Thursday 3/3/2011

Thursday

It would be nice if I would post all these into their own entries, wouldn't it? LOL, I keep forgetting when I get home from work.

Anyway, last night. Sleeping away. Ear plugs in, box fan running - helps me sleep at night. Something woke me up. I turned on the bed lamp. Dogs were alerted, but they weren't growling. I didn't hear anything else, so, I turned the light off, put my earplugs back and was going to go back to sleep.....when......

I heard a noise at my bedroom door. I get up - it's Lynnette, rather excited, telling me the next door neighbor's house is on fire. I put on socks and shorts and went out there to see flames leaping out of the roof of the structure, smoke billowing.

I was immediately taken back to when MY house burned down on July 15, 2007. Funny how you can remember things like that with such clarity. 110 degree day, clothing that was on me? The ONLY clothing I had left.

Anyway, the fire department wasn't there yet, but Mark was OVER there, on the other side of the wall, with my garden hose, spraying water at the roof. The amount of heat and flames coming out of that roof made it quite obvious that that fire was laughing at a garden hose, no only that, but he was standing too close to the structure. The fire department would be there within minutes - or less.

Hey man, that hose isn't doing anything. Not only that, but that house is a total loss, just get out of there. This neighbor - like all of them - has junk laying everywhere. You can't just walk in and out of the back yard, you have to climb over things to get in and out of there, which is why I strongly suggested HE get away from the house and OUT of his back yard. If all that junk goes up, he's going to be in for some problems.

The only fortunate thing about this scenario is that the owner is in Las Vegas. He was not home at the time. IN fact, I doubt he came home. What's to come home to? Okay, I would be heading out on the road right away if I received such news, but that's me.

Well, I ran and got my camera and started videoing it. One fire truck arrives. They scramble. Their air tanks were on as well as the rest of their gear in a flash, had the adapter hooked up to the hydrant in a flash, were already tearing out chunks on the roof - in a flash. Broke out all the windows. Another fire truck, then another, then another, then the fire chief, police, ambulance, all kinds of equipment showed up.

One of those fire trucks parked right in front of my house. They ran a hose all the way down to the end of the street to the next nearest hydrant, the one the first truck was using is across the street. These guys have their stuff down, that's a fact. No messing around, no games, they were all rushing and running around.

Well, the wind was changing directions. Black, thick smoke started to replace the less thick stuff and I got a whiff of it. That's when I realized I had left the sliding glass door open in the excitement of the moment and some of that black nastiness was going directly into my house. Well, I rushed over there, shut the door and stayed inside until that stuff started blowing the other way.

Yes, my house smelled like smoke this morning when I came out of my bedroom, but, it isn't bad. Just open the windows this afternoon and that should air it out.

Back outside and of course the entire neighborhood was out at that point, watching the show. Took those firefighters a while to put that one out. Single-wide, old mobile home. Once they catch on fire, it's over. The fire department could be there in 2 minutes and that house would be done.

One of the tenants comes walking down the street - they wouldn't let her drive to my driveway. I have read that you are not allowed to run over those fire hoses, if you do, it can mess up the pumps in the trucks. So, the police just shut the street down.

I stood out there for quite a while watching all of this when it dawned on me how cold it was. Yes, dumb-dumb, that's because you (me, talking to myself) don't have anything on but shorts and socks in 49 degree temperatures. Oh well.

Of course, that kept me up for a while. I am not going to just try and sleep while a house next to me is on fire. Screw that. I'm making sure my house doesn't go up along with it and if it does, I'm not INSIDE of it, me, the tenants, dogs, etcetera.

This will be a good time to send a message to the tenants: get renter's insurance. If you have anything worth anything, get the insurance because if something like that happened to my house, your personal belongings would NOT be covered.

Well, work day is here, I'm freaking tired - result of being awakened and staying up too long - this may end up being a rather LONG day today.

ben

Wednesday 3/2/2011

Wednesday

Just a quick one here, I got involved - again - in other online activities and now my pre-work time is about gone.

But no biggies. Hump day. Worked out yesterday, 30 minutes on that Stairmaster machine. That was it, too, I was finished after that workout and left, sweating profusely. I had hoped to do some free weights but not in the cards yesterday. 

This roommate of mine is avidly attempting to hook me up. I dunno about all of this, lol, this guy gets around, I'll say that much. He has "too many that I need to deal with". 

Stopgap bill. 2 weeks worth. Are they going to come up with a budget in 2 week's time? I doubt it - there is too much contention and fighting going on over how much to cut/not to cut. They may be dumping these 2 week bills forever, lol.

