Apparently Blogger magically decided to come back up. I mean, did anyone else have this trouble? I didn't search the internet to find out if it was a system wide failure, no clue. This is what I hate about these sites. You can lose everything you have posted in the blink of an eye. JS - all of us former users of that site know that all too well.
I don't know if anything is lost, I guess I don't care that much anymore. If it is, it is.
Today. Driving all over the place in the semi. Down south, up in the mountains. I was already 4 and something minutes over my hours starting today, I didn't lose much in getting off a bit early. That's cause' though I got off early by an hour, I didn't take a break and now? The computer asks you if you took a break or not. No, in fact, I did not. I was working from the time I got to work til' the time I left.
Nice drive in the mountains, even if I wasn't feeling well.
That's the next thing. My neck has been sore for about a week and a half now. That's how I am describing it - soreness. Hard to move my head around. Hard to swallow. Lots and lots of mucous being produced. Today - was much worse than any day before, which is why I decided to go to an urgent care place and have myself checked out.
The first place I went to? The woman behind the counter was cold, calculated and acted as if the customer were an imposition. Not that she was busy - there wasn't anyone else there. There was a sign that had a legal notice: if there isn't a doctor in, this sign must be posted, yada yada yada. The person doing the work is a "physician's assistant". This, I find out, after filling out 4 pages worth of paperwork.
Guess what? I'm not interested. I have gone to several of these places in the past that don't have doctors attending and I have not gotten any kind of diagnosis. I waste my time, energy and money going in there. They aren't giving you your $50 co-pay back if they can't figure out what's wrong. I asked the lady about the assistant status: what does THAT mean? She brushed it off and didn't even answer my question. I asked her again: I want to know what qualifications this person has - or more importantly - does NOT have since it isn't a real doctor? I am not paying anything less, I want to know.
She refused to answer the question. She wanted my co-pay. I asked her if I would get my money back if this person couldn't figure out what was wrong? She went into a two-step - pretty good one too for anyone that wanted to listen: I did not. It would have been helpful if she would have at least been friendly and congenial. Who wants to go into a doctor's office (with not doctor present to boot) and have some sour puss at the front desk?
NOT me. She offered my card back, I reached to get it, she then went into another discussion, I just said thanks, but no thanks, please give me my card back, delete my information and I'll be leaving. I have my doubts the information was deleted, to be honest. I didn't complain to management, I just left to go to another one of these places.
I never even looked back. In fact, I didn't care. I don't do business at any other establishment that treats you in such a way, why should I tolerate it at a medical care facility? I will not.
Next place? Very nice people. Makes it easier to hand over the $50 co-pay and yes, I asked right up front: is there an actual DOCTOR here? Yes, they said, a doctor and a PPA (or something, I didn't pay that much attention). I was fine with that, even if the non-doctor saw me, if that person couldn't figure out what's going on, please send in the doc. Oh, and they didn't get offended by my asking if there was a doctor. Fully 3 people had big smiles and great attitudes. If I have to go back to an urgent care center again, I will be going back to that one.
I tell the guy what's going on. I have no fever - or if I do I don't know it - I'm not feeling well; my neck hurts and I showed him the places where soreness was concentrated; I am having some difficulty swallowing; producing a lot of mucous. He started feeling everything, of course and said he thought my thyroid glands were enlarged. He stated, though, that a nurse was going to come in and take a swab off my throat to see if I have strep throat. Okay.
Well, this nurse certainly got the better on me: I had NO clue she was going to stick that thing THAT far down my throat!! Open your mouth, say ahhhh: AHHHHHH - GURGGGGLE GAG!!
10 minutes later the doctor comes in and says I have strep throat. He said probably lymph nodes or something that he was feeling and that he was going to prescribe me an antibiotic and it should take care of the problem. If not, then I should have my thyroid looked at again, but, don't bother doing that until you take all the antibiotics and see if that doesn't solve the problem.
I guess I have walked around the planet for 2 weeks with strep throat. I asked and they told me: highly contagious. Great, guess I should stay away from people and warn whoever's around me. I don't like going to the doctor, I never have. They want to probe you in places that shouldn't be probed. They ask you personal questions that I don't want to answer. You are a machine to them that needs to be fixed. If you want to be fixed, you really have to be completely open to them, much like the computer on your car will transmit codes to tell a mechanic what is wrong.
I'm not saying doctors aren't compassionate - well some aren't - they are usually very caring people. It's just the whole scenario. A cold place. Put on this "gown". Hold out your arm. Bend over, we gonna check your prostrate. Gag.
Thanks doc, as I'm getting off the lift and walking out of the mechanic's shop and into the shop office. Lol, I know, a bit overkill, but that's the way I think they look at it. I open the door and hear a voice behind me but I didn't hear what she said. I walked back in, did I need to do anything else? Oh no, she said very sweetly, you're good, just said goodbye. Oh, well thank you and have a great day!
Off to CVS pharmacy. That's the pharmacy that is "ordained" by our company's medical and that's what I am going to use - lower price. In this case? I was amazed: 4 bucks and change for the antibiotics. I ended up walking around the store and found some deals. I don't normally shop at CVS - the last time I went was several years ago and I thought their prices were way high. However, the deals were things I needed and yes, I think I'm a fairly savvy shopper, I am very price conscious and I watch the prices on EVERYTHING that I buy, store those prices in my head and look through all the ads to see if any deals are available. I don't get a flyer from CVS, hence, I have no idea what their deals are.
Anyway, that was $50 well spent - though - I need to find a primary care doctor and get the option for $25 co-pays instead of $50 at urgent care centers.
Took my first pill 6 plus hours ago, taking another now and then one per day for 4 days after today. Do I feel better? After only 6 hours and walking around with this for almost 2 weeks - no - and I wasn't offered pain medication. Would have turned it down. I don't like the stuff, it is usually way too powerful and knocks me out. If I'm REALLY bad then I will ask for it. I decided a couple of drinks would do the trick and yes, they did. I am still feeling the effects, but not near as bad.
I just read a site on it. The stuff I was given is not always effective, but I can't take Penicillin, apparently that's what they normally give for this stuff. I am allergic to penicillin and have been warned that I may have have anaphylaxis as a result. My first and only time with penicillin I was covered with huge hives and was sick for almost 2 weeks.
So, I hope this stuff works. Some stuff that starts with an A. Arithsomethingoranother.
I will say that one of the symptoms I am having is quite prevalent: white patches surrounded by red. VERY visible and quite ugly, to say the least, on my neck.
I am going to bed.
Hope you all had a good week.
ben
Friday, May 13, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
ING Savings
I've been using them for a while. I'll save up what money I can - and then boom - something happens and I have to use it.
I recently closed my Compass checking account but already had a Chase checking account opened to replace it. The problem? Of course, you have to change all the information on all of your online accounts and in this case, my account with ING Savings.
Well, inputting the information was easy enough. But then, we got to the "verification" stage. You could do it instantly online or some other option that would take a while to get done. Well, I want to start saving right away, I don't want to wait. So, I opted for the instant verification.
It apparently has access to your credit file and gives you multiple choice questions about things like an auto loan, where you are or have lived, things like that. On 2 of them, none of the answers on there were correct, so I clicked none of the above. I had a bad feeling about doing that, but I carefully scrutinized the question and the answers, none of them were correct.
I clicked the field to verify and what comes back? We're sorry, we could not verify your information, we are going to do whatever it is they are going to do and you will not be able to do anything with this link - they call them links, the banking accounts you have connected to the savings account you have with ING - for 15 days. FIFTEEN days? The other option was to snail mail the information in for the verification.
SCREW both of those options. I called them up, there was nothing they could do, so they said. I said fine, cancel the account, there are a lot of savings institutions online nowadays, one of them will be happy to take money from my checking account and deposit into their account. The funny thing is, they didn't even TRY to keep me as a customer. I found that unusual, but I didn't care, either. Perhaps lots of people close their accounts with them every day, who knows.
I opened one up with another bank of which I now cannot access my account. Are you serious? It's asking me verification questions because I am a new customer. The problem with THESE questions are they are questions that you would answer when you open the account, not taken off your credit file. No such option was given when I opened it, it just took me through the process and that was that. Do I close this account, too? Not if they will fix it over the phone. I have an internet account for a reason, so I cannot access my money immediately, making it difficult to get to my savings so that it really has to be something needed now to get it. But also, if I have a problem, I can call them up and have them deal with it.
We'll see what happens, is all I can say about that. I found numerous more online savings banks. If all else fails, I'll open up a savings account with a bank offering the incentive to do so at their place of business and make sure that that bank has the ability to transfer funds from my Chase savings account to their savings account. Why not do it with Chase and just have 2 accounts there?
Cause', they only incentive they are giving is a cash offer if you open up a savings account with $5,000 in it. Heck, I'd take a free toaster like they used to give out in the old days over nothing! Do you remember those days? It was a big deal to get that free toaster!
ben
I recently closed my Compass checking account but already had a Chase checking account opened to replace it. The problem? Of course, you have to change all the information on all of your online accounts and in this case, my account with ING Savings.
Well, inputting the information was easy enough. But then, we got to the "verification" stage. You could do it instantly online or some other option that would take a while to get done. Well, I want to start saving right away, I don't want to wait. So, I opted for the instant verification.
It apparently has access to your credit file and gives you multiple choice questions about things like an auto loan, where you are or have lived, things like that. On 2 of them, none of the answers on there were correct, so I clicked none of the above. I had a bad feeling about doing that, but I carefully scrutinized the question and the answers, none of them were correct.
I clicked the field to verify and what comes back? We're sorry, we could not verify your information, we are going to do whatever it is they are going to do and you will not be able to do anything with this link - they call them links, the banking accounts you have connected to the savings account you have with ING - for 15 days. FIFTEEN days? The other option was to snail mail the information in for the verification.
SCREW both of those options. I called them up, there was nothing they could do, so they said. I said fine, cancel the account, there are a lot of savings institutions online nowadays, one of them will be happy to take money from my checking account and deposit into their account. The funny thing is, they didn't even TRY to keep me as a customer. I found that unusual, but I didn't care, either. Perhaps lots of people close their accounts with them every day, who knows.
I opened one up with another bank of which I now cannot access my account. Are you serious? It's asking me verification questions because I am a new customer. The problem with THESE questions are they are questions that you would answer when you open the account, not taken off your credit file. No such option was given when I opened it, it just took me through the process and that was that. Do I close this account, too? Not if they will fix it over the phone. I have an internet account for a reason, so I cannot access my money immediately, making it difficult to get to my savings so that it really has to be something needed now to get it. But also, if I have a problem, I can call them up and have them deal with it.
We'll see what happens, is all I can say about that. I found numerous more online savings banks. If all else fails, I'll open up a savings account with a bank offering the incentive to do so at their place of business and make sure that that bank has the ability to transfer funds from my Chase savings account to their savings account. Why not do it with Chase and just have 2 accounts there?
Cause', they only incentive they are giving is a cash offer if you open up a savings account with $5,000 in it. Heck, I'd take a free toaster like they used to give out in the old days over nothing! Do you remember those days? It was a big deal to get that free toaster!
ben
Wednesday 5/11/11
Wednesday
Strange thing happened yesterday. Dogs next door were barking, which isn't strange, I'll get to that part in a minute. I decided to see if the police and their statements that I should call them instead of turning on the music would actually turn up any results. I suppose, if I had wanted to be sneaky about it, I wouldn't have done so right next to the fence where they could hear me making the call.
But I didn't care about sneakiness. The officer on the phone told me I would have to call a city prosecutor's office. No, no and double no. This is NOT what your officers told me, in person, last week. Call them, they would come out and start writing tickets. That is what they said. This guy went on about the prosecutor's office. No, again, I want the police to come out here and do what they said they were going to do.
Of course, I had no thought, whatsoever, that they would actually come out and write tickets. That, along with several other things they told me last week, was all made up junk.
So, call in, I'm outside waiting - and waiting - and waiting. Next thing I see is a white SUV pulling up to - me, actually. It was not the police, it was what appeared to be a family. No clue who this is. Guy gets out - covered, and I do mean covered - with tattoos. Not that that automatically predjudices me, just an interesting sight to see a man's arms and the visible part so his legs and even his neck with tats completely covering the skin surface.
Okay, I DID think, upon seeing that, that maybe there was trouble? No clue. Braced myself as the man got out of the vehicle and approached me. Is Rey here? Rey? Oh, Reyyy! No, he's not here, they left a while ago for parts unknown. Turns out it's Rey's girlfriend's parents. He went back to the vehicle, they called them and asked where they were at, etc etc etc.
Well, they waited - and waited - and waited for them to show up, I was waiting for the police - the people next door heard me and shortly after making that call they all piled into their van and left. Lol. About the time the last eeklings of the sun's rays were showing, I bid the family out front a goodbye, as I was heading in - I had been chatting with them for well over an hour while they were waiting for Rey to show up.
20 minutes later, they were ALL coming into the house. I think Rey had no small amount of trepidation bringing his girlfriend's parents in, plus their daughter and his girlfriend's daughter as well. He looks at me and asks if he's going to get an eviction notice tomorrow.
Lol, I'm not mean-spirited and besides, tattoos and all, these were nice people. I actually ended up entertaining them for a while, until it was time to go to bed.
About 8:45 is when I went to bed. At a bit after 10:00, my cellphone wakes me up. I get up to go look at it. 602-000-0000. No such number exists, I knew it was the police. I was in no mood to talk to them, it was 7 hours earlier that I had placed the call. I just let it ring and went back to sleep.
That's it. An odd night. I might call the police again today. Depends on my mood, I guess and whether their dogs put me into that mood, really. They have an unregistered vehicle parked on the street, the police can have it towed if they were so inclined. They have 4 vehicles, actually, no, make that 6. 2 in the driveway next to their house behind a gate, 1 in the driveway in front of the gate - none of those are working vehicles. Then 3 more on the street, only 1 of which they drive.
6 vehicles, 1 family, plus all the rest of the junk they have scattered everywhere.
Well, whatever. OH, I sold my ponds yesterday! Yoooohooooooo. The guy told me last weekend he would come on Tuesday to get them and by golly, he did! He didn't even try to talk me down in price. Amazing. So, that gone and money in pocket, that money pays for a liner for that horse trough and then some. In fact, I am going to spend all that money - $125 - on pond stuff since I already had it spent on pond stuff in the first place. I am going to buy another 9 watt UV sterilizer.
Anyway, work day is here and there is an "emergency" delivery that i have to get out first thing.
G'day.
ben
Strange thing happened yesterday. Dogs next door were barking, which isn't strange, I'll get to that part in a minute. I decided to see if the police and their statements that I should call them instead of turning on the music would actually turn up any results. I suppose, if I had wanted to be sneaky about it, I wouldn't have done so right next to the fence where they could hear me making the call.
But I didn't care about sneakiness. The officer on the phone told me I would have to call a city prosecutor's office. No, no and double no. This is NOT what your officers told me, in person, last week. Call them, they would come out and start writing tickets. That is what they said. This guy went on about the prosecutor's office. No, again, I want the police to come out here and do what they said they were going to do.
Of course, I had no thought, whatsoever, that they would actually come out and write tickets. That, along with several other things they told me last week, was all made up junk.
So, call in, I'm outside waiting - and waiting - and waiting. Next thing I see is a white SUV pulling up to - me, actually. It was not the police, it was what appeared to be a family. No clue who this is. Guy gets out - covered, and I do mean covered - with tattoos. Not that that automatically predjudices me, just an interesting sight to see a man's arms and the visible part so his legs and even his neck with tats completely covering the skin surface.
Okay, I DID think, upon seeing that, that maybe there was trouble? No clue. Braced myself as the man got out of the vehicle and approached me. Is Rey here? Rey? Oh, Reyyy! No, he's not here, they left a while ago for parts unknown. Turns out it's Rey's girlfriend's parents. He went back to the vehicle, they called them and asked where they were at, etc etc etc.
Well, they waited - and waited - and waited for them to show up, I was waiting for the police - the people next door heard me and shortly after making that call they all piled into their van and left. Lol. About the time the last eeklings of the sun's rays were showing, I bid the family out front a goodbye, as I was heading in - I had been chatting with them for well over an hour while they were waiting for Rey to show up.
20 minutes later, they were ALL coming into the house. I think Rey had no small amount of trepidation bringing his girlfriend's parents in, plus their daughter and his girlfriend's daughter as well. He looks at me and asks if he's going to get an eviction notice tomorrow.
Lol, I'm not mean-spirited and besides, tattoos and all, these were nice people. I actually ended up entertaining them for a while, until it was time to go to bed.
About 8:45 is when I went to bed. At a bit after 10:00, my cellphone wakes me up. I get up to go look at it. 602-000-0000. No such number exists, I knew it was the police. I was in no mood to talk to them, it was 7 hours earlier that I had placed the call. I just let it ring and went back to sleep.
That's it. An odd night. I might call the police again today. Depends on my mood, I guess and whether their dogs put me into that mood, really. They have an unregistered vehicle parked on the street, the police can have it towed if they were so inclined. They have 4 vehicles, actually, no, make that 6. 2 in the driveway next to their house behind a gate, 1 in the driveway in front of the gate - none of those are working vehicles. Then 3 more on the street, only 1 of which they drive.
