Finally, after 4 days, the people that sold me the refrigerator wrote back.  Blah Blah Blah.  Their word in their garage obviously didn't carry over to reality. I have spent $450 on a refrigerator that at best is worth $200, that of which I paid for it.  I found the address for small claims court and will be stopping by there tomorrow after work.  I'm getting very tired, in life, of people that say one thing and then do something completely different.  

My mother called me 2 nights ago after we had had the fallout about the dogs/Prince.  I wasn't near the phone and didn't know it had rung, much less a message left on it.  I listened to the message and listened to my mother asking me if she wants me to pick up some RV antifreeze, acting as if the confrontation on the phone on Sunday had never happened.  She hoped for a reply by 8:00 the next morning, or Tuesday.  I called her at around 7:30 am and wondered how this conversation was going to go.  Awkward, at best, yet her thing about the dogs never came up.

I didn't say anything about it, it was a short conversation and that was that.\

Went to church small group last night.  Nice little service, but by the time 7:30 hits, I'm starting to yawn, getting tired and dreaming of bed.  

I have not yet replied to my ex-pastor's who sent me the letter last week.  I did write a reply to them but have yet to send it.  Sort of sitting on it and pondering.  

Going to another survey thing today.  30 minutes for 30 dollars.  It's 5 miles away, if it were far away I wouldn't have agreed to it.  But what the heck, 30 bucks is 30 bucks.  

Umm, there's more but I have to leave soon for the taste testing thing.  It's been raining here, a good thing except - my fish are dying off. I think I finally figured out what's going on. The exterminator came and last time flooded the property. I am guessing the rain is washing that poison right into the pond.  It's one of a few possible answers. That or the neighbor wars are coming into my back yard and pouring poison into the ponds, but if that were true, one would think they would all die all at once.  I'm leaning towards the idea of the exterminator, especially consider the amount of poison that was dumped in there last time.

Anyway, outta here.

The situation:

I was up at mom's property, I dunno, was it 3 weeks ago?  I was leaving, getting the dogs in the car to take them home.
There is only one way those giant dogs fit into the back seat of that car to make it comfortable for both of them.  It takes quite a bit of "arranging" to do and it also takes the cooperating of the dogs to get it done.

So, I had put Prince in first and had him perfectly situated, telling him to stay, stay, stay while I went and got Duke.  When I came back, Prince got up, turned around headed out of the car.  Now I have Duke in hand and Prince needing to be put back into correct position.

Prince is a big baby.  He whines and sometimes "cries" when things aren't going his way.  I just let go of Duke, got back into the car and had to move the dog physically because he refused to move back into position.  It does NOT mean I was hurting him, but he starting his whining/crying junk again.  Loudly.  A big dog, a big mouth.  Mother was walking by the car as this was happening.

I knew she had taken issue with it when I got the dogs in and left - she just kept walking with her back towards me.  I hadn't called her in almost 3 weeks because I knew that the next time I talked to her, she was going to say something and more to the point: it was going to be a caustic interaction even if I tried to avert it.

Which I did try.  I really did.  I called her today and got the conversation rolling, we talked a few minutes and then? She went there.  Blah blah blah.  You were hurting Prince, I didn't feel comfortable with it.  I did cut her off once and nicely tried to get her to take this conversation elsewhere, because I can tell you right now that I take extreme offense to anyone even remotely insinuating that I am some sort of animal abuser.  I have had dogs all of my life and have always taken very good care of them.  When Coco was dying a while back I poured my heart and energy out to doing whatever I could to save her, including draining my bank account and running up credit card debt which I am still paying off.

The conversation did not end well.   I decided that if she doesn't like the way I treat my dogs, then my presence up there on her property and bringing my dogs up there is not going to work out. I informed her I would not be coming up there anymore and that when I could, I would have the trailer moved off the property.  I was very offended at the way she was talking to me.  She didn't give me the opportunity to explain what was actually happening in the car, instead she just concluded that I was intentionally hurting the dog.

So that's it.  It will undoubtedly be quite a while before we talk again.  We have had issues before about different things in the past and this is pretty much modus-operandi.

