was paying me a compliment and for that I am appreciative. For good health I am far MORE appreciative.
It's the end of the day. I hope tomorrow is busy, but there was only one thing in our truck routing system and I believe that is being put off as the vendor has not finished manufacturing the part needed for our contractor yet and may not have it done until Friday.
I would get into politics - the Obama administration inviting the "president" of Iran to talks about Afghanistant is unconcsiounable, but why ruin the rest of a good day? Go to bed in peace.
G'nite.
ben
Tuesday
Came home yesterday to find that Mark - the trailer tenant - had finished in the kitchen that of which I did not have time to finish. This guy is good at cleaning, this is a fact.
He took down the blinds, took them outside, cleaned them off with a hose, cleaned the windows, went over the floor again - after I had just done it the day before - very nice.
If I could get a hold of a good trailer for those people - I mean a nice one - I would. They are welcomed to stay as long as they want to. I'm charging them very low rent and they do a lot of work around the house - nice setup. Their plans to get into their own apartment have been totally dashed and the only way I can for them to get into their own place is that one of them finds a job.
Anyhoo, today is the visit with my dad and his wife. They are coming over sometime this afternoon.
So, on a day when you hope there is less work to do so you can get off early? Not happening. 5 deliveries and a pickup downtown equal all day long. Well, not ALL day, just meaning I'll be lucky to get off at my regular time.
My new pond it's semi-permanent occupants are doing well. The water is a bit cloudy - added some unwanted stuff to the water when I shut the other pond down, there was debris floating around in there that got transferred to the new setup. The much larger pump and filtering system is slowly dealing with it, plus I put some stuff in there made specifically to clear up the water. It clumps stuff together which basically ends up at the bottom of the pond. I have an 800 gallon per hour pump down there that basically forces everything on the bottom to it - and it does get clogged up for all the leaves and just it sucks into it. Still lots of work to do on it, but at least it's up and running.
I was wondering what all the hoopla about Obama calling voters "scared" was - well I read the statements for myself. "said Republican candidates are "playing on fear" and suggested voters are falling for it."
In other words, voters are too dumb to figure this stuff out by ourselves, which is why we need even bigger government, the Feds can take ALL of our money and we will just sit there like animals in cages waiting to be fed. I can see why people are outraged, personally? I consider the source. Obama hasn't got a clue what he's doing and if anyone is fearful, it's HIM losing complete control of the House and Senate. Of course, he has had a free ride, it's probably going to change, so now HE is using the same tactics - well everyone else is, really.
The elections are only a couple of weeks away, I can't wait. I hope the polling places are jam-packed with people, the more the merrier. It would be nice, for a change, if a majority of voters showed up so that it isn't a small percentage of American society telling the rest of us how it's going to be run. That's the jist of it. Too many people are too lazy, unmotivated to take a few minutes to cast a vote. Then these same people complain about everything that has to do with politics. Gonnnnnnnnnng!! (The Gong Show) - you lost your right to complain when voting day came and went and you didn't bother.
As for today, work day approaches and I'm going to jump right into and try to get all of this done as fast as possible. The earlier off work today, the better.
G'day.
ben
He took down the blinds, took them outside, cleaned them off with a hose, cleaned the windows, went over the floor again - after I had just done it the day before - very nice.
If I could get a hold of a good trailer for those people - I mean a nice one - I would. They are welcomed to stay as long as they want to. I'm charging them very low rent and they do a lot of work around the house - nice setup. Their plans to get into their own apartment have been totally dashed and the only way I can for them to get into their own place is that one of them finds a job.
Anyhoo, today is the visit with my dad and his wife. They are coming over sometime this afternoon.
So, on a day when you hope there is less work to do so you can get off early? Not happening. 5 deliveries and a pickup downtown equal all day long. Well, not ALL day, just meaning I'll be lucky to get off at my regular time.
My new pond it's semi-permanent occupants are doing well. The water is a bit cloudy - added some unwanted stuff to the water when I shut the other pond down, there was debris floating around in there that got transferred to the new setup. The much larger pump and filtering system is slowly dealing with it, plus I put some stuff in there made specifically to clear up the water. It clumps stuff together which basically ends up at the bottom of the pond. I have an 800 gallon per hour pump down there that basically forces everything on the bottom to it - and it does get clogged up for all the leaves and just it sucks into it. Still lots of work to do on it, but at least it's up and running.
I was wondering what all the hoopla about Obama calling voters "scared" was - well I read the statements for myself. "said Republican candidates are "playing on fear" and suggested voters are falling for it."
In other words, voters are too dumb to figure this stuff out by ourselves, which is why we need even bigger government, the Feds can take ALL of our money and we will just sit there like animals in cages waiting to be fed. I can see why people are outraged, personally? I consider the source. Obama hasn't got a clue what he's doing and if anyone is fearful, it's HIM losing complete control of the House and Senate. Of course, he has had a free ride, it's probably going to change, so now HE is using the same tactics - well everyone else is, really.
The elections are only a couple of weeks away, I can't wait. I hope the polling places are jam-packed with people, the more the merrier. It would be nice, for a change, if a majority of voters showed up so that it isn't a small percentage of American society telling the rest of us how it's going to be run. That's the jist of it. Too many people are too lazy, unmotivated to take a few minutes to cast a vote. Then these same people complain about everything that has to do with politics. Gonnnnnnnnnng!! (The Gong Show) - you lost your right to complain when voting day came and went and you didn't bother.
As for today, work day approaches and I'm going to jump right into and try to get all of this done as fast as possible. The earlier off work today, the better.
G'day.
ben
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday 10/18/2010
If weekends are supposed to be laid back, relaxing and a time of rejuvenation, then nix this last one. I spent all day Saturday getting the new pond up and dealing with other ponds and I spent all day Sunday cleaning and also moving pond filters around, plus cleaning them.
I am glad to have all that stuff done, yes, but wow, that was a lot of work. As for my dad's visit tomorrow, just a few more things I need to get done around the house and I will be finished with that. As for the ponds, I removed all fish from the turtle pond and put them in both the big pond and medium-sized one and am considering shutting the turtle pond down.
I just don't like these turtles. They are not friendly, they don't come up to you at all, like I have seen in other ponds, they are always hiding at the bottom, they are useless creatures as far as I'm concerned. I have seen a couple of ads on Craigslist from people wanting red earred slider turtles, I am teetering on giving them a call and seeing if they want to come get them.
That would knock it down to 2 ponds up and running and for now, that's all I want. The small feeder pond I was using up until I did the big switch I am considering just getting rid of it. It is in bad condition - I bought it from a family who had had small kids playing in it like it was a playground (fortunately I got it cheap and I DID get some use out of it) - they did some damage in terms of structural integrity and portions of it collapse when filled with water. It still holds water, yes, but I really don't think I want to continue using it. That would leave me with 4 ponds, 2 of them up and running. At max, now that I have a bit better grasp of what I am doing here, I want 3 ponds going. So, probably get rid of another one and be down to 3 of them.
I am in no hurry to figure that out right now, definitely NOT in a hurry to start trying to dig out another pond hole. Great exercise, sure, but I am not exactly motivated. I do want to put one out front - a small one but again, not high on my list of priorities. Have to figure out what to do with the dirt that is pulled out of the ground and THAT definitely poses a problem. I'll sit out there for a while and just look at the situation and try to figure out what my next move is.
Meanwhile, I need to get a power station going out there so, that is probably my next small project. The big pond isn't exactly "done" yet, but it is up and running, the intended result for this weekend's exertions.
They were saying on the news on the way into work this morning that there is rain coming. Perhaps, but from looking at the radar, it isn't that much rain. Still, I haven't been watering hardly at all lately - my plants that is - as long as they look okay, I am not watering them right now to get a bit of a reprieve from high water bills.
LOTS of work to do today in our truck routing system. In fact, it should take the entire day to finish all of that. Which is fine with me. If there is one thing I hate, it's starting a work week on a Monday with NOTHING to do.
With that, I'm outta here. Got a few minutes to take a look at the political bantering - apparently the Dems have conceded that they are going to lose at least a dozen seats and Obama is whining about how nobody listens to him......lol.
G'day.
ben
I am glad to have all that stuff done, yes, but wow, that was a lot of work. As for my dad's visit tomorrow, just a few more things I need to get done around the house and I will be finished with that. As for the ponds, I removed all fish from the turtle pond and put them in both the big pond and medium-sized one and am considering shutting the turtle pond down.
I just don't like these turtles. They are not friendly, they don't come up to you at all, like I have seen in other ponds, they are always hiding at the bottom, they are useless creatures as far as I'm concerned. I have seen a couple of ads on Craigslist from people wanting red earred slider turtles, I am teetering on giving them a call and seeing if they want to come get them.
That would knock it down to 2 ponds up and running and for now, that's all I want. The small feeder pond I was using up until I did the big switch I am considering just getting rid of it. It is in bad condition - I bought it from a family who had had small kids playing in it like it was a playground (fortunately I got it cheap and I DID get some use out of it) - they did some damage in terms of structural integrity and portions of it collapse when filled with water. It still holds water, yes, but I really don't think I want to continue using it. That would leave me with 4 ponds, 2 of them up and running. At max, now that I have a bit better grasp of what I am doing here, I want 3 ponds going. So, probably get rid of another one and be down to 3 of them.
I am in no hurry to figure that out right now, definitely NOT in a hurry to start trying to dig out another pond hole. Great exercise, sure, but I am not exactly motivated. I do want to put one out front - a small one but again, not high on my list of priorities. Have to figure out what to do with the dirt that is pulled out of the ground and THAT definitely poses a problem. I'll sit out there for a while and just look at the situation and try to figure out what my next move is.
Meanwhile, I need to get a power station going out there so, that is probably my next small project. The big pond isn't exactly "done" yet, but it is up and running, the intended result for this weekend's exertions.
They were saying on the news on the way into work this morning that there is rain coming. Perhaps, but from looking at the radar, it isn't that much rain. Still, I haven't been watering hardly at all lately - my plants that is - as long as they look okay, I am not watering them right now to get a bit of a reprieve from high water bills.
