Thursday
Slept like a log last night.
Which was at least a bit surprising considering how I was feeling before going to bed last night. NOT good, thank you. It came to pass that I found out that probably, from the bumps and stuff going on with my throat, I am allergic to the antibiotics that they gave me to get rid of strep throat.
So now what? I dunno. Find a doctor - not just an urgent care doctor, a regular doctor and get on board. I'm at least half considering going to the doc that several people at work go to which is on the way home from work. A nice plus.
Dunno if they are taking anyone new, but I think I will find out today.
I don't really have a lot of time left. I was reading a post on Craigslist Phoenix in general community from a person asking for help , when I realized that I KNOW this person. Her son has been burned and has serious medical problems and she lost her job. In other words, she's broke. Dunno that I can help her - maybe a few bucks - but I can back up her statements by posting an ad giving some kind of validity to her statements. People love to scoff people asking for help on Craigslist.
SOME of those people asking for help ARE just lifelong beggars, people who don't want to do anything, especially don't want to have anything to do with the dreaded W word: WORK.
I guess it is all too easy to let the government "work" for you, giving you all kinds of benefits such as free rent subsidies, food stamps and even cash allowances, not to mention free medical care.
I shun such ideas and even moreso that it's any way to "live" your life. That isn't living. I understand there are people that are physically incapable of working, we should help those people, but the masses of people I see at the grocery stores using the quest cards - food stamps via debit card - do not appear to have any problems at all.
You can easily spot these people without seeing their card first, either. They are pushing a shopping card around LOADED with groceries. Sometimes there are two shopping cards loaded with stuff. You figure hundreds of dollars worth. Then you see the card. It's a free life, I guess. It makes me mad, really. I know in the end, the money automatically removed from my paychecks twice or three times a month depending on the month is paying for that. If there were ever a case for reform, food stamps and HUD housing with free rent subsidies are at the top of my list. Free medical up there as well - at least for illegal aliens.
Well whatever, it's too early to be getting this fired up. Saturday is only 2 days away and it will be the end of the world. I really am not making the belief that Christ is going to return, I firmly believe that. I just think it humorous that these people allow themselves to be deceived to the point that one man's numerical system has firmly identified, at least in his view, the date of His return and further, that this person apparently must be charismatic because he has a lot of people duped into believing it.
In reality? This stuff comes and goes all the time. People think they know "The Date" and they attempt to get a rallying effort going with it. I don't know what sets off one person's notion over another's in this arena, but this guy has definitely put his money where his mouth is, he has spent his life savings, if the stories in the news are true, in attempting to let the world know.
The fact of the matter is, mainstream Christianity has flatly rejected his statements and I mostly tend to side with the mainstream on issues such as this. NOT always, but usually.
And, of course, my son's big week coming up. I have a total of 6 consecutive days off coming up. The scuffle at work about the main branch not being able to send a driver over here has been eliminated. They are going to simply hire a temp driver to take my place while I am gone.
Well, I'm offa here, time is up.
G'day.
ben
Friday, May 20, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Wednesday 5/18/2011
Wednesday
"Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, doesn't know how effective waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can be. "
ROFL!!! I about spit out my coffee when I read this statement earlier. The humor of the statement should be self explanatory, if it is not, I can't help you.
The news of the day - and many days before it - is the mess going on along the Mississippi river. Just read a story about people that are evactuating their homes - stating they don't have flood insurance and the now-opened Mongonzola floodway is going to submerge their homes.
I don't know what to say about that, I can only pray for the situation.
I was awakened this morning at about 3:45 am by a very grotesque smell: dog crap on my floor. One of them had diarhea and apparently decided to not wake me up. I have been awake ever since then. You can't just say: gee, I'll clean that up when I get out of bed; or, gee, I'll just wait until I get home.
I spent well over an hour cleaning it off the walls - Duke stepped in it on his way out, splashing it all over the place and making the problem 50 times worse than what it originally would have been - and using the carpet cleaning machine to get it out of the carpet. The carpet in my bedroom needs replaced, is all I can say about that.
Between the dogs and the kids that used to live with me, well, it's pretty much a done deal.
Nice way to wake up, or the: the best part of waking up is dogs*** in your cup!! Oh, that's a modified Folgers song, well anyway.......
Busy day at work yesterday and the day before, today? Nothing in the system, at all.
The kid tenant comes up to me yesterday and informs me he has been laid off. He asserts he has already started looking for a new job. That's good, because he still owes me $200 for this month's rent. The female Army reservist has paid me nothing this month. She will be getting a notice today, it's what, the 18th? In fact, the couple are the only ones paid up.
I'm not in a very giving mood at this point: pay your rent or find a new home. I can't afford it. Summer is almost here and so are the electric bills that go along with it. Without tenants paying - on or close to on-time - we are all going to be living in a warm house, is all I can say about that.
Well, whatever. I'm just looking at photo after photo of the water flooding out homes and businesses along the Mississippi. I hope the federal government, that seems to have "endless" money to throw away at stupid nonsense, might find some of that money to help the people who are now going to be homeless. Or better yet, the American public pulls together once again and starts making donations to the organizations that can and will make a difference. I'm guessing the Red Cross is already in the middle of all of it, helping as much as they can. And yes, I would definitely make a donation, in fact, I would have to guess they already have an account set up for this.
The Red Cross came to my aid when my house burned down and I will never forget that and the generosity and help they gave during a very difficult time.
What, 8 days away. My son graduates in 8 days. Life without my son being around, that will be different. I don't know if he's planning on living with his parents when he goes off to college or - will he be able to find a job that will support him enough to be able to go out on his own?
I have no idea. I do know that the work day is almost here and I must be offa here.
G'day.
ben
"Former Sen. Rick Santorum said Tuesday that Sen. John McCain, who spent 5 1/2 years enduring brutal treatment at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors, doesn't know how effective waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques can be. "
ROFL!!! I about spit out my coffee when I read this statement earlier. The humor of the statement should be self explanatory, if it is not, I can't help you.
The news of the day - and many days before it - is the mess going on along the Mississippi river. Just read a story about people that are evactuating their homes - stating they don't have flood insurance and the now-opened Mongonzola floodway is going to submerge their homes.
I don't know what to say about that, I can only pray for the situation.
I was awakened this morning at about 3:45 am by a very grotesque smell: dog crap on my floor. One of them had diarhea and apparently decided to not wake me up. I have been awake ever since then. You can't just say: gee, I'll clean that up when I get out of bed; or, gee, I'll just wait until I get home.
I spent well over an hour cleaning it off the walls - Duke stepped in it on his way out, splashing it all over the place and making the problem 50 times worse than what it originally would have been - and using the carpet cleaning machine to get it out of the carpet. The carpet in my bedroom needs replaced, is all I can say about that.
Between the dogs and the kids that used to live with me, well, it's pretty much a done deal.
Nice way to wake up, or the: the best part of waking up is dogs*** in your cup!! Oh, that's a modified Folgers song, well anyway.......
Busy day at work yesterday and the day before, today? Nothing in the system, at all.
The kid tenant comes up to me yesterday and informs me he has been laid off. He asserts he has already started looking for a new job. That's good, because he still owes me $200 for this month's rent. The female Army reservist has paid me nothing this month. She will be getting a notice today, it's what, the 18th? In fact, the couple are the only ones paid up.
I'm not in a very giving mood at this point: pay your rent or find a new home. I can't afford it. Summer is almost here and so are the electric bills that go along with it. Without tenants paying - on or close to on-time - we are all going to be living in a warm house, is all I can say about that.
Well, whatever. I'm just looking at photo after photo of the water flooding out homes and businesses along the Mississippi. I hope the federal government, that seems to have "endless" money to throw away at stupid nonsense, might find some of that money to help the people who are now going to be homeless. Or better yet, the American public pulls together once again and starts making donations to the organizations that can and will make a difference. I'm guessing the Red Cross is already in the middle of all of it, helping as much as they can. And yes, I would definitely make a donation, in fact, I would have to guess they already have an account set up for this.
The Red Cross came to my aid when my house burned down and I will never forget that and the generosity and help they gave during a very difficult time.
What, 8 days away. My son graduates in 8 days. Life without my son being around, that will be different. I don't know if he's planning on living with his parents when he goes off to college or - will he be able to find a job that will support him enough to be able to go out on his own?
I have no idea. I do know that the work day is almost here and I must be offa here.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Tuesday 5/17/2011
I got to work this morning, started a pot of coffee brewing, sat down at the work computer and the phone rang. It was my manager. He had forgotten to call me the day before. He was coming in early to get me out on the road early. Lots of orders, lots of deliveries, lots of pickups. Got it all done and then some.
So, that's why there wasn't an "entry" in my comments line from yesterday's posting. No biggies.
"Passengers were finally towed back to Sweden by tug boats Monday."
That line was posted on an article about a cruise ship whose electricity went out, causing the engines to fail. In fact, causing everything to fail, apparently. I had visions of passengers in the water with ropes around them being pulled by tugboats. Must be some pretty BIG passengers to need an entire tugboat to tow them back to shore!
Okay, I'm not really in much of a mood to write a blog entry. Drove all day long, no breaks, got off work, went straight home. The only thing I have tended to today is the ponds. Someone cleaned the entire public areas of the house, very nice indeed. Don't have to worry about that. Dogs are fed.
I think I'll go to my bedroom and watch some TV, maybe doze off. I have one more pill left of the antibiotics, definitely taking that and considering whether to go back to the doc again tomorrow.
G'day.
ben
So, that's why there wasn't an "entry" in my comments line from yesterday's posting. No biggies.
"Passengers were finally towed back to Sweden by tug boats Monday."
That line was posted on an article about a cruise ship whose electricity went out, causing the engines to fail. In fact, causing everything to fail, apparently. I had visions of passengers in the water with ropes around them being pulled by tugboats. Must be some pretty BIG passengers to need an entire tugboat to tow them back to shore!
Okay, I'm not really in much of a mood to write a blog entry. Drove all day long, no breaks, got off work, went straight home. The only thing I have tended to today is the ponds. Someone cleaned the entire public areas of the house, very nice indeed. Don't have to worry about that. Dogs are fed.
I think I'll go to my bedroom and watch some TV, maybe doze off. I have one more pill left of the antibiotics, definitely taking that and considering whether to go back to the doc again tomorrow.
G'day.
ben
Monday, May 16, 2011
Monday 5/16/2011
Monday
I can safely say that I am not even close to being over this strep throat junk. Not that I called into work sick, but I felt like it.
So, I got a call Friday afternoon after I got home - and that was late because I had been to 2 different Urgent Care centers, got checked up, plus went to the pharmacy after work.
A contractor - this particular individual is the most sour-attituded man I have ever encountered in my life - called and said a part was missing.
I was being blamed for the "f...up" they were calling it. This guy called the salesman downtown, who must have gotten every form of management on earth to call my manager who in turn, called me.
On our delivery tickets - that we also pull the orders from - it shows the quantity ordered and the quantity we are actually going to ship. Often times, we don't have enough of any given product and so even though the contractor orders a X amount, we can only give what we have. The rest shows as being on backorder.
Well, fortunately, the pull ticket I was using to pull this order was sitting here this morning when I got into work. I went straight to the line item where this "f-up" occured. There it was. Backordered. Quantity ordered, 2, quantity on-hand, according to our system: 0, quantity on backorder - 2. There was also a PO attached to it. When I see a P.O. (purchase order) attached, that tells me we are getting the product from somewhere else.
On this ticket, there are a LARGE number of backordered materials with P.O.'s attached. This isn't abnormal. So what's the problem? The problem is that we had one here that should have shipped. The system, for whatever reason, showed both of them being backordered instead of showing 1 shipping and 1 on backorder, as it should have.
I am not in control nor am I in charge of the "system". Whatever it says, that's what we go off of. Why it showed them both on backorder when it shouldn't have - no clue. But, for my part, this is NOT anything that I screwed up on, thank you very much. If the powers that be want to find out why this is happening, that will be great, but I will take umbrage to any statements by anyone that I screwed up.
Well, now that I have that out of my system....an Airbus A330 engine on fire. I think that would probably scare the bleep out of me, too, especially if you happen to be sitting in a row where you can see the flames shooting out the back of the engine. Houston, we have a problem. Here's what I thought cool about it: the story says many of the passengers began praying and shouting to God for his protection.
Yeaaaaaah! I wouldn't even think about it, pray pray pray, ask for divine intervention. At least no-one was hurt, the plane landed safely, alls well that ends well, at least in this case.
Countdown to the end of the world, lol: 5 days. I read an article about the man spending his entire life's savings to put up the warnings. The end of the world, I suppose, could happen any day - but, I have serious doubts about this. He claims it will happen before 6:00am. The 21st is this coming Saturday, so, go to bed Friday night and be awakened by a giant, world-wide earthquake, at least according to the dude that came up with all of this.
Dogs. I am tired this morning. Prince - the black Great Dane - kept waking me up last night. I finally just left him out. He was having internal problems coming out the back end in the form of liquid. Fortunately, that stuff ended up outside, not in my bedroom or anywhere else in the house. I'll give him credit for waking me up instead of doing what they used to do: go into my bathroom and dump all over the floor in there when they have diarhea. I still got upset for being awakened so many times and yes, he was banished to the outside of my bedroom door after the third time.
My new pond liner should be here later this week. I paid for it from the proceeds of selling off 2 of the ponds that I wasn't using. I will be selling another pond as well, the one I am shutting down.
I'm sorta kicking myself right now, though. I will have to move the pond I am shutting down out of the way to put the horse trough there. Well, where am I going to put the fish and the plants while I'm doing that? I should have kept one pond so I could fill it up with water and temporarily put the fish and plants in there, pumping the water out of the pond being shut down into the temporary pond.