Now Ohio is under the union spotlight, whose proposed bill would ban worker strikes and punish walkouts. Yes, well if I walk out of my work cause' I'm unhappy about something, I might as well take all my stuff with me, cause' I'm pretty sure they will tell me to keep on walkin' and don't let the door hit you on the backside. 

I find it humorous that these people look at this as a "right".

Well, work day is here - though - our system is void of anything to do, unfortunately :(

Oh well.

G'day.

ben

Tuesday 3/1/2011

Tuesday

I continue to read the news about the standoff in Wisconsin between the governor and the unions. I hope the governor stands his ground and starts a nationwide trend: the gravy train is over. The more I read about the absurd amounts of perks and benefits these people get simply because of "collective bargaining rights" - well, I can only say I'm glad Walker has the intestinal fortitude to, so far, stand up to them.

Nothing much new going on. I came home yesterday from work and took a look at the hummingbird nest. She was in there, keeping those eggs warm. There are 2 tiny eggs in it. She wasn't looking too comfortable with me coming up too close, but, I just wanted to see if she was still tending to those eggs. It seems awfully early in the season for a bird to be nesting eggs? It's still quite cold outside, I thought this stuff occured in spring or even summer. What do I know, lol. It will be very interesting to see if the eggs are hatched and what happens with the hatchlings.

Our store posted the best month in quite a long time in terms of sales for February. I hauled $331,000 worth of materials all over the place on the semi, delivering the stuff to mostly new construction job sites. The only downside to that number is the GP - it wasn't really that high. That's the salesmen's fault - or liability - or whatever you wanna call it. We have nothing to do with how much profit they are going to make off of anything, but 13% isn't really all that great.

Off to the races, I don't feel much like writing this morning for whatever reason.

G'day.

ben

Monday 2/28/2011

Monday

Ummm, got busy this morning looking at all the news online and here we are, 12 minutes from work starting time!

Let's see here: the rebel in Libya are allowing oil exports - that's a good thing considering everyone in the entire world is hiding in closets, mortified of rising oil prices. 

Amazingly, governments are sending in planes, secretly, to get workers out of that country in secret military missions. Kudos.

Ummm, 40,000 pounds of mayonnaise on the highway? Yuck. Seeing stories like that - a truck driver losing control of his truck and resulting mayo-chaos - sorta helps keep me on my toes when driving, especially in this crazy city. I don't want the same fate.

Why would anyone poison trees? Much less 130 year old Oak trees. I don't get the reasoning for people's stupidity these days, but then again, the rash of parents killing their families and then themselves defies logic as well. Times we're in, I guess.

Somali pirates have seized another ship. Well, I just gotta think after this latest deal of theirs - killing innocent civilians - that the stakes will be raised on what extent Navy ships/crews are willing to do in order to extract hostages. 

As for this weekend that is now history? Uhhh, not too bad. I was going to go to my mom's house but rain cancelled that. We decided to do it next weekend. My dad wrote and said he and his current wife are going to move into an assisted living center. I suppose that's a good idea, I guess my dad really can't drive too much anymore and getting around is getting - harder. The place they are looking at has all kinds of amenities. I'm glad they have enough financial resources to be able to afford such a thing. 

That's it. 
Plenty of work in the truck routing system for today, today is the end of the month so they will be pushing to get whatever we can - out and delivered, invoiced and billed.

Have a great day.

ben

Saturday 2/26/2011

Work - the best numbers for a month that I have seen posted in a long time.  Over 300k - not bad for 2 people running an entire store.  The GP isn't terribly great, but, at least the numbers are posted.  Still one business day left in the month and another 10k or so in the truck routing system.  Makes me happy that the numbers are up for once.

The hummingbird nest.  To my great surprise - I just saw the hummingbird IN the nest, sitting in it.  I did not see any eggs - but maybe one has to get a magnifying glass out to see them, lol.  That bird is just sitting in there, even though we are coming very close to it.  Amazing the - guts - those little birds have.  It's very interesting to have such a phenomenon going on on my property.  I would have never noticed that nest or that bird in it.  The bird sits perfectly still and is so small, you really would have to be inspecting a tree very carefully to find either the net or the bird in there. I'm still amazed that bird built a nest that close to the ground.  Apparently it has no fear of cats?  There are plenty of them around here..........

Speaking of cats.  I have had enough.  I let it go for a long time, but they continue to piss and defecate all over my property, destroying several plants in the process.  They are going to disappear.  I am going to buy a new cat trap and get rid of whatever of them that comes onto my property - 2 of them I know of at this point.  No, they aren't going to be killed, I am not willing to take it that far, they are just going to be moved to a location far away from my house.  The problem is the neighbors behind me, who put out food all over both of their properties and feed feral cats.  You simply can't do that and not expect more, and more, and more cats to show up.  I'm just plain tired of them destroying my property, I don't know what else to say about it.

