The Woman At The Store

I'm a pretty amenable person. If a stranger wants to kick up a conversation somewhere about something we are both doing or looking at buying - whatever - I'm all good. Only if I'm in a hurry will I dismiss the conversation - but politely of course.

Well, I went to Safeway on the way home from work today. They have chicken breast on sale for 99 cents per pound, I wanted to get at least 4 packages of it. Of course, GETTING to Safeway was an adventure in itself with rude and stupid drivers attempting all kinds of dangerous and idiot moves on the road.

I say attempted because what people can get away with in cutting me off in the semi - they cannot get away with when I'm in my car.

Case in point. I'm driving the semi today - I leave enough space between my truck and the vehicle in front of me that I can shut the truck down in case "something" happens. You will see many truck drivers lagging behind vehicles - it's not because they are necessarily slow, it's because they NEED that room to slow down if traffic does so in front of them in a hurry.

When YOU cut into that space, you are literally taking your life into your own hands. I don't say that lightly, either. It's not a joke. The situation may not EVER happen when you cut in front of that truck like that hundreds of times per year, but in that one occasion where it might happen, you will be having a semi crushing you to death becuase of your impatience.

That's usually what it is, too. People waiting until they are 100 feet from the exit they want to get off on - notwithstanding the fact that they are fully 6 lanes away from that exit and will have to cut off all kinds of traffic to get to it - and nowadays? People couldn't care less.

And just as unsympathetic as life is, there are people killed on Phoenix freeways on a DAILY basis. BECAUSE of that stupid stuff people are doing out there.

Man, I have double-digressed. Okay, well- a lady driving an SUV decided that she wanted in front of me on a surface street. She simply inserted herself there without any warning at all. When she did so, she hit the brakes. I hit my horn and then got over into the other lane. There was NO valid reason for this woman to do that.

Oh, here's another little dandy that happened today. I was on the 60 heading west to go back to the branch from Florence. I was in the high speed lane allowing traffic to enter from an on-ramp. A car going at least 20 mph slower than I was going decided that they were going to get onto the freeway and head directly over to my lane. That person is lucky they are going home alive today. I took evasive action as I was totally cut off by this freak, and got into the "slow" lane - or tried to. This person realized their mistake - their utter stupidity in my view in simply getting into a lane without even freaking looking as far as I could tell to see if traffic was already there - and then was going to go back into the slow lane of which I was already halfway in.

I was already braking, this person freaked out and didn't know WHAT to do. The vehicle was now tweaking between lanes, not know what I was doing - though in reality, that person shouldn't have put themself in that position to HAVE to attempt to decide what to do.

I was not smiling at that person as I passed by him. I didn't do any hand gestures, but I made it well known my discontent for this person putting mine and their life at stake.

Ummm, I was talking about Safeway. Easy to get caught up in stories on the road because so much of it happens everyday.

Well, I got some potato salad - on sale - get 4 large packages of bone-in chicken breast - 99 cents per pound/sale - and searching for other stuff on sale.

I always head to the produce department, I am eating salads, have been for quite a while and am not opting out of it. I get to the tomatoes. There are the "on-the-vine" things and there are Roma tomatoes. I wanted the vine thingies because they are larger and I like larger slices of tomatoes - but they didn't look right to me for some reason.

There was a lady standing there going through the Roma tomatoes that educated me all about these vine tomatoes. She picked them up ( the reason I thoroughly wash my produce when I get it home, Lord only knows who and WHAT with that who touched that stuff) and started pointing out the flaws with them. White spots and unripened areas of the tomato. Her deal-breaker, though, was her fact that they have no flavor and the Romas have much better taste to them.

I like Roma tomatoes - but I much prefer the meatier, larger tomatoes. She proclaimed her tomato expertise - didn't doubt her. In fact, I pretty much just listened and showed the signs of registering that I was listening (versus the blank look on a face of someone that is totally tuned-out). I opted for the Roma's just because I had already had my doubts about the "on-the-vine" variety before I had even spoken to her.

I then gave her my little piece of info. There is a farmer's marker in the town of Guadalupe and they sell some pretty good stuff there and it's all locally grown. "Is it a REAL farmer's market? I mean, is that all they sell or are they doing everything else as well?" No ma'am, this is a vegetable and produce store, that's what they do and that's what they've been doing for something like 40 years now. Oh, the glee and perponderance in her face. She's going, I could bet my toenails on it. Okay, that's a bit much. I did advise her to go there in the DAYTIME, not at night. I didn't want to fill her with fear, but ..........

Lol. Oh, and by the way, when I lol - I am actually lol'ing. It ain't some quaint nicety, I'm chuckling or laughing.

I always digress, always. But, it's my blog, so there.

ben

Things

Stuff today.

I spent a couple of hours out front pulling weeds and grass. They weren't huge - I just let it go for at least a month because of my hatred for the everlasting heat wave. Today they said something like this was the second hottest summer since they started keeping records. I TOTALLY believe that.

Well, when I went out there the sun was starting to set and it was already cooling off considerably. It was 63 degrees this morning when I went to work. Of course it heated up dramatically during the day - and I was busting my butt at work all day long. So, pulling weeds and the dogs out front was nice. My newly returned neighbor was laughing it up loudly with his neighbor on the other side - the ex-felon (though I have to wonder if the ex part is permanent) and I decided to tune that crap out.

I have also decided that since my neighbor is going to spend a majority of his time with that freak next to him, I am going to distance myself from both of them, unlike last "season" when he was here and I was talking to him anyway. I have further decided that I am no longer going to tolerate a street FULL of his junk vehicles.

Apparently he got the message last night - I made a phone call to certain authorities about one of his vehicles out there that didn't even have a license plate on it. Today when I got home from work. the trailers were off the street but there were still 3 of his other vehicles out there. It's progress. I will definitely not tolerate this dude selling vehicles out of his house ever again. It's just makes the neighborhood look pathetic. He hauls down these rusted out cars from Michigan and sells them here for greatly marked up prices.

Won't work in this economy anyway. People are hunting for bargains and stick their noses up at inflated prices on anything. This is definitely a shopper's market right now, not a vendor's. I know this for a fact just from my own company.

Well, anyway, the high temps are now below 100, meaning I can start thinking about this weekend in potentially planting rye grass and buying those 99 cent clusters of very pretty flowers - my favorites being Petunias. I want to load up the front with arrangements of them all over.

That will be a weekend gone in a flash if I start in on all of that - but - the grass will take priority if it's the right time to plant it. I will have to ask or look online. It takes weeks for it to fully come in and be "trampled" on - meaning dogs. I will have to surround that patch of grass with a good fence to keep the dogs off of it - again, it's going to be work.

Safeway has chicken breast - bone-in - on sale for 99 cents a pound. BBQ is on it's way. 10 day forecast shows highs in the low 90's to high 80's. I'm going to start spending a lot more time outside.

I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch, but the non-paying tenant made a promise to pay and I fully expect that payment. I think tomorrow. I'll have to re-read the notice, I didn't give that much perusal - I gave the idea that he IS going to pay more. If he does not pay - well I'll keep a lid on that, I have no reason to believe he won't pay now that he has said he will. Anyone reading me for the last 1 and 3/4 years knows what I eventually end up doing with non-paying tenants, and it ain't keeping them around so I can just have - freeloaders living here on my dime.

Today's driving adventure. Something is being built - I haven't asked what they are building yet - in an extremely busy/high volume shopping square. I have been in there 3 times now, and every time, the parking lot is completely full. There is no room for a semi to maneuver in there. I can't even get into the job site, I have to sit in the main thorofare where all these people are going back and forth the entire time.

Those people are, of course, extremely annoyed that a semi is slowing them down. I do not block the entire drive, but the volume of traffic is so heavy that people have to decide who is going to go and who isn't. One woman declared today that she needed to leave and I was blocking her from backing out of her parking spot. There was MORE than enough room for her to get her car out of there, but she wasn't taking my explanation that she wasn't driving a semi and that there is ample room for her car to move.