So, it means pumping the water into the horse trough. Moving the other pond, pumping the water back into the other pond, putting the horse trough where that pond was and pumping the water yet again into the horse trough. I have a 1,000 gallon per hour pump, I guess it won't take that long, but it's still going to be a pain.
However, I consider it will be worth the trouble as this horse trough is 400 gallons and holds a lot more water than the pond it is replacing, which only holds 165 gallons. More room for the fish to move around in, once I get the pond established I will move some of the bigger Koi from the other pond into it as well.
Once I sell the 3rd pond, I will use that money and get a small container that can be used for fish displacement instead of having to go through all of this trouble.
Umm, anyway, work day is here, I must be offa here.
G'day.
ben
I can safely say that I am not even close to being over this strep throat junk. Not that I called into work sick, but I felt like it.
So, I got a call Friday afternoon after I got home - and that was late because I had been to 2 different Urgent Care centers, got checked up, plus went to the pharmacy after work.
A contractor - this particular individual is the most sour-attituded man I have ever encountered in my life - called and said a part was missing.
I was being blamed for the "f...up" they were calling it. This guy called the salesman downtown, who must have gotten every form of management on earth to call my manager who in turn, called me.
On our delivery tickets - that we also pull the orders from - it shows the quantity ordered and the quantity we are actually going to ship. Often times, we don't have enough of any given product and so even though the contractor orders a X amount, we can only give what we have. The rest shows as being on backorder.
Well, fortunately, the pull ticket I was using to pull this order was sitting here this morning when I got into work. I went straight to the line item where this "f-up" occured. There it was. Backordered. Quantity ordered, 2, quantity on-hand, according to our system: 0, quantity on backorder - 2. There was also a PO attached to it. When I see a P.O. (purchase order) attached, that tells me we are getting the product from somewhere else.
On this ticket, there are a LARGE number of backordered materials with P.O.'s attached. This isn't abnormal. So what's the problem? The problem is that we had one here that should have shipped. The system, for whatever reason, showed both of them being backordered instead of showing 1 shipping and 1 on backorder, as it should have.
I am not in control nor am I in charge of the "system". Whatever it says, that's what we go off of. Why it showed them both on backorder when it shouldn't have - no clue. But, for my part, this is NOT anything that I screwed up on, thank you very much. If the powers that be want to find out why this is happening, that will be great, but I will take umbrage to any statements by anyone that I screwed up.
Well, now that I have that out of my system....an Airbus A330 engine on fire. I think that would probably scare the bleep out of me, too, especially if you happen to be sitting in a row where you can see the flames shooting out the back of the engine. Houston, we have a problem. Here's what I thought cool about it: the story says many of the passengers began praying and shouting to God for his protection.
Yeaaaaaah! I wouldn't even think about it, pray pray pray, ask for divine intervention. At least no-one was hurt, the plane landed safely, alls well that ends well, at least in this case.
Countdown to the end of the world, lol: 5 days. I read an article about the man spending his entire life's savings to put up the warnings. The end of the world, I suppose, could happen any day - but, I have serious doubts about this. He claims it will happen before 6:00am. The 21st is this coming Saturday, so, go to bed Friday night and be awakened by a giant, world-wide earthquake, at least according to the dude that came up with all of this.
Dogs. I am tired this morning. Prince - the black Great Dane - kept waking me up last night. I finally just left him out. He was having internal problems coming out the back end in the form of liquid. Fortunately, that stuff ended up outside, not in my bedroom or anywhere else in the house. I'll give him credit for waking me up instead of doing what they used to do: go into my bathroom and dump all over the floor in there when they have diarhea. I still got upset for being awakened so many times and yes, he was banished to the outside of my bedroom door after the third time.
My new pond liner should be here later this week. I paid for it from the proceeds of selling off 2 of the ponds that I wasn't using. I will be selling another pond as well, the one I am shutting down.
I'm sorta kicking myself right now, though. I will have to move the pond I am shutting down out of the way to put the horse trough there. Well, where am I going to put the fish and the plants while I'm doing that? I should have kept one pond so I could fill it up with water and temporarily put the fish and plants in there, pumping the water out of the pond being shut down into the temporary pond.
So, it means pumping the water into the horse trough. Moving the other pond, pumping the water back into the other pond, putting the horse trough where that pond was and pumping the water yet again into the horse trough. I have a 1,000 gallon per hour pump, I guess it won't take that long, but it's still going to be a pain.
However, I consider it will be worth the trouble as this horse trough is 400 gallons and holds a lot more water than the pond it is replacing, which only holds 165 gallons. More room for the fish to move around in, once I get the pond established I will move some of the bigger Koi from the other pond into it as well.
Once I sell the 3rd pond, I will use that money and get a small container that can be used for fish displacement instead of having to go through all of this trouble.
Umm, anyway, work day is here, I must be offa here.
G'day.
ben
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Sunday 5/15/2011
I am feeling worse than before I started taking the antibiotics. My head is aching and I am starting to get some chest congestion. I'm not even sure the strep throat and what else is going on in my body are even related. There is all kinds of junk floating around right now in terms of sickness, I suppose it's possible I have more than one going on at the same time.
Meaning I am not going to get a lot done today. I did manage to clean out 2 of the pond filters yesterday, trying to sum up the energy to clean out the 3rd.
Dunno. Anyway, one of my tenants that paid most of the rent for this month - but was short - bought me a 2 for 1, $40 pot roast. So, I have one of them in the slow cooker right now. Slices of bacon on the bottom of the cooker, topped by potatoes and carrots, roast on top of that. A bag of pearl onions and large mushrooms, sliced in half on top of that. I wanted to cut up a white onion and put that in there as well, but the cooker is full. Made a mixture of beef broth and tomato paste, poured that on top of everything. I also seared the roast in a frying pan with some oil to darken the meat and of course rubbed various seasons onto the surface of it.
I am going to slow fry the onion later on when the roast is nearing completion. I'll actually like them cooked that way better than in the cooker, anyway.
Uhhh, one of my tenants walked by a few minutes ago, all dressed up. What's up? Going to pick up a dead body. Gag. Have fun with that. I'll think of you when we are picking it up. I'm not sorry to say that I don't think I would much care for that type of job.
I found the cheapest pond liner on the net I could find - and trust me, I went to a lot of site - and ordered it. An Amazon provider, it was cheaper with shipping than anything I could find on Ebay. I can do nothing with my new setup until the liner arrives and I get it installed into the horse trough.
Another bicyclist killed by being struck by a car. This happens frequently around here. I would offer cyclists some advice, but I am sure they won't heed it. I'll give it anyway: when you are riding a bicycle on a major surface street and there is bicycle lane, stay in it. Don't veer out of it and into harm's way. I don't get why they have their own lane and many times refuse to stay in it. If I were riding a cycle, I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to risk my life out in open traffic. Then, there are the cyclists that are on a street with no bicycle lane. This isn't against the law, obviously, but attempting to take up an entire lane is. Not only that, it isn't very smart. I see them all the time, riding in the middle of a lane on a very busy street. It's a wonder there aren't even more of them killed out there.
I'm so ready to not only move out of this neighborhood, but move out of the city of Phoenix as well. The city government doesn't want to deal with it's budget mess by finding ways to do it from within, instead, they just want to continue to raise taxes and fees. Most notably is the water rate. They seem to want to raise it every single year. I'm half inclined to run for City council myself. Not that I would win, but who knows.
Jumping around - my roast is cooking very nicely. Another 5 or 6 hours and it's done, lol. Huge roast, longer cooking time in a slow cooker.
G'day.
ben
Meaning I am not going to get a lot done today. I did manage to clean out 2 of the pond filters yesterday, trying to sum up the energy to clean out the 3rd.
Dunno. Anyway, one of my tenants that paid most of the rent for this month - but was short - bought me a 2 for 1, $40 pot roast. So, I have one of them in the slow cooker right now. Slices of bacon on the bottom of the cooker, topped by potatoes and carrots, roast on top of that. A bag of pearl onions and large mushrooms, sliced in half on top of that. I wanted to cut up a white onion and put that in there as well, but the cooker is full. Made a mixture of beef broth and tomato paste, poured that on top of everything. I also seared the roast in a frying pan with some oil to darken the meat and of course rubbed various seasons onto the surface of it.
I am going to slow fry the onion later on when the roast is nearing completion. I'll actually like them cooked that way better than in the cooker, anyway.
Uhhh, one of my tenants walked by a few minutes ago, all dressed up. What's up? Going to pick up a dead body. Gag. Have fun with that. I'll think of you when we are picking it up. I'm not sorry to say that I don't think I would much care for that type of job.
I found the cheapest pond liner on the net I could find - and trust me, I went to a lot of site - and ordered it. An Amazon provider, it was cheaper with shipping than anything I could find on Ebay. I can do nothing with my new setup until the liner arrives and I get it installed into the horse trough.
Another bicyclist killed by being struck by a car. This happens frequently around here. I would offer cyclists some advice, but I am sure they won't heed it. I'll give it anyway: when you are riding a bicycle on a major surface street and there is bicycle lane, stay in it. Don't veer out of it and into harm's way. I don't get why they have their own lane and many times refuse to stay in it. If I were riding a cycle, I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to risk my life out in open traffic. Then, there are the cyclists that are on a street with no bicycle lane. This isn't against the law, obviously, but attempting to take up an entire lane is. Not only that, it isn't very smart. I see them all the time, riding in the middle of a lane on a very busy street. It's a wonder there aren't even more of them killed out there.
I'm so ready to not only move out of this neighborhood, but move out of the city of Phoenix as well. The city government doesn't want to deal with it's budget mess by finding ways to do it from within, instead, they just want to continue to raise taxes and fees. Most notably is the water rate. They seem to want to raise it every single year. I'm half inclined to run for City council myself. Not that I would win, but who knows.
Jumping around - my roast is cooking very nicely. Another 5 or 6 hours and it's done, lol. Huge roast, longer cooking time in a slow cooker.
G'day.
ben
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Saturday
As with most pills I take, these antibiotics are giving me strange sensations. But, I can't not take them - strep throat isn't anything to play around with. And anyway, it was only 2 pills yesterday and then 1 pill a day for the next 4 days. I am not going to do much of anything this weekend, rest/relax and try to get over this.
But, the ponds need some maintenance, more specifically, the filtration systems. All 3 of them need cleaned out and I can't just let it go. To do that means risking the health of the fish, so, I am going to get out there and get the big one done, come back later do the next one and then the third one will be easy. It's small and only takes a few minutes to clean out.
I upped the war in the diet realm. I quit eating Subway altogether and am buying the Weight Watchers frozen meals for lunch at work. The meals are no higher than 300 calories a piece with relatively low fat content. Yesterday, I ate around 1,000 calories - which ain't a lot, folks.
I ate a WW meal at about 6:00 am, the ate again around 4:30 pm - 10-1/2 hours later - and then had another small meal a couple hours after that and that was it. Today, I have eaten a small meal already and then don't plan to eat again until mid afternoon. Then, have another small meal at around 6:00 pm and that will be it, again.
My mother just called me and told me my sister-in-law's birthday is today. I have no relationship with my oldest brother, I haven't seen him in over a year, I think. No love lost there. I might call and wish a happy birthday, anyway, just because. I am not holding anything against them, it's them that want nothing to do with the family. They have their own world and their friends apparently are their family. They also have a cabin up in the mountains. I don't get it and I never will, but I have come to terms with it and have resolved myself to the fact that having any kind of relationship with either of my brothers is out of the question. In other words, I gave up trying. This isn't a pity party and I'm not feeling sorry for myself - at all. Just cold facts.
Anyway, I am headed up to the store. Need some clamps for my new UV sterilizer to install it on the big pond. If I had the energy, I would start the process of getting the pond liner, installing it into the horse trough I bought and then removing everything from the medium sized pond, including the fish, pumping that water into the horse trough - the water is "conditioned" and "cycled" - it's better for the fish and why waste the water? - and then going and catching all those fish out of the big pond and putting them in the trough. It will take a weekend - a full weekend - to do all of that. I don't have the liner yet, I just found it today on Craigslist. I am spending the cash I got when I sold the 2 pre-formed liners earlier this week to buy the flexible liner for the trough.
So, another project coming my way, sometime soon.
Well, just before I run completely out of motivation, I better get up and get this stuff done.
G'day.
ben
But, the ponds need some maintenance, more specifically, the filtration systems. All 3 of them need cleaned out and I can't just let it go. To do that means risking the health of the fish, so, I am going to get out there and get the big one done, come back later do the next one and then the third one will be easy. It's small and only takes a few minutes to clean out.
I upped the war in the diet realm. I quit eating Subway altogether and am buying the Weight Watchers frozen meals for lunch at work. The meals are no higher than 300 calories a piece with relatively low fat content. Yesterday, I ate around 1,000 calories - which ain't a lot, folks.
I ate a WW meal at about 6:00 am, the ate again around 4:30 pm - 10-1/2 hours later - and then had another small meal a couple hours after that and that was it. Today, I have eaten a small meal already and then don't plan to eat again until mid afternoon. Then, have another small meal at around 6:00 pm and that will be it, again.
My mother just called me and told me my sister-in-law's birthday is today. I have no relationship with my oldest brother, I haven't seen him in over a year, I think. No love lost there. I might call and wish a happy birthday, anyway, just because. I am not holding anything against them, it's them that want nothing to do with the family. They have their own world and their friends apparently are their family. They also have a cabin up in the mountains. I don't get it and I never will, but I have come to terms with it and have resolved myself to the fact that having any kind of relationship with either of my brothers is out of the question. In other words, I gave up trying. This isn't a pity party and I'm not feeling sorry for myself - at all. Just cold facts.