That was Saturday's input, Sunday's below.

Harbor Freight has those traps on sale for $25.  I am thinking of going and getting one today.  It only takes a bit of tuna fish set inside those things, set it out over night and walaah, you have a cat in the morning.  There are 2 particular cats that need to go.  One is a very large, black, feral cat.  It basically lives on my property, getting it's food from the neighbors behind me.  The other is my next door neighbor's cat, of which I have repeatedly asked that he deal with it - keep it off my property.  He doesn't do anything about it and he doesn't care one way or the other.  At this point, neither do I - in seeing the thing disappear.  If I catch it, drop it off 10 miles away and it finds it's way back, I'll just catch it again.

Umm, the day is over.  I would finish this post, but I am tired.  I started this much earlier today - oh well, it happens.

G'nite.

ben

Friday 2/25/2011

Friday

Direct Deposit. It worked - I guess I should say of course it did - but I still have some trepidation about it. Meanwhile, the bank still charged me the $6 monthly service fee. I just sent them a message: please remove that fee or I will discontinue direct deposit (which eliminates the service fee, according to them) and I will close the account, thank you.

It WILL be removed, too, or I WILL close the account. 

Whatever. I found one of my Koi had flipped out of the pond yesterday and onto the dirt. Dead, of course. He was the biggest one, 18 inches long, which made it really kind of sucky. My answer to this: build up dirt around the sides of the pond so that it angles down towards it. If another one jumps out, at least he'll have some kind of chance to flop back in. 

Hummingbird nest. Mark - guy in the trailer - was wondering why one of the hummingbirds continued to buzz around the front of the trailer. He found it yesterday: a miniature nest. Very intricate looking thing, too, I am going to have to snap a shot of it. This is on one of the Sissoo trees. 

What I found amazing about it is this tree is all of 5 or 6 feet tall. The nest is only 5 feet off the ground. I don't quite get why a bird would build a nest that low to the ground. Worse, it's on a dead branch, I hope it holds. There were no eggs in the next and no, we didn't and aren't going to touch it. Just looked in it. I want to see what a hummingbird egg looks like, it must be VERY small, lol. 

The end of the week. Good thing. Got off work late yesterday, did not go to the gym and probably won't today, either, I'll save it for Saturday morning or afternoon and get my 3 in for the week.

Wisconsin. I was amazed that the Democrats actually had the gall to call the Republicans cowards after they did a very hasty vote on the anti-union bill. WHO are the cowards here? Isn't it the representatives that fled the state to avoid a vote on the bill the cowards here? Lol. Now, the other side of the coin - in the Senate - THOSE Democratic senators have fled the state. Yes, THEY are the cowards. They aren't going to change anything by leaving the state, only prolong it and possibly cost the state even more money.

It's like a circus atmosphere, this whole situation going on all over the U.S. in states and federal governments with "showdowns" occuring and people going off the deep end. So your union protections are going to disappear, WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD, thank you.

Well, this morning's pre-work rituals have already disappeared. I feel slighted, lol. I was just getting into all the news going on, too. I find it at least somewhat stimulating to read the news online in the morning.

Anyway, it's done, workday is here, plenty to do, later.

ben

Thursday 2/24/2011

Thursday
I'm not a fan of blind dates, but that's exactly what's going to happen tomorrow. I like to talk to people in email or on the phone - or texting I guess - see a pic of them before I even think about going on a date. Oh well, it should be interesting if nothing else, lol.

I went into a vendor's place of business yesterday to pick up some materials. The man looked at me, asked me why I'm there. Not in a nice way, either. "Are you here for 80 of those lids?". No, not 80 of them, 25 of them, I reply.

LEAVE. GET OUT OF HERE. This was this man's words to me! I have never seen this man before in my life, I did not start trouble with him, I had only been in there less than a minute before his declaration was made. He then went into a litany of how "we" are always sending P.o.'s over to them and then showing up 10 minutes later to pick them up.

Business must be good for that company, is all I can say it, to be telling people to take a hike because we are "showing up too early". 25 plastic lids. I figure it might take 5 minutes max to box them up and have them ready, MIGHT take that long. I called the salesman on the account who took it up with our operations manager who apparently called them to ask what the problem is.

I never really heard what the outcome of it was, I was informed by the Ops manager that they told him it wouldn't be ready for at least 30 minutes and instructed me to leave. Notta problem, I had ALREADY left, no way was I going to stick around there listening to this guy's abuse. This dude actually followed me out the door with his narcissm and vitriol, barking at me as I was getting in to the truck and taking off. I tuned it out and considered the source.

