Thursday 3/10/2011

Thursday

5 hours over for this week. I am guessing I will be getting off early today and tomorrow unless, of course, business picks up yet again and I am running around all day long.

Umm, well whatever. Anyway, I find this situation in Wisconsin to be quite entertaining. Walker starts backing down, appears to be willing to talk concessions to get the Democratic lawmakers back to the table.

The next thing you know, there are headlines all over the place about the Senate passing the bill without any democratic senators present. Of course, the opposition to this bill is yelling "cowards" and other such loveliness. I'd have to say that in that kind of political landscape, the term coward hardly comes to mind as a descriptor of the action those senators took or the position that Walker is in.

If anyone is the cowards, it's the democratic senators that fled the state. They had made statements that they were willing to "stay here for 2 years, if necessary", in other words, until the next election, I presume. How does fleeing correct anything? If the people of the state of Wisconsin hate what Walker and the republicans have done enough, then a majority of them can vote them out in the next election and that will be that. If they REALLY think they have enough votes and energy, they can start a recall drive.

I have read that Walker never said anything about stripping unions of collecting bargaining rights during the election, but I heard elsewhere that he did. I dunno. Just a circus, but at least amusing and engaging, lol.

The ops manager is coming over here this morning and then over to Phoenix afterward. I'm rather curious as to whether this has anything to do with what occured with that inside salesman yesterday. Neither of us have made any complaints to management about it, it would have had to have been that salesman saying something - and knowing this guy saying it in a rather tainted light - to management to get any kind of real trouble started.

I can only say that, after having had worked for several "institutions" in my life where management and/or co-workers thought it perfectly acceptable to yell at, demean, berate, belitte and otherwise humiliate other workers, I will not tolerate it and I WILL dish it right back, regardless of the consequences. It's my past that haunts me when it comes to things like that. If a company doesn't like a particular worker, instead of playing mind games with that person and using fear tactics and anger junk, just let that person go.

I don't WANT to lose my job, that's a fact - and frankly, this company I am working for has several policies against abuse of workers.

I might go into that later, work day is here and I must be offa here.

Later.

ben

March 10, 2011 6:11 AM 

Junk At Work

Sooooo, I take the little truck up to the mountains.  I get there, it's on an Indian reservation - San Carlos to be precise and the name of the town is also San Carlos.  I meet up with the contractor, we unload the truck by hand.  We check every single item on all 3 orders.  That means going through each order, line by line and making sure it's there.  I'm there over an hour.

Nice drive, but that's not what I'm writing about here.

I go to our main branch in downtown Phoenix to give them back their truck and get our semi back.  Pretty much get everything done quickly and get out of there - I am 5 hours over for the week already.  On my way back, I stop at a vendor to pick up some small gas fittings.  That's when I get a phone call.  It's my manager.  He's asking about whether I left any pipe lube at the job site.  No, I reply - he knows full well - at least by guessing, that I haven't done any such thing.

It was a small quantity of pipe.  We have extremely limited amounts of free pipe lube that is given to us by the manufacturers.  They used to give us liberal quantities, but in the current economy, they tightened the belts on that stuff and do not give enough to cover a truckload.  They say it's enough, but go talk to any contractor; foreman or construction worker and you will hear a different story.

Regardless, on any amount of pipe sold that does not amount to  a full lift of pipe,  I do not give out the free stuff unless it is requested.  It has been this way for quite a long time now.  It is nothing new.  Jobsite foremen know this, they usually keep lube in their work vehicles to make sure they don't encounter a problem.  The salesmen all know this as well.  They have been informed - over and over - that we do not have a lot of the free lube and we will not be giving it out on small quantities of pipe. In other words, sell them the pay stuff, we have plenty of it, it doesn't cost that much, there are no options unless we are just going to give them the pay stuff and write it off.