Anyway, I am headed up to the store. Need some clamps for my new UV sterilizer to install it on the big pond. If I had the energy, I would start the process of getting the pond liner, installing it into the horse trough I bought and then removing everything from the medium sized pond, including the fish, pumping that water into the horse trough - the water is "conditioned" and "cycled" - it's better for the fish and why waste the water? - and then going and catching all those fish out of the big pond and putting them in the trough. It will take a weekend - a full weekend - to do all of that. I don't have the liner yet, I just found it today on Craigslist. I am spending the cash I got when I sold the 2 pre-formed liners earlier this week to buy the flexible liner for the trough.
So, another project coming my way, sometime soon.
Well, just before I run completely out of motivation, I better get up and get this stuff done.
G'day.
ben
Friday, May 13, 2011
Friday (The Thirteenth) 5/13/2011
Apparently Blogger magically decided to come back up. I mean, did anyone else have this trouble? I didn't search the internet to find out if it was a system wide failure, no clue. This is what I hate about these sites. You can lose everything you have posted in the blink of an eye. JS - all of us former users of that site know that all too well.
I don't know if anything is lost, I guess I don't care that much anymore. If it is, it is.
Today. Driving all over the place in the semi. Down south, up in the mountains. I was already 4 and something minutes over my hours starting today, I didn't lose much in getting off a bit early. That's cause' though I got off early by an hour, I didn't take a break and now? The computer asks you if you took a break or not. No, in fact, I did not. I was working from the time I got to work til' the time I left.
Nice drive in the mountains, even if I wasn't feeling well.
That's the next thing. My neck has been sore for about a week and a half now. That's how I am describing it - soreness. Hard to move my head around. Hard to swallow. Lots and lots of mucous being produced. Today - was much worse than any day before, which is why I decided to go to an urgent care place and have myself checked out.
The first place I went to? The woman behind the counter was cold, calculated and acted as if the customer were an imposition. Not that she was busy - there wasn't anyone else there. There was a sign that had a legal notice: if there isn't a doctor in, this sign must be posted, yada yada yada. The person doing the work is a "physician's assistant". This, I find out, after filling out 4 pages worth of paperwork.
Guess what? I'm not interested. I have gone to several of these places in the past that don't have doctors attending and I have not gotten any kind of diagnosis. I waste my time, energy and money going in there. They aren't giving you your $50 co-pay back if they can't figure out what's wrong. I asked the lady about the assistant status: what does THAT mean? She brushed it off and didn't even answer my question. I asked her again: I want to know what qualifications this person has - or more importantly - does NOT have since it isn't a real doctor? I am not paying anything less, I want to know.
She refused to answer the question. She wanted my co-pay. I asked her if I would get my money back if this person couldn't figure out what was wrong? She went into a two-step - pretty good one too for anyone that wanted to listen: I did not. It would have been helpful if she would have at least been friendly and congenial. Who wants to go into a doctor's office (with not doctor present to boot) and have some sour puss at the front desk?
NOT me. She offered my card back, I reached to get it, she then went into another discussion, I just said thanks, but no thanks, please give me my card back, delete my information and I'll be leaving. I have my doubts the information was deleted, to be honest. I didn't complain to management, I just left to go to another one of these places.
I never even looked back. In fact, I didn't care. I don't do business at any other establishment that treats you in such a way, why should I tolerate it at a medical care facility? I will not.
Next place? Very nice people. Makes it easier to hand over the $50 co-pay and yes, I asked right up front: is there an actual DOCTOR here? Yes, they said, a doctor and a PPA (or something, I didn't pay that much attention). I was fine with that, even if the non-doctor saw me, if that person couldn't figure out what's going on, please send in the doc. Oh, and they didn't get offended by my asking if there was a doctor. Fully 3 people had big smiles and great attitudes. If I have to go back to an urgent care center again, I will be going back to that one.
I tell the guy what's going on. I have no fever - or if I do I don't know it - I'm not feeling well; my neck hurts and I showed him the places where soreness was concentrated; I am having some difficulty swallowing; producing a lot of mucous. He started feeling everything, of course and said he thought my thyroid glands were enlarged. He stated, though, that a nurse was going to come in and take a swab off my throat to see if I have strep throat. Okay.
Well, this nurse certainly got the better on me: I had NO clue she was going to stick that thing THAT far down my throat!! Open your mouth, say ahhhh: AHHHHHH - GURGGGGLE GAG!!
10 minutes later the doctor comes in and says I have strep throat. He said probably lymph nodes or something that he was feeling and that he was going to prescribe me an antibiotic and it should take care of the problem. If not, then I should have my thyroid looked at again, but, don't bother doing that until you take all the antibiotics and see if that doesn't solve the problem.
I guess I have walked around the planet for 2 weeks with strep throat. I asked and they told me: highly contagious. Great, guess I should stay away from people and warn whoever's around me. I don't like going to the doctor, I never have. They want to probe you in places that shouldn't be probed. They ask you personal questions that I don't want to answer. You are a machine to them that needs to be fixed. If you want to be fixed, you really have to be completely open to them, much like the computer on your car will transmit codes to tell a mechanic what is wrong.
I'm not saying doctors aren't compassionate - well some aren't - they are usually very caring people. It's just the whole scenario. A cold place. Put on this "gown". Hold out your arm. Bend over, we gonna check your prostrate. Gag.
Thanks doc, as I'm getting off the lift and walking out of the mechanic's shop and into the shop office. Lol, I know, a bit overkill, but that's the way I think they look at it. I open the door and hear a voice behind me but I didn't hear what she said. I walked back in, did I need to do anything else? Oh no, she said very sweetly, you're good, just said goodbye. Oh, well thank you and have a great day!
Off to CVS pharmacy. That's the pharmacy that is "ordained" by our company's medical and that's what I am going to use - lower price. In this case? I was amazed: 4 bucks and change for the antibiotics. I ended up walking around the store and found some deals. I don't normally shop at CVS - the last time I went was several years ago and I thought their prices were way high. However, the deals were things I needed and yes, I think I'm a fairly savvy shopper, I am very price conscious and I watch the prices on EVERYTHING that I buy, store those prices in my head and look through all the ads to see if any deals are available. I don't get a flyer from CVS, hence, I have no idea what their deals are.
Anyway, that was $50 well spent - though - I need to find a primary care doctor and get the option for $25 co-pays instead of $50 at urgent care centers.
Took my first pill 6 plus hours ago, taking another now and then one per day for 4 days after today. Do I feel better? After only 6 hours and walking around with this for almost 2 weeks - no - and I wasn't offered pain medication. Would have turned it down. I don't like the stuff, it is usually way too powerful and knocks me out. If I'm REALLY bad then I will ask for it. I decided a couple of drinks would do the trick and yes, they did. I am still feeling the effects, but not near as bad.
I just read a site on it. The stuff I was given is not always effective, but I can't take Penicillin, apparently that's what they normally give for this stuff. I am allergic to penicillin and have been warned that I may have have anaphylaxis as a result. My first and only time with penicillin I was covered with huge hives and was sick for almost 2 weeks.
So, I hope this stuff works. Some stuff that starts with an A. Arithsomethingoranother.
I will say that one of the symptoms I am having is quite prevalent: white patches surrounded by red. VERY visible and quite ugly, to say the least, on my neck.
I am going to bed.
Hope you all had a good week.
ben
I don't know if anything is lost, I guess I don't care that much anymore. If it is, it is.
Today. Driving all over the place in the semi. Down south, up in the mountains. I was already 4 and something minutes over my hours starting today, I didn't lose much in getting off a bit early. That's cause' though I got off early by an hour, I didn't take a break and now? The computer asks you if you took a break or not. No, in fact, I did not. I was working from the time I got to work til' the time I left.
Nice drive in the mountains, even if I wasn't feeling well.
That's the next thing. My neck has been sore for about a week and a half now. That's how I am describing it - soreness. Hard to move my head around. Hard to swallow. Lots and lots of mucous being produced. Today - was much worse than any day before, which is why I decided to go to an urgent care place and have myself checked out.
The first place I went to? The woman behind the counter was cold, calculated and acted as if the customer were an imposition. Not that she was busy - there wasn't anyone else there. There was a sign that had a legal notice: if there isn't a doctor in, this sign must be posted, yada yada yada. The person doing the work is a "physician's assistant". This, I find out, after filling out 4 pages worth of paperwork.
Guess what? I'm not interested. I have gone to several of these places in the past that don't have doctors attending and I have not gotten any kind of diagnosis. I waste my time, energy and money going in there. They aren't giving you your $50 co-pay back if they can't figure out what's wrong. I asked the lady about the assistant status: what does THAT mean? She brushed it off and didn't even answer my question. I asked her again: I want to know what qualifications this person has - or more importantly - does NOT have since it isn't a real doctor? I am not paying anything less, I want to know.
She refused to answer the question. She wanted my co-pay. I asked her if I would get my money back if this person couldn't figure out what was wrong? She went into a two-step - pretty good one too for anyone that wanted to listen: I did not. It would have been helpful if she would have at least been friendly and congenial. Who wants to go into a doctor's office (with not doctor present to boot) and have some sour puss at the front desk?
NOT me. She offered my card back, I reached to get it, she then went into another discussion, I just said thanks, but no thanks, please give me my card back, delete my information and I'll be leaving. I have my doubts the information was deleted, to be honest. I didn't complain to management, I just left to go to another one of these places.
I never even looked back. In fact, I didn't care. I don't do business at any other establishment that treats you in such a way, why should I tolerate it at a medical care facility? I will not.
Next place? Very nice people. Makes it easier to hand over the $50 co-pay and yes, I asked right up front: is there an actual DOCTOR here? Yes, they said, a doctor and a PPA (or something, I didn't pay that much attention). I was fine with that, even if the non-doctor saw me, if that person couldn't figure out what's going on, please send in the doc. Oh, and they didn't get offended by my asking if there was a doctor. Fully 3 people had big smiles and great attitudes. If I have to go back to an urgent care center again, I will be going back to that one.
I tell the guy what's going on. I have no fever - or if I do I don't know it - I'm not feeling well; my neck hurts and I showed him the places where soreness was concentrated; I am having some difficulty swallowing; producing a lot of mucous. He started feeling everything, of course and said he thought my thyroid glands were enlarged. He stated, though, that a nurse was going to come in and take a swab off my throat to see if I have strep throat. Okay.
Well, this nurse certainly got the better on me: I had NO clue she was going to stick that thing THAT far down my throat!! Open your mouth, say ahhhh: AHHHHHH - GURGGGGLE GAG!!
10 minutes later the doctor comes in and says I have strep throat. He said probably lymph nodes or something that he was feeling and that he was going to prescribe me an antibiotic and it should take care of the problem. If not, then I should have my thyroid looked at again, but, don't bother doing that until you take all the antibiotics and see if that doesn't solve the problem.
I guess I have walked around the planet for 2 weeks with strep throat. I asked and they told me: highly contagious. Great, guess I should stay away from people and warn whoever's around me. I don't like going to the doctor, I never have. They want to probe you in places that shouldn't be probed. They ask you personal questions that I don't want to answer. You are a machine to them that needs to be fixed. If you want to be fixed, you really have to be completely open to them, much like the computer on your car will transmit codes to tell a mechanic what is wrong.
I'm not saying doctors aren't compassionate - well some aren't - they are usually very caring people. It's just the whole scenario. A cold place. Put on this "gown". Hold out your arm. Bend over, we gonna check your prostrate. Gag.
Thanks doc, as I'm getting off the lift and walking out of the mechanic's shop and into the shop office. Lol, I know, a bit overkill, but that's the way I think they look at it. I open the door and hear a voice behind me but I didn't hear what she said. I walked back in, did I need to do anything else? Oh no, she said very sweetly, you're good, just said goodbye. Oh, well thank you and have a great day!
Off to CVS pharmacy. That's the pharmacy that is "ordained" by our company's medical and that's what I am going to use - lower price. In this case? I was amazed: 4 bucks and change for the antibiotics. I ended up walking around the store and found some deals. I don't normally shop at CVS - the last time I went was several years ago and I thought their prices were way high. However, the deals were things I needed and yes, I think I'm a fairly savvy shopper, I am very price conscious and I watch the prices on EVERYTHING that I buy, store those prices in my head and look through all the ads to see if any deals are available. I don't get a flyer from CVS, hence, I have no idea what their deals are.
Anyway, that was $50 well spent - though - I need to find a primary care doctor and get the option for $25 co-pays instead of $50 at urgent care centers.
Took my first pill 6 plus hours ago, taking another now and then one per day for 4 days after today. Do I feel better? After only 6 hours and walking around with this for almost 2 weeks - no - and I wasn't offered pain medication. Would have turned it down. I don't like the stuff, it is usually way too powerful and knocks me out. If I'm REALLY bad then I will ask for it. I decided a couple of drinks would do the trick and yes, they did. I am still feeling the effects, but not near as bad.
I just read a site on it. The stuff I was given is not always effective, but I can't take Penicillin, apparently that's what they normally give for this stuff. I am allergic to penicillin and have been warned that I may have have anaphylaxis as a result. My first and only time with penicillin I was covered with huge hives and was sick for almost 2 weeks.
So, I hope this stuff works. Some stuff that starts with an A. Arithsomethingoranother.
I will say that one of the symptoms I am having is quite prevalent: white patches surrounded by red. VERY visible and quite ugly, to say the least, on my neck.
I am going to bed.
Hope you all had a good week.
ben
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
ING Savings
I've been using them for a while. I'll save up what money I can - and then boom - something happens and I have to use it.
I recently closed my Compass checking account but already had a Chase checking account opened to replace it. The problem? Of course, you have to change all the information on all of your online accounts and in this case, my account with ING Savings.
Well, inputting the information was easy enough. But then, we got to the "verification" stage. You could do it instantly online or some other option that would take a while to get done. Well, I want to start saving right away, I don't want to wait. So, I opted for the instant verification.
It apparently has access to your credit file and gives you multiple choice questions about things like an auto loan, where you are or have lived, things like that. On 2 of them, none of the answers on there were correct, so I clicked none of the above. I had a bad feeling about doing that, but I carefully scrutinized the question and the answers, none of them were correct.