February 24, 2011 5:58 AM 

Anonymous said...

I also am making it a quest to find another distributor of that material. I am told that they are the only one in town. Maybe that's true, but I will be calling the manufacturer to find out if that's fact or fiction, cause that company? Can go jump in a lake. I got back to the main branch and another driver told me he had been exposed to the same thing: told to leave. Lol. The manager downtown had less than kind words: "They're all A$$holes over there".

Okay, well, at least it wasn't just me. That was good to know.

I left a note for the tenants yesterday on the kitchen counter. I'm just not going to put up with some of the stuff going on. Either stop the behavior or go find a house full of slobs to live with, cause' my house ain't workin' out for you. My biggest gripe is the same as it always is: people not wanting to help with cleaning the bathroom. Yesterday's message was far more blunt than anything I have ever left before. Help clean the bathroom, pay $10 to opt out or go find a person's home to live in that doesn't care if you want to live like a pig.

I'm simply not going to have people like that living in my house, period. I make it well known that I expect tenants to clean the bathroom periodically, yesterday's note defined that: once per month and that room would be taken care of if each person did it. If one or all three take offense at it and want to leave, goodbye. Don't let the gate hit your @$$ on the way out.

Issues with tenants, always issues. Some things I can tolerate, some things there is a clear-cut line drawn. Now, I am seeing that the kid tenant is going to be having "financial difficulties". He got a new job, but allegedly isn't going to get paid for almost 3 weeks. It isn't just rent that comes into play with a person in that kind of situation, it usually also is disappearing food and drinks as well.

I get really tired of all of this from time to time.

Whatever.

I am still working out, to change the subject, I have made it 2 days this week, I intend on going to day for a 3rd day and hopefully a weekend day for a 4th. My minimum I have set for myself so far is 3 days per week. I am not going to say that I necessarily like going to gyms with a bunch of egomaniacs with big arms and chests, strutting around acting like they are God's gift to mankind in general, I pretty much ignore them but still. Just leave me alone, don't bother me while I'm working out and it'll all be good. I don't consider the place a social club, I just go in there, work out to the max and get out of there. Yesterday's workout was 40 minutes, 20 of it on that Stairclimbing machine. I hit the free-weights for the other 20 minutes, decided that was enough and left.

I am not going to stress over long workouts or if I go in there, do 30 minutes on the stair machine and decide that's enough for one day. I'm reintroducing myself to the world of gyms, workouts and the discipline of going a minimum number of days per week. I need an MP3 player or something to play my favorite motivation music, that would help immensely. They do crank some workout music in there, though and it's not that stupid stuff that does nothing but annoy and aggravate the olfactory senses more than anything.

Ummm, I guess that's it. I mean, there's more, I just felt like a venting session was in order. This union fight that is now spreading like wildfire all over the country is interesting to say the least.

But, I don't really feel like going into politics, so, with that, I bid you....a....
G'day.

ben

Wednesday 2/24/2011

Wednesday

I was wondering when the fury would start.

AZ is in the works to try and pass another illegal "immigrant" bill that will make the SB1070 bill put out last year look like fluff and roses in comparison.

Boycott Arizona - I'm sure that mantra will start up all over again. The democrats in the state senate are saying the senate leader should focus on the economic condition of our state. 

Yes, I think he is, would be my point. When you have hundreds of thousands or even millions of people using our healthcare system at no cost to them, that would be a GREAT place to start with getting the budget balanced. I particularly like the part of this bill that states that a child is not automatically a US citizen simply because they were born here if their parents are illegal aliens. 

You get rid of that little incentive to come over here and you will get rid of a lot of them attempting to cross the border altogether, imo.

One more thing: It makes it illegal for an illegal alien to drive a vehicle in the state with a 30 day MINIMUM jail sentence and seizure of their vehicle if convicted. Do you know how many of those people are driving around here that do not have car insurance, get into accidents and get off scott free? 

Of course, I'm sure this will all be challenged, but, it needs to be brought to the Supreme court, especially this issue of automatic citizenship if born here. 

Umm, well time is running out here. I'm going crazy trying to figure out all the options on this new phone. And then, when you understand how to do something on it, remembering how it was doing to begin with......

G'day.

ben

Tuesday 2/22/2011

Tuesday

I tipped over to the dark side yesterday.
A thing I never thought I would do.
Or, at least, anytime soon.

I bought a cellphone with a key board.

