It's easy to get into modes.  To get into routines that may or may not be healthy for you.  To engage in habits that creep up on you slowly, over time.

It came to my attention tonight, not in any conversation I was having or dwelling on any internet interaction, just started thinking about things - that there is a lot I could be doing to better my life beyond what I am doing now.

Church was the first step. Offering to get involved was the second step, which was very recent but so far no offer for any kind of engagement.

But there's more. I can taste it and feel it.  I need to start going on fasts with prayer, seeking the Lord.  Even on the physical level, I feel the need to start working out seriously again.

Odd, the thought dropped into my mind, I looked upon my past of the things I used to do and wondered how I ever got to this place and point in life.

More pondering and even more action required.

ben

Find my camera, get out there and take a bunch of pictures and post the thing for sale on Craigslist this weekend.
That is my goal to at least getting the thing online and advertised, the trailer that is.
I want that thing out of here, to be honest.  I want the money for it, too.
If I saved it and sold the other trailer, I could take both of those amounts and buy an RV trailer with slideouts and that would be very nice, indeed.

ARRRRGH.  I just saw the first cockroach in my kitchen that I have seen since I paid $150 to have them eradicated and removed out of my house - quite some time ago.  A call to the exterminator will be in order today.  I HATE cockroaches and I refuse to "live" with them in my house.  We keep this place clean, but that never seems to guarantee that cockroaches still won't decide you have a nice place for them to live.  YUCK.

Oh well.  That service was guaranteed for "life", whatever their definition of that is.  I don't want to pay another $150 and if that's their demand, I'm going to be finding another exterminator since I pay them to come out to my house on a monthly basis and make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen.

Oh, did I mention it's Friday?

The violence and turmoil continues in the Middle East.  Some suggestions have been given to the White House in how to deal with it, but apparently Obama isn't interested in the ideas of Senators.  Of course, the man doesn't seem to want to listen anyone.  His statement about "experimenting" with the economy in his speech is rather alarming.  Nothing else he has tried has worked, I don't really want to find out what his experiments are going to come to, neither do I want to be on the receiving end of it.  Perhaps we could "experiment" with balancing the budget and coming up with a plan to reduce the deficit and ohhh, maybe deal with Social Security while we're at it.  I guess this issue with Social Security won't be dealt with until the hand is forced and it runs out of money.  THAT'S the way to deal with it, just about the time I am ready to retire, I will be seeing greatly reduced benefits because none of our elected officials wanted to deal with it.

Which is why I just increased my 401k to 7% and have upped my goal from ultimately having 10% taken out to 15% percent.  Yup, I need another rental unit.  I saw a nicely built casita type thing sitting on a trailer on the side of the road with a for sale sign on it the other day.  It was big enough that you could make a small rental unit out of it and small enough that you wouldn't need city approval/plans/permit to have it on the property.  Of course, I could build such a thing myself, but I was wondering if it was something someone bought and were just trying to get rid of it or if it was something they are building on a consistent basis as an income generator.  If the latter, than probably building one myself would be cheaper.  If the former, then perhaps it might have been a good deal. Who knows?  You know what?  I bet I could build something that size with the proceeds of the sale of the RV and really, it looked very nice with a window and nice door in it.

If my neighbors are allowed to put up the junk they have put up on their property behind me and the City of Phoenix is not going to do anything about it, then I can certainly build something that actually looks decent. It's getting the time of year when my electric bill will come down substantially and water usage will decrease and that bill go down as well, meaning more money to be able to foot the bill for such a project.

Umm, time to be off to work.

G'day.

ben

Devising plans and goals.
I realized not long ago that I am devoid of having any goals.
Well, let's restate that: I am devoid of goals that can be accomplished any time soon.

Long term goals are wonderful, but I think it always encouraging and a bit of satisfaction comes from coming up with goals that can be accomplished, say, in the next 6 months to a year.

First off, I have finally resolved to just stick it out in this house.  I have spent too much time, energy and money in to the property to just walk away from it.  It is upside down regarding amount owed versus market value, so beit.  I have nowhere else to go that would be much of anything acceptable to be able to do anything else, besides possibly finding an owner-carry lot with an old mobile home on it.  Which, actually, isn't that far-fetched of an idea - I can always fix up an old home to my liking, renovate it and make it very nice.

With that in mind, I started re-visiting some ideas that I had put on the shelf.  One, to build a casita.  That would still be a relatively long-term goal, though, since it would cost more money than I have.  I mean, you have to have a set of plans to carry into the Planning and Development office at the City to have it approved.  That can be expensive in itself - plus the permits.  Then you face the cost of having a foundation poured; buying the lumber/windows/doors/electrical/plumbing/roofing/interior such as bathroom and small kitchen.  I'm looking at around 5 thousand to do it myself.  I can probably fetch at least 2 grand out of the RV trailer parked on the side of my house of which I have no further use for since Mark and Lynnette are not living in it, but that's not enough obviously.

I also was just outside and looked at the amount of space I have on the east side of the house and musing how nice it would be to have a 1,500 to 2,000 gallon pond out there.  That would be awesome, actually.

That is one I am definitely kicking around in my head.  About $300 for the liner and sub-liner; digging out the ground and a good filtering/pump system will cost at least another $300 if not more.  Not cheap by my standards, but perhaps in the next 6 months, doable.

Selling the RV trailer is turning into a priority, though. If I don't build a casita, well, I just want that thing out of here.  It is taking up space.  Get the money out of it, put it into the savings account and figure out what's next.

Umm, the other thing I really need to get done - I have been waiting for cooler weather - is to spend serious time on the east side of my house and get it spruced up.  Lots of gardening type of work to do out there and to that end I have that kid coming over on Saturday, I think, to spend a day out there helping me with that situation.  He's been over here about 5 times and always does good work, motivated, energetic, gets whatever I ask him to get done, done.  Much of the fiolage needs trimmed and lots of grass to pull.  I am going to look into ground covering plants that might be able to edge out the grass.