Yes, I spent a great deal of time pulling forward and then reverse to accomodate for all of this.

Then came time to leave. I was 400 feet or so into this place and there is NO way I am going forward. The turn ahead is so sharp and narrow, the only way to do it would be to take out the cars parked there. Yeah, right.

I wish I would have had my camera so I could have taken a video of this. I had to back out of there, and not, this volume of traffic in this place didn't like it. The corners are so sharp and narrow that backing was definitely a challenge of my skill - but not that much. No, the challenge was navigating the traffic. At the end of it, I had to block traffic coming in from the main street and traffic attempting to leave from fully 3 different directions.

Not only that, but these cars moved in very close to the point I had to stop and look at these people - who figured out my stare at them was that they needed to back up their vehicles because I am NOT running into cars if I can help it. And yes, I CAN help it. It took several minutes of backing around this turn to get myself positioned so I could leave nosing out, not backing out. Of course, you could see the agitated looks on these people's faces.

But, the job was done quite professionally and I didn't have to do a single pull-up. I just took it slow because of the huge volume of traffic and the fact I was movoing in their path - in reverse - and they weren't liking it.

No, they never like it, but these people love the end result of a business they want to go to and spend their money.

Ummm, I'm in a little better mood today, but - I still have a lot of things pressing me and I don't like being pressed. I am not a grape and I don't intend on turning into wine.

ben

Renting Is Not For The Faint Of Heart

No, it most certainly is not.
You go into renting a house, an apartment, an efficiency - my case: rooms, and you start off nievely thinking that everyone thinks the same way you do. Pay your rent on time, use common sense in the house, treat each other with respect. Oh, and BTW, if you happen to miss the bowl, clean the - mess I'll put it as another word came to mind - up.
You find out after not very long that people that are renting are more unsensical and somewhat selfish in their ways of doing things around your house than not. Some are very sensitive, I'm not throwing out the blanket of totalitarianism.

But, I have had my share of the bad kind and I have learned to shore up and not be so giving.

However. In the case of the ex-tenant who came back for a few months, I was thinking this person was going to behave as he did when he was here before: he paid his rent on time and then when his girlfriend moved in, he paid extra for my extra monthly incurrences. Okay, so I made my input before she moved in: for each extra person that moves in here, I incur more costs regarding electricity and water. I can't put a definitive number on it as I had no desire to go that far with it, but I did go beyond what I figured it would cost me, I stated an extra $100 per month.

It's not dishonest - there is also extra wear and tear. Well, honesty really has nothing to do with it. I find it acceptable to simply charge an extra $100 per month for an extra person in the same bedroom. If the person that is already renting that room doesn't like it, then that person can either not have that person move in, or that person can go find a new place to live.

I already thought of myself as a person that could confront others easily when the situation necessitated it. But, when they are living in your own home, there was a feeling that overcame me that I wasn't expecting. Not that I didn't wany my money, or that I didn't want to confront people on stupid, gross habits, especially in the bathroom, but - they are in my home. It puts a different feel to the matter.

However, after having had a couple of totally rotten/bad apples in here, that feeling has dissipated. It totally disappears when I start looking at my expenditures and my income and finding that if one single renter doesn't pay his/her rent, I'm going directly to the hole.

I'm digging into the 401k loan money that I took out some time ago, actually, to save my @$$ when I thought I was going to lose the place after the AC quit, I paid $650 for the repaid and was totally broke. I'm not far into it, and I haven't cashed one tenant's check yet - I'm waiting on the number 2 tenant to pay his rent which will be due tomorrow and I have no reason to believe that he isn't going to pay it.

The 3rd and temporary tenant a totally different matter. I delivered a notice to him today via slip-under-his-bedroom-door mode. I am very agitated right now. My next door neighbor returned and his junk vehicles are littering the neighborhood. He literally drove in with a mule train of garbage vehicles plus someone must have driven more vehicles behind him - his modus-operandi. GARBAGE. Junkifying the neighborhood I am going to call a complaint in tomorrow. I am further repulsed by his adjunct to his neighbor on the other side - an ex-felon, about a year out of prison, a drug dealing SON OF A BITCH. Freakin' bastard, I despise the man.

I am speaking out of character tonight, I find that I can't stop myself. There is a backlash of s*** inside of me that needs to be vented and here it is, coming out in full force. The ex-felon is a mouth freak - if he says ANYTHING to me again like he has in the past when this returning neighbor comes back - and this freak is over there - I am going to give him an earful of his own medicine. He is on parole, in fact, BOTH of them are on parole, I could freakin' get them into serious problems with them saying ANYTHING in terms of a threat.

But really, I feel like hauling off and decking the idiot. I know, I said it already, I said it in my other blog earlier today, I am cranky and irritable. I have too much on my plate and it's going far too slow to get it removed. But I cannot stand mouthy a-holes voicing lines of ignorance that goes on forever. When it's in person, and if it's bad enough, you can bet that I am going to say something blunt, frank and to-the-point. I tried to give this ex-felon freak a bit of latitude - I am not into starting wars with neighbors, but this guy is not a neighbor. He is living totally off of his mother, who bought the house for him, bought him a new car, buys his food, pays all of his bills.

He has no job, he does nothing, he is a waste.

Again, I am not myself today and I have no excuses - but- I offer none either.

Anyway, after delivering the notice, I go outside to water plants. I did that for a while and then I sat down on a lawn chair on the east side of the house and simply emptied my mind. I was already mad at the dogs - one of them got into the trash can and another got over a fence and trampled some plants. NOT the fencing that I put up on the east side of the house for the dog-free zone, another area in the rear of the house.

Grouchy. I am being bombarded with too much from all sides and it's eating at me.

Okay, well back to the non-paying tenant, another source of EXTREME irritability. He obviously read my message because while I was outside - and didn't even know he had returned home from work - he had delivered me a hand-written note.

Without going into all of the details - he alleges to pay me this week and then $100 every week after that to get caught up.

IF this is true, then there is a big sigh of relief. I will no longer be digging holes into the finacial realms of ruin, I will at least be breaking even, but actually doing a little better than that.

I have to do something. Get some prayer, have some drinks, whatever, but I have to find a way to calm down, because I can tell you that with everything going on right now in my life, I am freakin' on the edge.

ben

Fall Is In The Air...........

.........I'm sure of it - everywhere but HERE. Okay, the dying leaves on my tree out front are the only indication I have seen yet that fall is here. 105 is the predicted high tomorrow - but - 89 is the predicted high for Thursday!!! Yoohoo - and better be true.

Well, anyway, I have finally decided to sell off the Lazy Boy love seat and ottoman. I have no room for it - it's a beautiful piece of furniture - but it is taking up space, is never used and looks very gawdy where I have it. And where I have it is the only place it can go, besides out. So, out it's going to go. Either sell it for what it's worth - or trade for something.

Yes, I'm just changing subjects as fast as I change gears in the semi - which is pretty fast actually. Not really focused on any one thing right now. The situation with Caleb's teacher is dealt with as far as I'm concerned - the District thinks differently but it's totally out of my hands and whatever his fate will be, I put my 2 cents in.

My 2 cents? I said I hope nothing serious in terms of consequences happens to him because he made a very impassioned statement about his love for teaching and that he was truly sorry for what he did and said it would NEVER (his lettering of it) happen again, and from reading about the guy, I'll take the optimistic and hopeful side and trust that he's telling it like it is. The man is going for a docotorate's degree, that is some serious commitment to his profession. I told the principal that today and I am calling the superintendant tomorrow and saying the same thing.

.........and hope I am not wrong about the guy. Heck, he's a Steelers fan, what else need I know? lol.

BlackBird on the other blogging site suggested that I take a trip to see autumn in all it's colors. A day trip will do that for me. I'm quite sure my son wouldn't want to go with the old man for a - trip into my own world of seeing and soaking in the breathtaking views that nature has in autumn. I know just the place to go to see such - about a 100 mile drive I'm guessing. Hey, I live in a desert, to really see the goods I have to get out of the desert. Really what I would like to do is simply drive up to the place, park the car and go for a long hike into the mountains. I care not that it would be alone. I suppose I could take one of the dogs - any of which would love the trip I am sure. I will NOT take all 3 of them, that would ruin the trip - too much to deal with.