It hasn't really been such a great ending to my vacation. Besides that, I have spent 3 hours today sweating my @$$ off attempting to get the pond situation rectified.  More fish have died.  I had to remove the fish and then I had to find that small pump I have and try to get it to work on the big waterfall filter.  I figured that any kind of filtering at all is bettering than nothing.  It's a 125 gallon per hour pump, so every 3 plus hours that pumps the entire contents equivalent through that filter.  I emptied out about a third of the water in it and replaced it with fresh water and rearranged the aerators so that they would hit a larger area of the water.  I had to clean out the other larger pond filtering system as well.  Plus I had the refrigerator I bought off of Craigslist which died on me and spent another $200 getting it fixed.  It IS working well now at this point, I finally get the temp to stay at a constant 37 degrees, pretty much in the target range.

But it has all worn me out.  Instead of going back to work refreshed, I guess it will be pretty much the same as when I left for vacation.  I think, actually, I am ready for the "distraction" of work at this point.  I may not be ready to get up at 4:30 am, guess I'll find that out when 4:30 rolls around and the alarm clock goes off.

The situation with mother is troubling.  Had I had any thought that there would be this kind of problem, I would not have bought that trailer and spent the months I did in fixing it up.  I now have yet one more situation on my hands that has to be dealt with.  But I don't have the money to spend on moving it down here right now and if she wants it off the property badly enough, she will have to pay for it's removal to wherever herself, the nearest towing yard I guess, which would be in Star Valley.  It would be a lost cause for me, as paying for the tow there, plus storage, plus moving it to wherever else temporarily would be out of the question right now.  Would she do that?  Uhhh, yes, if it irked her enough, she would.

ben

I don't hardly make any claims to be the most spiritual person in the world, in fact, at this point, I freely admit that I am FAR from any title that would make that claim.  So, when I looked at that logo on a piece of mail I received today, a familiar logo and one that is associated with extremely negative thoughts, I can also attest that spirituality was from the list of adjectives that were running through my head.

The letter-head was from the church I used to go to.  When I say that, I mean the church that shunned me when I was getting divorced.  I didn't even want to open the letter at first, I wondered what kind of miserable, negative, accusatory statements I would read within the confines of the letter.  What possible purpose would they have in contacting me NOW, after all of this time?

I didn't know but eventually, curiosity killed the cat.  I opened the letter.  It wasn't a form letter - I would have immediately trashed it if it was.  You know, a pre-scripted letter sent to who knows how many people?  

I can't and won't write the entire depth of the letter on here.  It basically stated they missed me, that they realized there was a huge, gaping hole in their lives - we were best friends for over a decade and we did a LOT together - and basically asking me to let them back into my life.  My thoughts went straight to the shunning in front of everyone at church, a thing I realized today I thought I had gotten over: I have not.  My reaction was proof of that: I began firing off a letter of how they treated me and how they had dissed me, shunned me and actually turned their BACKS on me at CHURCH, at a SERVICE!!

I got 4 paragraphs into that letter and realized what I was doing - and stopped.  If I were to seek the Lord about this for even 2 minutes, I would realize that this is not the course of action He would have me take.  Christians are instructed to forgive.  I know, it isn't easy sometimes. In fact, in circumstances such as what I went through with these people while going through a divorce, their actions only made it 100 times more hellish.  I found myself without ANY support from anyone save my mother.  Bless her heart : )  Oh, my dad was there for me too, now that I think about it : )

So, I put the letter down and sought some spiritual backing from my pastor.  Not that I can't figure this out myself, that's not the point.  I want to know that there is a support system available for me.  I am not trying to get them to hate those people, rather, to pray about it and give me a detached, third-party input. I really need that because I really would like to get past this.  He wrote back quickly and gave me his thoughts and then advised me to give it a few days and pray over it before responding and that he, too, would be praying about it and he would get back to me.

So that's where this is being left for now.  I am not going to reply to them until, at the earliest, next week.  I'm  going to pray about it, seek the Word about it, sit on it and dwell on it.  Give it enough time to give me any kind of thought that perhaps - some kind of reconciliation is actually possible here.  I dunno, yet.  Maybe I will get some direction at church on Sunday.

ben

“We have customs, we have cultures. We want to share this with this country, and those who criticize us and who hate us, we invite you to get to know us.”

That from an illegal "immigrant" who, along with 40 or so others, is "touring" the country and openly stating that they are here illegally.  These people - and millions like them - feel that they are somehow being wronged.  They run around saying how bad America is - I have been hearing this for decades now - yet, they continue to stay here. 