Almost everything I came up with in terms of goals - costs money.  Reality check.

As for my newest tree, I'm afraid it may be doomed.  I checked average winter temps in Madagascar, where the tree is native, it doesn't seem to get down below the low 60's there at any time of the year.  This tree will experience temps down into the low 30's this coming winter if planted outside.  Well, at least not a lot of money lost if it doesn't survive.  But then again, that's what they say about the Norfolk Pine - Norfolk island gets down to the low 60's in "winter" and yet, mine Norfolk has now survived 3 winters going down to half that in temp.  But, one plant surviving doesn't not guarantee that another kind of plant will also.  Well, as far as the experts are concerned, my Norfolk pine should definitely have never survived the first summer here, much less a winter.  It's doing quite well out there : )  I think what may be helping it?  It's situated right next to the condensation drain for my central AC unit.  It pretty much stays swamped over there, which I would have thought would have killed the root system, but - it's really doing quite well albeit it doesn't grow very fast.  Beautiful little tree.

REALLY short terms goals: get rid of the trailer and get the east side of the house spruced up.

Mid range goal - not settled on it yet, but possibly a much larger pond.
Save for an RV trailer that has at least 2 slide-outs for more room.  No, I don't live in an RV trailer, this is for recreational purposes only.

Between mid range and long: somewhere around 2 years or less left to pay off the car.
Front loading, energy and water efficient washing machine.  That is really something of a priority because I will see significant savings on electrical use right off the bat considering the amount of laundry being done around here. At least 12 loads per week, probably more.

Long range goal: save for substantial down payment on property up north.
Save for pickup truck.

Definitely undecided goal: Casita for another money-earning rental unit.

Budget: Go through entire budget on money spent on everything and see if there are any savings to be had.  Do another month-long, written journal of every penny spent, no matter how small, every day.  Tally up the costs and see what kind of savings can be had in either eliminating things altogether or substituting with something cheaper.

I upped my 401k plan 2 days ago to 7% being taken out.  Goal: 15%.

I also have spiritual goals, but I will keep those to myself for the time being.  Well, not all of it has to be kept to myself, it am just looking at financials in this goal driver and what I can do, what I can save and how I am going to go about doing it.  If I cannot come up with a definitive plan for each item listed, then I need to discard that goal and focus on the others.

Oh, the physical goals: simply to get back into a regular work out routine.  Work provides ample amounts of physical exertion, but as far as sustained cardio workouts, that isn't necessarily true on a daily basis.  That isn't really for losing weight, it's for feeling good, sleeping well, things like that.

My seeming obsession with trees.  I am not a tree hugger.  Cut the thing down if you need to build a house, make furniture and the myriad of seemingly unlimited uses for it.  I'm more about the beauty effect they provide, not to mention the shade and wildlife.  I'm not against lumber companies cutting down portions of forests.  I AM for them reforesting and responsibly managing forests.  Of course they are going to plant more trees, that is their livelihood.  We aren't going to somehow run out of the need for wood any time - in the next 1,000 centuries, but who am I to look that far in advance.

Enough.

G'nite.

ben

So, we jumped through their hoops - the State of Arizona that is - took the car back to the repair shop, they installed the "new" hose, took it across the street and he it checked.  They passed the car for the emissions test and that was that, right?  While all of this was going on, Caleb had to do all of that as I simply am dumping responsibility for that car onto him, I was at Discount Tire attempting to get the warranty on the tires honored.

85,000 mile warranty on the tires.  Well, that car doesn't even have 85,000 miles on it and 3 of those tires were either very low on tread or bad - one of them had the cords separating.
I was offered replacements at half price, which I jumped on, but the "new" warranty for the same tire is now 25,000 miles.

I went over to Garcia's mexican food across the street, had dinner (it was going to be at least an hour wait for the tires and I had no inclination, whatsoever, to sit around in that waiting area) and was talking with Caleb about the car as he was going through the "process".  The emissions facility is going to pay for the damages to the car.  So, the car passed emissions and all is good in the world, right?  NOT.  I tried to register the thing and it came up with: "Needs emission tested".  Yeah, whatever.  Once you pass emissions it automatically goes into the system as passed.  I have the PASS paper in my hand!

Fortunately, the car has another 3-day permit on it so it's legal to drive for 2 more days while I call the state of Arizona again and ask them why they are so incompetent.  This is not the first, or 5th, or 10th time I've had problems with either the vehicle registration or the driver's license department.  It's just unbelievable that we've had to to through all of this crap.  

Yup, just tried again in case there might be some lag time in it getting into their system for whatever reason, no go Joe, it's coming up with "needs vehicle emission testing", blah blah blah.

A nice thing that occurred yesterday, though, was coming home and finding my new tree sitting on the kitchen counter.  Took it out, very healthy specimen.  Not sure if it will survive the winter, I need to do more research on that.

Well so much for my peaceful pre-work rituals.  Not going into that, but it's time to leave for work anyway.  I am going to do a search for temps in Madagascar, though, during their version  of winter and see what it gets down to.  That's where this tree originates from and it's natural habitat.

G'day.

ben

So, I sort of figured out what was causing the vibration on the car, extreme vibration.  A bad tire - cords showing on the front.  Which makes the situation even worse since it's a front wheel drive.  I'm trying to drive home from work yesterday and it was ridiculous.

Well, these tires allegedly have 85,000 mile warranty on them.  I got 20,000 out of that one.  So, I got a prorated amount plus put a used tire on another spot going on the rear of the car which will last quite a while.

I have one more mileage credit, but I couldn't really afford all of it right now, save that for the near future.  At least they're honest about it - Discount Tire that is - they don't try to screw you, they have everything on file and they simply go by that.

