News

So, I dug out a hole back there, poured the cement and installed one of the posts. I then got a phone call - I want to buy a DVR for the living room and then use the regular receiver in there for the third room rental. It was being sold for $60 less than the cost of a new one.

Fortune had it that the person lives 2 blocks from my work. I don't officially get paid until tomorrow, but the boss hands me the check on Thursdays when UPS brings it. I got the DVR and then headed to work. Bossman already knew what I was there for, apparently, as he had the check in hand and directing it my way as I entered his office.

Then came the news. I have been expecting this news for quite a while now. I have - been hoping that a certain portion of this news would be the way I wanted it. The news - is that a driver is being moved back from our store to the Phoenix branch. What I wanted? To NOT be the driver that is being transferred. I FAR prefer working the Chandler store for a myriad of reasons. The other driver - who has seniority on me, is being moved. He does not have seniority on me at the Chandler branch, but my boss doesn't make these decisions, anyway, it's the General Manager and the Ops Manager who come up with these decisions. I pretty much knew from the way my boss was talking that he had intoned to the Ops and Gen that he wanted me there over the other driver.

Not just because I have been there longer, that really doesn't do anything for anyone. It is, I am assuming, because I have learned a lot more of how to operate the Trilogy system than the other driver and I can effectively run the store by myself when the need arises. And the need does arise. Especially when talking in terms of only 3 employees running a store: the boss; my co-worker who basically does all the shipping and receiving paperwork and inventory stuff; and I. It does, however, place a heavier burden on me: If I get sick, calling in is a bit difficult when you're the only driver. I hardly call in sick, anyway. I have to be bedridden, can't move and basically puking or whatever to call in sick. If it's just flu symptoms that I can still walk and be reasonably mobile, I will go to work. Just stay away from people.

The advantage: I will be much busier. Right now, we switch trucks from week to week. The smaller truck gets more deliveries. The semi doesn't get as much because there aren't always semi loads worth of stuff to deliver. I will be responsible for all commercial driving out of our branch. The boss or the other guy can do runs in the pickup truck when necessary - or I can do them if there isn't anything else going on and I'm not tied up in one of the "real" trucks, lol. Longer term readers may remember that the branch I am working at was like this before. I was the only driver for quite a long time before they transferred over the other guy.

The bad news? Probably someone downtown is going to get the axe. According to my boss, anyway. If that's the case, I'm pretty sure of who is going bye-bye. I hate to see anyone losing their job right now - the market is bad, really bad, even for truck drivers. I guess I'll say selfishly that I am very happy it isn't ME getting the pink slip. It may come yet - who knows, but it ain't right now. BenB sighing big sigh of relief.

But - there's this visit from the Western Regional manager. I'm still pretty expectant of some kinds of decisions being made there, as well. WHAT decisions remain to be seen. Common sense dictates that in tough times - and getting tougher - the company is going to go into preservation mode. They've already done that, but I suspect more on the way.

So, anyway, a move has been made. I got my paycheck - it does have the driver award bonus on there. Thank GOD almighty! Right now, that little infusion is a big help. For me, the switch of a driver is good news - I won't have to try to invent things to do. I am quite sure the other driver didn't want to go back to Phoenix - but - at least he didn't lose his job. I kind of feel like I dodged a bullet here....
going outside to check the post I cemented - see if the cement is setting. Probably won't do anything furhter with it until tomorrow. I can hook up the chain link on the portion of fence, and then install a gate on that post. I do this stuff in sections. After installing the gate, I can then identify exactly where the post needs to be for the gate to have a latch that can go onto the other post. Only bummer? Rain expected this weekend. Well, no big deal - I still have the temp fencing up, and the sometimes trouble-maker dog just left. Roscoe, the dog I watch frequently - for money of course - was just picked up by his owner. It was an almost $70 gig. I'll take that money and deal with the dog's little incongruities.

C'ya later.
ben

Fencing

So - I'm having second thoughts on the type of fencing I want to divide my yard. Something about chain link - isn't very appealing to the eye. I have ideas of what I would like back there - something in wood - but, guess I'll have to go ahead and put in the chain link, cause right now, spending money on fencing is hardly on any priority list. Since I already have everything except the 5 posts and some bags of cement, I don't expect to do anything but install that fencing already back there.

A glimpse of why Michael is late every day for school was seen this morning. His mother doesn't come pick him up for school until almost 8:00 o'clock, school starts at 7:45am. Last report card I saw he had 28 absences in his fir period class. They consider it an absence if you're late, even if you show up 2 minutes after the bell.

I think that a good thing - it SHOULD do something for teaching kids and their parents some discipline in life. I mean, you can't just show up to work whenever you want - well most people can't, anyway. I think Michael is going to fail several classes this year because of the lates and the no-shows and also the fact that he is offered make-up work and he doesn't do it. Michael "moved-out" a while back, but has been staying here most nights during the week and all weekends. He's getting his X-Box 360 fixed, I imagine when he gets that thing back, he will be over at his family's house more than he is now. Now? He is "forced" to stick with my Playstation 3.

Anyway, I'm undecided yet what to do with this day off. I had thoughts of installing that fencing, I'm still thinking along those lines, but - feeling rather unmotivated. Digging holes in that ground is very difficult work, I basically hate it. Could spend hours digging out 5 holes for the posts, literally. Where it might take a couple of minutes in good soil - well, the constant hitting of rocks makes it a very drawn out process. Amazing anything can grow in this kind of soil, but so far, all of my plants have shown that they don't really care that much about the soil cause' they're mostly all doing well.

Think I'm going to get outside and start looking at the fence project - what it's going to entail and whether I REALLY want to get involved with that today or not.

