The situation with Ken is pretty much in limbo - vast amounts of people are praying for him (I made sure of that by asking for emergency prayers from the prayer group I'm part of that, after the request gets forwarded on and on and on - potentially goes on to tens of thousands of people).
I started thinking about "growing old and fat". I would rather not have to grow old - but if I want to live anymore around here, that's going to have to happen - but this concept of getting fat simply because you are getting old is a club I don't want to join.
I have watched my gut grow ever since my house burned down - a little over 2 years ago now. My life was changed, apparently - but I don't have any of that after-effect (that I know of) going on in my brain now, it's about time to get the after-EFFECTS out of my system as well. Eating a lot of junk food was my mainstay for a while simply because cooking was hardly an option.
There's a REASON it's called junk food, folks. Just start looking at caloric, fat and sodium contents of fast food, especially fried fast food. I've been "dieting" for a couple of weeks now - the weight loss has been minimal, but it has occurred. It seems awfully difficult, though, when I'm hungry and out on the road to just keep passing fast food joint up after another after another, looking for a place where I might get something whose main ingredient isn't fat/garbage/vileness.
Well, skip the vile part - fast food DOES taste good! And yet - when you stop eating the stuff for a while and then go back? Get done eating and my stomach is twisting and turning in knots - the grease and garbage in it doesn't set well with my stomach.
My thoughts about this were magnified watching Ken being carted out of here. He's quite - obese actually - and when you start reading the expert opinions - he certainly racked himself up there for a disaster. Obese/chain smoker/heavy drinker/pot smoker/eating the kind of food on a regular basis that only a goat would like. I'm not dissing the man - but - I am going to use him as a model for my own purposes of what NOT to do in terms of taking things in through the orifice known as the mouth.
The events that unfolded here this weekend only redoubled my desire to get my health back on track. I also have a full-physical scheduled for October. Hey, I would get it done sooner but that was the EARLIEST date the doc had available to do one!
My parents have basically taken care of themselves and the fruit of that is that they have lived relatively healthful lives and certainly, being in their mid-70's are enjoying longer-lived lives. Not that they don't have health issues - my dad had to have stints put in recently enough and that has slowed him down some, but it most certainly hasn't stopped him and my mother has been dealing with fibro-myalgia for 30 something years now.
It ain't perfect, but they are still getting around and they are still enjoying life - albeit separately since they divorced when I was 19 years old. That was a little while back.
Well, anyway. This deal with Ken has served a useful purpose for me and that's simply to get my own health nailed back down as much as possible on the good side of the wall and get to - feeling better really.
As for Ken, I have actually been asking the Lord to speak to his mind and heart - He can do that regardless of whether a person can speak to anyone or not.
I'm outta here - got things to git going today - last day off of the 5-days I have taken off in a row.
Have a great day!
ben
Monday, August 10, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Moving On
Ken will be in my thoughts and prayers, for sure, but - there is so much other stuff going on that I simly can't stop my life for this. I did stop it for a day's worth, for sure, and I hope the procedure is good, that he fully recovers and that he can go on with his life - he's only 48 years old.
As morbid as it might sound speaking about this so quickly, I have now another room that I will have to rent out - meaning shortly, all 3 rooms will be empty. Ken will not be recovering too quickly from this - I have read the stats about this kind of thing, you're lucky to recover enough to get out of a nursing home type of thing in 40 days. I can't hold his room for 40 days - the ONLY way that happens is if I can't FIND someone else to rent it.
I am not, of course, going to bring that up until they find out whether he's coming through this or not - what his prognosis is - in other words, time to deal with the shock of a family member going through such a traumatic, life-changing ordeal. I wouldn't want some landlord coming and bugging me right off the back, I do have compassion. He has a new computer in there and a few other items that are worth something - mostly his life revolved around going to work and playing an internet, pc-based game called Eve with a bunch of his friends. Just saying I'm sure they'll want to come get his stuff and store it somewhere.
At the same time, I am listing all 3 rooms up for rent. I can't "wait" until ANY of them move out - 2 of them are for-sure goners - they have to move on and I fully understand that. At the same time, prudence does not dictate waiting until they're gone to post the ads, it dictates to start right off and put up a future date - which is not that far off in the future - of a room that is available.
I am very thankful that this loan mod is going through and that I have a reprieve for paying the mortgage - the next payment isn't due until October 1st and that gives me ample time to get the rooms re-rented. I hope I can get them filled up quickly - certainly before the end of this month. I have no clue what the market is for tenants right now - I do know school is starting up and people are looking for places to live. There seems to always be people looking for rooms in this area because of the ample amounts of employers that are within a couple of miles of my home. A huge industrial park with hundreds of business is only a little over a mile away.
The tenant that is being transferred to Boston - Pete - also told me today he would pay me a full month's rent. I had called it even since he gave me $200 deposit, is leaving on the 15th I believe, and won't be here a full month, plus is giving me his queen size bed and the portable amoire for hanging up clothes. He is getting reimbursed by the insurance plan through his employer for the full month's rent, so I think that mighty big of him to offer such - I am not going to sit here and say I turned it down, I can't afford to. If he changes his mind, fine, well and good - if I get the check, very good indeed.
Ummm, I am being "forced" to start doing something with Facebook. Friends and family have added me as a friend, I decided today - after have Facebook save the day, literally in finding some family members of Ken's and being able to get the message to them about the aneurysm - that I might as well use my account there. My brother - of all people - added me as a friend a while back, I never did a thing about it or the other friend requests.
I'm done for now. I'm going to go outside and look at what it's going to take to cut that line and get the beginning of the drip system installed. IF I go through with it, wish me luck!
ben
As morbid as it might sound speaking about this so quickly, I have now another room that I will have to rent out - meaning shortly, all 3 rooms will be empty. Ken will not be recovering too quickly from this - I have read the stats about this kind of thing, you're lucky to recover enough to get out of a nursing home type of thing in 40 days. I can't hold his room for 40 days - the ONLY way that happens is if I can't FIND someone else to rent it.
I am not, of course, going to bring that up until they find out whether he's coming through this or not - what his prognosis is - in other words, time to deal with the shock of a family member going through such a traumatic, life-changing ordeal. I wouldn't want some landlord coming and bugging me right off the back, I do have compassion. He has a new computer in there and a few other items that are worth something - mostly his life revolved around going to work and playing an internet, pc-based game called Eve with a bunch of his friends. Just saying I'm sure they'll want to come get his stuff and store it somewhere.
At the same time, I am listing all 3 rooms up for rent. I can't "wait" until ANY of them move out - 2 of them are for-sure goners - they have to move on and I fully understand that. At the same time, prudence does not dictate waiting until they're gone to post the ads, it dictates to start right off and put up a future date - which is not that far off in the future - of a room that is available.
I am very thankful that this loan mod is going through and that I have a reprieve for paying the mortgage - the next payment isn't due until October 1st and that gives me ample time to get the rooms re-rented. I hope I can get them filled up quickly - certainly before the end of this month. I have no clue what the market is for tenants right now - I do know school is starting up and people are looking for places to live. There seems to always be people looking for rooms in this area because of the ample amounts of employers that are within a couple of miles of my home. A huge industrial park with hundreds of business is only a little over a mile away.
The tenant that is being transferred to Boston - Pete - also told me today he would pay me a full month's rent. I had called it even since he gave me $200 deposit, is leaving on the 15th I believe, and won't be here a full month, plus is giving me his queen size bed and the portable amoire for hanging up clothes. He is getting reimbursed by the insurance plan through his employer for the full month's rent, so I think that mighty big of him to offer such - I am not going to sit here and say I turned it down, I can't afford to. If he changes his mind, fine, well and good - if I get the check, very good indeed.
Ummm, I am being "forced" to start doing something with Facebook. Friends and family have added me as a friend, I decided today - after have Facebook save the day, literally in finding some family members of Ken's and being able to get the message to them about the aneurysm - that I might as well use my account there. My brother - of all people - added me as a friend a while back, I never did a thing about it or the other friend requests.
I'm done for now. I'm going to go outside and look at what it's going to take to cut that line and get the beginning of the drip system installed. IF I go through with it, wish me luck!
ben
Sunday/Ken
I guess I didn't write over here yesterday about the situation that took place here starting yesterday afternoon and going on into the night - I am realizing that I have readers both here and on KCL and that the 2 don't necessarily intermix. So, I apologize for my tardiness in getting anything written up - it was a hectic night last night to say the least.
Let's start out saying that Ken is a tenant living in one of the rooms in my house. He has been here for 4 or 5 months I guess. He hasn't really been one of the greatest tenants for multiple reasons, but, I have tolerated the stuff, though at least one of the current tenants doesn't like his methods and ways. I haven't been able to find a listing of "Perfect Tenants" anywhere, where I can pick and choose from a list. I have to post on Craigslist and hope I find someone at least halfway normal.
I would not, in looking at Ken's lifestyle, call his normal. He goes on excessive weekend binges of drinking masssive amounts of beer. A 30 pack of Budweiser will disappear in less than 24 hours. 2 weekends ago he drank an estimated 48 beers in about a day and a half. That's a lot of beer. He is obese - at least 100 pounds overweight. He eats stuff that most people would pass on in thinking of eating it every single day. Canned and boxed stuff; full of sodium: fat calories and much of it very high in cholesterol. He gets no exercise - he takes a taxi to work every day - work is all of 3 and a half miles away. He acquired a bicycle a while back, started riding it to work - didn't last very long.
Let's work this up. Several months ago, Ken was found in the main bathroom, unconscious. It did not last long - but it scared me enough to confront him on it and attempt to try and get him to go see a doctor. He would have nothing to do with it. Oh, I forgot, Ken smokes as well - he smokes a LOT. Double the whammy impact of all of that drinking (I am not JUDGING the man, I am only giving a descriptor of his lifestyle). I remember thinking at the time that I might be dealing with a dead man in my house.
We fast-forward to yesterday afternoon. I know Ken's routine on the weekend. Drink half the night, get up around 11:00 or noonish. Well, 1:30 in the afternoon came around - somewhere around that time anyway - and a phone call came in for Ken. Michael answered the phone, went into Ken's bedroom, came back out and told the caller that Ken is sleeping. I thought that curious - maybe he was just sleeping in. How do you determine what's normal and not normal for a person that drinks as heavily as this guy does? He could have drank ALL night long, went to bed later than normal and that's why he was still sleeping.
Well, around 4:30/5:00 pm, it dawned on me - I was lost in my own world of thought over various things going on in my life - that Ken hadn't been seen all day long. I knew for a fact that he hadn't been out here since 6:00 am or so because that's when I got out of bed. I asked Michael to go in there and take a peek and see if Ken was up - I can't just walk into tenant's rooms, it's basically against the law. The only thing that changes that is if there is an emergency - I had no idea yet whether that level existed yet or not. Well, Michael now offers that Ken had been laying half on and half off the bed when he had gone in there last. Now the alarms are going off, I went to the door, Michael opened it for me - I see Ken with his head on his bed and his body in a weird contortion - so much so that his legs were purple and his arm was also purple.
I immediately went in and started shaking him, calling his name, shaking him some more. I know that if someone has been REALLY drunk, it might take awhile to get them to stir and wake up. I got NOTHING from him - I only knew he was breathing but that's it. That's when I got on the phone and dialed 911. Medics came - they tried to revive him - I mean they REALLY shook him around, they got nothing out of him either. They were asking me all kinds of questions, including how long he had been like this - one of the medics was like: "You mean he's been like this all day long and you did nothing about it?". That got my ire - I didn't KNOW he had been like that all day long - if I had I would have called much sooner. I don't just go walking into tenant's bedrooms everyday asking them if they're okay, that's a little absurd. I got testy back with the man and he backed off.
They hauled him out of here and took him to the hospital. I have word that as of late last night, he was still unconscious.
I don't know anything else, but I am going to call his brother here pretty soon and find out if any information about him is available.
ben
Let's start out saying that Ken is a tenant living in one of the rooms in my house. He has been here for 4 or 5 months I guess. He hasn't really been one of the greatest tenants for multiple reasons, but, I have tolerated the stuff, though at least one of the current tenants doesn't like his methods and ways. I haven't been able to find a listing of "Perfect Tenants" anywhere, where I can pick and choose from a list. I have to post on Craigslist and hope I find someone at least halfway normal.
I would not, in looking at Ken's lifestyle, call his normal. He goes on excessive weekend binges of drinking masssive amounts of beer. A 30 pack of Budweiser will disappear in less than 24 hours. 2 weekends ago he drank an estimated 48 beers in about a day and a half. That's a lot of beer. He is obese - at least 100 pounds overweight. He eats stuff that most people would pass on in thinking of eating it every single day. Canned and boxed stuff; full of sodium: fat calories and much of it very high in cholesterol. He gets no exercise - he takes a taxi to work every day - work is all of 3 and a half miles away. He acquired a bicycle a while back, started riding it to work - didn't last very long.
Let's work this up. Several months ago, Ken was found in the main bathroom, unconscious. It did not last long - but it scared me enough to confront him on it and attempt to try and get him to go see a doctor. He would have nothing to do with it. Oh, I forgot, Ken smokes as well - he smokes a LOT. Double the whammy impact of all of that drinking (I am not JUDGING the man, I am only giving a descriptor of his lifestyle). I remember thinking at the time that I might be dealing with a dead man in my house.
We fast-forward to yesterday afternoon. I know Ken's routine on the weekend. Drink half the night, get up around 11:00 or noonish. Well, 1:30 in the afternoon came around - somewhere around that time anyway - and a phone call came in for Ken. Michael answered the phone, went into Ken's bedroom, came back out and told the caller that Ken is sleeping. I thought that curious - maybe he was just sleeping in. How do you determine what's normal and not normal for a person that drinks as heavily as this guy does? He could have drank ALL night long, went to bed later than normal and that's why he was still sleeping.
Well, around 4:30/5:00 pm, it dawned on me - I was lost in my own world of thought over various things going on in my life - that Ken hadn't been seen all day long. I knew for a fact that he hadn't been out here since 6:00 am or so because that's when I got out of bed. I asked Michael to go in there and take a peek and see if Ken was up - I can't just walk into tenant's rooms, it's basically against the law. The only thing that changes that is if there is an emergency - I had no idea yet whether that level existed yet or not. Well, Michael now offers that Ken had been laying half on and half off the bed when he had gone in there last. Now the alarms are going off, I went to the door, Michael opened it for me - I see Ken with his head on his bed and his body in a weird contortion - so much so that his legs were purple and his arm was also purple.
I immediately went in and started shaking him, calling his name, shaking him some more. I know that if someone has been REALLY drunk, it might take awhile to get them to stir and wake up. I got NOTHING from him - I only knew he was breathing but that's it. That's when I got on the phone and dialed 911. Medics came - they tried to revive him - I mean they REALLY shook him around, they got nothing out of him either. They were asking me all kinds of questions, including how long he had been like this - one of the medics was like: "You mean he's been like this all day long and you did nothing about it?". That got my ire - I didn't KNOW he had been like that all day long - if I had I would have called much sooner. I don't just go walking into tenant's bedrooms everyday asking them if they're okay, that's a little absurd. I got testy back with the man and he backed off.
They hauled him out of here and took him to the hospital. I have word that as of late last night, he was still unconscious.
I don't know anything else, but I am going to call his brother here pretty soon and find out if any information about him is available.
ben
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Half-Way Through............
.........and loving it. That's my little stay-at-home vacation - or staycation as I have recently read people calling it. I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday morning. These 3 days off plus the weekend are just what the doctor that I never see ordered.
I'm liking it so much, I'm going to ask to do it again next either in September or October. I have enough hours saved up to take off a month's worth of work.
Today, I'm paying for yesterday's excursion to the water park. Sore muscles and generally not too interested in doing anything. Kyle - just showed up. He went with us yesterday and he's trashed from yesterday as well. Caleb is still in bed, lol. Kyle is a workaholic - he reminds me of myself when I was that age. I already had an extreme work ethic pounded into me by the time I was 10 years old. I worked to make money - my parents were poor and if there were even any allowances, they were extremely small. I made money doing odd jobs and newspaper routes.
Anyway, I just showed Kyle what I want done out there - ALL of what I want done. There's a lot in just digging the trenches. He wanted to make some extra money, he's here. He asked my to hurry up and get out there and show him what to do (in a polite way) because he said if he sat down, he was going to crash out all over again. Funny how much energy you can exert at a place like a water park and not even realize it until AFTER it's over.
The high temp today is going to be much lower than it has been - 105. That may sound hot, but it's nothing compared to the 114 highs we've been experiencing. It's only 81 degrees right now - last week at this time of day it was well into the 90's. This week's forecasted high are up there - but not AS high - which is good for lowering electric consumption.
Just because of the way I'm feeling, I'm debated whether to go out there and do this water pipe install. It might be a little more motivating seeing that someone else is out there working as well. Guess I'd better make up my mind before it gets too hot - that setup is sitting in the direct sunlight right now and will be for most of the day.
Hmmmph. I just checked my checking account - a thing I do daily. The little girl at the register we checked out at when buying lunch double charged my account for the lunch we had. At $31.35, that was an expensive lunch considering. This girl ran my debit card once - said it didn't go through (I watched the computer screen and had my doubts about THAT statement), said she needed to run it again. I let her do it, but - that's also why I checked my account today. Yes, I just got off the phone with them, they will be transferring the second charge back to my account.
Oh, well, I didn't say anything about our trip through the food section yesterday, did I? Well, their prices were, of course and expectedly, quite outrageous. A salad - albeit a nice salad - for $8.99. Hamburgers were $5.00 - JUST the hamburger and a slice of pepperoni pizza, also $5.00. Caleb and Kyle each got a slice of pepperoni. The slice the girl gave Caleb was MUCH smaller than the slice given to Kyle. Caleb wanted a different slice as ALL of the rest of the slices on that particular pie were all considerably larger than the one Caleb got. The girl just threw up her hands and said: "Well I HAVE to get rid of all of it".