Meanwhile, Caleb was just at the repair shop with the old car, they were putting on the junkyard version of hose and he is currently waiting in line at the emissions station waiting to get the car check ed out.....however.......the repair facility called ahead and warned them he was coming, to take care of the situation and be ready to deal with this quickly. What fun, waiting in line a second time when it should never have occurred in the first place.  We'll see how that turns out, though they have already stated they are not going to pay for the damages they inflicted on that car.

Yeah, right and we'll see about that.

LONG day at work.  I went to a person's house with 20,000 feet of pipe.  You read that correctly, 20,000 feet of pipe.  Small diameter pipe, but still a lot of pipe.  I get there and find out they do not have a machine to unload the pipe with.  It was 70% humidity and unknown temp in direct sunlight, unloading that truck by hand.  2 unmotivated workers taking their sweet old time helping get it off of there, I was getting irritated.  The final lift of pipe I simple dumped off the side of the truck with the new owner's blessing.  It had already gone on almost 2 hours and I had a LOT left to go.

Whatever.  I think I will go up to mom's property 2 weekends from now when she isn't there and yes, with the dogs.  I was getting a little excited about finding property up there for sale, but it's going to have to wait until I get some debt taken care of. I know it sounds crazy, but what I really need is another room to rent out and get extra income in to save for a couple of years to get a good down payment on property.  Or not. What I would really like is a travel trailer with slide-outs.  I like the one I have now, excepting it doesn't have enough room. If it had a couple of slide-outs that would make all the difference in the world.

So, sell the one in my driveway, save up the rest and find hopefully a decent one.  Pull the one up there off the property and potentially drag another one up there - if we work out this dog situation that is.  No hurry.  If mom doesn't have a problem with me going up there when she isn't there, well, she isn't there the entire winter.  She can't stand the cold and will not go up there at all until Spring and that only when it warms up enough to her liking.

LONG interlude - and my bedtime.

ben

So, meanwhile, life goes on (referencing the car situation).
Which reminds me, the registration on my car has to be renewed this month but thankfully, no emissions testing needed.
I called my mother today.  I was sitting at a job site in Casa Grande, looking at the dark skies and enjoying the cool weather.
I wished her happy birthday, yes, her birthday is 9/11 and then we went into some things.  I decided to go ahead and bring up the subject, not about the dogs but about the rat she says she found in her storage shed on her property up there.
She then went into the mice that she caught in the traps and then, after the mice apparently figured out the traps, put out D-Con.
She then informed me the place would be vacant the weekend after next, apparently offering me the place without her being there.
The subject of the dogs never came up, I wasn't going to bring it up and she apparently didn't want to go there, either.  So beit.

Obama snubs Netanyahu.  Even the liberal news media is reporting it as such.  Is this supposed to be a good thing?  I can only imagine what must be going through the minds of Israel's leaders: PLEASE, ANYBODY but Obama in the White House come next election.

Anyway, I put this inquiry in online last night and today?  Mailbox full of realtors giving listings for all properties in that area under 50k.  Going as low as 24k.  Interesting that property taxes up there are so high.  What are they paying for? Dirt roads? $2,500 property tax for a property sold at 30K?  HOA dues in some places $2,500 per year? lol.

Watching some 9/11 footage, finally found some.  Went to church for small groups and the only people that showed up were a married couple that are elders in the church.  We talked for about 70 minutes and got into some different subjects an dissues and then - went home.  Oh, myyy, time for bed.

ben

State Of Arizona Emissions Employees Damaged My Car

Nice title, yes? Is it true?  YES.
Today.  My son finally took the car to the auto repair shop which is directly across the street from one of the State's emissions testing facilities.

The prognosis?  There is a line coming off the vapor can that state employees pinch off with vice grips and then do a pressure check on the gas tank and line going up to the can.  Well, on cars such as mine, you cannot USE vise grips on that line because it is a solid, hard-plastic line.  To use vise-grips means destroying the line.

Guess what they did and guess what was destroyed?  Yup, didn't take much for you to figure that one out.  They broke the plastic line and come to find out, GM doesn't make that plastic line any more, it's not available.  The mechanic - also the shop's owner - said he has never seen anything like that in his 26 years of repairing vehicles and specializing in repairing emissions problems.  On cars such as mine?  It is procedure to NOT check the pressure since they can't without damaging the car.

This repair owner is a pretty cool guy, from what I am getting on the phone.  He has volunteer to help us make the State make this right.
____________________________
Long interlude.  Not going into all the details, but the manager at the emissions station admitted what they had done was wrong - but flat denied helping out in any way, shape or form, this to the shop owner, not to me.
She picked the fight with the wrong person, which would be me.  It took about half an hour of phone calls and I found myself on the other end of the line with the Project Manager of Emissions, including emissions stations, over the entire State of Arizona.  We got into it.  Since they should not have even performed this test on that car  and since the rest of the car passed emissions and equipment, there should be nothing more to it.  Go into the system, change it to pass and be done with it.

Nope.  Not a happening event.  Fine, then please call this Donna woman at the emissions station and ask her why, exactly, it is that the repair shop can't just use tubing bought from Home Depot (his words, not mine) and install it since there IS no option to replace it from the factory/dealer, he already tried and they said it is no longer made.  ???  The state is going to pay for this, that's all there is to it.  I don't care how much trouble I have to go to, they did wrong and they think because they are the government they can just tell me no and I will simply go away.

Sorry, Charlie, but that IRKS me to NO end which only motivates me MORE.  But, I was amazed at getting this man on the other end of the line so quickly.  I did not think I was going to get to talk to the director of the entire program after only having tried for 30 minutes to get ANYWHERE with it.

Meanwhile, the shop owner calls me back just a few minutes ago (after starting this entry even) and states that he found one from a friend/acquaintance junk yard for $25.  Yes, let's do that, get the thing fixed, get it back to emissions, get it passed and get it registered!  Registration for that car is like $18, lol.  It costs less to register it than to take it through emissions!

However, the State of Arizona is not going to get a pass on this.  They are going to pay for all of this and that's that.