Well, I have to give it a try. No contracts, just straight up, month to month service with Cricket and the second cheapest phone they had for sale at 40% off. The first cheapest one looked like a piece of junk.

The thing should arrive today - at work no less - I didn't want a cellphone showing up at my house while I'm not there.

I printed out several pages of acronyms that are "commonly" used on cellphones, see how long THAT takes to learn. 

On to other things. I wrote up a 2 page notice to tenants yesterday and realize that, even with all of that, I had left some things out of it.

Such as? Someone is leaving the water running in the bathroom. They use the bathroom sink faucet and then leave the water on. I'll gladly get rid of any tenant I actually catch doing that. 

Just stupid stuff. I assume it's the "kid" tenant, I don't know that for a fact. I also assume he's going to find a new place to live. I am not asking him to leave, but - I am not being quite as amenable as I was before his outburst on the phone. I don't appreciate tenants yelling at me and certainly coming from a 20 something, all the less enjoyable. 

It left a bad taste in my mouth that I can't quite get rid of. It just sort of lingers.

The world. IT's as foul and bad as ever. Iranian ships passing through the Suez canal? A huge earthquake in New Zealand? The battle in Wisconsin. WalMart is tanking - who cares. The analysis is that they changed their format: take away the low prices, bring in things that their core customer doesn't want and - their customers leave for other pastures.

Perhaps that is true. However, my problem with Walmart is the utterly terrible, lousy, crappy - insert many more adjectives here - customer service attitude that they take against their own customers. It has always been that way and as far as I'm concerned, it always will be. That doesn't stop me from going in there and buying dog food. But, I don't go in there NEAR as much as I used to before encountering more than a handful of outrageous incidents of extremely poor treatment from customer service devils in the disguise of humans............

My morning rituals seem to get interrupted frequently. This time? Expected. The uniform guy comes here early since - I am here and he can deal with an account and get one thing under the belt. 

Oh, we are moving to a new building. The building this store is in now? An old piece of junk. Utter garbage. Literally. The new building? Beautiful. Right on the main drag, too - Arizona Avenue in Chandler. The catch? August. It ain't happening until August. Gag. Like, pick one of the hottest months of the year to move an entire store's worth of inventory...........

I'm outta here, work day is here.

ben

Monday 2/21/2011

Monday

I actually wrote almost an entire entry yesterday but never got around to finishing it, much less publishing it.

Oh well. I found my cellphone where I had left it on Friday: in the semi. I figured it was in there but didn't bother to drive all the way over here to get it - I have my home phone as back up.

It rained a long time yesterday, very nice ground-drenching type of rain. I was out there in between rain stop and start looking at my dead Sissoo trees. The leaves are all dead, no green anything.

But wait, something caught my eye. I started to inspect one of the smaller ones much closer. Little, tiny green buds popping out all over the thing!! I rushed around the property, inspecting all of them, large and small: same thing!! Hootin'NannyHoller! They aren't dead!

I don't know which thought was more depressing about the idea that ALL of them were dead: the time it took to acquire them and plant them or the time spent in having them grow, especially the larger ones that are upwards of 15 feet tall now.

Oh, the hummingbirds showed back up. Inexplicably, they disappeared over a week ago and now - here they are again. No clue on that one. I just keep the feeders filled with fresh liquid.

Wisconsin. Fascinating stuff going on there. Republicans are stating that if the dems don't come back, they are just going to start passing other bills that don't need anything but a simple majority present. The weather in Wisconsin - anywhere in Wisconsin - is anything but pleasant. I have been there in the winter, it's usually very cold and a lot of snow everywhere if memory serves me correct.

You will see wedges of cheese walking down the street on their owner's heads........

Again, there must be some way to either force them back or find some ancient law in the books that deals with this kind of problem - or just recall the whole lot of them - them being the democratic senators who have fled the state - and start fresh. And one more thing while we're at it, those teachers BETTER get their hineys back in school tomorrow - I'm assuming today is pretty much a nationwide school free day considering it's President's Day - and start teaching those kids again.

If they don't, they should be fired. Period. They made their statement, now it's time to get back to teaching kids.

And if those "doctors" out there are actually real doctors that were handing out notes/prescriptions/whatever they were to get teachers "legally" out of work, without even checking the person over, they should lose their right to practice medicine anywhere.

I have absolutely no sympathy for any of these people. I don't have "collective bargaining rights". I collect all my brain cells together, think of how I might go about asking for more money and do it. But not NOW, in this economic chaos. I don't have guaranteed rights to raises and I definitely don't have a pension plan that will last forever a day and a half that I barely have to pay anything into like those people do. LET THEM PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE - just like the rest of us are being FORCED to do. Government employees should not be granted an out simply because they work for the government. Why do they get a free pass and people like me get hours cut, but still have to pay into health care and 401k's at MUCH higher rates? If times were good, it might be different. I live in a right to work state, unions don't have much grip here. There are some around, but mostly, you have to push for your own self and get as much money as you can per hour.

