Wednesday

So - another rather long day at work.
But - it wasn't anything like yesterday.
Speculation continues to abound.
I've determined that the speculating has gone on long enough.
What happens - happens. I have thought the scenarios through to the end of every conceivable potential development that might come along - I have thought through my options in every single scenario.
Always remember that roses have thorns.
I'm 99% sure that decisions will be made and will be in the offing.
But what those decisions are, exactly, no clue. Can't lose sleep over something I have no control over.

As the boss said today - keep the place clean and stay busy - with anything. I could sit around for a little while, but I would go stir-crazy. I like staying busy, even if it's mundane work. Home is the place to relax, not work.

So, onto other things.
Because work is so slow, I am not only getting Friday off, the boss offered tomorrow as well. He offered it to the other driver first - but I told him if he declined I would happily take it. I have plenty of hours available for off time. Friday is my paid birthday day, I think I'll use a floating holiday tomorrow.

Happy happy. So - unexpectedly - I have a 4 day weekend starting NOW. Woo-hoooo!

I'm thinking of calling some tax places and find the best price. The first place I went to - well, I hope that ain't the best price, cause if it is, more than I expected.

Took the dogs for a long walk shortly after getting home. I said I was going to start getting the excess nerves out by doing some intense workouts - the walk is hardly just a walk. It's a climb in the mountains and yes, stress is quickly flung off. Not only that, but when I got to the top of one of the mountains, I was very surprised to see the clean air over Phoenix. It's an unusual sight. It was very windy yesterday and that must have blow all that junk out of the valley. More than that - there were several much higher mountains in the distance that were covered with snow including 4-Peaks. Pretty cool.

Leaving the mountain range? A coyote was sitting on the next mountain over and started it's howling/yelping crap. The coyotes around here are little scraggly things, I am not afraid of them. They aren't going to bother giant dogs, either. Even if the dogs aren't vicious, their sheer size will keep coyotes from bothering them. I'm more concerned about javelina than those little puny coyotes. Nasty creatures, javelinas will attack. They don't CARE what the potential prognosis is, especially if they have young. They will defend them at all costs.

My bonus comes Friday on my paycheck. If I can save some of it, I am going to. My bills - not a pretty picture but I'm not so far behind that I'm in serious trouble with anything. I'd like to get some money into the ING account and have that available for summer.

Tomorrow - since I'm home - gonna cook that turkey that's sitting in the fridge, now fully defrosted and ready to cook - just before it starts going bad.

So, I was going to lift weights today, but I did the mountain climb instead. Tomorrow I intend on doing both. I'm also going to call the boss and see if the other driver is going to make a transfer run. If he is, maybe the boss will let him stop by here with the bags of concrete I need - I can't haul 800 pounds of concrete in my car.

As happens frequently, I'm writing an entry and I get interrupted by something. This time - hunger. I've cut back on my eating. Twice a day. Pretty much have done that for a long, long time anyway, just times when I'll go to eating 3 or even 4 times a day. That cycle is over and I'm back to eating twice a day - late morning and early evening. It has nothing to do with dieting - I just don't get hungry until late morning and then I come home from work and several hours later, my stomach's literally growling at me. I'm NOT saying I'm skinny, either. I have a 33 inch waist at 200 pounds right now.

Anyway, I dsecided to try something different. I took 93% lean ground beef, made 3 patties out of half a pound of it. The leaner meat goes much further in cooking and not shrinking until it seems to disappear. I then pushed the meat in the center of each patty to create a bowl effect. I took a large spoonful of bottled, crushed garlic and put that on each patty. I then cut up fresh cilantro into very shredded like appearance. I then took some Worcestershire sauce, dumped healthy amount of that onto each patty and put the cilantro on top of it. I worked all of that into each patty until mixed up.

I then cut up onions and jalapenos, put them in a frying pan with a little oil and cooked those until they were nicely cooked. Took the patties and put them in the same pan. Bunched the onions/jalapenos up into a small part of the pan.

I have never tried it before, but I will definitely be doing it again, and again. It was delicious! Oh, a little ketchup, toasted bread, ranch dressing on top of it all plus I melted cheese on each patty.

I only ate one patty which made me full. A 1/3rd of a half a pound of meat with stuff on top of it made me full after not having had eating since this morning.
Hey, I just read about that stuff that goes on inside your body - you reduce your eating, your stomach shrinks, takes less to make you feel full. Pretty obvious that us Americans could stand to eat FAR less food than we are.

Anyway, I'm offa here, at least this entry.
Have a great evening/day (whenever you read)!
ben

Rancher

There is a bit of news online that I was reading today that captured my interest - greatly.
It seems there is a rancher that owns 22,000 acres of land that is right next to the border. Illegal aliens have been using this rancher's property for years and years as a way to try and enter the U.S. illegally.

A little blurp from the story:
"""""""Mr. Barnett told The Washington Times in a 2002 interview that he began rounding up illegal immigrants after they started to vandalize his property, northeast of Douglas along Arizona Highway 80. He said the immigrants tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.

Some of his cattle died from ingesting the plastic bottles left behind by the immigrants, he said, adding that he installed a faucet on an 8,000-gallon water tank so the immigrants would stop damaging the tank to get water.

Mr. Barnett said some of the ranch´s established immigrant trails were littered with trash 10 inches deep, including human waste, used toilet paper, soiled diapers, cigarette packs, clothes, backpacks, empty 1-gallon water bottles, chewing-gum wrappers and aluminum foil - which supposedly is used to pack the drugs the immigrant smugglers give their "clients" to keep them running.

