UN - believable.
The cacophony of lies spewing from Mary's mouth in the courtroom - just incredible. Too many to list. The thing that made my jaw drop is that she had taken pics of the work she had done - and included ALL the work I had done on the east side of the house - a thing which she had nothing to do with - as part of HER work!
Because Mary and I bantered back and forth for quite a while through email, there was a lot for the judge to take in. As Fin so aptly noted a while back, I don't envy that judge. I started from the beginning when she moved in and went all the way through until today. Mary started her lies - threw in some truth here and there - but was obviously getting emotional - erratic and confused. SHE confused the judge several times. The way she speaks and tries to explain things is VERY confusing. The judge sat back at one point, looked at Mary and said "I'm confused. I was with you all the up until" the point that she started going on a safari excursion of lies and make-belief. We travelled through Africa and probably parts of China in this incredible, made-up story of hers.
At the end of it - and darn it went on a long time - the judge found for me. My court costs and partial rent. She had was trying to convince the judge that she owed me NOTHING for the month of January, I was adament that she owes me the full amount for that month. The problem is, back in - October I think - I wrote her an email that - was ill-advised. The email was intended to show Mary how far off she was on her figures, and then I said something like, let's say that this is all true - and that I DID give you $200 for 2 months in rent concessions. The judge took that literally and gave her the extra couple of hundred in concessions.
Live and learn, is what I can say about this situation. I actually wouldn't be opposed to having someone living here doing some amount of work for a specified amount of rent off. But - it would all have to be very detailed and spelled out to the extreme on the rental agreement. Again, the reason I didn't include it on the rental agreement with Mary is because she said on the day she came over here, after I told her I had deleted that Craigslist ad with the offering, that she didn't want it anyway. Otherwise, I would have clearly spelled out on that agreement the terms of the "work for reduced rent" and there would have been no questioning it.
She denied in court - in a very animated fashion I might add - that I had said that I would only go $100 off. I told her that even though she said she didn't want it.
Now? $200 judgment and the writ of restitution can be issued in 5 days. Another $103 bucks to do that. I figure I will be forced to do so, unfortunately. The judge offered to her to pay me in court, right then and there, and that would satisify the judgement - but she said she didn't have any money.
Now, she's eventually going to come back here, undoubtedly, and then what? I have NO clue. What kind of stuff might she start? Or will she ask to stay? Or does she even understand that she has to leave? I am starting to understand now that it's the way she sees things that convalutes her thinking. I don't know what to think about her. I'm afraid things might get ugly - but that's just me. She's been acting very nice in the last few weeks. I have video surveillance on 24 hours a day, recording. If she comes in here - I will be standing right in front of it. Must find my mini-cassette recorder in case - just in case - she starts something.
Ahhh, found it. It's a small electronic gadget that gives me much comfort - the audible recording of anyone saying whatever.
I could say that I am switching gears and moving on to something else for today, but I can't. Court was intense. I had to find a lot of documents in a short period of time. I was ready, but still. Mary started speaking very fast - she was extremely agitated. The experience wasn't bad just because of the judge. He had a difficult task in attempting to sort out all of this mess and I can say that I was happy with the result. It ain't as much as I wanted, but just to get any judgement - $200.00 - was enough, especially with the check in the box near the bottom of the document we both received at the end stating that a Writ of Restitution will be issued after 5 days. That state does that to allow the person time to get their stuff and get out. I do NOT want to have to deal with Mary's stuff.
Okay, I'll try to do some gear shifting. I was over at Benita's blog yesterday and she was asking about the house fire. I understand that there are numerous new readers here and I would like to document that day and all that happened as much as memory serves. The day was more like a streak of light - it all happened fast and things came into play very quickly to help us out. The city of Phoenix definitely has a good plan for this kind of emergency.
Anyway, I bid you all well and maybe c'ya later.
ben
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Monday
I just got done going over the recording of yesterday's game. Couldn't resist - I wanted to see that 100 yard return on a pass interception. The guy that ran the ball down the field fell on the ground in the end zone totally winded. It was an incredible run. Anyway, football's over for a while now - bummer, lol. I haven't been able to get into basketball too much cause' the Suns have been tanking - their own coach was giving his team a scathing report on how the players are not playing as a team.
Whatever. I just got out all of this stuff for trial tomorrow out of my car. I haven't looked at a single page of it since last week, when we were at court. I don't really need to go over too much of it. There are certain sentences that she has written that I have already highlighted, I don't have to go looking through every since paper to find it now. I'm not saying it's an open and shut case, I'm just saying I'm prepared enough. So, I'll be trying to get off work about 4 hours early tomorrow. The boss said after I get my deliveries done, take a look and make sure there isn't anything else going on, and then he'll release me.
I also get a whole day off this week for my birthday. Cool that, a company that makes your birthday your very own, personal holiday. PLUS, I saw the general manager today at the main branch, who took me into his office and presented me with an awesome looking pen - a gift for 3 years of service to the company. As much as I would have loved to sit down and ask about money - now is definitely NOT the right time. In fact, I mean, who knows about this company's existence in the near future.
My co-worked stopped what he was doing today, looked at me and asked: "What are you going to do if this company ceases to exist?". Go out and start looking for another trucking job - unfortunately. The kind of job where you run your behind off all day long and spend your life in the cab of a semi-tractor. Not particularly appealing to me. I could retire from this company and be happy. I get decent raises every year, I get bonuses, a truckload of paid days off, great people to work with and at least newer equipment even if I don't particularly care for the manufacturer. If we survive this economic collapse and come out the other side going full-steam, then I will be asking for an audience with him about getting a couple more bucks per hour.
Maybe. Just depends on the situation, the atmosphere, alot of things I take into consideration when thinking about asking for more money. Plain fact of the matter is - at least in normal times - I could be making more money than I am right now. The flip-side of that is that those companies that I could be making more money at are going to have me working 12 hours days, minimum.
Whatever, neither here nor there. I was standing out in my dog-free zone thinking about how it would look with nice landscaping rock. I dunno, but I got my W-2 yesterday in the mail and will be filing that soon - I have some other documents to come up with first. I'm not doing it myself this year - I'm using part of my bonus to pay to make sure I get everything back that I can get - if anything.
I have come to the definitive conclusion that on the list of priorities, getting a premanent, in-the-wall/high energy efficient doggy door is high on that list. I'm losing too much cooling through the one I have now during the summer. They have those doors for sale that have 3 separate flaps and have a minimum of lost cooling. Not only that, but if I put it in the utility room, that room stays warm anyway. Why they built the house that way, I'll never know. I would have demanded a cooling vent in there if I would have known that before they built it. I suppose I could have one installed - all the ducting runs underneath the house and it would be a simple matter of cutting holes to get one in there - but I'm not going to do it.
I have ideas of how to save some cooling loss due to the western sun if I am not able to get an awning before summer hits, and unless some money miracle happens, definitely the awning will be put on hold for a long time, undoubtedly. Basically, the idea is what I didn't do last summer when I had thoughts of doing it. The kitchen sliding glass door lets in a LOT of heat during the summer. It's all double-paned glass, but the western sun is beating down right on it. The only defense I can think of without an awning to fight off the sun's boiling hot rays is to simply put up thick, foam insulation. It will look gawdy, terrible, ugly. It will undoubtedly save me a lot of money. It will have to be on the OUTSIDE of the glass to do the most good. Gawdier. I was thinking maybe I could get large foam sheets and cover it with fabric to make it look better. I've GOT to find ways to bring the cooling bill down.
Another issue was that woman that was living here. I asked her to NOT open up her ac ducting all the way. It was pumping huge volumes of cooled air into her room - for some reason the volume of air going into the room is disproportionately high to the size of the room. She had that thing opened full. It was cold in that room, which took away from the cooling capacity for the rest of the house. Ken is in that room now - I don't know how long he's staying, but if he's here in the summer, he has already agree to close it as far as possible while still keeping the room cool. If he doesn't, I will go under the house, pull off the ducting, install a limiter, and then put it back up.
Yup, it's an issue big on my mind right now. Summer's coming. Today reminded me of that - it was warm out there and it's only February. I've also decided to put an extra amount of money on the card for the reader every time I go to reload it. I'd like to have a couple hundred banked on there before the beginning of June get here. That's not even a month's worth of electricity for that month, but at least I would be getting a head start.
Umm, what else? I can't remember. I dunno, but 24 is coming on in a little while, and I do want to take a refresher view of the paperwork for court tomorrow. Mary - has changed her whole demeanor towards me again. Sweet and lovable as ever, even was being nice to Ken. Okay - I want to here from those that see right through it and tell me all about the kind of person that plays those kinds of manipulative games, lol. Oh - 24 - I love that show! Really, I watched the first whole season, most of the second and I think this is the - 3rd or 4th? I think I missed a season, but - I'm back into it. I remember after the first season was over, the did a 24 hour marathon and showed every single show back to back to back. I watched all but maybe 5 hours of it - for sleeping.
Okay - enough. Gotta get to work here.
C'ya tomorrow.
Have a great evening!
ben
Whatever. I just got out all of this stuff for trial tomorrow out of my car. I haven't looked at a single page of it since last week, when we were at court. I don't really need to go over too much of it. There are certain sentences that she has written that I have already highlighted, I don't have to go looking through every since paper to find it now. I'm not saying it's an open and shut case, I'm just saying I'm prepared enough. So, I'll be trying to get off work about 4 hours early tomorrow. The boss said after I get my deliveries done, take a look and make sure there isn't anything else going on, and then he'll release me.
I also get a whole day off this week for my birthday. Cool that, a company that makes your birthday your very own, personal holiday. PLUS, I saw the general manager today at the main branch, who took me into his office and presented me with an awesome looking pen - a gift for 3 years of service to the company. As much as I would have loved to sit down and ask about money - now is definitely NOT the right time. In fact, I mean, who knows about this company's existence in the near future.
My co-worked stopped what he was doing today, looked at me and asked: "What are you going to do if this company ceases to exist?". Go out and start looking for another trucking job - unfortunately. The kind of job where you run your behind off all day long and spend your life in the cab of a semi-tractor. Not particularly appealing to me. I could retire from this company and be happy. I get decent raises every year, I get bonuses, a truckload of paid days off, great people to work with and at least newer equipment even if I don't particularly care for the manufacturer. If we survive this economic collapse and come out the other side going full-steam, then I will be asking for an audience with him about getting a couple more bucks per hour.
Maybe. Just depends on the situation, the atmosphere, alot of things I take into consideration when thinking about asking for more money. Plain fact of the matter is - at least in normal times - I could be making more money than I am right now. The flip-side of that is that those companies that I could be making more money at are going to have me working 12 hours days, minimum.
Whatever, neither here nor there. I was standing out in my dog-free zone thinking about how it would look with nice landscaping rock. I dunno, but I got my W-2 yesterday in the mail and will be filing that soon - I have some other documents to come up with first. I'm not doing it myself this year - I'm using part of my bonus to pay to make sure I get everything back that I can get - if anything.
I have come to the definitive conclusion that on the list of priorities, getting a premanent, in-the-wall/high energy efficient doggy door is high on that list. I'm losing too much cooling through the one I have now during the summer. They have those doors for sale that have 3 separate flaps and have a minimum of lost cooling. Not only that, but if I put it in the utility room, that room stays warm anyway. Why they built the house that way, I'll never know. I would have demanded a cooling vent in there if I would have known that before they built it. I suppose I could have one installed - all the ducting runs underneath the house and it would be a simple matter of cutting holes to get one in there - but I'm not going to do it.
I have ideas of how to save some cooling loss due to the western sun if I am not able to get an awning before summer hits, and unless some money miracle happens, definitely the awning will be put on hold for a long time, undoubtedly. Basically, the idea is what I didn't do last summer when I had thoughts of doing it. The kitchen sliding glass door lets in a LOT of heat during the summer. It's all double-paned glass, but the western sun is beating down right on it. The only defense I can think of without an awning to fight off the sun's boiling hot rays is to simply put up thick, foam insulation. It will look gawdy, terrible, ugly. It will undoubtedly save me a lot of money. It will have to be on the OUTSIDE of the glass to do the most good. Gawdier. I was thinking maybe I could get large foam sheets and cover it with fabric to make it look better. I've GOT to find ways to bring the cooling bill down.
Another issue was that woman that was living here. I asked her to NOT open up her ac ducting all the way. It was pumping huge volumes of cooled air into her room - for some reason the volume of air going into the room is disproportionately high to the size of the room. She had that thing opened full. It was cold in that room, which took away from the cooling capacity for the rest of the house. Ken is in that room now - I don't know how long he's staying, but if he's here in the summer, he has already agree to close it as far as possible while still keeping the room cool. If he doesn't, I will go under the house, pull off the ducting, install a limiter, and then put it back up.
Yup, it's an issue big on my mind right now. Summer's coming. Today reminded me of that - it was warm out there and it's only February. I've also decided to put an extra amount of money on the card for the reader every time I go to reload it. I'd like to have a couple hundred banked on there before the beginning of June get here. That's not even a month's worth of electricity for that month, but at least I would be getting a head start.
Umm, what else? I can't remember. I dunno, but 24 is coming on in a little while, and I do want to take a refresher view of the paperwork for court tomorrow. Mary - has changed her whole demeanor towards me again. Sweet and lovable as ever, even was being nice to Ken. Okay - I want to here from those that see right through it and tell me all about the kind of person that plays those kinds of manipulative games, lol. Oh - 24 - I love that show! Really, I watched the first whole season, most of the second and I think this is the - 3rd or 4th? I think I missed a season, but - I'm back into it. I remember after the first season was over, the did a 24 hour marathon and showed every single show back to back to back. I watched all but maybe 5 hours of it - for sleeping.
Okay - enough. Gotta get to work here.
C'ya tomorrow.
Have a great evening!
ben
Sunday, February 1, 2009
THE STEELERS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/V-Log
OH MY GOSH, WHAT A GAME!!!! THE STEELERS WON!!!!! THERE WERE NO BLOWOUTS HERE, THIS WAS A NAILBITER TO THE END!!!! THE STEELERS WON!!!! THE STEELERS WON!!!!!!
(back to the normally scheduled program)
(back to the normally scheduled program)
Sunday/Superbowl Sunday!!
Superbowl Sunday!!!!........and this is still the day that the LORD hath made!!!!
Well, had to throw that in there - He's a bittle more important than a football game, just keeping my priorities straight.
Decided to get some stuff done early today. The judge wants pics of all the work she's done - she's supposed to provide them. I just went to Walgreens, stuck the memory card from my camera into their machine and picked out the photos I want to show the judge, including photos that show the door she installed being a TOTALLY different design than the rest of the interior doors in the house. I also got some other shots in case she tries something - I don't know what she could possibly do, but I'm preparing myself regardless.
Well, one thing she is trying to get away with is the deal with stuccoing the walls. She's claiming it's worth $300 and that I didn't give her anything but $30 for the materials. She seems to have conveniently forgotten the truth. It was one of her boyfriends that did the work, and the payment was to be beer. I provided him as much beer as he wanted and he was actually around here for a couple of weeks. He did a great job on the stuff he did, no doubting that, but Mary's version of things and the truth are usually miles apart.