6 vehicles, 1 family, plus all the rest of the junk they have scattered everywhere.
Well, whatever. OH, I sold my ponds yesterday! Yoooohooooooo. The guy told me last weekend he would come on Tuesday to get them and by golly, he did! He didn't even try to talk me down in price. Amazing. So, that gone and money in pocket, that money pays for a liner for that horse trough and then some. In fact, I am going to spend all that money - $125 - on pond stuff since I already had it spent on pond stuff in the first place. I am going to buy another 9 watt UV sterilizer.
Anyway, work day is here and there is an "emergency" delivery that i have to get out first thing.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday 5/10/11
Tuesday
Finally. 3 consecutive business days starting on Thursday and ending yesterday that we had NO deliveries. The life blood of this business is delivering the material we sell. No deliveries equals no GP. Today's deliveries aren't a lot of money, but it's better than nothing. A bit of a sigh of relief in that department.
Instead of wasting time fearing or anticipating (depending on from where you are looking at this stuff) Christ's return, the energy is better spent praying for all of those people along the Mississippi river whose homes and land are about to be washed away. Some of the stories are heart-wrenching. Today was a guy talking about his attempt to build his own levee around his home and barns.
Ummm, anyway. Work day begins in a just a few minutes. My dad wrote me again after I left work yesterday to my work email account. He's not sure about what to do with this situation that my brothers will be there at the graduation ceremonies. They haven't spoken in years 6 or so that I can think of. That's a pretty good length of time to have to all show up at the same place and consider being together.
That's okay, I rarely see my brothers, either and we don't talk on the phone, in email or otherwise. They are just a notch above being perfect strangers. I do hope they called mom on Mother's Day, at least. In fact, to the end of seeing my middle brother, I am not looking forward to it at all. Seeing my oldest brother means nothing to me anymore either good or bad. He's just a person - that I don't know - that may or may not show up, who knows and at this point, I frankly don't care. I do hope that if we are all sitting together, which would be a photo worthy thing because it will undoubtedly be the only time in this or any coming decades that that will ever happen again, that they will simply keep their negative junk to themselves.
I will have no qualms, whatsoever, in getting up and moving to another spot if they start trouble as the event is about my son, not any of us.
The day looms closer and thusly, the thoughts of having us all together in one place also are starting to pop up.
G'day.
ben
Finally. 3 consecutive business days starting on Thursday and ending yesterday that we had NO deliveries. The life blood of this business is delivering the material we sell. No deliveries equals no GP. Today's deliveries aren't a lot of money, but it's better than nothing. A bit of a sigh of relief in that department.
Instead of wasting time fearing or anticipating (depending on from where you are looking at this stuff) Christ's return, the energy is better spent praying for all of those people along the Mississippi river whose homes and land are about to be washed away. Some of the stories are heart-wrenching. Today was a guy talking about his attempt to build his own levee around his home and barns.
Ummm, anyway. Work day begins in a just a few minutes. My dad wrote me again after I left work yesterday to my work email account. He's not sure about what to do with this situation that my brothers will be there at the graduation ceremonies. They haven't spoken in years 6 or so that I can think of. That's a pretty good length of time to have to all show up at the same place and consider being together.
That's okay, I rarely see my brothers, either and we don't talk on the phone, in email or otherwise. They are just a notch above being perfect strangers. I do hope they called mom on Mother's Day, at least. In fact, to the end of seeing my middle brother, I am not looking forward to it at all. Seeing my oldest brother means nothing to me anymore either good or bad. He's just a person - that I don't know - that may or may not show up, who knows and at this point, I frankly don't care. I do hope that if we are all sitting together, which would be a photo worthy thing because it will undoubtedly be the only time in this or any coming decades that that will ever happen again, that they will simply keep their negative junk to themselves.
I will have no qualms, whatsoever, in getting up and moving to another spot if they start trouble as the event is about my son, not any of us.
The day looms closer and thusly, the thoughts of having us all together in one place also are starting to pop up.
G'day.
ben
Monday, May 9, 2011
Regarding The Billboards That Say Judgement Day Is May 21 (2011)
I was driving down the freeway today and caught a very brief glimpse of a billboard that said in huge letters: Judgement Day Is May 21
Yes, indeed. It immediately brought to mind the fiasco that took place in 1988: 88 Reasons For 88. This was a book and tapes that came out declaring that Jesus Christ was going to return during one of 3 days during Rosh Hashanna in September of that year. It actually got it's foothold in the ministry I was working with at the time.
You see, I went to one of the leaders of that ministry's doors one day - don't remember why, I needed some information or something - and the wife of the leader answered. She had a tape in her hand. She said, "You have to listen to this!" What is it? I asked. It's a tape that proves that Christ is going to return in September!!
During this period of time where this ministry started propagating this nonsense, I took a definitive stand against this teaching and the panic it was causing within the Christian community. I was brought before the leaders of the group - from around the world actually - and after I continued to defy them and this declaration that Christ was, indeed, returning in 1988, I was condemned before this entire group. "In that case, we have determined you are not a Christian because you don't believe this" - or something to that effect. I don't remember the exact words, I DO remember that my salvation through my Lord Jesus Christ was not only questioned, but negated.
Fortunately for me, by that time in my Christian walk which was all of 3 years, I had spent CONSIDERABLE time studying the Word. I wasn't then or am not now claiming to be a biblical scholar, but I had dug and dug into the Word, had done all kinds of word studies in Greek and Hebrew and had come to my own conclusions that were not outside of most thinking in Christian circles.
There was only 1 other man that - in a much lessor way - defied them, but he did stand his ground as well. I informed them that the 3 days of Rosh Hashanna would come and go and we would still be here. I think I also asked them if they were going to apologize to me after it was all said and done and no-one was gone?
The stories came to light that Christians were giving away their homes, cars, bank accounts, everything because they fell for this stuff and believed that they were going home with the Lord, therefore, what need had of material things?
Of course, the 3 days came, passed and guess what? We were all still there. There were no reports of worldwide departures or of cataclysmic events.
And why, Ben, did you believe so adamantly then, as you do now, that these men and women were then and now are deceived?
It's simple, really: New Living Translation (©2007)
"However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
Other versions say no man shall know the day or the hour. It's referring to the coming of Jesus Christ. Note that it says NO-ONE will know. It doesn't say some will and some won't. This is the scripture that came to my mind, immediately, when I was standing on the doorstep talking with the wife of that leader, who also fell for this junk.
I went to the website of these people and I heard scripture. Great, love it. I love the Word of God. I am not a perfect man and right now? I have many issues. But I don't hate God for the things that happened to me in my life neither do I blame him. In fact, I endeavor to not even hold things against the people that caused no small amount of pain and grief in my life, just because the Word also says that if you do not forgive those that have trespassed against you, your Father in heaven will not forgive your trespasses, either. That's scary stuff. You mean if I don't forgive someone for doing whatever - the whole realm of it - that I may not be forgiven?
I guess you have to do your own soul-searching and whether you believe the Bible is truth - all of it - or is just fictional stuff made up in the minds of men. I have lived the life and I firmly believe. I don't care what ANYONE else thinks, either. If I heard a bunch of scruff, I will openly oppose it. I have been thrown out of so-called churches because of the preaching of heresy that was allegedly based on the Bible but in reality had no footing in any truth that God teaches us through His word.
Back to the website. No way am I going to waste my time going through all of that. I listened to a video and read several pages of type and found nothing to identify where, exactly, they even came up with this date of theirs and what scriptures actually back them up. I've been there and I've done that in 1988, I don't need to waste my time with it. They did show other scriptures about knowing the hour and this and that, but none of it can supersede the statement: NO-ONE or NO MAN depending on what versions you are reading.
It's not that I don't want Christ to return, it's just that these people are deceived, period. They think they have figured something out and therefore, because their math or however they are coming to these conclusions are "infallible", it must be true. It's the minds of men that have made this up, that's the point I am at now. In reality, if you are Christian and you truly believe, then you should probably be fastidious and attempting to ensure that you are ready for His return at ANY time. Further, that regardless of whether He returns on any given date or not, one thing is certain: YOU - ARE - going to DIE some day and yes, you might want to give some credence to what happens to you after the day of your death.
If you choose not to believe that God exists, that does not, therefore, deny the reality that God does, indeed exist. We do that in our minds and our hearts: make things up and then believe them because there is nothing present to deny it. Great, but when you are standing before the Lord to give an accounting, I'm pretty sure that that isn't really going to help you, at all.
There is a lot of scripture in the Bible. You have to take it into context. One scripture talks about God confounding the wisdom of men. Why? Because He is God and we are not. As Moses so succinctly pointed out, we are but mere specks of dust. When a small group of people have "figured" something like this out? I would suggest you completely ignore it. The only thing I can say that might come of good out of it is if it causes people to search their souls and begin to wonder about the reality of God. BUT, having that propagated through fallacy is not good. Then what do those people think after the day comes and goes and nothing happens? Back to questioning God - and in many cases even His existence because mortals have made a mockery of Christianity.
I haven't visited the mainstream preachers to see their take on it. I don't need to. One thing that became increasingly clear during the early days of my walk with the Lord: I have to search out the scripture for myself. That doesn't mean I don't listen to men and women of God speaking forth the truths to be found in the Word, but when it comes to the basic, elemental things, I MUST be convinced through my own walk and search. If not, it will not be a lasting life in Christ, it will be a "fall by the wayside" inevitability.
If you are in fear of the day - May 21st, then do some soul searching. It isn't that day that I would be worried about, it is the fact that eventually - on some given day - your earthly existence IS going to end. No one is going to refute that. Well, mostly no-one. If you aren't sure of where you are going in the end, might I suggest you get a hold of the Holy Bible and start reading? Besides potentially finding Christ through the experience, there are some fascinating events that are told in it that I have loved to read over and over and over. Somehow, God can always show me something new in it that I didn't see the last time I read whatever it is that I am reading.
I end this with this: COULD the Lord be coming on that day? I am not sitting in heaven right now, next to the Lord, hearing whatever He might be saying. I certainly do not know His thoughts. His ways are FAR above our ways. We are so far below His "level" we cannot even fully comprehend it. He undoubtedly has a day set apart for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ - but exactly how that is going to happen is open to much speculation. That's because, besides what we read in the Bible, we don't actually know HOW the event will transpire. But I will say that just because some group of people are declaring "with certainty" a "guaranteed" truth, they proclaim, it undoubtedly will NOT happen that day just because of it.
When we mere mortals start "figuring out" God and how He will do a thing in our lives, I'm not talking about His return here, I'm talking about the things that God does do in our lives, the things we ask of Him for, He seems to find ways to do them that we never thought of. We think how it will be done, we talk about it, and then? He does a thing a different way. I have seen that hundreds of times throughout my walk with the Lord. I have stories that people don't believe. Which phases me not, neither does it make me anyone special, I only point to the Greatness and Goodness of the Lord our God.
Now, I must go. If I am preaching to anyone, I am preaching to myself. I have some repenting to do...........
ben
Yes, indeed. It immediately brought to mind the fiasco that took place in 1988: 88 Reasons For 88. This was a book and tapes that came out declaring that Jesus Christ was going to return during one of 3 days during Rosh Hashanna in September of that year. It actually got it's foothold in the ministry I was working with at the time.
You see, I went to one of the leaders of that ministry's doors one day - don't remember why, I needed some information or something - and the wife of the leader answered. She had a tape in her hand. She said, "You have to listen to this!" What is it? I asked. It's a tape that proves that Christ is going to return in September!!
During this period of time where this ministry started propagating this nonsense, I took a definitive stand against this teaching and the panic it was causing within the Christian community. I was brought before the leaders of the group - from around the world actually - and after I continued to defy them and this declaration that Christ was, indeed, returning in 1988, I was condemned before this entire group. "In that case, we have determined you are not a Christian because you don't believe this" - or something to that effect. I don't remember the exact words, I DO remember that my salvation through my Lord Jesus Christ was not only questioned, but negated.
Fortunately for me, by that time in my Christian walk which was all of 3 years, I had spent CONSIDERABLE time studying the Word. I wasn't then or am not now claiming to be a biblical scholar, but I had dug and dug into the Word, had done all kinds of word studies in Greek and Hebrew and had come to my own conclusions that were not outside of most thinking in Christian circles.
There was only 1 other man that - in a much lessor way - defied them, but he did stand his ground as well. I informed them that the 3 days of Rosh Hashanna would come and go and we would still be here. I think I also asked them if they were going to apologize to me after it was all said and done and no-one was gone?
The stories came to light that Christians were giving away their homes, cars, bank accounts, everything because they fell for this stuff and believed that they were going home with the Lord, therefore, what need had of material things?
Of course, the 3 days came, passed and guess what? We were all still there. There were no reports of worldwide departures or of cataclysmic events.
And why, Ben, did you believe so adamantly then, as you do now, that these men and women were then and now are deceived?
It's simple, really: New Living Translation (©2007)
"However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
Other versions say no man shall know the day or the hour. It's referring to the coming of Jesus Christ. Note that it says NO-ONE will know. It doesn't say some will and some won't. This is the scripture that came to my mind, immediately, when I was standing on the doorstep talking with the wife of that leader, who also fell for this junk.
I went to the website of these people and I heard scripture. Great, love it. I love the Word of God. I am not a perfect man and right now? I have many issues. But I don't hate God for the things that happened to me in my life neither do I blame him. In fact, I endeavor to not even hold things against the people that caused no small amount of pain and grief in my life, just because the Word also says that if you do not forgive those that have trespassed against you, your Father in heaven will not forgive your trespasses, either. That's scary stuff. You mean if I don't forgive someone for doing whatever - the whole realm of it - that I may not be forgiven?
I guess you have to do your own soul-searching and whether you believe the Bible is truth - all of it - or is just fictional stuff made up in the minds of men. I have lived the life and I firmly believe. I don't care what ANYONE else thinks, either. If I heard a bunch of scruff, I will openly oppose it. I have been thrown out of so-called churches because of the preaching of heresy that was allegedly based on the Bible but in reality had no footing in any truth that God teaches us through His word.
Back to the website. No way am I going to waste my time going through all of that. I listened to a video and read several pages of type and found nothing to identify where, exactly, they even came up with this date of theirs and what scriptures actually back them up. I've been there and I've done that in 1988, I don't need to waste my time with it. They did show other scriptures about knowing the hour and this and that, but none of it can supersede the statement: NO-ONE or NO MAN depending on what versions you are reading.
It's not that I don't want Christ to return, it's just that these people are deceived, period. They think they have figured something out and therefore, because their math or however they are coming to these conclusions are "infallible", it must be true. It's the minds of men that have made this up, that's the point I am at now. In reality, if you are Christian and you truly believe, then you should probably be fastidious and attempting to ensure that you are ready for His return at ANY time. Further, that regardless of whether He returns on any given date or not, one thing is certain: YOU - ARE - going to DIE some day and yes, you might want to give some credence to what happens to you after the day of your death.
If you choose not to believe that God exists, that does not, therefore, deny the reality that God does, indeed exist. We do that in our minds and our hearts: make things up and then believe them because there is nothing present to deny it. Great, but when you are standing before the Lord to give an accounting, I'm pretty sure that that isn't really going to help you, at all.
There is a lot of scripture in the Bible. You have to take it into context. One scripture talks about God confounding the wisdom of men. Why? Because He is God and we are not. As Moses so succinctly pointed out, we are but mere specks of dust. When a small group of people have "figured" something like this out? I would suggest you completely ignore it. The only thing I can say that might come of good out of it is if it causes people to search their souls and begin to wonder about the reality of God. BUT, having that propagated through fallacy is not good. Then what do those people think after the day comes and goes and nothing happens? Back to questioning God - and in many cases even His existence because mortals have made a mockery of Christianity.
I haven't visited the mainstream preachers to see their take on it. I don't need to. One thing that became increasingly clear during the early days of my walk with the Lord: I have to search out the scripture for myself. That doesn't mean I don't listen to men and women of God speaking forth the truths to be found in the Word, but when it comes to the basic, elemental things, I MUST be convinced through my own walk and search. If not, it will not be a lasting life in Christ, it will be a "fall by the wayside" inevitability.
If you are in fear of the day - May 21st, then do some soul searching. It isn't that day that I would be worried about, it is the fact that eventually - on some given day - your earthly existence IS going to end. No one is going to refute that. Well, mostly no-one. If you aren't sure of where you are going in the end, might I suggest you get a hold of the Holy Bible and start reading? Besides potentially finding Christ through the experience, there are some fascinating events that are told in it that I have loved to read over and over and over. Somehow, God can always show me something new in it that I didn't see the last time I read whatever it is that I am reading.
I end this with this: COULD the Lord be coming on that day? I am not sitting in heaven right now, next to the Lord, hearing whatever He might be saying. I certainly do not know His thoughts. His ways are FAR above our ways. We are so far below His "level" we cannot even fully comprehend it. He undoubtedly has a day set apart for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ - but exactly how that is going to happen is open to much speculation. That's because, besides what we read in the Bible, we don't actually know HOW the event will transpire. But I will say that just because some group of people are declaring "with certainty" a "guaranteed" truth, they proclaim, it undoubtedly will NOT happen that day just because of it.
