Tuesday

In local news - my version of it - Juice and Darnell are going to spend quality time in the local Juvenile Detention hall. Word about such things travels quickly in these "parts". These are the younger brothers of JD - the oldest kid who spends a lot of time at my house playing video games and such with my son. Apparently Darnell has already been on house arrest for some time. These are the 2 boys that tried to steal games from a Fry's Electronics.

The deal with further trouble is that they apparently have been smoking pot, their probation officer puts them through the urine drug testing once a month - and of course it's been "hot" every time for both of them. Their court date before a judge is tomorrow. I expect these boys may find that their free stay at Juvi is not a party and perhaps a short period of time spent in there will give them a change of view about smoking dope while on probation and totally dissing their probation officer in doing such. Well I would call it dissed since those boys know the urine test is going to come back positive for pot use.

Hmmm, well this is an interesting week at work, anyway. When you're regular manager is gone on vacation, it basically means - I - end up doing most everything. Just about guaranteed the guy coming in today will get nothing done around here per se - he will do the invoicing of any tickets that come in but that's about it. I am still attempting to get yesterday's deliveries completed today.

In my own faux pass, I realized this morning that the power reader has only $1.67 left on it. With no hot showers, that could last a long time, but - of course - morning is time to take showers, now isn't it? I'm hoping against hope I get dispatched downtown to do a transfer so I can take a few minutes of my break time, stop at the house and load money onto it. I have Michael to thank for this one - even though it IS my responsibility. The card reader always starts beeping at the $10.00 mark. It will continue to beep until someone pushes the button to stop it. The beeping is the annoyance to let you know that you are, indeed, almost out of power - $10 is enough to last more than 2 days right now - and you'd better do something about it.

Last time Michael did this, I warned him to NOT do that again. So, I figure he needs to pay somehow - I'm sure I can think up some chore that needs to be done that will reinforce the idea of not pushing the button on that electronic device not matter HOW annoying it may be.

Well, I also figure to put a couple hundred on that card this time and not have to worry about it for quite a while.

Work day approacheth. I know of 3 deliveries so far, but I haven't checked this morning. The second delivery is almost nothing in terms of material, that one will be easy. The first one is the huge order from yesterday - it's pulled but not wrapped or loaded. I dunno what the third one is.

I'm outta here.
Ava' good one.
ben

Monday

The bantering continues. Iran is playing a game - or is playing games - with the entire international community. It would be comical if it weren't for the fact that all of this entails the possibility of nuclear warhead capability in the future for that nation. Any humor in it certainly dies when considering what the Iranian government is doing to it's own people - or at least those that are taking a stand against it and - getting killed in the process.

Monday hath arrived. Not that it's the "Dreaded Day" - just that there is so much work to do, I am not sure that one day will suffice in completing it. So why am I sitting here, typing out an entry? Cause' I ain't signed in yet and I won't be for another 14 minutes.

The last couple of weeks have been nice in terms of having several days off. I intend on asking for a week off here in the next month or 2 - I have plenty of vacation hours saved up and now my floating holidays are reset. Actually, I get a day off for my birthday, perhaps I'll just ask for that entire week off.

Lots of stuff floating through my head these days. Life isn't quite what it needs to be right now. Eeking out a living, having 3 strangers living in my house and basically accomplishing nothing in terms of any eternal sense is not setting well with me. This has nothing to do with New Year's Resolutions, btw. My only resolution started already - to dump some pounds gained after the house fire. I have tried a few times, lost the weight and put it back on, I'm going to try again. I'll undoubtedly break the resolution - but hopefully not before I shed at least 10 pounds, I have 20 that needs to go. I was tipping the scales at 210, it's around 205 right now, getting to at most 190 would be a nice start.

Speaking of weight loss, the newest tenant took all 3 dogs for a walk yesterday. He wanted to do it - you get all kinds of attention when walked dogs that are that large - and yes, he's definitely capable, the man works out daily and has huge arms. Prolly if I started walking those dogs every day I would help myself get some pounds dumped. I'm in some sort of rut that I am finding difficult to break for whatever reason.

Anyway, I haven't much more time this morning, so I bid you a good day and a Happy New Year.

The Face Of The Recession

Do you see it?

It's all around you. They're there. At the convenience store, at the grocery store, the gas station. They're all around you yet you'd never know it.

They might be driving an Escalade or any kind of late-model, shiny, glitzy looking vehicle. You look at something like that and see wealth, not poverty.

You might see one pull into the driveway of a huge, 2 story house. There's nothing wrong there, those people are well off.

A U-Haul truck appears in your neighbor's driveway. You wonder what's going on there, they haven't said anything about moving?

Do you see the news reports of the food banks desperate for donations?

Churches asking for help?

Do you ever see the ads on Craigslist? People asking for food or shelter - or both?

I will continue to state that we are in a depression until I see something otherwise.

Perhaps, for New Year's Resolutions - we should be thinking about how we can help our neighbors - if in the position to do so - instead of looking at what we can do for ourselves.

BTW, those people driving that fancy SUV? That thing is scheduled to be re-po'd and the house they walked into is in foreclosure - they will be homeless and without transportation soon. The parents lost their jobs and unemployment hardly scratches the surface of living expenses. Better than nothing - yes - but.

Oh, and about helping your neighbors - well - you'll probably have to look for clues about whether there is something going on financially over there or not - they probably won't say anything to you about it. You'll have to reach out and offer the help, they most likely don't even want to talk about it to anyone, much less ask for handouts.

Not judging anyone. But it is time that we all come out of our shells and start to SEE what's going on around us. People are suffering. Possibly, if you see the need, there is something you can do about it. The government? can only do so much.

Just sayin'.

ben

Wednesday

Today and tomorrow left of the work week and it's over.
Supposed to get off early tomorrow, like half a day, but I don't necessarily see that happening when looking into my company's truck routing system and seeing the stuff that's in there to do.
Who knows.
I do know that I'm extremely tired this morning. Woke up at like 1:30 am and don't think I ever got back to sleep. This will be an eternally long day, feeling like this is the only time when I'm glad that I am only working 7 hours.

Whatever the case, that ordeal with the mortgage company yesterday is still eating at me. Rather unbelievable the amount of incompetence, crassness and disprespect you can find in the employees of one single company.
Ahhhh, got started late today gonna have to cut this one short.
Later.
ben

Tuesday

This week's hump day - would be today : )
A call the mortgage company yesterday confirmed that a second, notarized copy of the mod agreement would have to be sent in, and after talking to a manager - no, it being late isn't going to nix the deal.

Good. Then a call to the auto insurance company - my rate went from $70 and change to almost $100. Insurance agent checked into it - a one-time fee was added to "renew" the policy. I think I'm going to start getting quotes for new insurance policy.

GM is apparently dumping Pontiacs at up to 47% savings for consumers- they're doing away with that line completely and want them gone, so I read online this morning. That deal is good through the 4th of next month. My car is nickle and diming me to death, I would love to get a new car at half off - the ONLY way I would ever buy a new car. Flip side is usually much higher insurance premiums.

I will be checking into that possibility this week - just to see if there are some options out there. I haven't checked my credit report in a while so I have no idea where it stands in terms of the score right now, guess I better do that first. I would actually far rather get a pickup truck - but I fear the 4 dollar gasoline so I probably otter stay away from that idea. I will say that a new car would afford a pretty low monthly payment. I would love to get away from monthly car payments, but - no choice in that matter right now.

Yet another "warrant has been issued" report for Anthony arrived in my mailbox. I assume he is not going to see the probation officer. Actually, I think his deal is that he wants to smoke pot and they do monthly drug testing - a good thing. I have also heard that they are now implementing drug testing for people receiving food stamps. If this is true, it's the best idea I've heard yet for weeding out the people that are simply living off of that kind of government handout and spend their time - high all day long.

Work day approacheth. Enough to do today, I believe anyway, to keep me busy until sign-out time. I'm 2 hours over from yesterday, I hope to be able to leave early today.

Take care, Happy New Year's and have a great day!

Cafe World On Facebook Tips

This will serve as my tip post for the Googling world who are just starting to play Cafe World and want to learn how to play the game in a way that makes it go faster and causes you to acquire experience points as fast as possible.

First, get neighbors. The more the better. You need at least some neighbors to be able to upgrade to a bigger cafe, but here's the real reason you want as many neighbors as you can possibly get:
You know when you are cooking something and a window pops up and tells you this is your dish to share with everyone for the day? It has a share tab at the bottom? Make sure you always click on it to share. If your neighbors do the same - share their daily special, then you simply go to your facebook home page, click on live feed and start collecting 100 samples of whatever it is they have posted!