Have a great day!
ben

Wednesday

So - another rather long day at work.
But - it wasn't anything like yesterday.
Speculation continues to abound.
I've determined that the speculating has gone on long enough.
What happens - happens. I have thought the scenarios through to the end of every conceivable potential development that might come along - I have thought through my options in every single scenario.
Always remember that roses have thorns.
I'm 99% sure that decisions will be made and will be in the offing.
But what those decisions are, exactly, no clue. Can't lose sleep over something I have no control over.

As the boss said today - keep the place clean and stay busy - with anything. I could sit around for a little while, but I would go stir-crazy. I like staying busy, even if it's mundane work. Home is the place to relax, not work.

So, onto other things.
Because work is so slow, I am not only getting Friday off, the boss offered tomorrow as well. He offered it to the other driver first - but I told him if he declined I would happily take it. I have plenty of hours available for off time. Friday is my paid birthday day, I think I'll use a floating holiday tomorrow.

Happy happy. So - unexpectedly - I have a 4 day weekend starting NOW. Woo-hoooo!

I'm thinking of calling some tax places and find the best price. The first place I went to - well, I hope that ain't the best price, cause if it is, more than I expected.

Took the dogs for a long walk shortly after getting home. I said I was going to start getting the excess nerves out by doing some intense workouts - the walk is hardly just a walk. It's a climb in the mountains and yes, stress is quickly flung off. Not only that, but when I got to the top of one of the mountains, I was very surprised to see the clean air over Phoenix. It's an unusual sight. It was very windy yesterday and that must have blow all that junk out of the valley. More than that - there were several much higher mountains in the distance that were covered with snow including 4-Peaks. Pretty cool.

Leaving the mountain range? A coyote was sitting on the next mountain over and started it's howling/yelping crap. The coyotes around here are little scraggly things, I am not afraid of them. They aren't going to bother giant dogs, either. Even if the dogs aren't vicious, their sheer size will keep coyotes from bothering them. I'm more concerned about javelina than those little puny coyotes. Nasty creatures, javelinas will attack. They don't CARE what the potential prognosis is, especially if they have young. They will defend them at all costs.

My bonus comes Friday on my paycheck. If I can save some of it, I am going to. My bills - not a pretty picture but I'm not so far behind that I'm in serious trouble with anything. I'd like to get some money into the ING account and have that available for summer.

Tomorrow - since I'm home - gonna cook that turkey that's sitting in the fridge, now fully defrosted and ready to cook - just before it starts going bad.

So, I was going to lift weights today, but I did the mountain climb instead. Tomorrow I intend on doing both. I'm also going to call the boss and see if the other driver is going to make a transfer run. If he is, maybe the boss will let him stop by here with the bags of concrete I need - I can't haul 800 pounds of concrete in my car.

As happens frequently, I'm writing an entry and I get interrupted by something. This time - hunger. I've cut back on my eating. Twice a day. Pretty much have done that for a long, long time anyway, just times when I'll go to eating 3 or even 4 times a day. That cycle is over and I'm back to eating twice a day - late morning and early evening. It has nothing to do with dieting - I just don't get hungry until late morning and then I come home from work and several hours later, my stomach's literally growling at me. I'm NOT saying I'm skinny, either. I have a 33 inch waist at 200 pounds right now.

Anyway, I dsecided to try something different. I took 93% lean ground beef, made 3 patties out of half a pound of it. The leaner meat goes much further in cooking and not shrinking until it seems to disappear. I then pushed the meat in the center of each patty to create a bowl effect. I took a large spoonful of bottled, crushed garlic and put that on each patty. I then cut up fresh cilantro into very shredded like appearance. I then took some Worcestershire sauce, dumped healthy amount of that onto each patty and put the cilantro on top of it. I worked all of that into each patty until mixed up.

I then cut up onions and jalapenos, put them in a frying pan with a little oil and cooked those until they were nicely cooked. Took the patties and put them in the same pan. Bunched the onions/jalapenos up into a small part of the pan.

I have never tried it before, but I will definitely be doing it again, and again. It was delicious! Oh, a little ketchup, toasted bread, ranch dressing on top of it all plus I melted cheese on each patty.

I only ate one patty which made me full. A 1/3rd of a half a pound of meat with stuff on top of it made me full after not having had eating since this morning.
Hey, I just read about that stuff that goes on inside your body - you reduce your eating, your stomach shrinks, takes less to make you feel full. Pretty obvious that us Americans could stand to eat FAR less food than we are.

Anyway, I'm offa here, at least this entry.
Have a great evening/day (whenever you read)!
ben

Rancher

There is a bit of news online that I was reading today that captured my interest - greatly.
It seems there is a rancher that owns 22,000 acres of land that is right next to the border. Illegal aliens have been using this rancher's property for years and years as a way to try and enter the U.S. illegally.

A little blurp from the story:
"""""""Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a 2002 interview that he began rounding up illegal immigrants after they started to vandalize his property, northeast of Douglas along Arizona Highway 80. He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.

Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.

Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their "clients" to keep them running.

He said he carried a pistol during his searches for the immigrants and had a rifle in his truck "for protection" against immigrant and drug smugglers, who often are armed.


ASSOCIATED PRESS DEFENDANT: Roger Barnett said he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.""""""""""

Now, the fascinating part of this is that 16 ILLEGAL ALIENS are suing this rancher, in the news story's words: who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

These people are NOT legal citizens of the United States. What did they expect from people on our side of the border, a Welcome Wagon? The unbelievable part of this to me is that a federal judge is actually entertaining this 32 million dollar lawsuit.