Anyway, I got most of my watering projects done yesterday excepting a few more plants with deep watering - being done now. I got the bushwhacker running - my co-worker gave it to me - and did the weeds. My trailer-trash neighbor lets weeds grow all over his property, they find their way into my yard and then I have to deal with it. The weeds don't really start growing until it rains, but when it does rain, dang there's a lot of weeds out there. Some of them starting growing RIGHT next some of my plant stems, apparently attempting to suck the life of the plants themselves. Nilched that ill-gotten plan.
Today's list is nothing grand - laundry, a little more cleaning and still some more weeds to go out there. I do like working out in the yard, I don't like having to deal with someone else's junk. All those people have to do is get out there and cut them things down and that's it.
Anyway, I got a rather surprising email from my dad this morning: he's home. That was the title of his email. Home from where? Another heart surgery. He forgot to tell me - they put some kind of balloon thing in there. The docs have proclaimed his heart healthy at this point, and if he is still feeling poorly after this, they are saying the cause will have to be something else, because they have inspected his heart. Well that's good news, anyway.
Not sure what the problem is with the old Buick. I got it running yesterday but it's having a hard time starting. When it does start, it purrrrrrrs like a kitten - sort of. It runs great is all I'm saying. The harmonic balancer still needs to be replaced. I am not doing anything with it right now, so the balancer can wait. I just want to keep it running, fire it up here and there and make sure it's moving parts get oiled up in the engine. The best way to fry an engine is to simply let it set for a long, long time, and don't do anything with it. After it's been setting for a long time, go ahead and try to fire it up. Not guaranteed, but definitely a good possibility that some of the rings will break and then you have a problem.
Well, that's it for now, I want to get outside and do some more weeding. I also want to go to the city of Phoenix site and file another complaint about that neighbor - he will only weed that yard if he's forced to by the city.
Have a great Sunday - should be a good Superbow - Go Steelers!
ben
Well, had to throw that in there - He's a bittle more important than a football game, just keeping my priorities straight.
Decided to get some stuff done early today. The judge wants pics of all the work she's done - she's supposed to provide them. I just went to Walgreens, stuck the memory card from my camera into their machine and picked out the photos I want to show the judge, including photos that show the door she installed being a TOTALLY different design than the rest of the interior doors in the house. I also got some other shots in case she tries something - I don't know what she could possibly do, but I'm preparing myself regardless.
Well, one thing she is trying to get away with is the deal with stuccoing the walls. She's claiming it's worth $300 and that I didn't give her anything but $30 for the materials. She seems to have conveniently forgotten the truth. It was one of her boyfriends that did the work, and the payment was to be beer. I provided him as much beer as he wanted and he was actually around here for a couple of weeks. He did a great job on the stuff he did, no doubting that, but Mary's version of things and the truth are usually miles apart.
Anyway, I got most of my watering projects done yesterday excepting a few more plants with deep watering - being done now. I got the bushwhacker running - my co-worker gave it to me - and did the weeds. My trailer-trash neighbor lets weeds grow all over his property, they find their way into my yard and then I have to deal with it. The weeds don't really start growing until it rains, but when it does rain, dang there's a lot of weeds out there. Some of them starting growing RIGHT next some of my plant stems, apparently attempting to suck the life of the plants themselves. Nilched that ill-gotten plan.
Today's list is nothing grand - laundry, a little more cleaning and still some more weeds to go out there. I do like working out in the yard, I don't like having to deal with someone else's junk. All those people have to do is get out there and cut them things down and that's it.
Anyway, I got a rather surprising email from my dad this morning: he's home. That was the title of his email. Home from where? Another heart surgery. He forgot to tell me - they put some kind of balloon thing in there. The docs have proclaimed his heart healthy at this point, and if he is still feeling poorly after this, they are saying the cause will have to be something else, because they have inspected his heart. Well that's good news, anyway.
Not sure what the problem is with the old Buick. I got it running yesterday but it's having a hard time starting. When it does start, it purrrrrrrs like a kitten - sort of. It runs great is all I'm saying. The harmonic balancer still needs to be replaced. I am not doing anything with it right now, so the balancer can wait. I just want to keep it running, fire it up here and there and make sure it's moving parts get oiled up in the engine. The best way to fry an engine is to simply let it set for a long, long time, and don't do anything with it. After it's been setting for a long time, go ahead and try to fire it up. Not guaranteed, but definitely a good possibility that some of the rings will break and then you have a problem.
Well, that's it for now, I want to get outside and do some more weeding. I also want to go to the city of Phoenix site and file another complaint about that neighbor - he will only weed that yard if he's forced to by the city.
Have a great Sunday - should be a good Superbow - Go Steelers!
ben
Saturday, January 31, 2009
More
I've accomplished quite a lot around here today.
I'm slow watering every single plant out front. That's been going on for about 7 hours now, and it's half done. Just want those plants to get a good watering and not have to think about it again for at least another week - maybe even 2 weeks.
I got rambunctious and decided that I was going to get the old Buick started. I ran it out of gas - sitting in the driveway - months ago and never did anything about getting it going again. Today - I tried to start it and the batter was dead. Borrowed my neighbor's battery charger - charged it for several hours.
It took an hour's worth of trying, here and there (so not to burn up the starter) in cranking the engine before it finally started, that after dumping 2 gallons of fresh fuel into it. Okay, I was glad to get it running. Took it down the street and back. Again - leaving a car just sitting there and not at least running it and maybe driving it a little once in a while is not good for the car.
Umm, so I'm over there talking with my neighbor. He's "heard" that Mary is leaving. No surprise to me, I want her to get out of Dodge - or Ben Towers. But his information didn't come from Mary or me. He also stated that Mary has fully 7 evictions on her record. Uhh, I didn't see that many - there's some on there but there's several Mary Cox's on there that aren't this particular Mary Cox - many of them give the middle initial, and yes, I know Mary's middle initial. Actually, her entire middle name.
I pressed him, just a little, for the source of his information. Just wouldn't tell me. No clue. I don't know who else he would be talking to that would have that kind of information, but he adamently stated that the info did not come from Mary. Interesting.
It would be far easier if she would move out on her own. However, she tried to give me February rent. Serious. Didn't make a lot of sense. She's now cleaning the door in my kitchen that divides the utility room from the kitchen. I don't know about this woman, but my neighbor had some interesting statements. To be brutally blunt: He likes her boobs. He likes a LOT of women's boobs. He goes on and on and on about boobs - ever since I moved here some 5 years ago now. He takes her to the store - on his custom motorcycle. She has to hold onto his waist - and - of course - press her boobs into his back.
I know, it's just guy stuff. Lol. This is the guy that asks complete strangers - women strangers - to show their boobs to him - in full public view.
Mary is a complicated matter. I'm sure there is something wrong upstairs. First, the fact that she's on some kind of drug to stabilize her moods; second because she definitely has mood swings and third; just some terribly erratic behavior. When she's nice, she's sweet as pie. When she's not nice - the gates of hell just opened.
Anyway, I then tried to get the weedeater that my friend at work gave me started. I ended up having to go to the gas station and get some fuel and mix it with 2-cycle oil. Put that in, the thing fired right up, ran for 15 seconds and died. The carburetor is flooded and keeps flooding. Next is to go to the store and get some carb cleaner and spray that in there. If that doesn't work, take the thing apart. If that doesn't work, find someone who is good with 2-cycle engines and try to get it running. It's been sitting - though the gas tank was totally emptied out. Still, 2-cycle engines sitting usually means carburetor work. It just does. I've had enough experience with it.
Stopped writing this entry for quite a while. Mary came in here and started sweeping the floors. Didn't take her long to figure out that I had completely cleaned the floors earlier today - just haven't waxed them because I don't have any wax. Haven't been anywhere today. Don't want to go anywhere. She then mopped the floor. That preceded by the cleaning of the door. There is nothing else to clean in here - I spent hours scrubbing this place down. Literally. My kitchen will be and stay clean. I will not be entertaining cockroaches, thank you very much.
She then went out front, took the hose that I had on trickle and started watering plants on full blast. Not what I was doing, and tomorrow, I will just continue where I left off. Still a number of plants out there that I want to deep water.
And with that, I'm done - watching the NFL channel going crazy over the Cardinals and how they are going to blow the Steelers away. Oh really? I mean, 2 hours of this and only a short blurb on the Steelers defense. To watch this show, you'd think the Steelers were a peewee football team that are full of know-nothings and have no skills.
Gag.
I'm slow watering every single plant out front. That's been going on for about 7 hours now, and it's half done. Just want those plants to get a good watering and not have to think about it again for at least another week - maybe even 2 weeks.
I got rambunctious and decided that I was going to get the old Buick started. I ran it out of gas - sitting in the driveway - months ago and never did anything about getting it going again. Today - I tried to start it and the batter was dead. Borrowed my neighbor's battery charger - charged it for several hours.
It took an hour's worth of trying, here and there (so not to burn up the starter) in cranking the engine before it finally started, that after dumping 2 gallons of fresh fuel into it. Okay, I was glad to get it running. Took it down the street and back. Again - leaving a car just sitting there and not at least running it and maybe driving it a little once in a while is not good for the car.
Umm, so I'm over there talking with my neighbor. He's "heard" that Mary is leaving. No surprise to me, I want her to get out of Dodge - or Ben Towers. But his information didn't come from Mary or me. He also stated that Mary has fully 7 evictions on her record. Uhh, I didn't see that many - there's some on there but there's several Mary Cox's on there that aren't this particular Mary Cox - many of them give the middle initial, and yes, I know Mary's middle initial. Actually, her entire middle name.
I pressed him, just a little, for the source of his information. Just wouldn't tell me. No clue. I don't know who else he would be talking to that would have that kind of information, but he adamently stated that the info did not come from Mary. Interesting.
It would be far easier if she would move out on her own. However, she tried to give me February rent. Serious. Didn't make a lot of sense. She's now cleaning the door in my kitchen that divides the utility room from the kitchen. I don't know about this woman, but my neighbor had some interesting statements. To be brutally blunt: He likes her boobs. He likes a LOT of women's boobs. He goes on and on and on about boobs - ever since I moved here some 5 years ago now. He takes her to the store - on his custom motorcycle. She has to hold onto his waist - and - of course - press her boobs into his back.
I know, it's just guy stuff. Lol. This is the guy that asks complete strangers - women strangers - to show their boobs to him - in full public view.
Mary is a complicated matter. I'm sure there is something wrong upstairs. First, the fact that she's on some kind of drug to stabilize her moods; second because she definitely has mood swings and third; just some terribly erratic behavior. When she's nice, she's sweet as pie. When she's not nice - the gates of hell just opened.
Anyway, I then tried to get the weedeater that my friend at work gave me started. I ended up having to go to the gas station and get some fuel and mix it with 2-cycle oil. Put that in, the thing fired right up, ran for 15 seconds and died. The carburetor is flooded and keeps flooding. Next is to go to the store and get some carb cleaner and spray that in there. If that doesn't work, take the thing apart. If that doesn't work, find someone who is good with 2-cycle engines and try to get it running. It's been sitting - though the gas tank was totally emptied out. Still, 2-cycle engines sitting usually means carburetor work. It just does. I've had enough experience with it.
Stopped writing this entry for quite a while. Mary came in here and started sweeping the floors. Didn't take her long to figure out that I had completely cleaned the floors earlier today - just haven't waxed them because I don't have any wax. Haven't been anywhere today. Don't want to go anywhere. She then mopped the floor. That preceded by the cleaning of the door. There is nothing else to clean in here - I spent hours scrubbing this place down. Literally. My kitchen will be and stay clean. I will not be entertaining cockroaches, thank you very much.
She then went out front, took the hose that I had on trickle and started watering plants on full blast. Not what I was doing, and tomorrow, I will just continue where I left off. Still a number of plants out there that I want to deep water.
And with that, I'm done - watching the NFL channel going crazy over the Cardinals and how they are going to blow the Steelers away. Oh really? I mean, 2 hours of this and only a short blurb on the Steelers defense. To watch this show, you'd think the Steelers were a peewee football team that are full of know-nothings and have no skills.
Gag.
Saturday/Morning
Ummm, BenB reminds himself to not wait so long to post copies of my journal to the other 2 - it takes too long to get caught up.
Mary - nothing. Which is good. No more emails, no handwritten notes, nothing. She walks through here with her friends - the ones that say "Hi Ben" I say hi back to - still going to be nice to the people who have nothing to do with this. Mary has a lot friends - most of them are guys.
First round of cleaning finished. I scrubbed everything in the kitchen - have the floors left to go. I continue to forget to buy regular floor wax when I go to Fry's. I have this other stuff I got from the dollar store - it's some different kind of stuff that doesn't leave the beautiful shine on your floors. So, a trip to Fry's will have to take place before I start that little project. Recent rains have left my windows looking pretty bad as well, gonna do some of them this weekend - but definitely not all of them.
Transience. Room rentals is all about transience. People come and go. This particular mode of thinking got me wondering if I should think about a third tenant for a couple of 3/4 months to get caught up and get ahead, especially with summer looming and high electric bills not too far in the horizon. Nope, don't want 3 strangers living with me - yup - what choice do I have? None. I have looked for a second job and it ain't happening. Not a decent job, anyway. The aggravation of working at or near minimum wage would be far worse for me than having a 3rd person in here. Giving it some consideration, anyway. Regardless, my rental contract I have now for people to sign is laden with extra stuff I put on there. I am protecting myself to the extremes.
How often do you have to replace toilet seats? I've noticed over the years that they simply do not last that long before they start cracking and showing the innards. Not a particularly pleasant look when entering a bathroom, I'm going to have to replace the main seat here pretty soon.
Probably do some things around here with some of that award money. Bills, yes, but there are things I need to do.
Anyway, I don't really feel like writing too terribly much this morning as I have a head full of pondering and thoughts that are distracting me.
Have a great Saturday!
ben
Mary - nothing. Which is good. No more emails, no handwritten notes, nothing. She walks through here with her friends - the ones that say "Hi Ben" I say hi back to - still going to be nice to the people who have nothing to do with this. Mary has a lot friends - most of them are guys.
First round of cleaning finished. I scrubbed everything in the kitchen - have the floors left to go. I continue to forget to buy regular floor wax when I go to Fry's. I have this other stuff I got from the dollar store - it's some different kind of stuff that doesn't leave the beautiful shine on your floors. So, a trip to Fry's will have to take place before I start that little project. Recent rains have left my windows looking pretty bad as well, gonna do some of them this weekend - but definitely not all of them.
Transience. Room rentals is all about transience. People come and go. This particular mode of thinking got me wondering if I should think about a third tenant for a couple of 3/4 months to get caught up and get ahead, especially with summer looming and high electric bills not too far in the horizon. Nope, don't want 3 strangers living with me - yup - what choice do I have? None. I have looked for a second job and it ain't happening. Not a decent job, anyway. The aggravation of working at or near minimum wage would be far worse for me than having a 3rd person in here. Giving it some consideration, anyway. Regardless, my rental contract I have now for people to sign is laden with extra stuff I put on there. I am protecting myself to the extremes.