I currently have 4,000 free samples in my queue. Those free samples keep all of my serving tables full. I want all of them full because I don't want the stuff I am cooking to disappear too fast - if you keep the freebies out on one or two tables, the rate at which the dishes you actually cooked disappear goes down dramatically.

THAT is the benefit of neighbors - every day you can gather up 1,000's of free dishes and hopefully alot of the same dish over and over.

Next, your buzz rating. I have seen so many people whining and complaining because their buzz rating is low and they blame the game. Blame YOURSELF. You do not have something set up right in your cafe. Buzz rating is critical. The higher it is - tops out at 105 which is where mine is sitting almost all of the time - the more customers that come in to your cafe.

First off, if you have more than one door, get rid of the extras. You should only have one door to your cafe. If you have 2 or more, then more customers may be coming in than your servers can handle. If customers stand there too long waiting for a table, they leave and your buzz rating goes down.

Second, set up your cafe so at least some of your customers have to walk a long way to get to a table. This does NOT affect your buzz rating and they don't get mad and storm out, it takes them longer to get to tables and gives your servers enough time to serve everyone.

Third, look at the layout of your tables and serving tables. There are so many different ways people set them up - I have no idea if they work or not. I have my serving tables in the middle of the customer tables. I have customer tables lined up side by side in a giant U shape with the serving tables in the middle. The servers need to be able to get to the food quickly and get it to the tables quickly.

Fourth. Block your ovens. Make sure your doofus chef - which would be you, btw, lol - can't get at the ovens. I call him doofus cause' he takes SO terribly long to serve all the food you have cooked to the serving tables. I accidentally figured out that if you simply block the ovens, he will just stand there - wherever he's at in your cafe - and all of your food will get served 10 times faster - it just goes from the oven to the table - and also preparing your food to cook will also go MUCH faster as you don't have to wait for him to walk to each oven. You can set your ovens up in a giant block, put them side by side - block them with plants, whatever, just keep him from them.

Fifth. I haven't tried this and my buzz rating is good so I don't really care, but you can block your waitresses from getting to the tables as well, forcing them to "throw" the food to the tables. I have heard there is a down-side to this method, I don't know. I have enough servers to deal with the customers so I don't really care, mine works and that's all I need. The only reason you would want to do this is to keep your buzz rating high. I think if you have your cafe set up well enough, you won't need to do this.

Sixth. The game has me addicted because I am in a "contest" sort of with other neighbors to get ahead of everyone else. I have been gaining on all of them and passed a BUNCH of them up simply by making sure I always have food cooking on the ovens - but also - should I tell the world this? This is a kind of tip they probably make you pay for in those books they are selling on how to play Cafe World. Well, I get plenty of gold coins every day, so, if I'm close to catching up with someone or they are trying to pass me, I just buy food to cook, prepare it until it's cooking and then delete. I get the experience points for preparing the dish - the dish I use is 20 points for each phase of the preparation. I can rack up a couple thousand points pretty fast.

One guy was 50,000 coins ahead of me at one point, now he's at least 30,000 BEHIND me. Not just from "cheating", mostly just from cooking, cooking, cooking away. They do have the game set up well for anyone's schedule. When I started playing the game, I was just cooking hamburgers and stuff that only takes a few minutes. After a few weeks of that, I got sick of having to do all that prep work and started doing longer cook-time dishes. Now, the shortest cook time dish I do is 45 minutes, the longest is usually 18 hours on Peking Duck. That particular dish works well for me because I can start cooking it at 8pm or later on a work night and come home from work the next day and it's ready to serve. I also have several 8 hour dishes - start those at night as well, but get up a few minutes early before work and serve them up and start more 8 hours dishes. Also do some 12 hour dishes such as overstuffed peppers. I'll put those on in the morning before going to work and serve them at 5 pm later that day.

I'm currently at level 57 with a little over 310,000 experience points. I came close to acquiring 1,000,000 gold coins, but I did a total cafe makeover which cost me ALL of that. Now, I buy an item here and there for my cafe, but I am going to get it up to over 500,000 coins. I want enough coins available for whenever they decide to allow us to get the next sized up cafe - the next available is the Extrvagant Cafe - but, no-one can get it yet, and yet, a lot of people are complaining about it.

When will I quit this game? Dunno. Sooner or later I'll get burnt out on - but it probably will take a while because you really don't have to sit here and play it constantly, you get your dishes cooking and then you click out of it. The only real bummer about the game is that it runs so slow- and lots of people complain about that, too. I have never found these types of beta applications to run fast anyway. Maybe better computer hardware - more virtual memory - I dunno. Mine runs okay most of the time. When mine does run slow, I get out of the cafe right away. For whatever reason, when the game is running slow, I notice my buzz rating starts plummeting. I just come back a little later to hopefully find it back up to par.

There are undoubtedly more secrets to this game that I haven't stumbled across yet. I know there are "neighbors adding" groups where you can allegedly get hundreds of neighbors in one fell swoop - but you still have to go through the process of adding them as a friend and sending them an invite -etc etc etc. I just add neighbors here and there. The Cafe World Facebook wall has entries put in there by Cafe World and then usually thousands of comments under it with people asking for neighbors. That's where I find new neighbors. It's been kinda cool, actually, because some of these people I have had opportunity to chat with in that little chat window at the bottom of Facebook. People all over the world, actually. It's amazing how many people speak these "alien" languages also speak fluent English.

Oh - and yes, you can acquire more experience points by visiting neighbor's cafes. I don't do it. It takes WAY too long. I mean, getting into another person's cafe is what - 20 or 30 seconds? I have 92 neighbors, this would take forever. Some things I am simply not willing to do in this game - wasting a lot of time is one of them. I enjoy the game and am enjoying passing all kinds of people without having to spend every waking moment at it. It's just a matter of fine-tuning the game to your schedule.

Anyway, to the Googlers that found this entry for tips, I hope I have helped you. If you have any tips, feel free to leave them in the comments section below this entry.

Electric Consumption

I've learned a few things about electric usage when coupled with having tenants in your home over the last almost 2 years that I have had tenants in here.

First, I should NOT have "upgraded" the house to a 40 gallon water heater when I bought the place. I figured more people, need more hot water, right? Well, what actually happens is that everyone takes a shower or bath that conumes all 40 gallons worth of hot water. A 30 gallon heater = 10 gallons less of hot water being consumed, the heater being on less - less water and over time, far less electricity being used. I mean, who in their right mind is going to stay in a shower after the water turns cold and it's cold out and inside? I don't have it particularly warm in here, it's 60 degrees, I think, by Phoenix standards that's the ice age come visited your house.

2. It's worth the extra money, if you have such, to buy energy efficient washers and dryers. I was looking at the M-Power reader - it shows me how much electricity is being used at any point of time I want to see it - both of those machines were on yesterday. Well, I turned one off, the usage went down considerably, the other, same effect - I didn't turn off the water heater - it was running re-heating water being used by the washer. You get all 3 of those things running at the same time - it's $1.14 per HOUR worth of use. That's what the reader told me, I assume it to be true. On top of that the water being used. Well, water isn't particularly expensive, but it's still an expense.

In an attempt to get electric usage under control, I'm going to have to try and find some way to get a brand new washer - and the only thing I want is a front loader. They use FAR less electricity. They also use far less water - meaning water heater isn't going to run as long to reheat it's tank full. From what I have been reading about those things, the extra money spent is money saved and then some, X2.

As for Christmas lights - I'm taking them down. I cannot afford the extra electricity and since Christmas is over, goodbye until next year. I usually run them until New Year's. Actually, I may leave them up and then run them on New Year's Day and take them down next weekend. But - ONLY for New Year's Eve. Those lights are also consuming a lot of electricity and my time of wasting electricity on such is over.

So, my next quest is to find a new washing machine and somehow pay for it. I will probably have to settle for a used one - hopefully in good condition. I can sell the set I bought from my boss for probably $125 to $150. They work great - they just aren't energy efficient models. Better than nothing, definitely.

I just spent an hour - yes, an entire hour - scrubbing the main bathroom. The bathtub and walls were filthy. I let it go for a while to see if ANYONE would lift a finger to help with cleaning around here besides me making the boys do stuff. I'm referring to tenants. Not a single one of them does anything around here. I put the trash against the wall in the kitchen yesterday afternoon - just seeing if one of them would even think about carrying it out to the trash can. Yup, it's still sitting there.

Okay, I'll give one tenant a pass - he's hardly EVER here. The newest tenant is mostly here, and though he's clean - it's only with his room and his stuff. The ex-Marine - not a chance. He doesn't keep his room clean, it's a no-brainer he doesn't help clean anything else. He isn't exactly a slob, but still.