The statement  about their customs and cultures?  My extensive knowledge of many of them are that they do not even attempt to blend in with our society at all.  Instead, they want to change it to their way of thinking and living to the point that many of them refuse to even attempt to learn how to speak English.  They demand spanish speaking customer service reps and want all signage and literature to be printed in Spanish. 

I'm not sorry to say that this is NOT the United States of Mexico.  I have no sympathy for people that are here illegally, none whatsoever AND I completely agree with Governor Brewer's executive order to deny them access to social programs that should be there for legal citizens/residents.  Many of these people make a calculated decision to have babies here so they can therefore make the excuse that they have kids that are legal citizens. This doesn't excuse the fact that they came here and ARE here illegally!

Whatever the case, it's Friday and 9 days off of work is slowly coming to a close.  It always passes by far too quickly.  I had thoughts of going up to the mountains but I am not sure I am going to do that.  If I am, I'm going to have to leave within the next 4 or 5 hours, so, guess I better make up my mind.  I'm opting for not, though.  The 900 miles of driving earlier this week sort of took the desire to drive anywhere right out of me, lol.

Plus I definitely want to make church on Sunday and basically try to get a bit of rest and relaxation going so I don't feel stressed going back to work on Monday.  

I will answer the comments in my last post here.
Got to the place at 3:30 am.  Paid up everything for the trip and then went outside to wait
for them to signal the okay to board the boat.  Maybe 15 minutes later, they fired the boat up and then?  It stalled maybe 15 seconds later. I joked with some others that the boat was broken
and now there wasn't going to be a trip.

Umm, unfortunately, the joke became reality.  Ruptured fuel line.  We got the news
and started to contemplate what to do.  There were 12 of us out there for this boat.  A group of
4 made a phone call to some other fishing place that must have been near there and they took
off after confirmation that there was still just enough spots left for them to come.

Then another group of 4 made phone calls to wherever, where they apparently scored and they
left post-haste.  Well, Caleb and I are left with 2 others. 1 had decided to go home, the other hadn't
made up his mind, I was in "aggressive panhandler" mode. I just drove 455 miles to get on that
boat, they knew I was from out of state, they had called me the night before to confirm I was
still coming and yes, I informed them, I'm en-route, about 100 miles out.

Well, they had another boat going out 2 hours later.  The problem with that boat - that I had heard
from people - is that it only goes out by some islands which are over-fished and may not bring in a
good haul.  Yeah, but we were up, awake and I just decided to get on that boat and whatever
happens, happens.  It was a full boat, unfortunately, meaning there were too many people and
lines were getting crossed all day long.  The worst part is that there weren't many fish caught.

I only snagged 2, Caleb gave up after an hour of it.  I subsequently learned that Caleb doesn't care
one way or the other about the fishing part of it, he just likes being on the boat and out on the
ocean. Well that didn't bother me and I made the best of the day regardless of lack of fish.

I can only say that if we go again?  Back to San Diego, not Ventura.  The San Diego trip a bit more
pricey, but if I can catch a lot of fish, I don't care.

I was actually going to go for a second day of it, but, I decided to go home instead.

Caleb probably would have liked a second day, I was just too worn out from the previous day's
endeavors on that boat to do much of anything but drive home. 10 hours of fishing sort of creeps
up on you, lol.

It was good.  I was glad to get out of town.  It was MUCH cooler over there.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened here at the house while we were away.  The only oddity was Duke.  He just could not stay away from me. I told him to go lay down, he did and just got bacvk up and got right back in my face. He has some pretty extreme separation anxiety issues.

I'm thinking of heading up the hill tomorrow and getting some mountain time in.  Maybe stay up
there until Saturday.  I'm not sure yet.  The weather around these parts is conducive to either
staying inside your house in the AC  or getting out of town.  I have to admit that I much  greater
like going up to the mountains in the tall pines with cool, fresh air than going to the ocean.

Not saying I don't like the ocean, just that most of my life in outdoors it's been in the mountains
camping yet at the same time, our family spent plenty of time at the beaches as well.  It would help
if I had a "significant other" to go to a beach with : )

So, a great time really.

ben

Well we're here.  I made the first 250 miles in about 3 hours, but when we hit the outskirts of LA we ran into rush hour traffic. 2 of us in the car, we were able to get on the HOV lanes and fly past most of it.  Until we got to whatever freeway that we had to merge on to - this place is loaded with freeways and suddenly? The traffic came to almost a standstill. That went on for over an hour before finally getting onto the 101 and it loosened up quite a bit.