I clicked the field to verify and what comes back? We're sorry, we could not verify your information, we are going to do whatever it is they are going to do and you will not be able to do anything with this link - they call them links, the banking accounts you have connected to the savings account you have with ING - for 15 days. FIFTEEN days? The other option was to snail mail the information in for the verification.
SCREW both of those options. I called them up, there was nothing they could do, so they said. I said fine, cancel the account, there are a lot of savings institutions online nowadays, one of them will be happy to take money from my checking account and deposit into their account. The funny thing is, they didn't even TRY to keep me as a customer. I found that unusual, but I didn't care, either. Perhaps lots of people close their accounts with them every day, who knows.
I opened one up with another bank of which I now cannot access my account. Are you serious? It's asking me verification questions because I am a new customer. The problem with THESE questions are they are questions that you would answer when you open the account, not taken off your credit file. No such option was given when I opened it, it just took me through the process and that was that. Do I close this account, too? Not if they will fix it over the phone. I have an internet account for a reason, so I cannot access my money immediately, making it difficult to get to my savings so that it really has to be something needed now to get it. But also, if I have a problem, I can call them up and have them deal with it.
We'll see what happens, is all I can say about that. I found numerous more online savings banks. If all else fails, I'll open up a savings account with a bank offering the incentive to do so at their place of business and make sure that that bank has the ability to transfer funds from my Chase savings account to their savings account. Why not do it with Chase and just have 2 accounts there?
Cause', they only incentive they are giving is a cash offer if you open up a savings account with $5,000 in it. Heck, I'd take a free toaster like they used to give out in the old days over nothing! Do you remember those days? It was a big deal to get that free toaster!
ben
I recently closed my Compass checking account but already had a Chase checking account opened to replace it. The problem? Of course, you have to change all the information on all of your online accounts and in this case, my account with ING Savings.
Well, inputting the information was easy enough. But then, we got to the "verification" stage. You could do it instantly online or some other option that would take a while to get done. Well, I want to start saving right away, I don't want to wait. So, I opted for the instant verification.
It apparently has access to your credit file and gives you multiple choice questions about things like an auto loan, where you are or have lived, things like that. On 2 of them, none of the answers on there were correct, so I clicked none of the above. I had a bad feeling about doing that, but I carefully scrutinized the question and the answers, none of them were correct.
I clicked the field to verify and what comes back? We're sorry, we could not verify your information, we are going to do whatever it is they are going to do and you will not be able to do anything with this link - they call them links, the banking accounts you have connected to the savings account you have with ING - for 15 days. FIFTEEN days? The other option was to snail mail the information in for the verification.
SCREW both of those options. I called them up, there was nothing they could do, so they said. I said fine, cancel the account, there are a lot of savings institutions online nowadays, one of them will be happy to take money from my checking account and deposit into their account. The funny thing is, they didn't even TRY to keep me as a customer. I found that unusual, but I didn't care, either. Perhaps lots of people close their accounts with them every day, who knows.
I opened one up with another bank of which I now cannot access my account. Are you serious? It's asking me verification questions because I am a new customer. The problem with THESE questions are they are questions that you would answer when you open the account, not taken off your credit file. No such option was given when I opened it, it just took me through the process and that was that. Do I close this account, too? Not if they will fix it over the phone. I have an internet account for a reason, so I cannot access my money immediately, making it difficult to get to my savings so that it really has to be something needed now to get it. But also, if I have a problem, I can call them up and have them deal with it.
We'll see what happens, is all I can say about that. I found numerous more online savings banks. If all else fails, I'll open up a savings account with a bank offering the incentive to do so at their place of business and make sure that that bank has the ability to transfer funds from my Chase savings account to their savings account. Why not do it with Chase and just have 2 accounts there?
Cause', they only incentive they are giving is a cash offer if you open up a savings account with $5,000 in it. Heck, I'd take a free toaster like they used to give out in the old days over nothing! Do you remember those days? It was a big deal to get that free toaster!
ben
Wednesday 5/11/11
Wednesday
Strange thing happened yesterday. Dogs next door were barking, which isn't strange, I'll get to that part in a minute. I decided to see if the police and their statements that I should call them instead of turning on the music would actually turn up any results. I suppose, if I had wanted to be sneaky about it, I wouldn't have done so right next to the fence where they could hear me making the call.
But I didn't care about sneakiness. The officer on the phone told me I would have to call a city prosecutor's office. No, no and double no. This is NOT what your officers told me, in person, last week. Call them, they would come out and start writing tickets. That is what they said. This guy went on about the prosecutor's office. No, again, I want the police to come out here and do what they said they were going to do.
Of course, I had no thought, whatsoever, that they would actually come out and write tickets. That, along with several other things they told me last week, was all made up junk.
So, call in, I'm outside waiting - and waiting - and waiting. Next thing I see is a white SUV pulling up to - me, actually. It was not the police, it was what appeared to be a family. No clue who this is. Guy gets out - covered, and I do mean covered - with tattoos. Not that that automatically predjudices me, just an interesting sight to see a man's arms and the visible part so his legs and even his neck with tats completely covering the skin surface.
Okay, I DID think, upon seeing that, that maybe there was trouble? No clue. Braced myself as the man got out of the vehicle and approached me. Is Rey here? Rey? Oh, Reyyy! No, he's not here, they left a while ago for parts unknown. Turns out it's Rey's girlfriend's parents. He went back to the vehicle, they called them and asked where they were at, etc etc etc.
Well, they waited - and waited - and waited for them to show up, I was waiting for the police - the people next door heard me and shortly after making that call they all piled into their van and left. Lol. About the time the last eeklings of the sun's rays were showing, I bid the family out front a goodbye, as I was heading in - I had been chatting with them for well over an hour while they were waiting for Rey to show up.
20 minutes later, they were ALL coming into the house. I think Rey had no small amount of trepidation bringing his girlfriend's parents in, plus their daughter and his girlfriend's daughter as well. He looks at me and asks if he's going to get an eviction notice tomorrow.
Lol, I'm not mean-spirited and besides, tattoos and all, these were nice people. I actually ended up entertaining them for a while, until it was time to go to bed.
About 8:45 is when I went to bed. At a bit after 10:00, my cellphone wakes me up. I get up to go look at it. 602-000-0000. No such number exists, I knew it was the police. I was in no mood to talk to them, it was 7 hours earlier that I had placed the call. I just let it ring and went back to sleep.
That's it. An odd night. I might call the police again today. Depends on my mood, I guess and whether their dogs put me into that mood, really. They have an unregistered vehicle parked on the street, the police can have it towed if they were so inclined. They have 4 vehicles, actually, no, make that 6. 2 in the driveway next to their house behind a gate, 1 in the driveway in front of the gate - none of those are working vehicles. Then 3 more on the street, only 1 of which they drive.
6 vehicles, 1 family, plus all the rest of the junk they have scattered everywhere.
Well, whatever. OH, I sold my ponds yesterday! Yoooohooooooo. The guy told me last weekend he would come on Tuesday to get them and by golly, he did! He didn't even try to talk me down in price. Amazing. So, that gone and money in pocket, that money pays for a liner for that horse trough and then some. In fact, I am going to spend all that money - $125 - on pond stuff since I already had it spent on pond stuff in the first place. I am going to buy another 9 watt UV sterilizer.
Anyway, work day is here and there is an "emergency" delivery that i have to get out first thing.
G'day.
ben
Strange thing happened yesterday. Dogs next door were barking, which isn't strange, I'll get to that part in a minute. I decided to see if the police and their statements that I should call them instead of turning on the music would actually turn up any results. I suppose, if I had wanted to be sneaky about it, I wouldn't have done so right next to the fence where they could hear me making the call.
But I didn't care about sneakiness. The officer on the phone told me I would have to call a city prosecutor's office. No, no and double no. This is NOT what your officers told me, in person, last week. Call them, they would come out and start writing tickets. That is what they said. This guy went on about the prosecutor's office. No, again, I want the police to come out here and do what they said they were going to do.
Of course, I had no thought, whatsoever, that they would actually come out and write tickets. That, along with several other things they told me last week, was all made up junk.
So, call in, I'm outside waiting - and waiting - and waiting. Next thing I see is a white SUV pulling up to - me, actually. It was not the police, it was what appeared to be a family. No clue who this is. Guy gets out - covered, and I do mean covered - with tattoos. Not that that automatically predjudices me, just an interesting sight to see a man's arms and the visible part so his legs and even his neck with tats completely covering the skin surface.
Okay, I DID think, upon seeing that, that maybe there was trouble? No clue. Braced myself as the man got out of the vehicle and approached me. Is Rey here? Rey? Oh, Reyyy! No, he's not here, they left a while ago for parts unknown. Turns out it's Rey's girlfriend's parents. He went back to the vehicle, they called them and asked where they were at, etc etc etc.
Well, they waited - and waited - and waited for them to show up, I was waiting for the police - the people next door heard me and shortly after making that call they all piled into their van and left. Lol. About the time the last eeklings of the sun's rays were showing, I bid the family out front a goodbye, as I was heading in - I had been chatting with them for well over an hour while they were waiting for Rey to show up.
20 minutes later, they were ALL coming into the house. I think Rey had no small amount of trepidation bringing his girlfriend's parents in, plus their daughter and his girlfriend's daughter as well. He looks at me and asks if he's going to get an eviction notice tomorrow.
Lol, I'm not mean-spirited and besides, tattoos and all, these were nice people. I actually ended up entertaining them for a while, until it was time to go to bed.
About 8:45 is when I went to bed. At a bit after 10:00, my cellphone wakes me up. I get up to go look at it. 602-000-0000. No such number exists, I knew it was the police. I was in no mood to talk to them, it was 7 hours earlier that I had placed the call. I just let it ring and went back to sleep.
That's it. An odd night. I might call the police again today. Depends on my mood, I guess and whether their dogs put me into that mood, really. They have an unregistered vehicle parked on the street, the police can have it towed if they were so inclined. They have 4 vehicles, actually, no, make that 6. 2 in the driveway next to their house behind a gate, 1 in the driveway in front of the gate - none of those are working vehicles. Then 3 more on the street, only 1 of which they drive.
6 vehicles, 1 family, plus all the rest of the junk they have scattered everywhere.
Well, whatever. OH, I sold my ponds yesterday! Yoooohooooooo. The guy told me last weekend he would come on Tuesday to get them and by golly, he did! He didn't even try to talk me down in price. Amazing. So, that gone and money in pocket, that money pays for a liner for that horse trough and then some. In fact, I am going to spend all that money - $125 - on pond stuff since I already had it spent on pond stuff in the first place. I am going to buy another 9 watt UV sterilizer.
Anyway, work day is here and there is an "emergency" delivery that i have to get out first thing.
G'day.
ben
Tuesday 5/10/11
Tuesday
Finally. 3 consecutive business days starting on Thursday and ending yesterday that we had NO deliveries. The life blood of this business is delivering the material we sell. No deliveries equals no GP. Today's deliveries aren't a lot of money, but it's better than nothing. A bit of a sigh of relief in that department.
Instead of wasting time fearing or anticipating (depending on from where you are looking at this stuff) Christ's return, the energy is better spent praying for all of those people along the Mississippi river whose homes and land are about to be washed away. Some of the stories are heart-wrenching. Today was a guy talking about his attempt to build his own levee around his home and barns.
Ummm, anyway. Work day begins in a just a few minutes. My dad wrote me again after I left work yesterday to my work email account. He's not sure about what to do with this situation that my brothers will be there at the graduation ceremonies. They haven't spoken in years 6 or so that I can think of. That's a pretty good length of time to have to all show up at the same place and consider being together.
That's okay, I rarely see my brothers, either and we don't talk on the phone, in email or otherwise. They are just a notch above being perfect strangers. I do hope they called mom on Mother's Day, at least. In fact, to the end of seeing my middle brother, I am not looking forward to it at all. Seeing my oldest brother means nothing to me anymore either good or bad. He's just a person - that I don't know - that may or may not show up, who knows and at this point, I frankly don't care. I do hope that if we are all sitting together, which would be a photo worthy thing because it will undoubtedly be the only time in this or any coming decades that that will ever happen again, that they will simply keep their negative junk to themselves.
I will have no qualms, whatsoever, in getting up and moving to another spot if they start trouble as the event is about my son, not any of us.
The day looms closer and thusly, the thoughts of having us all together in one place also are starting to pop up.
G'day.
ben
Finally. 3 consecutive business days starting on Thursday and ending yesterday that we had NO deliveries. The life blood of this business is delivering the material we sell. No deliveries equals no GP. Today's deliveries aren't a lot of money, but it's better than nothing. A bit of a sigh of relief in that department.
Instead of wasting time fearing or anticipating (depending on from where you are looking at this stuff) Christ's return, the energy is better spent praying for all of those people along the Mississippi river whose homes and land are about to be washed away. Some of the stories are heart-wrenching. Today was a guy talking about his attempt to build his own levee around his home and barns.
Ummm, anyway. Work day begins in a just a few minutes. My dad wrote me again after I left work yesterday to my work email account. He's not sure about what to do with this situation that my brothers will be there at the graduation ceremonies. They haven't spoken in years 6 or so that I can think of. That's a pretty good length of time to have to all show up at the same place and consider being together.
That's okay, I rarely see my brothers, either and we don't talk on the phone, in email or otherwise. They are just a notch above being perfect strangers. I do hope they called mom on Mother's Day, at least. In fact, to the end of seeing my middle brother, I am not looking forward to it at all. Seeing my oldest brother means nothing to me anymore either good or bad. He's just a person - that I don't know - that may or may not show up, who knows and at this point, I frankly don't care. I do hope that if we are all sitting together, which would be a photo worthy thing because it will undoubtedly be the only time in this or any coming decades that that will ever happen again, that they will simply keep their negative junk to themselves.