It took quite a while to get that sludge off the bathtub floor and the walls. I give this comet stuff a hand - it dissolves it pretty good, but there was so much of it, just plain NASTY.

Well, I'm not going to let it go anymore. I will scrub it once a week and I am not going to say anything to anyone about it. Tenants are hard to get right now - all 3 of these guys pay their rent on time. They don't cook - they just use the microwave. They DO put their dishes into the dishwasher. So, really, the only - but grossest - issue is the main bathroom that is theirs to use. The toilet gets so nasty that I have to clean it every couple of days. I am writing it off as the price I have to pay to keep people here. As for the 2 newest tenants, they are paying me $400 a month, one room I usually only get $375, so I'll keep his other $25 as payment towards "maid service". I was actually thinking about advertising on Craigslist to have someone come over here and I would pay them to clean that stuff - but my good sense prevailed. I can hardly afford that right now, though I could probably get someone to do both bathrooms for $20.

Times are THAT hard, I have seen people on there advertising to do just about anything in your home at dirt cheap prices.

OH!!! I found a 12X16 shed, they are calling it, on Craigslist for $800. It's not totally finished. It has a regular house entry door and a window. I could easily convert the thing into a living quarters. That's almost 200 square feet. That's a good sized room. In fact, my rental bedrooms are 11X15 and I consider them big, excepting the 3rd room which is 13X15. I have asked the person if they have sold it, and if not, how much they will actually take for it. It needs siding, some roof shingles and probably finish the interior.

At the right price, I will take it. I mean - how many people are going to be willing to try and move a thing that size? I don't even know how I would get it onto the trailer to bring it over here. Maybe it isn't so heavy that 5 or 6 men can pick it up and load it. I would have to go get a half dozen illegals over here to unload it and move it to where I want it. I don't even know if the guy has or hasn't sold it, yet, and I have no clue if this person would want to bring it down to - my - price, lol. I've been getting stingier and stingier on my offers. Persistence pays off sometimes, just have to be patient.

Anyway, I want to scrub my bathroom the same as I did the main bathroom today - I had to use almost an entire bottle of that Comet cleaner to get the main one done, meaning I need to go to Fry's and get another bottle, along with some other things.

C'yall later.
ben

Christmas At Big Bro's

Nice time. Big bro was behaving - a few snide comments here and there but nothing to set off the next World War. I got some cool gifts - including cash, lol. My sister-in-law got me a whole - huge - new set of cookware - ladels and all kinds of stuff in that thing. Pretty nice - didn't ask for it but she seems to know what I need.
Caleb was literally floating on Cloud 9. When he found out I had gotten him an 80 gigabyte iPod, he went bananas. After a while he was looking like he was high on drugs - which I know he wasn't, but it was interesting to watch the expressions on his face. When my middle brother brought in a .22 caliber bolt-action rifle - a vintage mode that had been checked out by a gunsmith to make sure it's safe to fire - it added to the high. Pretty cool stuff.

The only really odd thing was my sister-in-law's sister. She had been there - apparently long before I got there - and had obviously been tipping the bottle - more like putting it upside down in a vertical position and draining it. She was hitting up on me in no unsubtle way. She's a nice girl and all, but she's not my type. I uhhhh - had to sort of hold her at bay. Alcohol can make people do that - the inhibitions disappear into thin air.

Anyway, it was a nice time, I wish our family would do it more often, that's a pipe dream, that was Christmas for me. Tomorrow IS Christmas, I know, and I intend on cooking the standing rib roast/prime rib that I bought at Basha's on the way home. That place was PACKED full of people. I mean - all checkouts were open, all lanes had long lines in them - but the cashiers were either in a good mood or faking it pretty well. They only had one half rib roast left and I was hoping for another. The man that was running the show - literally a show - looked at me inspecting that roast, said he has more in the back, didn't ask whether I wanted a different one or not, just went back there.

Well, the one in my hand had WAY to much fat on it. Now, prime rib fat IS good, no doubting, but I want more meat than fat. He had already wrapped one up and was wrapping another. The second one was perfect and yes, that one came home with me. Once a year, folks, just once a year. That stuff is like $8 to $10 per pound normally. My bro giving me that cash paid for that roast and then some and that's what I did with it - there is nothing like prime rib, nothing. If it's cooked correctly, it's heaven on earth.

I had to call my boss to refresh my memory on how to do it the way my old boss does it. Rub in garlic/salt/pepper. Take kosher salt and add more garlic/salt/pepper, mix it with water and make a paste. Cover the tops and sides of the roast as best as possible with that paste, stick it in the oven with a meat thermometer in the middle, cook at 300 to 325 degrees until the center of the meat is around 145-150 degrees. Pull it out - the paste is now a solid mass, simply remove it and discard. The meat is perfect. The inner portions are pretty rare, the outer portions are fairly well done - good for everyone. That with baked potatoes and gravy and a vegetable, that's plenty of food.

I have put off giving the ham to the family I promised to because I have been so busy. This morning was a rush of getting my middle bro's present - met in a 5 & Diner parking lot to make that exchange, a Gold Canyon Candles distributor met me there and that was his present. Stopped at the post office to mail off the loan mod documents that I had notarized - which has to be there by the 29th. Went to Caleb's mom's, got Caleb, headed to Walmart. He has outgrown his shoes. I allotted him $40 for shoes, he spent something like $27. Got the guest at today's function a Christmas card and a gift card, have spent far too much money on Christmas, but - it's all good. No more presents need be bought and I'm done. I simply intend on spending a quiet time home tomorrow with whoever's here.

As for right now? I must head out to deliver this ham. They live like 4 or 5 miles from here, no big deal. It's all I'm giving them is the ham and I bought that on sale. I don't want to feel like a cheap skate - but - I have helped plenty of people this year with food and I had really scaled back when my hours were cut at work. She had an ad on Craigslist - though I have helped her once before - I hope someone else might have been moved to help her as well.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve Day to everyone, I hope this time of year finds you well and rested.

ben

Frys Food Stores

I have an on-going love-hate relationship with Fry's Food Stores.
Mostly, I only write about them when some ridiculous or outrageous thing occurs when I go there.
Just one, eensy teensy tiney example would be yesterday when I was walking out of the store and the dreaded alarm goes off.
It happens to me frequently anymore. I do not appreciate it, either. I have been going to Fry's since I was 10 years old, meaning I am a 35 year shopper at their stores. I do not recall ever stealing anything from them, even as a teenager, but certainly I do NOT steal items from them now, neither will I ever do so.

I am not that kind of preson, I still have morals and a conscience. That alarm going off is not only annoying, it is also at least somewhat humiliating. It announces to the Fry's shopping world that: "Hey, looky there, that guy is a thief, he is trying to steal something, tackle him to the floor" - or certainly that's the feeling one gets when that very LOUD thing goes off and then some dude standing there starts raising his voice at you and chasing you out the door, demanding to see your receipt.

I refuse to stop anymore. I don't even acknowledge that they are saying anything to me, or if I do, it's not anything that would be deemed nice or amenable. Nowadays, the store I shop at has a police officer standing out front. They are off-duty cops doing store security. Although I mean no disrespect to the officer, I will also ignore them as well. If they want to tackle me to the ground and arrest me, the City of Tempe and Fry's Food Stores will be slapped with a lawsuit so fast you'll wonder how I even had time to get home to call the lawyer to file the complaint.

Seriously. Dead serious. I am SICK of that damned alarm and yes, I did call Fry's corporate headquarters yesterday - and not surprisingly, I am definitely not the first person to call and complain about it. I have stood there and watched - for years now - that alarm going off on the elderly, young couples, all kinds of people who freeze in their tracks at the loudness of the sound going off and look around wondering what the bleep to do next. I am going to start making a big issue out of this until they change their modus operandi. I have seen those kinds of alarms all over the place at all kinds of different stores, I have NEVER seen them going off even close to as much as they go off at Fry's.

I will give Fry's one round of kudos today. I was in there waiting in an obscenely long line - there were only 2 full service registers going and the self-service registers were also backed up. The lady from the Service Department counter came up to me and said as long as I don't have anything that needs weighed - like veggies and such - she could help me over there. For as long as the wait would have been, I would have dumped anything that would need to be weighed just to get out of there. It's hardly set up for doing groceries - making her job even more difficult - but she did it cheefully and I was amazed at how long it was taking for the line I was originally in to get the one grouping of people that were first in line done with.