LOTS of work to do today in our truck routing system. In fact, it should take the entire day to finish all of that. Which is fine with me. If there is one thing I hate, it's starting a work week on a Monday with NOTHING to do.
With that, I'm outta here. Got a few minutes to take a look at the political bantering - apparently the Dems have conceded that they are going to lose at least a dozen seats and Obama is whining about how nobody listens to him......lol.
G'day.
ben
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Sunday 10/17/2010
Work started early this morning, and no, nothing on the ponds. The living room carpet needed cleaned and definitely cleaned it. That and the rest of the living room. There is a love seat in there that is in great condition - but I haven't been able to sell OR trade it for anything. I'm thinking of giving it away to get it out of here. It is out of place and I can't envision ever finding a way to incorporate it.
In reality, I need new carpet and at least one new recliner would be nice. A pipe dream, perhaps, but it gives me reason to continue saving.
I apparently forgot to pay the water bill last month (I could have sworn I did and I'm going to go looking through my checking account for such) and have been slammed with 2 months of a huge bill. Bye bye to the bonus of it's true. And, bye bye to any idea of getting a new computer. Or not, who knows. Tenants are pretty much paying regularly now so it is feasible that I can still get ahead enough to get some of the stuff done that I need done.
I could also pay off the 401k loan and get another. It has around $600 left on it. Pay it off - have to wait 30 days to get another one but a couple of grand right now would be extremely helpful. At 4.25% interest it's the best deal around. Excepting, of course, compromising my retirement account. Haven't given any real thought to it, would rather not, don't know. Again, wait and see what happens with tenants and if the check from the insurance company comes in - even if only $400 or $500 - it will still be a big boost.
Electric use IS on the way down, hopefully it will really take a plunge with getting some of these people and using Ben's Laundromat far more than necessary for one person to either stay within my new limits or - pay for the excessive use above and beyond rent. I threw this idea around with several people I know and I continued to get the same answer: with the rent you're charging and the fact that you don't ask extra for utilities, yes, by all means, do charge extra for laundry. In fact, the consensus was to not give ANY freebies away. I DID stop saying in my ads that laundry was also included in the cost of rent because I was getting tired of footing that bill.
As for the house, I still have quite a lot to do, but I also have to get some stuff on the ponds done as well. I have to switch the 3 filters around and that will take at least an hour. I want to clean the carpet in the hallway and my bedroom and give my bathroom a spic and span cleaning as well as my bedroom.
Yes, it will be a full, long day to say the least. Gotta run up to the store and get some more paper towels, laundry detergent and softener..................and with that, I'm outta here.
Happy Sunday.
ben
In reality, I need new carpet and at least one new recliner would be nice. A pipe dream, perhaps, but it gives me reason to continue saving.
I apparently forgot to pay the water bill last month (I could have sworn I did and I'm going to go looking through my checking account for such) and have been slammed with 2 months of a huge bill. Bye bye to the bonus of it's true. And, bye bye to any idea of getting a new computer. Or not, who knows. Tenants are pretty much paying regularly now so it is feasible that I can still get ahead enough to get some of the stuff done that I need done.
I could also pay off the 401k loan and get another. It has around $600 left on it. Pay it off - have to wait 30 days to get another one but a couple of grand right now would be extremely helpful. At 4.25% interest it's the best deal around. Excepting, of course, compromising my retirement account. Haven't given any real thought to it, would rather not, don't know. Again, wait and see what happens with tenants and if the check from the insurance company comes in - even if only $400 or $500 - it will still be a big boost.
Electric use IS on the way down, hopefully it will really take a plunge with getting some of these people and using Ben's Laundromat far more than necessary for one person to either stay within my new limits or - pay for the excessive use above and beyond rent. I threw this idea around with several people I know and I continued to get the same answer: with the rent you're charging and the fact that you don't ask extra for utilities, yes, by all means, do charge extra for laundry. In fact, the consensus was to not give ANY freebies away. I DID stop saying in my ads that laundry was also included in the cost of rent because I was getting tired of footing that bill.
As for the house, I still have quite a lot to do, but I also have to get some stuff on the ponds done as well. I have to switch the 3 filters around and that will take at least an hour. I want to clean the carpet in the hallway and my bedroom and give my bathroom a spic and span cleaning as well as my bedroom.
Yes, it will be a full, long day to say the least. Gotta run up to the store and get some more paper towels, laundry detergent and softener..................and with that, I'm outta here.
Happy Sunday.
ben
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Much More Work Than Anticipated
The new pond, firing it up and getting it going, that is.
That's because I am going to have to move around all of my filters to make this feasible. I have enough filters, yes, but - emptying them, cleaning them, moving them with the hose and pump - it'll be tomorrow by the time I have that finished as there is a lot of other things I want to get done around here as well.
Not sweating it, I'll get it done, just that my dad is coming over here on Tuesday and I want the place spic and span, including a fresh carpet cleaning.
So, I finally did it. I posted the notice.
I was going to do it a month or more ago, I just thought I might be pushing it by doing so.
What notice?
Concerning the use of my washing machine and dryer. I came home yesterday to find the water temp setting on hot wash AND hot RINSE. TOTALLY unecessary, a HUGE waste of electricity in heating up more water, NOT going to continue to happen.
The notice was basically this: 2 free loads per week, $1.50 for each and every load after that. ANY load, whether the freebie or not, that is washed using HOT rinse will incur an extra added fee of $.050. I cannot ever remember any laundromat having machines that have hot rinse - and I have been to several. I don't even know why they would build a machine with hot rinse, I wish this one didn't have it.
Of course, I could eliminate hot water altogether on that machine and simply tie the hot water line into the cold water line. Trickery? Perhaps, but cold water wash and cold water rinse will do the job perfectly fine in most cases. If clothes are extremely dirty, I can see using hot water wash, but still, no hot water rinse. Basically, I have one tenant that does up to 8 loads of laundry a week. That's right, eight loads for ONE person. She does very small loads of wash, wasting entire wash cycles when she could and should be doing full loads. Perhaps in the case of whites and wanting to keep them separate do I see the need for extreme separation, but this is ridiculous.
I haven't written up the second notice: leaving computers on 24 hours a day. I have spoken individually with everyone here about not leaving them on all the time - they consume enough electricity that when you add it all up: 4 computers could be costing as little as $60 to run 24 hours a day and up to $360. Well, I'm pretty sure it's not $360, I am headed for an electric bill this month of around $300. AC is still on every day is the primary culprit, yes, but excessive laundry use is the other.
I did make a concession, though. If a person wants to do the 3rd or 4th or however many loads after the initial 2 free loads by using cold water wash and rinse only and using the clothes line to dry them, be my guest, it's on the house. Yes, the machines consume electricity without even using hot water, but - the real culprits are hot water and an electric dryer that is usually run 70 minutes to dry clothes.
I think I'll wait on handing out computer notices until I see the effect of quashing 10, 15 "extra" loads per week - that one tenant is not the only culprit here, though she is definitely the biggest culprit.
Of course, electric use will go way down - hopefully by next month, after the AC system is shut down for the winter. Open the windows, air the place out, let the fresh, polluted Phoenix air come wafting in. We have pollution problems here, not as bad as LA, but enough that during the winter especially, high pollution advisories are doled out frequently. On those days, they do not allow the use of wood burning fire places and actually have fire place police running around, pulling up in front of people's homes and writing up tickets. Yes, you read that right, they actually have people going around writing out finable tickets. I don't have a fireplace so it doesn't effect me, but, the city budgets around here are out of control and not enough money (wouldn't it be nice if they just figured out ways to cut BACK on spending instead of continuing to run all kinds of programs that we cannot afford) to run them, perhaps they will do away with this stuff - I somehow doubt that the fines being paid compensate for the amount of money to actually run such a program.
10 hour interval here as I got busy with the ponding stuff and it went on all day long.
Shutting down even a small pond is not small business. I had NO idea that I had put THAT many plants in that little thing! I mean, it was totally cool looking, but, I just didn't think there was that much in there. Take all of that out and put it in the large pond.
Next, catch the large goldfish while at the same time pumping the pond water into a 5 gallon buck to be dumped into the newly started large pond - have at least some cycled water in there. The large goldfish took about 45 minute to catch with everything else going on.
Next was the REALLY hard part: attempting to catch all of this very LITTLE fish in there. The size of minnows and smaller, there were at least a hundred of them in there. Me? I'm not going to lose a single fish, even an itty-bitty thing if I can help it. I would take the net and feed it through there, get some in there and dump them into a 5-gallon bucket. This went on for quite a while.
I didn't notice that some of them were jumping out of the net. Movement on the ground caught my eye and I saw at least 10 of them little buggers flipping around down there. I picked all of them up and dumped them into the bucket.
Realizing this method I was using wasn't going to work, I took a smaller pump and started pumping all the water out of that pond. Down to less than an inch of water, I turned the pump off and removed it. I then picked the pond up and got the water pooled into one end. 20 swipes with the net to get those little things. I was dumping the water that was straining out through the net onto the ground. I got the amount of water down to almost nothing and poured it into the bucket.
My issue was not putting that stuff into the new pond.
Now, I start swiping the net through the 5-gallon bucket, getting a lot of fish on each swipe, dumping the water out of the net onto the ground each time, putting the little fishies into the pond on each attempt. Time after time after time until it was down to almost no water in the bucket and yes, I dumped the rest of it into the pond. Little fishies are as important as giant fishies in any water environment.
This is half the day doing this. The goldfish had been in there quite a while after I got done with the little fishies. Now, I'm thinking about getting excess amount of fish from the 2 remaining ponds into this much larger one. I figured the Koi would be okay. So, the "big" pond that has them in it - well, it was time to get them out. Just try to catch a 16 inch Koi in net that is designed to catch 4 inch at max fish.
6 Koi to catch, pain the rear. Koi make themselves very difficult to catch, much harder than goldfish. Catching those 6 fish took quite some time. I did get all of them - they all hang out together and I didn't want to separate them. The rest of the fish I left in there. Next, to the turtle pond.
I wanted to get 4 or 5 of the goldfish out there, pretty easy, really,didn't take too long.