I was just flabbergasted to read that a U.S. court is actually hearing this case. What unbelievably BAD kind of precedent will this lawsuit serve if those illegals actually WIN their case? This is the kind of thing where I would like to see the Supreme Court step in and put this nonsense to an end.

I'm just in awe here. I mean - this man actually helped the U.S. Border Patrol by turning in thousands of these illegals. If I owned a property like his and had illegals wandering through, you can be rest assured that I, too, would be going around my property HEAVILY ARMED.

Well, whatever.

I worked pretty hard today, wore myself out. That's a good thing. I put up yet another CL ad and had 2 replies within minutes. First was a crock of s*** from a "french" lady that is asking for personal information who doesn't even live here. The second was a phone call - I put my broadband phone number on there. I didn't answer the phone because my Magic Jack didn't show a phone number from whoever was calling. It is a lady - judging from her voice definitely older - who is moving here from Oregon and needs a temp place to stay until she finds her own place. The catch? Well, as I've been warned numerous times before, I should probably stick with guy renters. The second is that she has 2 Pomeranians. I actually like Pomeranians - my mother's now-passed "husband" had 2 of them. Little yip dogs, but very lovable and very loyal. I just don't know if I need 2 MORE dogs around here.

So I don't know about that and haven't returned the phone call. It's after 5:00, so whoever was supposed to come - isn't coming apparently. Which leaves - another guy who I didn't hear back from after I replied to his email. He did, however, leave a phone number, so I may just call.

It was cool here today - I was wearing a jacket most of the day. I'm getting more and more winter wimpy every year. I find I don't really like the cold that much anymore. I mean, not even in the 40's - where I used to love it. I don't like extreme heat, either. I can tolerate it, but I definitely don't LIKE it.

Perfect.? I just got off the phone with a potential renter moving in from out-of-state. I've had 2 of those so far and both of them were excellent renters. This conversation went well over an hour. They're moving back here from Oregon and will be looking for a new home and expect to need a place to rent for 2 months.

I'm not looking for a long-term renter on the 3rd bedroom - just enough to get paid up on some things and maybe even get ahead. Or - take all of that renter's money and put it on the electric card reader and have 2 of the 3 hottest months of summer paid for before it ever gets here. Perhaps THAT is the best idea. No, in that case, put that money in my ING account and have it in savings to use for electric. I have never "lost" any money on those card readers, but to have that much money on one would be a little - scary - for me. Plus - I would have the money for any emergency, something I don't have right now.

Ummm, I have numerous things to do before going to bed, and it ain't gettin' any earlier.

Lord knows I HOPE that there is some kind of orders to pull and deliveries to make tomorrow - please???????
G'nite folks.
ben

Tuesday

I get to work this morning and there's an email that has been distributed to everyone. About the regional manager coming for a visit - like - the manager of the entire western half of the country, I think.
The general manager is asking everyone to greet him and - clean up everything before he gets here.

With me, that's a given. Big boys/girls come along, you spiff up the place as much as you can.
Aren't coming until Tuesday - but there was a LOT of NOTHING to do today - I didn't drive any trucks, I spent the entire day at the yard, sweeping, cleaning, vacuuming, picking up stuff, moving things around. An eternity of a day I can tell ya.

Of course, the speculation continued on even more. Why is this guy coming now? He's going to every single of our stores - which is only 5 total anyway - but they're spread out. Tucson, Downtown Phoenix, the East Valley, the West Valley and then Albuquerque. Take that back, there are 6 stores, but he's not visiting the one in El Paso, Texas. I imagine this is a tour to make decisions. That's me guessing - but my guesses are usually pretty close in these situations. Keep all the stores open - or not? Reduce the labor pool? Get rid of equipment? Who knows. Keeps up thinking, guessing and wondering, that's for sure.

I slept okay last night, but I'm very tired. Probably because of the sleep I have lost on other nights. I'm thinking another long nap coming in-queue very quickly here. At least lay down for a while - I was on my feet all day long.

My work-week is half over. If I really do get Friday off, then this is half-week right now. I think I could really use another 3-day weekend right now.

Allegedly a potential renter coming over today. I think it was a 5:00 o'clock apppointment. I dunno. I want to take a nap, do a little cleaning up around here and if they show, great, if not, another person waiting on-hold if they haven't found a place yet. If neither of those work out - have to place another ad. May just do that anyway to get mine back up near the top. It must be buried by at least 500 ads by now. It's apparent that renting out rooms is something more and more people are willing to do in order to try and save their homes. I've given the hints to people that are struggling - it's easy money - or is it? Depends on the person you get in there, that's a fact.

I'm still thinking it's tougher to get a tenant when you already have 2. I disclose the fact that there are already 2 tenants in here. A potential renter should know whatever pertinent facts there are concerning a place they want to live at. At the same time, I read ads on Craigslist frequently that are home filled with 4 and even more tenants - all individuals that are not related to each other - so I know it's possible to get more people in here, just have to keep the ads running until it happens. Mary is not a done deal yet. I'm going to wait until her payday to find out whether she's still a renter in my house or history.

I have other things running through my head, but I need that nap.
C'ya later.
ben

Monday

More rain.
It was overcast all day long, and then finally started raining again not half an hour ago.
It wasn't very surprising to hear the rumors of reduced hours, shut down stores and employee layoffs to start surfacing again at work today.
Though - it is pure speculation based on a little bit of fact. The fact was that management was definitely considering cutting everyone's hours back to 35 per week.
Speculation is that it will now happen. Further speculation that one of the outposts - a store that isn't doing very well - will be shut down and the 2 employees running it will be shipped back to the main branch.

More fact that salary-plus employees have had a new work shcedule introduced,they are no longer salary plus and I really haven't got an idea of WHAT they are on now.