When I say girl, I'm talking the people working at this place were 16 and 17 years old. I ignored her. When I got to the cash register, I asked for a discount on the smaller slice. This girl - again, 16 or 17 at most - said no, can't do that, but you can go back and get a different slice if you are unhappy. Well, we already TRIED to do that. I just sent Caleb back - the girl was unhappy with him I could tell from the 30 feet away I was standing. I asked for management.
This girl told me there IS no management there! LOL!!!! As always, when customer service goes south and sour, I immediately ask for management. We were not being rude and were being very polite, so that takes care of our end of the deal. She said there's a building somewhere else on the property where I would have to go to speak to a manager. Well, what was I going to do? I figured I would eat lunch, finish the day's fun festivities and visit management on the way out.
Instead, another guy - he MIGHT have been 18 - came up to the table and spoke to me about my desire to speak to a manager. Yes, I replied, that's exactly what I intend on doing. I was pretty much shrugging all of this off - we just sat down, started eating and let it go until later. Is there anything I can do to help? No, sir, I intend on going over to whatever building it is where the manager is later on and discussing this situation with that individiual.
This guy leaves. Several minutes later, the REAL manager came up. This was definitely not low-level management. I politely recounted the situation, saying that if I was going to pay $31 for this - pointing at the incredibly small amount of food on the table - I wanted full portions. That was all. The guy looks at me incredulously - WHO told you that there is no management here? I pointed at the girl at the register. His offering - without my asking - was a second slice of pizza for each of the boys. We accepted. He went and got them, handed them to us, bid our adoos. He then walked over to the girl at the register and - was obviously not being very pleasant with her. He also went over to the other girl that had refused to give a different slice of pizza - didn't hear that either, didn't really want to. The manager made it right, that's all I cared about. The boys scarfed down the second slice of pizza while I finished my - well it was a pretty good tasting salad and the pizza the boys said was good too - so no complaints about the taste or quality of the food.
I then went and got my free t-shirt. It's a daily special there - if you spend over $30 on food, you get a free t-shirt. This one, of course, says Wet 'N Wild all over it and I think it was a $15 - so I thought we got a good ending out of it.
Look, I just don't put up with bad customer service. I KNEW the prices were going to be high, THAT was not my issue. I am IN customer service and I treat my customers VERY well, even if they are angry about something - which happens more often-than-not because of salesmen making promises they knew couldn't be kept when they made them. Nothing I can do but apologize, start making phones calls if necessary to find out when a product that these people I'm with need right now - and get the ball rolling. There are also often times when I arrive at a jobsite and the people had been told I would be there - like hours and hours ago. The people making those promises didn't bother to either ask me or my boss - they were just trying to appease their customer. When you do that - you make it worse because - customers aren't stupid, they figure out that they were told one thing when that person telling them it KNEW it would be otherwise. Fortunately for me, they realize this and dump the load of anger and discontent onto THEM, well, not always, but a good portion of the time.
Anyway, it didn't ruin our day and Kyle was impressed. Lol. I wasn't trying to impress him - but he was like - wow, you handled that incredibly well. He was mainly happy for the second slice of pie - growing teenagers have bottomless pits for stomachs.
Kyle just gave up. He's wayyyyy too tired to do the job and he's complaining of the heat out there. I just said he didn't HAVE to do the job. I also offered he could do it this evening or even tonight - standing in direct sunlight is definitely going to fry your brains out while trying to dig a trench - been there done that. So, he says he'll come back later. He's going to his grandpa's house - 3 houses down from me - to crash out.
I'm amazed that I could outlast teenagers that have boundless energy. I'm feeling my oats today, too, but I'm awake and they are all asleep. I'm going to start my weekend cleaning rituals here pretty soon since everyone is either gone or sleeping - it's much easier to get things done without a lot of people around to get in the way.
Have a great day!
ben
I'm liking it so much, I'm going to ask to do it again next either in September or October. I have enough hours saved up to take off a month's worth of work.
Today, I'm paying for yesterday's excursion to the water park. Sore muscles and generally not too interested in doing anything. Kyle - just showed up. He went with us yesterday and he's trashed from yesterday as well. Caleb is still in bed, lol. Kyle is a workaholic - he reminds me of myself when I was that age. I already had an extreme work ethic pounded into me by the time I was 10 years old. I worked to make money - my parents were poor and if there were even any allowances, they were extremely small. I made money doing odd jobs and newspaper routes.
Anyway, I just showed Kyle what I want done out there - ALL of what I want done. There's a lot in just digging the trenches. He wanted to make some extra money, he's here. He asked my to hurry up and get out there and show him what to do (in a polite way) because he said if he sat down, he was going to crash out all over again. Funny how much energy you can exert at a place like a water park and not even realize it until AFTER it's over.
The high temp today is going to be much lower than it has been - 105. That may sound hot, but it's nothing compared to the 114 highs we've been experiencing. It's only 81 degrees right now - last week at this time of day it was well into the 90's. This week's forecasted high are up there - but not AS high - which is good for lowering electric consumption.
Just because of the way I'm feeling, I'm debated whether to go out there and do this water pipe install. It might be a little more motivating seeing that someone else is out there working as well. Guess I'd better make up my mind before it gets too hot - that setup is sitting in the direct sunlight right now and will be for most of the day.
Hmmmph. I just checked my checking account - a thing I do daily. The little girl at the register we checked out at when buying lunch double charged my account for the lunch we had. At $31.35, that was an expensive lunch considering. This girl ran my debit card once - said it didn't go through (I watched the computer screen and had my doubts about THAT statement), said she needed to run it again. I let her do it, but - that's also why I checked my account today. Yes, I just got off the phone with them, they will be transferring the second charge back to my account.
Oh, well, I didn't say anything about our trip through the food section yesterday, did I? Well, their prices were, of course and expectedly, quite outrageous. A salad - albeit a nice salad - for $8.99. Hamburgers were $5.00 - JUST the hamburger and a slice of pepperoni pizza, also $5.00. Caleb and Kyle each got a slice of pepperoni. The slice the girl gave Caleb was MUCH smaller than the slice given to Kyle. Caleb wanted a different slice as ALL of the rest of the slices on that particular pie were all considerably larger than the one Caleb got. The girl just threw up her hands and said: "Well I HAVE to get rid of all of it".
When I say girl, I'm talking the people working at this place were 16 and 17 years old. I ignored her. When I got to the cash register, I asked for a discount on the smaller slice. This girl - again, 16 or 17 at most - said no, can't do that, but you can go back and get a different slice if you are unhappy. Well, we already TRIED to do that. I just sent Caleb back - the girl was unhappy with him I could tell from the 30 feet away I was standing. I asked for management.
This girl told me there IS no management there! LOL!!!! As always, when customer service goes south and sour, I immediately ask for management. We were not being rude and were being very polite, so that takes care of our end of the deal. She said there's a building somewhere else on the property where I would have to go to speak to a manager. Well, what was I going to do? I figured I would eat lunch, finish the day's fun festivities and visit management on the way out.
Instead, another guy - he MIGHT have been 18 - came up to the table and spoke to me about my desire to speak to a manager. Yes, I replied, that's exactly what I intend on doing. I was pretty much shrugging all of this off - we just sat down, started eating and let it go until later. Is there anything I can do to help? No, sir, I intend on going over to whatever building it is where the manager is later on and discussing this situation with that individiual.
This guy leaves. Several minutes later, the REAL manager came up. This was definitely not low-level management. I politely recounted the situation, saying that if I was going to pay $31 for this - pointing at the incredibly small amount of food on the table - I wanted full portions. That was all. The guy looks at me incredulously - WHO told you that there is no management here? I pointed at the girl at the register. His offering - without my asking - was a second slice of pizza for each of the boys. We accepted. He went and got them, handed them to us, bid our adoos. He then walked over to the girl at the register and - was obviously not being very pleasant with her. He also went over to the other girl that had refused to give a different slice of pizza - didn't hear that either, didn't really want to. The manager made it right, that's all I cared about. The boys scarfed down the second slice of pizza while I finished my - well it was a pretty good tasting salad and the pizza the boys said was good too - so no complaints about the taste or quality of the food.
I then went and got my free t-shirt. It's a daily special there - if you spend over $30 on food, you get a free t-shirt. This one, of course, says Wet 'N Wild all over it and I think it was a $15 - so I thought we got a good ending out of it.
Look, I just don't put up with bad customer service. I KNEW the prices were going to be high, THAT was not my issue. I am IN customer service and I treat my customers VERY well, even if they are angry about something - which happens more often-than-not because of salesmen making promises they knew couldn't be kept when they made them. Nothing I can do but apologize, start making phones calls if necessary to find out when a product that these people I'm with need right now - and get the ball rolling. There are also often times when I arrive at a jobsite and the people had been told I would be there - like hours and hours ago. The people making those promises didn't bother to either ask me or my boss - they were just trying to appease their customer. When you do that - you make it worse because - customers aren't stupid, they figure out that they were told one thing when that person telling them it KNEW it would be otherwise. Fortunately for me, they realize this and dump the load of anger and discontent onto THEM, well, not always, but a good portion of the time.
Anyway, it didn't ruin our day and Kyle was impressed. Lol. I wasn't trying to impress him - but he was like - wow, you handled that incredibly well. He was mainly happy for the second slice of pie - growing teenagers have bottomless pits for stomachs.
Kyle just gave up. He's wayyyyy too tired to do the job and he's complaining of the heat out there. I just said he didn't HAVE to do the job. I also offered he could do it this evening or even tonight - standing in direct sunlight is definitely going to fry your brains out while trying to dig a trench - been there done that. So, he says he'll come back later. He's going to his grandpa's house - 3 houses down from me - to crash out.
I'm amazed that I could outlast teenagers that have boundless energy. I'm feeling my oats today, too, but I'm awake and they are all asleep. I'm going to start my weekend cleaning rituals here pretty soon since everyone is either gone or sleeping - it's much easier to get things done without a lot of people around to get in the way.
Have a great day!
ben
Friday, August 7, 2009
My Friday
Hmmm, it just dawned on me that I still have 3 full days left of this time off from work. I will not be going back until Tuesday. Very nice.
I would address the waterpark first, but my amazement at the rift that I started - quite unintentionally I might add - on all sorts of blogs on KCL got my attention.
Let me say here for the record: I did NOT go all over KCL and start trash talking the place. I have NOT written to everyone I know in PM's about my disgust for it. I ONLY wrote a SMALL blip about my departure from the site, those that found out about it and talked trash about me - had to come to MY journal to find out what I said, go to their or other journals, write the trash and be done with it.
But - my feelings about KCL aren't nearly that intense. I don't HATE the place, I just don't like a good deal of what I am reading over there. Don't go to this blog, don't go to that blog. Whatever. People read into something I didn't say, made HUGE assumptions and flew with it in assaulting my character.
Big deal. I'm 45 years old, I've been around the block a dozen times ten times, been trash talked for years as president of a homeowner's association and as a prominent board member on a Little League. The people that do the trash talking - you probably don't even know who they are, they don't do it to your face but always behind your back, and you end up hearing about it from someone else who was there.
If you have something to say about me and you're going to do it on an open, public journal, then you might as well just come to my journal and have your say. BUT - don't expect me to be a doormat - I gave up that title long ago. I am usually a very open person, but I can be VERY blunt and I will speak my mind.
Oh, and you want to hear someone cussing you out? Go out on the streets and start talking about the Lord Jesus Christ - and all that entails - you will hear some stuff being puked on you that you have never heard anywhere before. I have done that for decades, I am well-acquainted with human nature and the way people seem to have to feel to vindicate themselves for something - that was never said.
And that's the point: I NEVER spoke any names - go to my blog, read the entry - take offense if you want, being offensive was not the intent. Just as YOU are free to speak your mind, so I am NOT free to speak my mind on MY OWN BLOG? The site might be owned by KCL and it's administrators - all well and fine - but the blog is MINE. If it is not, then the administrators can tell me that and I will DEFINITELY delete the thing.
Will I leave KCL? I haven't made that decision yet after reading some of the comments that people posted on that entry. It isn't against one, single person. I am just not a fan of F this and F that and all the rest of what I consider to be petty arguments, in-fighting and other things that I need not go into. If I don't like it - LEAVE, right? That's the worldly saying. I don't subscribe to worldly beliefs, as the Bible says, I am a citizen not of this earth, but of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our stay here is temporal - VERY temporal - one day you're here, the next you're gone. If you think about the average life span of a person, it is infinitesimal in comparison - to anything. We are mortals that have a purpose to be here - it is God's purpose for each individual life.
Onto other things. The trip to the waterpark - was quite nice. There are some awesome rides at that place. I had hoped that on a Friday - school has started in many places around the valley - that it wouldn't be so crowded. Wrongo, yack-breath. It was crowded. Lines and waits were long at the rides. We did the wait game and went on all of them - excepting the shorter, smaller rides that looked like they weren't worth a 30 to 60 minute wait to actually get to go down the slide.
We spent a lot of time in the wave pool. Their version of waves are pretty - small - but I was loving being at the deep end of the pool in 8 foot deep water - almost no-one ventured out that far, so I was swimming around and getting some excellent exercise. I messed with Caleb and Kyle in interims in dunking and splashing fights. Kyle actually thought he could get on top of me and dunk me - so he came up from behind, climbed up on my back. I just stood there. lol
The time there took me totally out of reality - if only for a 6-hour glimpse of a moment - I was in another world. It's one of those things where the pressures and cares of this life disappear and you can just take in the moment, enjoy the moment and have a reprieve from the prison of - stuff going on. Freedom is in the Lord, I tell myself.
We actually could still be there - but as I figured beforehand - a period of 6 to 8 hours would be plenty. I didn't leave before the boys wanted to leave - Kyle went home and crashed, Caleb is zonked out in his bedroom - I went to work watering plants.
That's it for this day. Tomorrow - I intend on getting out there and getting with this drip system install. I have sorta been a little fearful in thinking about cutting into a line with a hacksaw and not being able to get my assembly back together again - and then - the water is off to the house.
As for KCL - I will think about it - decide what I want to do with my account there - and I will voice it - over there, on my blog - when I have decided that. I mostly figured people wouldn't care one way or the other whether I stayed or left - but the replies on that entry definitely got me to re-thinking that decision.
Have a great evening.
C'ya tomorrow.
ben
I would address the waterpark first, but my amazement at the rift that I started - quite unintentionally I might add - on all sorts of blogs on KCL got my attention.
Let me say here for the record: I did NOT go all over KCL and start trash talking the place. I have NOT written to everyone I know in PM's about my disgust for it. I ONLY wrote a SMALL blip about my departure from the site, those that found out about it and talked trash about me - had to come to MY journal to find out what I said, go to their or other journals, write the trash and be done with it.
But - my feelings about KCL aren't nearly that intense. I don't HATE the place, I just don't like a good deal of what I am reading over there. Don't go to this blog, don't go to that blog. Whatever. People read into something I didn't say, made HUGE assumptions and flew with it in assaulting my character.
Big deal. I'm 45 years old, I've been around the block a dozen times ten times, been trash talked for years as president of a homeowner's association and as a prominent board member on a Little League. The people that do the trash talking - you probably don't even know who they are, they don't do it to your face but always behind your back, and you end up hearing about it from someone else who was there.
If you have something to say about me and you're going to do it on an open, public journal, then you might as well just come to my journal and have your say. BUT - don't expect me to be a doormat - I gave up that title long ago. I am usually a very open person, but I can be VERY blunt and I will speak my mind.
Oh, and you want to hear someone cussing you out? Go out on the streets and start talking about the Lord Jesus Christ - and all that entails - you will hear some stuff being puked on you that you have never heard anywhere before. I have done that for decades, I am well-acquainted with human nature and the way people seem to have to feel to vindicate themselves for something - that was never said.
And that's the point: I NEVER spoke any names - go to my blog, read the entry - take offense if you want, being offensive was not the intent. Just as YOU are free to speak your mind, so I am NOT free to speak my mind on MY OWN BLOG? The site might be owned by KCL and it's administrators - all well and fine - but the blog is MINE. If it is not, then the administrators can tell me that and I will DEFINITELY delete the thing.
Will I leave KCL? I haven't made that decision yet after reading some of the comments that people posted on that entry. It isn't against one, single person. I am just not a fan of F this and F that and all the rest of what I consider to be petty arguments, in-fighting and other things that I need not go into. If I don't like it - LEAVE, right? That's the worldly saying. I don't subscribe to worldly beliefs, as the Bible says, I am a citizen not of this earth, but of the Kingdom of Heaven. Our stay here is temporal - VERY temporal - one day you're here, the next you're gone. If you think about the average life span of a person, it is infinitesimal in comparison - to anything. We are mortals that have a purpose to be here - it is God's purpose for each individual life.
Onto other things. The trip to the waterpark - was quite nice. There are some awesome rides at that place. I had hoped that on a Friday - school has started in many places around the valley - that it wouldn't be so crowded. Wrongo, yack-breath. It was crowded. Lines and waits were long at the rides. We did the wait game and went on all of them - excepting the shorter, smaller rides that looked like they weren't worth a 30 to 60 minute wait to actually get to go down the slide.
We spent a lot of time in the wave pool. Their version of waves are pretty - small - but I was loving being at the deep end of the pool in 8 foot deep water - almost no-one ventured out that far, so I was swimming around and getting some excellent exercise. I messed with Caleb and Kyle in interims in dunking and splashing fights. Kyle actually thought he could get on top of me and dunk me - so he came up from behind, climbed up on my back. I just stood there. lol
The time there took me totally out of reality - if only for a 6-hour glimpse of a moment - I was in another world. It's one of those things where the pressures and cares of this life disappear and you can just take in the moment, enjoy the moment and have a reprieve from the prison of - stuff going on. Freedom is in the Lord, I tell myself.
We actually could still be there - but as I figured beforehand - a period of 6 to 8 hours would be plenty. I didn't leave before the boys wanted to leave - Kyle went home and crashed, Caleb is zonked out in his bedroom - I went to work watering plants.