It never ceases to amaze me that a person forgets something, so - they leave the line, walk to the other side of the store - get what they want and come strolling back as if there was nothing else going on. Notwithstanding the fact that the line is being held up for everyone else that is waiting. This is another thing I have never understood why these stores allow to happen. There were 5 ladies that were buying something like 20 pies, 10 bags of potatoes and some other things that decided that they needed more pies - and had no qualms taking their sweet old time going to get them. The pies were half a store away from where they were.

Another thing that gets me are the people that apparently think all of this stuff they are buying is free. They MUST think that, because they don't even begin to get out their wallet until AFTER - EVERYTHING - is scanned, the total is rung up and the cashier is standing there, looking at the person blankly while asking for payment. I am guessing they aren't allowed to say anything negative to these people, that's no problem, I have no qualms identifying the fact that it's pretty much a sure thing that, if they get into line and all of this stuff is scanned and added up with tax, that they are probably going to have to pay for it.

Yes, I've pissed more than a few people off with my statements - and this should bother me? "Excuse me, miss, did you think you were going to get all of this stuff for free?" - and other little points that I like to make. They usually look at me funny at first and then realize what I am saying - and get mad of course. I am no less put off by their lack of action, ESPECIALLY those that are getting out checkbooks. If you are writing a check for your purchase, PLEASE GET IT OUT AT THE TIME THE CASHIER STARTS TO RING UP THE GOODS, not AFTER she/he is done with everything.

When this cashier was done and I paid for everything and was leaving - these people were STILL there, holding up the line. I can assure you right now that if I had had to stand there and wait for all of this nonsense, choice words would have been expressed at my displeasure - they had made at least 2 trips to get more pies.

Unbelievable.

Saturday

I did not get my paycheck yesterday. I'm not sure which is more unbelievable - that I forgot to ask for it or that my manager forgot to give it to me. Not the end of the world, it just dawned on me that my mortgage payment is still sitting at work. The mortgage company sent me a PILE of papers to read and sign. Ridiculous. I've ALREADY read, signed and sent more paperwork than it should take to buy 50 homes. Well, this paperwork is worth signing since it reduces my interest rate by 1.5 percentage - doesn't sound like much but when it comes to a loan that big, the savings both monthly and over the life of the loan are substantial.

Well, 2 days off. Non-paying tenant - paid last night. I have 2 weekly renters in here. I have no idea why this guy couldn't pay last week, but at least he communicated with me about it. I can deal with that - as long as there is an intended date to pay it up. The other weekly renter doesn't come "home" until - well today or tomorrow usually. He'll hand over $100. That's $275 total and some of that is going to Christmas presents.

I have a bunch of stuff to do around here - but I'm not even thinking of getting it all done this weekend. Just on-going projects and such. More walls in the house needed painted and I need to continue on with the drip system which was put on the back-burner while I was doing other stuff. I'm thinking of having my neighbor's son install a new condensor in my car - save a ton of money doing it that way versus having a shop do it - and then take it into a shop to have the system vacuumed and then recharged with freon.

Ummm, so today I think what I'm really going to focus on is trying to get my son's present. An iPod. A used one, and no, I'm not shelling out the money for an iPod touch. An amazing electronic gadget, yes, but - it's way too much money. No, he said he would be happy with one of the older models. Craigslist here I come, basically, see what I can find and if I can make deal today.

I would really, though, like to spend some time outside today working around the plants and yard. I have put all of that on back burner as well trying to get other stuff done. I am only having to water plants maybe every 4 days now. The ground stays moist and that's all it needs. I can't imagine how much lower my next water bill will be, but I'm sure it will be a pleasant surprise.

Umm, just rambling, really. I haven't read the news yet today, I'm sure there is some entertainment to be found there. Instead of getting mad at the stupidity - especially what our elected politicans are doing - I find ways to look at through humor. The health care bill - nothing humorous about it, but the way these people are acting is quite entertaininig. Like a bunch of kinder-garteners falling all over themselves, trying to all get their names out there so they can go down in history as part of "The Group" that will get this thing passed.

I wonder, however, how favorably history will actually look back at them. They will undoubtedly get this thing shoved through and I fear the financial chaos that will ensue. I have nowhere to go. People talking about leaving this country because of everything going on. Well, nice, but wherever you go, you are going to find problems - maybe different sets of them, but never-the-less, problems. Maybe go live in Somalia........lol.

I'm done - for now. Going to get started on getting things done around here plus have to go shopping.

Have a great day : )

ben

Let's Get On With It, Shall We?

I am sitting on the threshold of a 2-day weekend - as normal, then 2 days of work and then........5 days off! YEEEEHAAAAAAAWW!!

And Lord knows I need it. Another of our drivers is currently off and will be off until after New Year's!??! Okay, my turn's a coming. In a couple of months from now, I intend on taking a full week off plus weekends cushioning both sides which would make a full 9 days off.

I am again being entertained by the daily news I find on the internet. This time, a Senator was told he could not go on any further with his speech he was delivering, he was cut off. The reason? They wanted to get done with a defense bill they were trying to get passed and rush to get started on the health bill.

Isn't that the problem here? They are so full-blown into wanting to get this thing done, yet from what I have read, many of these senators haven't even bothered to read the entire script of the thing. They want to get this bill passed before or even ON Christmas Day.

Thanks, politicians, just what we need. Yours and Obama's legacy of casting trillions of dollars worth of debt that will never see and end. How much taxation will it take being dumped on each individual before we all stand up and say enough is enough? I dunno. I know the "taxation without representation" movement - if you don't know what I'm talking about then you must have missed high school entirely - well, elementary school as well for that matter - must have taken some serious guts to actually initiate and engage in.

I would like to see HOW it is that not passing this bill will cause the federal government to go bankrupt. Obama likes to throw out stuff to make people afraid - I'm not buying it.

Today's fare includes a trip to Scottsdale and then an attempt to pull, load and deliver a rather large order. Yes, well we'll see about that. The order may be put off until Monday because as far as I know, nothing has been done on it yet. My limited hours at work usually have me cut off from even starting on the next day's deliveries in terms of pulling the orders - I get off of work about the time that normally used to start happening when the hour reduction came.

Weekend plans are nothing more than attempting to find Caleb the Christmas present he wants, doing whatever as Secret Santa to someone on KCL - the person never did fill out the survey so I'm going to get "something" and if they don't like it, tough. I also have absolutely no clue what my middle brother wants, I have asked him several times. My mother's present is done and my oldest brother's present is on it's way. I have very few people to buy for - on purpose. I am not going to go broke spending money on presents that, mostly, have no meaning to the recipient. Christmas has mostly lost it's meaning to individuals who see it nothing more than a spending spree to get things. I'm more into the giving side of things than the receiving side, but I was most appreciative of mother's gift of a carpet cleaning machine.

Anyway, I'm outta here - work day is almost here.
Have a good one!
ben

Free Shipping Thursday - Today Is Free Shipping Day

.......and I intend on taking advantage of it.
Allegedly, hundreds of internet sites are coming together, so to speak, to all give away free shipping.
Omaha Steaks is on that list. Since my oldest brother and his wife are going to bother to do Christmas this year, I am going to continue on with my now-yearly tradition of sending them a steak package from Omaha Steaks. The free shipping will save a lot of money right there - they have to ship it in dried ice and that shipping isn't cheap.
Some of the sites are giving away free shipping for any amount, some are giving it away if you spend X amount of money.

Onto other things. "The Federal Government will go bankrupt" if the health care bill fails. He blames an "unsustainable path" for medicare and medicaid if no action is taken. Gee, there, Mr. President, we are throwing TRILLIONS of dollars at everything BUT those systems, if we would have just paid for those things and fixed Social Security, maybe this country would be far better off.
I don't know that the federal government going bankrupt is such a bad idea.

Perhaps some entity would then force us to change our outrageous spending habits. Or perhaps our lenders would take everything over? Now wouldn't that be fun, the United States of China - or - The United States of America run by the Chinese Federal Government. Turn us all into a bunch of communists and blatant socialists. How would you like to be told how many kids you can have, or how many pets you can have? No guns. No freedom of religion - they claim such over there but in reality, if you want to express your religious views, they force you to do it in state-run churches. If you go outside of them, you risk getting killed, basically.

Whatever. I drove over 300 miles yesterday - all over the place. A trip to Tucson - I-10 was pretty much open season for high speeds and I was going high speeds. There just wasn't that much traffic out there to slow everything down. It's funny to pass a cop sitting on the side of the road going 75mph or even a little faster and have them do nothing about it. Because it's legal, yes - just sayin' it's pretty good speed for a semi. A couple of small deliveries today - so small they are going to be done in the pickup truck. There is plenty to do around here - the yard that is - if nothing else comes up. We are slowly moving all material from the back yard to the front yard. Inventory is coming soon - we have to get the stuff moved and then located in the computer system.