Even further, the general manager of our division in AZ outwardly shows hope that we are going to ride out the storm, rumor that he is definitely wondering what's going to happen next. Corporate will make whatever decisions they decide to make - if any - and then we'll see what happens.

Reality? If the economy continues to go the way it does, I'm guessing a nationwide percentage layoff at our company. I'm also guessing they may just do away with both stores in the valley, the one I already spoke of an our store and go back to servicing all accounts out of the main branch. The cost savings would be substantial. We have the drivers and the trucks to be able to do so. Further speculation of local layoffs, meaning our division.

So, I sit here wondering what's coming next. I mean, the company isn't going to just continue on with their plans of expansion, instead, it's going to do whatever it has to to survive. This is only natural and for me - well - I will just go to work everyday and hope that I will have continued employment there.

I talked to 3 different drivers of 3 different trucking companies that come into our yard today. One driver rattled off a dozen companies that are laying off drivers, another said his company is doing well, the third the same as the first.

Of course this is cause for concern. I sit here and wonder what I am going to do if I get the axe. My brother - every time I talk to him - asks me what my backup plan is. WHAT backup plan? How do you make a backup plan in this kind of economy? I have none. Hit the streets and start pounding the doors for a job, that's all I can say. I hope it doesn't come to that. I know there are millions of other people that are wondering the same thing: will there be a job to go to tomorrow. Millions more have already lost their jobs. I also ponder what the American landscape is going to be after this collapse is over and done with.

The signs of inevitable restructuring/layoffs/whatever are the dismal numbers that are being posted. Or the days that there are no deliveries to make. 2 years ago this time we were going full-steam and the company was making plans for further expansion. I was working full days, non-stop go, go, go. Today? I did a return of some storm drainage pipe and did transfers. Tomorrow - not a single delivery for our branch unless something changed since I left work today - which it often does.

So, that's what my mind has been filled up with lately. It transcends everything else, even the situation with Mary. Without a job, I sink, period. I join the huge list of people losing their homes.

I have a backup plan, yes I do. It's a gruesome plan at best. It would suck, undoubtedly. But it exists. It might save my house. You might already guess what it would entail. I'd pitch a tent in my back yard and rent out every single room in the house if I had to - if it were possible - to keep from getting thrown on the street. My son would just have to stay with his mother. Oh yes, I have thought about worst-case scenarios. Food stamps, unemployment, a house full of tenants - a house FULL of tenants.

Whatever. I'm a survivalist. I always have been. I dream up answers where there are none. I wouldn't care about losing the car, but if I lost the house - it would be a LONG time before I would EVER qualify to get into another house again, and at the age of 45, that is a VERY unpalatable thought. I'm VERY glad I did not sell the old car. It's sitting there, and it runs. It needs a new battery now - but I got it running last weekend and had it running for quite a while to ensure lubrication of internal engine parts - and a new harmonic balancer. Oh, and it has a leaking wheel cylinder. Relatively cheap fixes.

On a lighter note - I have Friday off. Providing nothing big comes up - if work comes up that precludes me taking the day off, so beit - I get my birthday day off. So, a 3-day weekend. I came home this afternoon and slept for an hour and a half. I didn't sleep well last night - woke up at 1:30 am and didn't get back to sleep until 4:00 am, meaning I had about 5 hours of sleep last night. I'm thinking of taking a couple Ambien tonight.

I'm loving the 24 TV series and it comes on in half an hour. Watch that and go to sleep after it's over. Get whatever sleep I can and go to work tomorrow. When the rain lets up, I'm going to start working out hard. Not for the benefits of weight loss or whatever, but for the benefits of sleeping at night, releasing anxiety. I have my son's weight set here and I have the mountains behind me. That's all I need and neither costs anything. I intend on working out until I am so drained that I can't and don't care about thinking about such things as the economony. I've done it many times before - I have been working out since I was 10 years old - it's nothing new to me. It's an unbelievable high in itself without drugs or alcohol.

I've also thought about going on the 10-day Master Cleanse. Not sure if I can handle that or not - basically fasting, no solid food. I am also thinking of just pure fasting. Water only. But not for 10 days - probably like 5 to 7 days. I've done that before, the rejuvenating effects are crazy. Your body purges itself. You become mentally "crisp". You don't die in 5 or 7 days of fasting, trust me, you don't. You feel weak the first 3 days - that's a hurdle - after that, you start getting this "high". Whatever it is, it keeps you on it. You sleep well - quite well - after several days of eating nothing. I've done it many times, I speak from experience, at least for my own body.

So, then there's Mary, the other room I intend on renting out, and all kinds of OTHER things beyond what I have already written.

My dogs are currently living on $16.00 per 50 pound bag of cheap dog food compared to $26.00 per 44 pound bag of better dog food. I throw in cheap meats here and there. The stuff I bought at Fry's a while back - 10 pounds of chicken for $3.37 or whatever it was - feeding them that. Put a little chicken and some juice in it. They'll survive this with me, I hope anyway.

I'm going through this stuff because our world is being turned upside down. If it doesn't affect you - you must be in a good place. I'm not going to say I envy you, but I certainly don't hold it against you.

As for this entry, enough.
ben

Sunday

I stayed up WAY late last night - quite unusual for me - therefore didn't get up until late this morning.
As I have seen on many other blogs, it's been raining here as well. Started yesterday evening and was going continuously until late this morning. Now it's coming and going.
Plants are getting well-watered for free, thanks to Mother Nature (otherwise known as God)!
I have accomplished almost nothing today.
I haven't had the desire to do much of anything but a little light housecleaning and haven't even started laundry yet.
I was hoping to take my birthday day off tomorrow - but the boss never got back to me about whether I could or not and he left early on Friday to go to an appointment with a tax preparer.