I'm thinking of doing that this coming weekend - get up early on Saturday or Sunday - get to the place in a couple hours or less - probably less the way I drive - spend a half day there.

Will I do it? I may very well. I need a change of scenery, something to shake me out of this stagnation I feel I'm currently in. It's just that the summer heat has been so stifling, it has done it's job on my psyche. I look forward to BBQ'ing outside and simply enjoying the outdoors again.

I sent the form in to get my 2007 W2 from my company. An entire form that you have to fill out and sign, plus send your ID plus pay $10. Yup, my bad, I have looked and looked and looked for that tax stuff and I simply cannot find it anywhere. I have no idea what I did with it, but wherever it is, I expect I will find it AFTER I needed it. That's the way things work sometimes : |

As I stated on my other blog, I may have been exposed to Swine Flu. A worker at the main branch came down with it this weekend, many of us were close enough to him to "catch" some germs on Friday. No idea. If I get symptoms of flu, I'm headed to the nearest medical facility to find out if I have it, and if so, get me the drugs, now, please. That worker has been confined to his house and his family was asked to leave for at least 5 days. Incredible.

Hey, a tenant actually paid me BEFORE the rent is due for once!!! Amaaaaaaazing!!!
The older gentleman, of course. I haven't heard from him about any discontents here, but then again, he doesn't like to talk much, he just walks through, says a few words and disappears either into his room or out to his truck with his dog. Well, I don't demand or even expect tenants to have any kind of friendly relationship with me, as long as they're civil - which he always is - what he does is his business.

Ummm, I'm just waiting for the heat to disappear, really. It WILL change things. I hate being indoors as much as I am. Oh, the Michael report: nothing. He isn't around at all now that the Playstation III is broken. His life is dictated by video games, he's truly a junkie. To the point he will miss as much school as possible to stay home and play stupid games. I wish I had parental authority over him - I would vanquish those stupid games until he returned to a normal life without them - such as going to school everyday.

Well, I have no control over that and I always wash my hands of it. My son is asking to have the thing fixed - the Playstation III, I'm not really that interested in it. Not just because of the money involved but also because of the fact that since that thing has been shut off, kids are finding other things to do.

That's it. It's not bedtime for me yet, but I'm very tired. I slept about 5 and a half hours last night and worked all day straight through without a break or without eating. I got to eat after work, yes, but it always does something to me to work all day without having a chance to stop and get a bite.

As for you all, have a great evening/day/whatever's going on in your part of the world.
ben

Tax Papers

Never found them. Have spent several hours going through the entire house, car, everything. Checked at work - nothing.
The last time I saw them I had taken them into a tax preparer's office to see about getting it all done. They told me $250 per yer plus more for the 2007 year. I balked at that and decided to just let it go.
I did take those forms back out to the car with me, and that's the last time I can remember seeing them.
I have searched everything - and I do mean everything. It took me an hour just to go through the stuff in the closet - ALL of it.

So, I resolved to myself that I would just have to start over.
Which really isn't that bad - except - all that time I spent going over all the things I lost in the house fire. I spent days worth of time attempting to write it all down, and now that so much time has passed, I couldn't possibly remember all of that.

The good news is that I wrote it all into an email that I sent to myself - just in case this happened. Yup, I found that email and yup, if I hadn't written it down I would have forgotten half of that stuff at least. That would be the singlemost difficult thing to replace.

The rest? Call my company and have them fax me a copy of 2007 end of year W-2. I have the amount to have the house removed memorized - $4,100.00
That should also be able to be a write-off, but I'll have to call the company and have them fax me that document as well. Hopefully they will do that. I'm assuming an automatic audit which is the 2cd reason I haven't done it, I have no desire to sit in an office with a tax man attempting to prove that what I say on that return is actually the truth.

Another thing that I never did get is a copy of the report by the fire inspector. Guess I'll have to track that down this coming week - have to prove that the house burned down. I do have pics of it, though, on my Photobucket account as I recall I took a large number of them. It shows half the house completely gutted and the rest of the house with extensive smoke damage. If an audit does occur - which I recall everyone telling me they will do it - I will have proof of the fact that my house was nothing but charred wood, melted metal and ashes.

I will have to fully prepare myself for an eventual audit, but I am going to get the return done this week regardless. I am still half tempted to just buy TurboTax software - but - I don't know how that would work for the year 2007? I'll have to look into that. I'm just going to have to grab the bull by the horns here and tackle into this and discard the anxieties of the thought of having to prove all of this and sit there with some geek dude or dudette wearing horn-rimmed glasses behind a huge desk sitting there glaring down at me with them figuring they will do me in somehow - the tax man that is. That's they way I like to think of those people, they chose that profession, they are probaby not well liked by too many people.

I've got the house write-off; the removal of the house write-off; I assume something can be gained from the purchase of a house, dunno about that; and of course the taxes I paid that year. Also wondering if having to pay for 2 residences at the same time would be considered a write-off - the stays at the hotel rooms and then subsequently having to rent an apartment while also paying the mortgage on the property at the same time. Certainly worth asking about. As it stands I can claim probably 100k write-off on the house and lost personal property contained within. It was an old mobile home, can't really say it was worth THAT much! I'm just going by what the market said at the time it was worth.

This is more than I really want to deal with right now, but I have no choice. I am not about to let the IRS do that tax year return for me. I will spend the money to get this done and I'm going to have to use a tax preparer now that I think about it, at least for that year, because I have no idea what I can write off and what I can't or even how to go about doing it.

Fun fun.

There is nothing more I can do today unless I can think of somewhere else to look for that paperwork. I'm kicking myself for not putting it in a safe place - or maybe I put it in TOO safe a place but I can't think of anywhere else I might have put that stuff. I pulled the bench seat out of the car wondering if it got jammed down under there, searching under the seats, the glove compartment even the trunk. I have this feeling I brought that stuff back into the house - but if it's here, it's invisible to my eyes and as I said, I am highly annoyed with myself for losing that rather valuable data.

Oh well.

I'm off to the grocery store - I'm going to make something today - dunno what, I figure walking around the store will give me some ideas. I'm hungry right now, really, but I don't feel like cooking, I just expended a huge amount of energy going through everything looking for that paperwork - and to think it was a waste of time since there were no results in that activity.

ben

Summer Will Never End

I'm sure of it. It's just going to stay at least 103 for the rest of my life here.

If you could get an inkling of fathomation of how tired I am of the heat, you would understand. It's going to be 105 today and 107 tomorrow - near the end of September!

I was hoping I could both go get some perennials and some rye grass to plant on my patch out back - but no way. The heat will kill the flowers quickly and the grass probably won't even grow - but if it did, it wouldn't last very long.

No, the high temps must be below 100 and stay that way before I consider doing any of that.

Meanwhile, Mary took her nice little wrought iron table when she left - of course she would it's hers. I would have offered her some money for it, but she owes me so much that there is no way on earth I'm giving HER anything. I have put out of my mind for a while in suing her as I have other things going on, not the least of which is dealing with this IRS situation.

I have plenty of time to sue her, she may think she's gotten off the hook but she's going to get served eventually by a process server and reality will come back to her. I have not let go of the fact that she attempted to have me arrested on a bogus charge. If it weren't for that, I doubt I would even still be thinking about it.

Meanwhile, I have had enough of not having a working printer in my house - I could have used it 6 ways to Sunday by now and I keep putting it off hoping I will find one on Craigslist like the one I have now so I don't have to waste the freshly bought ink cartridges, but I've held out as long as I am going to. There are plenty for sale on Craigslist for cheap, just hope the one I get has at least half filled cartridges.

So, I'm looking on Craigslist for a cheap wrought iron table for the outdoors - and there are plenty on there for very cheap and now I'm going to look for a printer as well. I have sent off a dozen or so emails on tables - one of them is gorgeous with a glass top and they only want $20 for it!! This is a sign of the times, folks, that stuff would be going for 10 times that amount in a normal economy.