Ummm, work day approaches, I must get offa here.
ben

Wednesday

I wonder what kind of contingency plan is in place when these pilots are testing new commercial jets in case the thing fails and crashes and burns. I assume this first Boeing 787 that took off - was it yesterday? - must have been flying over water or uninhabited land. Still, I would think there would be some sort of edginess on part of the pilots who - from my view - are risking their lives to fly for the first time a totally untested aircraft.

Who knows if the thing's wings are going to fall off after the behemoth gets off the ground? Especially with this composite material they are using to build these things now - even moreso when you consider that had to delay the first take off the plane on more than one occasion - but one of them being that they had to strengthen the area where the wings are attached to the fuselage.

At least the figured this out BEFORE the plan ever took off. It's fascinating stuff to me - I wouldn't want to be on that first takeoff - but I would have loved to stand there and watch it.

Today is allegedly another trip to Tucson. Apparently they couldn't fit the pipe onto the transfer truck that comes up every Wednesday. Yeah, I'll bet. Load the truck correctly and that pipe could have been draped over the top of everything, securely tied down and safely transported up here without a hitch. I know the driver - I'm not a big fan. I dunno, but I have to go to the jobsite first with another load, then another jobsite and THEN head to Tucson. If the Tucson trip is still a go, this is going to be a long day. I don't mind going down to Tucson, that isn't the point - the point is a waste of man-hours, fuel, wear-and tear on the truck - etc etc etc when it could have just been brought up on the truck that is already coming.

Oh well. I don't run the company, I do express my views at times. The contractor is apparently not happy that they have to wait for the rest of the pipe - though, from the beginning - the contractor was informed of the time it was going to take to manuacture this pipe and get it ready to go, it is no surprise. The contractor, howwever, apparently has a crew of people who are going to be doing - nothing - apparently.

By the time I get everything done and get back from Tucson, this day will be cashed and that pipe will probably not get delivered until tomorrow morning.

Well, onto other things. Not much else going on, really.
In fact, I have only a few minutes left and want to read about the now widely held belief that Iran is on the brink of being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

THAT is a bit scary.

G'day, folks.
ben

Obamaism

The news, as always, is a source of great entertainment. Lol. A statue of Obama erected in Jakarta? Lol. Now, of course, there is an outrage in that country by citizens who say that there are leaders from that nation that a deserving of such a statue but none of them have one. What IS the craze about Obama? The Nobel Peace Prize? ROFL!!! I am in no way racist and surely saying what I am about to will label me as one, I couldn't care less: this is more about the color of the man's skin than the alleged "greatness" of the man himself. There, I said it and I most certainly do not feel bad about it, because I happen to believe that, to a very great extent, it's true. Much of the world views Obama as a wimp, not as a great leader that has done - what? Let's see a list of things, folks, I would love to review it.

Next is Lieberman. He is dissing his own party, lol!!! Democrats are "furious" as the news puts it about his stance on the health bill and the desire to increase Medicaid benefits - as well as other issues. What always grasps my attention are the words "1 TRILLION dollars". This is what they believe it will cost to implement this program for the next 10 years. 1,000,000,000,000. Look at that number. Mark my words, if this thing passes and surely it will - they are hell-bent on it - it will end up costing DOUBLE or TRIPLE that figure. NOTHING the government EVER does stays on budget.

Where are we headed, people? I'm serious - how is all of this going to be paid for? How is all of this money already spent going to be paid for? The nation is UNEMPLOYED, taxes are NOT being paid right now, but these people in-charge think it a grand idea to burden the deficit and the public debt to the point - it's gotta break somewhere, sooner or later. WHAT happens when "it" breaks, I have no clue, but there is going to a point where we are no longer going to enjoy the lifestyle that we have fought and worked so hard to get that we have right now. The people that are making these decisions are RICH people, they don't have to fear and worry about the things the average-Joe like me has to, ie: how are we going to survive this?

I read in Craigslist ads every day the desperation of entire families that are broke, about to lose whatever dwelling place they have and can someone loan them the money or just plain give it to them so they can pay the rent? No, I am not trying to help these people, I am reading the stories, though. It gives a face to the seriousness of the situation that we are in, the same situation that our nation's so-called leaders apparently have forgotten about. Those people get the best health care coverage on earth - free. They don't pay a dime for it. It's like they get elected into office and then leap to another planet, leaving planet Earth and America FAR behind in their thoughts and actions.

I am fortunate enough to be able to say that if it really got THAT bad - where I lost my job, my home, everything, at least I have parents that would help me out. I know, it would be the lowest low of my life, but it would be better than living on the streets. Not everyone can say that they have that kind of backup. My brother is ALWAYS asking me what my backup plan is. Whenever I see him - which isn't that often - but whenever I see him, that's his question. I have no clue, dude. What is YOUR backup plan? Who has a backup plan in a recession or really, a depression such as what we're going through?

I'd be pounding the pavement like everyone else and take what I could get. That's my backup plan. I hope to hope's sake for sake's sake that I don't have to go there. I work my butt off at work, I press forward and I get the job done, do everything that's asked of me and go well beyond that without complaining and hope that, at the end of the day, I am still employed. What else am I supposed to do? Have we lost sight of the fact that there are still hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their jobs EVERY single month? And yet our clueless government keeps wanting to dump TRILLIONS of dollars into things that may have merit - I am not opposed to everyone being able to get health-care - but are TOTALLY ill-advised at this point. We don't HAVE trillions of dollars is my point. We aren't likely to have it any time soon. Let's just sell America to the world!!! Yayyyy - get taken over by the Chinese and whoever else is "investing" in America. The Canadians are coming to these parts in droves picking up cheap homes.

Whatever. My rant is over.
ben

Friday

Slept pretty well last night - that happens far less frequently than not. I did wake up at around 2:30 am but managed - somehow - to get back to sleep. If the alarm didn't go off this morning I would have slept many more hours, I am sure. Normally, I am awake well before the alarm goes off.

I got most of the Christmas lights up for my front yard yesterday afternoon. It looks pretty good - just a few dark spots I need to address and it's done. I would like to get a "Merry Christmas" sign - maybe someone's selling one on Craigslist. I forgot to check this morning and see how much electricty those lights are using - but I am not using anything near the 8,000 lights I got in that package deal. Some of the rest of those lights well be used indoors.

I still can't get over the fact that Midland Mortgage company actually reduced my loan interest rate. I have been riding on this one for days now. It's almost scary - like they were taunting me and in a week, they're going to call me back and say April Fool's in December.

It's funny that I am close to 2 years worth of payments on that house and the priniple amount has only come down maybe 2 grand. Hey, a lower interest rate will allow for more of the monthly payment to go to princple reduction. Or is that principal? I could never remember the 2, I have always goofed those 2 words up all my life.

We have 2 rogue nations that are nuclear weapons bound. I don't wonder if neither is doing anything to listen to the U.N. on the subject because - they can see that the other has had nothing done to it. N Korea has snooted UN resolutions for - a long time. Iran is so full of rhetoric - you wonder if those are manniquens you are looking at speaking on the TV instead of real Iranian officials. Certainly their president looks nothing short of a goofball. Actually, when I first saw that man, I immediately thought of a homeless person living on the streets.

No, really, that's the first thought that entered my mind. The guy LOOKS uneducated - whether he is or isn't, I don't know. Of course, our president is viewed as lame, weak and timid the world over at this point. Great portrayal for the greatest position of authority and power on the face of the earth, IMO anyway.

Umm, well that wasn't really a political rant, just more observations. Until the world really does something besides sanctions against these nations, they are going to continue to defy everyone. If Iran ever gets it's hands on nuclear weapons - I predict WWIII. I could be wrong, but the world will have to line up either for or against them, I have no doubt in my mind that those people would fire off a rocket with a nuclear package on it without thinking too terribly much about it. In fact, I think they would relish the idea of war and dying for their religious beliefs.

It would be Iran V Israel and then - of course - the world would have to get involved unless they just totally destroy each other. I have serious doubts, however, that Israel will ever be destroyed. Yes, that belief is steeped in religious belief, but I reserve that belief in certain biblical statements.

And since it' the CHRISTMAS Season (versus the Holiday Season, or Happy Holidays, or whatever other rubbish the world wants to come up with, I could care LESS if anyone gets offended that I say MERRY CHRISTMAS to them) I will take a few moments here and there to speak about religious beliefs and that's that.