After that? NOTHING. That took much longer than I expected - like all day long. I didn't get the half of the rest of the stuff I wanted to get done around here today and that is not good. I have a full load on my hands tomorrow.
Anyway, this entry is done.
G'day or more appropriately, G'nite.
ben
That's because I am going to have to move around all of my filters to make this feasible. I have enough filters, yes, but - emptying them, cleaning them, moving them with the hose and pump - it'll be tomorrow by the time I have that finished as there is a lot of other things I want to get done around here as well.
Not sweating it, I'll get it done, just that my dad is coming over here on Tuesday and I want the place spic and span, including a fresh carpet cleaning.
So, I finally did it. I posted the notice.
I was going to do it a month or more ago, I just thought I might be pushing it by doing so.
What notice?
Concerning the use of my washing machine and dryer. I came home yesterday to find the water temp setting on hot wash AND hot RINSE. TOTALLY unecessary, a HUGE waste of electricity in heating up more water, NOT going to continue to happen.
The notice was basically this: 2 free loads per week, $1.50 for each and every load after that. ANY load, whether the freebie or not, that is washed using HOT rinse will incur an extra added fee of $.050. I cannot ever remember any laundromat having machines that have hot rinse - and I have been to several. I don't even know why they would build a machine with hot rinse, I wish this one didn't have it.
Of course, I could eliminate hot water altogether on that machine and simply tie the hot water line into the cold water line. Trickery? Perhaps, but cold water wash and cold water rinse will do the job perfectly fine in most cases. If clothes are extremely dirty, I can see using hot water wash, but still, no hot water rinse. Basically, I have one tenant that does up to 8 loads of laundry a week. That's right, eight loads for ONE person. She does very small loads of wash, wasting entire wash cycles when she could and should be doing full loads. Perhaps in the case of whites and wanting to keep them separate do I see the need for extreme separation, but this is ridiculous.
I haven't written up the second notice: leaving computers on 24 hours a day. I have spoken individually with everyone here about not leaving them on all the time - they consume enough electricity that when you add it all up: 4 computers could be costing as little as $60 to run 24 hours a day and up to $360. Well, I'm pretty sure it's not $360, I am headed for an electric bill this month of around $300. AC is still on every day is the primary culprit, yes, but excessive laundry use is the other.
I did make a concession, though. If a person wants to do the 3rd or 4th or however many loads after the initial 2 free loads by using cold water wash and rinse only and using the clothes line to dry them, be my guest, it's on the house. Yes, the machines consume electricity without even using hot water, but - the real culprits are hot water and an electric dryer that is usually run 70 minutes to dry clothes.
I think I'll wait on handing out computer notices until I see the effect of quashing 10, 15 "extra" loads per week - that one tenant is not the only culprit here, though she is definitely the biggest culprit.
Of course, electric use will go way down - hopefully by next month, after the AC system is shut down for the winter. Open the windows, air the place out, let the fresh, polluted Phoenix air come wafting in. We have pollution problems here, not as bad as LA, but enough that during the winter especially, high pollution advisories are doled out frequently. On those days, they do not allow the use of wood burning fire places and actually have fire place police running around, pulling up in front of people's homes and writing up tickets. Yes, you read that right, they actually have people going around writing out finable tickets. I don't have a fireplace so it doesn't effect me, but, the city budgets around here are out of control and not enough money (wouldn't it be nice if they just figured out ways to cut BACK on spending instead of continuing to run all kinds of programs that we cannot afford) to run them, perhaps they will do away with this stuff - I somehow doubt that the fines being paid compensate for the amount of money to actually run such a program.
10 hour interval here as I got busy with the ponding stuff and it went on all day long.
Shutting down even a small pond is not small business. I had NO idea that I had put THAT many plants in that little thing! I mean, it was totally cool looking, but, I just didn't think there was that much in there. Take all of that out and put it in the large pond.
Next, catch the large goldfish while at the same time pumping the pond water into a 5 gallon buck to be dumped into the newly started large pond - have at least some cycled water in there. The large goldfish took about 45 minute to catch with everything else going on.
Next was the REALLY hard part: attempting to catch all of this very LITTLE fish in there. The size of minnows and smaller, there were at least a hundred of them in there. Me? I'm not going to lose a single fish, even an itty-bitty thing if I can help it. I would take the net and feed it through there, get some in there and dump them into a 5-gallon bucket. This went on for quite a while.
I didn't notice that some of them were jumping out of the net. Movement on the ground caught my eye and I saw at least 10 of them little buggers flipping around down there. I picked all of them up and dumped them into the bucket.
Realizing this method I was using wasn't going to work, I took a smaller pump and started pumping all the water out of that pond. Down to less than an inch of water, I turned the pump off and removed it. I then picked the pond up and got the water pooled into one end. 20 swipes with the net to get those little things. I was dumping the water that was straining out through the net onto the ground. I got the amount of water down to almost nothing and poured it into the bucket.
My issue was not putting that stuff into the new pond.
Now, I start swiping the net through the 5-gallon bucket, getting a lot of fish on each swipe, dumping the water out of the net onto the ground each time, putting the little fishies into the pond on each attempt. Time after time after time until it was down to almost no water in the bucket and yes, I dumped the rest of it into the pond. Little fishies are as important as giant fishies in any water environment.
This is half the day doing this. The goldfish had been in there quite a while after I got done with the little fishies. Now, I'm thinking about getting excess amount of fish from the 2 remaining ponds into this much larger one. I figured the Koi would be okay. So, the "big" pond that has them in it - well, it was time to get them out. Just try to catch a 16 inch Koi in net that is designed to catch 4 inch at max fish.
6 Koi to catch, pain the rear. Koi make themselves very difficult to catch, much harder than goldfish. Catching those 6 fish took quite some time. I did get all of them - they all hang out together and I didn't want to separate them. The rest of the fish I left in there. Next, to the turtle pond.
I wanted to get 4 or 5 of the goldfish out there, pretty easy, really,didn't take too long.
After that? NOTHING. That took much longer than I expected - like all day long. I didn't get the half of the rest of the stuff I wanted to get done around here today and that is not good. I have a full load on my hands tomorrow.
Anyway, this entry is done.
G'day or more appropriately, G'nite.
ben
Friday
Did you watch the Angle/Reid debate last night? I had forgotten about it, was flipping through channels when the light when on: Oh, YEAH, that should be on now! Sure enough, it was on CSPAN. I missed the first 25 minutes of it, yes, but the part I saw? Hilarious!! Love this stuff. From where I'm sitting, Angle blew Reid right out of the water.
But, my perspective may be skewed. After watching Reid and Pelosi on their high horses, ignoring American sentiment against the health care bill and them pushing it through anyway, I don't care if they both just get voted right out of politics - forever.
So, the end of the week, temps are supposed to start cooling back down again (we'll see about that one!). I have "high" plans to get that pond going this weekend. I wanted to wait until I had a full day to start on it in case I run into problems. I mean, getting home from work and having several hours of daylight left might be enough, but I just got this feeling that I better wait until Saturday and have a full day, weekend if necessary, to ensure I have ample "problem-solving" time.
But, I am psyched about it and can't wait to get that big pond up and running.
Good grief. Another truck driver showing up early on Friday morning. I should have locked the door behind me coming in here.
Well, anyway, don't be this guy: Passes his driving test, drops the official off and then, thinking he has the gear selector in reverse but actually having it in drive, he crashes INTO the DMV office!! Oh am I ever-so-loving glad my son didn't do THAT at HIS driving test!
I'm getting all kinds of advice on what to get on a new computer, one "geek" told me this: Whatever you do, make sure you get the BEST video graphics card that you can afford. Without a good graphics card, you have nothing.
Okay, I did not know that. I do know that I have seen those cards going into the $200 plus range.
I'm thinking getting a new computer? Might be a while. There is no point in building something that isn't much better than what I already have. 8 gigs of ram, minimum 750 gig harddrive, that video card, a good processor. Like, WHAT is a good processor? So many opinions I don't have a clue. Dual core this, quad core that.
Oh well. I won't be doing anything about that until I get that insurance check - which allegedly is in the mail. If that and what's left over from the bonus doesn't amount to enough, probably dump it into my ING savings account and let it sit there until I do have enough.
Ummm, work day approaches and today>? Plenty to do.
G'day.
ben
But, my perspective may be skewed. After watching Reid and Pelosi on their high horses, ignoring American sentiment against the health care bill and them pushing it through anyway, I don't care if they both just get voted right out of politics - forever.
So, the end of the week, temps are supposed to start cooling back down again (we'll see about that one!). I have "high" plans to get that pond going this weekend. I wanted to wait until I had a full day to start on it in case I run into problems. I mean, getting home from work and having several hours of daylight left might be enough, but I just got this feeling that I better wait until Saturday and have a full day, weekend if necessary, to ensure I have ample "problem-solving" time.
But, I am psyched about it and can't wait to get that big pond up and running.
Good grief. Another truck driver showing up early on Friday morning. I should have locked the door behind me coming in here.
Well, anyway, don't be this guy: Passes his driving test, drops the official off and then, thinking he has the gear selector in reverse but actually having it in drive, he crashes INTO the DMV office!! Oh am I ever-so-loving glad my son didn't do THAT at HIS driving test!
I'm getting all kinds of advice on what to get on a new computer, one "geek" told me this: Whatever you do, make sure you get the BEST video graphics card that you can afford. Without a good graphics card, you have nothing.
Okay, I did not know that. I do know that I have seen those cards going into the $200 plus range.
I'm thinking getting a new computer? Might be a while. There is no point in building something that isn't much better than what I already have. 8 gigs of ram, minimum 750 gig harddrive, that video card, a good processor. Like, WHAT is a good processor? So many opinions I don't have a clue. Dual core this, quad core that.
Oh well. I won't be doing anything about that until I get that insurance check - which allegedly is in the mail. If that and what's left over from the bonus doesn't amount to enough, probably dump it into my ING savings account and let it sit there until I do have enough.
Ummm, work day approaches and today>? Plenty to do.
G'day.
ben
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Thursday 10/14/2010
Thursday
Anthony's mother calls me last night.