How often do you have to replace toilet seats? I've noticed over the years that they simply do not last that long before they start cracking and showing the innards. Not a particularly pleasant look when entering a bathroom, I'm going to have to replace the main seat here pretty soon.
Probably do some things around here with some of that award money. Bills, yes, but there are things I need to do.
Anyway, I don't really feel like writing too terribly much this morning as I have a head full of pondering and thoughts that are distracting me.
Have a great Saturday!
ben
Friday, January 30, 2009
Latest Rounds Of Job Layoffs
Caterpillar: 21,200 jobs
Eastman Kodak: 3,500 to 4,500 jobs
Cessna Aircraft: 2,000 more jobs for a total of 4,600 jobs
StarBucks: 7,000 more jobs (Jan. 28th)
Boeing: 10,000 jobs (Jan. 28th)
Target: 9 percent of its headquarters staff, shut a distribution center in Little Rock, Ark, impose a salary freeze for senior management and reduce planned store openings. (Jan 27th)
Corning: 3,500 jobs (Jan 27th)
Texas Instruments: 3,600 jobs (Jan 26th)
General Motors: Cutting shifts at 2 factories for roughly 2,000 job cuts.
Home Depot: 7,000 jobs and closing Expo Design chain.
Sprint-Nextel: 8,000 jobs
Pfizer: Pfizer announced Jan. 26 it will lay off 8,000 workers now, and as many as 12,000 more later, as it buys competitor Wyeth for $68 billion.
Harley-Davidson: Scaling back 1,100 jobs over 2 years.
Microsoft: 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months (Jan 23rd)
Huntsman Corp: (Chemical company) 1,175 job cuts by the end of this year (Jan 22)
United Airlines: 1,000 more jobs (Jan 22)
Williams-Sonoma: Williams-Sonoma announced Jan. 21 that it would cut 1,400 jobs, close a call center in Camp Hill, Penn., and a distribution facility in Memphis, Tenn.
Intel: As many as 6,000 job cuts (Jan 21)
bhpbilliton: (Mining) 6,000 jobs (Jan 21)
Yankee Candle: 330 jobs (Jan 21)
Ericsson: 5,000 jobs (Jan 21)
Eaton Corp.: 5,200 jobs (Jan 20)
Clear Channel Communications: 1,850 jobs (Jan 20th)
Warner Brothers: 800 jobs (Jan 20th)
Bose: 1,000 jobs (Jan 20th)
General Electric: Announcement to employees of intended layoffs, no public disclosure of how many, employs 75,000 people
Advanced Micro Devices: 1,100 workers (Jan 16th) - 9% of workforce
Hertz: 4,000 jobs (Jan 16th)
Wellpoint: (Health Insurer) 1,500 jobs (Jan 16th)
Saks Fifth Avenue: 1,100 Jobs (Jan 15th)
Google: 100 recruiting jobs (Jan 15th)
Delta Air Lines: 2,000 jobs (Jan. 15th)
Motorola: 4,000 more jobs (Jan 15th)
Neiman Marcus: 375 jobs (Jan 13th)
Seagate Technology: (Manufacturer of hard drives) 10% of workforce (no actual numbers given) (Jan 12th)
Walgreens: 1,000 corporate management jobs
EMC Corp: (World's largest manufacturer of external disc drives) 2,400 (Jan 7)
Alcoa: 13,500 jobs (Jan 6th)
That was the list for this year. There were more for the end of last year, but you get the picture. This is billions of dollars of lost employment wages - at least. All of these people are being or will be sent out into the cold - and then what? What is going to happen to those people? What is already happening to those that have already lost their jobs?
Where is this all going to end? I was thinking maybe I better go buy myself another large tent and camping equipment - might have to live in it someday. Our company continues to lay off people in smaller numbers, freeze on hiring and not replacing those that quit for whatever reason.
Just a little look at the reality going on in our little world.
Eastman Kodak: 3,500 to 4,500 jobs
Cessna Aircraft: 2,000 more jobs for a total of 4,600 jobs
StarBucks: 7,000 more jobs (Jan. 28th)
Boeing: 10,000 jobs (Jan. 28th)
Target: 9 percent of its headquarters staff, shut a distribution center in Little Rock, Ark, impose a salary freeze for senior management and reduce planned store openings. (Jan 27th)
Corning: 3,500 jobs (Jan 27th)
Texas Instruments: 3,600 jobs (Jan 26th)
General Motors: Cutting shifts at 2 factories for roughly 2,000 job cuts.
Home Depot: 7,000 jobs and closing Expo Design chain.
Sprint-Nextel: 8,000 jobs
Pfizer: Pfizer announced Jan. 26 it will lay off 8,000 workers now, and as many as 12,000 more later, as it buys competitor Wyeth for $68 billion.
Harley-Davidson: Scaling back 1,100 jobs over 2 years.
Microsoft: 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months (Jan 23rd)
Huntsman Corp: (Chemical company) 1,175 job cuts by the end of this year (Jan 22)
United Airlines: 1,000 more jobs (Jan 22)
Williams-Sonoma: Williams-Sonoma announced Jan. 21 that it would cut 1,400 jobs, close a call center in Camp Hill, Penn., and a distribution facility in Memphis, Tenn.
Intel: As many as 6,000 job cuts (Jan 21)
bhpbilliton: (Mining) 6,000 jobs (Jan 21)
Yankee Candle: 330 jobs (Jan 21)
Ericsson: 5,000 jobs (Jan 21)
Eaton Corp.: 5,200 jobs (Jan 20)
Clear Channel Communications: 1,850 jobs (Jan 20th)
Warner Brothers: 800 jobs (Jan 20th)
Bose: 1,000 jobs (Jan 20th)
General Electric: Announcement to employees of intended layoffs, no public disclosure of how many, employs 75,000 people
Advanced Micro Devices: 1,100 workers (Jan 16th) - 9% of workforce
Hertz: 4,000 jobs (Jan 16th)
Wellpoint: (Health Insurer) 1,500 jobs (Jan 16th)
Saks Fifth Avenue: 1,100 Jobs (Jan 15th)
Google: 100 recruiting jobs (Jan 15th)
Delta Air Lines: 2,000 jobs (Jan. 15th)
Motorola: 4,000 more jobs (Jan 15th)
Neiman Marcus: 375 jobs (Jan 13th)
Seagate Technology: (Manufacturer of hard drives) 10% of workforce (no actual numbers given) (Jan 12th)
Walgreens: 1,000 corporate management jobs
EMC Corp: (World's largest manufacturer of external disc drives) 2,400 (Jan 7)
Alcoa: 13,500 jobs (Jan 6th)
That was the list for this year. There were more for the end of last year, but you get the picture. This is billions of dollars of lost employment wages - at least. All of these people are being or will be sent out into the cold - and then what? What is going to happen to those people? What is already happening to those that have already lost their jobs?
Where is this all going to end? I was thinking maybe I better go buy myself another large tent and camping equipment - might have to live in it someday. Our company continues to lay off people in smaller numbers, freeze on hiring and not replacing those that quit for whatever reason.
Just a little look at the reality going on in our little world.
Friday
Left work at 2:30 - but there were a lot of people there - doing a full inventory. I didn't feel sorry for them and I left quite happily. Corporate HQ says that drivers cannot participate in the inventory. I have never heard a reason WHY we can't - but inventory is quite tedious, dull and boring work. You count everything, write the count next to each item on a sheet, then take it back to the office. Somebody there checks the physical count against what's in the computer system. When the 2 clash, someone else is sent out there to do a second count. A third count. After enough repetitive counts are made, and it's still bad, then they cost off whatever it is, or if there are too many, bring them into the system. As I said, I don't particularly care for it. They will be doing it into the night today and tomorrow as well. Usually takes til' Saturday afternoon to finish.
Mary got paid today - which totally escaped me as I don't really care at this point. See her in court on Tuesday is all I can say about that.
Superbowl Sunday - bring it on! I'm not necessarily the most well-received individual in Phoenix when I hear people talking about the Cardinals and I say "Go STEELERS!!" Especially in the bank today - they were like, huh? People have less of a problem if you're a Steelers fan in this town when you tell them you were born and raised there, versus the people that are Steelers fans that never stepped a foot in the city of Pittsburgh, or the entire state of Pennsylvania for that matter. I don't quite understand that, either. If I were from here, I would undoubtedly be a Cardinals fan. It won't kill me if the Cardinals won it, but - I would love to see Sixburgh happen. That's the latest craze, I've heard, it's no longer Pittsburgh, it's Sixburgh. lol.
Oh, and Mary - has totally stopped working/doing anything around here. Not even watering the plants out front. I don't really care to be honest - but, it just dawned on me that I was going to go out there the other day and water all that stuff out front and - I didn't do it. Fortunately this time of year plants don't need near as much water. A thing on my list of things to get done around here is to install a drip watering system. Of course, that's WAY down the line. Actually, I haven't looked into see how much it would cost to install Much more effective way of watering plants - a deep watering - and much easier as you can put the thing on a timer and it will come on whenever you want it to.
Hooray for me!! I DID get the Safe Driver Award for 2008! A full week's pay coming on next paycheck. If ONLY it were NEXT year I would get getting TWO week's pay! What am I going to do with the money? Pay bills - hooray again!!! Yayyyy, I get to spend all of my money on bills, isn't it wonderful?
Oh, and what would I LIKE to do with that award money? Buy a big screen TV. Not a fancy HD thing, just a nice, 50 inch rear projection or something that is cheaper than all this newfangled expensive stuff. I was offered one - a rear projection version - for $200 - the catch is the TV is in a cabin in Pinetop, AZ. Look that up on the map. I doubt the boss is going to want me using the company truck to drive clear up there for a TV, even if it is a steal of a bargain.
What else would I like to do with it? Buy landscaping rock for my back yard. Fix the windows, buy some trees, put ceramic tile in the living room - umm, - lots of things, really.
Done for now.
ben
Mary got paid today - which totally escaped me as I don't really care at this point. See her in court on Tuesday is all I can say about that.
Superbowl Sunday - bring it on! I'm not necessarily the most well-received individual in Phoenix when I hear people talking about the Cardinals and I say "Go STEELERS!!" Especially in the bank today - they were like, huh? People have less of a problem if you're a Steelers fan in this town when you tell them you were born and raised there, versus the people that are Steelers fans that never stepped a foot in the city of Pittsburgh, or the entire state of Pennsylvania for that matter. I don't quite understand that, either. If I were from here, I would undoubtedly be a Cardinals fan. It won't kill me if the Cardinals won it, but - I would love to see Sixburgh happen. That's the latest craze, I've heard, it's no longer Pittsburgh, it's Sixburgh. lol.
Oh, and Mary - has totally stopped working/doing anything around here. Not even watering the plants out front. I don't really care to be honest - but, it just dawned on me that I was going to go out there the other day and water all that stuff out front and - I didn't do it. Fortunately this time of year plants don't need near as much water. A thing on my list of things to get done around here is to install a drip watering system. Of course, that's WAY down the line. Actually, I haven't looked into see how much it would cost to install Much more effective way of watering plants - a deep watering - and much easier as you can put the thing on a timer and it will come on whenever you want it to.
Hooray for me!! I DID get the Safe Driver Award for 2008! A full week's pay coming on next paycheck. If ONLY it were NEXT year I would get getting TWO week's pay! What am I going to do with the money? Pay bills - hooray again!!! Yayyyy, I get to spend all of my money on bills, isn't it wonderful?
Oh, and what would I LIKE to do with that award money? Buy a big screen TV. Not a fancy HD thing, just a nice, 50 inch rear projection or something that is cheaper than all this newfangled expensive stuff. I was offered one - a rear projection version - for $200 - the catch is the TV is in a cabin in Pinetop, AZ. Look that up on the map. I doubt the boss is going to want me using the company truck to drive clear up there for a TV, even if it is a steal of a bargain.
What else would I like to do with it? Buy landscaping rock for my back yard. Fix the windows, buy some trees, put ceramic tile in the living room - umm, - lots of things, really.
Done for now.
ben
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Thursday
What was going to be an eternity of a day - nothing to do basically - turned out pretty darn good - excepting a little incident this morning. Semi was loaded with ductile iron pipe.
This is VERY heavy pipe. Each stick of 8 inch diamter pipe I was hauling weighs approximately 500 pounds. That's only 20 feet of pipe - get the idea.
I was on the Loop 101 - a newer freeway they built to try and alieve some of the congestion problems in the metro Phoenix area. That particular freeway is just as congested as all the rest of them. In fact, they are already in an expansion project on it - which is slowing traffic down considerably.
Anyway - I was cruising about 20 mph in the slow lane, following behind traffic. Heavy traffic, it was one of the rush hours. To the point of the matter - a car cuts in, slams on it's brakes. I had no choice and my mind raced at the same time - I knew I had to slam on my brakes to avoid running this nitwit over, and I also knew that kind of force would cause some or all of the pipe to slide forward on the boards they are on.
Prophecy come true. Fortunately I wasn't going that fast or I wouldn't be here, writing to tell you about this right now. If I were going 55 and had to do that, I would probably either be dead or definitely seriously injured. Even with a Headache Rack - heavy pipe with enough force can ram a hole right through that diamond plate - and right into my head - hence the terminology: headache rack.
Oh, and mind you, I had PLENTY of strapping on that pipe. More than legally required. The straps, as always, were cranked down to the point that you can play harp music on them by simply pulling the edge of the strap with your finger. I learned about strapping loads when I worked for J.B. Hunt. They show you videos of tragic, horrific accidents that have occured with understrapping. One such video? Titled: "If Only One More Strap....". They had graphic photos of it. It wasn't a video that time, it was photos.
The photos were of a load that had come off the side of a truck, smashed onto the top of a State Trooper's cruiser and instantly killed him. The scientists involved came to the conclusion that if that driver had only put one more strap on that load, that Trooper would still be alive today. In other words, the driver did not put sufficient straps on the load and it caused someone their life.
5 sticks of 500 pound pipes came shooting out of their "resting" places and into my Headache Rack. As I said, I wasn't going more than 20 MPH - the rack stopped the pipe and slightly dented the rack. It was sitting RIGHT there - no turns to be made without more damage to the rack/truck. I didn't even get mad at the driver, who undoubtedly has no clue that their life could have ended today - because of the seriousness of the issue at hand. I pulled instantly off the freeway - I was beside an entrance/exit ramp, got off the highway enough and then pulled over on the gravel on the side of the road.
Damage - almost non-existent. I will tell you right now that I would rather TRASH a truck than kill someone in a car, regardless of the fact that the car's driver is totally at fault for causing the damage. I have no desire to live my life with the thought of someone's death due to something I was doing, even IF it was definitely NOT my fault. If an accident had occured, I would undoubtedly have recieved a ticket. You have to be able to prove that the car's driver made an unsafe lane change. Today's incident makes me want to bring my camera with me at all times and simply run video constantly while I'm driving to protect myself.
I get out of the truck - and stand there looking at this ridiculously heavy pipe, thinking I'm going to have to call some people to come and help me move it.