An outdoor table makes the situation on the west side of the house look inviting. I do have a glass top table set up next to my grill, but that is for grill use. I want a low-heighth table for sitting and drinking coffee and eating out there as well. Set it up right next to the grass and against the western block wall - I already have chairs out there.

So, I'm just waiting for anyone to write back. I kinda hate to take advantage of someone that's obviously selling off stuff for a few bucks, but they are setting the prices. It's not like I would try to talk the guy down that is selling the $20 table or anything. That would, I am sure, be insulting considering what the table looks like in the photo, he might as well be giving it away for the $20 - it may already be sold for all I know.

It's too hot outside for me to want to do anything. I'm tired of the heat, I've had enough and I'm just going to stay inside. I cleaned up the dog dung and watered some of the plants that need watering, I'll get to the rest of it this evening when it starts to cool down. Supposedly, after the next 3 or 4 days, the temps are going to cool off considerably.

Well they SHOULD, it will be OC-freakin-TOBER by then! It BETTER cool down in OCTOBER!!! Geeze.

I have not gone to the casino in ages and I suddenly got this hankering to go. That is usually a very good sign, but I'm not sure I will go anyway. I hate the smoke filled rooms, it just makes me naseous by the time I leave I'm feeling sick half the time from inhaling all that second-hand smoke. I would love to go "earn" a couple a hundred bucks, though. When I have this feeling - hard to explain - I can pretty much expect that I will walk out of there with more than I came in with.

Oh well, maybe later - maybe not at all. It would be nicer than sitting in the house all day long, though.

I think I will head up to Home Depot to look around the garden center even if I ain't buying nothin' yet - kinda the man's version of women's clothes shopping.

ben

I'm Not Upset

I am not upset about the situation with KCL - I'm disgusted in some respects, but there is no anger here.
It's simply that I find the stuff going on on certain - which could be labelled as many - blogs to be unacceptable, at least for me. Which is fine, the point is that even the home page has been absolutely littered with pure garbage in terms of lewdness and sexual references laced with f bombs and just - junk.

I took Fin's post today labelled sex in the toilet to be tongue-in-cheek - dear Fin, I would have been interested to see what comments you would have gotten on that entry. Oh, now that I think about it, good idea to close the comments!

Will my "rant" get anything done? Dunno, but I was at the point that I felt that I must say something - especially considering the people in question writing the content that is questionable (at best) certainly have no inhibitions whatsoever in displaying that content in their titles, proudly, for the world to see.

That is done. I'm still over there and even posted yet another entry - this one title The F Bomb - but that entry has nothing to do with KCL, instead having to do with a certain of Caleb's teachers - a high school teacher to clarify - engaging in a tirade of foul litany today including the f-bomb being dropped towards the teenagers that were in his classroom. I don't really want to write all that again - if you are so inclined as to want to read it, it's "over there" on the other blog.

The weekend is here. This is a good thing. The temps, however, are not agreeable yet. They are dealing nicely cooled morning temps - by Phoenix standards anyway - but it was definitely HOT this afternoon. The armored car guy came in a few minutes ago - smelled horrible. Large man, sweats all day long with all that garb on he has to wear with a huge bulletproof vest and such. Yes, please do take a LONG, hot or cold or whatever shower, thank you.

I haven't been out in the yard yet - which is not good because the sun is starting to go down. But, I can ignore it for a day in watering since the temps are getting lower, still hot but not THAT hot - I'm trying to save on water bills.

Oh, I've done enough writing today - I'm done with this.

Have a great evening, take care of yourselves - later!
ben

Darkness

There are days in my life where I am confronted with extreme temptation. I get the feeling of letting go, putting down the guard and doing whatever I please. I read people who grant themselves permission to do just such every day and I wonder why they can do such things and I can't. The list of things I see is long. Whether it's someone's blog, a co-worker, a person I know from online that isn't blog related, a friend. It's not just the daily junk you see in the news - celebrities who seemingly do whatever they want to in life without and kind of consequences, but it eventually catches up with them, too.

This was one of those days. I've had strange emails coming from people I don't know asking to do things - how they got my email I have no idea. I think of all the things I'm not doing that I could be.

It happens. The mind is a battlefield. It is if you want to try to keep it pure, anyway. If you don't care what goes on in there, then there is no battle - you've already lost and are a prisoner, shackled and chained whether you want to believe it or not.

I come back to my senses eventually and fortunately do not actually ACT on those impulses. It's always a relentless battle, though. I look at the people who do whatever they please, say whatever they please, etc - and realize that many of these people's lives are mere existence. No real life, just a daily grind of doing the same thing without any more expectation than to gratify themselves in one way or the other. The excesses with which these people live are beyond imagination.

I wonder about people who can simply mouth off to anyone at a moment's notice and think nothing of it. I wonder about people whose goal it is in life is to go around and challenge anything and everything that anyone says - nothwithstanding the fact that that person hasn't got a clue. Maybe in some areas they know something, but no-one is an expert in everything, only God can make that claim, yet these people will argue with you and even start to attempt to humiliate you simply because you state something you believe, or that you KNOW for a fact.

The I'm-right-and-you're-always-wrong-crowd. Seems like the blogosphere is FULL of people like that.

I have to say that I am at a loss about situations going on at a specific blogging host. I don't hate the place but the incredible amount of hate, anger and then extreme carnality leaves me at a loss. People seem to feed on that stuff, especially controversy. Here, my mind is racked with trying to find stuff for the IRS and what did I do with it; keeping tenants in the house and making sure that I have paying tenants to boot. Paying for the house and all the bills. Trying to beautify the property and keep it maintained. My work life and attempting to keep myself pure. I'm not a lily-white angel, but I'm certainly attempting to lead a clean life, I utterly fail at times but that's the down-side to be human.

I do wonder how reading all of that stuff on a daily basis is helping me at all.

Well, I don't blame other people for my problems in life, unless of course someone has done something intentional and then I can say something about it. I also don't blame people for temptation that comes against me. We are all tempted from time to time with something - whatever your weaknesses are, it's guaranteed that some wonderful opportunity to fall into that weakness will come at you with unprecedented accuracy in it's aim at your mind, soul and heart. It's so easy to just give in, isn't it?

Yet, if you fight the battle and win, it's so wonderful to come out the other side and look back at the personal, inner battles that you conquered.

Today's stuff is over, literally. I had to sit back and start giving serious thought to what was going on inside of me, what triggered it and how to not let that happen again. The last part of that may mean some extreme decisions, really, on my online activities, and more pointedly, blogging. How can blogging tempt you, you say? How does anyone get tempted? It isn't my own blogging, this is pretty tame stuff comparitively speaking. That's the point, I think, without going into it too far here.

ben

I was going to.........

.....write a nice entry this morning, but even though I'm at work early and not signed in, I checked our truck routing system and there is a LOT to do today. In fact, more than I can get done, I'm thinking. I'm going to sign in a little early and get a jump on the day and see if I can knock all of this stuff out.

It does feel good that I will have a full day of stuff to do. Yesterday was a little slow and that can get to having mind games and such.

Regardless, hope everyone has a great day (or evening, depending on where you're at!)!
ben

Serenity

I really want to hone in on this. I know I spoke of is yesterday - don't really remember if it was here or "there", but it's something I'm tuning into.

Yesterday, a "lazy" Sunday afternoon - not so lazy since I was busy working all over the place around the house, but still - I was sitting on the east side of the house.

From the beginning, when this house was placed on this property, I saw the potential of this portion of my property as being an oasis. I knew that GETTING there would be a major challenge - it takes money to do nice things with your property.

Sure, you can diligently scour Craigslist, a thing I have done to no end - and you can go to yard sales and you can try to find things when they are on sale - I have done all of that. But you don't ALWAYS find exactly what you're looking for on sale or cheap.

I have resisted getting something "lessor" over there because of my intense desire to make that place an oasis.