Was NOT expecting that one. She starts telling me how Anthony did not steal anything from my house - on and on and on. I reply I have him on video surveillance, a tenant witnessed him in there but forgot to tell here that one of his best friends also fingered him in the deal.
Anthony was with her, cussing in the back ground, calling me names and this and that. THAT portion of it was NOT unexpected. I was surprised, however, it his mother's calmness. She usually goes into a tantrum and starts cussing and getting mad. After I listened to all of this, I asked what the point of the phone call was.
Apparently they didn't want me calling the police. Too late and meaningless, the police aren't doing anything about this, I am getting an insurance check, that's it. There's nothing else to say. This conversation went back and forth for a while, I bid her well and got off of the phone. Contrary to rumors spread around the neighborhood, they are NOT living in an apartment somewhere, they are still homeless.
I can't possibly fathom the depths of earthly hell it must be to have THAT many people living in a hotel room. It's hard to understand how they are allowed to have that many people in there. The family itself is 10 people, but there are ALWAYS relatives and friends living with them.
Anyway, I just washed my hands of it, he is NOT coming back to my house, not that they said he wanted to, she wanted me to speak to Anthony. NOT. I could plainly hear him cussing me out in the background and calling me an idiot and other little lovelies, why on earth would I want to subject myself to that? No thanks.
Onto other things. I was going to start filling the big pond up with water yesterday, but I put that to a halt. This weekend I will do it. First I will put a little bit of fresh tap water in there and see if it's going to be level (or close enough anyway). If so, fill it up some more, to about the halfway point. When I get it there, it will be at the shelf point. The shelves are there for water plants.
If it still looks good, then I am going to pump the water from the other pond into it. It really isn't good, or so the experts proclaim, to be dumping fish into fresh water that isn't "aged". I dunno. I think that's for larger ponds where dumping additives into the water doesn't work because you would need too much of it. I have Pond Start which relieves shock and removes toxins or something like that. It's a small bottle but it doesn't take much with only 300 gallons.
I do hope this Reid/Angle debate is shown nationwide today, because I REALLY want to see this. It should be QUITE entertaining, especially if Reid makes another blunder - which he does frequently and regularly, like clockwork, in saying something racist, outrageous or just plain stupid. I have no interest in either one of them, I just think it will be wildly entertaining viewing. The polls show a dead heat and the unemployment rate in Las Vegas - where it's being held - is 14.4%. Give it another 5% and it's at Depression Era rates.
Meanwhile, the mortgage debacle continues to grow. Referring to procedural rules that apparently were ignored by those rubber-stamping foreclosures, pushing them through and forcing people out of their homes. Now, it appears, these people that were forced out have legitimate grief to be hacked out in the court system. This will get very interesting because of the ousted homeowners start winning these cases, WHAT is going to happen NEXT in all of this?
Nice to see all those miners got out alive and in relatively good condition. Shell shock coming out of that hole after 2 months of being stuck in it? Can't imagine. No wonder they have had psychologists and other experts helping them through the whole process.
Well, work day approaches. Nothing in the routing system to do, unfortunately, but, perhaps it will change - one can hope : )
G'day.
ben
Anthony's mother calls me last night.
Was NOT expecting that one. She starts telling me how Anthony did not steal anything from my house - on and on and on. I reply I have him on video surveillance, a tenant witnessed him in there but forgot to tell here that one of his best friends also fingered him in the deal.
Anthony was with her, cussing in the back ground, calling me names and this and that. THAT portion of it was NOT unexpected. I was surprised, however, it his mother's calmness. She usually goes into a tantrum and starts cussing and getting mad. After I listened to all of this, I asked what the point of the phone call was.
Apparently they didn't want me calling the police. Too late and meaningless, the police aren't doing anything about this, I am getting an insurance check, that's it. There's nothing else to say. This conversation went back and forth for a while, I bid her well and got off of the phone. Contrary to rumors spread around the neighborhood, they are NOT living in an apartment somewhere, they are still homeless.
I can't possibly fathom the depths of earthly hell it must be to have THAT many people living in a hotel room. It's hard to understand how they are allowed to have that many people in there. The family itself is 10 people, but there are ALWAYS relatives and friends living with them.
Anyway, I just washed my hands of it, he is NOT coming back to my house, not that they said he wanted to, she wanted me to speak to Anthony. NOT. I could plainly hear him cussing me out in the background and calling me an idiot and other little lovelies, why on earth would I want to subject myself to that? No thanks.
Onto other things. I was going to start filling the big pond up with water yesterday, but I put that to a halt. This weekend I will do it. First I will put a little bit of fresh tap water in there and see if it's going to be level (or close enough anyway). If so, fill it up some more, to about the halfway point. When I get it there, it will be at the shelf point. The shelves are there for water plants.
If it still looks good, then I am going to pump the water from the other pond into it. It really isn't good, or so the experts proclaim, to be dumping fish into fresh water that isn't "aged". I dunno. I think that's for larger ponds where dumping additives into the water doesn't work because you would need too much of it. I have Pond Start which relieves shock and removes toxins or something like that. It's a small bottle but it doesn't take much with only 300 gallons.
I do hope this Reid/Angle debate is shown nationwide today, because I REALLY want to see this. It should be QUITE entertaining, especially if Reid makes another blunder - which he does frequently and regularly, like clockwork, in saying something racist, outrageous or just plain stupid. I have no interest in either one of them, I just think it will be wildly entertaining viewing. The polls show a dead heat and the unemployment rate in Las Vegas - where it's being held - is 14.4%. Give it another 5% and it's at Depression Era rates.
Meanwhile, the mortgage debacle continues to grow. Referring to procedural rules that apparently were ignored by those rubber-stamping foreclosures, pushing them through and forcing people out of their homes. Now, it appears, these people that were forced out have legitimate grief to be hacked out in the court system. This will get very interesting because of the ousted homeowners start winning these cases, WHAT is going to happen NEXT in all of this?
Nice to see all those miners got out alive and in relatively good condition. Shell shock coming out of that hole after 2 months of being stuck in it? Can't imagine. No wonder they have had psychologists and other experts helping them through the whole process.
Well, work day approaches. Nothing in the routing system to do, unfortunately, but, perhaps it will change - one can hope : )
G'day.
ben
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Wednesday
Bonus day.
Insurance company called on the theft - I get some money, not a whole lot. Better than nothing is all I could say to the insurance agent as the amount I am getting is enough to buy a used PS3, screw the Wii as I am not getting another one of those, the door in my bedroom is about $75 to replace and the gun was just a collector's piece.
Someone basically has a gun they cannot use, or if they do, it may blow up in their face. What they're giving me almost covers everything - almost, sort of. I mean, if I bought it all used instead of new, then yes, it comes close.
Oh well. One of those kids is now wanted for breaking into someone's car in my neighborhood on top of stealing that stuff from my house. That would be Darnell, the black kid down the street who, basically, needs a real attitude adjustment. I know just the thing to accomplish that - but - I would end up in jail since he's a minor and beating up a minor is hardly legal. No, instead, I will just watch this situation play itself out.
He is obviously continuing his thieving ways and as is the case with most thieves, you eventually get caught. I do not, however, want to see him walking up and down my street, ever. Period. He has not done that, but if I catch him anywhere near my house, it's going to get ugly. I can't really DO anything, but I can unleash some "kind" verbage.
So, am I going to buy another PS3? Honestly? With the help of my son (he has a job), we have already replaced it with an older, used version that I found on Craigslist, cheap. When not in use, it is left in the trailer tenant's - trailer. One of them is always there, no chance of it getting stolen. I think if anything else gets stolen by those punk kids, a switch is going to flip inside of me and I am not going to care what the consequences are. We're already at 2 breakin's, the 3rd would be the charm.
Anyway, getting off of the subject because yes, it is not very pleasant or uplifting, I got that pond in the ground yesterday. I mean, I have it pretty much the way it needs to be. I am going to take it out one more time, level off the bottom a bit more, put the liner inside of it and start filling it with water. If it appears level, done deal. That will free me up to finish other things and also to start on that electrical outlet project. I'm going to get a separate breaker box, put at least 2 15 amp breakers in it, maybe 3 and have at least 9 outlets coming off of it. The line feeding it is coming off the AC unit - plenty big enough to handle whatever.
Oh, so what to do with that insurance money. Well, first there's the bonus money, but I think I'm going to put a couple hundred in savings and the rest can finish getting caught up on bills. The insurance money will not quite cover a new computer, at least not the one I'm looking at, but it will come close. My old dinosaur computer continues to drive me crazy, it shuts itself off in the middle of doing something, just bizarre behavior. It's telling me it's sinking and I better get something to replace it and soon.
Now, I don't HAVE to have a new one, but I do want one with at least 8 gigs of ram and minimum dual core
processor. Buying it used, obviously, would allow me to buy something much better as long as it's in good condition. Used as in no more than a couple of years old, not 12 years old like the thing I am currently using.
HOW that machine has lasted THAT long with as much use as it gets, who knows.
That's that. I have lots of things in the financial pot that I either want to do or need to take care of and it sometimes consumes my thinking to the point I am not even cognizant of where I am or what I am doing. But, I have been that way all of my life- getting so consumed with thought that you become totally unaware of what's going on around you.
I have, on numerous occasions, come out of those trances only to find myself staring, totally unintentionally, at someone and they - looking back at me with a rather odd expression. Yes, well I probably would react the same way, lol.
As for today's work, there is a slew of stuff to do in there. Yesterday was good for working, too - I was busy ALL day long running around all over the place in both the pickup truck and the semi. Today is all semi stuff. Plus I need to re-run the ads on Craigslist for the stuff my company wants me to sell off for them. One guy is considering buying ALL of it and if he does, I get a $250 "spiff" they are calling it.
Anyway, I have a few minutes left before work and I want to read about the miners getting freed, the race in California where an aid called the opposing candidate a whore and apparently the GOP is going to spend more money on ads than - ever. I mean, how MUCH money do these people HAVE for this stuff? And what kind of mud-slinging will we be subjected to? I find that stuff to be a turnoff, frankly, get elected on the basis of your own merits, history and accomplishments. Alright, there is a place where I can see if someone has done something so bad or - as imo Obama in writing off the majority of the American public in forcing through health care even though most of us said no to it - totally dissing the electorate, then yes, that should be brought up. However, if you follow this stuff at all, you don't NEED it brought up, it is quite fresh in your memory and probably isn't going onto a memory shelf anytime soon, or, at least, until the next Presidential campaign comes,goes and hopefully a totally new president in there.