I'm not a weak man - my life and lifestyle has had me with sufficient strength to life very heavy objects. Especially this job - 70% of the things I have to deal with, or even more than that, are extremely heavy. It's something I love about my work - keeps me moving, keeps me exerting energy to extremes, keeps me at least somewhat fit.
I got up on that truck and gave all of my strength, with good footing, to picking up the end of that pipe and sliding it back. To my surprise, it actually moved. Note that this pipe is sitting on boards, not on something that is easily give to making something on it slide like butter. It took maybe 10 minutes and I got all of it back to where it should be. Cranked the straps down again, and took off.
I've been in a couple of serious accidents - not my fault - but I can tell you from experience that any kind of situation like that can cause you to lose confidence in what you are doing. You lose confidence in driving a semi, the road is a very dangerous place for everyone else around you. This morning, I deleted any thought of that and just continued on driving like nothing had happened. There are no lessons learned here that I haven't already learned. People driving cars do stupid things in front of semi's - and seasoned truck drivers learn to interpret clues and signals of what is going to happen in front of you. I did start slowing down as soon as I saw what was going on, but the action of this driver was too much: I had to hit the brakes hard enough to avoid a SERIOUS collision.
That was the closest I have come to running into or even over a car in a long, long time. Yes, I told my boss - Federal Regulations require me to do so, but I would have told me regardless of that. He's like - did it go through the cab? No, just a couple of very minor dents in the headache rack. No reports to fill out - the other semi's in our fleet have all kinds of dented racks from the same kind of thing happening to other drivers.
See? It's not just me. This stuff happens in inner-city driving to all truck drivers. People in cars, SUV's and whatever else simply don't realize the intensity of focus we have to give to keep from killing them every day because of THEIR actions that cause such things to happen. This hardly happens out on the open road. Just the way it is. An OTR driver has to go through cities, yes, but most of his/her time is spent on the open road. You may or may not see them experiencing such. A city-driver is going to have, actually, a much better sense of how to drive in-city than an OTR driver. Trust me - city driving is much more dangerous and full of perils than any OTR driver will ever experience. It's one of the reasons why many "local" driving positions require several years of driving experience to get a job with them. In smaller outfits, the owner of the company will actually get in the passenger seat and take you on a driving test before they will ever commit to giving you a job.
That was enough for one entry. The rest of the day was going downtown, delivering that pipe, then unexpected deliveries came up which I took out. Then a pickup in Tempe which came up at the last minute and I wasn't back to our yard until 12:30pm. That's an hour and a half from closing.
Tomorrow I have some stuff to do, too, which is good. Go to a pipe company, pick up a load of pipe and deliver it as well as delivering another order to another jobsite. This will consume most or all of the morning. Tomorrow is also "INVENTORY". Lol. Every 6 months, our company - by corporate mandate - requires each location to do an entire inventory count of all product. For the reason of overtime, I will not be participating in any of it. Well, my boss may have me helping count - more eyes on one product when there's a lot of it hopefully means an accurate count.
There is no Mary report today. When she came through the gate, I left the kitchen. I didn't want to hear it, I didn't want to talk to her.
Ken is in love. With a married woman. Ken is my other roommate. Geeeeeeeze.
I've seen this before and don't wonder - again - if I don't need to arm myself for any potential confrontations with that woman's husband if he finds out and comes over HERE looking for trouble. Sometimes I wonder why I have tenants - then I kick myself and remember that I don't have any choice - at the moment.
ben
This is VERY heavy pipe. Each stick of 8 inch diamter pipe I was hauling weighs approximately 500 pounds. That's only 20 feet of pipe - get the idea.
I was on the Loop 101 - a newer freeway they built to try and alieve some of the congestion problems in the metro Phoenix area. That particular freeway is just as congested as all the rest of them. In fact, they are already in an expansion project on it - which is slowing traffic down considerably.
Anyway - I was cruising about 20 mph in the slow lane, following behind traffic. Heavy traffic, it was one of the rush hours. To the point of the matter - a car cuts in, slams on it's brakes. I had no choice and my mind raced at the same time - I knew I had to slam on my brakes to avoid running this nitwit over, and I also knew that kind of force would cause some or all of the pipe to slide forward on the boards they are on.
Prophecy come true. Fortunately I wasn't going that fast or I wouldn't be here, writing to tell you about this right now. If I were going 55 and had to do that, I would probably either be dead or definitely seriously injured. Even with a Headache Rack - heavy pipe with enough force can ram a hole right through that diamond plate - and right into my head - hence the terminology: headache rack.
Oh, and mind you, I had PLENTY of strapping on that pipe. More than legally required. The straps, as always, were cranked down to the point that you can play harp music on them by simply pulling the edge of the strap with your finger. I learned about strapping loads when I worked for J.B. Hunt. They show you videos of tragic, horrific accidents that have occured with understrapping. One such video? Titled: "If Only One More Strap....". They had graphic photos of it. It wasn't a video that time, it was photos.
The photos were of a load that had come off the side of a truck, smashed onto the top of a State Trooper's cruiser and instantly killed him. The scientists involved came to the conclusion that if that driver had only put one more strap on that load, that Trooper would still be alive today. In other words, the driver did not put sufficient straps on the load and it caused someone their life.
5 sticks of 500 pound pipes came shooting out of their "resting" places and into my Headache Rack. As I said, I wasn't going more than 20 MPH - the rack stopped the pipe and slightly dented the rack. It was sitting RIGHT there - no turns to be made without more damage to the rack/truck. I didn't even get mad at the driver, who undoubtedly has no clue that their life could have ended today - because of the seriousness of the issue at hand. I pulled instantly off the freeway - I was beside an entrance/exit ramp, got off the highway enough and then pulled over on the gravel on the side of the road.
Damage - almost non-existent. I will tell you right now that I would rather TRASH a truck than kill someone in a car, regardless of the fact that the car's driver is totally at fault for causing the damage. I have no desire to live my life with the thought of someone's death due to something I was doing, even IF it was definitely NOT my fault. If an accident had occured, I would undoubtedly have recieved a ticket. You have to be able to prove that the car's driver made an unsafe lane change. Today's incident makes me want to bring my camera with me at all times and simply run video constantly while I'm driving to protect myself.
I get out of the truck - and stand there looking at this ridiculously heavy pipe, thinking I'm going to have to call some people to come and help me move it.
I'm not a weak man - my life and lifestyle has had me with sufficient strength to life very heavy objects. Especially this job - 70% of the things I have to deal with, or even more than that, are extremely heavy. It's something I love about my work - keeps me moving, keeps me exerting energy to extremes, keeps me at least somewhat fit.
I got up on that truck and gave all of my strength, with good footing, to picking up the end of that pipe and sliding it back. To my surprise, it actually moved. Note that this pipe is sitting on boards, not on something that is easily give to making something on it slide like butter. It took maybe 10 minutes and I got all of it back to where it should be. Cranked the straps down again, and took off.
I've been in a couple of serious accidents - not my fault - but I can tell you from experience that any kind of situation like that can cause you to lose confidence in what you are doing. You lose confidence in driving a semi, the road is a very dangerous place for everyone else around you. This morning, I deleted any thought of that and just continued on driving like nothing had happened. There are no lessons learned here that I haven't already learned. People driving cars do stupid things in front of semi's - and seasoned truck drivers learn to interpret clues and signals of what is going to happen in front of you. I did start slowing down as soon as I saw what was going on, but the action of this driver was too much: I had to hit the brakes hard enough to avoid a SERIOUS collision.
That was the closest I have come to running into or even over a car in a long, long time. Yes, I told my boss - Federal Regulations require me to do so, but I would have told me regardless of that. He's like - did it go through the cab? No, just a couple of very minor dents in the headache rack. No reports to fill out - the other semi's in our fleet have all kinds of dented racks from the same kind of thing happening to other drivers.
See? It's not just me. This stuff happens in inner-city driving to all truck drivers. People in cars, SUV's and whatever else simply don't realize the intensity of focus we have to give to keep from killing them every day because of THEIR actions that cause such things to happen. This hardly happens out on the open road. Just the way it is. An OTR driver has to go through cities, yes, but most of his/her time is spent on the open road. You may or may not see them experiencing such. A city-driver is going to have, actually, a much better sense of how to drive in-city than an OTR driver. Trust me - city driving is much more dangerous and full of perils than any OTR driver will ever experience. It's one of the reasons why many "local" driving positions require several years of driving experience to get a job with them. In smaller outfits, the owner of the company will actually get in the passenger seat and take you on a driving test before they will ever commit to giving you a job.
That was enough for one entry. The rest of the day was going downtown, delivering that pipe, then unexpected deliveries came up which I took out. Then a pickup in Tempe which came up at the last minute and I wasn't back to our yard until 12:30pm. That's an hour and a half from closing.
Tomorrow I have some stuff to do, too, which is good. Go to a pipe company, pick up a load of pipe and deliver it as well as delivering another order to another jobsite. This will consume most or all of the morning. Tomorrow is also "INVENTORY". Lol. Every 6 months, our company - by corporate mandate - requires each location to do an entire inventory count of all product. For the reason of overtime, I will not be participating in any of it. Well, my boss may have me helping count - more eyes on one product when there's a lot of it hopefully means an accurate count.
There is no Mary report today. When she came through the gate, I left the kitchen. I didn't want to hear it, I didn't want to talk to her.
Ken is in love. With a married woman. Ken is my other roommate. Geeeeeeeze.
I've seen this before and don't wonder - again - if I don't need to arm myself for any potential confrontations with that woman's husband if he finds out and comes over HERE looking for trouble. Sometimes I wonder why I have tenants - then I kick myself and remember that I don't have any choice - at the moment.
ben
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Feedjit/Boeing
I was over at Fin's journal and saw the Feedjit thing he put on there - seems to me the next best thing to what JS used to have in being able to see all of your visitors for that day, and on your blog, the last 10. Well, whatever. I just put that up.
I just read this rather long article about Boeing's intention of ridding itself of fully 10,000 employees. I remember when those machinists went on strike - and even made an entry on my JS journal about it - that they shoud be THANKFUL they even have jobs and can the BS with pay and all that jive.
They shot themselves in the foot and stuck a toilet plunger up their rear. Nice going, Boeing Machinists Union - you are mostly responsible for the reason that 10,000 of you folks are going to lose your jobs.
BenB is NOT clapping. I thought they were idiots then, I think that now. Boeing is a good company - my brother works for that company over in Mesa (AZ of course) building those crazy helicopters for the military. I have NO clue whether his division will be affected by this, and if so, whether he faces a job loss as well.
He has survived several layoff bouts in the past when it was McDonnel Douglas - I hope he gets through it this time as well, if it even hits there.
I'm still reeling at the staggering loss of jobs: 10,000. That's a LOT of jobs and a LOT of people that are going to lose good paying jobs for - what? There ain't nothing out there, Jack. You wanna work at Burger King, great, otherwise, good luck with that.
I feel a little more trepidation every single day when I see this continuing parade of job cuts coming from all kinds of different companies that exist in all different trades/services/whatever. My company continues to either lay people off or simply not rehire for those that leave on their own. You think I'm not sitting here fretting along with everyone else? I am not consumed by it, no way - I won't go that far with it - but I definitely think about it and often.
How many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of yearly pay does 10,000 jobs equal? Or is that in the billions? We don't wonder why the economy is totally trashed right now, we see how it's only going to get worse when news like this is unleashed upon an already tense, nervous and hurting society and economy.
And with that, I continue on with my campaign to store up food stuffs. I am now putting it in another location besides my kitchen for fact of certain tenant eating my food. Okay, eat my food - but only that which I have for the week at hand, not the stuff I am using to store up for a potential catastrophe in the near or not-so-near future. I dunno - but I don't want to starve finding out.
Fry's is having yet another awesome sale on things I will be dumping into that little storehouse. They got this deal where you buy 10 items and the price varies - but the Hormel chili goes down to 50 cents per can, a LARGE box of Captain Crunch goes from almost 4 per box down to $1.50 and a lot of other things. Hey, cereal lasts a long time in storage, it's one of those things recommended to buy for such an endeavor. You have to buy 10 - and it can be mixed - anything that's on the 10-for sale you can buy as long as there's 10 of them. Not 9 and not 11, I found out the hard way. You can buy 20, 30 whatever, that's how they're doing it. They've never done a sale like this before, but the savings are QUITE substantial.
Well, anyway, I hate to see Boeing going through the same crap as everyone else. It doesn't make sense - it does but geeze. I have never been in a union, so maybe I'm just ignorant. I just don't see unions going on strike when one of the worst economic environments ever is occuring. What, they don't need the income? I have strong opinion about people who are making googles of money yet act like babies cause' they don't think they're getting a big enough piece of the pie - while the rest of the world around them is falling into the hell-hole of financial disaster.
I think I'll stop that at this point, because the more I think about it, the more outrageous their actions become - my view of it anyway.
Sighhhhh. I'm just glad to still be employed.
No Mary report today, either, I haven't seen her as she hasn't been home. Ken - left who knows where before I got home, Wednesday and Thursday are his version of a weekend. I did speak to Ken today on the phone as he had left me several messages last night wanting to know what happened in court. I missed the calls cause' I had the ringer turned off when I was in court yesterday and forgot to turn it back on until this morning.
ben
I just read this rather long article about Boeing's intention of ridding itself of fully 10,000 employees. I remember when those machinists went on strike - and even made an entry on my JS journal about it - that they shoud be THANKFUL they even have jobs and can the BS with pay and all that jive.
They shot themselves in the foot and stuck a toilet plunger up their rear. Nice going, Boeing Machinists Union - you are mostly responsible for the reason that 10,000 of you folks are going to lose your jobs.
BenB is NOT clapping. I thought they were idiots then, I think that now. Boeing is a good company - my brother works for that company over in Mesa (AZ of course) building those crazy helicopters for the military. I have NO clue whether his division will be affected by this, and if so, whether he faces a job loss as well.
He has survived several layoff bouts in the past when it was McDonnel Douglas - I hope he gets through it this time as well, if it even hits there.
I'm still reeling at the staggering loss of jobs: 10,000. That's a LOT of jobs and a LOT of people that are going to lose good paying jobs for - what? There ain't nothing out there, Jack. You wanna work at Burger King, great, otherwise, good luck with that.
I feel a little more trepidation every single day when I see this continuing parade of job cuts coming from all kinds of different companies that exist in all different trades/services/whatever. My company continues to either lay people off or simply not rehire for those that leave on their own. You think I'm not sitting here fretting along with everyone else? I am not consumed by it, no way - I won't go that far with it - but I definitely think about it and often.
How many hundreds of millions of dollars worth of yearly pay does 10,000 jobs equal? Or is that in the billions? We don't wonder why the economy is totally trashed right now, we see how it's only going to get worse when news like this is unleashed upon an already tense, nervous and hurting society and economy.
And with that, I continue on with my campaign to store up food stuffs. I am now putting it in another location besides my kitchen for fact of certain tenant eating my food. Okay, eat my food - but only that which I have for the week at hand, not the stuff I am using to store up for a potential catastrophe in the near or not-so-near future. I dunno - but I don't want to starve finding out.