What really tuned it in was the fact that those ridiculous dogs next door had a temporary lapse for whatever reason. I could see them through the fence, staring at me and my dogs, but they were not barking. My dogs were lazily laying in the grass, simply enjoying being with - me, actually. I don't call them out there, they follow me like a magnet to steel. I let all 3 of the big dogs come out front with me now.

I do that to train them to STAY on the property. If that gate ever gets left open again, I hope by that time I have them ALL trained to STAY HERE. One of them got it last time, maybe they will ALL get it if ever again. They are very social animals, I don't have to worry about them attacking someone or someone's pet walking down the street. The worst that will happen is they don't listen and go up to that person or animal and start sniffing.

Of course, if the animal they GO to is prone to violence, that could lead to an unhappy ending. Which is why I keep an eye on both ends of the street - if anyone is coming with a dog, my boys and girl are going back behind the gate.

Oh, the beauty of tranquility. The essence of simply taking in life and the good it has to offer. Looking around thinking thoughts of heaven and just total peace. I couldn't get enough of it, yesterday.

I sat there in the peace, looking at the area I was in, thinking what I would like to do with it. Plenty of thoughts came to mind, all of it costs money. I'm not complaining, it gives me goals. Goals to find ways to make these things happen.

I was out there again today, but it was very warm - 106 high today - so I didn't exactly have the same feeling. Tomorrow and the rest of the week have 100 as the high and lower. That is something I an deal with. I have plenty I can do over there right now without spending any more money, including the installation of that drip system. It will start in earnest very soon - as soon as I know I can just sit there in coolness or mild warmth and not have to think about how unbelievable hot it is out there.

By next summer - providing I still have this place and don't lose it to foreclosure or something bad happens - I will have a misting system out there and I am going to install a small patio cover made out of materials I can get for free from work. They throw away beautiful 4x4's all the time. It would be a very simple matter to cement 4 of them into the ground and then build a roof type of thing on it and install a misting system into it. Okay, I would have to pay for the cement and other small items, it would be very cheap.

There is no reason I should be thinking about spending my time on the WEST side of the house outside during the summer when I can do something very affordably with the EAST side of the house. I have those Sissoo trees growing like weeds on the west side of the house, by next summer I hope they can do some good in casting some shadows over there.

I'm a total tree fanatic. I have 13 Sissoo trees planted and a 14th left to go, and yes I've found a place for it, and yes, it will be planted in the next few days. There are a total of 25 trees planted now when considering the ficus. No, make that 26 with the tiny little pine tree that, in 25 years, will be a behemoth. These are all small trees. I wasn't waiting for the day before never, I had the opportunity to get the Sissoos and the Ficus cheap. Sissoos are native to India, I have read, and do not need alot of watering.

BUT, if you DO a lot of watering, they grow like CRAZY!!

Back to the east side of the house. During summer, besides the misting system, a simple evaporative cooler will give the additional cooling needed out there to make me not go insane wanting to BE out there, but NOT wanting to be in the excessive and abusive heat.

I had a very enjoyable day out there yesterday. I could stand some more of them.

ben

Think I'll Post Over Here For A Little While

I am not leaving KCL - I said I wouldn't so I won't. That does not mean I HAVE to post over there. When all the foul and vicious junk that's going on over there dies down, I'll get back to it over there. I suspect that even though there's a temporary lull, the worst of it is yet to come. Certainly, it's not totally over.

I just have other things I need to focus on right now and that kind of atmosphere does not lend well to it. This morning, the amount of lewd vulgarity was more than I could handle. So call me a wimp, I like to think of myself as civilized, out of the Barbarian age and beyond such things. I love a lot of people over there, but the mob mentality took over if not temporarily, just wait a few days for it to die down.

Now, read this again, for anyone that wants to go running to KCL: I am NOT leaving the place and I am not trashtalking it. I am speaking my opinion. I think the admins of the place are great people who have been put under a lot of stress and probably, they might back off from it for a day or two just to let the air clear. But, I'm just a squeaky little voice, it's only my opinion, I am holding NOTHING against any one person, and I like many of the people over there.

Meanwhile, I always have my good ole' Blogspot blog.

The IRS is INSISTING I file a return for the year 2007. WHY they singled out that year, I have no clue. I have heard countless times from various experts that if you don't owe money to the IRS, you don't HAVE to file. They have sent me 2 notices. I called them Friday. The lady was kind enough - it isn't the IRS treatment of the past where you are a scumbag that hasn't paid your taxes even if there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that.

And CERTAINLY, I pay a HECKUVA lot of taxes every payday to the IRS. They GET their share, they get MORE than their share. If I could keep the half of what I pay them every year, my financial situation would improve exponentially.

Well, I'm on the phone with this woman. She looks up my file. "You made X amount of money that year, the IRS wants you to file a return. In fact, you haven't filed for several years". Cause at tax time, or any other time really, I don't have the money to pay a tax return specialist to do my taxes and even if I did, I don't have the luxury of waiting to get a check back for 2 months.

I informed this woman that in 2007, my house burned down, it was a total loss and I will be owed a great deal of money from the IRS if they are going to push this issue.

Yup, they're going to push it. She said they will send out one more notice and then they will do my taxes for me. Great. She also stated, after I asked, that to have the return amended will cost me more money to do so. Okay, they win. I have the funds available, I don't want to put it on hold forever, but I am not going to let them get the best of me by filing my taxes FOR me and possibly coming up with bogus junk. I can't imagine how much it's going cost to have a qualified, legitmate tax agency do this for me, but I can't afford to be wrong on this one, not with so many deductions. I want THEM to back me up if/when the IRS calls me in for an audit, and you can be rest assured, with the kind of deductions I am going to make for that tax year, I will have plenty.

Still, I HATE doing taxes. I figure I pay enough into the system, leave me the freak alone. I have all the paperwork, at least, in my closet, I got all of that quite some time ago in case this ever came up. It took quite a while to get all of that too, so I'm glad at least that footwork is done.

Well, I got home from work today and tookalookit the plants freshly placed in the ground yesterday. Not keeling over and dying, that's all I wanted to see. Rooting takes a while, but it shouldn't take too terribly long. I have 4 more ficus to put in and a Sissoo. I'm going to put the Sissoo in where I take out one of the now-burned Norfolk Pines. I am getting all of this stuff before our version of winter hits. It's all good until any frosts come along, then rooting takes a definitive role in whether a plant lives or dies. And anyway, I don't want those potted trees to sit there all winter long in those pots. Let's get them into the ground already, shall we?

I am going to give a final shot of "drugs" to the plants this coming weekend with Miracle Gro - after I get the last of what needs to be planted in. I hope to get that done this week and then do the spraying this weekend.

Oh, and we got it over with. Steelers lost yesterday in a game they could have easily won a dozen times over. They looked piss-poor and let's not blame the rain, Jacksonville had the same handicap. Pittsburgh IS rain, the place is made out of it. It rains all the time there! The thunderstorms are awe-inspiring. No, I just say we got it over with. We won the Super Bowl last year, somebody had to beat us the first time this season, it's over with, the hooplah of it should be over with, now let's get on with the season, shall we?

Umm, that's it for now. I have a lot of stuff I could say on here, that has nothing to do with the other blogging site, BTW, but I am wary of who might be reading here.

Oh, called my son earlier but no answer. I left him a message to call me, I want daily communication with him about school. This is an absolute must considering what's going on right now with his grades. He has a rifle competition coming up on the 3rd of next month, I am going to stay on top of this until I see a passing grade in Geometry and rising grades in other classes as well.

If I get a wild hair, write about the rest of what's on my mind later, if not, have a great evening!
ben

Saturday

I want a cigar. Haven't had one in ages, just want to smoke a big, fat cigar with a glass of something and enjoy the ride.

Well, anyway. I want to move the old Buick, the battery is dead. So, I went down and got a "new" battery - there is a place near downtown Phoenix that sells refurb batteries for $22. It's not too good to be true, either, that place has been there forever and I have bought batteries there before.