So, I come home from work, greet the dogs who are already greeting me and then proceed to go out to the ponds.  I can't believe another dead fish!  I'm thinking, geeze, not again!!

But then I look at the fish.  Oh my gosh - GROSS!

That fish had been dead a LONG time!!  I am not going to describe it, suffice it to say it was absolutely disgusting.  It's body must have come up under the huge Yerba Mensa plant and had been lodged under there - until today, that is.  Got it out of there immediately.  That dead thing could not be helping the eco system in that pond - at alllllll.

It rained yet again last night and I just saw my water bill.  It's down about $40 right now and next month it should be down even more than that - from previous months that is.  Today's high 91 degrees.  The plants are not being subjected to scorching heat so they aren't sucking so much water out of the ground but even if they were, the now-frequent rains have been keeping the ground wet.  I'll be happy to see the water bill (which includes sewer and trash) get below $100.  I'll be really happy to the electric bill go down to somewhere around $150.

As I figured, 9/11 shows are on tonight, the night before the anniversary.  But of course my mom's birthday is also tomorrow.  I am going to call her and attempt to keep the conversation away from the dogs and her property at this point.  Pretty much losing interest in going up there at this point.  Not going to walk on egg shells around her, it's her property, she can do what she wants with it.  If I had some extra funds every month, I would definitely be looking into buying some property somewhere up in that area.  But I don't have any extra fund and an extra 3 or 400 per month for -ever - is out of the question.

Just did a search.  One lot for sale at 130k.  Nothing on it, not even improved.  Another lot for sale at 100k. Same thing, vacant lot.  Then I find another lot with an A frame cabin on it for $79,000!  Just dreaming.  Would be awesome to have a cabin like structure up in the mountains.

Put that thought on a shelf in the mind and let it sit there for a while.  Probably a long while.

Meanwhile, life goes on.  Reading the Bible and attempting to get a foot in the door of church to find some place to serve.  Whatever position that is is irrelevant to me, just to have the opportunity to serve again in some way.

The old Buick failed emissions about a month ago. I have been telling my son to get the car in to a shop and have it fixed.  Probably the charcoal cannister.  But whatever, I am not going to just start buying parts out of a guess and hope that it works.  Found a place right down the road from his college that has rave reviews in an online search.  Customers not only stating they were happy with the service but that they had compared prices and this place was cheaper than those they had inquired of.  It also happens to be a place that specializes in emission repairs.

I am, frankly, tired of dumping money into that car.  At the same time, it's been a while since I have had to do anything to it.  So, if it's been something like 5 or 6 months since I had to dump anything into it, and if I can get out of it this time for $200 or less, then I still consider it a good deal.  Monthly payments on a newer car are much more expensive.  You are enslaved to a contract for however many years - trust me, I am soooo sick of paying on my current car, I have been paying on it for like 4 years now -Newer cars equal higher insurance payments and you are forced to have full coverage insurance on a financed car.  That old Buick has minimum liability coverage and that's that.  I told my son if he totals that car, that's it, it's done and he will have nothing to drive.

I'm sorry, it's a vapor canister.  I just know it has charcoal in it.  That's what I am guessing is causing the trouble, that or perhaps it's just a bad line, which would be awesome since that would be a cheap fix.

He's taking it in in the morning, waiting until the 30 day permit runs out - which is today.  I told him he could get a pretty hefty ticket if he's caught.  Whatever.  You can only get 1, 30-day permit on any given vehicle per year.

Speaking of vehicle problems, the window assembly on my car that raises and lowers the window broke - for the third time now.  That's right.  I heard a cable snap inside the door when I was lowering the window and I knew it was trash.  I took it back to the shop for a 3rd time and had them fix it - they did it for free again since I paid them almost $900 last year to fix both windows.  The question is: how is this track breaking like this?  I asked the owner of the shop, he shrugged his shoulders, no answer.  Well it's a pretty good bet they aren't going to keep replacing this for free forever, even if they are getting comped for the part from the parts store, they still have to give free labor to repair it.

I'm thinking maybe don't use that window?  I dunno.

Been keeping tabs on the presidential election race? Yeah, right.

Alright.  I'm in a left hand turn lane (in my car) with the "Turn On Green Arrow Only" sign sitting up there.  There is a girl in an SUV in front of me who is at the front of the line.  The light turns green.  The inevitable cars that are running red lights to make THEIR left turn LONG after the light had turned red come through, but after that, this girl is still sitting there.  Yes I did honk my horn and no I don't have any regrets.  Get your eyes OFF of the freaking cellphone and DRIVE YOUR DAMNED CAR!~!!  \

Down the road, she gets RIGHT on my bumper.  Temptation: hit the brakes she isn't paying attention, she has that stupid cellphone in her right hand on top of the steering wheel, I could see it in my rear view mirror.  But, that would be illegal to try to cause an accident and unethical, so I instead hit the gas.  Whatever the case, I had checks to deposit at Chase bank and I got into a turning lane.  This girl starts honking her horn on the way past me.  I guessed she wanted me to look up to see her middle finger, so, I completely ignored her.  The honking went on until well past me, I continued to ignore her, lol.

On the freeway today, I-10 Eastbound in Phoenix near 40th street to be precise. I am in the semi this time.  A lady in another SUV is swerving back and forth in her lane, going around 70.  I was attempting to guess: is she drunk, on drugs or texting?  I guessed texting.  A few hundred feet more, she had to slow down for traffic in front of her and sure enough, another texting phone, on the steering wheel, this woman paying far less attention to the road than to that stupid phone.

What is it going to take for it to become a socially unacceptable thing to text while driving?  People are dying on America's roadways every day from it, so that's not really an effective motivator - everyone already knows it causes accidents and many times horrific accidents yet they still do it.    I don't know, really, but if I were King, I would have enacted a ban on texting while driving long ago.