Basically, he wants to avoid having me take that particular day off if there's a workload that requires both drivers. Understandable - but I want to get it in before I lose the priviledge, as corporate only allows it during the month of your birthday. So, I'll ask for this coming Friday off since the other driver left early on Friday - otherwise I would have taken that off instead.

Frankly, if it's going to keep raining, there isn't going to be much work to do. Any job sites will shut down when they get too wet and muddy - the general contractors don't want the site messed up by the mud and they don't want all that stuff tracking out onto the street.

Anyway, I don't really have much to say - kind of in this thinking mode right now about numerous things going on.

C'yall later.
ben

Saturday

Arizona's a funny place to live in terms of weather. You can have a cloudless sky in the morning and by afternoon have a full sky of clouds and rain. Allegedly, that's what's going to happen today. I'm looking out my windows and seeing only a few small cloud wisps floating up there, yet the forecasters insist that it's going to rain later on today.
I actually believe them, having had lived here most of my life.

I have been trying to keep up with backing up my blog entries by posting the same entry on 3 sites. I kinda didn't want to do it this week cause' I posted a V-Log on here, Blogspot, and I don't remember trying to do that on either LiveJournal or Wordpress. Wordpress took a minute for me to figure out - but I got it and LiveJournal was easy. So, now that I know how to do that on all 3 formats, not such an arduous thought of trying to back everything up.

So Ken - my roomate or one of them anyway - paid me yesterday. This guy doesn't play games with the rent. He's $25 off from having his security deposit paid - the money is in my ING savings account. Whenever he decides to move out, I only have to transfer the money out of that account and into my checking account and then I can withdraw it. This will be my standard modus-operandi for any new tenants coming in here from now on. What surprised me is that he also gave me an extra $10 for the food he has been eating out of my cupboards. I have said absolutely nothing to him about it. He also borrowed $20 earlier this week from me and paid that back as well.

Anyone that does all of those things is a good tenant from my viewpoint. Mary is busily attempting to win us both back over. In fact, Ken offered without asking yesterday that his reservations about Mary have disappeared and that he actually LIKES Mary at this point. He did, however, also offer that that should not affect my decision of what to do with her.

Umm, anyway, I was hoping to get a response to a Craigslist ad I placed for galvanized posts for the fence I want to install. No responses. I'm definitely serious about wanting to get that fence permanently installed AND have a nice gate - which I have already acquired - so that I can access both "sides" of my yard without hinder. Meanwhile, I'm looking at pricing on energy efficient doggy doors. Some of there are EXTREMELY expensive. I decided that since I am putting it in the utility room, and the utility room doesn't have an AC outlet, and it gets fairly warm in there in the summer, I don't need an extra-heavy duty door in there. A good one, yes, but a $300 version, not.

Yes, I'm busily formulating whatever I have to to come up with ways to save energy in here, and that is one HUGE way to do so. I know I'm losing cool air out of that doggy door I have in here now, I just didn't have any choice but to install one. I couldn't have them - the dogs - outside all day long baking in 110 degree heat (well, I won't do that to them, anyway, I COULD set up an evaporative cooler out there under a ramada and that would do just as well) but no way was I having them just stay in here all day long without access to the outside. Pooping and peeing on my floors is a BIG no-no in my book.

So, I'll fork out around $100 for an in-the-wall doggy door, I hope anyway, with this bonus I'm getting next week. The money spent will be the money saved. I'll take this sliding glass door one out and resell it on Craigslist for what I paid for it (try, anyway) and that will be that. I have a little trepidation about cutting a hole in the side of my house - but I've installed these before and it's really not rocket science.

It has cooled down considerably overnight - it's in the low 60's I think right now and isn't supposed to get much warmer than this - up to the mid 60's today. I figure I have it very good considering what others are going through in snow and ice right now : )

Enough for now, have a great Saturday!
ben

Friday

Dumb me - I usually sit here with the keyboard in my lap and rather kicked back. Tonight, I dropped the thing, causing the wires to rip right out of it.
Yup, a trip to Fry's electronics and $14.99 less rich and I'm back in action. I was tempted by the myriad of wireless keyboards - but finances prevailed and I just bought the plain old Microsoft thing. I have had at least 5 keyboards for this computer since I got it.

Ummm - so today. Lessee - it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Temps in the low 80's, sun shining. Found myself working my rear off this morning for several hours, the energy output felt good. Was loading large pipe - 18 inches in diameter - onto the semi to return it to the manufacturer. Something we're seeing a lot of are contractors bringing back materials we have sold and delivered to them because whoever owns the project is backing out of it. In this particular case, we had delivered thousands of feet of this particular pipe and tens of thousands of feet more of other kinds of pipe. Fortunately, they got the other pipe in the ground along with all the material that goes with it before the project was shut down.

Literally dozens of projects have been shut down while in full-force. They get the underground stuff put in and then shut it down. A full fledged hospital is being built and will be done in 2 or 3 months - and then it's going to sit until at least mid 2010.

Umm, lots of stuff in the news - I just sit back and shake my head. When will all of this end?

This weekend - I had planned in installing the fence permanently, but apparently the weather is going to sour that plan. Supposedly it's going to rain all weekend. I love the rain, yes, but not when I have things to do outside! I could work in the rain, but some of what I am going to do involves pouring cement, which probably doesn't bode well with continuous watering coming from the sky.

Oh, my makeshift fix to keep the dogs out of their latest assault worked. I watched video surveillance today after getting home. All 4 of them were trying to get past it - just couldn't do it.

