The drama continues.
The hoarders behind me - that own both properties that both border my property.
The city apparently told them they can't live there anymore, on the property that has no house but is filled with junk and ugly shack looking things.
So, these people - however they are related to my "neighbors" have now moved into the shack behind where my "neighbors" live.
I'm going to have to take pictures of all of this nonsense, in fact, I will.  I'll have to get on top of my house to get pics of the property with all the junk - they put up garage doors to block my view of it. You don't believe me.  Yes, they put up garage doors in the rear of the property in order to block my view of their property.  However, the roof of my house is well high enough to look over the top of those garage doors.

I will do that tomorrow.

Anyway, this shack behind the house is elevated.  I live on a hill,  basically, the properties behind me are at a higher elevation than mine. On that portion of property, there is a 4 foot fence.  The shack and house are well elevated above mine.  These people are now standing there, staring at my property and I am - starting to get pissed off.

I doubt the city will do anything about it, either, if I contact them about it.  The only resort I have to do anything about it if these people are there long-term - which I have to expect - is to build a block wall there at least 8 feet high.

I dunno.

I guess it's time to find the city's codes online and start reading - all of it.  I have had enough of this BS.

Well, I saw an accident today that was interesting.
A young guy - I guess between 18 and 20 - was cranking away on a bicycle.  I passed him while driving down the road.  I was stopped at a stop light a ways down the road, he was cruising right along.  The stop light I was at? An SUV was turning right at the intersection.  He had his turn signal on, it was obvious - at least to me - he was going to make a right hand turn.

It wasn't so obvious to the bicyclist, who came into my field of view as I started moving forward and saw him out of the corner of the eye and then? Saw him SMASH into the side of that SUV that was turning right, his body taking most of the brunt of the impact as he flew off the bike and smashed into the side of it and then slid down onto the asphalt.

I was completely amazed as this kid shook his head on the ground, got up, started looking for all the electronics that had also flown everywhere, went to his bike while the driver stopped and got out of the car.  I had also stopped and was going to get out, but this cyclist wasn't having anything to do with anyone helping him, it was pretty crazy, really.  For as much impact as that kid's body took, I thought he should have been checked out by medics at the very least.

He was having nothing to do with it.  The driver didn't want to call police and I shrugged my shoulders and left.  The driver had damage to his vehicle and frankly, that kid was riding on the sidewalk - not legal in these parts.  Cyclists are required to ride on the street.

Whatever the case, the weekend is here.  Not going up to the mountains.  It rained here today, hard and long.  I was all over the place and it was raining everywhere I went.

Except my area.  I don't get it.  I came home and dug my fingers into the ground - dry.  WHAT?!!!  I asked Mark if it had rained here. He shook his head no, it had dropped a few droplets in the morning but that was it. With all the rain that dumped around here today, and the area around the mountain where I live not getting hardly any of it, I actually ended up having to run the drip watering system today.

Unbelievable.

Oh well.  Becoming  the new norm.  No rain, don't expect it.  At least, not anywhere near where I live.  I don't know if the mountain behind us has anything to do with it or what.

I'm through.  Well, just throwing it out there: Obama campaign saying that Romney may have committed a felony.  Ummm, I am not a fan of Mormonism, but if a person is a devout Mormon?  Crime is pretty much a far-fetched thing besides the rogue mormons who want to engage in polygamy.   If the Obama administration is going to stoop to the levels of calling his opponent a felon, then it becomes obvious or at least apparent that Obama?  Is desperate.

The City of Phoenix Neighborhood Services Division; Planning and Zoning; Waste

The City of Phoenix.  A circus unto itself.  If they tell you they are going to do something, I give it, at this point, about an 80% chance that what they say they are going to do? Will NEVER happen.

Case in point (and I have several of recent versions, not to mention instances from the past) is my discussion with a "manager" in the Zoning division last week.  We had a long conversation about the property in question.  Namely, the 2 structures built on the property that could never pass a city inspector's inspection and the extension cord they are using to provide those structures power from the next property over.

The conclusion of the discussion is that she was going to send someone out to inspect the property and that she would call me back after that inspection was done.

Of course, neither ever occurred, as I just got off the phone with a person at the City that states there is nothing in their system about it and that he knew nothing about it - which this particular individual is in the position to have received this information from this lady that I spoke with since that is his venue.