When we mere mortals start "figuring out" God and how He will do a thing in our lives, I'm not talking about His return here, I'm talking about the things that God does do in our lives, the things we ask of Him for, He seems to find ways to do them that we never thought of. We think how it will be done, we talk about it, and then? He does a thing a different way. I have seen that hundreds of times throughout my walk with the Lord. I have stories that people don't believe. Which phases me not, neither does it make me anyone special, I only point to the Greatness and Goodness of the Lord our God.
Now, I must go. If I am preaching to anyone, I am preaching to myself. I have some repenting to do...........
ben
Monday 5/9/2011
Monday
My son has stopped playing Playstation 3. I'm guessing a lot of kids/adolescents and even adults have stopped playing it considering the internet access is gone and the ability to talk to your friends through the internet while playing the game via headsets is gone with it.
I'm guessing their biggest competitor - X-Box 360 is probably getting some extra added sales because of it - X-box 360 also links to the internet and yes, you can talk to your friends via headset while playing the game.
The lack of use of the game has forwarded it to me: it plays DVD's including Blu Ray and I watched 2 movies on it yesterday provided by one of my tenants. There is some movie with Rock in it where he gets out of prison and immediately goes on a killing rampage to avenge the killing of his brother. If you like gore, death and action, great movie. If you like anything with an actual plot and a bit of thought in it, probably not so great. He kills everyone that was involved excepting a pastor that pleaded with him to not kill him and then got down on his knees and started singing something while praying at the same time.
I other movie was a waste of time. Takers, I think it was, another bank robbing movie. Boring, I actually fell asleep half way through it.
2 of my fish died from the haul I got on Saturday. They looked like they were dying before I even got them home, but, only one of them was found floating. The other? He jumped out of the pond. Not a smart move, there isn't any more water out there!
Oh well, they were free and I still have all the rest of them. I am only taking small fish at this point, if someone is giving away large fish I don't get them. Though, those people giving away Koi could, actually, sell them. I guess these people would rather not have to deal with it. I haven't been able to find a pic of one of the plants I got - the lady that gave them to me stated that they were very expensive at the store where she bought them. I will continue to search. As with all of those plants, they will probably reproduce and grow at a extremely rapid pace.
As for today - nothing in the truck routing system excepting a small pickup of materials from our main branch. This will be the 3rd consecutive day of no deliveries. Funny part is: there are a LOT of orders just waiting to be released in our territory. As with all construction, waiting on permits and such from municipalities before work can be begin and material brought to any site.
And even greater potential problem, as has occured many times in the past: a bunch of those projects all being released at the same time and suddenly, we can't keep up with the work. That's the way it goes, too, there's either more work than we can handle or there is nothing or almost nothing.
Crazy stuff there. Some interesting things in the news, but nothing I have time to go into now nor really worth that much commenting on, excepting the idea that people in some part of southern Arizona want to split away from the rest of the state and form their own state. Yeah, that's probably not going to actually happen, though they are trying to collect the 40,000 signatures it will take to get it on the ballot. Ummmm, just an observation: for a move THAT drastic, I would think it would take a bit more than 40,000 signatures. But, they said it would then have to be approved by the state's legislature (highly unlikely) and then by Congress (highly unlikely times 100).
Well, that's it. Overcast today, nice outside, going to open up the windows at work and let some fresh air in.
G'day.
ben
My son has stopped playing Playstation 3. I'm guessing a lot of kids/adolescents and even adults have stopped playing it considering the internet access is gone and the ability to talk to your friends through the internet while playing the game via headsets is gone with it.
I'm guessing their biggest competitor - X-Box 360 is probably getting some extra added sales because of it - X-box 360 also links to the internet and yes, you can talk to your friends via headset while playing the game.
The lack of use of the game has forwarded it to me: it plays DVD's including Blu Ray and I watched 2 movies on it yesterday provided by one of my tenants. There is some movie with Rock in it where he gets out of prison and immediately goes on a killing rampage to avenge the killing of his brother. If you like gore, death and action, great movie. If you like anything with an actual plot and a bit of thought in it, probably not so great. He kills everyone that was involved excepting a pastor that pleaded with him to not kill him and then got down on his knees and started singing something while praying at the same time.
I other movie was a waste of time. Takers, I think it was, another bank robbing movie. Boring, I actually fell asleep half way through it.
2 of my fish died from the haul I got on Saturday. They looked like they were dying before I even got them home, but, only one of them was found floating. The other? He jumped out of the pond. Not a smart move, there isn't any more water out there!
Oh well, they were free and I still have all the rest of them. I am only taking small fish at this point, if someone is giving away large fish I don't get them. Though, those people giving away Koi could, actually, sell them. I guess these people would rather not have to deal with it. I haven't been able to find a pic of one of the plants I got - the lady that gave them to me stated that they were very expensive at the store where she bought them. I will continue to search. As with all of those plants, they will probably reproduce and grow at a extremely rapid pace.
As for today - nothing in the truck routing system excepting a small pickup of materials from our main branch. This will be the 3rd consecutive day of no deliveries. Funny part is: there are a LOT of orders just waiting to be released in our territory. As with all construction, waiting on permits and such from municipalities before work can be begin and material brought to any site.
And even greater potential problem, as has occured many times in the past: a bunch of those projects all being released at the same time and suddenly, we can't keep up with the work. That's the way it goes, too, there's either more work than we can handle or there is nothing or almost nothing.
Crazy stuff there. Some interesting things in the news, but nothing I have time to go into now nor really worth that much commenting on, excepting the idea that people in some part of southern Arizona want to split away from the rest of the state and form their own state. Yeah, that's probably not going to actually happen, though they are trying to collect the 40,000 signatures it will take to get it on the ballot. Ummmm, just an observation: for a move THAT drastic, I would think it would take a bit more than 40,000 signatures. But, they said it would then have to be approved by the state's legislature (highly unlikely) and then by Congress (highly unlikely times 100).
Well, that's it. Overcast today, nice outside, going to open up the windows at work and let some fresh air in.
G'day.
ben
Saturday, May 7, 2011
My Free Koi And Pond Plants Trip
3 weeks ago (at least), I saw an ad running in Craigslist for free Koi. This person was shutting down their pond and they wanted to give them away (my kind of price). I responded to that ad immediately but never heard back from anyone. I brushed it off and out of my mind, no biggies, I have enough fish - but - these were smaller ones. I have enough big fishies - up to almost 20 inches, I need smaller fishies.
Well, today I am going through my email and was done, actually, with it. I refreshed it to find a new one. This was that person, who had never responded to me, telling me she had shut down her pond today, she had spent all morning catching the fish, they were in a plastic bin, please come get them.
Just like that. I write her back, okay, I'll come and get them! She writes back with her phone number and awayyyyy we goooooooo! It was a fairly good drive out into the east valley. She said they live off of a very small, dirt road. So, I'm looking around for the address, there are only a few houses on this road. At the end of the road is what I would consider to be a mini castle. I didn't figure it was that place, but I was wrong. This house was HUGE!! The main house - at least 5,000 square feet and the guest house the size of my house - 2,000 square feet anyway. It had 2, huge horse pastures, a swimming pool the likes I have never seen before, a horse barn/hotel - also huge - another area to run horses, and of course, a pond. For the size of everything else around there, it was interesting to see this rather small pond. She had all but completely drained it in order to catch the fish.
I saw the Koi: QUITE the haul. I know what these suckers cost both on Craigslist and at Petsmart - I ended up with around $250 worth of Koi ranging in size from 2 inches to about 6 inches.
That wasn't all. She asked me if I wanted her plants. I thought, not really, I have a lot of them already. But, she had some different plants that I don't have. Well, they're free plus a HUGE water lily - that thing has huge leaves on it. Couldn't say no to that, especially considering the fact that I just scored a 400 gallon horse trough that is going to serve as my above ground pond. My above ground pond that I have now is working - but it really isn't made to be above ground. I have to figure out how to get that trough from work to home, but when I do, I'm going to test it - make sure it doesn't leak - and then fill it with water. I will transfer everything from the plastic pond over to the trough.
That may take a bit of time, of course, with everything that has to be done to make that happen, but I already have everything I need. I bought the trough from the City of Mesa - they sell surplus at a facility where I also happen to go somewhat frequently making deliveries. That trough had been sitting out there a while, no-one rushing to buy it, so I offered almost half of what they were asking for it. I will sell my above ground one for the same that I bought the trough - try to anyway - and recoup the "loss". I have 2 other ponds that I am going to sell as well. Those 2 I decided I don't really need and don't want 5 ponds running on my property, 3 is enough.
I'm considering selling a couple of the larger Koi - only because they don't seem to have enough room even though it's in the "bigger" pond. However, I am going to wait and see if they might do okay in the 400 gallon horse trough which will give them a lot more room to move around in.
The only downside to today's affair? Getting those plants out of that pond. I had no idea I was going to score plants and had to wash my shoes, plus my pants are covered with bottom-of-pond-muck stuff. In other words, I would have dressed for the occasion, including old boots if I had known.
My excitement for the day, lol.
ben
Well, today I am going through my email and was done, actually, with it. I refreshed it to find a new one. This was that person, who had never responded to me, telling me she had shut down her pond today, she had spent all morning catching the fish, they were in a plastic bin, please come get them.
Just like that. I write her back, okay, I'll come and get them! She writes back with her phone number and awayyyyy we goooooooo! It was a fairly good drive out into the east valley. She said they live off of a very small, dirt road. So, I'm looking around for the address, there are only a few houses on this road. At the end of the road is what I would consider to be a mini castle. I didn't figure it was that place, but I was wrong. This house was HUGE!! The main house - at least 5,000 square feet and the guest house the size of my house - 2,000 square feet anyway. It had 2, huge horse pastures, a swimming pool the likes I have never seen before, a horse barn/hotel - also huge - another area to run horses, and of course, a pond. For the size of everything else around there, it was interesting to see this rather small pond. She had all but completely drained it in order to catch the fish.
I saw the Koi: QUITE the haul. I know what these suckers cost both on Craigslist and at Petsmart - I ended up with around $250 worth of Koi ranging in size from 2 inches to about 6 inches.
That wasn't all. She asked me if I wanted her plants. I thought, not really, I have a lot of them already. But, she had some different plants that I don't have. Well, they're free plus a HUGE water lily - that thing has huge leaves on it. Couldn't say no to that, especially considering the fact that I just scored a 400 gallon horse trough that is going to serve as my above ground pond. My above ground pond that I have now is working - but it really isn't made to be above ground. I have to figure out how to get that trough from work to home, but when I do, I'm going to test it - make sure it doesn't leak - and then fill it with water. I will transfer everything from the plastic pond over to the trough.
That may take a bit of time, of course, with everything that has to be done to make that happen, but I already have everything I need. I bought the trough from the City of Mesa - they sell surplus at a facility where I also happen to go somewhat frequently making deliveries. That trough had been sitting out there a while, no-one rushing to buy it, so I offered almost half of what they were asking for it. I will sell my above ground one for the same that I bought the trough - try to anyway - and recoup the "loss". I have 2 other ponds that I am going to sell as well. Those 2 I decided I don't really need and don't want 5 ponds running on my property, 3 is enough.
I'm considering selling a couple of the larger Koi - only because they don't seem to have enough room even though it's in the "bigger" pond. However, I am going to wait and see if they might do okay in the 400 gallon horse trough which will give them a lot more room to move around in.
The only downside to today's affair? Getting those plants out of that pond. I had no idea I was going to score plants and had to wash my shoes, plus my pants are covered with bottom-of-pond-muck stuff. In other words, I would have dressed for the occasion, including old boots if I had known.
My excitement for the day, lol.
ben
Saturday 5/7/2011
Last night, just before going to bed, I left a nice message for everyone out on the kitchen island counter. In 36 point type, bold and underlined, the title of the message is: FINAL NOTICE.
You see, on Wednesday night at 11:30 pm, someone slammed the back door so hard it woke me up out of a deep sleep and yes, I was extremely unhappy about it. In fact, I got very angry considering I have already left a note about this a week or two ago and everyone agreed to tone things down.
That same night, someone was opening and closing cabinet doors - loudly - at about 2:30 am. I went to work that next morning on about - 3 to 4 hours of sleep. Try going to work on that kind of sleep. Yeah, not fun. This notice spelled it out. If it happens again, I'm going to drag my @$$ out of bed, go out and find out who's making the noise and issue a 30 day eviction notice and I won't be changing my mind once that notice is issued.
I've been rather cranky this last week because of the noise issues and not getting enough sleep. The crankier I am, the more blunt and curt the notice will be written.
I slept in this morning is all I can further say about that situation.
Weekend. No clue. I mean, this situation with the neighbors calling the police if the air doesn't smell right is really starting to get annoying to say the least. Am I supposed to just not go to the east side of my property to make those people happy? I think not.
I did, however, find the community mediation thing online that the supervisor was referring to concerning mediation with neighbors to try and work out the issues. It isn't what the officer said it was and it would entail a 2 to 3 hours "meeting" with the neighbors and a mediator. I have serious doubts that they would even agree to try it, number one and number two I doubt anything would be worked out. I'm just waiting for them to call the cops again and having the cops come over here giving me a hard time. I'm simply going to video all of it, call the headquarters while the police are here and if i have to, call the news. The police should really be giving THEM a hard time for excessively calling the cops. The last time they were here, those people made up a completely fabricated story.
Isn't it strange? There is a drought in Texas but the Mississippi is over-flooding and threatening a lot of homes. One place in the US has too much water, another place doesn't have near enough. I believe we are still in a drought - too - but it's been going on for a long, long time and the water conservation officials have been dealing with this problem for quite a long time now. Yes, I just checked it, almost our entire state has some kind of water deficiency, ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought, the only thing we don't have is the highest level of "exceptional".
The entire state of Texas is in some form of drought, with a large percentage of it being either extreme or exceptional. No wonder the governor was asking people to pray.
It brings back the stories of rain when I was travelling the US with that missionary group. I can remember on several occasions that places we were going to were in the middle of a drought. Rain followed us everywhere we went. It was absurd. I mean, places that hadn't had rain in months would get days and days worth. We would arrive and I would always start talking to the locals. Once place in particular was full of farmland and the farmers were afraid they were going to lose their crops. I informed them that it would start raining within a couple of days and they would have more water than they knew what to do with.
There was no rain in the forecast and it hadn't rained there in something like 2 months. The skies were clear, no clouds, there wasn't a hint of rain. But I knew it was coming. It always came. They didn't know what to think of my statements. Older gentlemen standing there scratching their heads. I just told them to prepare for a lot of water falling from the skies, cause' it was going to happen.
2 days later, it began raining. A week later, the rain had not subsided. It REALLY made our missionary ventures quite - unappealing - at times because everything we did was outside. Those farmers came back and started attending our meetings. They thanked me for the rain, of which I could hardly take credit for. I had to inform them that the good Lord causes it to rain on the just and unjust alike, thank Him and of course - yet another opportunity to speak about the goodness of our Lord.
That was hardly the only place we went where rain arrived with us - in fact - literally - it just followed us everywhere.
Anyway, that governor has the right idea: pray!! Fast and pray.
Well, I just went to the store and got my first haul of 11 pounds of ground beef at $1.47 per pound. I intend on getting at least 50 pounds of it. It comes in family packs and you can only get 2 per visit, but I have until Tuesday. I'm going to divide them up into approximate 1 pound portions and freeze most of it.
Enough.
You see, on Wednesday night at 11:30 pm, someone slammed the back door so hard it woke me up out of a deep sleep and yes, I was extremely unhappy about it. In fact, I got very angry considering I have already left a note about this a week or two ago and everyone agreed to tone things down.
That same night, someone was opening and closing cabinet doors - loudly - at about 2:30 am. I went to work that next morning on about - 3 to 4 hours of sleep. Try going to work on that kind of sleep. Yeah, not fun. This notice spelled it out. If it happens again, I'm going to drag my @$$ out of bed, go out and find out who's making the noise and issue a 30 day eviction notice and I won't be changing my mind once that notice is issued.
I've been rather cranky this last week because of the noise issues and not getting enough sleep. The crankier I am, the more blunt and curt the notice will be written.
I slept in this morning is all I can further say about that situation.
Weekend. No clue. I mean, this situation with the neighbors calling the police if the air doesn't smell right is really starting to get annoying to say the least. Am I supposed to just not go to the east side of my property to make those people happy? I think not.
I did, however, find the community mediation thing online that the supervisor was referring to concerning mediation with neighbors to try and work out the issues. It isn't what the officer said it was and it would entail a 2 to 3 hours "meeting" with the neighbors and a mediator. I have serious doubts that they would even agree to try it, number one and number two I doubt anything would be worked out. I'm just waiting for them to call the cops again and having the cops come over here giving me a hard time. I'm simply going to video all of it, call the headquarters while the police are here and if i have to, call the news. The police should really be giving THEM a hard time for excessively calling the cops. The last time they were here, those people made up a completely fabricated story.