It's getting late - for me anyway. I started writing this entry hours ago and then the keyboard was trashed. The computer logged me off and I couldn't get back on to at least save what I had already written - sooooo - I'm done for tonight.

Have a great evening, c'ya tomorrow!
ben

More

So, I find out today when I get home that the dog I am dog-sitting has found a way underneath the chain link fence I put up. That must have hurt to force his body under that, cause there are sharp, jagged things sticking DOWN on that portion of the fence. Prince followed behind him - and yes, they trampled another plant. I - got quite angry admittedly. I threw both their asses out and they are going to stay out there for a long, long time. They do NOT do that stuff when I'm home, only when I'm gone.

I went out there and addressed the problem - as best I can. I put so much stuff and wired it to the fence itself and then put stakes behind it that I'm at least hopeful that they won't get through. I turned one of my video surveillance cameras from the west side of the house to the southeast side of the house - where they are doing the dirty work. I will be able to see when they are doing this stuff and how they are going about it. It's rather infuriating, to be honest, to find these dogs doing this stuff. The price I pay, I guess, for watching this particular dog. I CAN make a permanent fence with a concrete underlay that has hooked pins sticking out of the concrete to anchor the bottom of the fence to that will invariable keep them from doing that.

The problem is, of course, money. Money is always an issue with me in doing home improvement or doing things to save my plants in this case. I don't just need redi-mix concrete, I also need the right poles to put into the ground and be able to install one of the gates. I have top railing that will stop them from just pushing the top over as well. I don't KNOW that they are going to try to push the top over, but Roscoe - the dog I have watched over here numerous times - is very determined to get over there to mess with that dog on my neighbor's side of the fence.

Well - I dunno. I have a prospective tenant moving in, Ken is going to pay me Friday, I received $100 from my dad and I will have that bonus on my paycheck next week. I already received $60 for watching the dog - but I am spending all of that on dog food. Watching dogs to pay for the dogs, that's what I call it. The poles I need will cost almost $50, plus concrete mix. I have everything else. Call it around $80 to get the project done - not a lot of money and maybe money well spent from my bonus.

However, I have my eyes set on a new doggy door. It's ultra-energy efficient with 3 flaps to keep cool air in, hot air out in the summer. I want that done, soon. It's $200 - but it's money well-spent. I believe it will pay for itself quickly as I rid myself of this sliding glass door doggie door that undoubtedly is letting out cold air and hot air in in the summer in huge amounts. The sliding glass door doggy door has worked well and served it's purpose - but it was only temporary. I needed it when I got it - like right away.

So, anyway, I just want to enjoy the last few waking hours of my birthday. Truly, every person should enjoy and celebrate the day of their birth when that day comes around each year. Your birth/my birth - it's a good thing. There's a reason for it, there's purpose to it. Today, all kinds of co-workers wished me a happy birthday - there's a lady in our company that sends out a mass email to everyone announcing everyone's birthday when it comes around. My mom called - we talked a long, long time. My son called, too. A little surprised my dad didn't call - he usually does. Then again, he just got out of that heart surgery and I don't wonder if he isn't still feeling a bit under the weather.

That's it for today - I'm done with writing and I'm going to watch a movie before I have to go to bed and bid my special day goodbye.
ben

Thursday

Taking my break at work.
I was greeted by Mary this morning who had, somehow, found out about my birthday today and wished me a happy one. She was busily cleaning away in the kitchen. I said thank you, fed the dogs and left. Kinda got in the habit of feeding the dogs in the morning instead of the evening as I was all the way up until a few weeks ago.

This morning, I got to a jobsite with a bunch of meter boxes - they're the boxes that go in the ground in front of your house that the water meter is contained in. There was only one man that showed up and he said in very broken English that there was no equipment to unload that truck.

So, I was busy lifting these rather heavy boxes off of the pallets on the truck and down to him. I was thinking about getting old - one of those things I guess you start to do when you are getting in your mid 40's - and what that would mean for me. I read other blogs of mid 40 somethings that are out for vengeance in ensuring that as they grow older, they don't stop moving. I have the same thoughts, which is why I'm glad, actually, that I have a job that forces me to exert myself physically. Frequently, that exertion is extreme because of the sheer weight of many of things our company sells.

But, I decided that I am going to frequent more my visits to my son's Christmas weight bench and curl bar, and also an attachment for squats and pulldowns. That setup right there is enough in itself to boost my muscles back up after taking - quite a long break - from working out with freeweights.

My dog walks give me a pretty good heart/lung workout otherwise known as cardiovascular - and though I could stand to step it up a little more, I'm really just giving time for the dogs to get in a little better cardiovascular shape themselves. Duke loves the walks, but he peters out pretty quickly. Large dogs have been known to have heart attacks and die when put under excessive physical exertion. I don't want Duke to lay down and die in the South Mountain preserve.

This isn't exactly a mid-life crisis. Actually, I don't think I've really gone through any of that. Too much stuff has happened to me in my 40's to have time to be getting depressed about getting old. It's not a crisis at all, really, I am just getting a view of what condition I want to be in when/if I reach my 50's and the method of how to get there. Freeweights are, in my opinion, one of the best workouts available. I am not a big fan of the machines with the cables. When you are lifting freeweights, you not only have to lift the weight, you also have to control the weight - in other words, you can't just wildly push against the bar however you please as you can with cables, you have to control the bar going up or - the bar is going to fall on you. I have always found it a much better workout.

I am, however, a fan of those stair step machines that basically are the equivalent of climbing up and down mountains. For your heart and air intake, it's an awesome workout. However, I just happen to have a set of mountains not 3 blocks from my house, the real thing is probably no better than the artificial thing, but the views are FAR more entertaining than just sitting there on the machine, unless, of course, there happens to be a member of the opposite - well let's not go there, lol.