I got shuffled around for quite a while before I finally got to this guy, btw.  I am not letting up on this, whatever can be done about the property legally, that's what I am intent on getting done.  It's a hoarder's dream and a normal, neighboring property owner's nightmare.  So, this is the determination: if those structures are under 200 feet, there is nothing they can do about it.  Okay.  I dunno how many square feet they are, but I doubt they are 200 square feet.

HOWEVER.  The extension cord running power from their other property to that one?  Illegal.  I know for a FACT there is no power ON that property.  SRP was going to turn the power on until they saw the pedestal and declared that that pedestal would have to be replaced before they turn the power on.  I know this because SRP has to come into my back yard to do such.  SRP told me this.  The pedestal was never replaced, hence, the power never turned on. Yet, there is a stereo blaring loudly over there - well it isn't any more after I called police - and there are lights running over there at night.

The end of the story is that he is going to have someone come over next week and make an initial inspection.  I am going to have to look through my notes and find this woman's name and phone number that I talked with last week and ask what, exactly, happened to her promise of sending someone out there.

Never-ending battle.  But, as one lady I was speaking with today noted, the City of Phoenix has some great employees that do their jobs well and then there are the idiots - her words - that are incompetent and have no business even working there.  Selah.

So last night, this horrific smell comes into my room.  I assume someone out there cooking something - nasty from the smell of it.
Well, I was awake anyway.  There was a thunderstorm with loud booms going off every few minutes, seconds, intermittent - couldn't sleep through all that noise.

After a while, the noise finally subsided and I went back to sleep.

I came out here - my kitchen - this morning and it smells unbelievably bad in here.

The kid tenant - the 22 year old.  This is what Lynnette just came out and informed.
She said she came out here last night after the smell hit their room, found a pot of beans on the stove, the burner was on high, the entire living room/kitchen/hallway filled with smoke, the beans looked as though they were going to start a fire.

Are you serious?  This isn't the worst of it.  That guy just left it like that.  In other words, he turned that all on and NEVER showed back up to turn it off.  Lynnette went and knocked on his door, he didn't answer.  She didn't know if he was in there or had left.  That kid is going to hear about it from me.  I can see - maybe - turning on the burner on low and slowly cooking the beans, but anytime you turn the burner on high, you better be around to watch it because the burner ring turns bright orange and it gets VERY hot.  Whatever you are cooking - usually on that high of a setting you are just wanting to boil water - it isn't going to take long.

The pot is ruined.  He will be replacing that pot and he will be offering some kind of explanation of why, exactly, he thought it okay to turn that thing on and then just leave/disappear - or he will be getting and eviction notice.  Pretty strange, the guy is usually a pretty responsible person.

But, it reminds me of Mary.  A former tenant who was on methamphetamines who did exactly the same thing one night.  The smoke detectors went off, I woke up obviously, went out to find a pot of water, boiling away, burner on high, no-one to be found.  In that case, though, we had already agreed that she was leaving - actually, I had given her an eviction notice because she wouldn't stop the meth - there was already tension between us and she came in from outside and started screaming at me.

Now, that pot of water was at a high boil and she didn't reappear for 10 minutes or more after I turned it off, removed the pan, dumped the water, cleaned the pot, put it away, put her box of macaroni away, wiped down the counters, all that good stuff.  That was the night she called the police on me but I turned it back around on her and had her served with the restraining order papers.

Now, for the kid tenant to do something like what he did, I do have to wonder if there are drugs involved with this or maybe he was drunk or something. I have no idea, but I will definitely be finding out and also looking into why the smoke detectors didn't go off.  They are both hard wired and battery juiced for electricity.  Even if the batteries were dead, they still should have gone off.  It's a damn good thing Mark and Lynnette came out and discovered that mess, cause' Gilbert just left it like that.  Eventually there would have been a fire.

No, that does not make me happy.  I have already had one house burn down, I never want to go through that again.  Gilbert and I are destined to have a frank, curt and unambiguous discussion in the very near future.

My house really stinks right now.  Same kind of thing when that other tenant put popcorn in the microwave and had it in there for 5 minutes.  The house filled up with so much smoke, you couldn't see anything and it destroyed the microwave.  It will smell for days, undoubtedly, in here. It's tooooooo hot to open up the house and air it out.  But, if it smells this bad when I get home from work, I may just have to open up the doors and windows for a few hours and try to get some of the stench out of here.

Gag.