Fry's is having yet another awesome sale on things I will be dumping into that little storehouse. They got this deal where you buy 10 items and the price varies - but the Hormel chili goes down to 50 cents per can, a LARGE box of Captain Crunch goes from almost 4 per box down to $1.50 and a lot of other things. Hey, cereal lasts a long time in storage, it's one of those things recommended to buy for such an endeavor. You have to buy 10 - and it can be mixed - anything that's on the 10-for sale you can buy as long as there's 10 of them. Not 9 and not 11, I found out the hard way. You can buy 20, 30 whatever, that's how they're doing it. They've never done a sale like this before, but the savings are QUITE substantial.
Well, anyway, I hate to see Boeing going through the same crap as everyone else. It doesn't make sense - it does but geeze. I have never been in a union, so maybe I'm just ignorant. I just don't see unions going on strike when one of the worst economic environments ever is occuring. What, they don't need the income? I have strong opinion about people who are making googles of money yet act like babies cause' they don't think they're getting a big enough piece of the pie - while the rest of the world around them is falling into the hell-hole of financial disaster.
I think I'll stop that at this point, because the more I think about it, the more outrageous their actions become - my view of it anyway.
Sighhhhh. I'm just glad to still be employed.
No Mary report today, either, I haven't seen her as she hasn't been home. Ken - left who knows where before I got home, Wednesday and Thursday are his version of a weekend. I did speak to Ken today on the phone as he had left me several messages last night wanting to know what happened in court. I missed the calls cause' I had the ringer turned off when I was in court yesterday and forgot to turn it back on until this morning.
ben
Wednesday/It Dawned On Me........
............today that I could blow Mary's work for reduced rent and the "fact" - according to her - that I haven't given her sufficient credit right out of the water. Not that I don't have ample proof of her saying 2 completely different things already, but - let's just say the judge sees things her way in this deal and wants to give her January for free - rent that is.
It occured to me today that Mary actually took over that family room a long time ago, like within weeks after moving in - by filling it up with her stuff. All kinds of stuff - 2 chairs; an antique dresser with mirror; 3 tables and various this and that. She was using it to store her stuff. She also brought in 4 barstools at one point and had those sitting in the middle of the room. I never actually gave her permission to put that stuff in here - but regardless of whether I had or hadn't, there is certainly a huge rent concession right there: the use of a second room, rent free. That room is at least about 245 square feet - the room she was in is about 160 square feet of living space. 6 months times $500 = $3,000. She also used my car for a month. What's the going rate to rent a 4 door, full sized sedan? $30 a day anyway. Times 30 = $900. I am going to use that to show what I've actually done for this woman in terms of use of my house and even my car.
Mary intends on paying me - so she says - for February. I am not going to accept it. How can I accept rent for the next month when I am filing for an eviction against her? I desperately need the money - yes, but - I need her out of here worse.
Well, anyway - nice day today. Weather is beautiful. Oh, speaking of Mary, she has stopped working out front altogether. Which means I need to go out there and water some plants. I watered everything in the back yesterday, but some of the stuff out front looks to be getting a bit dry, want to make sure to keep up with that. I don't think they need too much watering in the winter, but still. It's warm enough that all the plants are growing anyway - the only thing that stopped was the tree I planted. It's a deciduous tree, it dropped it's leaves and I guess it's waiting until it believes winter is over before putting out new leaves.
Actually, it was cold this morning. Cold by my standards, anyway. Anytime I can see my breath floating through the air, it's cold.
4 days until the Superbowl. I had thought about throwing a Superbowl party over here, but - people don't do parties like that in these days unless you have a big-screen TV. The biggest screen around here is 32 inches, hardly a big-screen TV. Oh, how I miss that TV I paid for and then burned up in that house fire. It's one of the things I REALLY miss. Ken has a friend that's selling one just like that one I had for $200. That's a bargain - too bad I don't have $200 to spare right now.
Well, I have things to get done before the sun sets, c'yall later or tomorrow.
ben
It occured to me today that Mary actually took over that family room a long time ago, like within weeks after moving in - by filling it up with her stuff. All kinds of stuff - 2 chairs; an antique dresser with mirror; 3 tables and various this and that. She was using it to store her stuff. She also brought in 4 barstools at one point and had those sitting in the middle of the room. I never actually gave her permission to put that stuff in here - but regardless of whether I had or hadn't, there is certainly a huge rent concession right there: the use of a second room, rent free. That room is at least about 245 square feet - the room she was in is about 160 square feet of living space. 6 months times $500 = $3,000. She also used my car for a month. What's the going rate to rent a 4 door, full sized sedan? $30 a day anyway. Times 30 = $900. I am going to use that to show what I've actually done for this woman in terms of use of my house and even my car.
Mary intends on paying me - so she says - for February. I am not going to accept it. How can I accept rent for the next month when I am filing for an eviction against her? I desperately need the money - yes, but - I need her out of here worse.
Well, anyway - nice day today. Weather is beautiful. Oh, speaking of Mary, she has stopped working out front altogether. Which means I need to go out there and water some plants. I watered everything in the back yesterday, but some of the stuff out front looks to be getting a bit dry, want to make sure to keep up with that. I don't think they need too much watering in the winter, but still. It's warm enough that all the plants are growing anyway - the only thing that stopped was the tree I planted. It's a deciduous tree, it dropped it's leaves and I guess it's waiting until it believes winter is over before putting out new leaves.
Actually, it was cold this morning. Cold by my standards, anyway. Anytime I can see my breath floating through the air, it's cold.
4 days until the Superbowl. I had thought about throwing a Superbowl party over here, but - people don't do parties like that in these days unless you have a big-screen TV. The biggest screen around here is 32 inches, hardly a big-screen TV. Oh, how I miss that TV I paid for and then burned up in that house fire. It's one of the things I REALLY miss. Ken has a friend that's selling one just like that one I had for $200. That's a bargain - too bad I don't have $200 to spare right now.
Well, I have things to get done before the sun sets, c'yall later or tomorrow.
ben
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Court
As usual, you get into the court room and the lawyers get to go first. They're there with stacks of forcible detainers in reprensenting a single apartment community.
Of the 5, only 1 single tenant showed up to dispute the rents owed. It was the same thing as my situation: a person had done work for the apartment community and were told they were going to get a free month's rent in exchange.
Let me tell you right here: I will never be offering "work for reduced rent" ever again. I mean, I pulled that ad the day after I posted it because I knew there was too much left open for problems. I would have made it a part of the rental agreement - but again - Mary said at the get-go that she would just pay the full rent.
The judge set that case for hearing on Thursday. I figured right there that because of the dispute between us, the judge would also set ours for hearing as well.
Our names are called, we get up before the judge, Mary makes her claims, I make mine. The judge says hearing will also be on Thursday, does that work for you? For me - sure, my boss will give me the time off I need. For Mary? Nope. She has a "lot of clients" she has to deal with on Thursday, so the Judge says that Tuesday of next week is the only other day available. Mary asks for an extension to Tuesday.
The Judge looks at me. Now, Mary at least said that she believed all of January should be free, according to her. I said that Tuesday is in next month. The Judge spoke to Mary - another month's worth of rent. Mary says yes, she intends on paying me next month. I have that, sworn in oath, in front of a judge. I said at least concerning January because she isn't trying to take this into eternity in terms of free rent.
Now - the judge wants all applicable documents to back our case. Okay. I'm going to get pics of her door made up into nice sized photos because Mary is claiming that the reason she doesn't have to pay for the month of January. So - if the judge finds for her - I am also going to add an extra defense: We agreed long before that work was ever done that the door she put up there would have to match the rest of the interior doors of the house, and that she or her worker doing the work would have to contact Cavco Homes in order to get another door. Obvious saying that means, no, she did not put up a matching door and it's rather ridiculous, to say the least.
I'm camping on this until the weekend. I have no need to go all crazy about getting my own pics made up, I'll do it, but I'm taking a breather from this stuff. We'll see whether Mary actually pays anything before next month. If she doesn't, this will be brought up to the judge - the whole conversation was recorded.
So that's that. Set for Tuesday at 2:00 pm. I actually liked Tuesday better after the judge stated the time, because the Thursday hearing would have been at 9:45 am, meaning missing an entire day of work. Tuesday at 2:00 pm means missing a couple of hours of work.
As for the "rest" of this day? Nothing I want to do. I just made a huge plate of the ham I cooked the other day and wolfed down a can of lima beans and some mashed potatoes with gravy alongside. That ham is so delicious. I put a pineapple chunk/pineapple juice/brown sugar glaze on it that just tastes marvelous.
Anyway, done for now.
ben
Of the 5, only 1 single tenant showed up to dispute the rents owed. It was the same thing as my situation: a person had done work for the apartment community and were told they were going to get a free month's rent in exchange.
Let me tell you right here: I will never be offering "work for reduced rent" ever again. I mean, I pulled that ad the day after I posted it because I knew there was too much left open for problems. I would have made it a part of the rental agreement - but again - Mary said at the get-go that she would just pay the full rent.
The judge set that case for hearing on Thursday. I figured right there that because of the dispute between us, the judge would also set ours for hearing as well.
Our names are called, we get up before the judge, Mary makes her claims, I make mine. The judge says hearing will also be on Thursday, does that work for you? For me - sure, my boss will give me the time off I need. For Mary? Nope. She has a "lot of clients" she has to deal with on Thursday, so the Judge says that Tuesday of next week is the only other day available. Mary asks for an extension to Tuesday.
The Judge looks at me. Now, Mary at least said that she believed all of January should be free, according to her. I said that Tuesday is in next month. The Judge spoke to Mary - another month's worth of rent. Mary says yes, she intends on paying me next month. I have that, sworn in oath, in front of a judge. I said at least concerning January because she isn't trying to take this into eternity in terms of free rent.
Now - the judge wants all applicable documents to back our case. Okay. I'm going to get pics of her door made up into nice sized photos because Mary is claiming that the reason she doesn't have to pay for the month of January. So - if the judge finds for her - I am also going to add an extra defense: We agreed long before that work was ever done that the door she put up there would have to match the rest of the interior doors of the house, and that she or her worker doing the work would have to contact Cavco Homes in order to get another door. Obvious saying that means, no, she did not put up a matching door and it's rather ridiculous, to say the least.
I'm camping on this until the weekend. I have no need to go all crazy about getting my own pics made up, I'll do it, but I'm taking a breather from this stuff. We'll see whether Mary actually pays anything before next month. If she doesn't, this will be brought up to the judge - the whole conversation was recorded.
So that's that. Set for Tuesday at 2:00 pm. I actually liked Tuesday better after the judge stated the time, because the Thursday hearing would have been at 9:45 am, meaning missing an entire day of work. Tuesday at 2:00 pm means missing a couple of hours of work.
As for the "rest" of this day? Nothing I want to do. I just made a huge plate of the ham I cooked the other day and wolfed down a can of lima beans and some mashed potatoes with gravy alongside. That ham is so delicious. I put a pineapple chunk/pineapple juice/brown sugar glaze on it that just tastes marvelous.
Anyway, done for now.
ben
Court/Mary
Wish me luck. Or pray if you do that - whatever you do.
I found a written statement from Mary that I had not even seen that she sent to me this month: she fully admits that she owes me rent and was going to pay me on the 15th. In that, she said she didn't pay me because I announced doubled rent - she was occupy 2 rooms without my permission. I don't really need much more than that, frankly. I'm going to be very interested to see how the judge deals with all of this.
She was just here with the same friend that showed up with her when she first moved in. Guessing that woman is going to court with her. Nice - but - I clearly remember what I said at that first meeting. My seal on this thing, however, are Mary's written statements, I need not go further than that.
Now, I'm going to take about 15 minutes to review AZ landlord/tenant law, get dressed up, and take off.
C'ya later.
ben
I found a written statement from Mary that I had not even seen that she sent to me this month: she fully admits that she owes me rent and was going to pay me on the 15th. In that, she said she didn't pay me because I announced doubled rent - she was occupy 2 rooms without my permission. I don't really need much more than that, frankly. I'm going to be very interested to see how the judge deals with all of this.
She was just here with the same friend that showed up with her when she first moved in. Guessing that woman is going to court with her. Nice - but - I clearly remember what I said at that first meeting. My seal on this thing, however, are Mary's written statements, I need not go further than that.
Now, I'm going to take about 15 minutes to review AZ landlord/tenant law, get dressed up, and take off.
C'ya later.
ben
Monday, January 26, 2009
LOL
Mary - piece of work.
Remember when she put up the door, put a lock on it and then wouldn't give me a key?
Didn't understand why I should have a key to the room? Yada yada yada?
She comes home tonight - standing out in front of the locked gate. Calls me from her cellphone.
She left her keys in her room and can't get in.
So, I go out there and open up the gate.
She comes in the house - gives me a NASTY look and says "Well I left my keys in the room and it's locked, too".
She goes to the back of the hall, turns on the hall light and just stands there, waiting for me to get my key to her room.
LOL!!
The more I think about tomorrow and all the stuff she said to me, the more fuel for the fire I have.
She wrote me an email today, going into her ridiculous rhetoric again - a friggin' HUGE email. I wrote her back a 2 line sentence telling her to give it a rest and that tomorrow the judge would decide this for us.
Didn't respond to a single thing she said - mostly because nothing has changed. I assume she is not exactly comfortable going to court tomorrow, so she's trying to put some sort of fear into ME. I have nothing to fear - the worst that can happen here would be that the judge would find for her, she gets to stay this month for free and that's the end of that. The worst that can happen to her is a monetary judgement found against her, she's now got another forcible detainer with judgement on her record and she faces forcible removal from the house if she doesn't leave peacably.
Just saying - it should be an interesting day tomorrow.
ben
Remember when she put up the door, put a lock on it and then wouldn't give me a key?
Didn't understand why I should have a key to the room? Yada yada yada?
She comes home tonight - standing out in front of the locked gate. Calls me from her cellphone.
She left her keys in her room and can't get in.
So, I go out there and open up the gate.
She comes in the house - gives me a NASTY look and says "Well I left my keys in the room and it's locked, too".
She goes to the back of the hall, turns on the hall light and just stands there, waiting for me to get my key to her room.
LOL!!
The more I think about tomorrow and all the stuff she said to me, the more fuel for the fire I have.
She wrote me an email today, going into her ridiculous rhetoric again - a friggin' HUGE email. I wrote her back a 2 line sentence telling her to give it a rest and that tomorrow the judge would decide this for us.
Didn't respond to a single thing she said - mostly because nothing has changed. I assume she is not exactly comfortable going to court tomorrow, so she's trying to put some sort of fear into ME. I have nothing to fear - the worst that can happen here would be that the judge would find for her, she gets to stay this month for free and that's the end of that. The worst that can happen to her is a monetary judgement found against her, she's now got another forcible detainer with judgement on her record and she faces forcible removal from the house if she doesn't leave peacably.
Just saying - it should be an interesting day tomorrow.
ben
Monday/Yaaaawn
Just plain tired. That dog I have been watching has more energy than 10 humans combined. It gets up and walks around in the middle of the night and then lays down - but not after it's already done it's damage of waking me up - like at least 5 times last night. Lord knows I'm ready for a nap.