G'day.
ben
Insurance company called on the theft - I get some money, not a whole lot. Better than nothing is all I could say to the insurance agent as the amount I am getting is enough to buy a used PS3, screw the Wii as I am not getting another one of those, the door in my bedroom is about $75 to replace and the gun was just a collector's piece.
Someone basically has a gun they cannot use, or if they do, it may blow up in their face. What they're giving me almost covers everything - almost, sort of. I mean, if I bought it all used instead of new, then yes, it comes close.
Oh well. One of those kids is now wanted for breaking into someone's car in my neighborhood on top of stealing that stuff from my house. That would be Darnell, the black kid down the street who, basically, needs a real attitude adjustment. I know just the thing to accomplish that - but - I would end up in jail since he's a minor and beating up a minor is hardly legal. No, instead, I will just watch this situation play itself out.
He is obviously continuing his thieving ways and as is the case with most thieves, you eventually get caught. I do not, however, want to see him walking up and down my street, ever. Period. He has not done that, but if I catch him anywhere near my house, it's going to get ugly. I can't really DO anything, but I can unleash some "kind" verbage.
So, am I going to buy another PS3? Honestly? With the help of my son (he has a job), we have already replaced it with an older, used version that I found on Craigslist, cheap. When not in use, it is left in the trailer tenant's - trailer. One of them is always there, no chance of it getting stolen. I think if anything else gets stolen by those punk kids, a switch is going to flip inside of me and I am not going to care what the consequences are. We're already at 2 breakin's, the 3rd would be the charm.
Anyway, getting off of the subject because yes, it is not very pleasant or uplifting, I got that pond in the ground yesterday. I mean, I have it pretty much the way it needs to be. I am going to take it out one more time, level off the bottom a bit more, put the liner inside of it and start filling it with water. If it appears level, done deal. That will free me up to finish other things and also to start on that electrical outlet project. I'm going to get a separate breaker box, put at least 2 15 amp breakers in it, maybe 3 and have at least 9 outlets coming off of it. The line feeding it is coming off the AC unit - plenty big enough to handle whatever.
Oh, so what to do with that insurance money. Well, first there's the bonus money, but I think I'm going to put a couple hundred in savings and the rest can finish getting caught up on bills. The insurance money will not quite cover a new computer, at least not the one I'm looking at, but it will come close. My old dinosaur computer continues to drive me crazy, it shuts itself off in the middle of doing something, just bizarre behavior. It's telling me it's sinking and I better get something to replace it and soon.
Now, I don't HAVE to have a new one, but I do want one with at least 8 gigs of ram and minimum dual core
processor. Buying it used, obviously, would allow me to buy something much better as long as it's in good condition. Used as in no more than a couple of years old, not 12 years old like the thing I am currently using.
HOW that machine has lasted THAT long with as much use as it gets, who knows.
That's that. I have lots of things in the financial pot that I either want to do or need to take care of and it sometimes consumes my thinking to the point I am not even cognizant of where I am or what I am doing. But, I have been that way all of my life- getting so consumed with thought that you become totally unaware of what's going on around you.
I have, on numerous occasions, come out of those trances only to find myself staring, totally unintentionally, at someone and they - looking back at me with a rather odd expression. Yes, well I probably would react the same way, lol.
As for today's work, there is a slew of stuff to do in there. Yesterday was good for working, too - I was busy ALL day long running around all over the place in both the pickup truck and the semi. Today is all semi stuff. Plus I need to re-run the ads on Craigslist for the stuff my company wants me to sell off for them. One guy is considering buying ALL of it and if he does, I get a $250 "spiff" they are calling it.
Anyway, I have a few minutes left before work and I want to read about the miners getting freed, the race in California where an aid called the opposing candidate a whore and apparently the GOP is going to spend more money on ads than - ever. I mean, how MUCH money do these people HAVE for this stuff? And what kind of mud-slinging will we be subjected to? I find that stuff to be a turnoff, frankly, get elected on the basis of your own merits, history and accomplishments. Alright, there is a place where I can see if someone has done something so bad or - as imo Obama in writing off the majority of the American public in forcing through health care even though most of us said no to it - totally dissing the electorate, then yes, that should be brought up. However, if you follow this stuff at all, you don't NEED it brought up, it is quite fresh in your memory and probably isn't going onto a memory shelf anytime soon, or, at least, until the next Presidential campaign comes,goes and hopefully a totally new president in there.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Tuesday 10/12/2010
Tuesday
Still a tad schmickens warm out there. In fact, it felt hot going home yesterday from work.
That did not, however, stop me from attempting to finish the pond project. That bugger is really being quite the pain in attempting to get it to sit in there just right. I had hoped to have it in it's final resting spot yesterday - no go.
Reading a lot of news this morning. Chilean miners about to be extracted; Clinton stating that our nation's debt poses a national security threat; the Bush tax cuts about to expire; Palin stating that Iran and nukes could lead to an Armageddon - on and on and on.
I wonder if all the Bush haters also hate his tax cuts? There is a calculator online that shows how much your taxes will increase if these cuts aren't extended. For me, a pretty significant chunk of change.
The news is interesting, but it can also be depressing - which is why I don't expose myself to a lot of it. It isn't worth the aggravation. I read it in the morning and that's almost all of it, I hear some on the news while driving, I do not watch any of it on TV.
Anyway, the work day is almost here and - amazingly - there is actually something in the truck routing system to do. Tomorrow? I get my bonus check. Very nice.
G'day.
ben
Still a tad schmickens warm out there. In fact, it felt hot going home yesterday from work.
That did not, however, stop me from attempting to finish the pond project. That bugger is really being quite the pain in attempting to get it to sit in there just right. I had hoped to have it in it's final resting spot yesterday - no go.
Reading a lot of news this morning. Chilean miners about to be extracted; Clinton stating that our nation's debt poses a national security threat; the Bush tax cuts about to expire; Palin stating that Iran and nukes could lead to an Armageddon - on and on and on.
I wonder if all the Bush haters also hate his tax cuts? There is a calculator online that shows how much your taxes will increase if these cuts aren't extended. For me, a pretty significant chunk of change.
The news is interesting, but it can also be depressing - which is why I don't expose myself to a lot of it. It isn't worth the aggravation. I read it in the morning and that's almost all of it, I hear some on the news while driving, I do not watch any of it on TV.
Anyway, the work day is almost here and - amazingly - there is actually something in the truck routing system to do. Tomorrow? I get my bonus check. Very nice.
G'day.
ben
Monday
Monday
President's Day. Our company does not observe such as a holiday that is worth shutting down over, so yes, I'm at work right now - before work starts of course.
The public school system, however, uses any excuse to get out of school and for my son, it's not just today off, it's the entire week!
Well, anyway, moving on. I called mother yesterday and yes, we got into it. I brought up the exchange I had recently with my middle brother and the fact that I absolutely refuse to spend another, single holiday with him after the barrage of vile remarks that came from him towards me. I would have thought he would have already called her about this situation.
He had not. We ran the gamut of a life full of things, not worth going into here, but a few key elements were brought out. First, that SHE had written us boys off some 25 years ago - disappeared for 2 years and then came back, crying, wanting back into our lives.
She didn't even remember doing that. She started apologizing profusely - I didn't need apologies, we went through that decades ago. The point is, my brothers forgave HER of THAT yet refuse to forgive my father of his alleged wrong-doings.
The second fact I brought up is that we are not a family at all. I see my oldest brother at Christmas, once a year, that's all I ever hear from him. My egotistical middle brother I hear from a little more frequently, such as the last episode where he began bashing me for my political views, which is when I dished it right back at him.
Enough of that. I don't really want to go into it. My family is just too disjointed, there is no cohesion, it is just a bunch of people that are related by blood.
Once in a while, totally changing the subject, I take Prince to PetSmart with me. They allow you to take dogs in there as long as they are leashed and have all shots and license. Prince has all of that. He's the black Great Dane. Also a bit smaller at only 133 pounds. But, he still gets guffaws from people coming around a corner in the store - to be met by a dog that large.
October 11, 2010 5:55 AM
Anonymous said...
He is one of the most passive dogs on earth. A lady and her daughter came up behind us and the lady was telling her daughter to stay away. My simple comment is that that particular dog doesn't have a mean bone in his body. She let her daughter pet him. Seriously, I wouldn't even take a dog into a place like that if I didn't have full confidence of the dogs demeanor and behavior around other people.
Anyway, I was there to get Goldfish flakes. I have koi pellets, but those are too big for the little fishies. I take some of the flakes, grind them up in my hand and spread them over the top of the ponds for the little, itty bitty fishes to be able to have something to eat, too. I saw that they had some 4 inch long koi for sale at $4.99. Very colorful and marked fish, yes, I got a couple.
Might as well start some young and see if they will survive into old age. I really don't need any more fish, but a couple of small ones aren't going to hurt anything. The lady working the area was surprised to hear I have Mollies in those ponds as well. She didn't think they could survive in such. Well, that's where I got them, out of a pond being shut down.
As for the big pond, I got down into the hole and start to rake it with a steel rake to level it. No go. Old rake - the handle broke where the steel rake goes into it. Fortunately, those things are pretty cheap. Harbor Freight prolly has one for less than $10. It's getting down to the nitty gritty here. Get the bottom as level as possible, put the flexible liner I bought for the pre-formed pond IN the pond and fill it partially up.
Just enough water to see if it's going to be level or not. If not, drain it, more levelling and eventually, a completed pond. Once I get that done I will have the motivation to finish the waterfalls I started building before summer started.
I also have yet another project I am going to get to pretty soon. I need to put a breaker box out there and get more outlets going. These ponds and their apparatus don't use much electricity, but you have to have a pump for each pond and I want an aerator for each pond as well.