So, manager is leaving town tomorrow and will not be back until 2 Mondays from now.
The person taking his place is an inside salesman.  This person - does not have time - for running a store and doing the work he normally does - at the same time.
When the cat's away, the mice will play?
Hardly.
It means I will be undoubtedly be working overtime hours in shipping and receiving - especially receiving and putting away materials.

I have to be honest here.  I like OT, no doubt, but in this heat?  By the time I have pulled orders; loaded the truck; get the truck to it's destination; help unload; go over the order; get into the truck and repeat - and finally getting back to the yard up to 9 hours later?  I'm done, exhausted, wiped out and ready to go home.

The heat is really getting me this year.  I mean, I endure it while I'm out there and no complaining, sweating profusely I might add most of the day, but by the time 2:00 pm comes around, I'm ready to go home.  The humidity levels are higher and that is what is really making it miserable out there.

Brace myself, right?  Indeed.  I think about the time quitting time comes around and I still have a bunch of work to do, I am going to get a gallon of cold water, go outside with it and dump it over my head.

I came home from work today and just plopped down into a chair. Uhhh, but I had stuff to do, including cleaning out a pond filter.  It's a bit of a job.  The thing was clogged up and no water was coming out of it.  It was filthy - full of fish dung.  There is enough filter material in there that it stops that stuff from getting through there, but it doesn't take too terribly long for it to build up and then clog up.

With fish as big as I have in those ponds, they need good, filtered water with a good movement of water going through that pump and out that waterfall.

It was 92 degrees this morning at 5:45 am.  It's 7:30 pm and it's still 107 degrees.  We don't get the benefit of a huge cooling event during the night. It "cools" down, but not like up in the mountains or other places in the U.S. where much cooler temps come.  When you walk outside in the morning and it's 90 plus degrees outside and it's not even 6:00 am, yeah, there is a bit of a mind game going on there.

Yes, I am commenting on the heat here.  Others can comment on the heat wherever they are.  That's great, but in many of those places, it cools down CONSIDERABLY at night.  I know because I have looked up various cities throughout the U.S.  When you walk out your door early in the morning and it's cool out, it definitely helps with your view of the day in considering being outside most of it.  Yes, it might be getting hot, but at least it STARTS out cool.  I walked out of my house this morning and between the 92 degrees and the humidity, I was dreading the day.

Whatever. The pond filter is clean.  The plants are watered.  The dogs are fed.  I am full.  Life is good regardless.

I could comment on other things, especially politics, but, who cares.   Maybe all those groups on both sides of the aisle could donate all of that money they are spending on negative ads and give it to a charity.  I made up my mind a long time ago.  It isn't necessarily a vote for anyone, it's a vote against the big spender.  Who wants to spend more and tax more.  And reduce our military.  And on and on.

G'nite.

ben

87 was re-opened yesterday. They sent out a huge contingency of hot spot firefighters, air craft and whatever else and had that fire put out quickly.  Drove by it on the way home, I have no clue how it started, but since it was directly on the side of the road, I assume some dingbat threw a cigarette out a car window or something similar.

Well anyway, 5 days off coming to a close, the reality of work and heat back in my face coming soon.  I could take 2 weeks off right now and still not feel like it was enough.  I intend on taking more time off next month.

The dead Sissoo tree.  By all rights that tree was dead.  All of it's leaves were crispy brown.  It was a "victim" of the drip system not working.  I fixed the drip system and spent 2 weeks watering the heck out of that tree.  I figured to give it a try before chopping it down.

My hope was based on the winter 2 years ago where the freeze was so bad, every single Sissoo tree on my property (I have something like 20 of them that I planted as saplings)  appeared dead.  There was NOTHING on those trees.  After watering and watering, every single one of them came back.

Well, happy to say that this tree?  Is covered with fresh, new buds.  It is putting out leaves all over the entire tree.  I caught the problem, apparently, before the roots died.  This tree was growing very nicely before this problem is why I was really going to be a bit sad to see it go.  It's about 10 feet tall at this point.

"Neighbors" - if you can call them that - behind me were out there yesterday and this morning - while I was up at the mountains - cleaning up the cat poop.  I dunno yet if they got it all up or not.  Monday the Neighborhood Services department is coming out, but I am putting more hope on the city's Zoning department inspector.