Got it home, installed it, car fired right up. Ran for a couple of minutes - then died. Figured it was out of fuel so I went and got a can of fuel. Well, it was only a gallon and the car is on an incline, I can only get it to start run for a flash of a second and dies again. I may tried another can of fuel - later on.

Got a call from someone today looking for a room to rent. Thought that odd because I took down all the old ads. It was a message left by someone, I am not returning the call - well, maybe I will. I have never confronted Jeff on the rent issue. There is no way I can afford another month of him living here for free. He KNOWS I rent out rooms, I don't just give them away. Yet, he is content to say nothing and do nothing - his reasoning without actually SAYING it is his reasoning for not paying is this looming amount for his attorney in his child custody battle. He needs to come up with thousands of dollars for it. Great, I need $100 for the water bill and another $100 for electricity.

I might think about giving him a reduced rate, but free is going out the window. If he can't afford to pay rent because of the lawyer situation, then perhaps he can move back in with his friends he was staying with before he moved in here. I just sent the money out for the first month of the 3 month trial period for keeping my home.

I get tired of having to confront people in my home about whatever. I know, I know, it's my own doings. Perhaps - just because of the people living here - but I still just get tired of having to deal with it.

Long delay. I went and got another gallon of gas to dump into the old Buick - fired right up. Making that noise - it needs a new harmonic balancer. It also needs a couple of new valve cover gaskets and one of the rear brake solenoids is leaking. AC needs a can or 2 of freon pumped into it. Nothing major - which is why I have kept the car. Major is tranny or engine. The engine only has 138,000 miles on it -that car has at least another 50,000 in it, at least going by what I have seen others of this same brand and model do.

I've kept the car for 2 reasons. First, if my finances REALLY go south and I lose the ability to make the car payments on my newer car, then I MUST have something to fall back on. Second, if my son ever gets a driver's license and a job (must have both) he will be allowed to go ahead use the thing for school and work. I don't really like just having a car sitting around, though. Anyway, I just moved the thing out of the front of the driveway and behind the gates in the rear. This is the area where I'm going to dump the junk I want hauled out of here for the bulk trash pickup. After that's done, a tenant can park there and get one of the vehicles off of the street.

I have decided - continuing on with a theme I started earlier on my other blog - that I will just go ahead and plant the ficus along the eastern side of the front of my property. I am already watering other plants there, this will do nothing to increase water usage. I didn't want to plant anything there that would give my neighbors shade on their property. They started a war with me some years ago and it has never been resolved. I don't WANT to give them shade, but the flip side is that I will eventually have a screen to not have to see them and also I will have something to do with these ficus trees - I'm running out of places to put plants.

Seriously, there are few places left for plants now. I've got them just about EVERYWHERE on this property! Front, back and sides.

Umm, anyway, it warmed up out there and dealing with the car wasn't exactly fun.

Talk to ya later - ava' great Saturday!
ben

Thursday

A big thank-you to my blogging/internet friends in Australia - Neil and Lynne - for sending me some fantastic photos/footage of a bit of the life over there! I didn't know they drove on the wrong side of the road in Australia, I thought that was for Englishmen!!

Let's get on with the business at hand.

I bought the kids a Playstation 3 some time ago, maybe a year and a half, 2 years - don't remember exactly. The things were going for $500 at the time, I found a brand new one for $360.

Those kids have played that thing to death, literally. On the weekends it's playing 15 hours a day, in the summer it's going all the time. I got sick of the thing long ago - I make them turn the volume on the TV it's being played on ALL THEY WAY DOWN when I'm in here and they want to play it.

It quit working last weekend. I found this out from my son. Caleb said I must know about the thing being broken. No, I did not - I don't play the freakin' thing and nobody told me. NOW I understand why I haven't seen Michael since Sunday morning. Lol.

So, anyway - I call Sony up today. A woman gets on the phone - it was quite obvious she was reading script from a computer screen. I interrupted her after 60 seconds of her monotone and asked to speak to a manager.

"Well, sir, he's going to tell you the same thing I am telling you" - my concern - shock - awe - in being told that a system that expensive that is broken in less than 2 years would cost me $150 to fix. I DON'T CARE IF HE DOES TELL ME THE SAME THING, put him on the phone, please.

I'm on hold for a couple of minutes. She gets back on: "Well my supervisor told me to tell you - yada yada yada". "Ma'am, I asked to speak to a supervisor, not speak to you to speak to a supervisor, I will speak to your supervisor now". Same story, he'll tell me the same thing. Same response, I don't care.

Nice racket Sony has going. First off, pay a fortune for their machine. Then, when it quits working, pay a fortune to get it fixed. Then comes the final gasp of air: For $150 to fix a machine that already cost most everyone else $500, you only get a 90 day warranty!!! I complained bitterly about that part of it. I should get a full year's warranty for that much money.

Didn't matter to them. I gave up - I was tired and I'm already fighting another battle which is draining me immensely. I'll have to call again. I did try finding on Craiglist, calling video game stores, google searching anyone fixing these systems locally - found nothing yet.

Umm, I was going to write more but I just realized it's 10 minutes past my bedtime!

G'nite!

ben

Tuesday

There is one important thing about this house I am living in that I left out when I had it built, but now wish I had done. That would be putting some level of sound proofing in the inner walls. Even just plain old insulation would have been good.

Noise isn't that big of an issue here, but it can get interesting. For me, I'm on one end of the house and all the rest of the bedrooms are on the other end, so no big deal. But I think it would be easier having tenants if they weren't exposed to each other's noises. Now, they are keeping it pretty quiet - still - I just wish I would have done something with that thought.

Well, anyway. I'm fairly sure my ex-wife has this blog on her list. If you, mrs. ex. - are here, reading my personal blog, you are totally messed up. You have absolutely no business being here. Reading a person's personal diary that you USED to be married to and are no longer is just plain not right. Not to mention all the s*** you have dumped on me in the last several days, I bid you a good riddance from my blogging adventures and don't invite your friends here, either. If you want to fill their heads full of lies about me, do it on your OWN without reading my blog for "fodder" for your bull****.

I had to purge myself of that, as one of her - the ex's - emails contained an alleged statement I made in whichever blog. But if I recall correctly, which I am quite sure I do, the thing she was mentioning was a statement I made about her not ever getting any of THIS property I am at now. The judge agreed with that in divorce court - this is where I moved to after leaving all that past-life with her behind, she had nothing to do with obtaining this property and since there is not that much paid on it, her "half" of it would be half of the remaining PAYMENTS left on it.

This property is now worth less than I paid for it. But recent estimates bring it to only a 5 to 7 thousand negative. A few months ago, this property was worth fully 30k less than what I originally paid for it. Even that pales in comparison to many people in this part of the country whose properties value have tanked 100k or even more. Can you imagine buying a house for $300,000 and then the economy tanks and now it's only worth 200k or even less than that, though you still have a mortgage that is paying off 300k ? Yeah, pretty sucky.

Well, life goes on. She - the ex - has threatened court action. I am SO terribly sick of her using that as a fear-mongering tool - get me to comply with whatever by threatening court, that I wrote her back and told her to go for it. At this point, I would FAR rather face the judge than continue on with the crap. The one assurance I have in all of this is that this is NOT going to go on forever. My son turns 18 in less than 2 years - he is the only link between us. After the crap she said to me in the last round of emails, I don't care if I never hear from her again. I have NO desire to talk to her in email, phone, snail mail, whatever.

Got distracted by tenants and now it's bedtime.

G'nite!

ben

Sunday

I had wanted to take it easy today, and wrote so on my other blog, but no such thing is occuring.
Instead, I have full-tilted myself into a clean spring fiesta of this, that and the other thing - just like a clean house. I had to take the drain apart underneath the main sink's sink and - found a lot of long hair in there. I'll be guessing that's Mary's.

The sink was draining slow and whoever is shaving in there doesn't clean out the residue left behind because of the slow drain.