That's it for this day. Tomorrow - I intend on getting out there and getting with this drip system install. I have sorta been a little fearful in thinking about cutting into a line with a hacksaw and not being able to get my assembly back together again - and then - the water is off to the house.
As for KCL - I will think about it - decide what I want to do with my account there - and I will voice it - over there, on my blog - when I have decided that. I mostly figured people wouldn't care one way or the other whether I stayed or left - but the replies on that entry definitely got me to re-thinking that decision.
Have a great evening.
C'ya tomorrow.
ben
Wet 'N Wild Day!
Well - I hope it's going to be as fun as I believe it is! I LOVE waterparks, especially big ones with all kinds of stuff to get all haywired out in.
The place opens at 10:00 am and doesn't close until 10:30 pm! Guaranteed a few things: won't be there at opening time and won't be there at closing. Lol. I figure a good 6 to 8 hours of it and I'll have had enough to last me a long time, really.
Totally spaced that today is a payday for Ken, one of my tenants. If nothing else, the man pays me the rent religiously. I'll be blowing a good chunk of that money today at the waterpark - the place isn't exactly cheap. Discount entrance tickets are $32 with tax; a locker is something like $12 and I'm pretty sure they'll be charging ballpark style prices of food (though I am going to encourage the boys to eat something before we leave).
Why am I blowing money right now? I'm going to have my version of a vacation, however pathetic it may be - my thoughts would have me going to Italy or London, a trip to France or some of the more exotic places (though I have to wonder how safe it is to travel in the middle east right now). I have not had a vacation in over 2 years and this year is going to be no different.
They (the so-called experts that can't seem to identify whether the sun is up or down at any given moment), at least some of them, are claiming the recession is over.
Well, friends, neighbors and folks, from my view of it - there is some recovery. I'm only talking anecdotally from the position of my employment. Last month was the best we had had in a long time. It was still dismally low, but not near as low as the 3 months running before that.
Also, housing sales here for existing houses went way up last month. Investors are picking up properties at prices they'll never see again after this recession is over. As I have said several times, if I had the money, I would be shelling out money all over the place to buy these cheap properties, fix them up and rent them out. Obviously, there are people that DO have money and doing just that. People complain that that really isn't helping anything since the properties are being sold at great loss. Well, I feel for the people that used to live there and were foreclosed upon - I really do - but at the same time, the only way a REAL recovery is going to happen is to get the glut of existing homes OFF the market so that there will begin to be a demand for new home and therefore, new home construction again.
So - maybe we're at the bottom of this? I dunno, but until new housing construction starts up again, I'm not calling it a wash. If new housing construction were to take off again, this economy would recover quickly. There are so many industries involved with supplying products for building new homes - it covers a vast amount of industry. Lumber; electrical; appliances; drywall; screws,nails,bolts, fasteners; roofing material; insulation; heating and cooling; paint; glass; doors; plumbing and waterworks (my industry); block; and then all the related expert labor needed to install all of that.
That is the only thing that irks me about that list. The "expert" labor around here comes highly from illegal aliens. Though, I have continued to read about the mass exodus of them going back to their homelands. Good riddance. Let them come over here LEGALLY or let them NOT come AT ALL.
I'll sit back and watch to see if this recession really is over - but even if it IS, it's going to be a long time before all these people that have been let go are going to find jobs again.
Now - as for KCL. I figure I have readers here that don't go to my blog over there. I wrote an entry over there yesterday bidding the place goodbye. There are some GREAT people over there, don't get me wrong. But - I read alot of crap stuff that I just can't deal with. It's all over the home page frequently. I mean, I was looking at the home page earlier and saw an avatar from a woman with very large breasts - totally exposed and a beer wedged in between them - an ode for someone named Steve (no clue who Steve is) who birthday is today. So the breasts look good, nice - freakin' post that junk on a porno site for God's sake. But - some good folks wrote comments on the bottom of that entry so now I'm weighing whether to stick around there or not. Probably - if I do - I'll just be copying and pasting posts from here over to there.
I suppose my biggest problem is that my plate is quite full right now with personal issues - which isn't anyone else's problem obviously - but I can get annoyed easily when I see stuff like that and I'm already in a not-so-great mood. I'm pretty weighted down with attempting to deal with all of this stuff going on, the latest blow being the loss of fully 2 tenants in the next week or so. I would LOVE to be able to just leave those rooms OPEN and not have anyone taking their place - but financial pressures are too great. It's fill the rooms or lose the home - losing the home is not much of an option.
The ONLY thing that has really been nice about financial junk lately is that the loan mod is approved, they are sending the paperwork and I am getting a 2 month reprieve from paying the mortgage. I had hoped to get ahead - which I will a little bit - but if I don't get those rooms filled quickly, that idea goes out the window. Mimi shorted me on the rent - albeit only $25. She gave me that check before she landed the crap on my son.
After I read and re-read her emails, I realized that she had already planned this leave and really just using my son as a scapegoat to get out of here. Well, she could have just LET ME KNOWN - AT THE TIME SHE MADE THESE PLANS - that she wanted to leave and I would have had more time to post ads and try to get someone in her place. If a person wants to leave, I'm not going to try and stand in there way and start begging them to stay - I ALWAYS make that clear: if you don't like living here, please don't hesitate to find a new place to live, I certainly won't hold it against you.
Pete's employer dropping the relocation bomb on him is far more understandable to me than a person that just doesn't want to be here, waits until what amounts to the last minute to let me know, and leaves me HANGING. By state law, I could demand a full month's rent from her - she pays bi-monthly. As it stands, I'm going to be dropping a bomb back on her: a portion of her security deposit is going to go to clean the carpets in the house where her dog has pee'd and pooped all over the place. I will have to have a service do it so that I can have a receipt for the work done in case she tries to take me to court over this issue. I don't put it past her, but - it's a place she doesn't want to go. I will countersue if I have to and demand the rest of the month's rent. As it stands, she can go without the full month's rent and I will leave it at that.
These are the things that are occupying my mind - it may stand for those that see me as being a little testy to consider the pressure I am under and why I might not be acting quite like the normal Ben. If I survive this economic disaster we call an economy at work and they don't lay me off, then I look forward to the days of getting my hours back and getting rid of at least one tenant's worth.
All of this stuff hasn't quite over-loaded me, but certainly the scale is teetering. If a day at a waterpark breaks me, then so beit. At least I'll have had some sort of fun that I haven't seen - in ages. Oh, and for me personally - after reading this jobless report - when my hours go back to a minimum of 40 per week, I'll take that as a sign on top of everything else that the recession is departing.
The day is getting late and I'm going to start getting ready to get out of here - go pick up Caleb and Kyle and start heading to the park. It's not exactly close - like a 30 plus mile drive.
Peace
ben
The place opens at 10:00 am and doesn't close until 10:30 pm! Guaranteed a few things: won't be there at opening time and won't be there at closing. Lol. I figure a good 6 to 8 hours of it and I'll have had enough to last me a long time, really.
Totally spaced that today is a payday for Ken, one of my tenants. If nothing else, the man pays me the rent religiously. I'll be blowing a good chunk of that money today at the waterpark - the place isn't exactly cheap. Discount entrance tickets are $32 with tax; a locker is something like $12 and I'm pretty sure they'll be charging ballpark style prices of food (though I am going to encourage the boys to eat something before we leave).
Why am I blowing money right now? I'm going to have my version of a vacation, however pathetic it may be - my thoughts would have me going to Italy or London, a trip to France or some of the more exotic places (though I have to wonder how safe it is to travel in the middle east right now). I have not had a vacation in over 2 years and this year is going to be no different.
They (the so-called experts that can't seem to identify whether the sun is up or down at any given moment), at least some of them, are claiming the recession is over.
Well, friends, neighbors and folks, from my view of it - there is some recovery. I'm only talking anecdotally from the position of my employment. Last month was the best we had had in a long time. It was still dismally low, but not near as low as the 3 months running before that.
Also, housing sales here for existing houses went way up last month. Investors are picking up properties at prices they'll never see again after this recession is over. As I have said several times, if I had the money, I would be shelling out money all over the place to buy these cheap properties, fix them up and rent them out. Obviously, there are people that DO have money and doing just that. People complain that that really isn't helping anything since the properties are being sold at great loss. Well, I feel for the people that used to live there and were foreclosed upon - I really do - but at the same time, the only way a REAL recovery is going to happen is to get the glut of existing homes OFF the market so that there will begin to be a demand for new home and therefore, new home construction again.
So - maybe we're at the bottom of this? I dunno, but until new housing construction starts up again, I'm not calling it a wash. If new housing construction were to take off again, this economy would recover quickly. There are so many industries involved with supplying products for building new homes - it covers a vast amount of industry. Lumber; electrical; appliances; drywall; screws,nails,bolts, fasteners; roofing material; insulation; heating and cooling; paint; glass; doors; plumbing and waterworks (my industry); block; and then all the related expert labor needed to install all of that.
That is the only thing that irks me about that list. The "expert" labor around here comes highly from illegal aliens. Though, I have continued to read about the mass exodus of them going back to their homelands. Good riddance. Let them come over here LEGALLY or let them NOT come AT ALL.
I'll sit back and watch to see if this recession really is over - but even if it IS, it's going to be a long time before all these people that have been let go are going to find jobs again.
Now - as for KCL. I figure I have readers here that don't go to my blog over there. I wrote an entry over there yesterday bidding the place goodbye. There are some GREAT people over there, don't get me wrong. But - I read alot of crap stuff that I just can't deal with. It's all over the home page frequently. I mean, I was looking at the home page earlier and saw an avatar from a woman with very large breasts - totally exposed and a beer wedged in between them - an ode for someone named Steve (no clue who Steve is) who birthday is today. So the breasts look good, nice - freakin' post that junk on a porno site for God's sake. But - some good folks wrote comments on the bottom of that entry so now I'm weighing whether to stick around there or not. Probably - if I do - I'll just be copying and pasting posts from here over to there.
I suppose my biggest problem is that my plate is quite full right now with personal issues - which isn't anyone else's problem obviously - but I can get annoyed easily when I see stuff like that and I'm already in a not-so-great mood. I'm pretty weighted down with attempting to deal with all of this stuff going on, the latest blow being the loss of fully 2 tenants in the next week or so. I would LOVE to be able to just leave those rooms OPEN and not have anyone taking their place - but financial pressures are too great. It's fill the rooms or lose the home - losing the home is not much of an option.
The ONLY thing that has really been nice about financial junk lately is that the loan mod is approved, they are sending the paperwork and I am getting a 2 month reprieve from paying the mortgage. I had hoped to get ahead - which I will a little bit - but if I don't get those rooms filled quickly, that idea goes out the window. Mimi shorted me on the rent - albeit only $25. She gave me that check before she landed the crap on my son.
After I read and re-read her emails, I realized that she had already planned this leave and really just using my son as a scapegoat to get out of here. Well, she could have just LET ME KNOWN - AT THE TIME SHE MADE THESE PLANS - that she wanted to leave and I would have had more time to post ads and try to get someone in her place. If a person wants to leave, I'm not going to try and stand in there way and start begging them to stay - I ALWAYS make that clear: if you don't like living here, please don't hesitate to find a new place to live, I certainly won't hold it against you.
Pete's employer dropping the relocation bomb on him is far more understandable to me than a person that just doesn't want to be here, waits until what amounts to the last minute to let me know, and leaves me HANGING. By state law, I could demand a full month's rent from her - she pays bi-monthly. As it stands, I'm going to be dropping a bomb back on her: a portion of her security deposit is going to go to clean the carpets in the house where her dog has pee'd and pooped all over the place. I will have to have a service do it so that I can have a receipt for the work done in case she tries to take me to court over this issue. I don't put it past her, but - it's a place she doesn't want to go. I will countersue if I have to and demand the rest of the month's rent. As it stands, she can go without the full month's rent and I will leave it at that.
These are the things that are occupying my mind - it may stand for those that see me as being a little testy to consider the pressure I am under and why I might not be acting quite like the normal Ben. If I survive this economic disaster we call an economy at work and they don't lay me off, then I look forward to the days of getting my hours back and getting rid of at least one tenant's worth.
All of this stuff hasn't quite over-loaded me, but certainly the scale is teetering. If a day at a waterpark breaks me, then so beit. At least I'll have had some sort of fun that I haven't seen - in ages. Oh, and for me personally - after reading this jobless report - when my hours go back to a minimum of 40 per week, I'll take that as a sign on top of everything else that the recession is departing.
The day is getting late and I'm going to start getting ready to get out of here - go pick up Caleb and Kyle and start heading to the park. It's not exactly close - like a 30 plus mile drive.
Peace
ben
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Airbus In The News Again
I was rather amazed to see yet another incident with an Airbus aircraft, this time an Airbus 320.
An engine caught on fire while or after - a bit unclear - it was disengaging from the boarding ramp.
An airline employee noticed liquid leaking from the engine as it was being started and made and alert - but the fire broke out before anything could be done about it, apparently.
I think Airbus's reputation is becoming extremely tarnished - again as I mentioned sometime ago - starting to take on the image of the DC-10 after numerous of those brand and model of aircraft kept having disastrous crashes.
After all the reports of incidents with these airplanes, I would not want to fly on one of them. Illogical? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I haven't flown in 4 years anyway - though - I love to fly. It's always a fun thing for me - even on Sardine Airlines.
On another note, one of J.D.'s little brothers came over here earlier, ringing the doorbell. I do not have a front door on my house - by design. There are gates, the gates are locked and there is a button to push to ring the bell. I have video surveillance, I can sit here and look on my computer as to who is out there. This kid is a pot smoker and the only reason they come over here is to get Michael to go buy their pot for them.
I pretty much - don't like it - so, I totally ignored the bell. The kid knows about surveillance and I had turned the light on out there to see who it was. I had a light switch installed in this house here - like 5 feet from where I'm sitting - that has electric line running clear to the front of the house and a light installed out front. Oh, Michael was in the bedroom and apparently didn't hear the bell I was not amused. Anyway, I turned the light back off immediately - which should have signalled to this kid that I want nothing to do with this s***. He rang the bell 4 times - I was going to get up, go out there and give him a piece of my mind about the doorbell and the reason for him coming over here, but he left.
Umm, I just noticed it's past my bedtime, no time to ramble on - and on - and on.
lol
ben
An engine caught on fire while or after - a bit unclear - it was disengaging from the boarding ramp.
An airline employee noticed liquid leaking from the engine as it was being started and made and alert - but the fire broke out before anything could be done about it, apparently.
I think Airbus's reputation is becoming extremely tarnished - again as I mentioned sometime ago - starting to take on the image of the DC-10 after numerous of those brand and model of aircraft kept having disastrous crashes.
After all the reports of incidents with these airplanes, I would not want to fly on one of them. Illogical? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I haven't flown in 4 years anyway - though - I love to fly. It's always a fun thing for me - even on Sardine Airlines.
On another note, one of J.D.'s little brothers came over here earlier, ringing the doorbell. I do not have a front door on my house - by design. There are gates, the gates are locked and there is a button to push to ring the bell. I have video surveillance, I can sit here and look on my computer as to who is out there. This kid is a pot smoker and the only reason they come over here is to get Michael to go buy their pot for them.
I pretty much - don't like it - so, I totally ignored the bell. The kid knows about surveillance and I had turned the light on out there to see who it was. I had a light switch installed in this house here - like 5 feet from where I'm sitting - that has electric line running clear to the front of the house and a light installed out front. Oh, Michael was in the bedroom and apparently didn't hear the bell I was not amused. Anyway, I turned the light back off immediately - which should have signalled to this kid that I want nothing to do with this s***. He rang the bell 4 times - I was going to get up, go out there and give him a piece of my mind about the doorbell and the reason for him coming over here, but he left.
Umm, I just noticed it's past my bedtime, no time to ramble on - and on - and on.
lol
ben
I'm Writing To Myself
Lol. Well, no big deal. My writing is because I like to write, so - even if no-one is reading this stuff, I will continue on.
On the eve of a hopefully nice, fun day tomorrow at this new waterpark. But that's tomorrow.
Yesterday, I looked at some pork - stuff - like steaks, sort of - but full of fat. Yuck. It was cheap, but I don't want to eat this kind of thing. I put the stuff into a very large frying pan and cooked it on very low for a couple of hours. I figured to cook the fat out of it - and if I couldn't, the dogs would be eating well (definitely NOT a fan of pork fat, chicken fat and most beef fats - some good steaks such as Porterhouse has VERY tasty fat, a thing I indulge in very rarely).
Well, the pork became very tender and fell off the bones with a fork, the fat has almost disappeared into grease. There was only a few small strips of fat left which I removed. Drain the grease, pull out the fat, remove the bones. Only problem left? I only had a 1/3rd of a bottle of BBQ sauce left - I wanted to turn it into something that would taste good on a sandwich. Well, I decided to dump that in there and see what happens.
I was amazed. The small amount of BBQ sauce coupled with the spices I had dumped on the meat was a very tasty combination indeed. I figured to tell the boys that it was stuff they wouldn't like and don't bother trying it - I use that ploy at times to try and keep them out of the stuff. Well, Michael just found it and ate a several sandwiches worth. If you haven't read my other post about Michael - he is allowed to visit, he just isn't living here anymore. I think it a much better setup and he's not here everyday. I don't hate Michael, I just feel that he needs to spend time at home and get a taste of what that's like and get a little more understanding, over an extended period of time, of just what my offerings to him in terms of food always available; electricity always on; water always running; cooling; quiet place to sleep; privacy are worth.
They are worth much more than he has given it credit for - basically just taking it for granted. I take nothing for granted. I work my @$$ off for the money I do get - and put up with tenants for the rest of it. Working is great - tenants? Yeah, well that depends on the particular tenant and their disposition and lifestyle.