Fortunately, there is more than ample supply line for electricity out there - the line running to the AC unit. Tap into that, this will be an easy project. Well, easy enough anyway for me.
Well, work day approaches. Another day with nothing in the truck routing system. I have some stuff to do around the shop, which is good because I hate being bored.
G'day.
ben
President's Day. Our company does not observe such as a holiday that is worth shutting down over, so yes, I'm at work right now - before work starts of course.
The public school system, however, uses any excuse to get out of school and for my son, it's not just today off, it's the entire week!
Well, anyway, moving on. I called mother yesterday and yes, we got into it. I brought up the exchange I had recently with my middle brother and the fact that I absolutely refuse to spend another, single holiday with him after the barrage of vile remarks that came from him towards me. I would have thought he would have already called her about this situation.
He had not. We ran the gamut of a life full of things, not worth going into here, but a few key elements were brought out. First, that SHE had written us boys off some 25 years ago - disappeared for 2 years and then came back, crying, wanting back into our lives.
She didn't even remember doing that. She started apologizing profusely - I didn't need apologies, we went through that decades ago. The point is, my brothers forgave HER of THAT yet refuse to forgive my father of his alleged wrong-doings.
The second fact I brought up is that we are not a family at all. I see my oldest brother at Christmas, once a year, that's all I ever hear from him. My egotistical middle brother I hear from a little more frequently, such as the last episode where he began bashing me for my political views, which is when I dished it right back at him.
Enough of that. I don't really want to go into it. My family is just too disjointed, there is no cohesion, it is just a bunch of people that are related by blood.
Once in a while, totally changing the subject, I take Prince to PetSmart with me. They allow you to take dogs in there as long as they are leashed and have all shots and license. Prince has all of that. He's the black Great Dane. Also a bit smaller at only 133 pounds. But, he still gets guffaws from people coming around a corner in the store - to be met by a dog that large.
October 11, 2010 5:55 AM
Anonymous said...
He is one of the most passive dogs on earth. A lady and her daughter came up behind us and the lady was telling her daughter to stay away. My simple comment is that that particular dog doesn't have a mean bone in his body. She let her daughter pet him. Seriously, I wouldn't even take a dog into a place like that if I didn't have full confidence of the dogs demeanor and behavior around other people.
Anyway, I was there to get Goldfish flakes. I have koi pellets, but those are too big for the little fishies. I take some of the flakes, grind them up in my hand and spread them over the top of the ponds for the little, itty bitty fishes to be able to have something to eat, too. I saw that they had some 4 inch long koi for sale at $4.99. Very colorful and marked fish, yes, I got a couple.
Might as well start some young and see if they will survive into old age. I really don't need any more fish, but a couple of small ones aren't going to hurt anything. The lady working the area was surprised to hear I have Mollies in those ponds as well. She didn't think they could survive in such. Well, that's where I got them, out of a pond being shut down.
As for the big pond, I got down into the hole and start to rake it with a steel rake to level it. No go. Old rake - the handle broke where the steel rake goes into it. Fortunately, those things are pretty cheap. Harbor Freight prolly has one for less than $10. It's getting down to the nitty gritty here. Get the bottom as level as possible, put the flexible liner I bought for the pre-formed pond IN the pond and fill it partially up.
Just enough water to see if it's going to be level or not. If not, drain it, more levelling and eventually, a completed pond. Once I get that done I will have the motivation to finish the waterfalls I started building before summer started.
I also have yet another project I am going to get to pretty soon. I need to put a breaker box out there and get more outlets going. These ponds and their apparatus don't use much electricity, but you have to have a pump for each pond and I want an aerator for each pond as well.
Fortunately, there is more than ample supply line for electricity out there - the line running to the AC unit. Tap into that, this will be an easy project. Well, easy enough anyway for me.
Well, work day approaches. Another day with nothing in the truck routing system. I have some stuff to do around the shop, which is good because I hate being bored.
G'day.
ben
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Sunday
Kicked my butt.
That's what that pill did.
The doc gave me some pills and said they will probably make me drowsy.
Drowsy? These aren't sleeping pills but they might as well be!
I took one 12 hours ago and I am still sleepy.
This was a half-dose on top of that - she said she was going to give me the
lowest dosage available at 5mils - which is half the normal dose "since you seem
to have adverse reaction to medication".
Indeed. Allergic to pennicillin, flu shots and a host of other medications I have
tried for various reasons, one of the biggest for allergies. I can't take ANY of it
without feeling worse than the symptoms the allergies are creating - hence, deal
with the allergies, not with the pills that give relief to the allergy symptoms.
Umm, so, I can't take this stuff, either. I can't hardly think of going to work feeling like this.
Drowsiness, however, is the only ill side effect of this stuff, I'm wondering if I cut one of
the pills in half if that would do the trick.
Well, I'm hoping to "wake up"eventually cause' I got a LOT done on the pond-digging situation
yesterday and yes, that thing is sitting in the ground now. I have to remove it again, yes, I need to get the ground level on the bottom and dig away at one side where the pond is still hitting up against the dirt.
If I could get a couple more good, solid hours into that project, that sucker will be in the ground.
The way I'm feeling right now? Ready to go back to bed. Even after a pot of coffee, this stuff is still dealing it to me. I don't feel BAD, per se, just very sleepy.
So, Caleb has entered the world of "payments". Paying me, specifically, for the car insurance. He makes X amount per week - not a huge sum but for a kid without any real bills, it IS good money. He was going to hand over almost everything he had - $100 out of $130 in his pocket - but I decided to have a little mercy on him. I took $50 so he could have some spending money. This week coming up is "Fall Break", meaning no school for a week. I didn't want to leave him with nothing, so, I didn't take all of it. He can pay me next week anyway. I am just going to set that money aside for his portion of the car insurance every month.
I'm just glad that a sizable bonus is coming my way - get me caught up on everything and still have a bit extra left over. I'm not even sure after all my bills are paid out that there will BE much left over now that I'm looking at it. This summer with high electric bills kicked my financial butt's butt - it takes a while to get caught back up. That included slow pay tenants and one tenant moving out and having to find another. Not a single person living here is "permanent" by any stretch of the imagination. The Army reservist is going to get bills paid up and then get her own apartment - no date on that yet. The newest guy just started a new job with Bank of America and is also going to save up for his own place. The 3rd? No move-out date or even stated, but, again,no-one is permanent. The only thing I can hope for is that they aren't all moving out at once, as happened last year and left me scrambling.
Well, that's it for now, I'm going to go lay back down for an hour or so and see if I can get past this.
ben
That's what that pill did.
The doc gave me some pills and said they will probably make me drowsy.
Drowsy? These aren't sleeping pills but they might as well be!
I took one 12 hours ago and I am still sleepy.
This was a half-dose on top of that - she said she was going to give me the
lowest dosage available at 5mils - which is half the normal dose "since you seem
to have adverse reaction to medication".
Indeed. Allergic to pennicillin, flu shots and a host of other medications I have
tried for various reasons, one of the biggest for allergies. I can't take ANY of it
without feeling worse than the symptoms the allergies are creating - hence, deal
with the allergies, not with the pills that give relief to the allergy symptoms.
Umm, so, I can't take this stuff, either. I can't hardly think of going to work feeling like this.
Drowsiness, however, is the only ill side effect of this stuff, I'm wondering if I cut one of
the pills in half if that would do the trick.
Well, I'm hoping to "wake up"eventually cause' I got a LOT done on the pond-digging situation
yesterday and yes, that thing is sitting in the ground now. I have to remove it again, yes, I need to get the ground level on the bottom and dig away at one side where the pond is still hitting up against the dirt.
If I could get a couple more good, solid hours into that project, that sucker will be in the ground.
The way I'm feeling right now? Ready to go back to bed. Even after a pot of coffee, this stuff is still dealing it to me. I don't feel BAD, per se, just very sleepy.
So, Caleb has entered the world of "payments". Paying me, specifically, for the car insurance. He makes X amount per week - not a huge sum but for a kid without any real bills, it IS good money. He was going to hand over almost everything he had - $100 out of $130 in his pocket - but I decided to have a little mercy on him. I took $50 so he could have some spending money. This week coming up is "Fall Break", meaning no school for a week. I didn't want to leave him with nothing, so, I didn't take all of it. He can pay me next week anyway. I am just going to set that money aside for his portion of the car insurance every month.
I'm just glad that a sizable bonus is coming my way - get me caught up on everything and still have a bit extra left over. I'm not even sure after all my bills are paid out that there will BE much left over now that I'm looking at it. This summer with high electric bills kicked my financial butt's butt - it takes a while to get caught back up. That included slow pay tenants and one tenant moving out and having to find another. Not a single person living here is "permanent" by any stretch of the imagination. The Army reservist is going to get bills paid up and then get her own apartment - no date on that yet. The newest guy just started a new job with Bank of America and is also going to save up for his own place. The 3rd? No move-out date or even stated, but, again,no-one is permanent. The only thing I can hope for is that they aren't all moving out at once, as happened last year and left me scrambling.
Well, that's it for now, I'm going to go lay back down for an hour or so and see if I can get past this.
ben
Saturday, October 9, 2010
A Candid Discussion With My Son
I wanted to delve into all of this today with Caleb - my son.
How is school going? How are you doing in JROTC? What about work? How are you dealing with this pretty-intense schedule?
Oh, I did the same thing at his age I was working, going to school, getting into trouble and all kinds of stuff. I got up early and went to bed late. But, Caleb is his own person, I wanted to hear how it's all going, school is more important than a job - or is it? No, I think they are both very important pre-cursors for living life as it's going to come at him.
You and I know life isn't easy at times. When you're young, it can seem like hell. You learn over time how to deal with the things that come up against you, but - not everything of course. Still, work is pretty much a baseline for most everyone. Rich or poor, you have some kind of work you must do in order to receive your financial recompense.
He says he's doing fine - his mother says his grades are good, he doesn't appear fatigued or out of it and he's loving life right now. He's on top of his world in JROTC - he's a commander with a platoon of 35 cadets under his command. That's pretty awesome, really. He went into GREAT detail today - more than I have ever heard from him - of what's going on with the kids under him.