That's it, really. I turned 45 today. I feel pretty good. Still walking and still breathing, that's a good thing. Thank you, Lord, for life and health.

ben

House Fire Of 2007

I had - well I wrote the day the house burned down from the hotel I was staying in. I had all of that stuff on my JS journal - it's all gone - whoosh, buh-bye.

It was a Sunday morning. At the time, Anthony was living with me as well as Michael and of course my son from Friday to Monday. Things - concerning Anthony - were much better than. He hadn't copped the huge attitude and wasn't doing drugs, though I figure he was probably smoking the dope.

Anyway, I had rented a Rug Doctor the day before and was trying to get the carpets finished in my old house before the time frame for having that machine elapsed and I had to take it back to Fry's. I was busy getting the living room done, when Anthony came strolling out. Now, I may not remember everything to exact detail as I had written it that day.

Reason being because that day is basically a blur in my memory. I remember the things that happened - but it was such a mind-blowing event and the hugeness of what was going on - never thought I would ever have to go through something like that.

Anthony said to me: "Ben, there's smoke in your bedroom". I couldn't possibly fathom why there would be smoke in there. I walked back there and opened the door. The smoke was so thick, you could barely see anything in the room. I did not see any fire at that point, but it was obvious something bad was going on and I wanted everyone out of the house immediately. Told Anthony to get out, and then started banging on the bathroom door loudly and impatiently, yelling at Michael - who was in the shower, to get out, and get out NOW!! He didn't understand what was going on, I just kept banging and yelling to get out of the shower immediately - the house is on fire, get out.

The word fire got Michael moving to the point he only put on a pair of pants, burst open the bathroom door and I was basically pushing him down the hallway. This was an old mobile home, and if know the structure and composite of those things, they burn FAST when they catch on fire. You don't have time to do anything, just get out of it and save your life. Once I knew all the humans were out, I started looking for dogs. I couldn't find Comet and I couldn't find the Rottweiler I had just acquired, but I did find Coco, grabbed all 3 leashes, put her on one and then ran out of the house. Don't remember who I handed Coco to, but - I ran back in the house to see what was going on in the bedroom. Oh, I forgot, as soon as I walked in the bedroom and saw smoke, I immediately called 911 and demanded the fire department to get here NOW!!

When I got back to the bedroom, I had plans of saving a few things - things handed down from my ancestors that could not be replaced. No such thing ever happened. As soon as I started walking into the bedroom, one of the walls literally burst open with flames. The instant heat from that intense fire that had been building inside of the walls pushed me back down the hallway. If only I had had a little more time, I could have got a garden hose in there and probably have snuffed the fire before it got to that point. Everything I have written that occured up to this point happened VERY quickly.

I wasn't going to die for an old house that needed to be razed, anyway, or even the thought of losing the things that were so valuable to me, I was fortunate that even in that state of mind, reason took over and told me that trying to save things - and getting burned or killed while doing it - simply wasn't worth it.

It was the middle of July, it was over 110 degrees that day. I did another sweep for the dogs, couldn't find either of the other 2, gave up on it cause the house was filling with smoke, and went outside.

I want to note something before going on with this story. On a normal Sunday, my son and Michael were sharing a bed and would have been sleeping in that bed at that time of day. That bed was RIGHT where the fire burst out of the walls. IF my son and Michael had been sleeping, as they ALWAYS were on Sundays at that time of day, and IF they hadn't woken up in the smoke or the heat in the walls - they would have either died or had been seriously burned. It just so happened that my son left early to go with his mother to church and Michael apparently had wakened when my son left and decided to take a shower. I personally don't believe it chance, I'm a Believer and I know that God had intervened in this situation.

I went outside - had forgotten my shoes and had only a pair of pants on myself - and watched my house burn down. The fire department showed up, it took them a while (probably not very long, in my mind an eternity) to get all their gear on, get the hoses hooked up to the hydrant get in there and start putting out that fire. JUST before they went in, the Rottweiler appeared out of nowhere and started trying to bust down the big window in the living room in an attempt to get out. He was heaving his entire 130 pounds against that window - but we got in there and let him out before he could hurt himself. The smoke inside of there was deadly at that point, not to mention the intense heat, even though it was the front of the house and the fire was raging at the rear of the house.

I was standing out there, in the direct sunlight, as well as Michael and Anthony, for hours. The dogs were burning up - the water from the hoses fighting the fire was enough for them to drink.

Things started happening quickly. Phoenix Fire has their own volunteer resource of people who come out in such situations, assess the situation and figure out what needs to be done to help you out. In this case, the gave me the number for the Red Cross and told me they would help. I had no place for the dogs - the Humane Society came and took all of them away. I gave up one of the dogs - the Rottie - as I found out that he is a one-dog only type of animal. He doesn't like other dogs and will attempt to kill them. My other 2 dogs - Coco and Comet - were put up for 7 days I think it is. That is the limit they will take them. But, it's free, it takes that burden off of you and you don't have to lose your dogs if you can find a place that to live in that will take them.

The Red Cross showed up with a force of people and assessed the situation themselves. Yup, a total loss. Everything, including every piece of clothing for me, Michael and Anthony. Caleb had a few things there, but not that much. Do you need a hotel? YES. They set up a hotel for a couple of nights if I recall correctly, and then they gave me a debit card with $500 on it to buy food and buy new clothing.