Anyway, I got an update on their family today. The police were over there this week - Anthony and their father were in a fight that ended up with neighbors calling the police. Anthony HATES his dad. His dad is a very hostile, violent and violent tempered "man". He goes into fits of rage at the drop of a hat - and has beaten on his girfriend - the kid's mother - forever apparently since they've been together some 17 years. Anthony - has the same temperament as his father. Get 2 hotheads living together that don't like each other - look out. So - this is the beginning of their occupancy of yet another house. The police have now identified where they are living and I'm quite sure more trouble will follow.
J.D. - the black kid that's over here a lot - and no, I'm not racist - told me yesterday that the situation with their household, Michael's family that is - has not changed. The kids fight over the TV; electricity is sometimes on, sometimes not; too many people with short fuses getting into arguments; sleeping is next to impossible. They let the satellite bill go too long - no satellite. I was amazed that Michael even admitted that their bank account is overdrawn and they are in hot water with the bank as well. Well, I imagine lots of Americans may be in or near that particular situation right now - but this family is ALWAYS in these predicaments.
I almost feel sorry for Michael - but really - he brought this upon himself. I was getting sick of his attitude. Again, a dose of reality - a continued dose of reality over a good period of time - should give him a new appreciation of my house and it's offerings. And that's where it's going to be left for now.
Since my readership on my blogs is down to basically nothing, I don't mind "rambling" on and on - it's just me, writing out my thoughts. For those that don't know me - I type rather fast and these long entries don't take that long to type out. At least in terms of the actual typing - my thoughts tend to wander off into different realms and I stop writing while thinking about things - and then start back up again. I am thinking of just doing all of my writing on here and leaving KCL alone for a while - that site is a popularity contest - that's really all I see it as. It isn't really that much like JS was in those terms. I don't write for popularity, I write because I love the release and I love the ability to come back and see what I was doing at any particular point in time. My writings - because I tend to be thorough - have helped me countless times on court cases and in fact-finding missions. I only wish that JS was still there so that all of those writings were still there as well. For me - and me alone - there is a wealth of my history there that - when I used to be able to go back and read it - astonished me on certain sectors of my life in periods of want (extreme lack of finances).
I remember rather well the extended period of living without a hot water heater or a washer and dryer. Living in these hellish temps with nothing more than a swamp cooler and a couple of window AC units that really didn't keep it cool in there. Feeling like I was living in a s***hole, but not really ever admitting it to anyone. When I got more of the work done in that house, I started to get comfortable with it, but it was an ever-so-drawn-out process because of lack of funds. The point here is that I had ALL of that written out - and surely, a much clearer picture emerges when you can go back and read about it.
But - during those periods - I never thought about self-pity and how miserable life was. Life is not about money - if it were, I would have killed myself a long time ago. I've had precious little of it in my lifetime and it doesn't stick around long when I do get it. It kinda makes me fear the future - growing old and still being poor and not being able to take care of my own needs without help is hardly an appealing thought. Or working until my grave - not a great prospect either.
Speaking of that, out of the blue, my dad sent me an email yesterday about my being the executor of his estate. I didn't know he had actually DONE that with his legal counsel, but, indeed, he has. He told me that my brothers - when they were still talking to him - informed him they didn't wany ANYTHING of his when he dies. I would consider that a slap in the face, as if your life and your belongings are worthless junk. He does not, from what I read in his email, have them in his will. I found that almost shocking. Wow!!! But then again, if your kids disowned you and wouldn't even talk to you, would you not be tempted to do the same thing?
And yet, I have seen so many times when relatives, siblings and whatever other relations of the deceased had NOTHING to do with that person, come out of the woodwork and start making demands for money. I will tell you right now, that when my father dies - a day I am not looking forward to but it's the reality of life - I will follow his will to the letter. WHATEVER he wants done with that money is where it's going to go. He has already spoken that there are charities that he wants a portion of it to go to - and certainly, THAT'S where it's going to go if I have anything to do with it, and being the executor, I certainly will have plenty to do with it.
IF he REALLY left out my brothers, then they will not get a dime. I envision a court battle that I want nothing to do with - but - I will have to engage in in order to see my father's wishes fulfilled. That is, of course, presuming I actually outlive my dad. Life is not guaranteed. It's a thing that surfaces in my mind relatively often. I always think about what if I die and my son is left growing up without a father. I have had the security of having parents around even up until now - I am 45 years old and both of my parents are still in good health. I know SO many people whose parents, by the time they reach my age, are dead.
Yep, you can call this an extremely lengthy, drawn-out, rambling post. Don't really care. I've heard from people the statements behind my back about those that I "know" online trashing me because I go on and on. Again, don't really care. What's the point of reading my journal if you don't like it? Must be millions of them out there - go find the people they like and be happy. I really don't much understand this internet trashing s*** anyway. You don't have to endure people like me if you don't LIKE people like me. It's really laughable to me that there are people that expend their energies and time in engaging in useless gossip and trash-talking, especially concerning this blogging business and all the crap that goes on with people hating each other.
In fact, it envelops most of the human race - rich, poor, happy, sad. We get bored? Start thinking about ways to give someone grief - all done behind their back. Nice. What a total waste of life and time. If life has no more value than to spend it trying to make life miserable for someone else, then life isn't worth living. I do write about certain things going on in my life - but it has nothing to do with anyone that read my journals and it has everything to do with these people making life - or attempting to do so anyway - miserable.
A good example would be Mimi. I addressed her about the fact that by now, she has trashed talked me; Caleb; the other boys; the other tenants; my dogs; my house to everyone that has an ear to hear. I literally wrote that, because there is a 99.99999999999 ad-infinitum possibility that that has occured relentless numbers of times. She wrote me a letter back - her tones towards me were GREATLY diminished. That was surprising in itself. She did not say anything about that or a couple of other subjects I brought up to refute her statements she made to me in her second email to me. We are not talking at this point - communication is going through email. I will not tolerate a person trash-talking and yelling at my kid. He is hardly the perfect kid - none of us are perfect - I freely admitted that to her - but he certainly did NOT deserve the treatment she doused him with the other morning.
Onto other ramblings. Whatever his motives in the thing, I give Clinton kudos for going over to North Korea and getting those girls out of there. I'm sure there is far more than any of us know behind the scenes for political motives - but - I respect the man for going into extremely hostile territory and going through the actions it took to get them out of there. THOSE girls, as far as I have read, were nothing but political pawns, their individuals lives were meaningless to the NK's. I was not a fan of Clinton during his presidency - which goes against the flow and I don't care about being politically correct, either, because I see most of political correctedness being totally against God's desires, will and spoken Word concerning what He wants done on this earth. I most certainly held it against Clinton for the extreme lies about "I never had sexual relations with that woman" - when it became fact that she was giving him **** **** in the friggin' White House. It was even more appalling to me that the news media didn't ream him MUCH more than they did. In fact, most of what I saw made it seem like it was a minor infraction. BS. If it were a republican president, they would have roasted him over a fire pit until well done, stripped his flesh and pulled his veins out.
Again, having said that, I applaud Clinton. I personally feel that there had to have been some element of risk for him, a former president - going over to what is obviously enemy territory - for that purpose. Hidden political agendas aside, he could have been blind-sided in that trip and he could be history. I say that lightly - what nation's government is going to publicly kill an ex-president? Thought left there.
Ahhh yes, the Rambling Ben. Lol. I have been watching the dogs all day long after injecting them with the Parvo vaccination. Just want to be sure there are no reactions to the vaccine. I worry about my dogs, freely admitted - at least on occasion. Parvo is a big-time problem in this area - but I have not been taking my dogs anywhere where other dogs are. I take them here and there on short walks. I think that for $30, it's a good investment into my dog's longevity. They also need rabies shots - gotta get them to the clinic - well actually, now that I think about it - forget it. I would have to be there early and I would have to wait maybe for hours and hours. The clinic gives the shots at greatly reduced prices. I could also order the rabies vaccine online - but I'm a little hesitant, for some reason, to give them that kind of stuff without a vet administering it. I only know that going to a regular vet for those shots are VERY expensive and I will do whatever alternative necessary to keep them vaccinated against that disease.
So, on and on and on I go. My thoughts are really what I want to get to. As if this entry hasn't gone on long enough. First, Mimi. The caustic email that she wrote me? It has been eating away. Although I addressed the s*** she wrote me completely, I just don't quite understand a person totally trashing another person's kid - while living in that other person's home. My son didn't hit her; didn't steal from her; - I mean - this issue was QUITE small compared to the real issues of day to day life. I wonder how she would feel if I were to start talking about her son like that? Yes, that thing has really bothered me. We aren't talking and I don't WANT to talk to her - yelling at a juvenile for talking in low tones in the middle of the night? While she leaves her bedroom door open for whatever amounts of that noise to come in? Leave it to whatever reader may happen to make it this far.
I guess there really isn't much secondary. The situation at work has me thinking - but I have let the worrying go. It is what it is and will turn in to whatever it will turn into. I am glad to be employed, hope I stay that way and I can only deal with that one day at a time. I had thought it dangerous to take vacation time - but - I'm taking it anyway. So have a lot of other people in my company, which kinda gave me a little padding for comfort to think I can take 3 days off of work and come back - to still be employed.
Other thoughts are this drip system - it's not a concern or worry - just something I would like to get done. My brothers. I can't stand the situation with my family. Treating your parents the way they do without any reasonable cause is just - a crock of s***. I gave up trying to have a relationship with them long ago - I'm on their s*** list as well because of my religious beliefs, that mostly align with my dad's.
Finances always up there on that list.
Done.
On the eve of a hopefully nice, fun day tomorrow at this new waterpark. But that's tomorrow.
Yesterday, I looked at some pork - stuff - like steaks, sort of - but full of fat. Yuck. It was cheap, but I don't want to eat this kind of thing. I put the stuff into a very large frying pan and cooked it on very low for a couple of hours. I figured to cook the fat out of it - and if I couldn't, the dogs would be eating well (definitely NOT a fan of pork fat, chicken fat and most beef fats - some good steaks such as Porterhouse has VERY tasty fat, a thing I indulge in very rarely).
Well, the pork became very tender and fell off the bones with a fork, the fat has almost disappeared into grease. There was only a few small strips of fat left which I removed. Drain the grease, pull out the fat, remove the bones. Only problem left? I only had a 1/3rd of a bottle of BBQ sauce left - I wanted to turn it into something that would taste good on a sandwich. Well, I decided to dump that in there and see what happens.
I was amazed. The small amount of BBQ sauce coupled with the spices I had dumped on the meat was a very tasty combination indeed. I figured to tell the boys that it was stuff they wouldn't like and don't bother trying it - I use that ploy at times to try and keep them out of the stuff. Well, Michael just found it and ate a several sandwiches worth. If you haven't read my other post about Michael - he is allowed to visit, he just isn't living here anymore. I think it a much better setup and he's not here everyday. I don't hate Michael, I just feel that he needs to spend time at home and get a taste of what that's like and get a little more understanding, over an extended period of time, of just what my offerings to him in terms of food always available; electricity always on; water always running; cooling; quiet place to sleep; privacy are worth.
They are worth much more than he has given it credit for - basically just taking it for granted. I take nothing for granted. I work my @$$ off for the money I do get - and put up with tenants for the rest of it. Working is great - tenants? Yeah, well that depends on the particular tenant and their disposition and lifestyle.
Anyway, I got an update on their family today. The police were over there this week - Anthony and their father were in a fight that ended up with neighbors calling the police. Anthony HATES his dad. His dad is a very hostile, violent and violent tempered "man". He goes into fits of rage at the drop of a hat - and has beaten on his girfriend - the kid's mother - forever apparently since they've been together some 17 years. Anthony - has the same temperament as his father. Get 2 hotheads living together that don't like each other - look out. So - this is the beginning of their occupancy of yet another house. The police have now identified where they are living and I'm quite sure more trouble will follow.
J.D. - the black kid that's over here a lot - and no, I'm not racist - told me yesterday that the situation with their household, Michael's family that is - has not changed. The kids fight over the TV; electricity is sometimes on, sometimes not; too many people with short fuses getting into arguments; sleeping is next to impossible. They let the satellite bill go too long - no satellite. I was amazed that Michael even admitted that their bank account is overdrawn and they are in hot water with the bank as well. Well, I imagine lots of Americans may be in or near that particular situation right now - but this family is ALWAYS in these predicaments.
I almost feel sorry for Michael - but really - he brought this upon himself. I was getting sick of his attitude. Again, a dose of reality - a continued dose of reality over a good period of time - should give him a new appreciation of my house and it's offerings. And that's where it's going to be left for now.
Since my readership on my blogs is down to basically nothing, I don't mind "rambling" on and on - it's just me, writing out my thoughts. For those that don't know me - I type rather fast and these long entries don't take that long to type out. At least in terms of the actual typing - my thoughts tend to wander off into different realms and I stop writing while thinking about things - and then start back up again. I am thinking of just doing all of my writing on here and leaving KCL alone for a while - that site is a popularity contest - that's really all I see it as. It isn't really that much like JS was in those terms. I don't write for popularity, I write because I love the release and I love the ability to come back and see what I was doing at any particular point in time. My writings - because I tend to be thorough - have helped me countless times on court cases and in fact-finding missions. I only wish that JS was still there so that all of those writings were still there as well. For me - and me alone - there is a wealth of my history there that - when I used to be able to go back and read it - astonished me on certain sectors of my life in periods of want (extreme lack of finances).
I remember rather well the extended period of living without a hot water heater or a washer and dryer. Living in these hellish temps with nothing more than a swamp cooler and a couple of window AC units that really didn't keep it cool in there. Feeling like I was living in a s***hole, but not really ever admitting it to anyone. When I got more of the work done in that house, I started to get comfortable with it, but it was an ever-so-drawn-out process because of lack of funds. The point here is that I had ALL of that written out - and surely, a much clearer picture emerges when you can go back and read about it.
But - during those periods - I never thought about self-pity and how miserable life was. Life is not about money - if it were, I would have killed myself a long time ago. I've had precious little of it in my lifetime and it doesn't stick around long when I do get it. It kinda makes me fear the future - growing old and still being poor and not being able to take care of my own needs without help is hardly an appealing thought. Or working until my grave - not a great prospect either.
Speaking of that, out of the blue, my dad sent me an email yesterday about my being the executor of his estate. I didn't know he had actually DONE that with his legal counsel, but, indeed, he has. He told me that my brothers - when they were still talking to him - informed him they didn't wany ANYTHING of his when he dies. I would consider that a slap in the face, as if your life and your belongings are worthless junk. He does not, from what I read in his email, have them in his will. I found that almost shocking. Wow!!! But then again, if your kids disowned you and wouldn't even talk to you, would you not be tempted to do the same thing?
And yet, I have seen so many times when relatives, siblings and whatever other relations of the deceased had NOTHING to do with that person, come out of the woodwork and start making demands for money. I will tell you right now, that when my father dies - a day I am not looking forward to but it's the reality of life - I will follow his will to the letter. WHATEVER he wants done with that money is where it's going to go. He has already spoken that there are charities that he wants a portion of it to go to - and certainly, THAT'S where it's going to go if I have anything to do with it, and being the executor, I certainly will have plenty to do with it.
IF he REALLY left out my brothers, then they will not get a dime. I envision a court battle that I want nothing to do with - but - I will have to engage in in order to see my father's wishes fulfilled. That is, of course, presuming I actually outlive my dad. Life is not guaranteed. It's a thing that surfaces in my mind relatively often. I always think about what if I die and my son is left growing up without a father. I have had the security of having parents around even up until now - I am 45 years old and both of my parents are still in good health. I know SO many people whose parents, by the time they reach my age, are dead.
Yep, you can call this an extremely lengthy, drawn-out, rambling post. Don't really care. I've heard from people the statements behind my back about those that I "know" online trashing me because I go on and on. Again, don't really care. What's the point of reading my journal if you don't like it? Must be millions of them out there - go find the people they like and be happy. I really don't much understand this internet trashing s*** anyway. You don't have to endure people like me if you don't LIKE people like me. It's really laughable to me that there are people that expend their energies and time in engaging in useless gossip and trash-talking, especially concerning this blogging business and all the crap that goes on with people hating each other.
In fact, it envelops most of the human race - rich, poor, happy, sad. We get bored? Start thinking about ways to give someone grief - all done behind their back. Nice. What a total waste of life and time. If life has no more value than to spend it trying to make life miserable for someone else, then life isn't worth living. I do write about certain things going on in my life - but it has nothing to do with anyone that read my journals and it has everything to do with these people making life - or attempting to do so anyway - miserable.
A good example would be Mimi. I addressed her about the fact that by now, she has trashed talked me; Caleb; the other boys; the other tenants; my dogs; my house to everyone that has an ear to hear. I literally wrote that, because there is a 99.99999999999 ad-infinitum possibility that that has occured relentless numbers of times. She wrote me a letter back - her tones towards me were GREATLY diminished. That was surprising in itself. She did not say anything about that or a couple of other subjects I brought up to refute her statements she made to me in her second email to me. We are not talking at this point - communication is going through email. I will not tolerate a person trash-talking and yelling at my kid. He is hardly the perfect kid - none of us are perfect - I freely admitted that to her - but he certainly did NOT deserve the treatment she doused him with the other morning.
Onto other ramblings. Whatever his motives in the thing, I give Clinton kudos for going over to North Korea and getting those girls out of there. I'm sure there is far more than any of us know behind the scenes for political motives - but - I respect the man for going into extremely hostile territory and going through the actions it took to get them out of there. THOSE girls, as far as I have read, were nothing but political pawns, their individuals lives were meaningless to the NK's. I was not a fan of Clinton during his presidency - which goes against the flow and I don't care about being politically correct, either, because I see most of political correctedness being totally against God's desires, will and spoken Word concerning what He wants done on this earth. I most certainly held it against Clinton for the extreme lies about "I never had sexual relations with that woman" - when it became fact that she was giving him **** **** in the friggin' White House. It was even more appalling to me that the news media didn't ream him MUCH more than they did. In fact, most of what I saw made it seem like it was a minor infraction. BS. If it were a republican president, they would have roasted him over a fire pit until well done, stripped his flesh and pulled his veins out.