Regardless, the work day is starting and I just found 2 deliveries that need to be pulled, loaded and taken to a new jobsite. Woohooooo! Gotta love it!
I do love my job, did I ever say that? Oh yes, like a thousand times!
C'ya later.
ben

Tuesday

Rain is gone.
Bummmmmmer!!!!
It was fun while it lasted.
I am at work - before signing in of course - reading the news online.
Chavez is an entertaining person to read, if nothing else. He's sort of a
circus-type mad-man who also happens to be president of his country.
I had wondered at first, when seeing him with Aminehmad or however that Iranian
president's name is spelled - that the connection was.
The connection is simply that these are 2 people that act like charlatons and make
wild, bold and outrageous threats on the world-stage, mostly, I am assuming, for publicity's sake.

When it comes to war, history always repeats itself. If I am not seeing the foundation for the next World War being put into place - if ever so slowly - then I don't know WHAT it is I am seeing. Russians are helping Venezuela by giving them a 2 billion dollar line of credit for - what else - weapons. Iran is defying the entire world, not just the U.S., in it's alleged quest of nuclear armament. Japanese have started a rift about U.S. bases on the island - whatever the name of it is - over there and a "pact" that is now threatened to be ignored. The Russians have always been a wild card, they're game for a show-down if anyone wants to engage in such. Then there's North Korea - all that garbage and the always effervescent Chinese.

The world simply cannot peacefully co-exist with such radically different views and takes on how life should be lived - or more importantly - how religion should be treated. It always seems to boil down to radical religious views that start major uprisings. Certainly Iran is no newcomer to that arena, now their president is saying that the U.S. is plotting to "block the return of mankind's Saviour" - and no, they are not naming the name of Jesus Christ as such, but some - entity I guess - that I have never heard of.

These are, however, just my musings and look at things political, religious and global. I have never espoused the idea of living in constant fear of something that might happen. Instead, I simply espouse the idea of being ready for your death on a daily basis. I don't necessarily even invoke the name of fear into that - but there is some validity to the idea of living each day as though it were your last. If you could pinpoint the day and hour of your death, I suppose you could therefore adjust your life accordingly near the end - if you were so inclined.

But you can't. I could get into the semi this morning, get on one of the freeways and be killed in some gruesome, horrific accident. This isn't way out there, either. I am coming to terms with things in my life as Christmas approaches and I ponder the meaning of Christmas, a thing that I can say with a certain amount of authority that most people are NOT doing. Of course, that statement is purely anecdotal, but still. Although the term "God" is still relevant in America, the exact definition of who God is has become quite muddied, and the name of my Lord and Savior - Jesus Christ - certainly is frowned upon by more than not.

Having lived the life of a missionary for half a decade and further ministry related activities after that, however, has me used to the idea that to profess Christ as your Savior somehow also paints you as a yellow-bellied, lemonade-bleeding, effiminate piece of human waste that is absorbing and using valuable resources - your, or my, life, therefore should simply end and discontinue the practice of breathing and wasting air.

I can most definitely assure you that I am no wimp. The things that I engaged in in my teen years are mostly held in disbelief by the people of whom push me about such stories as I am not apt to discuss them very much. It was a hideous, evil time of my life and I take no pride in the things that I did, especially to other people. I have had a life-long battle in dealing with the emotions that arise when I am faced with certain of life's perplexities - emotions that were born and nurtured during those teen years and such that I acted out on frequently.

Basically, when someone confronts me in anger, stupidity, whatever - someone is attempting to threaten me in some way, my natural tendency - the thing that arises within me - is to simply beat the s*** out of them, break their ribs, nose, jaw and a few other bones, send them to the hospital and let them have some time to think about their choices in life.

That was what life was about in my teen years. I do not, of course, allow those feelings and emotions to take over and actually act them out in my adult life, but I admit those things still occasionally raise their ugly heads and dealing with it can be internally torturous.

The point is that many men and women that profess Christ - lived a life of hell before they came to profess such. Murderers/brawlers/thieves - a huge list of things. It is conceivable that a person could push the wrong button on one of those people and then, the button-pushing person would find out just what a wimp that individual really - is NOT. Again, I take no pride in such feelings, in fact, it's an embarassment to me if I do happen to let some emotion take over.

So, my reflection upon the season. It's Christmas, not a holiday. Or, it's a holiday BECAUSE it's Christmas. And really, it takes much more inside of a person to just let another person's vile remarks wash over you like so much water on a duck's feathers than it does to get angry. It's easy to get angry, just let your emotion take over, it's a much more intricate and harder thing to NOT get angry, face the demons within you, confront them and back them down - and hopefully OUT.

I have learned quite alot in my adult portion of life in dealing with such emotion, but admittedly, I haven't "arrived" yet, and may never actually reach the pinnacle where I can say "I don't get angry anymore". The anger is almost always contained within me and rarely is it ever let out. Even if it is, it is pretty tame stuff. Fortunately, I rarely get angry anymore. Injustices heaped upon me are far better dealt with in a civilized, professional manner than to simply let loose. You get far better results and you don't feel stupid after you have acquired those results. Getting angry - doesn't really make a person look very good unless, of course, it's a "righteous" anger, such a thing that a person SHOULD get angry about. Even then, there is no purpose to violence excepting in very limited circumstances. I can see getting extremely angry about a person breaking into my home and hurting the occupants thereof - that's the kind of thing I'm referring to.

Just expressing some views here, I must be about the business of work at this point.

G'day.
ben

The Party

KCL isn't down today, but I cannot access - again - the posting screen, so, here we go again.
Party was awesome. Really, it was totally cool. The GM of our company's house is one of the most amazing houses I have ever been in. They just finished building it this year and moved in - took 2 and a half years to build. I'm guessing a minimum million for that house. The wood flooring - was quite unusual. It wasn't the generic stuff people are putting on their floors nowadays. No, it was from the floor of an old barn somewhere in the midwest. The pieces are all sizes - lengths and widths are all irregular.

But the effect was incredible. It was - glazed over is all I can say about it. The kitchen counter and island were also made of some old wood that had been perfectly fitted together and cracks filled in with some black substance and then coated. A built in coffee-maker - push a button and a cup of freshly brewed coffee comes out.

The square footage of their patio must have been the same as my 2,000 square foot house, it was THAT big. The grilling area was a griller's paradise. Gas grill - huge - with a built-in hibachi next to it. Stainless everything, including a refrigerator and heating drawers. Words cannot adequately describe the place, but the impression that hit me when I was walking in was that of walking into an old, rustic resort hotel.

Most were drinking heavily. I was not so inclined. I don't like getting drunk - I don't mind a couple of drinks but drunkeness is out of the question and I most certainly am not going to get busted driving home drunk and face the end of my trucking career. I had a couple of glasses of some very fine wine and also a cigar from a certain country.............

There are always awkward moments at parties. You know, when the talking lags, or you meet face-to-face you might have been at odds with - especially concerning a company party. I made it a point to talk to the dude that I have felt some tension with for some time now. I hit the "thaw" button when I started talking about being from Pittsburgh and a huge Steelers fan. Yup, he loves the Steelers too, though he's not from Pittsburgh.

The ops manager seemed to lighten up towards me quite a bit as well. He's usually pretty - quiet. He seems to be that way around the hourly workers. His wife seems to think everyone is afraid of him. I make it a point in life not to fear management. They are only human beings. They may be in a position of power, and certainly they deserve to be respected - but I also deserve to be respected, just like anyone else. I do a damn good job at what I do and I am proud of my accomplishments within the company whether anyone wants to recognize those accomplishments or not. I can guarantee you those managers can't do the job I am doing. Not saying that in haughtiness or brashness - the point is that within the workings of a company, it's all a big jigsaw puzzle. You don't have the full picture unless every piece is in it's place. Miss a piece, the picture is not complete.

My giant trays of cheeses and meats were a success as well. I brought plenty back - I didn't realize that so much food was going to end up there - but more than half of it was eaten. It will not sit around here and rot, that's for sure, it will disappear by tomorrow evening probably.

I could become a socialite again if I really wanted to. I'm not sure I'm there right now, but it does a person good to get out and away from the house and mingle with people. It's easy to get stuck in a rut and do the same thing over and over again every day.

I thought it very important to make a showing, really was the gist of it, but the party was good, too. The GM is all about relationship and teamwork - mostly thinking of the team as family in some regards and the way he addresses it in his mass emailings. I'm not really invited to alot of the stuff that goes on within the main branch office and people talking about going out doing this and that - not that I am having a pity party or feeling sorry for myself, quite the opposite. But it might be nice once in a while to get out with some of them and hang out a little.