Well, back to the story, the inside salesman had gone off on him - and me - over the phone.  His words for me were this: "What kind of f****** idiot would take a load of pipe all the way up to the mountains and not leave lube?"  My manager called me after that phone call and warned me that this guy was going to call me and go off on me.  No, I did not leave a quart of lube.  It was clearly not on the tickets that we went over painstakingly well, it was not noted to leave a free quart and the tickets themselves did not have any as a line item on them.  I have operated this way for quite a long time now.  It's nothing new.

If they run out of lube and it's an emergency, they can go buy grease, vaseline, all kinds of stuff to put on those gaskets to cause the pipe to glide into the bells of the pipe they are fitting it into.  This is NOT an emergency.  Just throwing that in there.

I waited for this phone call, I was ready to ram his s*** right back down his throat.  I don't call HIM when he makes mistakes - which are not far or few between.   Case in point:  He puts into our truck routing system a P.O. to be picked up at a vendor - in west Phoenix.  I drive all the way over there to find out it has already been picked up.  I get back to the main branch where this guy works and tell him that the order has been picked up already, but it's not here.  Meaning, it's not at the main branch either, what's going on?  Turns out HE sent the contractor to go pick up the stuff - not bothering to take it out of our TRI or let us know that it has been taken care of.  40 miles each way, in a semi truck, he doesn't even apologize.

That is one out of HUNDREDS of examples on an almost-daily basis.  Do I call him up and rip him a new one?  No, but if anyone had the right to be calling someone else an idiot.............

I get back to my branch.  I write this guy an email - he isn't going to go around calling people idiots without being confronted, at least not with me.  I wrote out a 7 point email that encapsules when and when we do not give out the free lube.  I then address him on the "idiot" statement.

He writes back and says I need to "tone it down a notch" without acknowledging anything I have stated.

I write him back and inform him he is the one that had a friggin' cow about a quart of lube, not me, perhaps he should tone it down several notches.

He writes back - tells me he talked to my manager, talk to him about it, that he never called me an idiot.  In other words, he is blowing me off, treating me like a dumb@$$ and not worth his time.

Hey, I can play this game.  I write him back.  Thank you for reading the reasons of when we do and when we don't give out free lube and the reasons why.  It would be prudent for you, from this point forth, to make sure that the contractor has plenty of it on hand and offer to add it to the ticket.  As for the statement you made (I inserted the same quotation here - about him calling me an f'ing idiot),  I believe your statement most certainly DOES quantify calling me an idiot.  I accept your apology and we can move on from here.

He write back, "Okay, Buddy".

I might have let this go a bit easier, but this guy has started more trouble with me than I care to go into here.  I didn't go anywhere NEAR where I wanted to go with it, that might have gotten me into trouble.

Anyway, there are always people that are difficult to get along with at work.  I try to be amenable to everyone - but this guy I've had enough of.  His uncle?  Is the general manager.  That's not enough for me to stand by and be a doormat for some infantile's rantings because he, this salesman, is on an ego trip and mouths off, foul language and all, with extremely inciteful language, with seeming impunity, apparently because his uncle IS the general manager.  Well, I have never heard his uncle talking that way about or to anyone.

Regardless, let the chips fall where they may.  I will not allow myself to be verbally abused in the workplace, period.

I worked out after work, only got 5 hours of sleep last night - I am exhausted.  It's 7:15 pm, in about 45 minutes?

Off to bed.

ben

Wednesday 3/9/2011

Wednesday

I am speechless. I mean, what do you say about something like that? How does a person live for almost 3 decades and learn absolutely nothing about life?

I am referring to the 27 year old tenant. I came home yesterday to have my ears filled with a tale of his - inability to deal with even the simplest problems in life.

The story with him stuffing too much toilet paper into the toilet bowl, flushing the toilet and the toilet over-flowing onto the floor. Now, if the story stopped there, it wouldn't really be an issue, it happens. I mean, it should become obvious that if the entire bowl is filled up with toilet paper, you probably should have flushed the thing before it got to that point.