I wish my printer was working. I am going to write up a schedule and people can fill in the blanks. The schedule is cleaning duties in the main bathroom. I have cleaned the toilet in there I think 5 times this week - urine and slide marks making it a disgusting thing to see when arriving in the bathroom - and other things we won't go into.

I have no obligation to clean all of that up on a continued basis. My son uses that bathroom so I do my share - yes, my share is being the ONLY person to clean that thing up. I left the bathroom waste basket full for a week now, seeing if anyone dare take it out - neither I nor my son use it. It was full of tissues and Q-tips and all kinds of stuff. No, no-one threw out the trash and instead, it overflowed and it was all over the floor.

I would like to think that full-grown adults would find it shameful to be leaving it like that, but - I can imagine one thinking that they can just blame someone else and therefore, NO-ONE taking responsibility for it. It's just the way things go with tenants and the only way to correct it is confrontation. I don't like to HAVE to do it, but I have no choice. I have let this situation go for a month now to see if anyone would do anything in there.

As it stands, I just got through scrubbing the entire bathroom out - tub; floor; toilet inside and out; sink, mirrors. The bathtub was rather gross looking with all the soap scum all over it. Fortunately, I use cleaner that basically takes that stuff off, just have to do a little elbow work with a sponge to make it totally disappear.

I then went to my bathroom and scrubbed the toilet - but I keep it clean in there and the cleaning in there took me less than 5 minutes. I am thinking of scrubbing out the entire shower stall, a thing I hate to do, but it looks like it's starting to need it.

Next, my room. Halfway done with that plus the living room and still have vacuuming to do. I would make my son do it but I made him go outside and clean up the dog crap. Michael took off early this morning - he came home late last night. In fact, the only reason it appears that he came over here was to get a decent night's sleep. I don't blame the boy - and I won't go into the reasons yet again since I have done so here too many times and regular readers KNOW the reasons.

On that tone, apparently Michael's family know that the cops are out after Anthony. I sweetened the pot by telling Michael and JD that there is a warrant out for his arrest. I have serious doubts the cops know where they currently live - they are renting yet another house and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it's in a fictitious name or someone else's name altogether. I imagine Anthony would already have been arrested. I - have very good reasons NOT to turn him in, my own house and property and keeping it from destruction are the main factors. I have no fear of these people - if I'm HERE, it's when I'm not here. They know when I'm gone.

So, I'm going to let that one alone - eventually Anthony will get caught and my guess it will be for drunk driving, without a license at that and probably no insurance on the car, either. I don't know whose car it is that he is driving around, I think their Aunt's, but that person is crazy to allow that kid to be driving that car anywhere.

Back to my house. I went to Fry's this morning as well as Home Depot - and bought a nice beef roast that was on manager's markdown. From $14 to $7. They have plenty of those markdowns all the time, reason: due date about to arrive and expire. I always either cook it the same or next day or immediately freeze it. Today - I am going to cook it til' it pulls apart with a fork, drain out the juices (dogs will have a nice treat and taste to their dog food today), dump 2 bottles of very good BBQ sauce in there, walaah - BBQ beef sandwiches with coleslaw and french fries.

Caleb and I will be eating quite well later on. Michael and JD went to Michael's house to watch a pay-per-view - WWE Fake Wrestling - at $40 or $45 per pop, whatever it is. These people have no business spending that kind of money on fake wrestling, but, that isn't my problem. If I were into it, I wouldn't even be paying that much money for it as bills, gas, electricity - normal things - take precedence.

Oh, and my trip to Home Depot - pretty short. I wrote about this in the other blog too, but I'm excited about getting some Petunias and adorning my front yard with them in clusters all over the place. The garden center worker said they just got them in - and it's too early, really, to be planting them because it's still too hot. I asked if it was still too hot, how do they survive in there? the garden center is outdoors. He didn't really know, in fact, he wasn't sure they WOULD survive with it being so warm out still. So, Petunias will have to wait for cooler temps.

I'm also working on getting 10,000 plus emails out of my email box. I thought I was "down" to the 7,000 range today in getting rid of almost 2,500 of them now, but that was just the emails I HAVEN'T read. It's ALL junk mail - penis enlarger this; loan mod that. Freakin' ridiculous. I happened to see "all mail" and it's STILL over 10,000 emails!! I realized I wasn't including the mail I have already read and left in there. So, I am deleting most of it, moving some of it that I want to keep to folders. Give me a week and I MIGHT have this all done and then I will try to stay on top of it.

Umm, there's more but this is enough for one entry. I'm just getting stuff done around here today.

Hope you are doing well.

ben

More

So, Sargeant McBroom wrote back after I inquired him about what else I can possibly do to help Michael get with the program.
I already figured he has had number absences - it's a month into the school year and already 9 absences.

He said he would try to get him a bus pass. That will be the end of it for me, if Michael gets a free bus pass from school and STILL has absences, I'm washing my hands of him. He will be told he can come back and visit us - after the school year is over in June. Seriously. He allegedly got a new video game for his system as his family's house - which is why I didn't see him yesterday - I assume he missed yesterday as well. Missing school to stay home and play video games.

His parents think this totally acceptable and want to be "friends" with their kids. Nice - after they are grown up and out of the house - until that point, you are their PARENT, not their best friend. The things you force your kids to do probably aren't going to be very popular with them, such as the stance I am taking with Caleb right now. I'm sure when he grows up he'll think I was the worst dad on earth - so beit. I will not have him compromising his future because he's too lazy to get his homework done or doesn't want to participate in class.

So, time plods on and so do the issues. Seems like I can't buy a free moment of time to not have anything going on that is totally negative.

But, I did have a few moments of peace outside. For some reason, the dogs next door decided to not bark at me and I ended up putting in 4 more plants. I have 10 small ficus trees left to plant and 2 more larger plants, the name of which escapes me right now.

My problem is that I have no idea WHERE I want to put those ficus trees. I have a couple of spots left, sure, but 10 of them? I planted all 3 of the Chinese Elm this morning. 2 in the back and one out front, while ridding the front of dead mini rose plants. Half of them could not survive the intense summer heat. They just burned up. The other half were much denser and made their own shade to survive with. I like the little roses they put out, but I don't like the thorns when trying to clear away any weeds or grass that is growing around them, so no loss on getting rid of the dead ones and decided whether I want any of those plants out there at all.

The ficus cannot take their place, unfortunately. I have enough trees and shrubs out there already, I need more ground covering plants, the likes of which I have none. Some more nurseries are going out of business - but I'm not sure I want to spend another penny on plants right now, I have plenty. Until I figure out what I want to do, I have plenty of rocks from the back I can haul out there to cover the exposed ground.

Oh, I was thinking of putting the ficus out on the very front, next to the sidewalk, but I have had great difficulty getting anything to grow out there. So, gonna take a walk around the property, look at places an eventual tree might go, if there aren't any good places, I'm going to give them away - I paid all of a buck a piece for them. lol

That's it. Ken's mom just tried to call - and I was in the middle of looking for a video on my puter files which froze the whole computer up - the call went unanswered.
So, gonna call her back and then go take a look at where those ficus trees might go.

Rent

Jeff - the ex-tenant who has moved back in temporarily - asked yesterday if he could get me to write up a rental agreement. I still have his "old" one from before, but I said okay, it's apparently for use for his lawyer. HOW it is going to be used, I have no idea, but that really doesn't matter.

While doing so - and writing in the monthly amount to be paid - he continued on with his rather unending statements about how much it's going to cost him to retain this lawyer. Supposedly, he has til' November to come up with 5k. I'm not so gullible as to believe much of what anyone says anymore. People I don't know very well? Could be lying through their teeth.

The last time I was looking for the lawyer route, I was told all kinds of extremely high prices - but that it could be paid off in payments. HIGH payments, yes, over a span of 10 months is what one of them stated.

The man has given me no choice. I mean, I have been waiting for him to talk to me about the rent, as there has been no agreement from me that this is a free ride here. I am sorry that life is hitting him squarely between the eyes with his girlfriend breaking court orders and not allowing him to see his own son, but I have MY problems, too, and most of it is directly related to my finances. To think that this guy is feeling that he's going to stay here this month, next month and half the next month after that - for free - is off the wall. Throw me a bone, give me SOMETHING to work with here. Instead, I am hearing constant statements about how much money this lawyer is going to cost.