That's it for now.

ben

So let's see.  Nothing grand done this weekend. The lady that I gave some pond plants to and the hard shell pond liner came back - with more people in tow - to get some of the mosquito eating fish I have. I mean, there must be 150 to 200 of them things in there.  They are very small fish so it doesn't do anything to the appearance of the pond itself.  We sat there for a while catching the little fish and putting them into a coffee pot container.  I'm waiting to hear back whether they are doing their jobs or not, but, I figure those little things were pretty hungry so I am assuming they would eat as many mosquitoes as they can find.

Other than that, I went to church and not much of anything else.

Mom's birthday tomorrow - 9/11.  I am expecting to see a lot of stuff on TV going on today and tomorrow about 9/11, of course.
Ummm, it's early, looking at quite a lot of work today and just going to get up, get out of here get to work and get it all over with.

Later.

ben

It's Friday, albeit the fact that it's almost over.
It's been raining on and off throughout the week.  My flowering plants are going crazy with new blooms for all the water.  Honeysuckles have orange blooms all over them and - ummm - lol I can't remember the name of the other one - are also well abloom.  The only ones that aren't producing are the vines, which, when they feel like it, put out hundreds of beautiful yellow blooms.

It rained most of the day today.  Which, when driving a semi in heavy traffic, isn't really all that fun.  Not because of the rain itself, but because of the effect it has on other drivers on the road who are already not paying enough attention to the driving task at hand.

Noteworthy is the totally trashed pickup truck on the freeway.  I was on a transition ramp from one freeway to another.  I saw near the end of a median that has plants and landscaping rocks a decided scraping of tires.  Looking up, I saw it.  A pickup had slid across that dirt area, onto the next freeway, across 4 lanes and slammed against the concrete, rebar-reinforced median wall. The front end of that pickup trust was TRASHED.  This was coming off a steep turn and I surmised that he was going too fast coupled with wet roads.  There were no other vehicles involved.

Or other accidents I saw today. I try hard to stay out of accidents.  It isn't a matter of right and wrong - well that guy was at fault and I was in the right.  Who cares. Accidents cause a lot of problems if nothing else.  For a truck driver, employers don't want to have to deal with accidents that you are involved with, regardless of who is at fault. Accidents happen, definitely, I just try my best to avoid them even if people are driving completely stupid.

I was at one of our better contractor's sites today and I was speaking to one of the foremen.  In recent times, his eyes have turned red and are always red when I see him.

They are working 6 or 7 days a week - depending on the whims of the corporation that is paying for the construction of the new plant.  Their schedules are changed weekly.  This week, they are working through Sunday and have Monday off.  They have been subjected to this for about a year now.  I haven't bothered to tell them the life of an OTR truck driver and the relentless, grueling hours they spend on the road.  I did that for years.  I know what it's like - long before the CDL license and extreme rules - in driving well over hours and spending 7 days a week for months on the road.

Instead, I sympathized with them. They are away from their families alot and when they are home, they are tired, worn out and can't spend quality time with their children and spouses.  Oh, I said them, them being foremen that I frequently encounter at this particular jobsite who are getting burned out, yet know that the economy sucks and this is their only life-line right now. The foreman I was talking to today is abused by his company.  This I know for a fact.  Yet, he isn't going to say anything to them about it because he is making good money and he knows the prospects for an unemployed construction worker in the Phoenix area right now.

Regardless of what Obama, Michelle or Clinton had to say in their speeches, the economy is tanking and a LOT of people are out of work. A LOT of people have given up looking for jobs.  A LOT of people are on food stamps.  Well, that's all political, I didn't vote for Obama the fist time around and I will definitely not be voting for him this time. I'll write in Donald Duck before I vote for a man that made as many promises as he did in 2008 that have yet to be delivered.

Well, that man walked away from the conversation shaking his head at his plight.  This particular foreman hates to be told (not asked) to work on a  Sunday.  I would too, if it was an on-going thing. If it happened once in a great while, I wouldn't care that much.  In fact, I was called by my company on a Sunday night, at 9:00 pm, JUST as I was about to go to sleep.  Get to the shop, get the truck, drive to Tucson, get the pipe, bring it back to a site in Chandler.  It was after 8:00 am the next morning before I left work and went home to go to sleep.  I actually enjoyed that trip, it was a challenge and a change of pace.

In fact, I wouldn't mind being sent across the country on some wild trip to pick up something that for some reason can't be delivered any other way.  Lol, probably not  going to happen.  I don't miss the days of endless OTR driving, but a road trip here and there would be nice.

Nothing going on this weekend besides the normal.  Church, mostly.  I had thoughts of going up to the mountains, but, the situation with my mother constrains that.  It isn't a hopeless cause, but there is a at lease some chance that I will end up moving that trailer off of that property and back to my driveway.  Actually, a pretty good chance unless my mother is going to offer something different than what she has already said.  I wish I could afford monthly payments on a property up in the mountains somewhere, but I have enough as it is.

Well, it's just about my bedtime, even if a Friday.

ben

I finally found the source of the problem that doctors could not.
Not going into particulars here, but I have already been to the drugstore and found
extreme relief.
Doctors.  I hate going to them.  They mostly do not listen to anything you have to say
and recommend doing things that you do not want to do.
Such as the physical I had last month. The doctor wanted a chest x-ray for no more
purpose than to see what my lungs look like since I have a history of respiratory problems.

Is there really any good reason to subject yourself to even more radiation than what is
absolutely necessary?  I don't think so.

I thought I had found a good facility, but, I have changed my mind.  When their blood tester
to check for diabetes had quick working and then the rest of them also weren't working, that
sort of made me curious.  When they told me they could not do an EKG for the physical because
they had run out of the special paper, umm, wow.

When they told me they would call me right back after going to the drugstore and finding out that
I would need the doctor to call the insurance company to get authorization - and they did not call  me
back - that was the final straw.  5 days later, they still had not called back which is when I called them.
They did not want to deal with me.  Fine, I said, who is the doctor that started this practice?  He is not in,
I was informed.  I called their other facility in Phoenix and lo and behold, there he was on the phone.