Isn't it strange? There is a drought in Texas but the Mississippi is over-flooding and threatening a lot of homes. One place in the US has too much water, another place doesn't have near enough. I believe we are still in a drought - too - but it's been going on for a long, long time and the water conservation officials have been dealing with this problem for quite a long time now. Yes, I just checked it, almost our entire state has some kind of water deficiency, ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought, the only thing we don't have is the highest level of "exceptional".
The entire state of Texas is in some form of drought, with a large percentage of it being either extreme or exceptional. No wonder the governor was asking people to pray.
It brings back the stories of rain when I was travelling the US with that missionary group. I can remember on several occasions that places we were going to were in the middle of a drought. Rain followed us everywhere we went. It was absurd. I mean, places that hadn't had rain in months would get days and days worth. We would arrive and I would always start talking to the locals. Once place in particular was full of farmland and the farmers were afraid they were going to lose their crops. I informed them that it would start raining within a couple of days and they would have more water than they knew what to do with.
There was no rain in the forecast and it hadn't rained there in something like 2 months. The skies were clear, no clouds, there wasn't a hint of rain. But I knew it was coming. It always came. They didn't know what to think of my statements. Older gentlemen standing there scratching their heads. I just told them to prepare for a lot of water falling from the skies, cause' it was going to happen.
2 days later, it began raining. A week later, the rain had not subsided. It REALLY made our missionary ventures quite - unappealing - at times because everything we did was outside. Those farmers came back and started attending our meetings. They thanked me for the rain, of which I could hardly take credit for. I had to inform them that the good Lord causes it to rain on the just and unjust alike, thank Him and of course - yet another opportunity to speak about the goodness of our Lord.
That was hardly the only place we went where rain arrived with us - in fact - literally - it just followed us everywhere.
Anyway, that governor has the right idea: pray!! Fast and pray.
Well, I just went to the store and got my first haul of 11 pounds of ground beef at $1.47 per pound. I intend on getting at least 50 pounds of it. It comes in family packs and you can only get 2 per visit, but I have until Tuesday. I'm going to divide them up into approximate 1 pound portions and freeze most of it.
Enough.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Weekend - City of Phoenix South Mountain Precinct
I came home today and literally was shocked to see my pond in the front yard almost emptied of water. WHOA!!!!
Fortunately, the fish were still alive, treading the bottom and undoubtedly having their thoughts of "what's going on here?!!".
I immediately got the hose going and started filling it back up while wondering how it could possibly be leaking that fast. I mean, did someone come into my yard and poke a hole in the bottom of the pond?
No, I figured out quickly, the area behind where the filtering system is was muddy-wet. Ahhh, I saw the problem. The filtering system is perched at an angle - the wrong angle - down towards the back. The water coming out of the system was finding it's way not only into the pond, but also streaming underneath it back out of the pond and into the area beside it.
Problem solved, quickly and without trouble. Still a bit scary - I know they are just goldfish, but I have no desire to find them dead and brittle because the water leaked out of the pond.
Over on the east side of my house, when I went out there a while ago to feed my fish, the "neighbors" were out there apparently making some kind of effort to clean up 7 years worth of household trash and junk laying on the side of their house. Freaking disgusting. I said nothing to him, the "man" of the house and only glanced that way shortly.
I'm half expecting another visit from the police. These people are calling the police at the drop of a hat. I am NOT going to live in fear of them calling the police and if the police come over here again, I'm going to start contacting the news organizations. South Mountain Precinct. Google that - South Mountain Precinct. That's all you have to put in there to have pop up a torrent of stories about the issues with this precinct. A bit more negative publicity? Why not. I feel like I am being harassed at this point and I will tolerate no more of it from either the neighbors or the police.
I am not saying anything to the neighbors - I never do anyway unless they are provoking me - and I am not playing the music. If their dogs start barking at me while I'm out there, it will be my turn to call the police and file a complaint, just as they instructed me to do earlier this week.
That's it, for that anyway. Police haven't been here yet and if they do arrive - for unknown reasons - I am going to call the precinct and ask them why they are harassing me. I will be running a video of it as well.
As for this weekend - nothing out of the normal for me. Might go to mother's house tomorrow if she is available to get some things she picked up for me for my plants and trees. She is leaving town on Sunday. She loved the flower arrangement I sent her and I've received a telephone and 2 emails telling me that, lol. Gotta love mom!
ben
Fortunately, the fish were still alive, treading the bottom and undoubtedly having their thoughts of "what's going on here?!!".
I immediately got the hose going and started filling it back up while wondering how it could possibly be leaking that fast. I mean, did someone come into my yard and poke a hole in the bottom of the pond?
No, I figured out quickly, the area behind where the filtering system is was muddy-wet. Ahhh, I saw the problem. The filtering system is perched at an angle - the wrong angle - down towards the back. The water coming out of the system was finding it's way not only into the pond, but also streaming underneath it back out of the pond and into the area beside it.
Problem solved, quickly and without trouble. Still a bit scary - I know they are just goldfish, but I have no desire to find them dead and brittle because the water leaked out of the pond.
Over on the east side of my house, when I went out there a while ago to feed my fish, the "neighbors" were out there apparently making some kind of effort to clean up 7 years worth of household trash and junk laying on the side of their house. Freaking disgusting. I said nothing to him, the "man" of the house and only glanced that way shortly.
I'm half expecting another visit from the police. These people are calling the police at the drop of a hat. I am NOT going to live in fear of them calling the police and if the police come over here again, I'm going to start contacting the news organizations. South Mountain Precinct. Google that - South Mountain Precinct. That's all you have to put in there to have pop up a torrent of stories about the issues with this precinct. A bit more negative publicity? Why not. I feel like I am being harassed at this point and I will tolerate no more of it from either the neighbors or the police.
I am not saying anything to the neighbors - I never do anyway unless they are provoking me - and I am not playing the music. If their dogs start barking at me while I'm out there, it will be my turn to call the police and file a complaint, just as they instructed me to do earlier this week.
That's it, for that anyway. Police haven't been here yet and if they do arrive - for unknown reasons - I am going to call the precinct and ask them why they are harassing me. I will be running a video of it as well.
As for this weekend - nothing out of the normal for me. Might go to mother's house tomorrow if she is available to get some things she picked up for me for my plants and trees. She is leaving town on Sunday. She loved the flower arrangement I sent her and I've received a telephone and 2 emails telling me that, lol. Gotta love mom!
ben
Friday - 5/6/2011
Whatever. Despite all of that, I actually slept almost entirely through the night last night, after having several nights in a row of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep.
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Police Again
Friday
Yesterday's dealings was more than I want to continue one with. I'm not sure which is worse: the neighbors calling the police and making up stories or having to deal with the police all the time.
The bad part about the police is it is different officers every time they come over. I mean, HOW MANY officers do they HAVE working the South Mountain Precinct in that particular portion of it? I have to go through a lengthy conversation with them, every single time, because they are not the same officers as the last time, so, start from ground zero and build the story up from the beginning.
It's beginning to be annoying. But - those neighbors making up stories and lying? When I explained to the officers yesterday that I hadn't even SEEN their dogs - or them for that matter (the neighbors, that is) and then asked them how I could possibly agitate dogs that aren't present - that was the end of it for me. I didn't want to be rude, but I was through with the conversation. Go deal with THEM for filing a FALSE report. They left and the did not linger over at the neighbor's, either, they said something to them for a minute and then they took off.
That's when I called the precinct and asked for the sergeant. If the police come over again today, I will be calling the precinct WHILE they are there, because I am beginning to feel harassed - not just by the neighbors but also by the police. I am taking out my camera and turning on the video portion of it every time they come over now. They tend to tone down quite a lot with their authority trip when they are being video'ed, I have noticed.
I don't hate police, but this is getting old, is the point.
May 6, 2011 5:57 AM
Anonymous said...
Whatever. Despite all of that, I actually slept almost entirely through the night last night, after having several nights in a row of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep.
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Yesterday's dealings was more than I want to continue one with. I'm not sure which is worse: the neighbors calling the police and making up stories or having to deal with the police all the time.
The bad part about the police is it is different officers every time they come over. I mean, HOW MANY officers do they HAVE working the South Mountain Precinct in that particular portion of it? I have to go through a lengthy conversation with them, every single time, because they are not the same officers as the last time, so, start from ground zero and build the story up from the beginning.
It's beginning to be annoying. But - those neighbors making up stories and lying? When I explained to the officers yesterday that I hadn't even SEEN their dogs - or them for that matter (the neighbors, that is) and then asked them how I could possibly agitate dogs that aren't present - that was the end of it for me. I didn't want to be rude, but I was through with the conversation. Go deal with THEM for filing a FALSE report. They left and the did not linger over at the neighbor's, either, they said something to them for a minute and then they took off.
That's when I called the precinct and asked for the sergeant. If the police come over again today, I will be calling the precinct WHILE they are there, because I am beginning to feel harassed - not just by the neighbors but also by the police. I am taking out my camera and turning on the video portion of it every time they come over now. They tend to tone down quite a lot with their authority trip when they are being video'ed, I have noticed.
I don't hate police, but this is getting old, is the point.
May 6, 2011 5:57 AM
Anonymous said...
Whatever. Despite all of that, I actually slept almost entirely through the night last night, after having several nights in a row of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep.
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Thursday 5/5/2011
Thursday
Caught another cat last overnight. The darn trap opened up on me and let the thing out this morning when I was going to put it into my car to deliver it to it's new home.
Anyway, last night. This stuff seems to come in 2's - if one neighbor starts trouble, the other one does as well. I was just out front of my house after the deal with the dogs with noises people was over and sat there looking at the dude with the tude' and his buddy across the street giving me stares and glares.
To clarify, the big heavy man 2 houses down started trouble with me making threats against my life - though not to me but to my trailer tenants - about the cat situation. I did not say anything to anyone about catching cats except to those in my household, so I have no idea how this dude found out.
But I didn't care, either, that he found out (and yes, one of the cats I caught this morning was one of his cats).
Well, this guy hangs out with the 37 year old "kid" - the guy that is still living at home with his parents. He has NEVER left home. He is a tweeker - smokes meth - has no job or life. The man with the cats is an ex-felon - spent 9 years in prison for selling drugs, yes, from his home right there.
So, that sort of defines the who and what's of these "people", obviously oustanding citizens. I watched them for a while, though I said nothing. I figured if they wanted to start trouble with me, I would just call the police again. The 37 year old was making guesstures towards me and doing his thing, but, not with all the noises.
His parents, I think, forced him to stop doing that. You see, that 37 year old has a curfew on him, if he's not in by 7, he can't sleep there that night. He is under some controls, but certainly not enough to make him stop tweeking and start doing something with his life. He was walking around, acting like a bad-@$$, I was quite unimpressed. I also said nothing. If he wants to act like a 2 year old, let him do so.
After they were doing "conversing", the felon went back into his house and this dude comes walking down the street towards my house. They know now that I will call the police on them if they start any trouble at all. He said nothing but was giving me a stare-down the entire time he walked by.
Well, whatever. I consider the source and said nothing to him, not going to stoop to his level of childishness and school yard bullying.
That was it. Nothing else happened. Today, when I get home from work, if those dogs are barking at me again, I am immediately going to call the police. I am not going to turn on the music, I am going to simply do what they said to do yesterday and see if the police will actually do anything about it.
Onto a few other items. Let's see here, if they somehow find that Obama "broke the law" in illegally killing osama, what are they going to do, arrest him and throw him in prison? Impeach him? I thought it a lot of political grandstanding the way he brought the speech out about the killing but I have no qualms about the killing itself. I also thought that photo of the helicopter was interesting, to say the least. It looked more like a piece of an alien spacecraft then a helicopter's remains.
Whatever. Fully 3 tenants plus the trailer people are behind in rent payments. This doesn't exactly make it easy to - keep the lights on, water running and all the rest of it. Basically, I get paid when they get paid. The Army reservist, though, certainly waited a good period of time to make her final payment for last month. I have received nothing from 2 of them for this month and a small amount from the 3rd. Trailer tenants are expecting money in the mail in a few days from her participation in online surveys.
So, what to do. Hunker down and hope I can survive the lag time - time between having due dates on bills and getting enough money to actually pay those bills.
G'day.
ben
Caught another cat last overnight. The darn trap opened up on me and let the thing out this morning when I was going to put it into my car to deliver it to it's new home.
Anyway, last night. This stuff seems to come in 2's - if one neighbor starts trouble, the other one does as well. I was just out front of my house after the deal with the dogs with noises people was over and sat there looking at the dude with the tude' and his buddy across the street giving me stares and glares.
To clarify, the big heavy man 2 houses down started trouble with me making threats against my life - though not to me but to my trailer tenants - about the cat situation. I did not say anything to anyone about catching cats except to those in my household, so I have no idea how this dude found out.
But I didn't care, either, that he found out (and yes, one of the cats I caught this morning was one of his cats).
Well, this guy hangs out with the 37 year old "kid" - the guy that is still living at home with his parents. He has NEVER left home. He is a tweeker - smokes meth - has no job or life. The man with the cats is an ex-felon - spent 9 years in prison for selling drugs, yes, from his home right there.
So, that sort of defines the who and what's of these "people", obviously oustanding citizens. I watched them for a while, though I said nothing. I figured if they wanted to start trouble with me, I would just call the police again. The 37 year old was making guesstures towards me and doing his thing, but, not with all the noises.
His parents, I think, forced him to stop doing that. You see, that 37 year old has a curfew on him, if he's not in by 7, he can't sleep there that night. He is under some controls, but certainly not enough to make him stop tweeking and start doing something with his life. He was walking around, acting like a bad-@$$, I was quite unimpressed. I also said nothing. If he wants to act like a 2 year old, let him do so.
After they were doing "conversing", the felon went back into his house and this dude comes walking down the street towards my house. They know now that I will call the police on them if they start any trouble at all. He said nothing but was giving me a stare-down the entire time he walked by.
Well, whatever. I consider the source and said nothing to him, not going to stoop to his level of childishness and school yard bullying.
That was it. Nothing else happened. Today, when I get home from work, if those dogs are barking at me again, I am immediately going to call the police. I am not going to turn on the music, I am going to simply do what they said to do yesterday and see if the police will actually do anything about it.
Onto a few other items. Let's see here, if they somehow find that Obama "broke the law" in illegally killing osama, what are they going to do, arrest him and throw him in prison? Impeach him? I thought it a lot of political grandstanding the way he brought the speech out about the killing but I have no qualms about the killing itself. I also thought that photo of the helicopter was interesting, to say the least. It looked more like a piece of an alien spacecraft then a helicopter's remains.
Whatever. Fully 3 tenants plus the trailer people are behind in rent payments. This doesn't exactly make it easy to - keep the lights on, water running and all the rest of it. Basically, I get paid when they get paid. The Army reservist, though, certainly waited a good period of time to make her final payment for last month. I have received nothing from 2 of them for this month and a small amount from the 3rd. Trailer tenants are expecting money in the mail in a few days from her participation in online surveys.
So, what to do. Hunker down and hope I can survive the lag time - time between having due dates on bills and getting enough money to actually pay those bills.
G'day.
ben
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Guess what agency was called over here again, today?
That's right, the Phoenix Police.
Much earlier, I was out attempting to enjoy my ponds and listen to the sounds of the waterfalls. No such enjoyment was to be had. Yes, the neighbor's dogs, barking incessantly. I sat out there for quite a while listening to this junk and got - fed up with it, again.
So, I went to my stereo. I found the most obnoxious, loud, in-your-face music I could find and turned it on, went inside the house and started doing other things. A while later, I went out there and tried again - turned the music off. Was out there a few minutes and here comes the fluffy chow. Barking and barking.
I turned the music on again and this time, I went in the house and decided to let this thing play out. I figured they would call the police - and about 2 hours later, yes, the Phoenix Police not only showed up, but someone must have left the lock off the gate, cause' they walked right through the gate and knocked on my kitchen, sliding-glass door. I didn't see who was there to know it was them the way they were knocking.
Un-phased by their presence on my property, I went out to find out what kind of attitude I would get from them today. They gave me the obligatory "your neighbors have called about the noise coming from your property". This time, however, I took them over to my side of the property. I showed them my Koi ponds, told them that I like to sit over there and listen to the waterfalls - and yes, while I was discussing that, my stereo was blasting out the music. I had no shame or guilt: if I can't have peace, neither are they, period.
These cops came to the understanding quickly after SEEING what's going on that I am not making up stories. I turned the music off and they told me it would go on record: whoever calls about noise, whether them about me or me about them: they are going to start issuing tickets. I had no problem with that and informed them that I would be calling them daily because - those people couldn't care less about their dogs or how much noise they make.
The kicker: I heard them over there putting those people in their place. No, they were saying, he doesn't have the right to blast the music, but at the same time, you do not have the right to allow your dogs to disturb his peace, either. On and on, I heard enough and went back inside my house. I have no qualms calling the police tomorrow when I get home from work and asking them to deal with those people via the dog barking ordinance. I will, however, get the dogs on video first - some proof never hurts.