Number one, you must understand that Caleb is a BIG boy. 250 pounds - works out regularly, but large-framed and yes, he has some fat on his body. He is going to have to lose some of that to go into the military, but I know he's aware of that and I don't bring that subject up - he's going to have to deal with it. If he wants me help, gladly, but, he needs to bring it up, not me. He's very touchy about that subject. Still, there is a LOT of meat under that skin, he's very strong and the kids under him aren't even going to think about messing with him, ie: disrespect, trash-talk, all that junk.
What he expressed was that there were numerous kids that show no respect, whatsoever. Not surprising to me, I have seen plenty of this in the last decade or more of kids whose parents don't seem to give a damn about how their kids talk to authority figure or even each other. Punk, trash, diss talk that I find GREATLY annoying at best.
So, he had a great idea: separate the whole lot of them. Take the kids that are totally into it and put them into one company and take the kids that are totally OUT of it and put them together in another.
Well, it's a long story - not going to go into all of it, but he has a good mind and he is definitley showing leadership quality and I will watch with great interest where this goes. He apparently has great latitude to do whatever he feels necessary to bring them all into line and get them - out of this s*** mode. I just hate what's been happening into our society for some time now with kids that learn no respect for much of anything and grow up into "adults" with that same mind-set.
Yup, Caleb left for work - about 2 hours ago, a 6-hour shift. Undoubtedly, I will get a call from him after he gets off with the request that he can hang out with his friends. I know most of his friends and more importantly, I know most of his friend's parents from Little League days - I was coaching baseball, umpring baseball, a board member, this that and the other thing - for a decade I was involved with that.
Good kids, great parents, I have no issues with them hanging out together. Are they perfect, lily-white angels when they are together? Undoubtedly NOT. But, as long as they don't get into trouble, I can't monitor my son 24 hours a day and I don't WANT to. He has to learn life like we all did: the HARD way.
Today? I was working outside - yes, I finally got back to work on digging out the ground for the bigger pond. BEAUTIFUL weather, at least by my standards. It was warm, but NOT hot. I also called county Animal Control on my neighbor's dog. It gets out - almost daily - through my yard - destroys some of my plants in the process, the owners don't care. This has been going on for quite some time now, today I had enough when my newest tenant came out and declared that it was DIGGING in my front yard.
Animal Control showed up out there about an hour later. My dogs alerted me to such fact. I stood out there for half an hour while this officer got the attention of those in the household - he wasn't entering their locked, gated, fenced yard, got them out there and started "educating" them. I could hear a few things he was saying, most of it was unintelligible.
Meanwhile, the crew of Jehovah's Witnesses showed up. They went to every house on my street except mine and my neighbors I wasn't involved with what Animal Control is doing, no, I was "blacklisted" by these people some time ago when I started asking them pointed questions about their beliefs and how they - in the affirmative - correlate to the Bible/Word of God. I will never subscribe to anyone's belief that Jehovah's Witnesses are ANYTHING but a CULT. I had thought they were going to come to my house - not - they went all the way up to my neighbor's house on the other side and then, left I was going to be very polite with them if the did come - thanks, guys, not to be offensive, but I do not subscribe to the belief system of JW's and I will NEVER subscribe to such - but I didn't have to go there.
That's done and over with. I will call Animal Control every time I see that dog out there until the situation is dealt with.
Now? Yup, I'm going outside again. It's absolutely beautiful out there. I missed it too much, it's a thing I will spending a great deal of time doing while the weather is nice -which should be for another, ohhhh - 6 months or so.
G'day.
ben
How is school going? How are you doing in JROTC? What about work? How are you dealing with this pretty-intense schedule?
Oh, I did the same thing at his age I was working, going to school, getting into trouble and all kinds of stuff. I got up early and went to bed late. But, Caleb is his own person, I wanted to hear how it's all going, school is more important than a job - or is it? No, I think they are both very important pre-cursors for living life as it's going to come at him.
You and I know life isn't easy at times. When you're young, it can seem like hell. You learn over time how to deal with the things that come up against you, but - not everything of course. Still, work is pretty much a baseline for most everyone. Rich or poor, you have some kind of work you must do in order to receive your financial recompense.
He says he's doing fine - his mother says his grades are good, he doesn't appear fatigued or out of it and he's loving life right now. He's on top of his world in JROTC - he's a commander with a platoon of 35 cadets under his command. That's pretty awesome, really. He went into GREAT detail today - more than I have ever heard from him - of what's going on with the kids under him.
Number one, you must understand that Caleb is a BIG boy. 250 pounds - works out regularly, but large-framed and yes, he has some fat on his body. He is going to have to lose some of that to go into the military, but I know he's aware of that and I don't bring that subject up - he's going to have to deal with it. If he wants me help, gladly, but, he needs to bring it up, not me. He's very touchy about that subject. Still, there is a LOT of meat under that skin, he's very strong and the kids under him aren't even going to think about messing with him, ie: disrespect, trash-talk, all that junk.
What he expressed was that there were numerous kids that show no respect, whatsoever. Not surprising to me, I have seen plenty of this in the last decade or more of kids whose parents don't seem to give a damn about how their kids talk to authority figure or even each other. Punk, trash, diss talk that I find GREATLY annoying at best.
So, he had a great idea: separate the whole lot of them. Take the kids that are totally into it and put them into one company and take the kids that are totally OUT of it and put them together in another.
Well, it's a long story - not going to go into all of it, but he has a good mind and he is definitley showing leadership quality and I will watch with great interest where this goes. He apparently has great latitude to do whatever he feels necessary to bring them all into line and get them - out of this s*** mode. I just hate what's been happening into our society for some time now with kids that learn no respect for much of anything and grow up into "adults" with that same mind-set.
Yup, Caleb left for work - about 2 hours ago, a 6-hour shift. Undoubtedly, I will get a call from him after he gets off with the request that he can hang out with his friends. I know most of his friends and more importantly, I know most of his friend's parents from Little League days - I was coaching baseball, umpring baseball, a board member, this that and the other thing - for a decade I was involved with that.
Good kids, great parents, I have no issues with them hanging out together. Are they perfect, lily-white angels when they are together? Undoubtedly NOT. But, as long as they don't get into trouble, I can't monitor my son 24 hours a day and I don't WANT to. He has to learn life like we all did: the HARD way.
Today? I was working outside - yes, I finally got back to work on digging out the ground for the bigger pond. BEAUTIFUL weather, at least by my standards. It was warm, but NOT hot. I also called county Animal Control on my neighbor's dog. It gets out - almost daily - through my yard - destroys some of my plants in the process, the owners don't care. This has been going on for quite some time now, today I had enough when my newest tenant came out and declared that it was DIGGING in my front yard.
Animal Control showed up out there about an hour later. My dogs alerted me to such fact. I stood out there for half an hour while this officer got the attention of those in the household - he wasn't entering their locked, gated, fenced yard, got them out there and started "educating" them. I could hear a few things he was saying, most of it was unintelligible.
Meanwhile, the crew of Jehovah's Witnesses showed up. They went to every house on my street except mine and my neighbors I wasn't involved with what Animal Control is doing, no, I was "blacklisted" by these people some time ago when I started asking them pointed questions about their beliefs and how they - in the affirmative - correlate to the Bible/Word of God. I will never subscribe to anyone's belief that Jehovah's Witnesses are ANYTHING but a CULT. I had thought they were going to come to my house - not - they went all the way up to my neighbor's house on the other side and then, left I was going to be very polite with them if the did come - thanks, guys, not to be offensive, but I do not subscribe to the belief system of JW's and I will NEVER subscribe to such - but I didn't have to go there.
That's done and over with. I will call Animal Control every time I see that dog out there until the situation is dealt with.
Now? Yup, I'm going outside again. It's absolutely beautiful out there. I missed it too much, it's a thing I will spending a great deal of time doing while the weather is nice -which should be for another, ohhhh - 6 months or so.
G'day.
ben
Setting Up A PreFormed Pond
I've learned the hard way about some of this stuff concerning setting up pre-formed ponds.
I scoured the internet and could not find the information I needed.
It's ridiculous, really. I mean, there are some well-meaning people giving out - bad - advice, but the
majority of the advice to be found is for a flexible pond liner with much larger ponds, NOT for smaller, pre-formed ponds.
So, here it is. If you came here wondering about filtration and and pumps, which is what dominated my
searches on this topic for quite some time, then you have come to the right place.
I am, btw, no expert. I had to spend the money on small pumps and attempting to build my own filter and this, that and the other thing until I finally "arrived". I have it down, I definitely do. I have 5 ponds, 3 of them in use, the other two pending. Actually, one of the 2 that I am not using I am actively building a rather
elaborate setup for. It's about 300 gallons, which is small for pond's sake, it's quite enough for me, for now anyway. It's MUCH larger than my other, pre-formed ponds, ranging from 120 gallons to 165 gallons.
So let's get into this. You can probably figure out how to dig a hole for the thing. I mean - not that difficult excepting where I live - you try to stick the shovel into the ground and literally, you will hit rock every time. It's painstaking work to dig out endless rocks, I hope you aren't going through that as well. It IS a great workout, so, it's not a total loss. I do recommend putting sand on the bottom as everyone else does, it's just a further help to make sure that nothing with a sharp tip, ie: a rock, doesn't end up protruding through the hard plastic of your pond.
I am taking it a step further. I bought the large, pre-formed pond cheap - people are getting rid of this stuff in this horrid, foul, acrid economy of ours. In fact, off the subject, but relevant: look on Craigslist in your area and keep looking. I have been to numerous pond shut-downs with people who are buying short-saled homes with ponds that - they don't want. They either give the fish away or they sell them very cheap. Same scenario with a homeowner that is losing their home and want the fish to find good homes: sell them cheap or give them away. Back to this paragraph's subject, I went to ebay and found a flexible liner for this pond.
Why? Because, I have bought other preformed ponds and have had leaks. I found a good patch that will permanently seal that sucker, but why have to bother. You have to take out the fish, plants, drain it to put in a patch. Instead, I am going to put in a brand new flexible liner INSIDE the hard plastic preformed liner. The hard liner is still intact with no leaks, yes, I checked. But, I don't want to have to deal with a leaking setup, it really is a PAIN to have to remove everything. You can find flexible liners that will fit these small, preformed liners for cheap on ebay.