So I'm home. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving get-together with "family", if you can call it that. My brother's son called my mom today asking if his uncle Ben and cousin Caleb were going to be there, apparently asking her to call me and confirm. I thought it strange - he could've just called me, I don't bite. But yes, I will be there with Caleb and we will do our best to enjoy the moment.

I got home too late - I was going to start painting the hallway. I didn't figure I would have enough time before - going to bed like in 15 minutes from now. I may hit that tomorrow morning - but I am really starting to get ancy about getting Christmas lights and stuff up. It's already the 5th of December and I have NOTHING out there. One of the neighbors down the street has their entire front yard decked out - I want mine to look at least close to it. Most of the people on my street do nothing for Christmas - not even a few lights in the windows. Wish that would change. Sorta reminds me of Christmas with the Klanks - the "deadbeats" who decided not to have Christmas. You'd have to see the movie to understand. Except this is opposite, instead of everyone on the street doing Christmas full-blown, hardly anyone does it.

Gonna have to get my energy levels back up and start hitting the stuff around here hard after work to get it all done.

Anyway, enough for one entry.
g'nite.
ben

KCL is down - well it's not really down, but I can't access it, everything is dragging. I have yet to be able to get to the 'new post' portion of my journal there since I started trying to several hours ago.

So I'll post here instead.

Yesterday evening - actually it was night time - it hit me. I have waited far more than long enough for my car insurance company to do something about getting my car fixed. Lke, what, a month and a half since the accident?

I started looking up the company's official's names online - this company has a site that has senior management names, phone numbers, email adresses and cell phone numbers. I was apalled. I would never put out my cell phone if I was a high ranking dude or dudette in a company. I called the number, of course, and yes, this man - the Chief Operations Officer of the company answered.

I detailed - detailed - the entire story, including the extreme rudeness of the woman that is in charge of my "case" and "investigation". He wanted off the phone - he was obviously not at work judging from the noises coming from the background and was also obviously annoyed at my intrusion into his personal life.

Tough. Don't like it, take your freakin' cellphone number off the WORLD WIDE WEB. After I made my point - excessively and on purpose since this company isn't doing it's job - he told me to send him an email with all of my info and he guaranteed that someone would call me back before noon today.

Sure enough, the manager that I had spoken with after I demanded a manager in the first round of calls - almost 2 months ago - was on the line. How can I help you, Mr. Ben B? Well, ma'am I have heard absolutely NOTHING from your company since I initially file the claim. No snail mail, no email, no phone call, nothing.

She's checking her information on her computer. She wanted to verify the address. I figured this one out before she gave me the address: they sent it to my old address, even though I have updated it, ON THE PHONE, WITH THEM, several times now. LONG before the accident occured as well. She claimed they has sent out a check on November 3rd. That's a while back. She sat on the phone, claimed she was cancelling the check and issuing a new one, yada yada yada.

She then questioned my letter to the Chief Ops Officer. I stated more info in there, including the part about the adjuster blaring at me on the phone that I was going to be charged with fault for the accident. The manager on the phone with me asked me how I had come to that conclusion? BECAUSE THAT"S WHAT THAT WOMAN TOLD ME. Oh, she replies. That's incorrect - the other party in the accident never called us, never filed a claim, we have closed the file and no-one has been charged with the accident.

I found a little gem on the computer online last night: I don't know if it's federal law or what, but there was a chart online showing people's complaints about this particular company and the law that was violated. You CANNOT be charged with fault for an accident unless the other party actually contacts the company and makes a statement. Well, you can if you call your insurance company and tell them you ran a red light, T-Boned another car, thanks for playing.

So, a new check is being sent out, and I'm sure it's low-ball. They already told me that if there is more that needs repaired that the check doesn't cover to have the insurance company call them and file a "supplemental claim". I'll bet a large proportion of accidents have such claims filed. They already told me that this check would not cover getting my AC fixed. Well, there's probably $500 right there at least.

Certainly this isn't behind me yet, but it's a step in the right direction. I forgot to ask whether I have rental car coverage or not - I will have to be able to get to work somehow during the repair process - which is usually at least a week in such cases as the damage to my car - not extensive but enough to make it worth several days. There is a good auto-body shop across the street from my work, since they are sending me the check, I am going to get an estimate from them and see what they come up with.

Changing gears. I'm toodling down I-17 today in the semi, singing to a song on the radio, enjoying the ride, watching extremely stupid drivers do extremely stupid things in traffic. The phone rings. I only recognize that it's one of the numbers for our main branch, I cheerily answer with my company's name and my name. It's the Ops manager. He NEVER calls me, I had no clue. He's calling me to tell me what to bring to the company party tomorrow.

I had responded to him last week about bringing something - everyone is supposed to bring some kind of dish - and that I didn't know what needed to be brought. He wrote back and said he would let me know. It's the day before the party and now I know, lol. A meat and cheese tray.

I stopped by Walmart on the way home - their trays looked pathetic, small, not much meat or cheese but a hefty price tag at $15. I then stopped at Fry's Food Stores - same thing, good sized price tag, but for $15 - the same price, I figured I could make my own tray and get 4 times the product at least for the same price or a little more.

I bought a half ham; pepperoni; a large summer sausage; 3 kinds of cheese and a box of crackers. Total cost $20. I won't be taking all of it. I'm simply going to cut all of it up tomorrow morning, put it on a couple of large trays and take it to the party. The other half - at least - that I keep will be for me : )

Today, I go to a contractor's yard to deliver a fire hydrant. An older gentlemen comes up - we start talking. He asks me to get into the loader and get the hydrant off the truck. Sorry, I am not allowed to operate another company's equipment - as much as I would have LOVED to, I love those machines, they're huge, powerful and fun looking. He got in - couldn't figure out how to start it. Then he couldn't figure out how to move the arms up and down. Then - he never did figure out how to get the thing to move. I figured there is a safety switch somewhere, but Iwasn't in the machine and I couldn't play with it.

Sure enough, there is a safety on one of the joysticks. Another guy showed up and - he took a while to figure it out, too, actually. Half an hour to unload one, single hydrant. No big deal.

I also dropped off 200 feet of schedule40 PVC pipe at my house today. Freebie. This pipe has been out of inventory, in our yard for years now. It is never going to sell. I am going to use it for a water outlet in the back where I figure to put an evap cooler out there when summer comes for the dogs. My neighbor - the car selling dude who has the used lot all over our street - was out there working on a boat he apparently acquired. I finally said hello to him. I have stayed away from him because of that felon next door to him - the ex-drug dealer. He's a cocky, mouthy, arrogant, heady SOB who is almost always over at my neighbor's house, I just totally ignore them for the most part. He said hi back - he was obviously still sick. He helped me unload the pipe.

The second newest tenant showed up several days late last week to pay the weekly rent. He was coming home - today actually on Fridays - to pay it. I haven't seen him and I can only suspect he is having trouble getting the money together. I offered to reduce the rent - not substantially but some - rather keep people as long as possible than have to continuously keep finding new people and having to lose rent in the interim of not having them in here.

Ummm - so - I'm trying to get my head into the "party mode" for the company party tomorrow afternoon. Dunno why I can't seem to be able to do it - yet anyway. I will spend a good hour just cutting all that cheese and meat I bought for the party tray. I dunno, but it's after 9:00pm, my bedtime and I'm outta here

G'nite.
ben

Thursday

I've been having a bit of a problem at a particular contractor at one of their sites when I go to deliver material there. The problem is having to wait extended amounts of time to get the truck unloaded. I will unload the truck myself if it's something I can do - but in the case of 20,000 pounds of pipe, that isn't a happening event.

Mostly, I have to wait at least an hour to get the truck unloaded - which is unacceptable. My new manager is having a little trouble trying to figure out what, exactly, to do in such situations, my old manager is giving him some good advice - the same thing I have already said to him in various ways a couple of times now. When something like this becomes a recurrent issue - the manager calls the person in charge at the site and gives an ultimatum: get the truck unloaded within the next 30 minutes or my driver is going to leave and you can come pick up the material at our yard.

Today, getting the truck unloaded wasn't an issue. I called ahead, they told me where to go with the pipe, the loader operator met up with me, we got the pipe off of there. The guy said we should unload the rest of the stuff in their yard, about half a mile away. No prob. I get there, get the rest of the material unloaded, he signs off on the paper, I start pulling out to leave. I'm almost at the exit gate when the "big dude" comes walking out in a big hurry, motioning me to stop.

He is obviously unhappy about something. I turn the truck off - it makes too much noise to have a conversation - and ask him what's up. He begins to chastise me for not having HIM check the load. He then goes into the last time I was there - earlier this week - when I had to wait over an hour and a half to get the truck unloaded. I had waited in the yard - spoken to fully 3 honchos - none of them got anyone there to get the truck unloaded. I went into the head honchos office again and he said he would have someone out there - that was one of the guys I had ALREADY spoken to well over an hour earlier.