I did a V-log while driving the truck today, but I don't even feel like going through the motions of uploading it, so I'm just writing the entry.
Basically, Ken - the newer tenant - told me that on Saturday, he went into the bathroom, got dizzy and fell on the floor. Woke up however long later.
Most people - I would assume - would be calling the paramedics when something like that happens and you haven't got a clue what is wrong with you, and then a trip to the hospital. He isn't even going to see a doctor about it. Crazy. I asked him to please go - he does have health care coverage through the Great State of Arizona AHCCCS - called access, and yes they would treat a problem like this. I told him I would rather NOT find his dead carcass laying in my house, please take care of yourself.
Also, last night, I had a potential - male - tenant over. I got him settled at the kitchen table and we talked for at least an hour. My goal - as always - is to find out as much about this person as I possibly can in the limited time frame that I have to hear them out. I'm looking for anything hidden, slips of the tongue, oddities. I want to hear this person's view of things and I want to see if this person really can get along with other people living in the same house. I have no set way of getting that info out - the conversation just lends itself to it.
The only thing that is a little unsettling about the guy is that he's a diabetic - the type that has to take insulin shots. I've seen diabetics going into seizures, it ain't a pretty sight. He claims he takes care of himself and watched his glucose and all of that and hasn't had a seizure in years. Now, a seizure isn't going to hurt anyone but the person having it, for the most part, but again, I like to see that people stay alive and kicking in my house, not coming here to die. You know what I mean? lol He works in a warehouse not far from here - 40 hours a week - and then claims to be a freelance writer just trying to get a foot into the door of that realm.
Well, good luck with that, but don't quit your day job until you really have something going. He offered references, I said I would like to see them.
Show-down with Mary in court tomorrow. Printed out most of the stuff I needed, but I have more emails to dig out of the system and get them printed up as well. Which means sitting here for an hour at least going through all of it to find the relevant ones. Came up with a list of things that throw HUGE holes into her story, the biggest one is her own hand-written letter where she says she knows she owes rent, that she "made a mistake" and whatever else it said. Gotta get that one back out and scrutinize it. Meaning I'm going to have to take a nap soon so I can be refreshed enough to get this stuff in my head and also marked so I can find it if I need it in a hurry. I'm not fretting or uneasy about going into this particular court room anymore, as I have had enough dealings with this judge to know that - even if I get screwed, the screwing can't be that bad because the only thing Mary is claiming is that she doesn't have to pay rent this month.
Temps cooled down considerably today. It was cool even this afternoon - but that's also the help of wind. Still, it was in the high 70's and now it's down in the 60's.
I was wondering what was going on here - I ain't ready for summer and those incredibly high electric bills. I'm still wondering HOW I'm going to pay for that, and my time for figuring is going to come to a close. I'm seriously considering installing a piggy-back evap cooler onto the ac system. We don't need AC when no-one's here. Turn on a cooler and run that during the day - it will let it get no higher than 90 in the house, but probably cooler than that during the summer months. It would save me a huge chunk of change and - well - the money for that could be funded by another 401k loan after the current one is paid off in July. Yeah, July's in the middle of hot-hell summer, but at least that alternative will come around.
The problem with it is that it allegedly cancels the warranty on the ac unit if I install one. But - only for the ducting and that with the house manufacturer, not the AC manufacturer. Okay, in 30 years, the ducting will start to rust a little and that's the deal with it. I won't be here in 30 years. It's the only alternative I have been able to come up with to deal with these excessive cooling bills for the months of June, July and August. The months preceding and after are also high, but not near as high as the temps are cooler - in the low 100's instead of the 110's.
Actually, I was thinking if I get that safe driver award - and the full week's pay that comes with it - I could pay off the 401k loan with it and then get another loan within a few days of it. A couple thousand dollars would deal with that and a few other issues I would like to get deal with around here, including those broken windows. I'm just considering it right now. The real answer is to get awnings up - but they cost so much money. Money, money, money. At least I ain't the only one in that particular, giant ship filled with millions of people - many of which are far worse off than I right now.
Umm, well I have had a second wind hit me and I'm going to go right now and start digging through that email and find the rest of what I need, plus go re-read that 3-page, handwritten letter that Mary wrote that is going to kill her in court.
C'yall later.
ben
I did a V-log while driving the truck today, but I don't even feel like going through the motions of uploading it, so I'm just writing the entry.
Basically, Ken - the newer tenant - told me that on Saturday, he went into the bathroom, got dizzy and fell on the floor. Woke up however long later.
Most people - I would assume - would be calling the paramedics when something like that happens and you haven't got a clue what is wrong with you, and then a trip to the hospital. He isn't even going to see a doctor about it. Crazy. I asked him to please go - he does have health care coverage through the Great State of Arizona AHCCCS - called access, and yes they would treat a problem like this. I told him I would rather NOT find his dead carcass laying in my house, please take care of yourself.
Also, last night, I had a potential - male - tenant over. I got him settled at the kitchen table and we talked for at least an hour. My goal - as always - is to find out as much about this person as I possibly can in the limited time frame that I have to hear them out. I'm looking for anything hidden, slips of the tongue, oddities. I want to hear this person's view of things and I want to see if this person really can get along with other people living in the same house. I have no set way of getting that info out - the conversation just lends itself to it.
The only thing that is a little unsettling about the guy is that he's a diabetic - the type that has to take insulin shots. I've seen diabetics going into seizures, it ain't a pretty sight. He claims he takes care of himself and watched his glucose and all of that and hasn't had a seizure in years. Now, a seizure isn't going to hurt anyone but the person having it, for the most part, but again, I like to see that people stay alive and kicking in my house, not coming here to die. You know what I mean? lol He works in a warehouse not far from here - 40 hours a week - and then claims to be a freelance writer just trying to get a foot into the door of that realm.
Well, good luck with that, but don't quit your day job until you really have something going. He offered references, I said I would like to see them.
Show-down with Mary in court tomorrow. Printed out most of the stuff I needed, but I have more emails to dig out of the system and get them printed up as well. Which means sitting here for an hour at least going through all of it to find the relevant ones. Came up with a list of things that throw HUGE holes into her story, the biggest one is her own hand-written letter where she says she knows she owes rent, that she "made a mistake" and whatever else it said. Gotta get that one back out and scrutinize it. Meaning I'm going to have to take a nap soon so I can be refreshed enough to get this stuff in my head and also marked so I can find it if I need it in a hurry. I'm not fretting or uneasy about going into this particular court room anymore, as I have had enough dealings with this judge to know that - even if I get screwed, the screwing can't be that bad because the only thing Mary is claiming is that she doesn't have to pay rent this month.
Temps cooled down considerably today. It was cool even this afternoon - but that's also the help of wind. Still, it was in the high 70's and now it's down in the 60's.
I was wondering what was going on here - I ain't ready for summer and those incredibly high electric bills. I'm still wondering HOW I'm going to pay for that, and my time for figuring is going to come to a close. I'm seriously considering installing a piggy-back evap cooler onto the ac system. We don't need AC when no-one's here. Turn on a cooler and run that during the day - it will let it get no higher than 90 in the house, but probably cooler than that during the summer months. It would save me a huge chunk of change and - well - the money for that could be funded by another 401k loan after the current one is paid off in July. Yeah, July's in the middle of hot-hell summer, but at least that alternative will come around.
The problem with it is that it allegedly cancels the warranty on the ac unit if I install one. But - only for the ducting and that with the house manufacturer, not the AC manufacturer. Okay, in 30 years, the ducting will start to rust a little and that's the deal with it. I won't be here in 30 years. It's the only alternative I have been able to come up with to deal with these excessive cooling bills for the months of June, July and August. The months preceding and after are also high, but not near as high as the temps are cooler - in the low 100's instead of the 110's.
Actually, I was thinking if I get that safe driver award - and the full week's pay that comes with it - I could pay off the 401k loan with it and then get another loan within a few days of it. A couple thousand dollars would deal with that and a few other issues I would like to get deal with around here, including those broken windows. I'm just considering it right now. The real answer is to get awnings up - but they cost so much money. Money, money, money. At least I ain't the only one in that particular, giant ship filled with millions of people - many of which are far worse off than I right now.
Umm, well I have had a second wind hit me and I'm going to go right now and start digging through that email and find the rest of what I need, plus go re-read that 3-page, handwritten letter that Mary wrote that is going to kill her in court.
C'yall later.
ben
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Sunday/Morning
I've already made my trips to the stores I needed to make them to today.
Walmart - the place I love to hate - for several items including flea/tick treatment for the dogs and some fixin's for the ham I intend on cooking today.
Fry's had ham on super-sale - bought that a couple of weeks ago, just getting to cooking it today. Put a pineapple/brown sugar glaze on it, cook it, serve with vegetables and maybe potatoes, done.
Oh, and key rings and one tag for the dogs. Duke had somehow gotten his identification tag off and destroyed the ring that was holding it - tag was intact. Got a new ring for him. Coco both got the tag off and managed to lose the tag and ring completely. It's around here somewhere, I'm sure of that - WHERE - I have no clue.
My chores for today are limited - clean the living room, tidy up my bedroom, mop the kitchen floor. Already cleaned most of my bathroom and ended up leaving a notice on the tenant's bathroom. I mean, it was pretty bad in there. The toilet was - gross. I cleaned that just to get it to acceptable conditions. The notice was for the tenants to clean the rest of it. As far as I know, Mary cleaned the bathtub and counter, I don't know if Ken did anything or not. Pretty sad that I have to leave a notice to clean up the bathroom to 40-year olds - but I do what I have to around here to keep this place acceptable.
Oh, and laundry. Such a fun and wonderful CHORE. It's the worst part of any cleaning for me around here. I HATE doing laundry.
The biggest thing I'm doing today is getting all the emails Mary has sent me forwarded to my work email address so I can print them out, read over her handwritten junk, go over the numbers she claims versus the real numbers, and get semi-prepared for court. The judge will not be interested in a lot of other stuff - as Mary thinks she intends to bring up - as this is solely about rent, not any lawsuits she may think to bring. I know this for a fact - anything that isn't covered in my complaint or her potential reply to the complaint will not be addressed, he won't even listen. Mary claims she is writing an answer and filing it tomorrow. I don't know if there's a time limit on such answers in this kind of situation, but I do know she has to give me a copy of it.
Anyway, I was going to take the dogs for a walk this morning and instead got caught up in all the running around, and now the more important things in life: a pot of coffee. After this little reprieve, it's off to the laundry/cleaning races - have to take the dogs for a walk later on. Probably trot on by the newest molestor's house and take a gander at that setup. The guy knows his face is being plastered all over the neighborhood - I have a hard time understanding how anyone could live in a place like this with that kind of rap. He has to know that there is at least the potential for parents that have little boys - apparently the dish of his flavor - are going to be watching him and their kids. I have a clear image of this guy in my head and intend on seeing what this freak looks like in person. Not a confrontation, just a gander at this "dude".
Umm, that was unpleasant. The notion of having fully 2 child molestors - 1 across the street and now the other 10 houses away - is rather unsettling. Further that the "new" guy has a taste for young boys. That's just sick.
Anyway, no football today - meaning I can focus on the court case. Very glad Superbowl Sunday is not today, I would be totally distracted and not get that info clear in my mind.
I've seen some of the hype about Obama, but so far, all I've seen actually done is an order to close Guantanamo prison and releasing funds so that little babies around the world can be killed in a procedure known as an abortion. Have you ever actually seen what they do to these babies in some of these procedures? In one procedure, a saline solution is injected into the sac and basically burns the flesh off the baby. In another, it's something akin to a vacuum cleaner cutting off and disposing of the baby's limbs and head. It's pretty sick, as far as I'm concerned. Well, I don't want to get into that, I'm just definitely NOT impressed by anything he's done yet. He isn't the Savior that he's been touted to be, time will prove and reveal that little factor.
Whatever. I have to try to call the mortgage company again this coming week and see about getting a renegotiation of the loan. Calling that company always gets the same message: We are experiencing an usually high volume of calls, wait times will be long.
I'm not into waiting long periods of time to speak to someone on the phone who can't do anything for me, anyway, and will have to get connected to Lord knows how many people before finally getting to the right person. I emailed them a detailed letter of what I need - no reply and that was weeks ago.
Done with this one, it seems to be full of negativity and I figure to get out of that mode shortly.
Happy Sunday.
ben
Walmart - the place I love to hate - for several items including flea/tick treatment for the dogs and some fixin's for the ham I intend on cooking today.
Fry's had ham on super-sale - bought that a couple of weeks ago, just getting to cooking it today. Put a pineapple/brown sugar glaze on it, cook it, serve with vegetables and maybe potatoes, done.
Oh, and key rings and one tag for the dogs. Duke had somehow gotten his identification tag off and destroyed the ring that was holding it - tag was intact. Got a new ring for him. Coco both got the tag off and managed to lose the tag and ring completely. It's around here somewhere, I'm sure of that - WHERE - I have no clue.
My chores for today are limited - clean the living room, tidy up my bedroom, mop the kitchen floor. Already cleaned most of my bathroom and ended up leaving a notice on the tenant's bathroom. I mean, it was pretty bad in there. The toilet was - gross. I cleaned that just to get it to acceptable conditions. The notice was for the tenants to clean the rest of it. As far as I know, Mary cleaned the bathtub and counter, I don't know if Ken did anything or not. Pretty sad that I have to leave a notice to clean up the bathroom to 40-year olds - but I do what I have to around here to keep this place acceptable.
Oh, and laundry. Such a fun and wonderful CHORE. It's the worst part of any cleaning for me around here. I HATE doing laundry.
The biggest thing I'm doing today is getting all the emails Mary has sent me forwarded to my work email address so I can print them out, read over her handwritten junk, go over the numbers she claims versus the real numbers, and get semi-prepared for court. The judge will not be interested in a lot of other stuff - as Mary thinks she intends to bring up - as this is solely about rent, not any lawsuits she may think to bring. I know this for a fact - anything that isn't covered in my complaint or her potential reply to the complaint will not be addressed, he won't even listen. Mary claims she is writing an answer and filing it tomorrow. I don't know if there's a time limit on such answers in this kind of situation, but I do know she has to give me a copy of it.
Anyway, I was going to take the dogs for a walk this morning and instead got caught up in all the running around, and now the more important things in life: a pot of coffee. After this little reprieve, it's off to the laundry/cleaning races - have to take the dogs for a walk later on. Probably trot on by the newest molestor's house and take a gander at that setup. The guy knows his face is being plastered all over the neighborhood - I have a hard time understanding how anyone could live in a place like this with that kind of rap. He has to know that there is at least the potential for parents that have little boys - apparently the dish of his flavor - are going to be watching him and their kids. I have a clear image of this guy in my head and intend on seeing what this freak looks like in person. Not a confrontation, just a gander at this "dude".
Umm, that was unpleasant. The notion of having fully 2 child molestors - 1 across the street and now the other 10 houses away - is rather unsettling. Further that the "new" guy has a taste for young boys. That's just sick.
Anyway, no football today - meaning I can focus on the court case. Very glad Superbowl Sunday is not today, I would be totally distracted and not get that info clear in my mind.