More? Yes, but it's not them, it's the other neighbors and it wasn't anything more than the usual antics over there.
So, maybe more about that tomorrow, who knows.
For now,
G'nite.
ben
Much earlier, I was out attempting to enjoy my ponds and listen to the sounds of the waterfalls. No such enjoyment was to be had. Yes, the neighbor's dogs, barking incessantly. I sat out there for quite a while listening to this junk and got - fed up with it, again.
So, I went to my stereo. I found the most obnoxious, loud, in-your-face music I could find and turned it on, went inside the house and started doing other things. A while later, I went out there and tried again - turned the music off. Was out there a few minutes and here comes the fluffy chow. Barking and barking.
I turned the music on again and this time, I went in the house and decided to let this thing play out. I figured they would call the police - and about 2 hours later, yes, the Phoenix Police not only showed up, but someone must have left the lock off the gate, cause' they walked right through the gate and knocked on my kitchen, sliding-glass door. I didn't see who was there to know it was them the way they were knocking.
Un-phased by their presence on my property, I went out to find out what kind of attitude I would get from them today. They gave me the obligatory "your neighbors have called about the noise coming from your property". This time, however, I took them over to my side of the property. I showed them my Koi ponds, told them that I like to sit over there and listen to the waterfalls - and yes, while I was discussing that, my stereo was blasting out the music. I had no shame or guilt: if I can't have peace, neither are they, period.
These cops came to the understanding quickly after SEEING what's going on that I am not making up stories. I turned the music off and they told me it would go on record: whoever calls about noise, whether them about me or me about them: they are going to start issuing tickets. I had no problem with that and informed them that I would be calling them daily because - those people couldn't care less about their dogs or how much noise they make.
The kicker: I heard them over there putting those people in their place. No, they were saying, he doesn't have the right to blast the music, but at the same time, you do not have the right to allow your dogs to disturb his peace, either. On and on, I heard enough and went back inside my house. I have no qualms calling the police tomorrow when I get home from work and asking them to deal with those people via the dog barking ordinance. I will, however, get the dogs on video first - some proof never hurts.
More? Yes, but it's not them, it's the other neighbors and it wasn't anything more than the usual antics over there.
So, maybe more about that tomorrow, who knows.
For now,
G'nite.
ben
Wednesday 5/4/2011
Wednesday
Between the time I had last talked to my manager on Monday to the time in seeing him on Tuesdsay morning, my manager apparently had calmed down at least a bit. He was angry, really, at this customer that had come in - off of one of my craiglist ads and a person I had spoken with on the phone at length - the customer had no clue what he was doing. The customer was also mad because "ben told me you have tubing". The man lied through his teeth. The discussion about what we had never included tubing and in fact, if the man would have known what he was doing at all, I would have been able to figure out that he needed more tubing and would have told him to head to Home Depot.
I'm not saying all is hunky dory in the manager/employee relation world, the meeting never materialized. But I did speak my peace about the situation regardless. He is uptight about something - I'm guessing it's his personal life that is still raising it's ugly head in the situation with a fresh divorce and his now ex wife saying she may be getting let go at work. My manager is stressing that she will, in turn, ask for even more money in child support.
Changing the subject, the "polls" showing more Americans driving less. Do we really need a poll to tell us that when the cost of gasoline hits $4 per gallon, people that aren't exactly rich are going to cut back on driving to bare bones minimum? Here's another one the polls aren't even asking yet: driving habits will change substantially. Gunning it from being stopped at a intersection will start to resemble more like a turtle with it's legs cut off - people are going to change their driving habits as well. I've already started doing that, I'm certainly not immune to the effects of expensive gasoline. Last time it got this high, I wanted to get a motorcycle, still wish I could!
I'm still waiting for some kind of bombshell to land from the IRS. It's only been 20 days and I'm hearing it's a lot longer than that before they are getting to returns after receiving them - I am preparing myself for the worst is all I can say about that. If it turns out any better than that, then I can and will be elated. I could certainly use 5 grand right now.
But, especially with the IRS, don't be countin' your chickins' before they be hatchin'.
With that, I am offa here, work day is almost here and there appears to be plenty to do in the truck routing system to keep me busy today.
ben
Between the time I had last talked to my manager on Monday to the time in seeing him on Tuesdsay morning, my manager apparently had calmed down at least a bit. He was angry, really, at this customer that had come in - off of one of my craiglist ads and a person I had spoken with on the phone at length - the customer had no clue what he was doing. The customer was also mad because "ben told me you have tubing". The man lied through his teeth. The discussion about what we had never included tubing and in fact, if the man would have known what he was doing at all, I would have been able to figure out that he needed more tubing and would have told him to head to Home Depot.
I'm not saying all is hunky dory in the manager/employee relation world, the meeting never materialized. But I did speak my peace about the situation regardless. He is uptight about something - I'm guessing it's his personal life that is still raising it's ugly head in the situation with a fresh divorce and his now ex wife saying she may be getting let go at work. My manager is stressing that she will, in turn, ask for even more money in child support.
Changing the subject, the "polls" showing more Americans driving less. Do we really need a poll to tell us that when the cost of gasoline hits $4 per gallon, people that aren't exactly rich are going to cut back on driving to bare bones minimum? Here's another one the polls aren't even asking yet: driving habits will change substantially. Gunning it from being stopped at a intersection will start to resemble more like a turtle with it's legs cut off - people are going to change their driving habits as well. I've already started doing that, I'm certainly not immune to the effects of expensive gasoline. Last time it got this high, I wanted to get a motorcycle, still wish I could!
I'm still waiting for some kind of bombshell to land from the IRS. It's only been 20 days and I'm hearing it's a lot longer than that before they are getting to returns after receiving them - I am preparing myself for the worst is all I can say about that. If it turns out any better than that, then I can and will be elated. I could certainly use 5 grand right now.
But, especially with the IRS, don't be countin' your chickins' before they be hatchin'.
With that, I am offa here, work day is almost here and there appears to be plenty to do in the truck routing system to keep me busy today.
ben
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Tuesday 5/3/2011
Tuesday
Trouble at work.
My manager - for whatever reason the source of which I have no clue - has been getting increasingly curt and short with me. Yesterday there were several indications that something is not right - although WHAT - again, I don't know.
But, the culmination of yesterday's angst towards me was with this drip irrigation stuff I have been selling on Craigslist. He called me 4 times after I got home from work, a man had shown up to buy some of the stuff and clearly, my manager was not happy. I had informed him this guy was coming.
The problem was this guy didn't know what he needed and it took up a lot of my manager's time. Well, I don't know what to say, that's the nature of selling things, people need information they are definitely going to ask the people that are selling the stuff. The kicker, though, was when he called me and told me that this guy had told him that we had "everything he needed" to expand his existent system and that I had told him we had the tubing as well.
I had, of course, said no such thing. Not even close. So my manager, getting extremely cranky on the phone with me, told me he sold the tubing I had brought in - tubing that I had bought and paid for - to give to a manager that needed some for a project he was going to do. So, he sold my personally owned tubing to a man that was clearly not telling the truth about what I had told him, and then, on top of that, put the tubing on a ticket and the money that is owed me is going to go to the company's coffers instead.
Further, he is getting increasingly agitated, he tells me it's not his problem about the tubing and that "you are going to have to explain to ... ...... about why the tubing is going for yourself".
If I do that, it is going to make HIM look pretty bad. He sold 400 feet of my pipe for the price of 100 feet and then took that money and gave it to the company? Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture? My manager then declared that we are going to have a meeting tomorrow morning - which will be this morning of course.
May 3, 2011 5:56 AM
Anonymous said...
Yes, indeed, and let's do. And, let's get beyond irrigation junk and all the rest of it and find out what the source root of the problem is. Let's deal with THAT and get that out of the way, because if, for whatever reason, he doesn't like me, my work or WHATEVER, then perhaps it's time that we go to higher management and perhaps it's time that I ask for a transfer to the main store downtown.
I'm actually not opposed to the idea, either. It's half the distance to the main branch as it is to the store I am working at now - meaning cutting my fuel costs in half getting to and from work. Now, I really don't want it to go that far, I somehow doubt it will look good on either one of us if this has to be forced into going before upper management, but I will say one thing that's for sure: I will not work under abusive management. I have quit more places than I can remember because of that very issue alone. If a manager cannot contain himself and keep his feelings to himself - in constantly expressing some sort of discontent against an employee - then it's time for that manager to find something else to do with their career, cause managing? Ain't exactly in their realm of things that they are good at.
I went through months and months of this guy's daily drama with his divorce and him ending up in severe depression to the point that he would be practically slumped over his desk all day long, listless, non-responsive, I was basically doing all of the work around here. He did his paperwork and that was IT. I gave him an open ear to dump on, and I finally suggested he see a doc to get some "happy pills", cause he definitely needed them.
I do believe I have gone FAR beyond my "normal" job duties in dealing with his personal stuff on a daily basis. In reality, I COULD have brought it before upper management and informed them of the situation going on over here and please do something about it. I didn't do that and I didn't even think to do that. So, receiving this "bad" side on a near daily basis now is starting to get old - and quickly.
I am hopeful that we can just work this out and move on. Really, I am.
I don't know, but the work day is here and he will be in in about 40 minutes. What this day holds, where it is going, I don't know, but I find the texture of it unappealing at best.
ben
Trouble at work.
My manager - for whatever reason the source of which I have no clue - has been getting increasingly curt and short with me. Yesterday there were several indications that something is not right - although WHAT - again, I don't know.
But, the culmination of yesterday's angst towards me was with this drip irrigation stuff I have been selling on Craigslist. He called me 4 times after I got home from work, a man had shown up to buy some of the stuff and clearly, my manager was not happy. I had informed him this guy was coming.
The problem was this guy didn't know what he needed and it took up a lot of my manager's time. Well, I don't know what to say, that's the nature of selling things, people need information they are definitely going to ask the people that are selling the stuff. The kicker, though, was when he called me and told me that this guy had told him that we had "everything he needed" to expand his existent system and that I had told him we had the tubing as well.
I had, of course, said no such thing. Not even close. So my manager, getting extremely cranky on the phone with me, told me he sold the tubing I had brought in - tubing that I had bought and paid for - to give to a manager that needed some for a project he was going to do. So, he sold my personally owned tubing to a man that was clearly not telling the truth about what I had told him, and then, on top of that, put the tubing on a ticket and the money that is owed me is going to go to the company's coffers instead.
Further, he is getting increasingly agitated, he tells me it's not his problem about the tubing and that "you are going to have to explain to ... ...... about why the tubing is going for yourself".
If I do that, it is going to make HIM look pretty bad. He sold 400 feet of my pipe for the price of 100 feet and then took that money and gave it to the company? Does anyone else see anything wrong with this picture? My manager then declared that we are going to have a meeting tomorrow morning - which will be this morning of course.
May 3, 2011 5:56 AM
Anonymous said...
Yes, indeed, and let's do. And, let's get beyond irrigation junk and all the rest of it and find out what the source root of the problem is. Let's deal with THAT and get that out of the way, because if, for whatever reason, he doesn't like me, my work or WHATEVER, then perhaps it's time that we go to higher management and perhaps it's time that I ask for a transfer to the main store downtown.
I'm actually not opposed to the idea, either. It's half the distance to the main branch as it is to the store I am working at now - meaning cutting my fuel costs in half getting to and from work. Now, I really don't want it to go that far, I somehow doubt it will look good on either one of us if this has to be forced into going before upper management, but I will say one thing that's for sure: I will not work under abusive management. I have quit more places than I can remember because of that very issue alone. If a manager cannot contain himself and keep his feelings to himself - in constantly expressing some sort of discontent against an employee - then it's time for that manager to find something else to do with their career, cause managing? Ain't exactly in their realm of things that they are good at.
I went through months and months of this guy's daily drama with his divorce and him ending up in severe depression to the point that he would be practically slumped over his desk all day long, listless, non-responsive, I was basically doing all of the work around here. He did his paperwork and that was IT. I gave him an open ear to dump on, and I finally suggested he see a doc to get some "happy pills", cause he definitely needed them.
I do believe I have gone FAR beyond my "normal" job duties in dealing with his personal stuff on a daily basis. In reality, I COULD have brought it before upper management and informed them of the situation going on over here and please do something about it. I didn't do that and I didn't even think to do that. So, receiving this "bad" side on a near daily basis now is starting to get old - and quickly.
I am hopeful that we can just work this out and move on. Really, I am.
I don't know, but the work day is here and he will be in in about 40 minutes. What this day holds, where it is going, I don't know, but I find the texture of it unappealing at best.
ben
Monday 5/2/2011
Monday
By now, the entire world knows that Osama bin Laden is dead. Bullet to the brain, is what it sounds like they did. Good riddance. The guy holed up in some fortified compound in Pakistan, certainly raises my eyebrows about Pakistan's real intent.
They buried his dead carcass at sea, which I think a shame. I think it would have been nice for Americans to be able to go take a piss on his head. Lay his body to rest in a freaking concrete sewage vault and let several toilets worth of piss and crap fill it up.
I have no sympathy for him or his ilk. I can only imagine what those pathetic losers are going to try to do in "revenge". I hope nothing, but history might say something else.
So, the news will be filled all day long with this stuff, I wish I could listen to all of it. This is the kind of thing I will sit and listen to on the radio or watch on TV for hours on end.
Hat's off to the men and women of our military that make such things happen. I'm guessing Navy Seals teams? Aren't those the people that go in and do such things? Sorta just waiting for more info to come out about how this operation was carried out.
It's been a long time coming. That's what I can say. It's almost a decade since the Twin Towers were brought down and now here we are. I can only imagine what those families of lost loved ones in 9/11 might be feeling now, I am sure the news media will pick up stories, track some of these people down and do interviews.
The images of people jumping out of windows over 90 stories up have never left my mind. Or watching the jumbo jet plowing into the side of the second tower, not actually seeing the death, but knowing that everyone inside of that plane had just been killed along with however many people were in it's way when it crashed into the tower. The fact that this mouthy, arrogant, cocky son-of-a-bitch just took a bullet to his brain must offer to some of the surviving family members/frieds/those that were there some sort of consolation that this guy has finally met a just ending.
Work day is here. The world celebrates. I am in the middle of it.
ben
By now, the entire world knows that Osama bin Laden is dead. Bullet to the brain, is what it sounds like they did. Good riddance. The guy holed up in some fortified compound in Pakistan, certainly raises my eyebrows about Pakistan's real intent.
They buried his dead carcass at sea, which I think a shame. I think it would have been nice for Americans to be able to go take a piss on his head. Lay his body to rest in a freaking concrete sewage vault and let several toilets worth of piss and crap fill it up.
I have no sympathy for him or his ilk. I can only imagine what those pathetic losers are going to try to do in "revenge". I hope nothing, but history might say something else.
So, the news will be filled all day long with this stuff, I wish I could listen to all of it. This is the kind of thing I will sit and listen to on the radio or watch on TV for hours on end.
Hat's off to the men and women of our military that make such things happen. I'm guessing Navy Seals teams? Aren't those the people that go in and do such things? Sorta just waiting for more info to come out about how this operation was carried out.
It's been a long time coming. That's what I can say. It's almost a decade since the Twin Towers were brought down and now here we are. I can only imagine what those families of lost loved ones in 9/11 might be feeling now, I am sure the news media will pick up stories, track some of these people down and do interviews.
The images of people jumping out of windows over 90 stories up have never left my mind. Or watching the jumbo jet plowing into the side of the second tower, not actually seeing the death, but knowing that everyone inside of that plane had just been killed along with however many people were in it's way when it crashed into the tower. The fact that this mouthy, arrogant, cocky son-of-a-bitch just took a bullet to his brain must offer to some of the surviving family members/frieds/those that were there some sort of consolation that this guy has finally met a just ending.
Work day is here. The world celebrates. I am in the middle of it.
ben
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Saturday 4/30/2011
So, the cockroach infestation has grown worse. A while back, I bombed the entire house - with a LOT of bombs everywhere. The house was fumigated very well. It did the trick - for a bit, but, it did not eradicate them. So anyway, when one of the tenants came to me a few days ago and said: hey, Ben, I said 50 of them in the utility room, I took the spray and zapped as many of them as I could! - that was a sign to to get REALLY serious about this situation.
Not that there were 50 roaches, that was QUITE the exaggeration. But, time to give out a notice to everyone and time to pull out the poison guns and definitely time to do extreme cleaning.
Quite a lot of time has elapsed since I started this entry. I sometimes to that, especially on weekends. The neighbors would not deal with their barking dog today, it sat there at the fence barking at me and my dogs for some time. I turned on heavy metal music, aimed directly at their windows and it's been on for - several hours now. I have been out there several times including taking a nap next to one of my ponds - the sound of water falling is quite soothing - the dog was barking and I just let the music rip. Since they refuse to give me the peace I expect to have in my own back yard, I expect that they will be listening to some pretty dreadful music - all night long, actually.
That's the point too: peace. You don't own property to have someone else's issues messing with you. You have the right to peaceable use of your own property.