It doesn't stop there. He continues to flush the toilet. He does nothing to unplug the toilet. I have a conveniently placed plunger that sits behind the toilet and to the right of it. This guy didn't understand that flushing the toilet was why it continued to overflow onto the floor. So, to get it to stop overflowing, what did he do?

Takes the top off the tank. Reaches down into the tank, takes off the flapper/stopper. A simple problem turned into a mini-nightmare, now the toilet isn't GOING to stop overflowing since the valve inside the tank is hissing away, dumping water into the tank which is dumping water, unabated, into the bowl since the flapper has been removed.

He has NO clue what to do here. He ends up having to go outside, get Mark and ask him what to do. Mark is like, wow. Uhhh, dude, you don't take off the flapper to get the water to stop flowing. You don't have to do ANYTHING. Stop flushing the toilet, stop everything. Get the plunger, plunge the toilet.

March 9, 2011 5:56 AM 

Anonymous said...

He is attempting to explain what to do here, versus what not to do. I'm sure my jaw is about on the floor at this point, listening to this story being retold yesterday afternoon, in complete awe of a person that has learned absolutely NOTHING in life in terms of how to do every day tasks, how to cook, shut off lights, this that and the other thing.

Mark puts the toilet back together, basically. The floor is a lake. Now, this kid actually has to ask: How do I get the water up off of the floor? Apparently the word MOP is not in his vocabulary.

I was amazed. You see, I had NO clue what I was getting into when I let this guy move into my house, renting out a room. He asked the other day about how to microwave a Cup O' Noodles. Do you put water in it?

Well, while the other tenants were relaying this story, a truck with food boxes shows up. They actually will bring them to your house. I didn't order them, the trailer tenants and this kid did. At the kid's expense, albeit he wasn't there, someone was foraging through the box with all the food in it, wondering HOW he will ever use any of it, since he hasn't got any idea how to cook.

The things this kid doesn't even know I had learned at the age of 5. I just don't have any idea how parents can be that bad, really is what this boils down to. If you have kids that are in their 20's and they don't know how to make Ramen noodles, I can tell you that, probably, you haven't really done a very good job raising them, training them and getting them ready for adult life. Notwithstanding the fact that by the time you are this kid's age, you are WELL into adulthood. At least by age, if nothing else. The trailer tenants have much more patience than I do, especially Lynnette and they are sort of helping him learn some of this stuff. I have thrown my two cents in here and there as the situation comes up.

Such as running the dishwasher half full. In my house, that thing better be crammed full of dishes, silverware and glasses before anyone even thinks of turning it on. It has become the property of me, and me alone. Not to empty, I threw in there, but to turn it on.

Ummm, well whatever. I have a nice trip up into the mountains today, haven't had one of those runs in quite a while.

And, the work day approaches and I have hardly even delved into the news, so........

........outta here.

Good day.

ben

Tuesday 3/8/2011

Tuesday

Wow. That's all I can say about that. Some "dude" is getting out of prison - the guy killed and allegedly ate a 5 year old boy - a long time ago. The boy's father has proclaimed right to the press that if that man does, indeed, get out of prison and if he can find him, he is going to "murder" him. 

After reading the accounting of his son's death, I can't say that I blame the man. 

My son, changing the subject, has been asked to work at some sort of youth camp up in the White Mountains for the summer. I'm not sure all the details about this, yet, excepting that he is having a hard time deciding what to do: stay at his current job or quit and go for the experience. Well, I say nothing. From my point of view, that is, let him make up his own mind. His mother appears to be trying to make up his mind for him, which also means she bears partial blame for consequences ill if such occur. Not that I wish or foresee anything bad happening out of it, but, my boy is going to be 18 in May, a legal adult. I am backing off - he is going to have to make a LOT of decisions in life, coming soon, too, he should have the latitude to make those decisions, learn from whatever mistakes and move on. 