I've seen some of the hype about Obama, but so far, all I've seen actually done is an order to close Guantanamo prison and releasing funds so that little babies around the world can be killed in a procedure known as an abortion. Have you ever actually seen what they do to these babies in some of these procedures? In one procedure, a saline solution is injected into the sac and basically burns the flesh off the baby. In another, it's something akin to a vacuum cleaner cutting off and disposing of the baby's limbs and head. It's pretty sick, as far as I'm concerned. Well, I don't want to get into that, I'm just definitely NOT impressed by anything he's done yet. He isn't the Savior that he's been touted to be, time will prove and reveal that little factor.
Whatever. I have to try to call the mortgage company again this coming week and see about getting a renegotiation of the loan. Calling that company always gets the same message: We are experiencing an usually high volume of calls, wait times will be long.
I'm not into waiting long periods of time to speak to someone on the phone who can't do anything for me, anyway, and will have to get connected to Lord knows how many people before finally getting to the right person. I emailed them a detailed letter of what I need - no reply and that was weeks ago.
Done with this one, it seems to be full of negativity and I figure to get out of that mode shortly.
Happy Sunday.
ben
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Another One Moving Into The Neighborhood.........
..........and JUST down the street from me. There are a LOT of young boys running around the streets around here - this kind of stuff terrifies me.
You don't have a clue what I'm talking about, so here it is, typed on here just as it is on the flyer I just received in the mail.
:On March 17, 1995, Offender Burns pled guilty to two counts of Attempted Child Molest in Maricopa County Superior Court. During this incident, Offender Burns molested two boys, ages 11 and 9, who were known to him.
On September 19, 2000, Offender Burns pled guilty to Attempted Sexual Conduct with a Minor in Maricopa County Superior Court. During this incident, which was reported ten years after the occurence, Offender Burns molested the 8-year-old male victim who was known to him."
So, this guy, who is 50 years old and they even have a pic of him in this flyer, has just moved into my neighborhood. He's a block away. Not even that. His house is 3 houses down from all those black kids - ages 11 through 15 - four brothers. Though, their father is a nutcase and is in and out of jail all the time. Messing with those boys might cost that man his life..........
The guy is a Level 3 offender, meaning he's high risk of molesting again. Now, there's 2 of them. One across the street from me and this guy all of the equivalent of 10 houses away from me.
Unbelievable.
You don't have a clue what I'm talking about, so here it is, typed on here just as it is on the flyer I just received in the mail.
:On March 17, 1995, Offender Burns pled guilty to two counts of Attempted Child Molest in Maricopa County Superior Court. During this incident, Offender Burns molested two boys, ages 11 and 9, who were known to him.
On September 19, 2000, Offender Burns pled guilty to Attempted Sexual Conduct with a Minor in Maricopa County Superior Court. During this incident, which was reported ten years after the occurence, Offender Burns molested the 8-year-old male victim who was known to him."
So, this guy, who is 50 years old and they even have a pic of him in this flyer, has just moved into my neighborhood. He's a block away. Not even that. His house is 3 houses down from all those black kids - ages 11 through 15 - four brothers. Though, their father is a nutcase and is in and out of jail all the time. Messing with those boys might cost that man his life..........
The guy is a Level 3 offender, meaning he's high risk of molesting again. Now, there's 2 of them. One across the street from me and this guy all of the equivalent of 10 houses away from me.
Unbelievable.
That Didn't Take Very Long
My search for the relevant documents - most notably the signed lease agreement with $400.00 per month on it and the agreement further stating it is a "month-to-month" agreement - did not take long.
I had forgotten that I have been keeping that stuff in my car. Kind of a secure place to keep it, but - probably better off keeping it in my locked master bedroom closet.
I have all of these handwritten notes from her and the only thing left to do is print out the forcible detainer actions she has been forced through by rental companies - where she lost and has huge judgments against her - and all of the email exchanges between us. A quick review of all of it and I will be ready for court.
She can bring up all the nonsense she wants - she signed a legal document stating that she agrees to pay $400.00 per month, not $200 or $250 as she so assertively claims. There is no way she is confused on this issue - I have stated this over and over and over from the beginning that IF she wanted to work, I would only be able to give her a $100 per month credit on the rent, as that's the least I can afford along with another full-paying tenant to be able to stay afloat.
Anyway, I was glad to find all of that stuff, intact, and yes - it will be locked away shortly as now that I have found it, I'm not going to go over any of it until tomorrow sometime. I don't really need to review it today. All of this stuff is in my head, anyway, I just have to be able to find where she makes certain states in writing if the judge wants to see it.
Plants.
I don't really want to devote my entire blog to tenancy issues, so I'm parting with that subject on this entry, anyway.
I do have a semi-green thumb. Sort of. It's just that I got all of those plants at auction and I knew nothing about them. Do they like shade? How much water do they want/need? It's taken me a while, but I have learned the needs of each particular plant that I have, and most notably those "barren" sticks with leaves on them that looked quite - bad to me. I gave about 10 or more of those particular plants away, but I did end up planting some of them.
Amazingly - to me anyway - the ones that I planted in full sunlight started putting all kinds of absolutely beautiful flowers of all different shades of colors on one single plant. I planted 4 of them in a row and they are doing just magnificently.
But - I couldn't figure out whether these plants wanted a lot of water or a little. I tried both and didn't see much results. I decided to basically drown them in water just about every day or every other day - and they loved it! That's when they started blooming in full force.
They don't like shade, I have found - the ones I planted that is mostly shaded are not blooming. They aren't dying, but - it's obvious they like full sunlight. I still have at least 5 of those particular plants - whatever they are called as I have no clue - in planters and am trying to decide where to put them. I would like to put them on the west side of the house up against the wall, but I'm afraid the dogs will just piss them to literal death. I really don't want to put up more fencing, but I had thoughts that maybe I could just circle each plant with some fencing and see if that will do the trick. That wall gets full sunlight for at least 1/2 of the day. The area where theey are really thriving get full sunlight almost all day long.
The honeysuckles that were trampled by Not-So-Great-Danes are making a REMARKABLE comeback. I truly thought they were just going to stay barren sticks, but the watering paid off. They now have large leaves and several new branches shooting out. Hooray for them! Eventually - of course keeping that the dogs don't get back there again - they will grow back into full plants, and really, at the amazingly fast rate of growth they are producing, I don't think it long - a couple of months maybe and they will at least be full plants even if they aren't that big yet.
Really, all of the plants are doing extremely well. Which is a big sigh of relief for me. They don't really need as much watering as when I first planted them, either. Which is nice because it equates to a lower water bill, though I suspect in the hot summer I will basically have to be watering them everyday to keep them healthy and growing well. I think the root stimulant I gave all of them must have helped as well.
I'm kinda checking email periodically to see if there are any bites on my room rental ad. Nothing - yet. My guess is that tomorrow I will get some hits - Sunday is a day where people seem to tend to start looking at stuff like that if they are in need of such.
An interesting development in the main bathroom - I put rolls of toilet paper in there here and there, but I expect the tenants to pitch in and buy some as well. So - I haven't put any in there in a while now. I went in there today to find nothing - no a single sheet of toilet paper in there.
Which makes me wonder how - anyone is cleaning themselves. The thought is enough to make me want to go up to the store in a while and buy some paper, even if I don't necessarily feel that I should have to keep it completely stocked all of the time. The boys use that bathroom here and there - though I tell them to use mine so there is no animosity in terms of cleanliness of the bathroom and also the TP issue. But - the newer tenant simply doesn't have a lot of money and so I don't really mind at this point just keeping it well stocked, for a while anyway. He eats very poorly which is also why I have decided for the time being to help him out with food whenever I have extra and - not really say anything about his visits to my food pantry and my refrigerator, as long as it does not get excessive. I get along with the guy quite well, so I'm just going to leave it alone for a while.
Maybe he'll get a raise or something and possibly a little more income will come his way. Who knows, apparently the taxi business is quite alive and thriving, even in this wicked economic atmosphere that is present. The Cardinals game that was in town for the conference championship brought a LOT of business to that particular industry, as well as a lot of other industries including hotels and restaurants. We also have "world-class" golf resorts that people come here in the winter to play golf and get away from bitterly cold temps. That's probably more retired folks that have money regardless of the economic situation.
Anyway, I think I will take that trip up to Fry's and get some TP and other items I need for the house.
Have a great Saturday!
ben
I had forgotten that I have been keeping that stuff in my car. Kind of a secure place to keep it, but - probably better off keeping it in my locked master bedroom closet.
I have all of these handwritten notes from her and the only thing left to do is print out the forcible detainer actions she has been forced through by rental companies - where she lost and has huge judgments against her - and all of the email exchanges between us. A quick review of all of it and I will be ready for court.
She can bring up all the nonsense she wants - she signed a legal document stating that she agrees to pay $400.00 per month, not $200 or $250 as she so assertively claims. There is no way she is confused on this issue - I have stated this over and over and over from the beginning that IF she wanted to work, I would only be able to give her a $100 per month credit on the rent, as that's the least I can afford along with another full-paying tenant to be able to stay afloat.
Anyway, I was glad to find all of that stuff, intact, and yes - it will be locked away shortly as now that I have found it, I'm not going to go over any of it until tomorrow sometime. I don't really need to review it today. All of this stuff is in my head, anyway, I just have to be able to find where she makes certain states in writing if the judge wants to see it.
Plants.
I don't really want to devote my entire blog to tenancy issues, so I'm parting with that subject on this entry, anyway.
I do have a semi-green thumb. Sort of. It's just that I got all of those plants at auction and I knew nothing about them. Do they like shade? How much water do they want/need? It's taken me a while, but I have learned the needs of each particular plant that I have, and most notably those "barren" sticks with leaves on them that looked quite - bad to me. I gave about 10 or more of those particular plants away, but I did end up planting some of them.
Amazingly - to me anyway - the ones that I planted in full sunlight started putting all kinds of absolutely beautiful flowers of all different shades of colors on one single plant. I planted 4 of them in a row and they are doing just magnificently.
But - I couldn't figure out whether these plants wanted a lot of water or a little. I tried both and didn't see much results. I decided to basically drown them in water just about every day or every other day - and they loved it! That's when they started blooming in full force.
They don't like shade, I have found - the ones I planted that is mostly shaded are not blooming. They aren't dying, but - it's obvious they like full sunlight. I still have at least 5 of those particular plants - whatever they are called as I have no clue - in planters and am trying to decide where to put them. I would like to put them on the west side of the house up against the wall, but I'm afraid the dogs will just piss them to literal death. I really don't want to put up more fencing, but I had thoughts that maybe I could just circle each plant with some fencing and see if that will do the trick. That wall gets full sunlight for at least 1/2 of the day. The area where theey are really thriving get full sunlight almost all day long.
The honeysuckles that were trampled by Not-So-Great-Danes are making a REMARKABLE comeback. I truly thought they were just going to stay barren sticks, but the watering paid off. They now have large leaves and several new branches shooting out. Hooray for them! Eventually - of course keeping that the dogs don't get back there again - they will grow back into full plants, and really, at the amazingly fast rate of growth they are producing, I don't think it long - a couple of months maybe and they will at least be full plants even if they aren't that big yet.
Really, all of the plants are doing extremely well. Which is a big sigh of relief for me. They don't really need as much watering as when I first planted them, either. Which is nice because it equates to a lower water bill, though I suspect in the hot summer I will basically have to be watering them everyday to keep them healthy and growing well. I think the root stimulant I gave all of them must have helped as well.
I'm kinda checking email periodically to see if there are any bites on my room rental ad. Nothing - yet. My guess is that tomorrow I will get some hits - Sunday is a day where people seem to tend to start looking at stuff like that if they are in need of such.
An interesting development in the main bathroom - I put rolls of toilet paper in there here and there, but I expect the tenants to pitch in and buy some as well. So - I haven't put any in there in a while now. I went in there today to find nothing - no a single sheet of toilet paper in there.
Which makes me wonder how - anyone is cleaning themselves. The thought is enough to make me want to go up to the store in a while and buy some paper, even if I don't necessarily feel that I should have to keep it completely stocked all of the time. The boys use that bathroom here and there - though I tell them to use mine so there is no animosity in terms of cleanliness of the bathroom and also the TP issue. But - the newer tenant simply doesn't have a lot of money and so I don't really mind at this point just keeping it well stocked, for a while anyway. He eats very poorly which is also why I have decided for the time being to help him out with food whenever I have extra and - not really say anything about his visits to my food pantry and my refrigerator, as long as it does not get excessive. I get along with the guy quite well, so I'm just going to leave it alone for a while.
Maybe he'll get a raise or something and possibly a little more income will come his way. Who knows, apparently the taxi business is quite alive and thriving, even in this wicked economic atmosphere that is present. The Cardinals game that was in town for the conference championship brought a LOT of business to that particular industry, as well as a lot of other industries including hotels and restaurants. We also have "world-class" golf resorts that people come here in the winter to play golf and get away from bitterly cold temps. That's probably more retired folks that have money regardless of the economic situation.
Anyway, I think I will take that trip up to Fry's and get some TP and other items I need for the house.
Have a great Saturday!
ben
Well, I got involved in watching a movie online last night and stayed up WAY too late. This online movie business may be addictive, will have to watch myself here.
It was also a very nice, quiet morning until the next store neighbor started messing with his Harley Davidson - a bit annoying.
Oh, and I am dog-sitting again - this weekend for this dog and then I think it's about a week and a half from now I'll be watching Roscoe the German Shepherd for about 10 days if I recall the email correctly. Not a lot of money - I'll take whatever I can get at this point. I haven't run the dog-sitting ad in months - I sorta decided I really didn't want to do it because of the potential liability if the dog is hurt or if my dogs inflict pain/wounds on someone else's dogs. Be that as it may, I am still sitting the dogs that I have already had here before - these people keep calling me and they keep bringing them over, and even if it's not that much money, it's certainly hard to turn anything down right now considering my circumstances. Half tempted to run the ad again. Only half. One thing I have going now that I didn't before is the option of separating the dogs if I have to. My yard is now divided by a chain link fence and the dogs cannot get to the other side.
So, it is a possibility in just putting a dog that I am sitting outside on the east side of the house and keeping it over there while I'm at work. During the winter and spring, anyway, couldn't do that in the summer. Too hot - there is shade but I just wouldn't do that to a dog.
Yes, this is a rather rambling post admittedly as I have a lot of junk going through my head right now, especially this situation with Mary. I am having trouble finding what I did with the rental agreement. Rest assured I will go through every single piece of paper in the house to find it, but I'm 99% sure it's in my master bedroom closet. I started going through it last night and will attack that situation again today. That rental agreement she signed says $400.00 per month and nothing about working for reduced rent. Now, don't take me wrong on that. I'm not claiming she hasn't done any work - I have freely admitted that but also have included that she has received quite a lot off of rent monies she's paid.
Mary sent me her version of what she has paid me since she moved in here. A cacophony of lies, she has her having had paid $800 during the 2-month period where she paid NOTHING and I actually went and filed forcible detainer action against her THAT time. I'll be bringing a copy of that paperwork for the judge to see.