Lol. More time passed. More blaming of George Bush, now he's the culprit, apparently, or at least part of it according to some dude that made a film with the following coming off the news blips: The film suggests that if there are problems in American education, they are largely due to standardized tests, overambitious parents, insufficient funding, and George W. Bush.
ROFL. This tickles me to tears. I just love the never-ending finger-pointing at George Bush. HE must be the cause of all of our societal woes. I do hope Mr. Bush takes the same humor in such, because frankly? A load of crap. IMO, of course.
Our society is truly messed up.
Not that there were 50 roaches, that was QUITE the exaggeration. But, time to give out a notice to everyone and time to pull out the poison guns and definitely time to do extreme cleaning.
Quite a lot of time has elapsed since I started this entry. I sometimes to that, especially on weekends. The neighbors would not deal with their barking dog today, it sat there at the fence barking at me and my dogs for some time. I turned on heavy metal music, aimed directly at their windows and it's been on for - several hours now. I have been out there several times including taking a nap next to one of my ponds - the sound of water falling is quite soothing - the dog was barking and I just let the music rip. Since they refuse to give me the peace I expect to have in my own back yard, I expect that they will be listening to some pretty dreadful music - all night long, actually.
That's the point too: peace. You don't own property to have someone else's issues messing with you. You have the right to peaceable use of your own property.
Lol. More time passed. More blaming of George Bush, now he's the culprit, apparently, or at least part of it according to some dude that made a film with the following coming off the news blips: The film suggests that if there are problems in American education, they are largely due to standardized tests, overambitious parents, insufficient funding, and George W. Bush.
ROFL. This tickles me to tears. I just love the never-ending finger-pointing at George Bush. HE must be the cause of all of our societal woes. I do hope Mr. Bush takes the same humor in such, because frankly? A load of crap. IMO, of course.
Our society is truly messed up.
Friday 4/29/2011
Friday
Well, the date was interesting. The doggy park we were going to meet at was - closed until May 25th! Lol. We went to another one - the one where Dobermans are brought and like to bit Prince, the black Great Dane, who in turn will bite them back.
No Dobermans last night, at least not purebreds, there was one mixed breed that was definitely part Dobey and yes, that dog started trouble with Prince. Just before Prince was going to do something, I got him away from that scene. What IS it with Dobermans and Prince? No clue there.
Well, we talked quite a lot with several interruptions of course, being at a doggy park and dealing with doggies. Unfortunately, other ladies were stopping me asking about the dog and I didn't want to be rude, so I engaged them in conversation but then, trying to get out of that to get back to the lady I came to meet up with? Well, anyway, it went well, I thought so and we are going to meet again sometime very soon.
Okay, Trump in the news again. I'm guessing this is going to be regular feed in the news blips. This guy is seriously talking running for president! I'd pick him over Obama any day, but I don't know that I would pick him over a serious republican contender.
Crazy stuff going on it this world. My neighbor across the street with the brain tumors is apparently on her last leg and her daughter was over there last night moving her stuff out. She wants $16,000 for that old trailer. I can say the property is worth that much, the trailer? Needs to be razed. What I'm afraid of is what sort of people that kind of price tag usually attracts, if history repeats itself and how would I feel about such living directly across the street from me? I already have enough "neighbor" issues in that neighborhood. I can only pray that whoever ends up getting it is going to have some semblance of being a normal human being (or more likely: family).
Jimmy Carter can blast the U.S. and SK for withholding food distribution to North Korea all he wants, but I have a question, cause I have a bit of experience in this field: HOW do we know WHO is ending up with the food? They going to let humanitarian workers into the country over there to hand-distribute the stuff? Cause' if they aren't, my guess the food goes to the million man army first before any of it is ever seen by the real, actual starving people over there.
THAT would be my only concern in sending more food over there - that it gets into the hands of the people that are actually being oppressed by Kim and his ilk.
I really could care less about the "Royal Wedding" - I'm just completely uninterested. I don't know what the hype is about it, I have read about it and still haven't figured out why so many people are enamored with it, but at least it's OVER.
Ummm, well whatever. The weekend is almost here. A bunch of small deliveries in our truck routing system for work today - adding up to not much. Last day of the business month, too, and our numbers? Pathetic. Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed my drive up to Globe yesterday, though the trip into the mine was rather arduous. Have to sit through an almost 20 minute video, follow another vehicle into the mine and then, to unload the truck, we all had to have a safety meeting and sign a paper that we had attended!
I'm SURE glad I don't have to do THAT everytime I make a delivery! No big plans for the weekend - never really are I suppose - but I will figure something out.
G'day.
ben
Well, the date was interesting. The doggy park we were going to meet at was - closed until May 25th! Lol. We went to another one - the one where Dobermans are brought and like to bit Prince, the black Great Dane, who in turn will bite them back.
No Dobermans last night, at least not purebreds, there was one mixed breed that was definitely part Dobey and yes, that dog started trouble with Prince. Just before Prince was going to do something, I got him away from that scene. What IS it with Dobermans and Prince? No clue there.
Well, we talked quite a lot with several interruptions of course, being at a doggy park and dealing with doggies. Unfortunately, other ladies were stopping me asking about the dog and I didn't want to be rude, so I engaged them in conversation but then, trying to get out of that to get back to the lady I came to meet up with? Well, anyway, it went well, I thought so and we are going to meet again sometime very soon.
Okay, Trump in the news again. I'm guessing this is going to be regular feed in the news blips. This guy is seriously talking running for president! I'd pick him over Obama any day, but I don't know that I would pick him over a serious republican contender.
Crazy stuff going on it this world. My neighbor across the street with the brain tumors is apparently on her last leg and her daughter was over there last night moving her stuff out. She wants $16,000 for that old trailer. I can say the property is worth that much, the trailer? Needs to be razed. What I'm afraid of is what sort of people that kind of price tag usually attracts, if history repeats itself and how would I feel about such living directly across the street from me? I already have enough "neighbor" issues in that neighborhood. I can only pray that whoever ends up getting it is going to have some semblance of being a normal human being (or more likely: family).
Jimmy Carter can blast the U.S. and SK for withholding food distribution to North Korea all he wants, but I have a question, cause I have a bit of experience in this field: HOW do we know WHO is ending up with the food? They going to let humanitarian workers into the country over there to hand-distribute the stuff? Cause' if they aren't, my guess the food goes to the million man army first before any of it is ever seen by the real, actual starving people over there.
THAT would be my only concern in sending more food over there - that it gets into the hands of the people that are actually being oppressed by Kim and his ilk.
I really could care less about the "Royal Wedding" - I'm just completely uninterested. I don't know what the hype is about it, I have read about it and still haven't figured out why so many people are enamored with it, but at least it's OVER.
Ummm, well whatever. The weekend is almost here. A bunch of small deliveries in our truck routing system for work today - adding up to not much. Last day of the business month, too, and our numbers? Pathetic. Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed my drive up to Globe yesterday, though the trip into the mine was rather arduous. Have to sit through an almost 20 minute video, follow another vehicle into the mine and then, to unload the truck, we all had to have a safety meeting and sign a paper that we had attended!
I'm SURE glad I don't have to do THAT everytime I make a delivery! No big plans for the weekend - never really are I suppose - but I will figure something out.
G'day.
ben
Thursday 4/28/2011
Thursday
A trip to the mountains in queue today. Our branch is having a very slow month, indeed, we'll take what we can get. This time to a supply house up in Globe. This particular company usually sends their semi down to us to pick up the materials they need - their truck is down.
I've seen their truck many times - it should be put down permanently!
And then, of course, the dog park date. I've had some pretty interesting reaction to the question that is always asked: where are you going to go? This lady is totally into dogs, she has some fancy breed - one of those take one of this and one of that and see what comes out type - so why not? It costs no more than the gas to get there, if the date is a dud, we go about our lives, nothing gained but nothing lost either.
This particular person speaks more than a mile a minute - I think she goes about 10 miles a minute. I wonder, sometimes, how long a person can go on for before they realize the other individual hasn't said anything - or has tried and just couldn't quite get any words to fit in the billionth of a second between the other person's words? Lol. Doesn't really bother me, but I do like to get a few words in there once in a while.
So, finally, Obama releases the "long" version of his birth certificate. Why didn't he do this a long time ago? I guess there are STILL people that believe it's a fake. Does it really matter now? He's the President, he has been for over 2 years now, what's done is done. I don't agree with much of what he has done or is doing, but I do believe this issue should be laid to a rest. As for Trump, well, I think the idea that he would actually run for President is a bit - out there. He's more like a comedian and a circus clown than the person that you would look at and say, gee: that's presidential material right there.
I'm sure he has the money smarts, but in his case, I would definitely be suspect of hidden agendas.
Umm, my time has run out, gotta get the truck loaded and ready for a run into the hills!
G'day.
ben
A trip to the mountains in queue today. Our branch is having a very slow month, indeed, we'll take what we can get. This time to a supply house up in Globe. This particular company usually sends their semi down to us to pick up the materials they need - their truck is down.
I've seen their truck many times - it should be put down permanently!
And then, of course, the dog park date. I've had some pretty interesting reaction to the question that is always asked: where are you going to go? This lady is totally into dogs, she has some fancy breed - one of those take one of this and one of that and see what comes out type - so why not? It costs no more than the gas to get there, if the date is a dud, we go about our lives, nothing gained but nothing lost either.
This particular person speaks more than a mile a minute - I think she goes about 10 miles a minute. I wonder, sometimes, how long a person can go on for before they realize the other individual hasn't said anything - or has tried and just couldn't quite get any words to fit in the billionth of a second between the other person's words? Lol. Doesn't really bother me, but I do like to get a few words in there once in a while.
So, finally, Obama releases the "long" version of his birth certificate. Why didn't he do this a long time ago? I guess there are STILL people that believe it's a fake. Does it really matter now? He's the President, he has been for over 2 years now, what's done is done. I don't agree with much of what he has done or is doing, but I do believe this issue should be laid to a rest. As for Trump, well, I think the idea that he would actually run for President is a bit - out there. He's more like a comedian and a circus clown than the person that you would look at and say, gee: that's presidential material right there.
I'm sure he has the money smarts, but in his case, I would definitely be suspect of hidden agendas.
Umm, my time has run out, gotta get the truck loaded and ready for a run into the hills!
G'day.
ben
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday 4/27/2011
Wednesday
I had a woman once reply to one of my few Craigslist ads that I have posted in the personals section looking for a relationship saying that my ad was "too long" and had "too much information" in it.
I asked her why, though not in the least bit disuaded from doing things the way I do them regardless of what anyone thinks. "It's a turn off". As if she were speaking for every lady that lives on the face of planet. Lol. I wrote her back and said maybe it's a turn off for YOU, but considering the response, I'd say you aren't exactly speaking for EVERYONE.
I had another one that was - quite dominant to say the least - getting into it through an email discourse that ended up with: gee, I'm not changing, better go find someone that is already in the pansied state that you are searching for.
My "latest" ad = which was weeks ago now - only netted in a few replies. It only takes the right one. You see, if you want to have a relationship and in thinking about that in starting up with a complete and total strange, I rather believe more information - at least relevant info - is better than a 2 liner: I'm a guy, I like to go the movies, now will you marry me?
Even the lady that I am allegedly going to meet tomorrow evening (I only say allegedly cause' it ain't a done deal until it actually happens, and with Craigslist, that is definitely not even close to being guaranteed) said she was only haphazardly looking through the ads from the dudes cause' - most of the ads were quite pathetic.
I've heard that many times over to the point that I started reading some of their ads, too, to see if ther really was any entertainment value to it, and jumping jehoolas - hilarious. Some of the stuff guys write trying to "lure" a woman is worse than pathetic, it's Neanderthal. I mean, we're talking DESPERATE people. Although I would like to find a relationship sooner or later, I am in no way, shape or form anywhere even near the ship called Desperation. That is not a club or a cruise line that I have joined or have even signed up for and don't intend to get there.
I do not, ever, want to repeat history is the reason why.
Changing the subject - totally - Taco Bell now has it's panties in a bunch. Who CARES if it's beef or not? As long as the ingredients of their tacos and such aren't HARMFUL, I know I couldn't care less. I occasionally go in there and get 3 or 4 crunch Fresca tacos - that's their reduced fat/calorie menu. 4 of them equals 600 calories. Somehow, I doubt Taco Bell lost much business to these clowns that tried to sue them because of making alleged false claims.
2 teens kill a woman and then burglarize her home. Couldn't they have just stolen whatever and let the woman live? That was their only motive: stealing. They got caught shortly after and now? I am guessing prosecution is going to go after the death penalty. Why not? It isn't a deterrent to others to not do the same thing, if it were, this stuff would have stopped happening long ago. No, it's just justice meted out. Of course, I'm rather for putting them in a small cell, solitary confinement and letting them sit there and rot for the rest of their lives, a punishment I think that is far worse than a death sentence.
I just don't get all the senseless killing.
Well whatever. Work day approaches - though there is absolutely NOTHING to do in our truck routing system. This is going to be a very bad month, numbers wise, for our store if something drastic in terms of orders coming doesn't change in the next 2 days.
Oh well. Nothing I can do about it.
G'day.
ben
I had a woman once reply to one of my few Craigslist ads that I have posted in the personals section looking for a relationship saying that my ad was "too long" and had "too much information" in it.
I asked her why, though not in the least bit disuaded from doing things the way I do them regardless of what anyone thinks. "It's a turn off". As if she were speaking for every lady that lives on the face of planet. Lol. I wrote her back and said maybe it's a turn off for YOU, but considering the response, I'd say you aren't exactly speaking for EVERYONE.
I had another one that was - quite dominant to say the least - getting into it through an email discourse that ended up with: gee, I'm not changing, better go find someone that is already in the pansied state that you are searching for.
My "latest" ad = which was weeks ago now - only netted in a few replies. It only takes the right one. You see, if you want to have a relationship and in thinking about that in starting up with a complete and total strange, I rather believe more information - at least relevant info - is better than a 2 liner: I'm a guy, I like to go the movies, now will you marry me?
Even the lady that I am allegedly going to meet tomorrow evening (I only say allegedly cause' it ain't a done deal until it actually happens, and with Craigslist, that is definitely not even close to being guaranteed) said she was only haphazardly looking through the ads from the dudes cause' - most of the ads were quite pathetic.
I've heard that many times over to the point that I started reading some of their ads, too, to see if ther really was any entertainment value to it, and jumping jehoolas - hilarious. Some of the stuff guys write trying to "lure" a woman is worse than pathetic, it's Neanderthal. I mean, we're talking DESPERATE people. Although I would like to find a relationship sooner or later, I am in no way, shape or form anywhere even near the ship called Desperation. That is not a club or a cruise line that I have joined or have even signed up for and don't intend to get there.
I do not, ever, want to repeat history is the reason why.
Changing the subject - totally - Taco Bell now has it's panties in a bunch. Who CARES if it's beef or not? As long as the ingredients of their tacos and such aren't HARMFUL, I know I couldn't care less. I occasionally go in there and get 3 or 4 crunch Fresca tacos - that's their reduced fat/calorie menu. 4 of them equals 600 calories. Somehow, I doubt Taco Bell lost much business to these clowns that tried to sue them because of making alleged false claims.
2 teens kill a woman and then burglarize her home. Couldn't they have just stolen whatever and let the woman live? That was their only motive: stealing. They got caught shortly after and now? I am guessing prosecution is going to go after the death penalty. Why not? It isn't a deterrent to others to not do the same thing, if it were, this stuff would have stopped happening long ago. No, it's just justice meted out. Of course, I'm rather for putting them in a small cell, solitary confinement and letting them sit there and rot for the rest of their lives, a punishment I think that is far worse than a death sentence.
I just don't get all the senseless killing.
Well whatever. Work day approaches - though there is absolutely NOTHING to do in our truck routing system. This is going to be a very bad month, numbers wise, for our store if something drastic in terms of orders coming doesn't change in the next 2 days.
Oh well. Nothing I can do about it.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday 4/26/2011
I posted an "entry" this morning in the comments section of yesterday's post - gone. Oh well.
My date for Thursday is still on - on more than I thought. She texted me a few hours ago and we got into a texting session - which I can say that I really don't like texting that much - so we ended up on the phone talking instead. How can you start a relationship texting? You would have to push those miniature buttons forever! My fingers are too big for those little keys, I have to use what little amount of finger nail I have to push those buttons - though I can say after almost 2 months of this nonsense, I am starting to get better at it.
Anyway, she has texted me severed times today and after I started writing this entry - and hardly getting anything written - she called me again. She's a nice, talkative blonde : ) I can talk forever with people, this is not a problem : )
Oh who cares about the tenants and the notices and all the other junk today.
G'nite.
ben
My date for Thursday is still on - on more than I thought. She texted me a few hours ago and we got into a texting session - which I can say that I really don't like texting that much - so we ended up on the phone talking instead. How can you start a relationship texting? You would have to push those miniature buttons forever! My fingers are too big for those little keys, I have to use what little amount of finger nail I have to push those buttons - though I can say after almost 2 months of this nonsense, I am starting to get better at it.