This is the 5th stop in a series of moves I made to get to higher pay. I restarted trucking in - 2004 I think it was - got a job paying low, got another job paying more, etc etc etc to the point where I'm at now. I will be happy when I'm making another $5 per hour above what I am currently making. That will bring me up to where I should be in my level of experience. Will I ever get it? I don't know - but I have to do it on my own.

Well, whatever, work day is here. I don't know that there's going to be a lot to do, the construction sites are probably muddy and probably general contractors will shut them down if city inspectors force them to, they don't want that stuff tracked all over the streets everywhere.

G'day.

ben

Friday 2/08/2011

Lol.
Cowards.
Did you see the GOP go into "hiding" when the vote for the health care bill was coming up on the floor?
I didn't know that state police could be sent off after them to "bring them back and force them to vote". That's pretty, except they don't know where these senators are, though one report has them in a hotel in Illinois somewhere. I doubt Wisconsin state police have any jusidiction whatsoever in the state of Illinois.

This is Obama commenting on the situation after basically blasting the governor: "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens," he continued.

He continued - to go jump in a lake. So, because public employees make "enormous contributions to our states and our citizens", they therefore deserve huge pensions that they hardly have to pay ANYTHING into, health care plans that are also on the cheap and salaries that are WELL above the private sector?

This is the kind of thinking that has gotten this nation to the economic point of chaos that it is in. WHAT "enormous" contributions, specifically, are being made? I'll give the police and fire credit for that, the rest of it is bunk. In other words, what THEY do is more important than what any of us working in the private sector does. If that's not what should be read into that statement, then please enlighten me: illucidate the underlying message in those words, because that's the only thing I get out of it.

So what teachers have a huge job, so does everyone else. It is not sustainable. These are the operative words. The private sector has ALREADY gotten the shaft in this economic climate, why should public employees be able to slide? They sit there, smug, raising hell at the Wisconsin capitol, demanding their rights - for what? Inflated wages, almost-free pensions and for paying WELL under what I have to pay to ensure that I have health care coverage.

I must have missed something here. Let me look it over. No, I haven't missed anything. My city's government is doing the SAME damned thing, but, there is one councilman who is speaking out about it. The average employee in the city of Phoenix, with benefits and salary/wages, earns $100,000 per YEAR. The figures included everyone from maintenance workers to garbage truck operators to city clerks to - everything. Our city's council, besides that one person, doesn't want to lose all of that, they want to continue to raise taxes.

Lopsided is an understatement when comparing a janitor's wages working for a corporation and a janitor working for the government's wages. Or any other job. It's preposterous, ridiculous and a slap in the face of Americans to think that they can just ride these storms out receiving no cut in hours, no decrease in pay, nothing. In their little world, there IS no recession. 

I'm done with that for now. It's Friday morning and I don't really want to ruin my day with thoughts about the government jobs sector and the ridiculous amounts of money people are making. Or the unions that demand collective bargaining rights. On and on.

However, those senators should all lose their jobs. Hiding. This is a juvenile activity that occurs on playgrounds while playing a game called Hide and Seek: it should NOT be the actions of grown, adult men and women who don't agree with a bill going through their state's senate, so instead of voting on it, they are going to go hide. I do hope the media blasts THEM as harshly as it would if it were Republican senators doing the SAME thing.

NO, that isn't going to happen on the same scale, is it? I'm sure they all feel it is somehow justified. Yet, they were elected to represent the people. The people in that state apparently have spoken. The governor has most definitely spoken: either take this deal or I am going to have to cut 6,000 jobs. But, union employees have this sense of entitlement. They somehow deserve more and more and more and if they can't get it, then who cares, let people lose their jobs.

Changing gears, there is, again, a lot of work today in the truck routing system. If it can all be done in one day, it will certainly be a LONG day in getting it done. Not that I mind that, that will get me some extra hours on my next paycheck, a thing I haven't seen in many, many months. In fact, if I don't get off early today, I'll have almost 6 hours worth of extra PLUS whatever hours I might go over today.

Our store's numbers quantify the hours as well. We're WELL beyond our store's budget for this month and it's only the 18th. Including today, there are 7 more business days in this month. I AM hoping, really, that I can get these hours and then some. The work today in our system pretty much details that that IS going to happen.