They took the immediate pressure off of me - I was broke and I didn't have any money for hotels and food. I don't remember everything, to be honest. Maybe a few readers that were reading when I went through it will. I know that my dad basically saved me - he sent me 10 grand which I used for a myriad of purposes, including have the house removed from the property. My company has a fund for people going through an emergency and I received 5k from them as well. I think I stayed at hotels for at least a couple of weeks or something like that before finding an apartment and moving into it - with both dogs. No, it wasn't that long, less than 2 weeks. I found a place that would accept my dogs and lived there for 6 plus months while I was having a new house put on the property.

My co-workers - like all of them - gave me everything from gift cards - very generous gift cards at that - furniture - all kinds of stuff. I received a huge outpouring from the church I had been going to. Basically I was given a new lease on life - I was working a full time job and maybe would have been able to find a place, yes, but to replace everything without all the help I received? No.

It was both one of the worst and best times of my life. Bad - lost things that can never be replaced. Good - the huge outpouring of help from people - many people I didn't even know - restored my faith in the giving nature of the human race.

The after-effect? I can smell smoke when no-one else around can. What's that smell? I smell smoke. Everyone around me looks at me strange. Still to this day.
The month or so after the fire I had horrid nightmares. I would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, even screaming. I remember going to the bathroom one night, opening the door and seeing flames. There were no flames there, but my eyes saw flames. I kept seeing fire everywhere. Counsellors told me this was normal and would probably last a month or so, and then would dissipate. It lasted longer than a month, but it did eventually dissipate and the horrific nightmares went away. The visions of flames everywhere also subsided and life slowly got back to normal.

Wednesday/Cut To The Chaste

Indeed.
I fully expected it.
No, really I did.
Mary left a letter on my computer desk right here.
She apologizes - profusely - admitted things got out of hand because I had "hurt my feelings" as she puts it (for what, I have no clue but I'll assess it to suing her for eviction).
Now, what kinda got to me was the little thing she put on there about her mother dying this morning.
I was unsure whether she was telling the truth - master manipulators will do anything to try and get you on their side - but she came in with tears in her eyes just a few moments ago, started talking to me about it, then she got 2 phone calls and they definitely sounded like the response a person would be giving in such a situation.
She goes further in the letter to say that she understands if I don't want to rent to her anymore - but she would like to stay - and if I wanted to rent out both rooms to her, she would give me $600 per month. When she came in, she stated she had been giving $200 per month towards her mother's assisted living.

So, that's that.
What do I do with such a letter and personal interaction? Umm, well, I tend to think of the past and what has occured all the way up to this point and put it into context. The past with her in here has both been good and horrific. It's been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I would say that the goods and the horrifics have been equally distributed in terms of time spent in either condition. What I'm not really liking is the way she addressed me in those emails and a few other things such as her dealings with Caleb - though she also profusely apologized to him and hasn't done anything since.

Anyway.

Tomorrow is my 45th birthday. I was going to take the day off for my birthday day, but there is too much work to do, and things are NOT looking good at our company. At least in the AZ division. I am NOT going to be the one who gets canned because I was adament about taking the exact day of my birthday off. Corporate gives the birthday holiday - but conditions it with scheduling it with your manager to do it when time permits. So, I asked for Friday off - but the other driver already asked to leave early. I then asked for Monday off - he said good - but we'll check Friday what's in the system. Cool. Maybe if that doesn't work I'll ask for next Friday - as I would rather do it in a 3 consecutive day off thing than anything else.

I was talking with the boss today and he showed me the numbers so far this month for each of the 5 stores we operate in AZ. It was quite alarming. One store hasn't sold ANYTHING. The store in Tucson - which "usually" would have had at least 100k in sales by now, has NOTHING as well. It's a large store with it's own salesman. Our store has done 45k - which isn't too bad considering the economy, the size of our store and the number of employees, and the main branch has only done 245k - which is QUITE low for that store. The first thing I'm thinking is more layoffs. Who will survive? The store in the west valley - I'm predicting it will be closed by year's end, probably a lot sooner. Look, I'm just hanging onto whatever hope I have here that I will survive any rounds of layoffs and will be able to continue to have a job with this company, because it's VERY slim pickins in the job pool market right now for any industry, even trucking. I'm very concerned, I'll put it that way. But - I also expected this. The gurus have been saying all along - at least some of them - that 2009 will be worse than 2008 and don't expect any turnarounds until sometime in 2010. I see 7,000 more layoffs announced on top of all the layoffs already announced this month nationwide - it's getty scary.

When a company like Caterpillar announces over 21,000 positions will be cut - what kind of panic does that send through it's force of employees? People will start assessing their position in the company and whether it's completely expendable - and then start losing sleep. I'll bet the sleeping pill companies are loving this stuff - I can just imagine that their sales are skyrocketing as I can only imagine doctors handing out thousands - hundreds of thousands - millions of presctiptions for the stuff.

How did I get started on that subject again? It's pressing on me, that's all I can say about it. It's "warm" today - in the mid 80's. Crazy. It's almost warm enough in here to turn on the AC for a couple of hours - but I will probably just go outside and water plants instead. It's getting close to 4:00pm, so it will start cooling back down in a couple of hours or less. I have plenty of watering to do out there on the east side of the house - the stuff in the plastic pots have to be watered daily in any kind of warmer temps - they just dry out and the plants - suffer.

My dad sent me a little birthday gift - nothing much and I have come to realize that the money he gave me last year and the year before - is pretty much gone. He had sold his house and gave me a chunk of change, but also donated a bunch of it to - I don't remember what he said, but either a church or a charitable organization. I'm happy to have received anything. I have that bonus coming on next paycheck and Ken is paying me $200 at the end of this week. For now, I am staying afloat.

Anyway, I have a lot on my mind and I'm going to go visit my little plant paradise and spend some quality time out there.

C'ya later.
ben

Tuesday/Court

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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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.