Anyway, she has texted me severed times today and after I started writing this entry - and hardly getting anything written - she called me again. She's a nice, talkative blonde : ) I can talk forever with people, this is not a problem : )
Oh who cares about the tenants and the notices and all the other junk today.
G'nite.
ben
Monday, April 25, 2011
Monday 4/25/2011
Monday
Well, what did you do yesterday on Easter? Umm, for me?? Besides talking to my mother for about 45 minutes on the phone, I was also having to deal with the police - umm, was it twice or three times?
Yup, the trailer trash next door. This time, however, I started the "trouble". The guy has been giving me dirty looks all week long. This coupled with the fact that he called the police on us about vehicles that, it turned out, were legally parked in the street.
Time to turn the tables. If the guy would just keep to himself and stop messing with me, I wouldn't even go here, but I did yesterday. His face was facing the wrong direction and his car was parked on the sidewalk. I called the police, who rather quickly came out and went to their door to tell them to move these vehicles immediately.
The "man" came out, said something to the officer while pointing at me, the officer shook his head and forced him to move the vehicles regardless. However, he did not move the vehicle on the sidewalk, only the van. So, the cops had to come back and deal with him again.
This time, however, the "man" made threatening gesstures to me - I had to smile: I was taking a video of everything. He said something in Spanish that I didn't understand because he said it so quickly, I assume with his gesstures is was some sort of threat.
I then went to the side of the house where my Koi ponds are, there they were, in all of the trash and junk laying out there, putting up metal sheets on their awning. I thought I might as well go the gusto and shot a 5 minute video of him - not saying a word to him or her - while they were doing it.
He got mad. Lol. Should have I have done any of this? Probably not. The "man" has crossed my line, however, and I am not exactly going to be pleasant to them - ever again actually. I have tried for years now and it's gotten me nothing but police over at my house.
So, I went inside my house and maybe 2 hours later? The police are out front of my house, ringing the doorbell. This time, I took the camera with me and yes, I fully intended on videoing the police as in the past, they have been very disrespectful and I figured to get it on film and possibly post it to YouTube.
This guy started in on me, of course. And, as usual, the people next door lied and exaggerated. No surprise there. There were 3 cops there - no surprise there, either. They must not have had much to do yesterday in dispatching 3 different cars to a call as petty as the this one.
April 25, 2011 6:03 AM
Anonymous said...
He attempted to tell me that I could not video my next door neighbors, that it "could" be considered harassment.
That got me going pretty good. HARASSMENT? YOU want to talk about harassment? I went off about the dogs, his threats, and the junk in their back yard that I am exposed to. Especially the dogs. They tell me the same thing every time: Call the police if their dogs are barking at 2:00am. Yes, officer, I have, they said they can't do anything. One cop got a surprised look on his face.
"They told you we can't do anything?!~!" Yes. On and on. In the end? The cop that was "handling" the call changed his tones towards me dramatically - but that only happens after I go through the entire story. ALWAYS, at the beginning, they think I am the guy starting the trouble.
They advised me - as others have also - to get an Injunction Against Harassment, and frankly, I may actually do that. That is, when I feel like driving downtown, finding a parking space and spending the time it's going to take to get one, and then, potentially, having to go to court again if they want to contest it. No idea whether they would or not, not that that would scare me.
So, that was yesterday.
Now? Water under the bridge. Just another day on my street. I AM getting sick of their crap, though. The cops are always telling me to just keep to myself. I always have to tell them to tell THOSE people to MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS and there would BE no problems. I don't normally start the stuff with them, yesterday I freely admit that I did, but only after a week of this guy giving me the "bad-@$$" looks every time I come home from work.
They didn't spend much time over there when they went back over, which is quite unusual, they normally are talking with them at least 20-30 minutes. Apparently my story got through to them. I did call those people trailer trash, told the cops they are not normal people and invited them to take a look at the side of their house. I also invited them to look at the damage their dog has done to plants at the front of my property. Yes, when you can start pointing things out, it gives a bit different perspective now, doesn't it?
I'll take their advice on Animal Control. They claim you have to keep calling them to get anywhere with it. Okay. The next time I hear those dogs barking incessantly at 1:00 am, I will call the police and the next day I will call Animal Control again. My guess? It will get me NOWHERE in dealing with them and their dogs.
Oh well.
Work day approaches. There are a few things to do in the truck routing system, thankfully. I hate starting Mondays with nothing to do, it really makes a day draaaaaaaag.
G'day.
ben
Well, what did you do yesterday on Easter? Umm, for me?? Besides talking to my mother for about 45 minutes on the phone, I was also having to deal with the police - umm, was it twice or three times?
Yup, the trailer trash next door. This time, however, I started the "trouble". The guy has been giving me dirty looks all week long. This coupled with the fact that he called the police on us about vehicles that, it turned out, were legally parked in the street.
Time to turn the tables. If the guy would just keep to himself and stop messing with me, I wouldn't even go here, but I did yesterday. His face was facing the wrong direction and his car was parked on the sidewalk. I called the police, who rather quickly came out and went to their door to tell them to move these vehicles immediately.
The "man" came out, said something to the officer while pointing at me, the officer shook his head and forced him to move the vehicles regardless. However, he did not move the vehicle on the sidewalk, only the van. So, the cops had to come back and deal with him again.
This time, however, the "man" made threatening gesstures to me - I had to smile: I was taking a video of everything. He said something in Spanish that I didn't understand because he said it so quickly, I assume with his gesstures is was some sort of threat.
I then went to the side of the house where my Koi ponds are, there they were, in all of the trash and junk laying out there, putting up metal sheets on their awning. I thought I might as well go the gusto and shot a 5 minute video of him - not saying a word to him or her - while they were doing it.
He got mad. Lol. Should have I have done any of this? Probably not. The "man" has crossed my line, however, and I am not exactly going to be pleasant to them - ever again actually. I have tried for years now and it's gotten me nothing but police over at my house.
So, I went inside my house and maybe 2 hours later? The police are out front of my house, ringing the doorbell. This time, I took the camera with me and yes, I fully intended on videoing the police as in the past, they have been very disrespectful and I figured to get it on film and possibly post it to YouTube.
This guy started in on me, of course. And, as usual, the people next door lied and exaggerated. No surprise there. There were 3 cops there - no surprise there, either. They must not have had much to do yesterday in dispatching 3 different cars to a call as petty as the this one.
April 25, 2011 6:03 AM
Anonymous said...
He attempted to tell me that I could not video my next door neighbors, that it "could" be considered harassment.
That got me going pretty good. HARASSMENT? YOU want to talk about harassment? I went off about the dogs, his threats, and the junk in their back yard that I am exposed to. Especially the dogs. They tell me the same thing every time: Call the police if their dogs are barking at 2:00am. Yes, officer, I have, they said they can't do anything. One cop got a surprised look on his face.
"They told you we can't do anything?!~!" Yes. On and on. In the end? The cop that was "handling" the call changed his tones towards me dramatically - but that only happens after I go through the entire story. ALWAYS, at the beginning, they think I am the guy starting the trouble.
They advised me - as others have also - to get an Injunction Against Harassment, and frankly, I may actually do that. That is, when I feel like driving downtown, finding a parking space and spending the time it's going to take to get one, and then, potentially, having to go to court again if they want to contest it. No idea whether they would or not, not that that would scare me.
So, that was yesterday.
Now? Water under the bridge. Just another day on my street. I AM getting sick of their crap, though. The cops are always telling me to just keep to myself. I always have to tell them to tell THOSE people to MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS and there would BE no problems. I don't normally start the stuff with them, yesterday I freely admit that I did, but only after a week of this guy giving me the "bad-@$$" looks every time I come home from work.
They didn't spend much time over there when they went back over, which is quite unusual, they normally are talking with them at least 20-30 minutes. Apparently my story got through to them. I did call those people trailer trash, told the cops they are not normal people and invited them to take a look at the side of their house. I also invited them to look at the damage their dog has done to plants at the front of my property. Yes, when you can start pointing things out, it gives a bit different perspective now, doesn't it?
I'll take their advice on Animal Control. They claim you have to keep calling them to get anywhere with it. Okay. The next time I hear those dogs barking incessantly at 1:00 am, I will call the police and the next day I will call Animal Control again. My guess? It will get me NOWHERE in dealing with them and their dogs.
Oh well.
Work day approaches. There are a few things to do in the truck routing system, thankfully. I hate starting Mondays with nothing to do, it really makes a day draaaaaaaag.
G'day.
ben
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Lowe's Free Tree Day/Earth Day
So, I guess today is Earth Day? And Lowe's is giving away 1,000,000 trees. I just called the one down the road from me, in about 30 minutes they are going to be giving theirs out and yes, I intend to be there in 30 minutes. It's a 10 minute drive, no time pressure here to get this done and get over there. I am, of course, totally into trees: the more, the merrier.
Came out to my kitchen this morning to find a sink loaded/filled/stuffed with dirty plates and such. This is a HUGE no-no on ben's "Don't EVER Do List" for tenants. I got pretty sour pretty quick, it's a good thing tenants weren't out here because the first one I saw? I would have let'er loose. Instead, I dealt with the mess and will be handing out notices to everyone. I am already charging 2 tenants extra for not cleaning the bathroom - they don't want to do it, they are going to pay someone to do it for them.
No dogs barking. I went outside last night because of the noise of the neighbor's dogs barking incessantly and yelled out very loudly: SHUT YOUR DOGS UP!!
Nothing happened. SHUT YOUR DOGS UP OR I AM GOING TO CALL THE POLICE (this is THEIR modus operandi, why not do the same with them? Oh, because it's juvenile, that's why)!!! I didn't hear another peep from those dogs all night and not even this morning when I let my dogs out.
The boom box I had put away? Is also back out on it's stepladder, aimed at their windows. I am through with being civil with these people, just fight fire with fire at this point. I have no tolerance or civilities left for them, at all. They are a hoard of trailer trash and they LIVE like trailer trash. When you think of someone living in an old trailer with trash dumped all around the place, this is EXACTLY what they are living in and how they live!!
PIGS.
Well, anyway, I'm only half dressed and I need to get ready to go to the free tree event!
G'day.
ben
Came out to my kitchen this morning to find a sink loaded/filled/stuffed with dirty plates and such. This is a HUGE no-no on ben's "Don't EVER Do List" for tenants. I got pretty sour pretty quick, it's a good thing tenants weren't out here because the first one I saw? I would have let'er loose. Instead, I dealt with the mess and will be handing out notices to everyone. I am already charging 2 tenants extra for not cleaning the bathroom - they don't want to do it, they are going to pay someone to do it for them.
No dogs barking. I went outside last night because of the noise of the neighbor's dogs barking incessantly and yelled out very loudly: SHUT YOUR DOGS UP!!
Nothing happened. SHUT YOUR DOGS UP OR I AM GOING TO CALL THE POLICE (this is THEIR modus operandi, why not do the same with them? Oh, because it's juvenile, that's why)!!! I didn't hear another peep from those dogs all night and not even this morning when I let my dogs out.
The boom box I had put away? Is also back out on it's stepladder, aimed at their windows. I am through with being civil with these people, just fight fire with fire at this point. I have no tolerance or civilities left for them, at all. They are a hoard of trailer trash and they LIVE like trailer trash. When you think of someone living in an old trailer with trash dumped all around the place, this is EXACTLY what they are living in and how they live!!
PIGS.
Well, anyway, I'm only half dressed and I need to get ready to go to the free tree event!
G'day.
ben
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Friday 4/22/2011
Friday
Now it's REALLY Friday, lol.
Yesterday was a very long day at work.
3 different trips, out until almost 4:00 pm.
Of course, today has almost nothing to do in the routing system, se la vie.
I haven't got much this morning. I woke up out of a really strange dream that I can't quite seem to shake from my head.
I was living in a house on the side of a large mountain with a bunch of relatives. That's strange in itself - who wants to live with their relatives? Anyway, one of my Koi ponds was up in a giant barn/garage like structure on the second floor. The thing caught on fire and I was, for whatever reason, trying to catch the fish and save them (In real life? the fish would burn! I ain't riskin' my life for fish!).
It was in a remote area of the wilderness, the house that is, but it was set on this REALLY steep mountainside. I remember leaving to get out of there as the house was burning, walking along a dirt road, looking up and see at the top of the mountain a wave of lava coming over it. The next thing I know, I'm climbing up a huge tree to escape the lava.
As I said, it was a strange dream. Why it's stuck in my head, no clue, usually dreams just fizzle out of my mind - but, obviously - not always. Not only that, the alarm clock had been going off for over a full minute before I finally woke up out of it!
Oh, Caleb's graduation. This should be lovely. My dad and my mom - who haven't seen each other since 1985 - will be "forced" to be in the same place, at the same time. Not only that, my brothers are coming. My brothers haven't spoken to my dad in like 6 years. I am guessing this whole situation is going to be VERY uncomfortable for all of them. Well, they don't HAVE to come. I guess they don't even have to sit together, I'm guessing they probably won't.
One thing that is good out of all of it: My brothers and mom are pitching in together to buy Caleb a brand new laptop as a gift. You can't beat that with a stick!!!
G'day.
ben
Now it's REALLY Friday, lol.
Yesterday was a very long day at work.
3 different trips, out until almost 4:00 pm.
Of course, today has almost nothing to do in the routing system, se la vie.
I haven't got much this morning. I woke up out of a really strange dream that I can't quite seem to shake from my head.
I was living in a house on the side of a large mountain with a bunch of relatives. That's strange in itself - who wants to live with their relatives? Anyway, one of my Koi ponds was up in a giant barn/garage like structure on the second floor. The thing caught on fire and I was, for whatever reason, trying to catch the fish and save them (In real life? the fish would burn! I ain't riskin' my life for fish!).
It was in a remote area of the wilderness, the house that is, but it was set on this REALLY steep mountainside. I remember leaving to get out of there as the house was burning, walking along a dirt road, looking up and see at the top of the mountain a wave of lava coming over it. The next thing I know, I'm climbing up a huge tree to escape the lava.
As I said, it was a strange dream. Why it's stuck in my head, no clue, usually dreams just fizzle out of my mind - but, obviously - not always. Not only that, the alarm clock had been going off for over a full minute before I finally woke up out of it!
Oh, Caleb's graduation. This should be lovely. My dad and my mom - who haven't seen each other since 1985 - will be "forced" to be in the same place, at the same time. Not only that, my brothers are coming. My brothers haven't spoken to my dad in like 6 years. I am guessing this whole situation is going to be VERY uncomfortable for all of them. Well, they don't HAVE to come. I guess they don't even have to sit together, I'm guessing they probably won't.
One thing that is good out of all of it: My brothers and mom are pitching in together to buy Caleb a brand new laptop as a gift. You can't beat that with a stick!!!
G'day.
ben
Thursday 4/21/2011
Note: I had it stuck in my head this morning that it is Friday, when, in actuality, it is Thursday. Get to do a do-over tomorrow.
Friday
Performance review given out yesterday. Mostly good marks but with a black eye punched. Of course, the issue with the DOT giving me out warnings. I get pulled over frequently enough - in fact just a few days ago. But my truck was not inspected, just weighed. The truck was almost empty, they weighed two of the 5 axles and then moved me on.
Oh well. I am sure there are drivers all over the country that are getting this kind of junk and there isn't much you can do about it. There are also other drivers in my company that have received tickets with fines - I received no such thing.
But in this new era of new rules and regulations that have just come out, it almost makes no difference on your record whether it was a violation with a warning or a violation with a ticket and fine. You know, I have no control over god-attitude DOT officers, especially the 20-somethings that have attitude written all over themselves. This has been going on for decades, there is nothing new here.
They pull you over to find violations. They don't care how petty it is or the fact that it has nothing to do with "safety", they will write you up for a loose bolt on a passenger seat that no-one ever sits in. Companies with management that has no knowledge of the trucking industry and how DOT officers approach these situations simply point at the driver and blame you. You have to be perfect, but more: your truck has to be perfect as well.
I also got a mark on "communication". Yes, well, I have to say that I communicate with everyone in the company that I need to communicate with, when I need to communicate with them. I was asking about that and didn't get any specific instances - which is what I need to see whether I am really guilty of that or just because it's an inexperienced manager - who - btw - went through a divorce and would show up to work listless. I was dumped with the workload while he sat in his office with extreme depression. I didn't care about the workload, but he wasn't communicating with me - almost at all.
But, whatever. I can't change the review if I wanted to, I do care, but there is nothing I can do about it.
Regardless, there is a huge volume of work to do today, stuff got dumped into our routing system just before I was leaving to go home yesterday. I doubt it will all get finished - too much work in too little time to accomplish. I always try, of course, but I have enough experience to know what can be done with a 2 man crew and what can't be done.
As for right now? Go read the news.
G'day.
ben
Friday
Performance review given out yesterday. Mostly good marks but with a black eye punched. Of course, the issue with the DOT giving me out warnings. I get pulled over frequently enough - in fact just a few days ago. But my truck was not inspected, just weighed. The truck was almost empty, they weighed two of the 5 axles and then moved me on.