I worked out yesterday, btw. I lasted 15 minutes on that Stairmaster. My legs felt like there were on fire. It reminded me of my days in Junior High school, as I think I already said in another entry, when I was doing cross country running. We would run as hard as we could for as long as we could. After a while, your legs felt like lead weights.

I got off of that thing and hit the weights. 25 minutes of that and I felt good about that particular visit and left. I have a minimum goal of at least 3 days per week. So, if I feel too tired today, I will definitely go tomorrow and that will be day 3. I would have gone more, but I have been working much longer days at work than normal and it's drained me. I am tired, that's for sure.

Anyway, work day is here and I'm......outta here!

ben

Thursday 2/17/2011

Thursday

I left work yesterday thinking today would be a lighter load on the plate of things needed to get done.
Au contraire. 
Well whatever. I'm just tired. Work this week has been unbelievable in terms of the amount of work having to be put out by 2 people. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I am saying that a little more help over here wouldn't hurt anything during the rush times. 

So, I'm reading the news this morning and seeing Iran wanting to pass through the Suez canal with 2 warships.........and that those plans had been cancelled, presumably because Israel has "threatened action". Indeed. Iran's antics are laughable. What, are they going to start "patrolling" international waters on a global basis? ROFL!!

Back to AZ. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is not the only outspoken sheriff in AZ. Paul Babeau has basically started a very contentious riff with - the federal government, really - in contradicting Napolitano's claims that the border is "more secure than it has ever been". 

"You have done the very thing they accuse me of doing. I do not represent you, or the citizens of your community, yet I do represent the nearly 400,000 citizens of my county and the viewpoint of the solid majority of Arizonans, who laugh at Secretary Napolitano's suggestion that our border is more secure than ever."

I love it. Just love it. This is the wild, wild west, folks and the attitudes are just a part of it. People carrying concealed weapons all over the place are another part of it. Frankly, after reading Babeau's efforts to slow down the stream of drugs/marijuana coming through "his" county not to mention illegal aliens, I applaud his efforts and I am glad there is a down-to-earth point man telling it like it is, whether it contradicts the big wigs in Washington or not. The funny part is, Washington cannot shut him up, not only that, but his statements are pretty much being re-broadcast nationwide.

Come to Arizona and visit the sheriff's of lore, lol. 

Ummm, benb coming back down to earth. You see, when I see all this stuff in the news in the morning, it wakes me right up. How about the governors of 3 states rejecting federal money to build high speed rail? They do have reason behind their decision: they feel that once it's built, the ridership projections given by the feds is going to be MUCH lower and that it will end up costing the states in subsidies - forever, basically.

I like it because Obama and his so-called budget to spend trillions of dollars is being snubbed back into his face. 

Oh, I'm glad I just remembered: more notices. Yes, some of my tenants are behaving badly and they need written correction, apparently, to put a stop to it. Just for one example, I came out this morning into the kitchen area to find 4 lights on. 4 of them. No-one out there, mind you, but 4 lights on.

Umm, this one is over, a customer just walked in (before opening time).

g'day.

ben

Wednesday 2/16/2011

Wednesday:

So, I get here at 5:30 am today. Here being work. 2 minutes later a salesman walks in. 5 minutes later a customer comes in wanting materials. 
I think I should remember to lock the front door before opening time from now on, I don't necessary like my pre-work rituals being ....ummm.....trifled with. 

I know, that doesn't sound right, but I'm a bit tired. Yesterday started at 6:00am and ended at 4:00pm. Yes, another long day. I slept well, I am just not used to 10 hours bust-@$$ days right now. I wouldn't mind getting back into that groove - and getting paid for it, mind you, but since my hours were cut back almost 2 years ago, I usually only work 7 and a half hours and that's it.

Well, whatever. I was going to go into some things but, the work day is already here.

G'day.

ben

Tuesday 2/15/2011

Tuesday

Oops, forgot to move Monday's entry to it's own spot yesterday.
I got home late. I mean, at 1:00 pm, I still had another delivery to do - in Coolidge, AZ. About 45 miles from where I was at and then back to Chandler. 

In other words, I got off way late and got home late, no time for the gym. In fact, no time for much of anything. 

I was able, however, to sell ALL of our company's drip irrigation tubing. About 24,000 feet of it to one buyer. I have been slowly selling that material off for some time now, but to get rid of all of that tubing is a big plus. My motivation is that when I get rid of all of it, I get a "spiff" - ie: money/percentage. 

Thank goodness I have plenty of that tubing left from my home project : ) Just cause, if something breaks, I don't want to have to pay Home Depot prices for it. I bought an extra 500 foot roll of it a while back. Company management should at least be slightly happy to have all of that tubing - that has been sitting around for 2 years now - sold and gone.