He will be in charge of - other kids, I guess. I mean, kids he knows from High School. He is already in such position as a commander in the JROTC. I am definitely optimistic about his career, life in general and the direction it is leading. He doesn't do drugs, he doesn't drink and he has no desire to start. At least for now. I have no idea what's going to happen in the future, the rest is in God's hands and that is where I leave it. 

However, I WILL be getting my car back. Lol. I have been driving the old thing for some time now - fortunately the break downs seem to have stopped. But, since he has been driving my newer car all this time, I have decided to let him finish out high school with it, after that, he can either have the old Buick or - he can go buy his own car, I guess. He doesn't really have the money to go buy his own car.

The problem with this old one is that the paint is badly faded, it is pretty much an eyesore. I am done, for now, spending money on it. 

Well, I am getting offa this one. I have some other news I would like to read before the work day starts.

ben

Monday 3/7/2011

Monday

So, I'm going around a sharpish curve, a transition from one freeway to another this morning and the car dies. My instant thought: here comes Monday. After getting through the curve, the car comes back on. I instantly knew what was going on: the car is almost out of fuel. Well that's a FAR cry better than having the stupid thing break down again. I don't know why I do it, procrastination I guess, but I always wait until the tank is almost bone dry before filling it back up again.

Fortunately, I made it to work without any problems. 

"In its February report, the World Bank noted “sharp increases” in the global prices of wheat, maize, sugar, and edible oils over the last six months, with an accompanying rise, albeit smaller, in the price of rice"

Now, I have heard a couple of the more or less popular - depending on what side of the aisle you stride in politics - talk show hosts predicting that the prices of food were going to go up, and up, and up, and that eventually, there will be worldwide food shortage. 

I didn't know whether to believe these people or not. I have enmassed a small amount of food, enough to last about 2 months. That's not eating a lot, but, it's surviving. I am stocking up my new freezer with chicken. I intend on buying another 20 pounds of it on the way home from work today, Basha's has boneless, skinless chicken breast on sale. 

Shall I panic and go out and start stuffing my pantry with all kinds of canned and dried foods? No, I am not going to panic, but, just in case these folks are correct? I am definitely going to get more. A few other things I want to add to the mix as well, but I won't go there. It's just me being me. I started eating through some of the food I started putting away last year just so the expiration dates weren't going to get too carried away. 

A crisis doesn't necessarily have to even mean a shortage of food, but, rather, the cost of food going up so high that it becomes unaffordable. 

Well, whatever. I intend on getting 100 pounds of chicken into that freezer and then some other meats as well, as much as I can stuff in there. 

I read this morning an email from our company announcing the hiring of some new folks to work in another region, yet still under the management here. I have wondered for some time now, while they are hiring new people, why they aren't reinstating full hours. I mean, I'm not talking overtime, I'm just talking 40 hours a week. They have hired a few people, here and there. I don't get it. 35 hours per week for hourly associates yet they are hiring new people.....I'm not trying to criticize my company, I am trying to get a handle on this hour situation. Corporate put out a survey last week, asking associates to input whatever questions they might have of upper management as they prepare to put out their yearly video. It is a video they do to give us the state of the company, the direction it is going in and where they want it to be at the end of the fiscal year. Yes, I put in my question: When, do you think, hourly associates will get their full hours reinstated? 

I HAD to ask and I hope they answer the question, regardless of whether it's what I want to hear or not, I would like to see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel, cause Mrs. Jones, it's all dark in there right now. I've been holding out because I like the company I am working for versus simply going out and finding a new job. In the trucking industry, finding management that treats you well isn't exactly a prevalent condition. 

So, I decided at the beginning of this year to stick it out another 6 months at least and then revisit the issue. If management would give us some kind of clue when, if ever, that would certainly help me. 

Anyway, work day is almost here and I'm offa this thing.

G'day.

ben

Sunday

I put yet another ad on Craigslist to give away some of my fish.  My ponds have had far too many fish in them for quite a while now.  The filtering systems get saturated quickly and I find I have to clean them out and replace filtering media in them more often than I would like.