The point? I'm getting to that. I was told to restrap the truck - after the guy noted that I was getting the truck ready to be unloaded at the yard - and go to the street to unload all of that pipe. So, I had left the stuff I could unload by hand at the yard, I had the pipe unloaded by the street. Yet another foreman told me to simply have the loader operator sign off on the material. So, he did.

Mr. Big Man today had a cow about that. WHY didn't you have ME check the material? In very nice tones - giving him respect even though he was talking down to me - I informed him that that is because I was instructed by (name inserted here) to have the loader operator unload the truck, and since I had spent 2 hours at the sight, I needed to get out of there anyway.

Well, he says, those guys don't check the material, from now on, you will come and get me to sign off on the paperwork and I will check to make sure everything's there. Further, I spoke to (the outside salesman, name inserted here) and he said that however long it takes, you (me) will have to wait, it's water under the bridge".

Yeah, right dude. I didn't say that and I did not argue with him, I simply accepted his statement, waited for him to check the material, it was all good, I left. I did not, however, accept his statement in reality, I just nodded my head, said okay. It is most definitely NOT acceptable for an outside salesman to give the contractor permission to take however long they want to get a truck unloaded. It never has been and it never will be. I explained all of this to my new manager, he consulted with my old manager - who told him the 30 - minute rule. He wrote to the Ops manager and others in higher level management - the outside salesman is going to have a dose of reality served to him.

But that isn't the end of this. The INSIDE salesman for this account called me just before I was leaving work. "Did you get into an argument with this guy?" NO, I did NOT. I NEVER get into arguments with contractors, if they are going to get argumentative I always refer them to the salesman. Yada yada yada, I'm being instructed by a 23 year old know-nothing that is always screwing things up. I explained to him WHY this guy was probably perturbed with him. I have no doubts that the outside salesman for this account is going to have a cow and is going to try, once again, to get me reprimanded (or fired). He has tried in the past, but I have done nothing wrong. I cross my T's and dot my I's in this business. I have been there, done that and I KNOW what possibly can come down the pike.

That's my day - at least at work. It was a bit irritating with all of this coming from all sides. At home - where I am at now - the exterminator showed up, "Scorched The Earth" as they describe the treatment to get rid of tics. I'm staying inside longer than they recommended - the dogs don't need to get poisoned and neither do I.

ben

Tuesday

My new manager brought in the washer and dryer set today. It looks great - albeit the fact the set is 10 years old. I did not install them, I just got them on the property and will be thinking about doing that tomorrow. Can't go wrong for the pair at $50 - can't unless, of course, the units fail in 2 weeks. Lol, I didn't ask but he wants me to use them for a month and if they are still working then, give him the $50.
Okay.

I can't count the number of times I was cut off in traffic today in the semi. I had a heavy load on so I was easing back on any speed factors. I'm in your way, so go ahead, fly around me, cut directly in front of my truck and then slam on your brakes to make that right turn that you just saved a billionth of a second in executing by executing your outrageous reaction.

I took that heavy load right into the Driver's License division place today - right into the CDL test track. No testing was going on. In fact, I have NEVER seen any testing going on there. I wanted to find out how long I have to renew my license and also to pick up a CDL manual to study for the test. I could pass the test without it, but - I'm just one of those people, study, study, study and then go in and do the test. I figure sometime next week. Get it out of the way before the end of month - JUST in case, I DON'T pass it.

However, the test isn't that hard and the questions are all basically answered through the manual. Too bad the State of Arizona, at least according to the lady behind the counter, is out of the manuals. When she said they didn't have any, I asked where the nearest location is that does have one. "There ARE no more manuals, we have them ordered but right now, the best you can do is print it off the internet".

I stood there in silence, looking at her. Huh? There are NO locations that have this manual anywhere? In my mind, I thought: Who is the genious that lets ALL of their stock of these rather necessary manuals to run out completely? As if she were reading my mind, she says: I've ordered more but for right now, you'll have to go through this, handing me a piece of paper with instructions on how to find the manual online.

I looked around the room. This room was for nothing but CDL stuff, no regular licensing in here. I saw the faces of future truck drivers and wondered if they had any clue what they were getting themselves into. I watched a guy getting exasperated because he had failed the written test. How do you fail the written test? It's 100 questions. If you study the manual and memorize most of it, you will pass the test.

I didn't feel bad for him - he either came unprepared or he doesn't have a clue. At his age, starting out on a "career" like this one (he looked to be in his 40's) and not even being able to pass the written portion of the test - which is definitely the easiest portion of the test - he probably doesn't belong on the road.

I finished the conversation with the lady behind the window - she was all for me taking the test today, no way I could do it. I was on my way to a jobsite, the only reason I picked today to stop was I really had NO idea when my license was going to suddenly expire (it was good until I turn age 65 on my birthday, now they changed the rule to have to have it renewed every 5 years) and needed the peace-of-mind of that particular date. Some serious backing skills were used just to get OUT of the place they have trucks park. I guess they don't expect drivers to pull in with loaded trucks on a fishing expedition.

The jobsite was a joke. These people make me wait a minimum of 1 hour to get unloaded. Today started to piss me off. The dude above dudes was waiting for my arrival - he needed a fitting. He took it an left. Another guy showed up for another fitting - he took 3 of those and left, but not before I asked him about getting the truck unloaded. He said he would take care of it.

Been there, done that, I've talked to 2 people about getting the truck unloaded now, let's wait and see. I don't see, actually. I close my eyes and go to sleep. I have no reason to sit there for 45 minutes doing nothing, I would rather just take a nap. I REALLY fell asleep - about 30 minutes worth, no-one had showed up. I get out of the truck, go to the office and the 3rd person I talk to about getting it unloaded - I'm now over an hour at this site - is surprised to see me still here.

Yes, well this isn't the first time he's seen me walking in after he's allegedly told someone to come unload the truck. He assures me that someone will come to unload the thing. The dude above dudes shows up - this is now 75 minutes later. He says we have to take the pipe to another location, that they really don't want to unload the pipe here.

Now, this is where I'm starting to get a bit peeved. He KNEW I would unstrap the load there, I told him that was what I was doing, now an hour and 15 minutes later he's telling me to put " a couple of straps on it we have to take it down the road a bit".

I informed the man that I will have to fully restrap the load - the pipe is too heavy and I can't drive it on the street like that. You wanna know what would happen if I got into an accident with understrapped load? Even if the accident weren't my fault? Even if the load didn't come off? BIG trouble. I told him he could come back in 20 minutes cause' that's how long it's going to take. He didn't say anything, I just started the strapping process. I'm not losing my career - or killing someone - because he's suddenly in a hurry.

We get out on the road - another of this company's foremen sees me - coming from the other direction on the street - pulls over and then pulls in front of me - totally cuts me off. Okay, dude, where ARE we going with all of this? I am REALLY starting to get annoyed with all of this now, but I'm keeping a lid on it. This guy that cuts me off? We get to a stop sign, he signals for me to stop. The signal is putting your hand out the window, clench your fist and open it and clench it again. WHY does he want me to stop in the middle of the street? There are 10 cars behind me.

He gets out, races to the barricades and starts removing them. I have not positioned the truck to turn into THAT mess. It's a right hand turn - there are barricades on every corner. I end up going into opposing traffic lanes, all 4 corners are stopped waiting - they have no clue what I'm doing. I'm heading northwest to make a turn going east. Lol. I swung the truck around the entire intersection and then heading back east to make the turn. I went slow - never know if one of those car drivers are going to think I'm doing something that I'm not.

This delivery seemed endless. The loader operater dropped an entire lift of pipe onto the ground. He also dropped a stick of ductile iron pipe. He was lucky the street had been torn up and it was now dirt - if it had been asphalt, most of that pipe would have been destroyed due to the hard surface and shattering effect.

FINALLY this delivery is over and I am making poste-haste for the yard. I have to get back, get into the pickup and drive home with the washer-dryer set. Off the clock, of course, but I'm already 3 hours over and only 2 days into the pay period. I would be 4 hours over if I had gotten my breaks yesterday and today. I suppose you could call my snooze at the contractor's yard a break, so I'll call it half an hour from yesterday - I was moving all day long.

My life really doesn't have a lot of changes. I have financial emergencies seemingly frequently. I get out, but not a lot. I've been thinking about a change for a while now. I dunno what, but life needs to take a new direction with new challenges.

Well, it's almost time to go to bed.

G'nite.
ben