It's kind of hard to believe some of the temperatures being recorded in places in this country that really shouldn't be getting that hot.,  I wonder how people in those areas that don't have AC deal with it.  I would be going out and buying a window AC unit - at the very least - to keep at least one room cool in the house.  We live in extreme heat, but we expect it and are pretty well ready for it when it comes.  Some folks are stuck with evap coolers - which will not keep a house cool in the hot summer.  It will cool it down about 20 or maybe a bit more degrees, but it isn't going to be 70 in your house.  On a 115 degree day, it will probably be in the low to mid 90's inside a house with only evap cooling.  The advantage of evaporative coolers is they are cheap to run and definitely better than nothing.

Well, nothing to do but pray that cooling comes to those areas and comes quickly. If we could only just fast-forward to October....................

Fire

No, neither my trailer nor my house.
More like, the road, Arizona 87 and more specifically the "Long fire" has shut down the road to go home.
I didn't make this up, my mother called me a few minutes ago to alert me to it and asking me where  AZ 188 is? No clue, I had to look it up.
Near Rye, which is down the mountain from Payson, which is my road home.
K.
Not panicking here.
That area is desert brush.  I am guessing/really hoping that by tomorrow morning, when I wanna head home, the road will be reopened.
It would add at least 100 miles to the trip home to go around it - there IS no alternate route through there.  Not that I know of, anyway.  I would have to go up to Show Low, back down to Globe and on the 60 back.
PLEASE, Lord, let them get that fire contained or at least the road re-opened in a quick hurry.  That road is a major artery to the Payson and surrounding areas.

There is something a bit eerie about being in the mountains at night, no-one around, yet intriguing at the same time.
For some reason, however, having the .40 caliber S&W doesn't really feel like enough.
I will be bringing my shotgun with me - loaded either with slugs or buckshot - from now on.

My mom has a gun sitting on the counter when she's up here.  She carries it with her on dog walks.  Well, she carries it with her everywhere.  Our gun laws are so relaxed that a person can legally carry a gun in most places and just about anywhere outdoors.

The eerie part is sitting at the table and looking out the window and seeing nothing but pitch black.  There could be someone out there staring at you through the window and you wouldn't know it.  Ummm, so I pulled the blinds, lol.  Okay, so I'm on private property, but that doesn't mean squat to criminals.

Back up in the mountains.
I remembered the mouse, I forgot about the keyboard.
I want a regular, external type keyboard for this computer, I am not a fan of laptop keyboards, at all.
Anyway, I tried to hook up the satellite with the receiver I bought off of Craigslist, that I had to have them come out and show me how to change the settings that I didn't know had to be changed but figured it was a setting issue with it, not a bad receiver, and ........... nothing.

Kept getting "searching for satellite signal".  Checked the settings, A okay.  Called Direct TV for some help, we went through the whole mess, everything is set right.  I started regretting even coming up here, I want to watch a particular series that starts tomorrow morning and they are showing all 17 episodes through Sunday.  Spent an hour attempting to figure it out, no clue, whatsoever, decided that I would have to have Direct TV come up here and get it working.

But why?  I had the other receiver working last weekend.  I had the satellite towards the general direction, moving it around slowly, that it was in last weekend. Big-time bummer. Final thought, cause' if it ain't working, I'm going home in the morning.  Took the satellite apart and, however it happened, the connection was loose.  Could this be all the problem is?  YES!!!

The setup is now "permanent". The receiver will stay here, my aggressive panhandling techniques have me getting this card for free every month, no $6 monthly charge on it, I bought the receiver specifically for this trailer, done deal. It's pretty cool being an aggressive panhandler.  You get stuff for free.  You know, just like standing on a street corner with a sign and pinching your fingers together at everyone asking for a bit of spare change.  Gotta love that, right?

So anyway, it rained up here since I was up here last.  How do I know?  Cause' I just found out about yet another leak.  So, gonna have to bring all the equipment up here and spend a weekend just fixing that problem.  I had hoped I had all the leaks fixed when I had this thing at my property.  Oh well, you know how aggressive panhandlers are, begging on street corners is far more important than actually working. Ohh, the life of being a beggar.

Well, anyway, that's it The dogs love being up here, they hate the drive. Even with motion sickness medicine, Duke has a particularly miserable drive up and down.  I pretty much have to ignore it.  He's all crashed out now, in fact, all 3 of them are sleeping.  I decided this time to bring frozen dinners and not so much cooking food. Just don't feel like cooking.  I did bring some hot and spicy brats, though : )

















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