Which reminds me, I have to take that ad down and start up another one. Selling the tubing was a matter of changing my ad, especially the title. Instead of putting Drip Irrigation Supplies as the title, I had put 24,000' Drip Irrigation Tubing and that generated QUITE a lot of interest.

Well, work day is almost here and - there is MORE work in there than there was yesterday. I hope I can find the energy to get to the gym for at least the 30 minute workout after I get done with all of this today.

G'day.

ben

Monday 2/14/2011

Monday

I do like to be busy at work, but what I found in the truck routing system today? Not enough hours in this day to do all of that! 

2 pickups in Phoenix, deliveries spread out all over the east valley, orders haven't been pulled yet. That's a day's plus work. 

3.7 trillion dollar budget. That's 3,700,000,000,000 - if you want to look at the actual number instead of it's name. Is this anything even close to being realistic? I wonder how much of that is going towards payments and interest to China. This is Obama's budget proposal. I thought it was bad when we broke ONE trillion dollars. I dunno, I guess the government wants us to start thinking that billions of dollars is mere chump change and an "evolving" society needs to embrace this word: trillion in context to the word money and think that it's an acceptable thing to waste that kind of money on junk. I consider much of it waste and certainly not anything even remotely close to the spectrum that the Federal government was originally conceived to fill. 

Meanwhile, the other day I was reading about a new method scientists have come up with for drilling oil and that this new method is allow access to a lot of underground oil in the states - land versus attempting to do it in the ocean. They're talking a lot of oil, btw. I thought that a glimmer of good news, especially considering rising gas prices right now. Not that it's going to make any immediate difference.

Well, whatever. 

Work day is here.

I'm sorta out of it this morning, didn't sleep all that well last night, some good ole' fashioned hard labor should help wake me up. 

G'day.

ben

Sunday

So, I worked out yesterday and the day before.  I am going to give it a pass today and then try to hit the gym at least 4 times after work this coming week.  I'm only doing a half hour so far - though it is a very intense half hour of doing the stairmaster machine - it isn't creating some sort of stigma in my head that "gee, I have to spend 2 hours there".  I'm eyeing the free-weights, but Bobby was correct in his statement that at our age, the focus should really be on cardio.  That's not to say that I might not go over after the 30 minute deal and do some bench pressed, flies and tricep curls on one day this week and then maybe biceps, lats and abs another day, just want to focus on the cardio/fat burning stuff.

Amazing how the feeling of lethargy disappears once you get your heart pumping and get the blood flowing.  I am psyched already at the difference I am already feeling after just 2 workouts, great motivation to keep it going.

I cheated today on my diet.  I don't do that often, but when I do, well, might as well go for the gusto.  2 Jumbo Jacks.  600 calories each, 315 calories from fat.  Lol.  However, I had mine made without mayo, that reduces the fact content quite a lot.  If I were doing that weekly or more often, then I would feel guilty.  Monthly or less?? No biggies.  Oh, and 940 mgs of sodium.  I am definitely looking at sodium content of everything nowadays.  I will eat a salad later on and that will be it for the day.

Next month: Dairy Queen German Chocolate Blizzard, the largest one they make : )  Get a nice sugar high, crash from it, wonder why I ate something that makes me feel so BAD after the crash and then not have another one of those for at least 6 months.

Tenant issues seem to be tempering down a bit.  I don't really want to go into all of that on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, so I won't.

Welcome to the world of texting.  No, I do not text.  I haven't wanted to text, I don't care anything about texting.  Pick up the phone and CALL me if you want to talk to me.  My distaste for texting is greatly amplified with the idiots that drive down the freeways paying more attention, literally, to their phone and messages/ing than the road.  If they gave texting the same weight of law and consequences as a DUI, which I believe they should, perhaps some of the mayhem on the roads would subside.

I thought talking on cell phones while driving was bad, texting is FAR worse.  Anyway, it seems that the ladies nowadays want to text.  You wanna get a date, it appears your opportunities significantly increase if you have texting capabilities.  When it comes to cell phones and services, I am a big fan of Cricket.  Unlimited access at a pretty decent price.

I haven't quite jumped over the fence to get to the texting pastures, but I am considering it.

Well, it has been a pleasant weekend.  There was quite a lot of work in the truck routing system for Monday last time I looked - which I can only do at work through the company's system, Monday will be busy.  After work, I intend on a 30 minute workout.  I might up it to 35 minutes for the fun of it.

Football season is over, so, back to enjoying the great outdoors in this kind of unbelievably great weather.

ben