Again, having said that, I applaud Clinton. I personally feel that there had to have been some element of risk for him, a former president - going over to what is obviously enemy territory - for that purpose. Hidden political agendas aside, he could have been blind-sided in that trip and he could be history. I say that lightly - what nation's government is going to publicly kill an ex-president? Thought left there.
Ahhh yes, the Rambling Ben. Lol. I have been watching the dogs all day long after injecting them with the Parvo vaccination. Just want to be sure there are no reactions to the vaccine. I worry about my dogs, freely admitted - at least on occasion. Parvo is a big-time problem in this area - but I have not been taking my dogs anywhere where other dogs are. I take them here and there on short walks. I think that for $30, it's a good investment into my dog's longevity. They also need rabies shots - gotta get them to the clinic - well actually, now that I think about it - forget it. I would have to be there early and I would have to wait maybe for hours and hours. The clinic gives the shots at greatly reduced prices. I could also order the rabies vaccine online - but I'm a little hesitant, for some reason, to give them that kind of stuff without a vet administering it. I only know that going to a regular vet for those shots are VERY expensive and I will do whatever alternative necessary to keep them vaccinated against that disease.
So, on and on and on I go. My thoughts are really what I want to get to. As if this entry hasn't gone on long enough. First, Mimi. The caustic email that she wrote me? It has been eating away. Although I addressed the s*** she wrote me completely, I just don't quite understand a person totally trashing another person's kid - while living in that other person's home. My son didn't hit her; didn't steal from her; - I mean - this issue was QUITE small compared to the real issues of day to day life. I wonder how she would feel if I were to start talking about her son like that? Yes, that thing has really bothered me. We aren't talking and I don't WANT to talk to her - yelling at a juvenile for talking in low tones in the middle of the night? While she leaves her bedroom door open for whatever amounts of that noise to come in? Leave it to whatever reader may happen to make it this far.
I guess there really isn't much secondary. The situation at work has me thinking - but I have let the worrying go. It is what it is and will turn in to whatever it will turn into. I am glad to be employed, hope I stay that way and I can only deal with that one day at a time. I had thought it dangerous to take vacation time - but - I'm taking it anyway. So have a lot of other people in my company, which kinda gave me a little padding for comfort to think I can take 3 days off of work and come back - to still be employed.
Other thoughts are this drip system - it's not a concern or worry - just something I would like to get done. My brothers. I can't stand the situation with my family. Treating your parents the way they do without any reasonable cause is just - a crock of s***. I gave up trying to have a relationship with them long ago - I'm on their s*** list as well because of my religious beliefs, that mostly align with my dad's.
Finances always up there on that list.
Done.
Thursday - More
Well I already wrote an entry on my KCL journal - have to go there to see it. Anyway, today marked the beginning of 5 days off. Hootin' hooooooo! Numerous things were accomplished already - I am not going on vacation for these off days, I'm just taking a break from work - like many others in our company are doing right now.
I went to Fry's and bought 3 parvo shots for the dogs - they call them 7 in 1 shots. I don't know what the rest of it is - I think there's something in there for the flu and other junk that I have no clue what it is or what it does. Mixed all 3 doses up, injected them into the dogs. Hadn't done that in a while - none of them made a fuss about it. The price was right, too - at $9.99 per shot, that was cheaper than Walgreens and, I found out, Walmart doesn't sell those shots anymore, at least not at the one I go to.
And yes, I visited Walmart. I don't seem to be able to go into a Walmart without ending up with some kind of problem or trouble. Today was no exception. I was taking my sweet old time looking for a cheap pair of swim trunks, a cheap white T-shirt and some sunblock lotion for our visit to the waterpark tomorrow. Found a Nascar t-shirt for a buck (I'm not necessarily a Nascar fan per se, I like to watch it once in a while - it was just the only t-shirt they had that didn't have something totally tacky written on it for that price), got a pair of swim trunks for 8 bucks and then sunscreen which is - another 8 bucks. It took me quite a while to decide on a pair of swim trunks cause' I wanted a pair that has the little - very little - pocket on the inside. You rent a locker at the place and stick the key in there. I have never lost a key in that kind of setup. It might look a bit - risque in pulling your trunks away from your body in order to get at that key - but I don't care.
So, I go to self-checkout - the full-service registers were filled with people and I only had a few items. I check out - and wait for the printer to print my receipt. I could hear it making noise, but nothing came out. I have had this problem at self-checkout at Fry's before - but they can just print out another one at the main desk sitting right there. NOT so at Walmart. I want a receipt - Walmart is fussy about giving money back without receipts and if my trunks split open or something tomorrow, I want to be able to get my money back.
I notify the attendant of the problem. She can't even print a freakin' receipt. Just appalling. She had to get on the radio and call the front end manager. Freakin' manager was CLEAR at the other end of the lane of registers - about 100 feet away. I watch this lady. She is stopped half a dozen times before even getting close to where we're at. She then goes into another register, puts money into and finally gets to us. I was not particularly happy about having to wait for a receipt, but I kept a smile on my face and just tried to patiently wait.
This woman opens up the entire unit and starts pulling a BUNCH of receipts that had bunched up inside of it. Apparently people don't want their receipts. I ALWAYS get a receipt for everything except maybe at a convenience store buying a bag of ice or something. She's looking for my receipt and can't find it. Claims it didn't print and that I would have to go to customer service to get a receipt. Now this is verging on the edge of outrageous, I'm not asking for frickin' refund, I just want a RECEIPT for something I already PAID for.
I follow this woman to the customer service desk. She approaches a lady working behind the desk and tells her to look up the receipts at register 48 and print mine out. I was still trying to be amenable. We're talking over 10 minutes now, however, to get a bloomin' receipt. I stand there and this lady gets on the phone with someone. She is standing there for several minutes - talking to whoever. There's another lady behind the counter that is doing NOTHING. Why can't THAT lady take care of this? "Excuse me, I have been waiting over FIFTEEN minutes now for a RECEIPT, please get me my receipt NOW, thank you". The woman that wasn't doing anything started mouthing off to me. As the young girl that was waiting on us at Joe's Crab Shack last weekend, this one was young and ready to pounce with a foul, vitriolic demeanor.
I immediately asked for the general manager of the store. The girl gets a vicious look on her face, which only caused me to demand the manager again. A man shows up a few minutes later. I address him about the fact that I'm now well over 15 minutes into waiting for a RECEIPT for the purchases I had made, and then point at the girl and give a short accounting of her demeanor towards me.
The other lady on the phone suddenly gets off the phone as soon as that guy shows up. You can read into that whatever you please. The manager tells her to print up the receipt, JUST as the "lessor" manager had told her to do going on 5 minutes before this. Now this lady informs me it is going to take up to 10 MORE minutes to find my receipt in their system because the computer has to go through all of them to find mine - mine being found by giving her the last 4 digits of the debit card I used to pay for it.
Now I'm starting to fume. This lady made me wait for her phone call and then, have to wait even longer, after already waiting at the self-checkout? The manager comes back to find out what the wait's for. She finally finds it in the system, and then it prints. Well, on top of all this, the manager has to go into a locked room to get the receipt!!
If I were reading this about someone else, I'm sure I would be laughing about it. I'm already over it - as I have just scored a $25 gift card from Walmart for the ordeal. Yes, I called the district manager, her assistant answered, I told the story from front to end, she immediately said that was outrageous, unnaceptable and that she was issuing me a $25 gift card and would be sent out in the morning.
That just paid for all the stuff I just bought at Walmart. I have frequent endings like this - but for the record, I don't go into a store, looking for trouble so I can get freebies. It just happens that way sometimes - I'm just not the kind of person to let stuff like this go. Not when I know if I'm persistent, I can get something out of it. I was never rude with anyone. When the little girl mouthed off to me, I didn't address her directly about it rudeness, I immediately asked for management.
I also went to Great Clips. The lady the cut my hair wasn't talking to me at all. She was of a particular "persuasion" that - well I could feel "it" in the air. I broke all of that tension up. I can always chat with the ladies - even this "kind". I brought out all kinds of subjects, but finally got her going on one. The water park tomorrow. This woman went into all kinds of stuff - particularly her visit to Universal Studios and the Tower of Terror ride. She HATED it. Click - I HATED that ride, too! I'll never forget seeing the pic they take - and try to sell to you for some unbelievably high price - of the entire group of people. I was crouched down, white as a ghost, looked like death warmed over.
She had had the same experience. Then I got into a discussion about the new waterpark we intend on visiting tomorrow. I said that I had waited a while to visit it - I figure a new park like that needs - a lot of guinea pigs - to go through there and make sure the bugs are worked out before I will get my self in there. If someone's gonna die - get maimed - whatever - well, I don't want it to be me. Let them get the bugs fixed and have the place open for a while.
This got her going all over again. That set something off in her that she had never thought about before. Something that could potentially kill you - let the place be open for a while and make sure that there ain't a blip in the evening news: 25 people died today on the wet n wild wild coaster ride as the entire structure collapsed and hundreds of people fell over 75 feet to the ground, several of them getting crushed in the process - you know, something like THAT. Unintentionally, I set a fear in her that she was talking about until I left! Lol.
So, yeah, I feel good about today. I had another inquiry to one of the rooms - this one unacceptable. An 18 year old girl with a 2 year old baby. Don't get all riled up with me - I'm old school. 16 year olds should not be getting themselves impregnated. It's widely accepted in this nation - at least nowadays - for kids to have sex. To the point that condoms are handed out at schools. I have a VERY different view of that - I am totally opposed to kids having sex, and certainly schools should not be encouraging such s*** by handing out condoms or even giving free freakin' abortions WITHOUT parent consent? Unbelievable. I think they might have changed THAT one - I hope they did. They bring in different sexual orientations to give a SHOW of how to engage in such things - this is too much for me. Freakin' take a cold shower, masturbate (not the greatest answer, but better than the first choice), do something but having sex at that age - and obviously with this person - unprotected sex - I just am not in agreement with it - you can give me all the logic why I should see it differently and I won't budge, so don't bother. Call me a religious fanatic - call me what you will - I don't care. Certain issues in this world are NOT grey to me - very black and white from my perspective.
This is enough. I have other things to get done.
later
ben
I went to Fry's and bought 3 parvo shots for the dogs - they call them 7 in 1 shots. I don't know what the rest of it is - I think there's something in there for the flu and other junk that I have no clue what it is or what it does. Mixed all 3 doses up, injected them into the dogs. Hadn't done that in a while - none of them made a fuss about it. The price was right, too - at $9.99 per shot, that was cheaper than Walgreens and, I found out, Walmart doesn't sell those shots anymore, at least not at the one I go to.
And yes, I visited Walmart. I don't seem to be able to go into a Walmart without ending up with some kind of problem or trouble. Today was no exception. I was taking my sweet old time looking for a cheap pair of swim trunks, a cheap white T-shirt and some sunblock lotion for our visit to the waterpark tomorrow. Found a Nascar t-shirt for a buck (I'm not necessarily a Nascar fan per se, I like to watch it once in a while - it was just the only t-shirt they had that didn't have something totally tacky written on it for that price), got a pair of swim trunks for 8 bucks and then sunscreen which is - another 8 bucks. It took me quite a while to decide on a pair of swim trunks cause' I wanted a pair that has the little - very little - pocket on the inside. You rent a locker at the place and stick the key in there. I have never lost a key in that kind of setup. It might look a bit - risque in pulling your trunks away from your body in order to get at that key - but I don't care.
So, I go to self-checkout - the full-service registers were filled with people and I only had a few items. I check out - and wait for the printer to print my receipt. I could hear it making noise, but nothing came out. I have had this problem at self-checkout at Fry's before - but they can just print out another one at the main desk sitting right there. NOT so at Walmart. I want a receipt - Walmart is fussy about giving money back without receipts and if my trunks split open or something tomorrow, I want to be able to get my money back.
I notify the attendant of the problem. She can't even print a freakin' receipt. Just appalling. She had to get on the radio and call the front end manager. Freakin' manager was CLEAR at the other end of the lane of registers - about 100 feet away. I watch this lady. She is stopped half a dozen times before even getting close to where we're at. She then goes into another register, puts money into and finally gets to us. I was not particularly happy about having to wait for a receipt, but I kept a smile on my face and just tried to patiently wait.
This woman opens up the entire unit and starts pulling a BUNCH of receipts that had bunched up inside of it. Apparently people don't want their receipts. I ALWAYS get a receipt for everything except maybe at a convenience store buying a bag of ice or something. She's looking for my receipt and can't find it. Claims it didn't print and that I would have to go to customer service to get a receipt. Now this is verging on the edge of outrageous, I'm not asking for frickin' refund, I just want a RECEIPT for something I already PAID for.
I follow this woman to the customer service desk. She approaches a lady working behind the desk and tells her to look up the receipts at register 48 and print mine out. I was still trying to be amenable. We're talking over 10 minutes now, however, to get a bloomin' receipt. I stand there and this lady gets on the phone with someone. She is standing there for several minutes - talking to whoever. There's another lady behind the counter that is doing NOTHING. Why can't THAT lady take care of this? "Excuse me, I have been waiting over FIFTEEN minutes now for a RECEIPT, please get me my receipt NOW, thank you". The woman that wasn't doing anything started mouthing off to me. As the young girl that was waiting on us at Joe's Crab Shack last weekend, this one was young and ready to pounce with a foul, vitriolic demeanor.
I immediately asked for the general manager of the store. The girl gets a vicious look on her face, which only caused me to demand the manager again. A man shows up a few minutes later. I address him about the fact that I'm now well over 15 minutes into waiting for a RECEIPT for the purchases I had made, and then point at the girl and give a short accounting of her demeanor towards me.
The other lady on the phone suddenly gets off the phone as soon as that guy shows up. You can read into that whatever you please. The manager tells her to print up the receipt, JUST as the "lessor" manager had told her to do going on 5 minutes before this. Now this lady informs me it is going to take up to 10 MORE minutes to find my receipt in their system because the computer has to go through all of them to find mine - mine being found by giving her the last 4 digits of the debit card I used to pay for it.
Now I'm starting to fume. This lady made me wait for her phone call and then, have to wait even longer, after already waiting at the self-checkout? The manager comes back to find out what the wait's for. She finally finds it in the system, and then it prints. Well, on top of all this, the manager has to go into a locked room to get the receipt!!
If I were reading this about someone else, I'm sure I would be laughing about it. I'm already over it - as I have just scored a $25 gift card from Walmart for the ordeal. Yes, I called the district manager, her assistant answered, I told the story from front to end, she immediately said that was outrageous, unnaceptable and that she was issuing me a $25 gift card and would be sent out in the morning.
That just paid for all the stuff I just bought at Walmart. I have frequent endings like this - but for the record, I don't go into a store, looking for trouble so I can get freebies. It just happens that way sometimes - I'm just not the kind of person to let stuff like this go. Not when I know if I'm persistent, I can get something out of it. I was never rude with anyone. When the little girl mouthed off to me, I didn't address her directly about it rudeness, I immediately asked for management.
I also went to Great Clips. The lady the cut my hair wasn't talking to me at all. She was of a particular "persuasion" that - well I could feel "it" in the air. I broke all of that tension up. I can always chat with the ladies - even this "kind". I brought out all kinds of subjects, but finally got her going on one. The water park tomorrow. This woman went into all kinds of stuff - particularly her visit to Universal Studios and the Tower of Terror ride. She HATED it. Click - I HATED that ride, too! I'll never forget seeing the pic they take - and try to sell to you for some unbelievably high price - of the entire group of people. I was crouched down, white as a ghost, looked like death warmed over.
She had had the same experience. Then I got into a discussion about the new waterpark we intend on visiting tomorrow. I said that I had waited a while to visit it - I figure a new park like that needs - a lot of guinea pigs - to go through there and make sure the bugs are worked out before I will get my self in there. If someone's gonna die - get maimed - whatever - well, I don't want it to be me. Let them get the bugs fixed and have the place open for a while.
This got her going all over again. That set something off in her that she had never thought about before. Something that could potentially kill you - let the place be open for a while and make sure that there ain't a blip in the evening news: 25 people died today on the wet n wild wild coaster ride as the entire structure collapsed and hundreds of people fell over 75 feet to the ground, several of them getting crushed in the process - you know, something like THAT. Unintentionally, I set a fear in her that she was talking about until I left! Lol.
So, yeah, I feel good about today. I had another inquiry to one of the rooms - this one unacceptable. An 18 year old girl with a 2 year old baby. Don't get all riled up with me - I'm old school. 16 year olds should not be getting themselves impregnated. It's widely accepted in this nation - at least nowadays - for kids to have sex. To the point that condoms are handed out at schools. I have a VERY different view of that - I am totally opposed to kids having sex, and certainly schools should not be encouraging such s*** by handing out condoms or even giving free freakin' abortions WITHOUT parent consent? Unbelievable. I think they might have changed THAT one - I hope they did. They bring in different sexual orientations to give a SHOW of how to engage in such things - this is too much for me. Freakin' take a cold shower, masturbate (not the greatest answer, but better than the first choice), do something but having sex at that age - and obviously with this person - unprotected sex - I just am not in agreement with it - you can give me all the logic why I should see it differently and I won't budge, so don't bother. Call me a religious fanatic - call me what you will - I don't care. Certain issues in this world are NOT grey to me - very black and white from my perspective.
This is enough. I have other things to get done.
later
ben
Monday, August 3, 2009
Monday/Day 3
Well, I already wrote about last night's adventure - an all-night adventure at that - on my KCL blog. In short, I was called out last night at about 9:15 pm to go on an emergency run for pipe. The pipe was in Tucson, the jobsite in Chandler. The issue? A large sewer main pipe had ruptured to the point they decided they were going to have to bypass a huge section of it - almost 1,000 feet - with temporary pipe (though the pipe I took them would last 100 years if not longer) until they could address the problem.