He said he carried a pistol during his searches for the immigrants and had a rifle in his truck "for protection" against immigrant and drug smugglers, who often are armed.


ASSOCIATED PRESS DEFENDANT: Roger Barnett said he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.""""""""""

Now, the fascinating part of this is that 16 ILLEGAL ALIENS are suing this rancher, in the news story's words: who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

These people are NOT legal citizens of the United States. What did they expect from people on our side of the border, a Welcome Wagon? The unbelievable part of this to me is that a federal judge is actually entertaining this 32 million dollar lawsuit.

I was just flabbergasted to read that a U.S. court is actually hearing this case. What unbelievably BAD kind of precedent will this lawsuit serve if those illegals actually WIN their case? This is the kind of thing where I would like to see the Supreme Court step in and put this nonsense to an end.

I'm just in awe here. I mean - this man actually helped the U.S. Border Patrol by turning in thousands of these illegals. If I owned a property like his and had illegals wandering through, you can be rest assured that I, too, would be going around my property HEAVILY ARMED.

Well, whatever.

I worked pretty hard today, wore myself out. That's a good thing. I put up yet another CL ad and had 2 replies within minutes. First was a crock of s*** from a "french" lady that is asking for personal information who doesn't even live here. The second was a phone call - I put my broadband phone number on there. I didn't answer the phone because my Magic Jack didn't show a phone number from whoever was calling. It is a lady - judging from her voice definitely older - who is moving here from Oregon and needs a temp place to stay until she finds her own place. The catch? Well, as I've been warned numerous times before, I should probably stick with guy renters. The second is that she has 2 Pomeranians. I actually like Pomeranians - my mother's now-passed "husband" had 2 of them. Little yip dogs, but very lovable and very loyal. I just don't know if I need 2 MORE dogs around here.

So I don't know about that and haven't returned the phone call. It's after 5:00, so whoever was supposed to come - isn't coming apparently. Which leaves - another guy who I didn't hear back from after I replied to his email. He did, however, leave a phone number, so I may just call.

It was cool here today - I was wearing a jacket most of the day. I'm getting more and more winter wimpy every year. I find I don't really like the cold that much anymore. I mean, not even in the 40's - where I used to love it. I don't like extreme heat, either. I can tolerate it, but I definitely don't LIKE it.

Perfect.? I just got off the phone with a potential renter moving in from out-of-state. I've had 2 of those so far and both of them were excellent renters. This conversation went well over an hour. They're moving back here from Oregon and will be looking for a new home and expect to need a place to rent for 2 months.

I'm not looking for a long-term renter on the 3rd bedroom - just enough to get paid up on some things and maybe even get ahead. Or - take all of that renter's money and put it on the electric card reader and have 2 of the 3 hottest months of summer paid for before it ever gets here. Perhaps THAT is the best idea. No, in that case, put that money in my ING account and have it in savings to use for electric. I have never "lost" any money on those card readers, but to have that much money on one would be a little - scary - for me. Plus - I would have the money for any emergency, something I don't have right now.

Ummm, I have numerous things to do before going to bed, and it ain't gettin' any earlier.

Lord knows I HOPE that there is some kind of orders to pull and deliveries to make tomorrow - please???????
G'nite folks.
ben

Tuesday

I get to work this morning and there's an email that has been distributed to everyone. About the regional manager coming for a visit - like - the manager of the entire western half of the country, I think.
The general manager is asking everyone to greet him and - clean up everything before he gets here.

With me, that's a given. Big boys/girls come along, you spiff up the place as much as you can.
Aren't coming until Tuesday - but there was a LOT of NOTHING to do today - I didn't drive any trucks, I spent the entire day at the yard, sweeping, cleaning, vacuuming, picking up stuff, moving things around. An eternity of a day I can tell ya.

Of course, the speculation continued on even more. Why is this guy coming now? He's going to every single of our stores - which is only 5 total anyway - but they're spread out. Tucson, Downtown Phoenix, the East Valley, the West Valley and then Albuquerque. Take that back, there are 6 stores, but he's not visiting the one in El Paso, Texas. I imagine this is a tour to make decisions. That's me guessing - but my guesses are usually pretty close in these situations. Keep all the stores open - or not? Reduce the labor pool? Get rid of equipment? Who knows. Keeps up thinking, guessing and wondering, that's for sure.

I slept okay last night, but I'm very tired. Probably because of the sleep I have lost on other nights. I'm thinking another long nap coming in-queue very quickly here. At least lay down for a while - I was on my feet all day long.

My work-week is half over. If I really do get Friday off, then this is half-week right now. I think I could really use another 3-day weekend right now.

Allegedly a potential renter coming over today. I think it was a 5:00 o'clock apppointment. I dunno. I want to take a nap, do a little cleaning up around here and if they show, great, if not, another person waiting on-hold if they haven't found a place yet. If neither of those work out - have to place another ad. May just do that anyway to get mine back up near the top. It must be buried by at least 500 ads by now. It's apparent that renting out rooms is something more and more people are willing to do in order to try and save their homes. I've given the hints to people that are struggling - it's easy money - or is it? Depends on the person you get in there, that's a fact.

I'm still thinking it's tougher to get a tenant when you already have 2. I disclose the fact that there are already 2 tenants in here. A potential renter should know whatever pertinent facts there are concerning a place they want to live at. At the same time, I read ads on Craigslist frequently that are home filled with 4 and even more tenants - all individuals that are not related to each other - so I know it's possible to get more people in here, just have to keep the ads running until it happens. Mary is not a done deal yet. I'm going to wait until her payday to find out whether she's still a renter in my house or history.

I have other things running through my head, but I need that nap.
C'ya later.
ben