I asked the guy how I would be treated if I had a serious problem?  Would I be forgotten about then, as well?

It was a rhetorical question as I had already made up my mind: this place isn't going to get another penny
in insurance money from me having had visited their office. Time to start looking for another new doc.

Well, whatever.  I don't find doctors, generally, to be all that caring of people.  They have too many patients and are overbooked to be able to do that all day long.  They might actually care, to be honest, but they simply don't have that much reserve in them to be able to dish that out all day long.


Whatever the case, ti's time to leave for work.

Soooo, only 2 days of work left and the weekend already.
Nice.
I've started a light workout routine again.
Summer got to me, the heat and working outside all day long, come home, just
didn't feel like it.
Just starting with pushups and sit ups - or crunches I guess they call them.
Plus a light diet regime, nothing too overwhelming.  We are on the cusp of fall and
I can't wait.  I will get much more into the mountain hiking again and do a lot of
cardio type of exercise to get the heart pumping and blood moving.
I think the point is that I have put on some body fat and it does not look appealing
and it also simply isn't good for you.

Nothing too intensive to start out with, just start getting back into the rhythm of it again.

On another health note, however, my allergies have gotten so bad that even to some extent
they are keeping me up at night.  Sneezing throughout the day.  It doesn't matter where I'm
at, either, so one location or perhaps a physical allergy to something isn't really the issue (to
be honest, I was beginning to wonder if I were becoming allergic to the dogs, but I could be
away at work all day long around no dogs at all and still be sneezing and sniffling).

In fact, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it at all.  Comes and goes all day long. About
2 months of this going on so far.

Well whatever.  I was attempting to watch Clinton and see how he would try to distort facts,
but I got 5 minutes into and - turned the channel, lol.

This will be a short entry, mostly due to time constraints, the fact that 3 days off and Labor Day weekend is over and I must be leaving for work shortly. Which isn't a bad thing, btw.

But, I have started to get back into the Gospels after sort of hodging around them and reading just about everything else in the Bible.  I had forgotten how incredible those times must have been, Jesus actually walking on this earth, doing miracles, rebuking the religious and reaching out the the lost and destitute.  Some of the words he spoke about what we are to do with our lives had gone onto a dusty shelf in my mind somewhere.

No longer. I am finding myself slowly - ever so slowly - but still - coming out of the darkness and being in the light is a FAR better place to be.  I feel a clarity of mind I haven't had in quite a long time.  I feel some regret for having had wasted so much time and not fully engaging myself in my walk with the Lord.  But God is gracious and merciful, if not for that, we would all be doomed.

Okay, time to get to work.

G'day.

ben

A bit of a dilemma.
I have 1 large plant out front that has completely up and died.
There is one that is even larger that is dying off.
I have no idea, whatsoever, why the one plant has died and the other is dying.  It isn't for lack of water, I can guarantee you that.

What's the dilemma?  Summer.  Heat.  Humidity.  Oh, no, it's not a dry heat.  There has been enough humidity mixed with high enough temps to make it feel very uncomfortable out there.  I am soooo sick of the summer that I just want to be outside as little as possible until cooler temps come.

At the same time, that big, brown, dead and now-ugly plant needs to go. It actually isn't that big of a deal that it died, I have fresh ideas about what to do with that area once I get that dead thing out of there anyway.    I mean, I didn't WANT it to die, but it's okay, I'm cool with it, find something else to do with that area and maybe take a completely different route with it.  The other plant next to it I am not real happy about it's slow, gradual death, due to what I have no clue.  But it's turning brown with the exception of  a few branches that are, inexplicably, very healthy looking.  I'm waiting that one out.  I want to see if it's going to completely die out or if there are some parts of the plant that are salvageable.  It is about 8 feet tall and maybe that much in circumference.  It was a really nice plant that I had acquired from one of the nursery auctions that started out as a twig in the ground.

I'm sure I will get out there and get the dead one cut down.  I'm waiting for one of the tenants to come home, he has an electric chain saw in his car that he said he would let me use.  Make that job MUCH easier.

I also have yet to put any fish in that front pond after all of them died off in there.  Another inexplicable event.    I had been suspicious about neighbor involvement in poisoning the ponds and I still haven't ruled that out, to be honest.  I may never know.  But, if one of the "war" neighbors did do something to my ponds, eventually that truth will be spread around the neighborhood and get back to me.  That might be a long time.  Meanwhile, I am leaving that pond void of fish for a while.  I still have nice plants in it and I am still running the small filtering system for it - can't let it stagnate and turn into a cesspool of mosquitoes.  I could just use it as a plant water feature and leave the fish out of it.

My other 2 ponds have apparently recovered from whatever happened to them.  I did lose fish in them, but not near as many as the amount of fish lost in the front pond.  I have been forcing myself to clean out the filters much more frequently than what I had been doing.

As for today, it's Labor Day and why bother doing anything, anyway.  When the temps come down, I will be doing some major work outside, especially on the east side of the house.  Cooler temps will help with the amount of trimming and de-grassing under the vines that needs to be done.

_____________________
Just took a trip to one of the largest tree farms in the entire county, which just happens to be 2-1/2 miles away from my house.  I found some interesting ideas and definitely found some plants that would replace the dead one and actually look much better.  One of which puts out beautiful, yellow flowers and grows up to 12 feet tall.

However, after coming home, I found the answer.  Something that will work much better than what I have out there now: Indian Laurel Columns.

I'm actually ready at this point to go out there and cut that dead thing down - however - the tenant is not here yet and I'm going to wait for the ease of us of an electric chainsaw versus having to it down and into small piece by hand.

Well whatever.  Work back in the queue again.  It doesn't matter how long time off can be - a day, 3 days, a week - it just disappears soooo fast.  Lol.

ben

So, Sunday almost gone.
I bought 2 racks of pork ribs at the grocery store - on sale greatly reduced price - and slow cooked them for 3 hours on the grill this afternoon.
Yummy.