So - naturally - I am quite tired today. I'm feeling it now - I just went outside and watered the entire property's worth of plants. I had no choice in doing that - it wasn't that bad but now I feel REALLY tired. Oh, and the loan mod went through - not what I wanted but better than nothing - I also wrote about that on the KCL blog.
Anyway, I'm going to force myself to stay awake until at least 8:00pm and then I'm going to go to bed early and hope by tomorrow morning I will feel normal again (though, it usually takes days after an all-night driving stint for me to get back to normal status, really).
The company that bought the pipe to fix it for the city - basically bought without even asking the price as far as I know. They took the deal with number sight-unseen. A weekend AND an overnight stint will cost them even more - we put surcharges on any after-hours emergencies.
Now that I know I got some kind of loan mod, that's one thing behind me - sort of. It really has only just begun - but the point is it IS going to move along now. I am still waiting to hear about the work issue - which to my knowledge has not been addressed yet.
No, neither of the tenants has addressed me on why they haven't paid the rent yet or even offered an explanation of why they haven't. Tomorrow I will be issuing "friendly" notices when I get home from work if it goes on that long. It won't be an eviction notice - but it will be JUST short of one. More like a friendly reminder along with the statement of late fees and will include a short statement about if there a problem paying the rent on time - which apparently there is - please come forth and let's discuss the options, thanks.
Certainly, I would like to think I can have a little leniency for those that normally pay the rent on time. Just I want to KNOW - WHEN - they ARE going to be able to pay it, really that's it.
Anyway, that's it for this blog for the day - too tired to go on with anything else.
Have a great evening!
ben
So - naturally - I am quite tired today. I'm feeling it now - I just went outside and watered the entire property's worth of plants. I had no choice in doing that - it wasn't that bad but now I feel REALLY tired. Oh, and the loan mod went through - not what I wanted but better than nothing - I also wrote about that on the KCL blog.
Anyway, I'm going to force myself to stay awake until at least 8:00pm and then I'm going to go to bed early and hope by tomorrow morning I will feel normal again (though, it usually takes days after an all-night driving stint for me to get back to normal status, really).
The company that bought the pipe to fix it for the city - basically bought without even asking the price as far as I know. They took the deal with number sight-unseen. A weekend AND an overnight stint will cost them even more - we put surcharges on any after-hours emergencies.
Now that I know I got some kind of loan mod, that's one thing behind me - sort of. It really has only just begun - but the point is it IS going to move along now. I am still waiting to hear about the work issue - which to my knowledge has not been addressed yet.
No, neither of the tenants has addressed me on why they haven't paid the rent yet or even offered an explanation of why they haven't. Tomorrow I will be issuing "friendly" notices when I get home from work if it goes on that long. It won't be an eviction notice - but it will be JUST short of one. More like a friendly reminder along with the statement of late fees and will include a short statement about if there a problem paying the rent on time - which apparently there is - please come forth and let's discuss the options, thanks.
Certainly, I would like to think I can have a little leniency for those that normally pay the rent on time. Just I want to KNOW - WHEN - they ARE going to be able to pay it, really that's it.
Anyway, that's it for this blog for the day - too tired to go on with anything else.
Have a great evening!
ben
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Day 2
About the end of the second day after the rent is due and there is nothing presented from the person that owes it - I start to get a bit annoyed. I find it disrespectful that a person living in another person's house - that knows the rent is due - says nothing about paying the rent.
I hardly believe they have somehow forgotten about it. Ask many people what the first of the month means - bill paying day or days. The fact that it's 2 people that owe me a total of $575 just ups the agitation level. However, I pretty much always give 3 days before - on the 4th day - I start writing notices. Note that after the 1st of the month, even on the second day, I can legally give out a 5-day notice.
My printer is broken anyway, and it's non-repairable. Somebody dropped the thing off the side of the computer desk and it's trashed. I have to write up notices at work now - though I am looking for a good used printer, figure I'll eventually find my deal on Craigslist.
I have spent the day - doing a good deal of cleaning, yes, but also just relaxing, perusing the internet, reading news, watching a little TV (mark that as very little as I couldn't find much on that I was even remotely interested in - though the discovery channel and the military channel are usually good bets for me to find something stimulating to watch versus the daily barrage of garbage that is all over the stations).
I have a 4 day work week and then I'm off for 4 days, plus I turned in my request for 3 days off after Labor Day - if I get it, would mean 6 full days off, go back to work for 1 and then another 2 off. If I don't get it, well - I'll just have to try another request for another date.
Tomorrow - a bit apprehensive. I will be awaiting whatever word comes from management about certain situations and I should find out about the loan mod.
I have nothing more as I am done with posting here for the day.
Have a great week!
ben
I hardly believe they have somehow forgotten about it. Ask many people what the first of the month means - bill paying day or days. The fact that it's 2 people that owe me a total of $575 just ups the agitation level. However, I pretty much always give 3 days before - on the 4th day - I start writing notices. Note that after the 1st of the month, even on the second day, I can legally give out a 5-day notice.
My printer is broken anyway, and it's non-repairable. Somebody dropped the thing off the side of the computer desk and it's trashed. I have to write up notices at work now - though I am looking for a good used printer, figure I'll eventually find my deal on Craigslist.
I have spent the day - doing a good deal of cleaning, yes, but also just relaxing, perusing the internet, reading news, watching a little TV (mark that as very little as I couldn't find much on that I was even remotely interested in - though the discovery channel and the military channel are usually good bets for me to find something stimulating to watch versus the daily barrage of garbage that is all over the stations).
I have a 4 day work week and then I'm off for 4 days, plus I turned in my request for 3 days off after Labor Day - if I get it, would mean 6 full days off, go back to work for 1 and then another 2 off. If I don't get it, well - I'll just have to try another request for another date.
Tomorrow - a bit apprehensive. I will be awaiting whatever word comes from management about certain situations and I should find out about the loan mod.
I have nothing more as I am done with posting here for the day.
Have a great week!
ben
Haggling In The Recession
Are you paying the ticket/listed price for retail store bought goods?
Why? We're in a recession - companies are as anxious to make any kind of profit versus none at all.
Haggling is a learned art. It is probably not something that comes naturally to most of us, especially in America. We go to a store, see the listed price - we pay it.
The higher the cost something is, the better than chance you can get the price brought down on it. But - it certainly isn't limited to large-ticket items.
My visit to Home Depot last week proved that. They had a stick of copper pipe I needed for this project I am doing. For whatever reason, 2 feet of it had been cut off. They don't sell it like that, so it was odd that they had it in stock. It was the last stick of pipe in the gauge there. I wanted that pipe, but there is no way I was going to pay full retail.
The man that approached me asking if I wanted help - couldn't help me. He offered 10% off - apparently that's the most store employees can go, citing store policy. Nice - so please get me a manager. I was not being rude, but only cutting the cost 10% was not sufficient for me. I know I already told this story to regular readers, I have been writing up stuff for those that are googling and such.
It just so happened that the general manager of the store was walking by when I made the manager request. It also turns out that he was the only person in the store authorized to make such a deal. The guy approaches the manager, tells him what I had requested, manager approaches me. How can I help you?
Well, I said, I need this stick of pipe. It has 2 feet missing and it's the last stick of that particular pipe in that length that you have. I was offered 10% off, but I figured that per foot, 10% off would STILL be higher priced than normal price when considering buying the pipe by the foot.
The manager asked me how much I wanted to pay for it. I asked him how much he wanted for it - we went back and forth several times and I finally offered $10.00 for it - the list price was $15. He said, okay, you gotta deal, but how about I lower the price to $5 and we're good? Yes, sir, we're good and thank you!
I think the problem with many folks is that they are afraid to ask. Or, if you do ask, you get a definitive no from the person you are talking to. Regular employees - probably at most stores - are probably authorized to go only so far with a discount offer, anything greater you must speak to management. So - if the deal isn't good enough, just ask for management! It isn't sinful or taboo - that's what management's there for. You'll have to get over your fear of rejection. If the manager can't or won't accomodate you - there are always other stores selling the same thing. Be nice, courteous, respectful - but firm.
I consider myself king for dealing with large corporations that you can only access by dialing an 800 number. I have dealt with a lot of them, and some of them I have dealt with numerous times. I rarely lose in a battle of getting either freebies or greatly reduced from original demands, regardless of what it is. The key is patience. On most adventures of this nature, I resolve myself to having to call back as many times as I have to get to the right person. The right person is the person that will give you the deal you are looking for.
I've had incoming call center employees adamently tell me that the company will not EVER give me any better deal than what that person is telling me. Yet - I have found - there is always someone higher up on the food chain of management that can and probably will negate that statement from that person. I've literally spent days calling the same company over and over and over until I got to the right person and got the deal I was looking for. Direct TV; Qwest Communications; and really, a myriad of other companies as well.
Is it worth that much time spent to try and get something done or get the deal you are looking for? For me, it most definitely is. I cannot afford some of the things that occur in life -such as when Mary took the satellite receiver from the bedroom she was living in. I got one replaced for free, the remote thrown in to boot. I did have to pay shipping and handling - but that's small compared to what I would have had to pay. The was not a fast deal, either, but I eventually got through to the right person. I think that one took 2 days worth of phone calls. Many people are pinching pennies, why not make them go as far as you can?
I have literally endless stories of getting something at a store for less - even in a good economy - or getting a portion of a bill removed or having the entire bill removed completely. It does take a little intestinal fortitude.
Here's another area where people are missing out: getting a meal ticket slashed in half or freebies from wherever when you have experienced miserable customer service. Again, people apparently are afraid to say anything or maybe make themselves look bad. I can't tell you the amount of times in my life I have received free meals or had the bill slashed substantially when I received rotten customer service from a waiter or waitress. You HAVE to ask for a manager in those situations, nothing else will get you the relief you are looking for.
I don't ALWAYS haggle - but usually if I see an opportunity to try, I will definitely give it a shot. I even tried to get Fry's to give me a "recession special" They wrote back and said they don't do stuff like that. Well, it didn't hurt to try. But - Fry's has a policy for scanning errors - the product that scans wrong is free. I've gotten hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from there for free because it scanned wrong. That's why I religiously stand in front of the store after paying for my stuff to see if anything is wrong on there. If I find it, I go straight to customer service - and yes - I get my money refunded AND I get to keep the product! Pretty nice. It's THEIR policy, why not use it? I bet a lot of grocery stores have that kind of policy, and definitely - there are going to be scanning errors at any store at one point or another.
The point is many times there is opportunity - and often times people miss that opportunity.
OH, and it doesn't hurt to arm yourself with info. You're looking for something specific - look all over the place on the internet for pricing before you go to whatever store you are headed to. Sometimes haggling is just a matter of asking, other times haggling is a matter of being an informed consumer that has product knowledge and pricing from various places. Make your case if you have to - again, the worst thing you can get is a little rejection. Doesn't that happen in normal life anyway?
Happy Haggling!
Why? We're in a recession - companies are as anxious to make any kind of profit versus none at all.
Haggling is a learned art. It is probably not something that comes naturally to most of us, especially in America. We go to a store, see the listed price - we pay it.
The higher the cost something is, the better than chance you can get the price brought down on it. But - it certainly isn't limited to large-ticket items.
My visit to Home Depot last week proved that. They had a stick of copper pipe I needed for this project I am doing. For whatever reason, 2 feet of it had been cut off. They don't sell it like that, so it was odd that they had it in stock. It was the last stick of pipe in the gauge there. I wanted that pipe, but there is no way I was going to pay full retail.
The man that approached me asking if I wanted help - couldn't help me. He offered 10% off - apparently that's the most store employees can go, citing store policy. Nice - so please get me a manager. I was not being rude, but only cutting the cost 10% was not sufficient for me. I know I already told this story to regular readers, I have been writing up stuff for those that are googling and such.
It just so happened that the general manager of the store was walking by when I made the manager request. It also turns out that he was the only person in the store authorized to make such a deal. The guy approaches the manager, tells him what I had requested, manager approaches me. How can I help you?
Well, I said, I need this stick of pipe. It has 2 feet missing and it's the last stick of that particular pipe in that length that you have. I was offered 10% off, but I figured that per foot, 10% off would STILL be higher priced than normal price when considering buying the pipe by the foot.
The manager asked me how much I wanted to pay for it. I asked him how much he wanted for it - we went back and forth several times and I finally offered $10.00 for it - the list price was $15. He said, okay, you gotta deal, but how about I lower the price to $5 and we're good? Yes, sir, we're good and thank you!
I think the problem with many folks is that they are afraid to ask. Or, if you do ask, you get a definitive no from the person you are talking to. Regular employees - probably at most stores - are probably authorized to go only so far with a discount offer, anything greater you must speak to management. So - if the deal isn't good enough, just ask for management! It isn't sinful or taboo - that's what management's there for. You'll have to get over your fear of rejection. If the manager can't or won't accomodate you - there are always other stores selling the same thing. Be nice, courteous, respectful - but firm.
I consider myself king for dealing with large corporations that you can only access by dialing an 800 number. I have dealt with a lot of them, and some of them I have dealt with numerous times. I rarely lose in a battle of getting either freebies or greatly reduced from original demands, regardless of what it is. The key is patience. On most adventures of this nature, I resolve myself to having to call back as many times as I have to get to the right person. The right person is the person that will give you the deal you are looking for.
I've had incoming call center employees adamently tell me that the company will not EVER give me any better deal than what that person is telling me. Yet - I have found - there is always someone higher up on the food chain of management that can and probably will negate that statement from that person. I've literally spent days calling the same company over and over and over until I got to the right person and got the deal I was looking for. Direct TV; Qwest Communications; and really, a myriad of other companies as well.
Is it worth that much time spent to try and get something done or get the deal you are looking for? For me, it most definitely is. I cannot afford some of the things that occur in life -such as when Mary took the satellite receiver from the bedroom she was living in. I got one replaced for free, the remote thrown in to boot. I did have to pay shipping and handling - but that's small compared to what I would have had to pay. The was not a fast deal, either, but I eventually got through to the right person. I think that one took 2 days worth of phone calls. Many people are pinching pennies, why not make them go as far as you can?
I have literally endless stories of getting something at a store for less - even in a good economy - or getting a portion of a bill removed or having the entire bill removed completely. It does take a little intestinal fortitude.
Here's another area where people are missing out: getting a meal ticket slashed in half or freebies from wherever when you have experienced miserable customer service. Again, people apparently are afraid to say anything or maybe make themselves look bad. I can't tell you the amount of times in my life I have received free meals or had the bill slashed substantially when I received rotten customer service from a waiter or waitress. You HAVE to ask for a manager in those situations, nothing else will get you the relief you are looking for.
I don't ALWAYS haggle - but usually if I see an opportunity to try, I will definitely give it a shot. I even tried to get Fry's to give me a "recession special" They wrote back and said they don't do stuff like that. Well, it didn't hurt to try. But - Fry's has a policy for scanning errors - the product that scans wrong is free. I've gotten hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from there for free because it scanned wrong. That's why I religiously stand in front of the store after paying for my stuff to see if anything is wrong on there. If I find it, I go straight to customer service - and yes - I get my money refunded AND I get to keep the product! Pretty nice. It's THEIR policy, why not use it? I bet a lot of grocery stores have that kind of policy, and definitely - there are going to be scanning errors at any store at one point or another.
The point is many times there is opportunity - and often times people miss that opportunity.
OH, and it doesn't hurt to arm yourself with info. You're looking for something specific - look all over the place on the internet for pricing before you go to whatever store you are headed to. Sometimes haggling is just a matter of asking, other times haggling is a matter of being an informed consumer that has product knowledge and pricing from various places. Make your case if you have to - again, the worst thing you can get is a little rejection. Doesn't that happen in normal life anyway?
Happy Haggling!
Saturday, August 1, 2009
More
Days just go by right now. The stifling heat is mostly keeping me indoors. I do go out and tinker around with things - but I don't last long. When the month of August disappears, then I will have a little more hope for cooler weather and an end to temps that are so incredibly high, really, there is nothing to do but wait around until it's gone.
One thing we are looking forward to is the trip to Wet 'n Wild on Friday. That's the beginning of my 4-day weekend. The place stays open late - I told Caleb I probably wouldn't last THAT long. It will hopefully be fun - but - like anything, a point comes to where you've had enough, let's move on.
I am definitely looking forward to having 4 days off. I would like to say I have grand plans beyond going to a water-park - but I do not. It is very difficult to make any plans until I get beyond this loan modification decision - though certainly, I should have a clear picture about that by the end of tomorrow. The "promised" it wouldn't take any longer than Monday to come to a decision. I am not necessarily "bracing" myself for a bad decision - which would only mean for me that they are going to nothing and I will have to pull myself out of this on my own - somehow. I have one month's payment sitting in the bank right now, they told me not to pay it until after the decision is made, so that's what I'm doing.
But it will not wait any longer than Monday.
I have too much on my mind, which is why I'm writing the second entry for today already - one on KCL and one here. Besides the loan mod and whatever is going to happen at work, I also have a tenant that's wearing thin on me as each day passes. The man simply doesn't clean up after himself and expects everyone to do it for him. The bathroom, the kitchen, everywhere he goes. He refuses to empty out the dishwasher if he does, indeed, happen to be the first one to come along after the cycle is done and the dishes are dried. He will take a glass out of it - but will not empty the machine. He leaves bread crumbs and other such laying around kitchen counters. I have been fighting cockroaches in here for a while now - admittedly I haven't seen one in a couple of weeks. That MAY have to do with my renewed determination to get rid of them - but they may just be hiding and I am not seeing them anywhere.
I don't ask much from tenants.........pay your rent on time or let me know if there's a problem that we can figure something out. Clean up after yourself. Don't mess with other tenants if they don't want to be messed with. Not too terribly much. No loud music after 10:00pm. Help with the dishes; cleaning the main bathroom; keeping the place clean. I do most of the cleaning work - it IS my house after all - in the kitchen and living room areas, but I have completely stopped cleaning in the main bathroom. The newest tenant declared that he would take care of it - and that he has. That bathroom is always clean now.