I'll bet he isn't sending a letter to the loan company that is carrying his vehicle title with such statements: "Hey, I'm going to have to put you on hold for 3 months while I get my personal stuff taken care of". Guaranteed, they'll come and haul that sucker off.

So, I have no choice but to confront him on it. If he feels he simply cannot pay rent - albeit the fact he's working 6 days a week and taking in very good money with OT - then he can find a new place to live. Most people aren't handing out free rooms right now that I know of, especially in this economy where many folks are finding renting out rooms is a lifeline that is helping them stay afloat. My situation exactly. I would love to be in a better position and help him out - but my circumstances dictate my actions in this particular case.

What makes it even worse for me is that I terminated the ad, told people the room is rented and thought I had this all behind me. I hate having to be the guy that is always giving out bad news, I really do.

I was outside for a little while. Those stupid dogs next door started yelping the second I walked out there. I'm going to start logging the day and time they are barking and doing more video of them sitting there, barking away in case this ends up becoming a court matter.

My next plan of attack, as ugly as it may be - is to block their view of my yard with that black plastic. It only need be high enough so they can't see, that might, just might, help quelch this stuff.

Well, I'm off to read some world news and then get a start on the day.

Happy Saturday!
ben

My Son And School

After calling Caleb's school today and discussing the situation with his geometry teacher, I decided that I better just GO to his school and get a printout of all of his classes, teachers and find out how to access grades online.

It was WELL worth the trip. The lady in administration heard me out and then proceeded to find his schedule and print it for me. Another lady - a former teacher of Caleb's - remembered Caleb well. She sort of shrugged her shoulders when I asked about whether it was the same in her class as it currently is in geometry - and then said yes.

I'm quite appalled at what's going on here. I asked repeatedly at the end of last school year to see his final report card - I'm assuming there's a reason I didn't see it. Caleb isn't stupid, but it's obvious to me that he isn't very well motivated, either.

In steps daddy. I will not tolerate this kind of crap. I looked at grades in every single class. It shows the activity and it shows the grade given. In one class, he has 3 consecutive F's - with 0's - meaning he must not have turned in ANYTHING. UNBELIEVABLE.

I wrote to every single teacher and asked for their guidance and suggestions they might have. I also asked how he managed to get an F on any of those items that are showing such. Did he miss class? Did he not turn in homework? Is there any way for him to make it up? This stuff is going to affect him when he tries to go to college, that's a FACT.

Whatever has BEEN going on is about to change. I can GUARANTEE that. I definitely have the ability to force this issue with him. The conversation we had coming from his mother's house to mine wasn't exactly pleasant. I wasn't mad at him, but I was definitely not tolerant of his excuses. And now that I have seen with my own eyes his grades, well, he's been forewarned. His weekends over here playing video games, watching satellite TV and surfing the internet will COMPLETELY disappear if I don't see immediate improvement. I mean, within a week - any tests, class assignments, homework - it better be at an acceptable grade - I'm thinking minimum B, but I'll accept a C if he's having difficult in it.

And if he IS having difficulty in any other class, then we're going to have to deal with that as well. Right now, though, he isn't failing any other class. One class he's actually managed to have an A-. No, the full force of intensity will be focused on geometry as it's really an emergency that needs sandbags to stop the river from flowing over the dike.

Well, that's that. I can relax a little - I am not going to confront him on the rest of this nonsense until tomorrow as I have already pretty much caused no small amount of distress today over such. I'm trying to back down a little. I was taken off-guard and by surprise when his Colonel informed me of the failing geometry situation last night and really, that effect has not faded on me since that little conversation.

The weekend is here, though I can't really say I've done much work this week!! lol

G'nite.
ben

Failing Geometry

So, I went to this ROTC meeting for the parents tonight and found out at the end that Caleb is in jeopardy of "imminent failure" of geometry and that if he does fail, ROTC will have no choice but to drop him from the program.

This is Caleb's third year in that program, he would be totally devastated.

As if I needed another ration of crap dumped onto my plate, I have to hear this from his Colonel, not from the ex or him. Not saying anything bad about the Colonel, I'm just aghast that I wasn't even informed about this s***. I am going down to the school tomorrow after work and ask for an audience with whoever about how we are going to get him through this - failure is NOT an option.

I've already started looking up local tutors - their prices and their experience - in helping to get through this. I have absolutely no way to pay for it, but I am going to have to FIND a way if it's REALLY coming down to him failing. I have no clue about geometry, I forgot all that stuff in high school, I have had no practical application of it in my adult life except on 2 occasions that I can remember in the last 27 years since I graduated.

I had extreme trouble with Geometry as well. I was good with all the other stuff, but geometry stumped me. It was half way through the school year before I finally started to get it - but I was already at D level grade, I BARELY passed that class. It sucked. Terribly.

I think I'm going to get more info from his teacher in that class and then go from there. Maybe my mom or dad could help with a tutor's expenses. Maybe the school has it's own resources with which to draw from, whatever the case, I will not let this go until I have a clear cut plan of action.

I'm pretty tee'd off, really. Not because he's having trouble, but because I wasn't told about this. I will be going behind the ex's and anyone else' back and getting my updates on his educational progress from this point forth.

Geeze.

Nice ending to a vacation.

ben

End Of Vacation

I've really been dreading this today - my vacation is over as of waking up for work tomorrow morning.
But not the end of the world - I just hope there are deliveries to make in the truck routing system.
I must admit no small amount of trepidation in taking time off and coming back. I have not seen my company dealing with layoffs in such a manner, but there is always the first time.
Yet, I had the time off coming, everyone else has been taking all kinds of time off, I had to do my 2 stints. I still will have plenty of time off hours left even after this - but I dare not take try taking any more of it for a while. I'm thinking Christmas, but maybe a day off at Thanksgiving as well. Before or after, doesn't matter, definitely the other drivers are going to be looking at time off during a major holiday - the MAJOR holidays are, of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas, with New Years a very close, but still trailing, 3rd.

I only elucidate my feelings - employment is a must, a paycheck is a must, there is no getting around such things.

In about 35 minutes, I am leaving for an ROTC meeting for parents. I only know it's for the parents, a communication type of thing, I want to be involved in my son's life to the point he KNOWS that I am there, and not just there, but in the "middle" of it as much as I can be and as much as is good with him. All the cadets will be there - that's what the email stated anyway.

I have to say that I would RATHER stay home and watch this Steeler's V Titans game, the Steelers are my home-town team. Just being honest, but I am pretty sure it will be an interesting meeting and the game is being recorded on DVR, so no big deal, I can watch it tomorrow if it's worth watching. However, I'm getting a view of the game right now - not really looking too stellar on the Steeler's part.

Really, I like getting out of the house - I've been out a couple times today on various errands all over the place. I took Prince to PetSmart - yes you can take your dog into Petsmart as long as it's leashed, licensed and vaccinated (not that they check). A store employee came up admiring him and told me he has a blue Dane. These are VERY beautiful dogs and very expensive, at least if you're getting it from a reputable breeder and that is, really, the ONLY place you're going to get one. They are a sight to behold.

A young German Shepherd came into the store - and started barking at Prince, whose deep voice reverberated throughout the store in response. "I think he has a bigger bark than you" says the guy with the woman holding the dog - to the dog. On the way out, the woman was CARRYING the dog, lol. I have not seen Prince afraid of any dog - not that I encourage him AT ALL in being violent and aggressive, that came naturally on his own and actually, I go the opposite in trying to get him to tone it down.

There is a hummingbird that is frequenting the feeder on a daily basis now. In the evenings, though, he just sits there, perehced above the feeder on the holder. The dogs just started loud barking - the thing took off, but only to the top of the fence. I can see him from here, my kitchen, some 40 feet away through the living room window. Pretty cool.

Well, I must be readying to go.
C'ya later.
ben