I will have no qualms, whatsoever, in getting up and moving to another spot if they start trouble as the event is about my son, not any of us.
The day looms closer and thusly, the thoughts of having us all together in one place also are starting to pop up.
G'day.
ben
Monday, May 9, 2011
Regarding The Billboards That Say Judgement Day Is May 21 (2011)
I was driving down the freeway today and caught a very brief glimpse of a billboard that said in huge letters: Judgement Day Is May 21
Yes, indeed. It immediately brought to mind the fiasco that took place in 1988: 88 Reasons For 88. This was a book and tapes that came out declaring that Jesus Christ was going to return during one of 3 days during Rosh Hashanna in September of that year. It actually got it's foothold in the ministry I was working with at the time.
You see, I went to one of the leaders of that ministry's doors one day - don't remember why, I needed some information or something - and the wife of the leader answered. She had a tape in her hand. She said, "You have to listen to this!" What is it? I asked. It's a tape that proves that Christ is going to return in September!!
During this period of time where this ministry started propagating this nonsense, I took a definitive stand against this teaching and the panic it was causing within the Christian community. I was brought before the leaders of the group - from around the world actually - and after I continued to defy them and this declaration that Christ was, indeed, returning in 1988, I was condemned before this entire group. "In that case, we have determined you are not a Christian because you don't believe this" - or something to that effect. I don't remember the exact words, I DO remember that my salvation through my Lord Jesus Christ was not only questioned, but negated.
Fortunately for me, by that time in my Christian walk which was all of 3 years, I had spent CONSIDERABLE time studying the Word. I wasn't then or am not now claiming to be a biblical scholar, but I had dug and dug into the Word, had done all kinds of word studies in Greek and Hebrew and had come to my own conclusions that were not outside of most thinking in Christian circles.
There was only 1 other man that - in a much lessor way - defied them, but he did stand his ground as well. I informed them that the 3 days of Rosh Hashanna would come and go and we would still be here. I think I also asked them if they were going to apologize to me after it was all said and done and no-one was gone?
The stories came to light that Christians were giving away their homes, cars, bank accounts, everything because they fell for this stuff and believed that they were going home with the Lord, therefore, what need had of material things?
Of course, the 3 days came, passed and guess what? We were all still there. There were no reports of worldwide departures or of cataclysmic events.
And why, Ben, did you believe so adamantly then, as you do now, that these men and women were then and now are deceived?
It's simple, really: New Living Translation (©2007)
"However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
Other versions say no man shall know the day or the hour. It's referring to the coming of Jesus Christ. Note that it says NO-ONE will know. It doesn't say some will and some won't. This is the scripture that came to my mind, immediately, when I was standing on the doorstep talking with the wife of that leader, who also fell for this junk.
I went to the website of these people and I heard scripture. Great, love it. I love the Word of God. I am not a perfect man and right now? I have many issues. But I don't hate God for the things that happened to me in my life neither do I blame him. In fact, I endeavor to not even hold things against the people that caused no small amount of pain and grief in my life, just because the Word also says that if you do not forgive those that have trespassed against you, your Father in heaven will not forgive your trespasses, either. That's scary stuff. You mean if I don't forgive someone for doing whatever - the whole realm of it - that I may not be forgiven?
I guess you have to do your own soul-searching and whether you believe the Bible is truth - all of it - or is just fictional stuff made up in the minds of men. I have lived the life and I firmly believe. I don't care what ANYONE else thinks, either. If I heard a bunch of scruff, I will openly oppose it. I have been thrown out of so-called churches because of the preaching of heresy that was allegedly based on the Bible but in reality had no footing in any truth that God teaches us through His word.
Back to the website. No way am I going to waste my time going through all of that. I listened to a video and read several pages of type and found nothing to identify where, exactly, they even came up with this date of theirs and what scriptures actually back them up. I've been there and I've done that in 1988, I don't need to waste my time with it. They did show other scriptures about knowing the hour and this and that, but none of it can supersede the statement: NO-ONE or NO MAN depending on what versions you are reading.
It's not that I don't want Christ to return, it's just that these people are deceived, period. They think they have figured something out and therefore, because their math or however they are coming to these conclusions are "infallible", it must be true. It's the minds of men that have made this up, that's the point I am at now. In reality, if you are Christian and you truly believe, then you should probably be fastidious and attempting to ensure that you are ready for His return at ANY time. Further, that regardless of whether He returns on any given date or not, one thing is certain: YOU - ARE - going to DIE some day and yes, you might want to give some credence to what happens to you after the day of your death.
If you choose not to believe that God exists, that does not, therefore, deny the reality that God does, indeed exist. We do that in our minds and our hearts: make things up and then believe them because there is nothing present to deny it. Great, but when you are standing before the Lord to give an accounting, I'm pretty sure that that isn't really going to help you, at all.
There is a lot of scripture in the Bible. You have to take it into context. One scripture talks about God confounding the wisdom of men. Why? Because He is God and we are not. As Moses so succinctly pointed out, we are but mere specks of dust. When a small group of people have "figured" something like this out? I would suggest you completely ignore it. The only thing I can say that might come of good out of it is if it causes people to search their souls and begin to wonder about the reality of God. BUT, having that propagated through fallacy is not good. Then what do those people think after the day comes and goes and nothing happens? Back to questioning God - and in many cases even His existence because mortals have made a mockery of Christianity.
I haven't visited the mainstream preachers to see their take on it. I don't need to. One thing that became increasingly clear during the early days of my walk with the Lord: I have to search out the scripture for myself. That doesn't mean I don't listen to men and women of God speaking forth the truths to be found in the Word, but when it comes to the basic, elemental things, I MUST be convinced through my own walk and search. If not, it will not be a lasting life in Christ, it will be a "fall by the wayside" inevitability.
If you are in fear of the day - May 21st, then do some soul searching. It isn't that day that I would be worried about, it is the fact that eventually - on some given day - your earthly existence IS going to end. No one is going to refute that. Well, mostly no-one. If you aren't sure of where you are going in the end, might I suggest you get a hold of the Holy Bible and start reading? Besides potentially finding Christ through the experience, there are some fascinating events that are told in it that I have loved to read over and over and over. Somehow, God can always show me something new in it that I didn't see the last time I read whatever it is that I am reading.
I end this with this: COULD the Lord be coming on that day? I am not sitting in heaven right now, next to the Lord, hearing whatever He might be saying. I certainly do not know His thoughts. His ways are FAR above our ways. We are so far below His "level" we cannot even fully comprehend it. He undoubtedly has a day set apart for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ - but exactly how that is going to happen is open to much speculation. That's because, besides what we read in the Bible, we don't actually know HOW the event will transpire. But I will say that just because some group of people are declaring "with certainty" a "guaranteed" truth, they proclaim, it undoubtedly will NOT happen that day just because of it.
When we mere mortals start "figuring out" God and how He will do a thing in our lives, I'm not talking about His return here, I'm talking about the things that God does do in our lives, the things we ask of Him for, He seems to find ways to do them that we never thought of. We think how it will be done, we talk about it, and then? He does a thing a different way. I have seen that hundreds of times throughout my walk with the Lord. I have stories that people don't believe. Which phases me not, neither does it make me anyone special, I only point to the Greatness and Goodness of the Lord our God.
Now, I must go. If I am preaching to anyone, I am preaching to myself. I have some repenting to do...........
ben
Yes, indeed. It immediately brought to mind the fiasco that took place in 1988: 88 Reasons For 88. This was a book and tapes that came out declaring that Jesus Christ was going to return during one of 3 days during Rosh Hashanna in September of that year. It actually got it's foothold in the ministry I was working with at the time.
You see, I went to one of the leaders of that ministry's doors one day - don't remember why, I needed some information or something - and the wife of the leader answered. She had a tape in her hand. She said, "You have to listen to this!" What is it? I asked. It's a tape that proves that Christ is going to return in September!!
During this period of time where this ministry started propagating this nonsense, I took a definitive stand against this teaching and the panic it was causing within the Christian community. I was brought before the leaders of the group - from around the world actually - and after I continued to defy them and this declaration that Christ was, indeed, returning in 1988, I was condemned before this entire group. "In that case, we have determined you are not a Christian because you don't believe this" - or something to that effect. I don't remember the exact words, I DO remember that my salvation through my Lord Jesus Christ was not only questioned, but negated.
Fortunately for me, by that time in my Christian walk which was all of 3 years, I had spent CONSIDERABLE time studying the Word. I wasn't then or am not now claiming to be a biblical scholar, but I had dug and dug into the Word, had done all kinds of word studies in Greek and Hebrew and had come to my own conclusions that were not outside of most thinking in Christian circles.
There was only 1 other man that - in a much lessor way - defied them, but he did stand his ground as well. I informed them that the 3 days of Rosh Hashanna would come and go and we would still be here. I think I also asked them if they were going to apologize to me after it was all said and done and no-one was gone?
The stories came to light that Christians were giving away their homes, cars, bank accounts, everything because they fell for this stuff and believed that they were going home with the Lord, therefore, what need had of material things?
Of course, the 3 days came, passed and guess what? We were all still there. There were no reports of worldwide departures or of cataclysmic events.
And why, Ben, did you believe so adamantly then, as you do now, that these men and women were then and now are deceived?
It's simple, really: New Living Translation (©2007)
"However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
Other versions say no man shall know the day or the hour. It's referring to the coming of Jesus Christ. Note that it says NO-ONE will know. It doesn't say some will and some won't. This is the scripture that came to my mind, immediately, when I was standing on the doorstep talking with the wife of that leader, who also fell for this junk.
I went to the website of these people and I heard scripture. Great, love it. I love the Word of God. I am not a perfect man and right now? I have many issues. But I don't hate God for the things that happened to me in my life neither do I blame him. In fact, I endeavor to not even hold things against the people that caused no small amount of pain and grief in my life, just because the Word also says that if you do not forgive those that have trespassed against you, your Father in heaven will not forgive your trespasses, either. That's scary stuff. You mean if I don't forgive someone for doing whatever - the whole realm of it - that I may not be forgiven?
I guess you have to do your own soul-searching and whether you believe the Bible is truth - all of it - or is just fictional stuff made up in the minds of men. I have lived the life and I firmly believe. I don't care what ANYONE else thinks, either. If I heard a bunch of scruff, I will openly oppose it. I have been thrown out of so-called churches because of the preaching of heresy that was allegedly based on the Bible but in reality had no footing in any truth that God teaches us through His word.
Back to the website. No way am I going to waste my time going through all of that. I listened to a video and read several pages of type and found nothing to identify where, exactly, they even came up with this date of theirs and what scriptures actually back them up. I've been there and I've done that in 1988, I don't need to waste my time with it. They did show other scriptures about knowing the hour and this and that, but none of it can supersede the statement: NO-ONE or NO MAN depending on what versions you are reading.
It's not that I don't want Christ to return, it's just that these people are deceived, period. They think they have figured something out and therefore, because their math or however they are coming to these conclusions are "infallible", it must be true. It's the minds of men that have made this up, that's the point I am at now. In reality, if you are Christian and you truly believe, then you should probably be fastidious and attempting to ensure that you are ready for His return at ANY time. Further, that regardless of whether He returns on any given date or not, one thing is certain: YOU - ARE - going to DIE some day and yes, you might want to give some credence to what happens to you after the day of your death.
If you choose not to believe that God exists, that does not, therefore, deny the reality that God does, indeed exist. We do that in our minds and our hearts: make things up and then believe them because there is nothing present to deny it. Great, but when you are standing before the Lord to give an accounting, I'm pretty sure that that isn't really going to help you, at all.
There is a lot of scripture in the Bible. You have to take it into context. One scripture talks about God confounding the wisdom of men. Why? Because He is God and we are not. As Moses so succinctly pointed out, we are but mere specks of dust. When a small group of people have "figured" something like this out? I would suggest you completely ignore it. The only thing I can say that might come of good out of it is if it causes people to search their souls and begin to wonder about the reality of God. BUT, having that propagated through fallacy is not good. Then what do those people think after the day comes and goes and nothing happens? Back to questioning God - and in many cases even His existence because mortals have made a mockery of Christianity.
I haven't visited the mainstream preachers to see their take on it. I don't need to. One thing that became increasingly clear during the early days of my walk with the Lord: I have to search out the scripture for myself. That doesn't mean I don't listen to men and women of God speaking forth the truths to be found in the Word, but when it comes to the basic, elemental things, I MUST be convinced through my own walk and search. If not, it will not be a lasting life in Christ, it will be a "fall by the wayside" inevitability.
If you are in fear of the day - May 21st, then do some soul searching. It isn't that day that I would be worried about, it is the fact that eventually - on some given day - your earthly existence IS going to end. No one is going to refute that. Well, mostly no-one. If you aren't sure of where you are going in the end, might I suggest you get a hold of the Holy Bible and start reading? Besides potentially finding Christ through the experience, there are some fascinating events that are told in it that I have loved to read over and over and over. Somehow, God can always show me something new in it that I didn't see the last time I read whatever it is that I am reading.
I end this with this: COULD the Lord be coming on that day? I am not sitting in heaven right now, next to the Lord, hearing whatever He might be saying. I certainly do not know His thoughts. His ways are FAR above our ways. We are so far below His "level" we cannot even fully comprehend it. He undoubtedly has a day set apart for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ - but exactly how that is going to happen is open to much speculation. That's because, besides what we read in the Bible, we don't actually know HOW the event will transpire. But I will say that just because some group of people are declaring "with certainty" a "guaranteed" truth, they proclaim, it undoubtedly will NOT happen that day just because of it.