The thing that irritates me most about this individual is the fact that my Craigslist ads - every single one of them that I write up - has a short list of the kind of person I do NOT want in my house, and in capital letters, I put SLOBS on that list and a disclaimer: If you, as an adult, find that you cannot clean up after yourself and take care of the messes you make, then PLEASE move onto the next ad, as I don't want you living in my house. We are not the Kings and Queens of clean, but we DO try to keep the place clean and presentable. If you are a slob and want to live here, it will cost you $200 extra per month for minimal maid service.
That's something of what I write in the ad. I have had no takers on the maid service - but that because I'm not really serious about it (though for an extra $200, I could deal with someone's else's slobbishness) - it just makes the point. I also write on that list: NO MOOCHERS and then write next to it: Self-Explanatory. Soooo, I have sat here for weeks now trying to decide whether I want to keep him around or give him the 30-day, thanks for playing see you in the next life notice. It could be risky business right now - the last tenant took over 2 weeks of ads to get him in here.
I dunno. I just let it ride for the most part just because of the financial situation, but I have decided at the very least I am going to write up some notices and place them in various places around the house.
"Notice: The Dishwasher Fairy does NOT live at this house. The dishes do not clean themselves and the do not remove themselves from the dishwasher when they are finished being washed. If YOU - whoever you are - come along and find the dishwasher full of clean dishes, that means that someone turned the thing on, probably me, and now they are ready to be put away by the first person that comes along. If you - whoever you are - do not want to put them away, then please DO NOT USE MY DISHES. Go out and buy yourself paper plates and disposable cups and leave my stuff alone.
Thanks. Management".
Something like that. I suppose that sounds a bit in-your-face and maybe even rude, but - I end up doing 99% of the dishwashing around here, yet EVERYONE uses the dishes. I give the new tenant an exception - he keeps the bathroom clean, that is more than enough for me.
How about this one?
"Notice: The garbage does not take itself out. There is no robotic devise in this house for trash removal. If you find the garbage can full, PLEASE just take it out and dump it in the container!
Thanks.
Management"
I do not expect them to vacuum the main floors or sweep and mop the kitchen area. I wish they would clean up after they have had exploding food in the microwave. I am willing to live with some discrepancies for the sake of getting that money in every month - but - this is a bit beyond "some discrepancies". The other thing that gets me are tenants that pay late and give no explanation. I am rather amazed that the newest tenant has not offered the rent check yet. No explanation, it just hasn't materialized. I am not amazed that the female tenant has not produced such - she does it every time. Waits 3 days, usually, before handing it over. I DO have it written into the rental contract for a $5 per day late fee for every day the rent is late. I have not enforced such - yet. I probably won't, either, if it gets THAT bad, the person is going to get a 5-day notice, not a fee imposition.
And then there's Mary. I am still solidly determined to take her to court. I have a little extra money now, I could offer a small amount for a contractor to come over and give me a written estimate on how much it's going to cost to fix everything she damaged. I don't have to do that right away - I'm just trying to get things moving along here. I could wait up to 2 years to sue her for all of this stuff. I have too much on my plate right now, it's going to have to wait.
Soooo - what to do? I dunno. Take a day at a time and let things work themselves out. Basically, if rents are not paid after Monday, both parties will receive a notice. I'll give it 3 full days before doing that. Why? I don't want to rock the boat too terribly much - these 2 tenants are normal people that are not an imposition - but I won't wait forever for at least an explanation of why the rent isn't being paid.
I would have to call this a low-ebb in my life here on this planet. I'm not really doing much of anything that I would call fulfilling - my version of it may be rather radical in terms of my religious beliefs. I don't feel like I'm just existing - but I may not really be doing much more than that, in reality. Just "living" is not enough for me. There has to be some reason connected with it. I fully identified - for myself, not for anyone else - what encapsules that reason - and I am mostly not doing that. Well, I take it back. I have been helping people with food for quite a while now. That particular activity has been greatly reduced with my financial situation, but I wouldn't turn anyone down if I were asked.
I put that all on hold after my AC broke and I went broke along with it. Still, it's good to help people - especially when you identify a person or family that really needs the help, and God knows this nation is FULL of people right now that could use something to help them along the way. If it weren't so blasted hot, I would be doing dinner "parties" every weekend. Who wants to stand outside and eat? Heat just makes your appetite go away, really. So I'm not doing that, but I still entertain people coming over for meals and occasionally from someone that makes such a empassioned plea for food, I will take $20 or $30 worth of groceries over. Again, that is not happening but maybe once a month on the free food stuff - but I read the Bible and I cannot find it within myself to turn a person down after reading about all the miracles with food the Lord created and all the passages that speak of feeding the hungry and giving to those that ask for it.
Well, this entry has grown into a book, talk to you later.
ben
One thing we are looking forward to is the trip to Wet 'n Wild on Friday. That's the beginning of my 4-day weekend. The place stays open late - I told Caleb I probably wouldn't last THAT long. It will hopefully be fun - but - like anything, a point comes to where you've had enough, let's move on.
I am definitely looking forward to having 4 days off. I would like to say I have grand plans beyond going to a water-park - but I do not. It is very difficult to make any plans until I get beyond this loan modification decision - though certainly, I should have a clear picture about that by the end of tomorrow. The "promised" it wouldn't take any longer than Monday to come to a decision. I am not necessarily "bracing" myself for a bad decision - which would only mean for me that they are going to nothing and I will have to pull myself out of this on my own - somehow. I have one month's payment sitting in the bank right now, they told me not to pay it until after the decision is made, so that's what I'm doing.
But it will not wait any longer than Monday.
I have too much on my mind, which is why I'm writing the second entry for today already - one on KCL and one here. Besides the loan mod and whatever is going to happen at work, I also have a tenant that's wearing thin on me as each day passes. The man simply doesn't clean up after himself and expects everyone to do it for him. The bathroom, the kitchen, everywhere he goes. He refuses to empty out the dishwasher if he does, indeed, happen to be the first one to come along after the cycle is done and the dishes are dried. He will take a glass out of it - but will not empty the machine. He leaves bread crumbs and other such laying around kitchen counters. I have been fighting cockroaches in here for a while now - admittedly I haven't seen one in a couple of weeks. That MAY have to do with my renewed determination to get rid of them - but they may just be hiding and I am not seeing them anywhere.
I don't ask much from tenants.........pay your rent on time or let me know if there's a problem that we can figure something out. Clean up after yourself. Don't mess with other tenants if they don't want to be messed with. Not too terribly much. No loud music after 10:00pm. Help with the dishes; cleaning the main bathroom; keeping the place clean. I do most of the cleaning work - it IS my house after all - in the kitchen and living room areas, but I have completely stopped cleaning in the main bathroom. The newest tenant declared that he would take care of it - and that he has. That bathroom is always clean now.
The thing that irritates me most about this individual is the fact that my Craigslist ads - every single one of them that I write up - has a short list of the kind of person I do NOT want in my house, and in capital letters, I put SLOBS on that list and a disclaimer: If you, as an adult, find that you cannot clean up after yourself and take care of the messes you make, then PLEASE move onto the next ad, as I don't want you living in my house. We are not the Kings and Queens of clean, but we DO try to keep the place clean and presentable. If you are a slob and want to live here, it will cost you $200 extra per month for minimal maid service.
That's something of what I write in the ad. I have had no takers on the maid service - but that because I'm not really serious about it (though for an extra $200, I could deal with someone's else's slobbishness) - it just makes the point. I also write on that list: NO MOOCHERS and then write next to it: Self-Explanatory. Soooo, I have sat here for weeks now trying to decide whether I want to keep him around or give him the 30-day, thanks for playing see you in the next life notice. It could be risky business right now - the last tenant took over 2 weeks of ads to get him in here.
I dunno. I just let it ride for the most part just because of the financial situation, but I have decided at the very least I am going to write up some notices and place them in various places around the house.
"Notice: The Dishwasher Fairy does NOT live at this house. The dishes do not clean themselves and the do not remove themselves from the dishwasher when they are finished being washed. If YOU - whoever you are - come along and find the dishwasher full of clean dishes, that means that someone turned the thing on, probably me, and now they are ready to be put away by the first person that comes along. If you - whoever you are - do not want to put them away, then please DO NOT USE MY DISHES. Go out and buy yourself paper plates and disposable cups and leave my stuff alone.
Thanks. Management".
Something like that. I suppose that sounds a bit in-your-face and maybe even rude, but - I end up doing 99% of the dishwashing around here, yet EVERYONE uses the dishes. I give the new tenant an exception - he keeps the bathroom clean, that is more than enough for me.
How about this one?
"Notice: The garbage does not take itself out. There is no robotic devise in this house for trash removal. If you find the garbage can full, PLEASE just take it out and dump it in the container!
Thanks.
Management"
I do not expect them to vacuum the main floors or sweep and mop the kitchen area. I wish they would clean up after they have had exploding food in the microwave. I am willing to live with some discrepancies for the sake of getting that money in every month - but - this is a bit beyond "some discrepancies". The other thing that gets me are tenants that pay late and give no explanation. I am rather amazed that the newest tenant has not offered the rent check yet. No explanation, it just hasn't materialized. I am not amazed that the female tenant has not produced such - she does it every time. Waits 3 days, usually, before handing it over. I DO have it written into the rental contract for a $5 per day late fee for every day the rent is late. I have not enforced such - yet. I probably won't, either, if it gets THAT bad, the person is going to get a 5-day notice, not a fee imposition.
And then there's Mary. I am still solidly determined to take her to court. I have a little extra money now, I could offer a small amount for a contractor to come over and give me a written estimate on how much it's going to cost to fix everything she damaged. I don't have to do that right away - I'm just trying to get things moving along here. I could wait up to 2 years to sue her for all of this stuff. I have too much on my plate right now, it's going to have to wait.
Soooo - what to do? I dunno. Take a day at a time and let things work themselves out. Basically, if rents are not paid after Monday, both parties will receive a notice. I'll give it 3 full days before doing that. Why? I don't want to rock the boat too terribly much - these 2 tenants are normal people that are not an imposition - but I won't wait forever for at least an explanation of why the rent isn't being paid.
I would have to call this a low-ebb in my life here on this planet. I'm not really doing much of anything that I would call fulfilling - my version of it may be rather radical in terms of my religious beliefs. I don't feel like I'm just existing - but I may not really be doing much more than that, in reality. Just "living" is not enough for me. There has to be some reason connected with it. I fully identified - for myself, not for anyone else - what encapsules that reason - and I am mostly not doing that. Well, I take it back. I have been helping people with food for quite a while now. That particular activity has been greatly reduced with my financial situation, but I wouldn't turn anyone down if I were asked.
I put that all on hold after my AC broke and I went broke along with it. Still, it's good to help people - especially when you identify a person or family that really needs the help, and God knows this nation is FULL of people right now that could use something to help them along the way. If it weren't so blasted hot, I would be doing dinner "parties" every weekend. Who wants to stand outside and eat? Heat just makes your appetite go away, really. So I'm not doing that, but I still entertain people coming over for meals and occasionally from someone that makes such a empassioned plea for food, I will take $20 or $30 worth of groceries over. Again, that is not happening but maybe once a month on the free food stuff - but I read the Bible and I cannot find it within myself to turn a person down after reading about all the miracles with food the Lord created and all the passages that speak of feeding the hungry and giving to those that ask for it.
Well, this entry has grown into a book, talk to you later.
ben
Friday, July 31, 2009
African-American
I will preface this by saying that I am most certainly NOT a racist. I don't despise black people, I don't look at them as some sort of inferior race, but.........
I don't understand the continual reference to black folks referring to themselves as African-Americans?
Why don't I go around saying: "Hi, my name is Ben, I'm an Irish;English;German and French American"?
Really, I just would like to hear a lucid - not emotional - response to this. I'm white and you're black. So what?
I don't understand the continual reference to black folks referring to themselves as African-Americans?
Why don't I go around saying: "Hi, my name is Ben, I'm an Irish;English;German and French American"?
Really, I just would like to hear a lucid - not emotional - response to this. I'm white and you're black. So what?
Zycam
When was it, last year? I was starting to get sick and so was Mary - she made a plea for me to get some of that Zycam stuff. It's swabs that you put on the tip of your nose and it allegedly shortens the life of a cold. I thought, well why not? We went through 2 boxes of that stuff before I stopped using it - it wasn't really working that well and it is expensive - seemed quite a waste.
I did not put 2 and 2 together after using that stuff, because I had no clue until recently when I was reading online about Zycam.
My sense of smell. I didn't lose it - I can still smell everything, but I also get "strange" smells, I'll put it - that come out of nowhere and stay for hours at a a time. Chemical odors - that's how I will have to put it - that linger in my nostrils. There is no source.
I smell something - whatever - and that smell might stay in my nose for half a day, or 2 hours, or whatever. It's weird. It's been awhile and I've gotten used to it. It was only recently when I started reading about Zycam and the effects is has on your sense of smell, a thing that apparently everyone on earth knows about - excepting me. Many people using that stuff have lost their sense of smell altogether.
I thought I was going crazy when I started smelling smells that had no apparent source. I haven't said anything about this - at all really - until now. I knew it wasn't normal - but I didn't feel bad or anything - hoped it would go away. It hasn't and apparently it never will. I have a full box of that S*** in my bathroom that's going to go into the trash can.
I was appalled to start reading about the thousands of people who have made claims against Zycam and that the government apparently has been issuing warnings about this product for years. I NEVER saw any of those warnings, if I had, I would have NEVER used the stuff.
What's done is done. I don't really find the situation aggravating or even annoying - it's just a little odd at times to get smells in my nose that are nothing I had ever smelled before anywhere and that just stay there for extended periods of time.
I did not put 2 and 2 together after using that stuff, because I had no clue until recently when I was reading online about Zycam.
My sense of smell. I didn't lose it - I can still smell everything, but I also get "strange" smells, I'll put it - that come out of nowhere and stay for hours at a a time. Chemical odors - that's how I will have to put it - that linger in my nostrils. There is no source.
I smell something - whatever - and that smell might stay in my nose for half a day, or 2 hours, or whatever. It's weird. It's been awhile and I've gotten used to it. It was only recently when I started reading about Zycam and the effects is has on your sense of smell, a thing that apparently everyone on earth knows about - excepting me. Many people using that stuff have lost their sense of smell altogether.
I thought I was going crazy when I started smelling smells that had no apparent source. I haven't said anything about this - at all really - until now. I knew it wasn't normal - but I didn't feel bad or anything - hoped it would go away. It hasn't and apparently it never will. I have a full box of that S*** in my bathroom that's going to go into the trash can.
I was appalled to start reading about the thousands of people who have made claims against Zycam and that the government apparently has been issuing warnings about this product for years. I NEVER saw any of those warnings, if I had, I would have NEVER used the stuff.
What's done is done. I don't really find the situation aggravating or even annoying - it's just a little odd at times to get smells in my nose that are nothing I had ever smelled before anywhere and that just stay there for extended periods of time.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday
I have to say - and this is a politcal rant but not of the same nature that I read everyone else about - that Obama is the most undignified president I can remember in my lifetime. It has NOTHING to do with race, either.
The man props his feet up on the Oval Office desk. He walks around in a long sleeve shirt often with the sleeves pulled up.
This isn't freakin' Disneyland - he's the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES. Drinking beer with whoever in front of the whole nation?
My God, man, WAKE UP and SEE the ERNORMITY of the position you hold - and ACT like it!
"Hey kids, whenever you have a problem, do like the president does - go out and smoke a cigarette, invite some people over and get drunk". Did they get drunk? Who knows? The media circus was removed after only a few minutes so the real outcome - will probably come out sooner or later because someone will leak it eventually.
All the Bush haters - you ever see him dressed like that? Or propping his feet up on the Oval Office desk? Or a myriad of other actions which only cause to solidify my opinion on this facet of a man that treats the White House like it's JungleLand.
I did not vote for this man and I am even more decided that just about anyone else would be better than this s***. I don't even care about party lines anymore, just get me a person in there with COMMON SENSE - a person that has the pulse on the normal, regular American Jane and Joe. That doesn't see the treasury as a giant money tree - farm it for whatever you want to do - in this case, TRILLIONS of dollars. I'm not sorry to rant about this - our kid's kid's kid's kids are going to be paying for this crap.
Whatever. WHO is backing this health plan, anyway? It seems to me that that a majority of Americans are NOT liking what's coming out of this. Well why should anyone? You're going to see a Grand Canyon sized cavern for WASTE of TAX-PAYER'S money. If anything will sink us financially - it will be this unbelievably BAD idea. They are making this stuff up out of thin air. They are being rushed to put forth a package that - will not have had the time necessary to research and figure out how to go about this LUCIDLY versus INSANE. Hey, dudes and dudettes, we're REFORMING - so let's REFORM. WHAT reform? I will bet anyone money that if this thing passes, it will turn into the BIGGEST WASTE of taxpayer dollars EVER. There will be nothing that will come even close to it. Medicare? .... will pale in comparison. With the advent of this behemoth coming about, I am coming closer to the side of those that view Obama as a socialist. I don't CARE what anyone thinks socialism is - this nation is headed on a road that I don't want to see it go on.
Again, I didn't vote for the man.
Well, I was going to actually write about something else, but I just got through looking at pictures and reading the story of Obama, Gates, Crowley and Biden sitting there at a table, drinking beer for the whole world to see. This is a MOCKERY. That's all I see it as.
The man props his feet up on the Oval Office desk. He walks around in a long sleeve shirt often with the sleeves pulled up.
This isn't freakin' Disneyland - he's the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES. Drinking beer with whoever in front of the whole nation?
My God, man, WAKE UP and SEE the ERNORMITY of the position you hold - and ACT like it!