Well, a guy finally came over today and took 8 large goldfish off of my hands.  I could probably let go of another 8 or 10, but we were having difficulty catching them out of the larger pond.  I need a much larger, larger-gapped net to catch them.  We just took them out of the pond that is above ground and thinned that out quite a lot.  It's probably good at the number of fish it's at right now.

I also was able to thin my plants back considerably in breaking off plant and root systems from the main plant and giving them to him to replant.  One of the Umbrella plants had grown FAR too large for even the large pot I had it in.  I took that thing down by half, it looks MUCH better now.  I also gave him a sampling of the other plants, just break pieces of them off an replant them.  The great thing about these water plants is that you really don't have to have a green thumb.  Pluck them in whatever kind of container you can find, put some dirt in it and cover with rocks, stick it in the pond, you're done.

He didn't have a clue what he was doing, I was able to help him out quite a lot in the information department. I was in the same boat some, what, 8, 10 months ago?  Less?  When I started out on this little pond venture and didn't have a clue and also wasn't getting very good, complete information.  I think I am going to write an entry up about ponds/ponding again so that Googlers can find it and perhaps glean a bit of help from my experiences.

Time to call an AC person out to clean the coil.  It is dirty and that reduces the efficiency of the AC system.  The time is now to do it while the prices are low - waiting until summer?  Pay double.

So, I was talking to my neighbor over the wall - he is working on his burnt property, salvaging whatever is salvagable (not much, either).  I forgot that I was next to the tree that has the hummingbird, next and 2 eggs in  it, grabbed the tree to balance myself and - it flew off.  I could have hit myself for doing something so absent-minded.  I immediately moved off and watched her.  She flew to the next tree and perched on the top of it - about 15 feet off the ground.  She sat there for about 5 minutes, then did her helicopter hovering trick and slowly descended back down to the nest.  Relief.

Some neighborhood kids occasionally come over and walk the dogs.  They think it a prestigious thing, I guess, to walk dogs that are the size of miniature horses.  Well, the neighbors behind me got yet another notice from the city of Phoenix: clean up the property or get slapped with a $2,500.00 fine.  About TIME, frankly, though I had nothing to do with it.  They don't come out unless someone complains, I didn't do the complaining.

Well, the kids came in the house to get the leashes.  One of them pulls out a can of tomato sauce and some cheese and asks if I have any chips.  He proceeds to dump the can of sauce over the chips, cheese on top of that, sits down and starts eating it.  Not exactly appealing to me, I declined when offered.  I do like tomato sauce, even plain - just a taste I acquired as a kid and never really let go of along with eating raw hamburger meat - but that did NOT look good at all.  I dunno.  He gets done with that, we walk out back and there is this man, looking over my back fence, giving one of the kids a rather stern warning.

This kid's dad, hired by the neighbor whose property has looking like a landfill since the time I moved into this neighborhood.  He was cool, though, that dad that is.  I decided to get into whatever conversation with the man - I'm always curious as to the parenthood of kids in this neighborhood considering some of the stuff that goes on.  He wasn't letting go of any information.  Nice enough person, just couldn't get anywhere with it.

Oh, last night!! ROCK ON, baby!  I went to the first concert I have been to since I was a teenager in high school.  A roomie scored some tickets to a small venue where a band was going to be playing, his GF apparently wagged out on him at the last minute, asked if I wanted to go.  I really debated that one in my head.  WHAT kind of place is this going to be and what kind of people were going to be there?  But, it was something different to do, the worst that could happen is that I would hate it and never go to anything like it again.  Actually, the worst that could happen is someone would start crap with me and .......... then what?  I won't just stand there if someone is hauling back to hit me, I can assure you of that.