Back to filtration. I was fortunate enough that with the purchase of these pre-formed liners I bought, 3 of them came with a waterfall bio filter. Yes, indeed, it made the bargain that much sweeter, those things aren't cheap. I thought the things awfully large, frankly, for such a small pond, but, I put them up and used them anyway. Water is pumped into the bottom of the plastic shell. There is an open space down there with no filtration material. There is a divider and then you hit the bio ball setup. Bio balls or equivalent are a necessity for your pond. It's that or endlessly add chemicals or, have to do huge water changes frequently to keep toxins from building up in your pond/s from fish waste.
Here's the part I didn't have a clue, but have learned. Pump size. You would think a 300 gallon per hour (GPH) pump would be enough for a pond that has 120 or even 165 gallons. NOT. I actually started out with a 130 GPH pump - umm, a waste of money. 300 gph, waste of money, don't even go there if you are going to have fish in the pond. No, I have a 800 gph pump on my 165 gallon pond, pumping through the waterfall filter. I have a 750 gph pump on my 135 gallon pond, also pumping through a waterfall filter. I have a 550 gph pump on my Fish Mate Bio Filter - the small, green, rectanguler setup. That's right, a 550 gallon per hour pump going through that "small"filter.
It works perfectly. I had a 350 gph pump on that thing and it was NOT keeping the water clear, the fish were stirring up particles and it was cloudy and there was a lot of stuff floating around in there. I'm just giving my opinion - learned the hard way. That 550 gph pump in the first 24 hours had it's openings clogged with all kinds of debree but was STILL pumping water. I simply pulled the housing off (no tools necessary, at least on the one I bought) - cleaned it off and cleaned out the pre-filter. This was the first pump I bought that has a course filter in it on a pump that small. It is INVALUABLE. That thing was full of grunge after only 24 hours.
There IS no downside to having "too much water" flowing in your pond. Your fish will thank you for it.
Now, I bought the used pumps off of Craigslist, the new ones off of Ebay. I would advise that if you are going to buy a pump off of ebay, make SURE it has a warranty on it. This junk about having a 14 day return and nothing else or whatever policy is for the birds. This is yet another learn-the-hard-way deal. I found a guy selling pumps on there that is giving a 2 year warranty on all of his pumps - 1st year covered by manufacturer, second by him. No guarantees he is going to be around forever, but, he has a great feedback rating and 1 year of a pump running continuously, 24 hours a day is good enough for me, anyway.
He's under tinypondpumps. I am not him, I stopped selling on ebay a long time ago and I just got into this ponding business, what, 5 or 6 months ago? No, I just like to recommend good sellers.
Be prepared to have your pumps running 24 hours a day. You should never shut them off for the filtration system (except to clean out the fitler, of course). Also, buying aerators for your pre-formed ponds I highly recommend. You can get them at WalMart for $9.90. Yes, I have those receipts as well. They do not use a lot of electricity and is good assurance that your water is well aerated. It is also a great back-up - if your pond pump fails, you will still have aeration from the air pump. Aeration is MORE important than ANYTHING in a pond. But, a good filtration system is just below it - you get too much toxins in the water and your fish are going to start getting sick.
Here's an answer to another question I had: do you HAVE to set a preformed pond into the ground? NO!! is the wonderful answer for many people. You DO have to support the shelves that stick out from the main body of the pond, but that's easy. I used pavers for such purpose. Whatever you have. If you don't, when you fill up the pond, likely the shelf will fail under the weight and yes, the water will all dump out the side. Amazing that even apartment dwellers have ponds on their balconies. Yes, you can have the soothing sounds of water flowing out of a waterfall into the pond, plus fish, plus water plants - it's amazing therapy - right on your apartment balcony. You may, of course, want to discuss that option with the landlord first, but, it's a totally cool option as long as it isn't restricted.
There is much more, really, I'm just at the end of this blog entry. More later.
I scoured the internet and could not find the information I needed.
It's ridiculous, really. I mean, there are some well-meaning people giving out - bad - advice, but the
majority of the advice to be found is for a flexible pond liner with much larger ponds, NOT for smaller, pre-formed ponds.
So, here it is. If you came here wondering about filtration and and pumps, which is what dominated my
searches on this topic for quite some time, then you have come to the right place.
I am, btw, no expert. I had to spend the money on small pumps and attempting to build my own filter and this, that and the other thing until I finally "arrived". I have it down, I definitely do. I have 5 ponds, 3 of them in use, the other two pending. Actually, one of the 2 that I am not using I am actively building a rather
elaborate setup for. It's about 300 gallons, which is small for pond's sake, it's quite enough for me, for now anyway. It's MUCH larger than my other, pre-formed ponds, ranging from 120 gallons to 165 gallons.
So let's get into this. You can probably figure out how to dig a hole for the thing. I mean - not that difficult excepting where I live - you try to stick the shovel into the ground and literally, you will hit rock every time. It's painstaking work to dig out endless rocks, I hope you aren't going through that as well. It IS a great workout, so, it's not a total loss. I do recommend putting sand on the bottom as everyone else does, it's just a further help to make sure that nothing with a sharp tip, ie: a rock, doesn't end up protruding through the hard plastic of your pond.
I am taking it a step further. I bought the large, pre-formed pond cheap - people are getting rid of this stuff in this horrid, foul, acrid economy of ours. In fact, off the subject, but relevant: look on Craigslist in your area and keep looking. I have been to numerous pond shut-downs with people who are buying short-saled homes with ponds that - they don't want. They either give the fish away or they sell them very cheap. Same scenario with a homeowner that is losing their home and want the fish to find good homes: sell them cheap or give them away. Back to this paragraph's subject, I went to ebay and found a flexible liner for this pond.
Why? Because, I have bought other preformed ponds and have had leaks. I found a good patch that will permanently seal that sucker, but why have to bother. You have to take out the fish, plants, drain it to put in a patch. Instead, I am going to put in a brand new flexible liner INSIDE the hard plastic preformed liner. The hard liner is still intact with no leaks, yes, I checked. But, I don't want to have to deal with a leaking setup, it really is a PAIN to have to remove everything. You can find flexible liners that will fit these small, preformed liners for cheap on ebay.
Back to filtration. I was fortunate enough that with the purchase of these pre-formed liners I bought, 3 of them came with a waterfall bio filter. Yes, indeed, it made the bargain that much sweeter, those things aren't cheap. I thought the things awfully large, frankly, for such a small pond, but, I put them up and used them anyway. Water is pumped into the bottom of the plastic shell. There is an open space down there with no filtration material. There is a divider and then you hit the bio ball setup. Bio balls or equivalent are a necessity for your pond. It's that or endlessly add chemicals or, have to do huge water changes frequently to keep toxins from building up in your pond/s from fish waste.
Here's the part I didn't have a clue, but have learned. Pump size. You would think a 300 gallon per hour (GPH) pump would be enough for a pond that has 120 or even 165 gallons. NOT. I actually started out with a 130 GPH pump - umm, a waste of money. 300 gph, waste of money, don't even go there if you are going to have fish in the pond. No, I have a 800 gph pump on my 165 gallon pond, pumping through the waterfall filter. I have a 750 gph pump on my 135 gallon pond, also pumping through a waterfall filter. I have a 550 gph pump on my Fish Mate Bio Filter - the small, green, rectanguler setup. That's right, a 550 gallon per hour pump going through that "small"filter.
It works perfectly. I had a 350 gph pump on that thing and it was NOT keeping the water clear, the fish were stirring up particles and it was cloudy and there was a lot of stuff floating around in there. I'm just giving my opinion - learned the hard way. That 550 gph pump in the first 24 hours had it's openings clogged with all kinds of debree but was STILL pumping water. I simply pulled the housing off (no tools necessary, at least on the one I bought) - cleaned it off and cleaned out the pre-filter. This was the first pump I bought that has a course filter in it on a pump that small. It is INVALUABLE. That thing was full of grunge after only 24 hours.
There IS no downside to having "too much water" flowing in your pond. Your fish will thank you for it.
Now, I bought the used pumps off of Craigslist, the new ones off of Ebay. I would advise that if you are going to buy a pump off of ebay, make SURE it has a warranty on it. This junk about having a 14 day return and nothing else or whatever policy is for the birds. This is yet another learn-the-hard-way deal. I found a guy selling pumps on there that is giving a 2 year warranty on all of his pumps - 1st year covered by manufacturer, second by him. No guarantees he is going to be around forever, but, he has a great feedback rating and 1 year of a pump running continuously, 24 hours a day is good enough for me, anyway.
He's under tinypondpumps. I am not him, I stopped selling on ebay a long time ago and I just got into this ponding business, what, 5 or 6 months ago? No, I just like to recommend good sellers.
Be prepared to have your pumps running 24 hours a day. You should never shut them off for the filtration system (except to clean out the fitler, of course). Also, buying aerators for your pre-formed ponds I highly recommend. You can get them at WalMart for $9.90. Yes, I have those receipts as well. They do not use a lot of electricity and is good assurance that your water is well aerated. It is also a great back-up - if your pond pump fails, you will still have aeration from the air pump. Aeration is MORE important than ANYTHING in a pond. But, a good filtration system is just below it - you get too much toxins in the water and your fish are going to start getting sick.
Here's an answer to another question I had: do you HAVE to set a preformed pond into the ground? NO!! is the wonderful answer for many people. You DO have to support the shelves that stick out from the main body of the pond, but that's easy. I used pavers for such purpose. Whatever you have. If you don't, when you fill up the pond, likely the shelf will fail under the weight and yes, the water will all dump out the side. Amazing that even apartment dwellers have ponds on their balconies. Yes, you can have the soothing sounds of water flowing out of a waterfall into the pond, plus fish, plus water plants - it's amazing therapy - right on your apartment balcony. You may, of course, want to discuss that option with the landlord first, but, it's a totally cool option as long as it isn't restricted.
There is much more, really, I'm just at the end of this blog entry. More later.
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