"Hey kids, whenever you have a problem, do like the president does - go out and smoke a cigarette, invite some people over and get drunk". Did they get drunk? Who knows? The media circus was removed after only a few minutes so the real outcome - will probably come out sooner or later because someone will leak it eventually.
All the Bush haters - you ever see him dressed like that? Or propping his feet up on the Oval Office desk? Or a myriad of other actions which only cause to solidify my opinion on this facet of a man that treats the White House like it's JungleLand.
I did not vote for this man and I am even more decided that just about anyone else would be better than this s***. I don't even care about party lines anymore, just get me a person in there with COMMON SENSE - a person that has the pulse on the normal, regular American Jane and Joe. That doesn't see the treasury as a giant money tree - farm it for whatever you want to do - in this case, TRILLIONS of dollars. I'm not sorry to rant about this - our kid's kid's kid's kids are going to be paying for this crap.
Whatever. WHO is backing this health plan, anyway? It seems to me that that a majority of Americans are NOT liking what's coming out of this. Well why should anyone? You're going to see a Grand Canyon sized cavern for WASTE of TAX-PAYER'S money. If anything will sink us financially - it will be this unbelievably BAD idea. They are making this stuff up out of thin air. They are being rushed to put forth a package that - will not have had the time necessary to research and figure out how to go about this LUCIDLY versus INSANE. Hey, dudes and dudettes, we're REFORMING - so let's REFORM. WHAT reform? I will bet anyone money that if this thing passes, it will turn into the BIGGEST WASTE of taxpayer dollars EVER. There will be nothing that will come even close to it. Medicare? .... will pale in comparison. With the advent of this behemoth coming about, I am coming closer to the side of those that view Obama as a socialist. I don't CARE what anyone thinks socialism is - this nation is headed on a road that I don't want to see it go on.
Again, I didn't vote for the man.
Well, I was going to actually write about something else, but I just got through looking at pictures and reading the story of Obama, Gates, Crowley and Biden sitting there at a table, drinking beer for the whole world to see. This is a MOCKERY. That's all I see it as.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Vacation
My brain is abuzz with ideas of what to do with 5 total days off. I'm doing it - I am. I hope to be employed - when I get "back". I have NOT seen my company playing the gee-you-went-on-vacation-and-now-your-position-has-been-terminated game, plus there are a LOT of people doing the vacation thing right now in our company, I'm not denying myself the pleasure any longer.
And anyway, if I don't take some vacation hours within the next month, my vacation hours will stop accruing because I will be at the 80 hour limit. I asked for 3 days off, I had thought about a full week. Instead, I will ask for another 3 days off in October or September, or hold off and wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas - whatever I can get.
So, what to do? Money is tight - I'm not going to waste all of my 401k loan money on a vacation. Should it be a project vacation and just stick around the house and work on things around here? Should I go to Blockbuster and rent every movie I love and spend days and days doing nothing but lounging around watching my favorite flicks? What about a trip to see my mom up north? My dad down south? The lady friend I have been talking with via email; phone and IM's for several months?
What about an ordeal to take my son to a place he has always wanted to go - that I don't care about either way? The ordeal would be me driving there; letting him and a friend have at it for a day - and then driving back to save hotel/food/whatever else expenses. That could be done pretty cheap. It would take up a day and a half of my vacation and I could do other things. The cost would be minimized by the shortness of the trip. "They" could spend the day at the amusement park, I would spend the day laying on the beach, alone, wrapped in a sheet, traipsing the water once in a while, enjoying the sounds of the ocean.
Oh yes, I have done that several times. It's an exhausting trip because you leave yourself no overnight stay at a hotel. Get up at 3am, drive til' you get there, drop them off, head to the beach. It's a very minimal possibility of actually doing it - but I haven't gone anywhere in almost 2 years now. Crazy.
A true vacation is not a working one. But - if I stay home - that's exactly what I will end up doing - and it won't bother me to do it. Some kind of ADVENTURE would be nice for once. A trip to the woods with the dogs and camp out somewhere - too bad all of my camping equipment is totally GONE after the fire. It's always fun to think about all that I lost with that fire. A lifetime of things that I had acquired and have not been able to replace. Times are tight, I'm not whining, just reminiscing about the days gone by. I'm one of those survivor type of people - come what may, I will do whatever I can to come out on top. But - as I get older - the energy isn't what it used to be.
Lol, on the same note, I find I can keep up with any 20 year old in THIS day and age. Energy, maybe, stamina, fortitude, motivation, endurance - don't see alot of that. Heck, why don't we ALL just up and live off the government? Yeah, that's the ticket, we can all live in a half-@$$ed state of existence, given dolences here and there by government stimulus. Might as well go live in a communist society - SCREW that S***. Sorry for the lapse, but I have no desire to have government invading my life to the tune THIS government is doing and the road it's headed on.
Oh, and this was about an alleged vacation. Face facts: it's a stay at home deal. I can rent movies and if I can find enough that I like, I can lay in bed watching them. There is no significant other to lay in bed with, so that might degrade the experience, but - I can do the lone thing and have a good time doing it, really.
Next week? I hope so. I really just want to lay around doing nothing more than eating, sleeping and watching those movies for a couple of days and spend the other days getting stuff done around here. I put the paperwork in today. Heck is coming down the pike on Monday I'm assuming at work. I won't specify in case there are - people from work that might, in a lightning strike's chance - have found this blog, know who I am and see what's coming. It's worth it to keep my mouth shut on such issues, when it happens then I can talk.
You know what? A real vacation for me is one where my mind is totally abated to the problems that life is "offering". That usually doesn't happen unless I get out of here and get away from here. I'm going to have to think about how I can do that without spending money I can't afford to spend. There are definite possibilities, methinks, I just have to dial in on one that appeals to me and go for it.
Now? I'm going to bed.
G'nite.
I hope you all are doing well, if you are not, please let me know and I can spend some time praying for you - if, of course, you are open to that.
God is good.
And I don't mind saying here: Jesus is Lord.
Why? If you have to ask that, I can't help you, but HE can.
ben
And anyway, if I don't take some vacation hours within the next month, my vacation hours will stop accruing because I will be at the 80 hour limit. I asked for 3 days off, I had thought about a full week. Instead, I will ask for another 3 days off in October or September, or hold off and wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas - whatever I can get.
So, what to do? Money is tight - I'm not going to waste all of my 401k loan money on a vacation. Should it be a project vacation and just stick around the house and work on things around here? Should I go to Blockbuster and rent every movie I love and spend days and days doing nothing but lounging around watching my favorite flicks? What about a trip to see my mom up north? My dad down south? The lady friend I have been talking with via email; phone and IM's for several months?
What about an ordeal to take my son to a place he has always wanted to go - that I don't care about either way? The ordeal would be me driving there; letting him and a friend have at it for a day - and then driving back to save hotel/food/whatever else expenses. That could be done pretty cheap. It would take up a day and a half of my vacation and I could do other things. The cost would be minimized by the shortness of the trip. "They" could spend the day at the amusement park, I would spend the day laying on the beach, alone, wrapped in a sheet, traipsing the water once in a while, enjoying the sounds of the ocean.
Oh yes, I have done that several times. It's an exhausting trip because you leave yourself no overnight stay at a hotel. Get up at 3am, drive til' you get there, drop them off, head to the beach. It's a very minimal possibility of actually doing it - but I haven't gone anywhere in almost 2 years now. Crazy.
A true vacation is not a working one. But - if I stay home - that's exactly what I will end up doing - and it won't bother me to do it. Some kind of ADVENTURE would be nice for once. A trip to the woods with the dogs and camp out somewhere - too bad all of my camping equipment is totally GONE after the fire. It's always fun to think about all that I lost with that fire. A lifetime of things that I had acquired and have not been able to replace. Times are tight, I'm not whining, just reminiscing about the days gone by. I'm one of those survivor type of people - come what may, I will do whatever I can to come out on top. But - as I get older - the energy isn't what it used to be.
Lol, on the same note, I find I can keep up with any 20 year old in THIS day and age. Energy, maybe, stamina, fortitude, motivation, endurance - don't see alot of that. Heck, why don't we ALL just up and live off the government? Yeah, that's the ticket, we can all live in a half-@$$ed state of existence, given dolences here and there by government stimulus. Might as well go live in a communist society - SCREW that S***. Sorry for the lapse, but I have no desire to have government invading my life to the tune THIS government is doing and the road it's headed on.
Oh, and this was about an alleged vacation. Face facts: it's a stay at home deal. I can rent movies and if I can find enough that I like, I can lay in bed watching them. There is no significant other to lay in bed with, so that might degrade the experience, but - I can do the lone thing and have a good time doing it, really.
Next week? I hope so. I really just want to lay around doing nothing more than eating, sleeping and watching those movies for a couple of days and spend the other days getting stuff done around here. I put the paperwork in today. Heck is coming down the pike on Monday I'm assuming at work. I won't specify in case there are - people from work that might, in a lightning strike's chance - have found this blog, know who I am and see what's coming. It's worth it to keep my mouth shut on such issues, when it happens then I can talk.
You know what? A real vacation for me is one where my mind is totally abated to the problems that life is "offering". That usually doesn't happen unless I get out of here and get away from here. I'm going to have to think about how I can do that without spending money I can't afford to spend. There are definite possibilities, methinks, I just have to dial in on one that appeals to me and go for it.
Now? I'm going to bed.
G'nite.
I hope you all are doing well, if you are not, please let me know and I can spend some time praying for you - if, of course, you are open to that.
God is good.
And I don't mind saying here: Jesus is Lord.
Why? If you have to ask that, I can't help you, but HE can.
ben
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Tuesday
Folks, if you're coming here from the Dinner blog, just tellin' ya that this is my personal blog about my daily events. You're welcome to read, of course, but it's really a different tune and book than the blog over there. I'm just a regular person doing - what I consider to be - normal things in life.
On that note, I have been facing my own financial difficulties - really all the way through any of the food sharing. Each "blow" has had it's unique consequences.
Well, anyway, onto other things. As I said on my KCL blog today, the boss brought his mapp gas torch and equipment with him to work today, totally out of the blue. I never expected it - I had given up on it, really. I figured to bite the bullet and buy the necessary equipment when my 401k loan hits the bank and I have some money to deal with.
Well, I'm very happy to have this equipment borrowed versus having to go out and buy it. I'm thinking early Saturday morning to get out there and get the copper installed before it gets too hot to want to do anything. I would do it sooner - like today - but I want enough time to deal with any problem that might occur. I haven't done copper sweat joints in a long time - I'm sure I can pick it up again, but - no need to push fate. I will be able to install the entire drip system in the next few weeks and actually save money on water bills in the process.
I am also excited about the prospect of some time off - even if it's a stay-at-home vacation. To take an entire week off, I would still have half again the hours left over. I NEED some extended time off. Many people at work have been doing the exact same thing - I feel a little less fearful about making the request and actually doing it than I did before after hearing so many stories about people taking vacations and then - attempting to go back to work - finding out their job has been "eliminated". This has not happened to anyone at work thus far, I'm hopeful that I can do the same. So, August it is, of course that is if I get the days I want approved. Actually, I couldn't care less which week in August it is - I have no set plans, it's just a week off.
I am actually hoping within the next 2 weeks I can do this. That way I can just do this nice little project - while baking in the sun and getting very tanned (I haven't worn any shorts this year, just long pants but I have been taking off my shirt to do a little tanning there) - well I haven't worn any shorts because, I realized the other day, I have only bought ONE pair of shorts since my house burned down and my clothes went with it - and I have no clue where that pair is. A couple of pairs of shorts is on the buy menu.
I'm still in the woods, though, concerning the loan modification. I have no clue what determination they are going to come up with. I'm not exactly at ease about that - I have no idea what offer they are going to make - if any at all. They have given such mixed signals I can't even begin to believe anything good or bad - just have to wait it out.
I think I'll cut this one short. I am tired and I want to take a 15 minute nap and then go out and water all the plants. It's still 113 degrees out there at 20 after 5!!!
That's CRAZY!!!
C'ya later.
ben
On that note, I have been facing my own financial difficulties - really all the way through any of the food sharing. Each "blow" has had it's unique consequences.
Well, anyway, onto other things. As I said on my KCL blog today, the boss brought his mapp gas torch and equipment with him to work today, totally out of the blue. I never expected it - I had given up on it, really. I figured to bite the bullet and buy the necessary equipment when my 401k loan hits the bank and I have some money to deal with.
Well, I'm very happy to have this equipment borrowed versus having to go out and buy it. I'm thinking early Saturday morning to get out there and get the copper installed before it gets too hot to want to do anything. I would do it sooner - like today - but I want enough time to deal with any problem that might occur. I haven't done copper sweat joints in a long time - I'm sure I can pick it up again, but - no need to push fate. I will be able to install the entire drip system in the next few weeks and actually save money on water bills in the process.
I am also excited about the prospect of some time off - even if it's a stay-at-home vacation. To take an entire week off, I would still have half again the hours left over. I NEED some extended time off. Many people at work have been doing the exact same thing - I feel a little less fearful about making the request and actually doing it than I did before after hearing so many stories about people taking vacations and then - attempting to go back to work - finding out their job has been "eliminated". This has not happened to anyone at work thus far, I'm hopeful that I can do the same. So, August it is, of course that is if I get the days I want approved. Actually, I couldn't care less which week in August it is - I have no set plans, it's just a week off.
I am actually hoping within the next 2 weeks I can do this. That way I can just do this nice little project - while baking in the sun and getting very tanned (I haven't worn any shorts this year, just long pants but I have been taking off my shirt to do a little tanning there) - well I haven't worn any shorts because, I realized the other day, I have only bought ONE pair of shorts since my house burned down and my clothes went with it - and I have no clue where that pair is. A couple of pairs of shorts is on the buy menu.
I'm still in the woods, though, concerning the loan modification. I have no clue what determination they are going to come up with. I'm not exactly at ease about that - I have no idea what offer they are going to make - if any at all. They have given such mixed signals I can't even begin to believe anything good or bad - just have to wait it out.
I think I'll cut this one short. I am tired and I want to take a 15 minute nap and then go out and water all the plants. It's still 113 degrees out there at 20 after 5!!!
That's CRAZY!!!
C'ya later.
ben
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday
Nice work day - really it was. Wasn't necessarily the busiest day in the world - went to Casa Grande and the over to downtown Phoenix before heading back to the yard. I had to adjust my shifting style for the transmission - it's starting to take a dump. My normal style is pretty flawless - but I have had to slow way down on shifting and the timing has to be perfect to smoothly change gears on this particular transmission - it has been driven by too many different drivers and someone along the way - or several someone's more likely - didn't shift correctly and caused internal damage.
Basically, whereas before I paid no attention to shifting - didn't have to and I didn't trash the tranny in the process - now I have to focus on every shift and that, my friends, is alot of focusing. The tranny will not last indefinitely - I don't think it will anyway. Usually once they start a downhill race - it goes quickly.
There is no news at work that has changed anything - there is something "purportedly" coming down the pike, won't be commenting about that here - or anywhere, really. A big, big boss was in town today. I only knew that because my boss said something about it. He was here one day only - which of course causes me to think decision undoubtedly are being made in a person-to-person basis and what happens down the pike - who knows.
I'm just semi-patiently waiting until Thursday gets here. It is not a terribly great feeling to know that if anything happens between now and then, I have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. Exactly the reason I was trying to start saving some money - just to get a cusion if nothing else.
As for going through my finances, well, I really limited to things that you can change. I can't change the car payment; child support payment; credit card payments. I can, however, muddle with how much money is being spent on food.
I think I do very well in purchasing food by going through the ads and getting the stuff that is on sale - but - I don't use coupons - well I rarely do. Yet, I do find that many times coupons are for a more expensive brand of something and the coupon often doesn't even bring the price down to whatever generic/plain jane brand I might be buying. I could probably do a little better - I really couldn't do a whole lot better. I could cut back in eating "lessor" food - bologna/hot dogs/junk full of preservatives, garbage and cholesterol - no thanks, not unless absolutely necessary. Still, I could cut back $75 or so a month and probably still do alright.
So, I'm just sort of in limbo right now. No money, no idea what's going to happen with the loan mod, just a waiting game. Actually I'm okay for everything - just as long as an emergency doesn't come popping up out of nowhere. But isn't that how they usually happen?
ben
Basically, whereas before I paid no attention to shifting - didn't have to and I didn't trash the tranny in the process - now I have to focus on every shift and that, my friends, is alot of focusing. The tranny will not last indefinitely - I don't think it will anyway. Usually once they start a downhill race - it goes quickly.
There is no news at work that has changed anything - there is something "purportedly" coming down the pike, won't be commenting about that here - or anywhere, really. A big, big boss was in town today. I only knew that because my boss said something about it. He was here one day only - which of course causes me to think decision undoubtedly are being made in a person-to-person basis and what happens down the pike - who knows.
I'm just semi-patiently waiting until Thursday gets here. It is not a terribly great feeling to know that if anything happens between now and then, I have no resources whatsoever to deal with it. Exactly the reason I was trying to start saving some money - just to get a cusion if nothing else.
As for going through my finances, well, I really limited to things that you can change. I can't change the car payment; child support payment; credit card payments. I can, however, muddle with how much money is being spent on food.
I think I do very well in purchasing food by going through the ads and getting the stuff that is on sale - but - I don't use coupons - well I rarely do. Yet, I do find that many times coupons are for a more expensive brand of something and the coupon often doesn't even bring the price down to whatever generic/plain jane brand I might be buying. I could probably do a little better - I really couldn't do a whole lot better. I could cut back in eating "lessor" food - bologna/hot dogs/junk full of preservatives, garbage and cholesterol - no thanks, not unless absolutely necessary. Still, I could cut back $75 or so a month and probably still do alright.
So, I'm just sort of in limbo right now. No money, no idea what's going to happen with the loan mod, just a waiting game. Actually I'm okay for everything - just as long as an emergency doesn't come popping up out of nowhere. But isn't that how they usually happen?
ben
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