I decided to go and NOT expect some s*** would happen.  When we go there, it was EXACTLY what my mind envisioned it to be, a hell-hole type of place with ALL kinds of strange people talking all kinds of junk walking all over the place.  I found a "place" to stand until the concert started.  This place was the size of a Denny's or something. Not very big.  Maybe 15 chairs in the whole place, the rest - stand up.

However, I am not ashamed to say that I still love rock.  And the band that started was awesome - they played the songs I grew up with and knew the words to.  I was right up there at the front, ignoring the sexual innuendo, sexual overtones and the obvious fact that this was more of a place to hook up for a one-night stand than anything else.  The band - I don't even remember the name of it - was excellent.  Good music, great performance.  Of course, it WAS interesting to have young ladies up there rubbing more than just elbows.  I'm not saying anything sexual, but they weren't being bashful.  I guess I can say that in my 47 years of living, I have figured out how to go with the flow - without giving in.  No, I didn't give in, even with several "requests", if you want to call them that.

I had completely forgotten the experience it is to be at a live concert.  Regardless of their appearance, these are professional musicians.  If they get anywhere with it, they pay the price to get there, and I am not referring to drugs and sex, I am referring to exhaustingly long, arduous hours of practicing the same thing, over and over and over, getting the music down to the point they don't even have to think about it.  They put an act together to make it entertaining.  I don't believe it is an "easy" life, I believe it is probably no different in some respects than me going to work every morning, Monday through Friday, clocking in and clocking out, giving my heart to whatever it is that I am engaging myself with.

It was a good show.  The second band was okay, not great but not bad.  I would have been happy to leave after the first band was done, but, my roomie wanted to stay so, we stayed.  No biggies excepting I am not normally used to getting home at 2:00 am.  The only other thing I do in that department - and rarely at this point - is going to the casino.  Which is going on quite a while since my last visit, a prosperous one at that.  I'm sure the bug will bite soon enough and I will be writing an entry about the latest visit I might have made.

As for today, it is over.  Productive day, too. I got quite a lot done outside.  I had no plans, whatsoever, this morning in doing anything because I went to bed late and got up around 9:00am, not feeling very good.  Around noon, though, I was feeling better, the weather is gorgeous and isn't going to stay that way forever, I took advantage of it.  I'm a creature of habit - I like to go to bed around the same time, every night whether I have to work in the morning or not, and I like to get up at the same time in the morning, again, whether I'm getting up for work or not.

Anyway, that's enough for one entry.  There is plenty going on in the news - but - I don't care to go into my views on that right now. I'm sure tomorrow morning that will change : )

G'nite.

ben

Friday 3/4/2011

Friday

Got home from work yesterday, got out of the car and...........smelled the smell of burnt wood. That such of wood that has burned and is wet. Walked into my side yard - same smell. 

The house also still smelled. I opened the windows on the other side of the house, by this morning that smell was gone, thankfully, but not outside. I don't know if, when it dries out, it will stop smelling so much. I do remember that the day after my house burned down, the wonderful City of Phoenix had already slapped a notice on the house. Fix or demolish. 

He - my neighbor - had JUST gotten home before I got home from work. He was not in a good way. It was sad to watch him break down in tears. I have no idea what kind of settlement the insurance company gave him, they also showed up shortly thereafter.

I don't have much more time this morning - I did not get a late start getting out of bed but, I must have stayed in the shower too long this morning. Plus, when I came out to get on my computer at the house, the "kid" tenant was on the old computer. I announced quite forcefully that he needed to vacate the area immediately as I only have a few minutes in the morning to check things online and then get to work. He said something, to which I stated "I only have a few minutes". He got off. 

I dunno where this kid's mind is at sometimes, especially when using someone else's computer. It is not a part of the rental agreement. He has not been pushing it at all, lately, after we went a spate of rounds of head-butting. My house, my rules, my computer. Not sorry. But, to have to deal with that kind of thing first thing in the morning? 

Well, it isn't going to ruin my day by any stretch of the imagination.

However, time is up.

With that, I bid you....
g'day.

ben

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