When we mere mortals start "figuring out" God and how He will do a thing in our lives, I'm not talking about His return here, I'm talking about the things that God does do in our lives, the things we ask of Him for, He seems to find ways to do them that we never thought of. We think how it will be done, we talk about it, and then? He does a thing a different way. I have seen that hundreds of times throughout my walk with the Lord. I have stories that people don't believe. Which phases me not, neither does it make me anyone special, I only point to the Greatness and Goodness of the Lord our God.
Now, I must go. If I am preaching to anyone, I am preaching to myself. I have some repenting to do...........
ben
Monday 5/9/2011
Monday
My son has stopped playing Playstation 3. I'm guessing a lot of kids/adolescents and even adults have stopped playing it considering the internet access is gone and the ability to talk to your friends through the internet while playing the game via headsets is gone with it.
I'm guessing their biggest competitor - X-Box 360 is probably getting some extra added sales because of it - X-box 360 also links to the internet and yes, you can talk to your friends via headset while playing the game.
The lack of use of the game has forwarded it to me: it plays DVD's including Blu Ray and I watched 2 movies on it yesterday provided by one of my tenants. There is some movie with Rock in it where he gets out of prison and immediately goes on a killing rampage to avenge the killing of his brother. If you like gore, death and action, great movie. If you like anything with an actual plot and a bit of thought in it, probably not so great. He kills everyone that was involved excepting a pastor that pleaded with him to not kill him and then got down on his knees and started singing something while praying at the same time.
I other movie was a waste of time. Takers, I think it was, another bank robbing movie. Boring, I actually fell asleep half way through it.
2 of my fish died from the haul I got on Saturday. They looked like they were dying before I even got them home, but, only one of them was found floating. The other? He jumped out of the pond. Not a smart move, there isn't any more water out there!
Oh well, they were free and I still have all the rest of them. I am only taking small fish at this point, if someone is giving away large fish I don't get them. Though, those people giving away Koi could, actually, sell them. I guess these people would rather not have to deal with it. I haven't been able to find a pic of one of the plants I got - the lady that gave them to me stated that they were very expensive at the store where she bought them. I will continue to search. As with all of those plants, they will probably reproduce and grow at a extremely rapid pace.
As for today - nothing in the truck routing system excepting a small pickup of materials from our main branch. This will be the 3rd consecutive day of no deliveries. Funny part is: there are a LOT of orders just waiting to be released in our territory. As with all construction, waiting on permits and such from municipalities before work can be begin and material brought to any site.
And even greater potential problem, as has occured many times in the past: a bunch of those projects all being released at the same time and suddenly, we can't keep up with the work. That's the way it goes, too, there's either more work than we can handle or there is nothing or almost nothing.
Crazy stuff there. Some interesting things in the news, but nothing I have time to go into now nor really worth that much commenting on, excepting the idea that people in some part of southern Arizona want to split away from the rest of the state and form their own state. Yeah, that's probably not going to actually happen, though they are trying to collect the 40,000 signatures it will take to get it on the ballot. Ummmm, just an observation: for a move THAT drastic, I would think it would take a bit more than 40,000 signatures. But, they said it would then have to be approved by the state's legislature (highly unlikely) and then by Congress (highly unlikely times 100).
Well, that's it. Overcast today, nice outside, going to open up the windows at work and let some fresh air in.
G'day.
ben
My son has stopped playing Playstation 3. I'm guessing a lot of kids/adolescents and even adults have stopped playing it considering the internet access is gone and the ability to talk to your friends through the internet while playing the game via headsets is gone with it.
I'm guessing their biggest competitor - X-Box 360 is probably getting some extra added sales because of it - X-box 360 also links to the internet and yes, you can talk to your friends via headset while playing the game.
The lack of use of the game has forwarded it to me: it plays DVD's including Blu Ray and I watched 2 movies on it yesterday provided by one of my tenants. There is some movie with Rock in it where he gets out of prison and immediately goes on a killing rampage to avenge the killing of his brother. If you like gore, death and action, great movie. If you like anything with an actual plot and a bit of thought in it, probably not so great. He kills everyone that was involved excepting a pastor that pleaded with him to not kill him and then got down on his knees and started singing something while praying at the same time.
I other movie was a waste of time. Takers, I think it was, another bank robbing movie. Boring, I actually fell asleep half way through it.
2 of my fish died from the haul I got on Saturday. They looked like they were dying before I even got them home, but, only one of them was found floating. The other? He jumped out of the pond. Not a smart move, there isn't any more water out there!
Oh well, they were free and I still have all the rest of them. I am only taking small fish at this point, if someone is giving away large fish I don't get them. Though, those people giving away Koi could, actually, sell them. I guess these people would rather not have to deal with it. I haven't been able to find a pic of one of the plants I got - the lady that gave them to me stated that they were very expensive at the store where she bought them. I will continue to search. As with all of those plants, they will probably reproduce and grow at a extremely rapid pace.
As for today - nothing in the truck routing system excepting a small pickup of materials from our main branch. This will be the 3rd consecutive day of no deliveries. Funny part is: there are a LOT of orders just waiting to be released in our territory. As with all construction, waiting on permits and such from municipalities before work can be begin and material brought to any site.
And even greater potential problem, as has occured many times in the past: a bunch of those projects all being released at the same time and suddenly, we can't keep up with the work. That's the way it goes, too, there's either more work than we can handle or there is nothing or almost nothing.
Crazy stuff there. Some interesting things in the news, but nothing I have time to go into now nor really worth that much commenting on, excepting the idea that people in some part of southern Arizona want to split away from the rest of the state and form their own state. Yeah, that's probably not going to actually happen, though they are trying to collect the 40,000 signatures it will take to get it on the ballot. Ummmm, just an observation: for a move THAT drastic, I would think it would take a bit more than 40,000 signatures. But, they said it would then have to be approved by the state's legislature (highly unlikely) and then by Congress (highly unlikely times 100).
Well, that's it. Overcast today, nice outside, going to open up the windows at work and let some fresh air in.
G'day.
ben
Saturday, May 7, 2011
My Free Koi And Pond Plants Trip
3 weeks ago (at least), I saw an ad running in Craigslist for free Koi. This person was shutting down their pond and they wanted to give them away (my kind of price). I responded to that ad immediately but never heard back from anyone. I brushed it off and out of my mind, no biggies, I have enough fish - but - these were smaller ones. I have enough big fishies - up to almost 20 inches, I need smaller fishies.
Well, today I am going through my email and was done, actually, with it. I refreshed it to find a new one. This was that person, who had never responded to me, telling me she had shut down her pond today, she had spent all morning catching the fish, they were in a plastic bin, please come get them.
Just like that. I write her back, okay, I'll come and get them! She writes back with her phone number and awayyyyy we goooooooo! It was a fairly good drive out into the east valley. She said they live off of a very small, dirt road. So, I'm looking around for the address, there are only a few houses on this road. At the end of the road is what I would consider to be a mini castle. I didn't figure it was that place, but I was wrong. This house was HUGE!! The main house - at least 5,000 square feet and the guest house the size of my house - 2,000 square feet anyway. It had 2, huge horse pastures, a swimming pool the likes I have never seen before, a horse barn/hotel - also huge - another area to run horses, and of course, a pond. For the size of everything else around there, it was interesting to see this rather small pond. She had all but completely drained it in order to catch the fish.
I saw the Koi: QUITE the haul. I know what these suckers cost both on Craigslist and at Petsmart - I ended up with around $250 worth of Koi ranging in size from 2 inches to about 6 inches.
That wasn't all. She asked me if I wanted her plants. I thought, not really, I have a lot of them already. But, she had some different plants that I don't have. Well, they're free plus a HUGE water lily - that thing has huge leaves on it. Couldn't say no to that, especially considering the fact that I just scored a 400 gallon horse trough that is going to serve as my above ground pond. My above ground pond that I have now is working - but it really isn't made to be above ground. I have to figure out how to get that trough from work to home, but when I do, I'm going to test it - make sure it doesn't leak - and then fill it with water. I will transfer everything from the plastic pond over to the trough.
That may take a bit of time, of course, with everything that has to be done to make that happen, but I already have everything I need. I bought the trough from the City of Mesa - they sell surplus at a facility where I also happen to go somewhat frequently making deliveries. That trough had been sitting out there a while, no-one rushing to buy it, so I offered almost half of what they were asking for it. I will sell my above ground one for the same that I bought the trough - try to anyway - and recoup the "loss". I have 2 other ponds that I am going to sell as well. Those 2 I decided I don't really need and don't want 5 ponds running on my property, 3 is enough.
I'm considering selling a couple of the larger Koi - only because they don't seem to have enough room even though it's in the "bigger" pond. However, I am going to wait and see if they might do okay in the 400 gallon horse trough which will give them a lot more room to move around in.
The only downside to today's affair? Getting those plants out of that pond. I had no idea I was going to score plants and had to wash my shoes, plus my pants are covered with bottom-of-pond-muck stuff. In other words, I would have dressed for the occasion, including old boots if I had known.
My excitement for the day, lol.
ben
Well, today I am going through my email and was done, actually, with it. I refreshed it to find a new one. This was that person, who had never responded to me, telling me she had shut down her pond today, she had spent all morning catching the fish, they were in a plastic bin, please come get them.
Just like that. I write her back, okay, I'll come and get them! She writes back with her phone number and awayyyyy we goooooooo! It was a fairly good drive out into the east valley. She said they live off of a very small, dirt road. So, I'm looking around for the address, there are only a few houses on this road. At the end of the road is what I would consider to be a mini castle. I didn't figure it was that place, but I was wrong. This house was HUGE!! The main house - at least 5,000 square feet and the guest house the size of my house - 2,000 square feet anyway. It had 2, huge horse pastures, a swimming pool the likes I have never seen before, a horse barn/hotel - also huge - another area to run horses, and of course, a pond. For the size of everything else around there, it was interesting to see this rather small pond. She had all but completely drained it in order to catch the fish.
I saw the Koi: QUITE the haul. I know what these suckers cost both on Craigslist and at Petsmart - I ended up with around $250 worth of Koi ranging in size from 2 inches to about 6 inches.
That wasn't all. She asked me if I wanted her plants. I thought, not really, I have a lot of them already. But, she had some different plants that I don't have. Well, they're free plus a HUGE water lily - that thing has huge leaves on it. Couldn't say no to that, especially considering the fact that I just scored a 400 gallon horse trough that is going to serve as my above ground pond. My above ground pond that I have now is working - but it really isn't made to be above ground. I have to figure out how to get that trough from work to home, but when I do, I'm going to test it - make sure it doesn't leak - and then fill it with water. I will transfer everything from the plastic pond over to the trough.
That may take a bit of time, of course, with everything that has to be done to make that happen, but I already have everything I need. I bought the trough from the City of Mesa - they sell surplus at a facility where I also happen to go somewhat frequently making deliveries. That trough had been sitting out there a while, no-one rushing to buy it, so I offered almost half of what they were asking for it. I will sell my above ground one for the same that I bought the trough - try to anyway - and recoup the "loss". I have 2 other ponds that I am going to sell as well. Those 2 I decided I don't really need and don't want 5 ponds running on my property, 3 is enough.
I'm considering selling a couple of the larger Koi - only because they don't seem to have enough room even though it's in the "bigger" pond. However, I am going to wait and see if they might do okay in the 400 gallon horse trough which will give them a lot more room to move around in.
The only downside to today's affair? Getting those plants out of that pond. I had no idea I was going to score plants and had to wash my shoes, plus my pants are covered with bottom-of-pond-muck stuff. In other words, I would have dressed for the occasion, including old boots if I had known.
My excitement for the day, lol.
ben
Saturday 5/7/2011
Last night, just before going to bed, I left a nice message for everyone out on the kitchen island counter. In 36 point type, bold and underlined, the title of the message is: FINAL NOTICE.
You see, on Wednesday night at 11:30 pm, someone slammed the back door so hard it woke me up out of a deep sleep and yes, I was extremely unhappy about it. In fact, I got very angry considering I have already left a note about this a week or two ago and everyone agreed to tone things down.
That same night, someone was opening and closing cabinet doors - loudly - at about 2:30 am. I went to work that next morning on about - 3 to 4 hours of sleep. Try going to work on that kind of sleep. Yeah, not fun. This notice spelled it out. If it happens again, I'm going to drag my @$$ out of bed, go out and find out who's making the noise and issue a 30 day eviction notice and I won't be changing my mind once that notice is issued.
I've been rather cranky this last week because of the noise issues and not getting enough sleep. The crankier I am, the more blunt and curt the notice will be written.
I slept in this morning is all I can further say about that situation.
Weekend. No clue. I mean, this situation with the neighbors calling the police if the air doesn't smell right is really starting to get annoying to say the least. Am I supposed to just not go to the east side of my property to make those people happy? I think not.
I did, however, find the community mediation thing online that the supervisor was referring to concerning mediation with neighbors to try and work out the issues. It isn't what the officer said it was and it would entail a 2 to 3 hours "meeting" with the neighbors and a mediator. I have serious doubts that they would even agree to try it, number one and number two I doubt anything would be worked out. I'm just waiting for them to call the cops again and having the cops come over here giving me a hard time. I'm simply going to video all of it, call the headquarters while the police are here and if i have to, call the news. The police should really be giving THEM a hard time for excessively calling the cops. The last time they were here, those people made up a completely fabricated story.
Isn't it strange? There is a drought in Texas but the Mississippi is over-flooding and threatening a lot of homes. One place in the US has too much water, another place doesn't have near enough. I believe we are still in a drought - too - but it's been going on for a long, long time and the water conservation officials have been dealing with this problem for quite a long time now. Yes, I just checked it, almost our entire state has some kind of water deficiency, ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought, the only thing we don't have is the highest level of "exceptional".
The entire state of Texas is in some form of drought, with a large percentage of it being either extreme or exceptional. No wonder the governor was asking people to pray.