Oh well. I am sure there are drivers all over the country that are getting this kind of junk and there isn't much you can do about it. There are also other drivers in my company that have received tickets with fines - I received no such thing.
But in this new era of new rules and regulations that have just come out, it almost makes no difference on your record whether it was a violation with a warning or a violation with a ticket and fine. You know, I have no control over god-attitude DOT officers, especially the 20-somethings that have attitude written all over themselves. This has been going on for decades, there is nothing new here.
They pull you over to find violations. They don't care how petty it is or the fact that it has nothing to do with "safety", they will write you up for a loose bolt on a passenger seat that no-one ever sits in. Companies with management that has no knowledge of the trucking industry and how DOT officers approach these situations simply point at the driver and blame you. You have to be perfect, but more: your truck has to be perfect as well.
I also got a mark on "communication". Yes, well, I have to say that I communicate with everyone in the company that I need to communicate with, when I need to communicate with them. I was asking about that and didn't get any specific instances - which is what I need to see whether I am really guilty of that or just because it's an inexperienced manager - who - btw - went through a divorce and would show up to work listless. I was dumped with the workload while he sat in his office with extreme depression. I didn't care about the workload, but he wasn't communicating with me - almost at all.
But, whatever. I can't change the review if I wanted to, I do care, but there is nothing I can do about it.
Regardless, there is a huge volume of work to do today, stuff got dumped into our routing system just before I was leaving to go home yesterday. I doubt it will all get finished - too much work in too little time to accomplish. I always try, of course, but I have enough experience to know what can be done with a 2 man crew and what can't be done.
As for right now? Go read the news.
G'day.
ben
Wednesday 4/20/2011
Wednesday
Ummm, I always hate when I forget to update this blog and get the entries on comments to their own spot.
Oh well.
Brewer vetoes the requirement to check presidential candidate's credentials as to place of birth. Good. I don't like Obama, at all, but our state has enough contention going on to need to heap even more upon it. It is a useless waste of legislature's time to be drafting this kind of bill up and then going through all the motions to get it passed.
They have better things to do.
The price of food is continuing to rise. Especially seeing that scenario in the meat department at the local grocer's. Dairy products, too. In fact, just about everything. I'm beginning to wonder if some of this stuff I have been hearing for some time now isn't going to come to pass: food is going to get so expensive, some people aren't going to be able to afford to buy it. Others are going to be severely affected by it.
I dunno. I am not feeding a bunch of mouths right now so it really isn't affecting me that much. The trailer tenants are already complaining about it - they have limited finances and this kind of thing happening isn't helpful to their situation. I can always tell when they are down to their last pennies - they start eating mac and cheese or other types of noodles. I gave them a 3 pound package of ground beef yesterday, it was on sale.
But, the sales aren't that great - at least right now - as it is. That 3-pound pack at $6.19 on sale would have been around $2.50 in a similar sale only a year ago. The regular price of ground beef has soared, actually, to the point I don't even buy the stuff right now. If a good sale comes up on it anytime in the near future, I will be a lot of it.
Another example are the 5 pound chubs. A year ago, not even that long ago: $9.99 and you could get it much cheaper if it was on sale. Now? Over $13 for that same chub. That's a substantial rise in the price.
Things at work, completely changing the subject, are going in a - strange direction. I won't go into details, but even the feel of it is pretty much out there. I'm not sure what is going on, where it is leading to or what the final results will be, hold onto my seat and let's go for another roller coaster ride.
In reality, when times get rough in most societies, more people turn to God. I was just musing about that. I wonder if that's true in these current times. Especially America. The land of the free - and increasingly a lot of corruption at all levels. Meanwhile, people are homeless, hungry, broke. It's all around you, you may not see it because you haven't really looked. Or you may not WANT to see it. Who knows.
I am done with this one, as I seem to be wandering all over the place.
G'day.
ben
Ummm, I always hate when I forget to update this blog and get the entries on comments to their own spot.
Oh well.
Brewer vetoes the requirement to check presidential candidate's credentials as to place of birth. Good. I don't like Obama, at all, but our state has enough contention going on to need to heap even more upon it. It is a useless waste of legislature's time to be drafting this kind of bill up and then going through all the motions to get it passed.
They have better things to do.
The price of food is continuing to rise. Especially seeing that scenario in the meat department at the local grocer's. Dairy products, too. In fact, just about everything. I'm beginning to wonder if some of this stuff I have been hearing for some time now isn't going to come to pass: food is going to get so expensive, some people aren't going to be able to afford to buy it. Others are going to be severely affected by it.
I dunno. I am not feeding a bunch of mouths right now so it really isn't affecting me that much. The trailer tenants are already complaining about it - they have limited finances and this kind of thing happening isn't helpful to their situation. I can always tell when they are down to their last pennies - they start eating mac and cheese or other types of noodles. I gave them a 3 pound package of ground beef yesterday, it was on sale.
But, the sales aren't that great - at least right now - as it is. That 3-pound pack at $6.19 on sale would have been around $2.50 in a similar sale only a year ago. The regular price of ground beef has soared, actually, to the point I don't even buy the stuff right now. If a good sale comes up on it anytime in the near future, I will be a lot of it.
Another example are the 5 pound chubs. A year ago, not even that long ago: $9.99 and you could get it much cheaper if it was on sale. Now? Over $13 for that same chub. That's a substantial rise in the price.
Things at work, completely changing the subject, are going in a - strange direction. I won't go into details, but even the feel of it is pretty much out there. I'm not sure what is going on, where it is leading to or what the final results will be, hold onto my seat and let's go for another roller coaster ride.
In reality, when times get rough in most societies, more people turn to God. I was just musing about that. I wonder if that's true in these current times. Especially America. The land of the free - and increasingly a lot of corruption at all levels. Meanwhile, people are homeless, hungry, broke. It's all around you, you may not see it because you haven't really looked. Or you may not WANT to see it. Who knows.
I am done with this one, as I seem to be wandering all over the place.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday 4/19/2011
Tuesday
This will be a short(er) one. Not much time left before work.
The only item of interest is a conversation I had yesterday with Lynnette, one of the trailer dwellers.
She started telling me this story about the kid tenant - again. I had thought we had gotten past some of this stuff. Apparently and definitely not.
What she told me started to make me mad. She told me she was mopping the kitchen floor and that this kid came out -- and walked on the still wet floor. She asked him not to do that, can he wait 10 minutes until the floor dries? No, he replies, he his hungry.
So, you are so hungry that you can't wait a few minutes until the floor dries? Please? No, he replies again, I am hungry right now and I am not going to wait. The third request fell on deaf ears.
UNBELIEVABLE. WHAT planet did this kid drop in from? Planet EGO, apparently. I am god, I can do whatever I want, do not interfere with my activities.
It goes on. She has told him in the past to NOT start the dishwasher. He used to start the thing half full. Seriously, the machine wouldn't be even half full and there is he, wasting my electricity, hot water and those dishwasher tabs - which are expensive btw - on half a load of dishes. Apparently Lynnette's fuse blew on that one: Do not EVER start this machine again!! I guess she lectured him on the fact that I usually have the thing crammed full - more than she has ever seen anyone get into a machine and still have the dishes come out clean.
Well, as a matter of fact, that is true : )
This isn't the end. I was informed that he goes out my side door where the fish are to - allegedly - piss if he wakes up and the bathroom is being used. ?@!!!!!@#$@#$%Q$*@$)@$
Lynnette said basically he's being doing that since he moved in. I had no clue. I have never seen him going out there - not to do anything. Well, that door has a double deadbolt on it - meaning it is keyed on BOTH sides and yes, the door is now deadbolted shut.
Then there was the coup de grace. Imagine listening to all of this in one conversation. He got up yesterday morning and was having a cow about the bathroom being full. One moment of humor, yes, I was laughing. That's because fully 3 people in a row used the bathroom including taking showers - keeping him out and apparently complaining loudly to Lynnette.
I told Lynnette I would deal with him on the floor cleaning issue, what a freak. No, she exclaims loudly, do NOT do that!! She didn't want to be seen as a tattle tale. Well who cares? What's the kid going to do? I very reluctantly agreed to not say anything, but the issue of the dishwasher DID come up.
You see, it wasn't just that he started the machine, he started it with a casserole dish in there, a small one, but it was over the top of the telescoping thing that raises up when the machine starts and sprays water on the dishes on the upper rack. Without that, those dishes do not get clean. Further, he did not rearrange the silverware so that it wasn't all crammed into one compartment. Half of that didn't get clean and he also didn't arrange the dishes so that water could get through all of it.
I addressed him on that and flatly told him to never operate that machine again, did not say please or thank you, just don't touch it.
I have my own plan about forcing this kitchen floor issue. I will just clean the floor when he is home and hope that he comes out while the floor is wet. I have already had one show down with him about this quite some time ago. I had thought THAT situation had been taken care of.
That's it. My time is up anyway. There is actually more to the story with this kid, but, no biggies.
G'day.
ben
This will be a short(er) one. Not much time left before work.
The only item of interest is a conversation I had yesterday with Lynnette, one of the trailer dwellers.
She started telling me this story about the kid tenant - again. I had thought we had gotten past some of this stuff. Apparently and definitely not.
What she told me started to make me mad. She told me she was mopping the kitchen floor and that this kid came out -- and walked on the still wet floor. She asked him not to do that, can he wait 10 minutes until the floor dries? No, he replies, he his hungry.
So, you are so hungry that you can't wait a few minutes until the floor dries? Please? No, he replies again, I am hungry right now and I am not going to wait. The third request fell on deaf ears.
UNBELIEVABLE. WHAT planet did this kid drop in from? Planet EGO, apparently. I am god, I can do whatever I want, do not interfere with my activities.
It goes on. She has told him in the past to NOT start the dishwasher. He used to start the thing half full. Seriously, the machine wouldn't be even half full and there is he, wasting my electricity, hot water and those dishwasher tabs - which are expensive btw - on half a load of dishes. Apparently Lynnette's fuse blew on that one: Do not EVER start this machine again!! I guess she lectured him on the fact that I usually have the thing crammed full - more than she has ever seen anyone get into a machine and still have the dishes come out clean.
Well, as a matter of fact, that is true : )
This isn't the end. I was informed that he goes out my side door where the fish are to - allegedly - piss if he wakes up and the bathroom is being used. ?@!!!!!@#$@#$%Q$*@$)@$
Lynnette said basically he's being doing that since he moved in. I had no clue. I have never seen him going out there - not to do anything. Well, that door has a double deadbolt on it - meaning it is keyed on BOTH sides and yes, the door is now deadbolted shut.
Then there was the coup de grace. Imagine listening to all of this in one conversation. He got up yesterday morning and was having a cow about the bathroom being full. One moment of humor, yes, I was laughing. That's because fully 3 people in a row used the bathroom including taking showers - keeping him out and apparently complaining loudly to Lynnette.
I told Lynnette I would deal with him on the floor cleaning issue, what a freak. No, she exclaims loudly, do NOT do that!! She didn't want to be seen as a tattle tale. Well who cares? What's the kid going to do? I very reluctantly agreed to not say anything, but the issue of the dishwasher DID come up.
You see, it wasn't just that he started the machine, he started it with a casserole dish in there, a small one, but it was over the top of the telescoping thing that raises up when the machine starts and sprays water on the dishes on the upper rack. Without that, those dishes do not get clean. Further, he did not rearrange the silverware so that it wasn't all crammed into one compartment. Half of that didn't get clean and he also didn't arrange the dishes so that water could get through all of it.
I addressed him on that and flatly told him to never operate that machine again, did not say please or thank you, just don't touch it.
I have my own plan about forcing this kitchen floor issue. I will just clean the floor when he is home and hope that he comes out while the floor is wet. I have already had one show down with him about this quite some time ago. I had thought THAT situation had been taken care of.
That's it. My time is up anyway. There is actually more to the story with this kid, but, no biggies.
G'day.
ben
Monday 4/18/2011
Monday
Tax Day.
The day of Fear. The day the Federal Government through the Department of the Treasury via the IRS wants to instill the fear of man into you. File your tax returns or else.
I guess it's the whole fear thing that they try to convey that turns me off.
So here we go again with rising fuel prices. I mean, some parts of the country are already paying over $4 per gallon, it was $3.67 at a station I saw on the way to work today. They have you by the throat. You wanna drive, you will pay the price and there isn't a thing you can do about it. I have no choice. Well, I suppose there are always choices, but getting up at 3:30 am to ride a bike to work doesn't sound like much fun, neither does taking a bus that would take 2 to 2-1/2 hours to get to work. How high is it going to go, that is my question.
Here's some humor: the House has passed Ryan's bill to cut the deficit. Humorous because everyone knows it's not going to pass through the Senate and even if it did - Obama would most certainly veto it. I don't know about anyone else, but I would like to see a plan that, since it's going to take 10 years to do it - would call ALL of the deficit out, regardless of what that means cutting out of the FAR-too-long reach span of the Federal government.
The interest payments on our debt alone is staggering when put into visible numbers (versus "them" just talking about it in generic fashion). One thing I hope remains true: that the pressure is on from the American people - a lot of us anyway - to get this mindset that they can just spend as much as they want and it doesn't matter what we think - out of Washington. Good luck with Obama, right? lol. Still, there IS pressure. They can't just ignore the entire caucus anymore. Some people may hate the Tea Party, but that grouping of individuals has done more to force the issue of spending than any other grouping in modern history.
Just sit back and take a totally neutral look at the Federal government, the money it gets in on a yearly basis and the money it spends, including the interest to pay for the loans that we continually seem to be acquiring to keep the government's doors open. If you could get past party line and emotion in such a view, then perhaps you might start to see that regardless of who got us here and into this mess - something HAS to be done about it and now, not 10 years from now, now.
This mentality of living in debt and that it's somehow acceptable needs to go out the window. Statistics show that many Americans are paying down their personal debt - if they can - getting out of credit card debt and attempting to even save more.
I upped my 401k deductions to 5% so that I could realize the full benefits given by my company in their match. Dollar for dollar on the first 2 percent and 50 cents on the dollar on the 3 beyond that. It's free money and I ain't gettin' no pension. My only trepidation is the doomsayers forecasting that later this year, the stock market is going to take a dive again and so are your stocks.
Ahhh, well, I am going to probably dump all of my money into the safest venue I can find in the next month or so. I did that last time and I didn't lost near as much, percentage wise, as several people I know who said they lost almost everything. BUT, the same people came back a year later and said they had gotten it all back!
Regardless, work day approaches and there is some driving to do.
G'day.
ben
Tax Day.
The day of Fear. The day the Federal Government through the Department of the Treasury via the IRS wants to instill the fear of man into you. File your tax returns or else.
I guess it's the whole fear thing that they try to convey that turns me off.
So here we go again with rising fuel prices. I mean, some parts of the country are already paying over $4 per gallon, it was $3.67 at a station I saw on the way to work today. They have you by the throat. You wanna drive, you will pay the price and there isn't a thing you can do about it. I have no choice. Well, I suppose there are always choices, but getting up at 3:30 am to ride a bike to work doesn't sound like much fun, neither does taking a bus that would take 2 to 2-1/2 hours to get to work. How high is it going to go, that is my question.
Here's some humor: the House has passed Ryan's bill to cut the deficit. Humorous because everyone knows it's not going to pass through the Senate and even if it did - Obama would most certainly veto it. I don't know about anyone else, but I would like to see a plan that, since it's going to take 10 years to do it - would call ALL of the deficit out, regardless of what that means cutting out of the FAR-too-long reach span of the Federal government.
The interest payments on our debt alone is staggering when put into visible numbers (versus "them" just talking about it in generic fashion). One thing I hope remains true: that the pressure is on from the American people - a lot of us anyway - to get this mindset that they can just spend as much as they want and it doesn't matter what we think - out of Washington. Good luck with Obama, right? lol. Still, there IS pressure. They can't just ignore the entire caucus anymore. Some people may hate the Tea Party, but that grouping of individuals has done more to force the issue of spending than any other grouping in modern history.
Just sit back and take a totally neutral look at the Federal government, the money it gets in on a yearly basis and the money it spends, including the interest to pay for the loans that we continually seem to be acquiring to keep the government's doors open. If you could get past party line and emotion in such a view, then perhaps you might start to see that regardless of who got us here and into this mess - something HAS to be done about it and now, not 10 years from now, now.
This mentality of living in debt and that it's somehow acceptable needs to go out the window. Statistics show that many Americans are paying down their personal debt - if they can - getting out of credit card debt and attempting to even save more.
I upped my 401k deductions to 5% so that I could realize the full benefits given by my company in their match. Dollar for dollar on the first 2 percent and 50 cents on the dollar on the 3 beyond that. It's free money and I ain't gettin' no pension. My only trepidation is the doomsayers forecasting that later this year, the stock market is going to take a dive again and so are your stocks.
Ahhh, well, I am going to probably dump all of my money into the safest venue I can find in the next month or so. I did that last time and I didn't lost near as much, percentage wise, as several people I know who said they lost almost everything. BUT, the same people came back a year later and said they had gotten it all back!
Regardless, work day approaches and there is some driving to do.
G'day.
ben
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