Church this morning?  You bet.  I was a little surprised to hear the pastor using a conversation that I had had with him earlier this week incorporated into his sermon.   Not opposed to it and he didn't point me out, just used the "speaking with a brother on the phone" statement.  But the conversation  he was mentioning was unmistakable.

Well anyway.  Just riding out a nice, 3 day weekend and looking forward to some new things in my life.

Talk about that another time.  Bedtime for me.

ben

My original plan some weeks ago for the Labor Day weekend - which is now - was to go up to the property and hang out for a couple of days. 

Well, I am not going up there again until mother and I have a conversation about my dogs and whether she is going to be able to handle it, cause' if she isn't, I will go up there without them sometime this month, pump  the water lines full of RV version of anti-freeze and it will sit until Spring, which is when I will have it hauled out of there.  I will sell it, wash my hands of the entire situation and move on with life.

Instead, I went to a men's meeting at church this morning and heard some interesting ideas about starting up a men's group and doing various types of outings and such.  Breakfast was also served, very nice egg casserole, the likes of which I had never had before, was severed along with other basic breakfast foods.

Good meeting, was glad I made it.  

No great plans for this 3 day weekend.  Not that I need any.  

Time's up.  Bedtime, lol.

ben

Spent almost the entire day out in the heat and humidity.  108 today.  You know it's humid when even if you aren't doing anything, you start sweating profusely.  However, I wasn't not doing anything.  I was drinking water and tea all day long, but I finally succumbed to a heat-induced headache that will probably stick with me until bedtime, which will undoubtedly be earlier than normal today.

On the way home, I stopped at Fry's Food Stores.  Meandering through the store looking for the things I needed, I happened by the deli.  A girl working behind the counter, I walked over to the where the fried chicken was and was about to ask for an 8-piece of it until I saw the price.  It jumped from $4.99 to $6.99. I simply said, oh, the price has gone up.  The girl "informed" me that it has been that price for the last 2 years now.  No, I replied, it has not, I have bought a lot of that chicken at $4.99.  Oh, yeah, they had that on sale for like 2 weeks.  No, I relied again, it was at that price for about 8 months.  No, she stated, it has always been $6.99.  

I was getting irritated.  Number one because I knew I was right - I have bought a lot of that fried chicken at the lower price and 2, that this girl of whom I had never seen before and therefore concluded she hasn't been working there all  that long was giving me  impudent, obnoxious and argumentative tones.  The fact that I had a heat headache and exhausted from busting my @$$ in the heat all day long didn't help matters.  I just decided to end that conversation and walk away from her, chicken be damned I can get some some other day.  The next thing I know, this girl is talking trash about me to another customer who had just walked up.

I was going to just let it go, little girl with attitude, the world is full of them.  But when she made the snide remarks to the customer, who also turned to give me a look, that was it.  I went up to the front, paid for my groceries and then asked for Christine, the current store's general manager.  Unavailable.  Fine, I'll call when I get home.

Turns out, after getting home and calling, this isn't the first complaint against that girl and her stupid attitude.  You can't work in a customer service venue and expect that, with a bad attitude, you are going to get away with it forever, or very long for that matter.  I was asked what she could do for me to keep me as a customer.  "Deal with her, that's all I want".

I'm out of it.  I was informed a few minutes ago that it rained for an hour last night - completely missed it - which gives me a pass on having to water plants. I don't feel like doing anything at all right now.  It's way too early to go to bed at 4:30, if it was even 7:00  I would be hitting the sack.

Yeah, ending this one.

So, I watched this "guest" in my house washing their hands the first time. First pouring on the Dawn dishwashing liquid - which is a big no-no in my house since I have anti-bacterial pump hand soap available even at the kitchen sink and since Dawn dish washing liquid isn't exactly cheap - and wash their hands for about 3 minutes.

About 20 minutes later, this individual comes back to the kitchen sink and does the same thing all over again.  And again.  And again. And again.  I could hardly contain myself, I wanted to question this person as to what, exactly, it was the caused them to want to wash their hands 10 times in a 5 hour period of time?  One of my tenants who also observed this behavior simply labelled it as a compulsive disorder and that was that.

To live with someone acting in that manner all the time would drive  me crazy.

Whatever, just the odd things you see in life that I just have to comment about.

Meanwhile, I am cleaning out the larger fish pond filters every couple of days now.  They get full of fish waste pretty quickly.  It may be that I was allowing too much time to elapse between cleanings and they were wallowing, literally, in their own waste.  Without researching it online one would conclude that can't be good for any living thing.  But, after doing the research anyway - had to look - it's even worse than I thought.

Let's just say here that cleaning out those filters isn't exactly the first thing I want to do when I get home from work.  Yet today, I spent an hour cleaning out both of them thoroughly.  IF that is the reason they were kicking the bucket, that potential problem is going to be eliminated.

I am considering going up the hill this coming weekend.  I really need to have a discussion with my mom about this dog situation.  It really hinges on her.  I am firm with my dogs, yes.  Great Danes are obstinate and stubborn.  They push the limits.  Not just once or twice, they just like to push the limits.  Prince especially.  She doesn't get what having 3 dogs is like, she has one that is a complete handful but it's only one dog.

I like my dogs, if I didn't they would be goners.  I have always loved my dogs.  But, they aren't going to just run me over and do whatever they want.  There are doggy rules and these dogs are WELL aware of those rules.

The political scene is beginning to humor me.  The idea that Romney is now leading - barely - in the polls with all the negative ads coming from the Obama camp is entertaining at the least.

An appropriate ending not possible, time for bed.

G'nite.

ben

I am sitting here in this absolutely magnificent hotel room - don't get this kind of treat very often -
with the AC turned down to 65 and enjoying the beautiful views out the french glass style doors up
to the north towards the mountains. It is perfectly quiet in here save the sound of the AC system.