It brings back the stories of rain when I was travelling the US with that missionary group. I can remember on several occasions that places we were going to were in the middle of a drought. Rain followed us everywhere we went. It was absurd. I mean, places that hadn't had rain in months would get days and days worth. We would arrive and I would always start talking to the locals. Once place in particular was full of farmland and the farmers were afraid they were going to lose their crops. I informed them that it would start raining within a couple of days and they would have more water than they knew what to do with.
There was no rain in the forecast and it hadn't rained there in something like 2 months. The skies were clear, no clouds, there wasn't a hint of rain. But I knew it was coming. It always came. They didn't know what to think of my statements. Older gentlemen standing there scratching their heads. I just told them to prepare for a lot of water falling from the skies, cause' it was going to happen.
2 days later, it began raining. A week later, the rain had not subsided. It REALLY made our missionary ventures quite - unappealing - at times because everything we did was outside. Those farmers came back and started attending our meetings. They thanked me for the rain, of which I could hardly take credit for. I had to inform them that the good Lord causes it to rain on the just and unjust alike, thank Him and of course - yet another opportunity to speak about the goodness of our Lord.
That was hardly the only place we went where rain arrived with us - in fact - literally - it just followed us everywhere.
Anyway, that governor has the right idea: pray!! Fast and pray.
Well, I just went to the store and got my first haul of 11 pounds of ground beef at $1.47 per pound. I intend on getting at least 50 pounds of it. It comes in family packs and you can only get 2 per visit, but I have until Tuesday. I'm going to divide them up into approximate 1 pound portions and freeze most of it.
Enough.
You see, on Wednesday night at 11:30 pm, someone slammed the back door so hard it woke me up out of a deep sleep and yes, I was extremely unhappy about it. In fact, I got very angry considering I have already left a note about this a week or two ago and everyone agreed to tone things down.
That same night, someone was opening and closing cabinet doors - loudly - at about 2:30 am. I went to work that next morning on about - 3 to 4 hours of sleep. Try going to work on that kind of sleep. Yeah, not fun. This notice spelled it out. If it happens again, I'm going to drag my @$$ out of bed, go out and find out who's making the noise and issue a 30 day eviction notice and I won't be changing my mind once that notice is issued.
I've been rather cranky this last week because of the noise issues and not getting enough sleep. The crankier I am, the more blunt and curt the notice will be written.
I slept in this morning is all I can further say about that situation.
Weekend. No clue. I mean, this situation with the neighbors calling the police if the air doesn't smell right is really starting to get annoying to say the least. Am I supposed to just not go to the east side of my property to make those people happy? I think not.
I did, however, find the community mediation thing online that the supervisor was referring to concerning mediation with neighbors to try and work out the issues. It isn't what the officer said it was and it would entail a 2 to 3 hours "meeting" with the neighbors and a mediator. I have serious doubts that they would even agree to try it, number one and number two I doubt anything would be worked out. I'm just waiting for them to call the cops again and having the cops come over here giving me a hard time. I'm simply going to video all of it, call the headquarters while the police are here and if i have to, call the news. The police should really be giving THEM a hard time for excessively calling the cops. The last time they were here, those people made up a completely fabricated story.
Isn't it strange? There is a drought in Texas but the Mississippi is over-flooding and threatening a lot of homes. One place in the US has too much water, another place doesn't have near enough. I believe we are still in a drought - too - but it's been going on for a long, long time and the water conservation officials have been dealing with this problem for quite a long time now. Yes, I just checked it, almost our entire state has some kind of water deficiency, ranging from abnormally dry to extreme drought, the only thing we don't have is the highest level of "exceptional".
The entire state of Texas is in some form of drought, with a large percentage of it being either extreme or exceptional. No wonder the governor was asking people to pray.
It brings back the stories of rain when I was travelling the US with that missionary group. I can remember on several occasions that places we were going to were in the middle of a drought. Rain followed us everywhere we went. It was absurd. I mean, places that hadn't had rain in months would get days and days worth. We would arrive and I would always start talking to the locals. Once place in particular was full of farmland and the farmers were afraid they were going to lose their crops. I informed them that it would start raining within a couple of days and they would have more water than they knew what to do with.
There was no rain in the forecast and it hadn't rained there in something like 2 months. The skies were clear, no clouds, there wasn't a hint of rain. But I knew it was coming. It always came. They didn't know what to think of my statements. Older gentlemen standing there scratching their heads. I just told them to prepare for a lot of water falling from the skies, cause' it was going to happen.
2 days later, it began raining. A week later, the rain had not subsided. It REALLY made our missionary ventures quite - unappealing - at times because everything we did was outside. Those farmers came back and started attending our meetings. They thanked me for the rain, of which I could hardly take credit for. I had to inform them that the good Lord causes it to rain on the just and unjust alike, thank Him and of course - yet another opportunity to speak about the goodness of our Lord.
That was hardly the only place we went where rain arrived with us - in fact - literally - it just followed us everywhere.
Anyway, that governor has the right idea: pray!! Fast and pray.
Well, I just went to the store and got my first haul of 11 pounds of ground beef at $1.47 per pound. I intend on getting at least 50 pounds of it. It comes in family packs and you can only get 2 per visit, but I have until Tuesday. I'm going to divide them up into approximate 1 pound portions and freeze most of it.
Enough.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Weekend - City of Phoenix South Mountain Precinct
I came home today and literally was shocked to see my pond in the front yard almost emptied of water. WHOA!!!!
Fortunately, the fish were still alive, treading the bottom and undoubtedly having their thoughts of "what's going on here?!!".
I immediately got the hose going and started filling it back up while wondering how it could possibly be leaking that fast. I mean, did someone come into my yard and poke a hole in the bottom of the pond?
No, I figured out quickly, the area behind where the filtering system is was muddy-wet. Ahhh, I saw the problem. The filtering system is perched at an angle - the wrong angle - down towards the back. The water coming out of the system was finding it's way not only into the pond, but also streaming underneath it back out of the pond and into the area beside it.
Problem solved, quickly and without trouble. Still a bit scary - I know they are just goldfish, but I have no desire to find them dead and brittle because the water leaked out of the pond.
Over on the east side of my house, when I went out there a while ago to feed my fish, the "neighbors" were out there apparently making some kind of effort to clean up 7 years worth of household trash and junk laying on the side of their house. Freaking disgusting. I said nothing to him, the "man" of the house and only glanced that way shortly.
I'm half expecting another visit from the police. These people are calling the police at the drop of a hat. I am NOT going to live in fear of them calling the police and if the police come over here again, I'm going to start contacting the news organizations. South Mountain Precinct. Google that - South Mountain Precinct. That's all you have to put in there to have pop up a torrent of stories about the issues with this precinct. A bit more negative publicity? Why not. I feel like I am being harassed at this point and I will tolerate no more of it from either the neighbors or the police.
I am not saying anything to the neighbors - I never do anyway unless they are provoking me - and I am not playing the music. If their dogs start barking at me while I'm out there, it will be my turn to call the police and file a complaint, just as they instructed me to do earlier this week.
That's it, for that anyway. Police haven't been here yet and if they do arrive - for unknown reasons - I am going to call the precinct and ask them why they are harassing me. I will be running a video of it as well.
As for this weekend - nothing out of the normal for me. Might go to mother's house tomorrow if she is available to get some things she picked up for me for my plants and trees. She is leaving town on Sunday. She loved the flower arrangement I sent her and I've received a telephone and 2 emails telling me that, lol. Gotta love mom!
ben
Fortunately, the fish were still alive, treading the bottom and undoubtedly having their thoughts of "what's going on here?!!".
I immediately got the hose going and started filling it back up while wondering how it could possibly be leaking that fast. I mean, did someone come into my yard and poke a hole in the bottom of the pond?
No, I figured out quickly, the area behind where the filtering system is was muddy-wet. Ahhh, I saw the problem. The filtering system is perched at an angle - the wrong angle - down towards the back. The water coming out of the system was finding it's way not only into the pond, but also streaming underneath it back out of the pond and into the area beside it.
Problem solved, quickly and without trouble. Still a bit scary - I know they are just goldfish, but I have no desire to find them dead and brittle because the water leaked out of the pond.
Over on the east side of my house, when I went out there a while ago to feed my fish, the "neighbors" were out there apparently making some kind of effort to clean up 7 years worth of household trash and junk laying on the side of their house. Freaking disgusting. I said nothing to him, the "man" of the house and only glanced that way shortly.
I'm half expecting another visit from the police. These people are calling the police at the drop of a hat. I am NOT going to live in fear of them calling the police and if the police come over here again, I'm going to start contacting the news organizations. South Mountain Precinct. Google that - South Mountain Precinct. That's all you have to put in there to have pop up a torrent of stories about the issues with this precinct. A bit more negative publicity? Why not. I feel like I am being harassed at this point and I will tolerate no more of it from either the neighbors or the police.
I am not saying anything to the neighbors - I never do anyway unless they are provoking me - and I am not playing the music. If their dogs start barking at me while I'm out there, it will be my turn to call the police and file a complaint, just as they instructed me to do earlier this week.
That's it, for that anyway. Police haven't been here yet and if they do arrive - for unknown reasons - I am going to call the precinct and ask them why they are harassing me. I will be running a video of it as well.
As for this weekend - nothing out of the normal for me. Might go to mother's house tomorrow if she is available to get some things she picked up for me for my plants and trees. She is leaving town on Sunday. She loved the flower arrangement I sent her and I've received a telephone and 2 emails telling me that, lol. Gotta love mom!
ben
Friday - 5/6/2011
Whatever. Despite all of that, I actually slept almost entirely through the night last night, after having several nights in a row of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep.
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Police Again
Friday
Yesterday's dealings was more than I want to continue one with. I'm not sure which is worse: the neighbors calling the police and making up stories or having to deal with the police all the time.
The bad part about the police is it is different officers every time they come over. I mean, HOW MANY officers do they HAVE working the South Mountain Precinct in that particular portion of it? I have to go through a lengthy conversation with them, every single time, because they are not the same officers as the last time, so, start from ground zero and build the story up from the beginning.
It's beginning to be annoying. But - those neighbors making up stories and lying? When I explained to the officers yesterday that I hadn't even SEEN their dogs - or them for that matter (the neighbors, that is) and then asked them how I could possibly agitate dogs that aren't present - that was the end of it for me. I didn't want to be rude, but I was through with the conversation. Go deal with THEM for filing a FALSE report. They left and the did not linger over at the neighbor's, either, they said something to them for a minute and then they took off.
That's when I called the precinct and asked for the sergeant. If the police come over again today, I will be calling the precinct WHILE they are there, because I am beginning to feel harassed - not just by the neighbors but also by the police. I am taking out my camera and turning on the video portion of it every time they come over now. They tend to tone down quite a lot with their authority trip when they are being video'ed, I have noticed.
I don't hate police, but this is getting old, is the point.
May 6, 2011 5:57 AM
Anonymous said...
Whatever. Despite all of that, I actually slept almost entirely through the night last night, after having several nights in a row of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep.
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Yesterday's dealings was more than I want to continue one with. I'm not sure which is worse: the neighbors calling the police and making up stories or having to deal with the police all the time.
The bad part about the police is it is different officers every time they come over. I mean, HOW MANY officers do they HAVE working the South Mountain Precinct in that particular portion of it? I have to go through a lengthy conversation with them, every single time, because they are not the same officers as the last time, so, start from ground zero and build the story up from the beginning.
It's beginning to be annoying. But - those neighbors making up stories and lying? When I explained to the officers yesterday that I hadn't even SEEN their dogs - or them for that matter (the neighbors, that is) and then asked them how I could possibly agitate dogs that aren't present - that was the end of it for me. I didn't want to be rude, but I was through with the conversation. Go deal with THEM for filing a FALSE report. They left and the did not linger over at the neighbor's, either, they said something to them for a minute and then they took off.
That's when I called the precinct and asked for the sergeant. If the police come over again today, I will be calling the precinct WHILE they are there, because I am beginning to feel harassed - not just by the neighbors but also by the police. I am taking out my camera and turning on the video portion of it every time they come over now. They tend to tone down quite a lot with their authority trip when they are being video'ed, I have noticed.
I don't hate police, but this is getting old, is the point.
May 6, 2011 5:57 AM
Anonymous said...
Whatever. Despite all of that, I actually slept almost entirely through the night last night, after having several nights in a row of getting maybe 4 hours of sleep.
Now that I am probably going to be getting the attention of the IRS, I am going to have to come up with the rest of the paperwork. Referring to interest deduction for mortgage payements for further deductions and whatever else I can come up with. The problem is, I need the tax refund so I can file the rest of it. If I don't get the refund but they demand filing the rest of it, then I am screwed because I don't have the money to be plopping down to get all of that done.
The lady across the street is officially moved out. She is living with her daughter - she is also dying, unfortunately. They give no more than 2 months. In the case of her house, well, they want $16,000.00 for it. It's another old, junky mobile home. I'm not dissing the lady that owns it, I'm just saying, it's old and dilapidated. I dread the kind of people that are going to move into a 16K house. I mean, a family? Drug users? More illegals? No clue. Hold my breath and see what happens. I would offer to buy it on payments and rent it out, but there is too much that would have to be repaired to make it livable. The roof is leaking and the ceiling inside where it has been leaking would have to be removed and replaced. Carpet, this that and the other thing, it would add up to a lot of money spent trying to get someone in there.
The only good thing about a potential scenario like that is I would be determining who lives there. I've given some thought to making that kind of offer to them, but I just don't have it in me to think about gutting another house and starting from the floor up to make it habitable. It really needs to come down, remove it and build something else there.
Still - I have done that kind of thing before. It takes money to make money, so the old saying goes and it's true: it would take a couple of months, I am guessing, to do all of that work plus the money to buy materials plus making payments on it at the same time: no can do.
Well, time is running out, I must be offa here - though - there isn't ANYTHING to do in the truck routing system, which truly sucks.