Basically, what I'm understand Mary is saying, is that she feels she should just get the entire month of January for free. Lol. Her claims are numerous, the biggest is that she put up that door and it's worth $500.00 and therefore she shouldn't have to pay anything. Oh, Mary DID hand me the key last night! I was amazed at that little action - and it's on video surveillance cause I was sitting here when she handed it to me. She actually tried to duck down and make herself not seen on it, but - quite sure it's on there.
Anyway, the whole thing is actually starting to become entertaining because she says one thing, and then comes along and says another thing - totally contradicting herself. I have it all in writing, to - both her email and her hand-written statements.
Whatever. I'm going to start getting all that paperwork together in a little while - I'm just sitting here drinking my coffee - and thankfully, the motorcycle noise has stopped. Meanwhile, I wrote up another ad and posted it to Craigslist. No replies yet - but sometimes it has to sit there for a couple of days before any series responses come flowing in. Getting close to the end of the month, so there are going to be people out there looking for a new place to live. Yes, I have to consider another tenant in here immediately. I'm actually - sort of - okay on finances - sort of. There are a couple of bills that are lurking that need paid and I won't be able to do anything about it until I either get money from Mary - which I haven't really been asking for anyway - or 2 paydays from now. Yikes!!!
Ummmmm - nothing I can do about it but hope that what I have will carry me through. One of those situations where I will dump a lot of money onto the card reader to make sure there is power for the next 3 weeks, fill up the gas tank in the car (already done), buy enough food to last that time period and then whatever else happens? Deal with it.
So I just went and inspected Mary's "old" room. She cleaned the carpet and it smells good in there, but the walls are going to have to be repainted. Fortunately I have plenty of paint to be able to do that without having to spend a single dime on it.
A couple of days ago - totally changing subjects again, told you this was a rambling post - I was driving the truck up in North Phoenix near some mountains. I was driving through a wash - it's paved road but it obviously turns into a small river when it rains - when I see a coyote dart out from some bushes in the wash, grab what must have been a freshly killed bird off of the road itself, and then trot off back into the bushes! There were at least 3 of them standing there - with all the traffic coming by, acting as if we, the traffic, were nothing! That was a rather amazing sight.
I'm done. I want to go outside and look at my plants before I start the task of finding all that paperwork, reading through all of it and putting it together in some semblance of order.
C'yall later.
ben
It was also a very nice, quiet morning until the next store neighbor started messing with his Harley Davidson - a bit annoying.
Oh, and I am dog-sitting again - this weekend for this dog and then I think it's about a week and a half from now I'll be watching Roscoe the German Shepherd for about 10 days if I recall the email correctly. Not a lot of money - I'll take whatever I can get at this point. I haven't run the dog-sitting ad in months - I sorta decided I really didn't want to do it because of the potential liability if the dog is hurt or if my dogs inflict pain/wounds on someone else's dogs. Be that as it may, I am still sitting the dogs that I have already had here before - these people keep calling me and they keep bringing them over, and even if it's not that much money, it's certainly hard to turn anything down right now considering my circumstances. Half tempted to run the ad again. Only half. One thing I have going now that I didn't before is the option of separating the dogs if I have to. My yard is now divided by a chain link fence and the dogs cannot get to the other side.
So, it is a possibility in just putting a dog that I am sitting outside on the east side of the house and keeping it over there while I'm at work. During the winter and spring, anyway, couldn't do that in the summer. Too hot - there is shade but I just wouldn't do that to a dog.
Yes, this is a rather rambling post admittedly as I have a lot of junk going through my head right now, especially this situation with Mary. I am having trouble finding what I did with the rental agreement. Rest assured I will go through every single piece of paper in the house to find it, but I'm 99% sure it's in my master bedroom closet. I started going through it last night and will attack that situation again today. That rental agreement she signed says $400.00 per month and nothing about working for reduced rent. Now, don't take me wrong on that. I'm not claiming she hasn't done any work - I have freely admitted that but also have included that she has received quite a lot off of rent monies she's paid.
Mary sent me her version of what she has paid me since she moved in here. A cacophony of lies, she has her having had paid $800 during the 2-month period where she paid NOTHING and I actually went and filed forcible detainer action against her THAT time. I'll be bringing a copy of that paperwork for the judge to see.
Basically, what I'm understand Mary is saying, is that she feels she should just get the entire month of January for free. Lol. Her claims are numerous, the biggest is that she put up that door and it's worth $500.00 and therefore she shouldn't have to pay anything. Oh, Mary DID hand me the key last night! I was amazed at that little action - and it's on video surveillance cause I was sitting here when she handed it to me. She actually tried to duck down and make herself not seen on it, but - quite sure it's on there.
Anyway, the whole thing is actually starting to become entertaining because she says one thing, and then comes along and says another thing - totally contradicting herself. I have it all in writing, to - both her email and her hand-written statements.
Whatever. I'm going to start getting all that paperwork together in a little while - I'm just sitting here drinking my coffee - and thankfully, the motorcycle noise has stopped. Meanwhile, I wrote up another ad and posted it to Craigslist. No replies yet - but sometimes it has to sit there for a couple of days before any series responses come flowing in. Getting close to the end of the month, so there are going to be people out there looking for a new place to live. Yes, I have to consider another tenant in here immediately. I'm actually - sort of - okay on finances - sort of. There are a couple of bills that are lurking that need paid and I won't be able to do anything about it until I either get money from Mary - which I haven't really been asking for anyway - or 2 paydays from now. Yikes!!!
Ummmmm - nothing I can do about it but hope that what I have will carry me through. One of those situations where I will dump a lot of money onto the card reader to make sure there is power for the next 3 weeks, fill up the gas tank in the car (already done), buy enough food to last that time period and then whatever else happens? Deal with it.
So I just went and inspected Mary's "old" room. She cleaned the carpet and it smells good in there, but the walls are going to have to be repainted. Fortunately I have plenty of paint to be able to do that without having to spend a single dime on it.
A couple of days ago - totally changing subjects again, told you this was a rambling post - I was driving the truck up in North Phoenix near some mountains. I was driving through a wash - it's paved road but it obviously turns into a small river when it rains - when I see a coyote dart out from some bushes in the wash, grab what must have been a freshly killed bird off of the road itself, and then trot off back into the bushes! There were at least 3 of them standing there - with all the traffic coming by, acting as if we, the traffic, were nothing! That was a rather amazing sight.
I'm done. I want to go outside and look at my plants before I start the task of finding all that paperwork, reading through all of it and putting it together in some semblance of order.
C'yall later.
ben
Friday, January 23, 2009
Friday/More
Just got back from a long hike in the mountains with the dogs. There's always people up in there - miles and miles of trails - run into hikers and mountain bikes. They all just stop what they're doing when those Danes come trotting by. Those dogs were huffing and puffing hard going up and down those steep hills - it was a good workout today as I ventured further in and forced them up and down more steep hills. My goal: get the energy totally out and have them knocked out for the evening.
The Mary Report:
Just a series of emails, a lot of trash talking from her. As she progresses with her make-believe, the story gets more and more rife. The whole thing at this point is a fabricated, out-right lie. Seriously. I wrote her back and asked her to calm down, get out of the emotional state of being, sit back and take a rational look at this situation.
She wrote back and said she couldn't deal with my email anymore and that she would delete every one I sent and not to write her anymore. THEN, she writes me AGAIN - does this sound like the doings of a rational person? - more jive. She tells me the room is empty, cleaned out and the door is unlocked.
I write back: Not good enough. I need for you to actually give me the key to the room. That signals that you are giving up ownership of it. I'm not going to get into court and have some technicality thrown at me that yes, she emptied the room, but no, she didn't give me the key, therefore, she didn't lawfully give up the room. It says it in state law - that's what she must do. If she doesn't, I ain't bitin'. I did write up another Craigslist ad, though, in case she does hand me the key, I could use some rent money, even though I totally do not want 3 tenants in here.
Plus the fact it might not be such a good idea to try to get anyone else in here before I get her out. Still.....
I've been informed by Michael that a certain relative of his that owes me $300.00 from 14 months ago is going to pay me back when they get their tax refund.
I had totally blown it off. In fact, I had totally blown off the entire family sans Michael and getting anything back. This is not, BTW, the monies owed me to replace the broken - still broken - windows. That is Anthony's deal - though parents are held responsible. I could go after the mother - she has been working for quite a while now, no small miracle in itself - but I am not at this point. That judgment apparently sticks with Anthony all the way up until he's 18, and then you apparently have to file something to keep that judgment on him afterwards.
Oh, and though I don't know this for a fact, it's QUITE obvious they are now living on free rent subsidies. There is NO WAY they could be paying for that townhouse AND buying all the junk they buy on her income alone. Which is one reason I have given thought to going after that $600 plus or minus to get those windows replaced. If you are new here, well it's too much of a story, but I have 3 broken windows thanks to Michael's older brother. The kid went to jail, went to court, agreement to pay was made. I have not had the windows fixed because they are double-paned windows and only the out panes are broken. If both panes were broken on any or all of them? I dunno - I would have figured out something. THAT might be a situation where I could sell the old car to get them fixed, or even try a trade.
Right now, I'm just trying to stay afloat, those windows are FAR down the list of priorities. Like, at or near last place. Ken just paid me today his bi-monthly rent. That's $200 and $150 in the bank. I get paid next week - all of it goes to the mortgage. I have $350 to last 3 weeks unless I either am able to rent out the now vacated room - providing Mary legally gives it up - or she actually pays me the rent. We'll be going to 2 months behind in rent shortly. It's the 23rd - the end of the month draweth nigh.
I'm saying that $350 is not a lot of money to last that much time. I have resisted applying for a second job after I finally just gave up on the idea. Fry's still looms in my mind as a very-real possibility. I just don't savor the idea of working 2 jobs again - I hated it last time I did it, I hated the time before, I doubt I'll like it this time around. IF I can even GET a second, part-time job. What chaos it is out there - 2 million people were dumped last year, more every month. Giant labor cuts are announced daily or at least a couple of times per week. The gurus of finances are finally admitting this year is probably going to be FAR worse in terms of the housing chaos than last year.
I'm cutting back on lots of things that can be cut back on. Unfortunately for the doggies, I have cut out the Iams. The store I was buying it at raised their price - out of my range. I am now buying 50 pound bags at $16.00 per bag and then supplementing it with scrap meat that I have after cooking. Just want to make sure they are getting sufficient protein in their diet. Scrap meat - equals the junk you don't want to eat that dogs eat with gusto. They don't CARE what part of the meat it is, they'll consume it hungrily. They don't get the bones, though. Well, if it's LARGE bones they get those, but chickens don't have large bones. Plus, those kind of bones splinter easily and can do damage to the innards of the dog - stomach lining and intestines.
God knows that dog eats. I just fed them - Duke is a giant PIG. He eats and eats and eats. It's amazing he isn't fat as a whale.
Ummmm, anyway. I'll just sit here and mull these series of problems that are facing me and go and enjoy everyone else's entries.
G'nite.
ben
The Mary Report:
Just a series of emails, a lot of trash talking from her. As she progresses with her make-believe, the story gets more and more rife. The whole thing at this point is a fabricated, out-right lie. Seriously. I wrote her back and asked her to calm down, get out of the emotional state of being, sit back and take a rational look at this situation.
She wrote back and said she couldn't deal with my email anymore and that she would delete every one I sent and not to write her anymore. THEN, she writes me AGAIN - does this sound like the doings of a rational person? - more jive. She tells me the room is empty, cleaned out and the door is unlocked.
I write back: Not good enough. I need for you to actually give me the key to the room. That signals that you are giving up ownership of it. I'm not going to get into court and have some technicality thrown at me that yes, she emptied the room, but no, she didn't give me the key, therefore, she didn't lawfully give up the room. It says it in state law - that's what she must do. If she doesn't, I ain't bitin'. I did write up another Craigslist ad, though, in case she does hand me the key, I could use some rent money, even though I totally do not want 3 tenants in here.
Plus the fact it might not be such a good idea to try to get anyone else in here before I get her out. Still.....
I've been informed by Michael that a certain relative of his that owes me $300.00 from 14 months ago is going to pay me back when they get their tax refund.
I had totally blown it off. In fact, I had totally blown off the entire family sans Michael and getting anything back. This is not, BTW, the monies owed me to replace the broken - still broken - windows. That is Anthony's deal - though parents are held responsible. I could go after the mother - she has been working for quite a while now, no small miracle in itself - but I am not at this point. That judgment apparently sticks with Anthony all the way up until he's 18, and then you apparently have to file something to keep that judgment on him afterwards.
Oh, and though I don't know this for a fact, it's QUITE obvious they are now living on free rent subsidies. There is NO WAY they could be paying for that townhouse AND buying all the junk they buy on her income alone. Which is one reason I have given thought to going after that $600 plus or minus to get those windows replaced. If you are new here, well it's too much of a story, but I have 3 broken windows thanks to Michael's older brother. The kid went to jail, went to court, agreement to pay was made. I have not had the windows fixed because they are double-paned windows and only the out panes are broken. If both panes were broken on any or all of them? I dunno - I would have figured out something. THAT might be a situation where I could sell the old car to get them fixed, or even try a trade.
Right now, I'm just trying to stay afloat, those windows are FAR down the list of priorities. Like, at or near last place. Ken just paid me today his bi-monthly rent. That's $200 and $150 in the bank. I get paid next week - all of it goes to the mortgage. I have $350 to last 3 weeks unless I either am able to rent out the now vacated room - providing Mary legally gives it up - or she actually pays me the rent. We'll be going to 2 months behind in rent shortly. It's the 23rd - the end of the month draweth nigh.
I'm saying that $350 is not a lot of money to last that much time. I have resisted applying for a second job after I finally just gave up on the idea. Fry's still looms in my mind as a very-real possibility. I just don't savor the idea of working 2 jobs again - I hated it last time I did it, I hated the time before, I doubt I'll like it this time around. IF I can even GET a second, part-time job. What chaos it is out there - 2 million people were dumped last year, more every month. Giant labor cuts are announced daily or at least a couple of times per week. The gurus of finances are finally admitting this year is probably going to be FAR worse in terms of the housing chaos than last year.
I'm cutting back on lots of things that can be cut back on. Unfortunately for the doggies, I have cut out the Iams. The store I was buying it at raised their price - out of my range. I am now buying 50 pound bags at $16.00 per bag and then supplementing it with scrap meat that I have after cooking. Just want to make sure they are getting sufficient protein in their diet. Scrap meat - equals the junk you don't want to eat that dogs eat with gusto. They don't CARE what part of the meat it is, they'll consume it hungrily. They don't get the bones, though. Well, if it's LARGE bones they get those, but chickens don't have large bones. Plus, those kind of bones splinter easily and can do damage to the innards of the dog - stomach lining and intestines.
God knows that dog eats. I just fed them - Duke is a giant PIG. He eats and eats and eats. It's amazing he isn't fat as a whale.
Ummmm, anyway. I'll just sit here and mull these series of problems that are facing me and go and enjoy everyone else's entries.
G'nite.
ben
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