I have absolutely no intention of leaving before the final minute of check-out time, which is 3 hours and 45 minutes from now.  I won't be staying at a place this luxurious again for some time to come, I am guessing, might as well take advantage of it.

Not only that, but this room is an upgrade, the likes of which I did not ask for neither did I expect.
I showed up after the company party and simply started the check in process, which is when the
man apparently was reading the notes and determined that if available, a room upgrade should be in
order.  Well, I'm not one to turn down that kind of offer.

The aspect of this room that is really awesome is the absolute quiet.  There are no dogs barking; no humans asking me endless questions; just peace and quiet.  Even better that i have 4G access on my internet.  No need to pay the $11 or whatever it was internet fee, lol, got that on my Hotspot.

The party was awesome fun as well.  They rented out the entire bowling alley at the Dave & Buster's that we were at - 12 lanes worth and all of them were being used.  We bowled pretty much the entire time we were there.  The only drawback was the limited selection of bowling balls and I could not find one with holes big enough for my fingers.  Anyway, there was a raffle and I won a $25 gift certificate to Home Depot, which I thought odd because in many respects, they are
our competitor.  Not that I'm complaining, I go to Home Depot all the time, lol.  The general manager was handing out the prizes and he was mocking my voice my entire walk up to the table for the prize.  I kind of have a deep, gruffy voice which gets even deeper and raspier if I am tired.

One of the drivers from the main branch that was bowling with us got so drunk, he couldn't get the ball down the lane, it was a gutter ball every single time, lol.  His wife was just sitting there, shaking her head and not drinking at all.

  I am skipping church this morning just so I can sit here and enjoy the serenity of this place.  The weather outside isn't even that bad, must be in the low 80's.  Yup, 84 with a high today of 103.  We are approaching the end of August, thank God Almighty, meaning the temps should start coming down in September and the electric use along with it.  Not that September is cool by any stretch of the imagination, just that the temps are not near as high as the worst 3 months of the year which include June, July and August.  We have to get into October before we can actually say it's getting cool outside, lol.

There is this large-screen TV sitting in front of me that I have yet to turn on. I just don't care that much for TV as much as I used to.  I get my news off the net from a variety of sources - try to get all the different takes on the same story and then meet them all up somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, I'm outta here.  Happy Sunday.

ben

The laughing Marriott customer representative.
Specifically, the J W Marriott Desert Ridge Resort And Spa located on Tatum road in North Phoenix.
It is within walking distance of the Dave and Buster's where our company's end-of-fiscal-year party is going to be held.
I stayed there I think 2 years ago at a discounted rate and now for the life of me cannot remember how I got that rate, but I was asking for it again anyway.
So, I inquired of the lady who - laughed at me.
She thought it was some sort of joke that I should be asking for a lower rate than the lowest advertised rate of $160.
Yeah, that didn't go over too well with me.  "What are you laughing at?".  "Excuuuuse me?  I didn't laugh at you".  "YES, you did".  She began to get argumentative with me which is when I asked for her manager.

I said nothing to this woman to warrant the kind of behavior I received on the phone from her.  NOTHING. I was totally respectful and was ready to move on and try to find something else if they simply had said no, we don't have anything cheaper, we're sorry. I'm of the mindset that it "never hurts to try" and the worst they can tell you is no.

I'm guessing that woman is regretting that response to me last night as I not only informed her manager, I also wrote in a complaint, but figuring it would be forever before I got a reply, I decided to call corporate headquarters as well.  And no, I wasn't aggressive panhandling.  I simply did not, up until that encounter anyway, associate J W Marriott hotels with that kind of condescending, haughty and spiteful type of behavior coming from anyone working there.  Normally, at least for me, one connotes the Marriott name with complete and total professionalism.  I have no idea whether calls are recorded but I was informed that the person I was dealing with whose name is Sharon will be having her calls monitored.

Indeed.

Whatever the case, the party is tomorrow afternoon and I intend on enjoying myself.

Onto other things.  If you came here on a Google search, well, that's the end of the Marriott tale and the rest is just my day to day life.  Such as my fish ponds.  Today marks the first day that I did not find any dead fish in any of the 3 ponds.  I am not declaring the problem over, but it is a good sign that I didn't find any very large fishies floating around on the top of the ponds today.  Fortunately I have not lost any of the large Koi, it's mostly been goldfish and some smaller Koi.

I have been aggressively dealing with the problem in emptying out large amounts of the pond water and replacing with fresh tap water. Taking the filters apart, cleaning them out frequently and then putting them back together again.  Yesterday adding pond - stuff - whatever it is - that helps with fish stress.  I can only do so much.  It is still a bit puzzling that all 3 ponds had the same problem all at once.  That indicates something external was introduced, not a naturally occurring event inside the ponds.  Again, the rains and the potential of all that chemical that has been sprayed all over the property is the number 1 "suspect".  Number 2, though unlikely but certainly not inconceivable, is that some sort of poison was added to all 3 ponds.  I find it inconceivable because they would have had to jump my fence and take another risk of me catching them in the act.

The thought of catching someone dumping poison into ponds that are  behind fences in my back yard is - a bit troublesome indeed.  But I'm going to put that idea on idle and hope that it was just the poison from the exterminator, who last time was out sprayed a lot of that stuff onto the rocks and plants - no problem there, but I am guessing she must have gotten too close to the ponds.  From this point forth, the exterminator will not be coming over here unless I am at home so I can monitor where that person is spraying the poison.

I am going to church tonight, though I definitely do not feel like it, it's the weekly prayer thing.  I am very tired and I am not feeling particularly well for some reason.  But I am not going to allow that to stop me to go as pastoral staff is encouraging everyone to get into those Friday night meetings and join in the prayer celebration.  I'll go for at least an hour.  There is no one telling anyone that they have to stay for X amount of time. I figure an hour good, come home and go to bed.

So that's it.  Church starts in less than an hour.  Time to get ready both mentally and of course my attire, lol.

G'day.

ben