Oh well.
G'day.
ben
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Thursday 5/5/2011
Thursday
Caught another cat last overnight. The darn trap opened up on me and let the thing out this morning when I was going to put it into my car to deliver it to it's new home.
Anyway, last night. This stuff seems to come in 2's - if one neighbor starts trouble, the other one does as well. I was just out front of my house after the deal with the dogs with noises people was over and sat there looking at the dude with the tude' and his buddy across the street giving me stares and glares.
To clarify, the big heavy man 2 houses down started trouble with me making threats against my life - though not to me but to my trailer tenants - about the cat situation. I did not say anything to anyone about catching cats except to those in my household, so I have no idea how this dude found out.
But I didn't care, either, that he found out (and yes, one of the cats I caught this morning was one of his cats).
Well, this guy hangs out with the 37 year old "kid" - the guy that is still living at home with his parents. He has NEVER left home. He is a tweeker - smokes meth - has no job or life. The man with the cats is an ex-felon - spent 9 years in prison for selling drugs, yes, from his home right there.
So, that sort of defines the who and what's of these "people", obviously oustanding citizens. I watched them for a while, though I said nothing. I figured if they wanted to start trouble with me, I would just call the police again. The 37 year old was making guesstures towards me and doing his thing, but, not with all the noises.
His parents, I think, forced him to stop doing that. You see, that 37 year old has a curfew on him, if he's not in by 7, he can't sleep there that night. He is under some controls, but certainly not enough to make him stop tweeking and start doing something with his life. He was walking around, acting like a bad-@$$, I was quite unimpressed. I also said nothing. If he wants to act like a 2 year old, let him do so.
After they were doing "conversing", the felon went back into his house and this dude comes walking down the street towards my house. They know now that I will call the police on them if they start any trouble at all. He said nothing but was giving me a stare-down the entire time he walked by.
Well, whatever. I consider the source and said nothing to him, not going to stoop to his level of childishness and school yard bullying.
That was it. Nothing else happened. Today, when I get home from work, if those dogs are barking at me again, I am immediately going to call the police. I am not going to turn on the music, I am going to simply do what they said to do yesterday and see if the police will actually do anything about it.
Onto a few other items. Let's see here, if they somehow find that Obama "broke the law" in illegally killing osama, what are they going to do, arrest him and throw him in prison? Impeach him? I thought it a lot of political grandstanding the way he brought the speech out about the killing but I have no qualms about the killing itself. I also thought that photo of the helicopter was interesting, to say the least. It looked more like a piece of an alien spacecraft then a helicopter's remains.
Whatever. Fully 3 tenants plus the trailer people are behind in rent payments. This doesn't exactly make it easy to - keep the lights on, water running and all the rest of it. Basically, I get paid when they get paid. The Army reservist, though, certainly waited a good period of time to make her final payment for last month. I have received nothing from 2 of them for this month and a small amount from the 3rd. Trailer tenants are expecting money in the mail in a few days from her participation in online surveys.
So, what to do. Hunker down and hope I can survive the lag time - time between having due dates on bills and getting enough money to actually pay those bills.
G'day.
ben
Caught another cat last overnight. The darn trap opened up on me and let the thing out this morning when I was going to put it into my car to deliver it to it's new home.
Anyway, last night. This stuff seems to come in 2's - if one neighbor starts trouble, the other one does as well. I was just out front of my house after the deal with the dogs with noises people was over and sat there looking at the dude with the tude' and his buddy across the street giving me stares and glares.
To clarify, the big heavy man 2 houses down started trouble with me making threats against my life - though not to me but to my trailer tenants - about the cat situation. I did not say anything to anyone about catching cats except to those in my household, so I have no idea how this dude found out.
But I didn't care, either, that he found out (and yes, one of the cats I caught this morning was one of his cats).
Well, this guy hangs out with the 37 year old "kid" - the guy that is still living at home with his parents. He has NEVER left home. He is a tweeker - smokes meth - has no job or life. The man with the cats is an ex-felon - spent 9 years in prison for selling drugs, yes, from his home right there.
So, that sort of defines the who and what's of these "people", obviously oustanding citizens. I watched them for a while, though I said nothing. I figured if they wanted to start trouble with me, I would just call the police again. The 37 year old was making guesstures towards me and doing his thing, but, not with all the noises.
His parents, I think, forced him to stop doing that. You see, that 37 year old has a curfew on him, if he's not in by 7, he can't sleep there that night. He is under some controls, but certainly not enough to make him stop tweeking and start doing something with his life. He was walking around, acting like a bad-@$$, I was quite unimpressed. I also said nothing. If he wants to act like a 2 year old, let him do so.
After they were doing "conversing", the felon went back into his house and this dude comes walking down the street towards my house. They know now that I will call the police on them if they start any trouble at all. He said nothing but was giving me a stare-down the entire time he walked by.
Well, whatever. I consider the source and said nothing to him, not going to stoop to his level of childishness and school yard bullying.
That was it. Nothing else happened. Today, when I get home from work, if those dogs are barking at me again, I am immediately going to call the police. I am not going to turn on the music, I am going to simply do what they said to do yesterday and see if the police will actually do anything about it.
Onto a few other items. Let's see here, if they somehow find that Obama "broke the law" in illegally killing osama, what are they going to do, arrest him and throw him in prison? Impeach him? I thought it a lot of political grandstanding the way he brought the speech out about the killing but I have no qualms about the killing itself. I also thought that photo of the helicopter was interesting, to say the least. It looked more like a piece of an alien spacecraft then a helicopter's remains.
Whatever. Fully 3 tenants plus the trailer people are behind in rent payments. This doesn't exactly make it easy to - keep the lights on, water running and all the rest of it. Basically, I get paid when they get paid. The Army reservist, though, certainly waited a good period of time to make her final payment for last month. I have received nothing from 2 of them for this month and a small amount from the 3rd. Trailer tenants are expecting money in the mail in a few days from her participation in online surveys.
So, what to do. Hunker down and hope I can survive the lag time - time between having due dates on bills and getting enough money to actually pay those bills.
G'day.
ben
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Guess what agency was called over here again, today?
That's right, the Phoenix Police.
Much earlier, I was out attempting to enjoy my ponds and listen to the sounds of the waterfalls. No such enjoyment was to be had. Yes, the neighbor's dogs, barking incessantly. I sat out there for quite a while listening to this junk and got - fed up with it, again.
So, I went to my stereo. I found the most obnoxious, loud, in-your-face music I could find and turned it on, went inside the house and started doing other things. A while later, I went out there and tried again - turned the music off. Was out there a few minutes and here comes the fluffy chow. Barking and barking.
I turned the music on again and this time, I went in the house and decided to let this thing play out. I figured they would call the police - and about 2 hours later, yes, the Phoenix Police not only showed up, but someone must have left the lock off the gate, cause' they walked right through the gate and knocked on my kitchen, sliding-glass door. I didn't see who was there to know it was them the way they were knocking.
Un-phased by their presence on my property, I went out to find out what kind of attitude I would get from them today. They gave me the obligatory "your neighbors have called about the noise coming from your property". This time, however, I took them over to my side of the property. I showed them my Koi ponds, told them that I like to sit over there and listen to the waterfalls - and yes, while I was discussing that, my stereo was blasting out the music. I had no shame or guilt: if I can't have peace, neither are they, period.
These cops came to the understanding quickly after SEEING what's going on that I am not making up stories. I turned the music off and they told me it would go on record: whoever calls about noise, whether them about me or me about them: they are going to start issuing tickets. I had no problem with that and informed them that I would be calling them daily because - those people couldn't care less about their dogs or how much noise they make.
The kicker: I heard them over there putting those people in their place. No, they were saying, he doesn't have the right to blast the music, but at the same time, you do not have the right to allow your dogs to disturb his peace, either. On and on, I heard enough and went back inside my house. I have no qualms calling the police tomorrow when I get home from work and asking them to deal with those people via the dog barking ordinance. I will, however, get the dogs on video first - some proof never hurts.
More? Yes, but it's not them, it's the other neighbors and it wasn't anything more than the usual antics over there.
So, maybe more about that tomorrow, who knows.
For now,
G'nite.
ben
Much earlier, I was out attempting to enjoy my ponds and listen to the sounds of the waterfalls. No such enjoyment was to be had. Yes, the neighbor's dogs, barking incessantly. I sat out there for quite a while listening to this junk and got - fed up with it, again.
So, I went to my stereo. I found the most obnoxious, loud, in-your-face music I could find and turned it on, went inside the house and started doing other things. A while later, I went out there and tried again - turned the music off. Was out there a few minutes and here comes the fluffy chow. Barking and barking.
I turned the music on again and this time, I went in the house and decided to let this thing play out. I figured they would call the police - and about 2 hours later, yes, the Phoenix Police not only showed up, but someone must have left the lock off the gate, cause' they walked right through the gate and knocked on my kitchen, sliding-glass door. I didn't see who was there to know it was them the way they were knocking.
Un-phased by their presence on my property, I went out to find out what kind of attitude I would get from them today. They gave me the obligatory "your neighbors have called about the noise coming from your property". This time, however, I took them over to my side of the property. I showed them my Koi ponds, told them that I like to sit over there and listen to the waterfalls - and yes, while I was discussing that, my stereo was blasting out the music. I had no shame or guilt: if I can't have peace, neither are they, period.
These cops came to the understanding quickly after SEEING what's going on that I am not making up stories. I turned the music off and they told me it would go on record: whoever calls about noise, whether them about me or me about them: they are going to start issuing tickets. I had no problem with that and informed them that I would be calling them daily because - those people couldn't care less about their dogs or how much noise they make.
The kicker: I heard them over there putting those people in their place. No, they were saying, he doesn't have the right to blast the music, but at the same time, you do not have the right to allow your dogs to disturb his peace, either. On and on, I heard enough and went back inside my house. I have no qualms calling the police tomorrow when I get home from work and asking them to deal with those people via the dog barking ordinance. I will, however, get the dogs on video first - some proof never hurts.
More? Yes, but it's not them, it's the other neighbors and it wasn't anything more than the usual antics over there.
So, maybe more about that tomorrow, who knows.
For now,
G'nite.
ben
Wednesday 5/4/2011
Wednesday
Between the time I had last talked to my manager on Monday to the time in seeing him on Tuesdsay morning, my manager apparently had calmed down at least a bit. He was angry, really, at this customer that had come in - off of one of my craiglist ads and a person I had spoken with on the phone at length - the customer had no clue what he was doing. The customer was also mad because "ben told me you have tubing". The man lied through his teeth. The discussion about what we had never included tubing and in fact, if the man would have known what he was doing at all, I would have been able to figure out that he needed more tubing and would have told him to head to Home Depot.
I'm not saying all is hunky dory in the manager/employee relation world, the meeting never materialized. But I did speak my peace about the situation regardless. He is uptight about something - I'm guessing it's his personal life that is still raising it's ugly head in the situation with a fresh divorce and his now ex wife saying she may be getting let go at work. My manager is stressing that she will, in turn, ask for even more money in child support.
Changing the subject, the "polls" showing more Americans driving less. Do we really need a poll to tell us that when the cost of gasoline hits $4 per gallon, people that aren't exactly rich are going to cut back on driving to bare bones minimum? Here's another one the polls aren't even asking yet: driving habits will change substantially. Gunning it from being stopped at a intersection will start to resemble more like a turtle with it's legs cut off - people are going to change their driving habits as well. I've already started doing that, I'm certainly not immune to the effects of expensive gasoline. Last time it got this high, I wanted to get a motorcycle, still wish I could!
I'm still waiting for some kind of bombshell to land from the IRS. It's only been 20 days and I'm hearing it's a lot longer than that before they are getting to returns after receiving them - I am preparing myself for the worst is all I can say about that. If it turns out any better than that, then I can and will be elated. I could certainly use 5 grand right now.
But, especially with the IRS, don't be countin' your chickins' before they be hatchin'.
With that, I am offa here, work day is almost here and there appears to be plenty to do in the truck routing system to keep me busy today.
ben
Between the time I had last talked to my manager on Monday to the time in seeing him on Tuesdsay morning, my manager apparently had calmed down at least a bit. He was angry, really, at this customer that had come in - off of one of my craiglist ads and a person I had spoken with on the phone at length - the customer had no clue what he was doing. The customer was also mad because "ben told me you have tubing". The man lied through his teeth. The discussion about what we had never included tubing and in fact, if the man would have known what he was doing at all, I would have been able to figure out that he needed more tubing and would have told him to head to Home Depot.
I'm not saying all is hunky dory in the manager/employee relation world, the meeting never materialized. But I did speak my peace about the situation regardless. He is uptight about something - I'm guessing it's his personal life that is still raising it's ugly head in the situation with a fresh divorce and his now ex wife saying she may be getting let go at work. My manager is stressing that she will, in turn, ask for even more money in child support.
Changing the subject, the "polls" showing more Americans driving less. Do we really need a poll to tell us that when the cost of gasoline hits $4 per gallon, people that aren't exactly rich are going to cut back on driving to bare bones minimum? Here's another one the polls aren't even asking yet: driving habits will change substantially. Gunning it from being stopped at a intersection will start to resemble more like a turtle with it's legs cut off - people are going to change their driving habits as well. I've already started doing that, I'm certainly not immune to the effects of expensive gasoline. Last time it got this high, I wanted to get a motorcycle, still wish I could!
I'm still waiting for some kind of bombshell to land from the IRS. It's only been 20 days and I'm hearing it's a lot longer than that before they are getting to returns after receiving them - I am preparing myself for the worst is all I can say about that. If it turns out any better than that, then I can and will be elated. I could certainly use 5 grand right now.
But, especially with the IRS, don't be countin' your chickins' before they be hatchin'.
With that, I am offa here, work day is almost here and there appears to be plenty to do in the truck routing system to keep me busy today.
ben
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