Uhhh, the Motel 6.  Well, it's nothing like that horror-house Motel 6 in San Diego from last year.  It's just a regular old Motel 6 and so far I don't hear any noise that will keep me up.  Which is a good thing, cause' it's 8:30 and I am going to bed in a few minutes.  Brought my fan and my ear plugs, though, I can't really sleep without them.

Caleb was amazed that you can drive through the middle of the desert, out in the middle of nowhere, and still have access to the internet via the Verizon hotspot. It's all 3g out there, but it still works.  I have had this patch on for motion sickness behind my ear all day long - the instructions say to put it on 24 hours in advance. I felt kinda funny for a while but that passed and it's all good now.  Though, the doc did say it might cause' some fatigue and I am experiencing that - but I don't know if it's the patch or still left overs from that sleep aid medicine I took last night.  That stuff really kicked my @$$.  

That's it.  We got here in time to get about 6 hours of sleep after all is said and don. Not sure about being able to sleep on the boat, but it does have bunks and there won't be any fishing until they get out to wherever they are taking us to drop the lines in the water.  The point is I will try to get a little more shut eye if possible when the boat takes off. I am definitely NOT forgetting to take my warm clothes this time, either.  I FROZE last year most of the day out on the water.  I was kicking myself all day long for forgetting to bring the sweatshirts with me.  Oh, I brought them on the trip, I just forgot to pack them in the bag to take on the boat.

Anyway, precious time's a wasting, gotta to to sleep!

ben

Monday morning.
Took one of the "new" sleep pills last night at around 8:00pm.
It hit me in less than 15 minutes.
I was still trying to get stuff done before going to bed - not a happening event.  I was stumbling around like a drunk man and finally decided to just crash.
Here we are, 11 hours and 20 minutes later and I'm still dazed from it.

Although it works, I couldn't possibly use this stuff during the work week.

It's now almost 16 hours since I took that stuff and I am still feeling a bit groggy.  But not too bad, thankfully, as I am leaving in around half an hour.  Just had to go to Bass Pro shops and find a lure to try out on the ocean.  The fishing company gives live bait which usually works well enough, but I still want to try a lure anyway.

Well that's enough for this entry, I still have some things to do before I leave.

Later.

ben

Today is my first official day of vacation.  It is going to be hot outside today, at least 111 but probably even hotter.  So, what else is there to do but stay inside and do nothing?  I did all my running around early so I wouldn't have to be out in the heat.  Bank, food store and then I decided to stop at PetSmart to see if they still had little fishies on sale.

They weren't on sale, but it turns out the little goldfish are only thirteen cents a piece.  Apparently people buy them in bulk to feed other animals/reptiles/whatever.  So I got a bunch of them.  I figure to start a fresh crop of goldfish so I can eventually get rid of the giant ones I have in there.  They are REALLY big for a pond that small! lol  They grow so fast, the Koi are growing at exponential rates as well.  Which is actually unfortunate because from what I have been reading, they will not stop growing simply because they are in small ponds, meaning eventually I am going to have to depart with the big ones or go ahead and actually build the big pond that I have dreamed of having.  Like at least 1,200 gallons if not larger.

My "new" refrigerator is in place and is a nice, freezing temperature on the freezer side and nicely chilled on the other.  It is not, however, for my use.  I am moving into the smaller refrigerator and the tenants can have the new, big one.

I just cancelled my CreditKeeper account.  It gives me access to my credit report and also shows me my credit score. I haven't been able to access it in over 2 months.  I finally decided to just call them and get rid of it.  I will do a one-time score thing with another vendor here and there to see what's going on with it.  Well, I didn't use my aggressive panhandler tactics, I just asked for them to end it.  The lady on the other end of the phone said sure.  She didn't even try to convince me to continue on with it.  She then stated:  "I have issued you 4 credits for the inconvenience of not having been able to access your account and we truly apologize for the problems".  Reeeeally?  I didn't even ask for credits to my account and wasn't GOING to! That was a total surprise!  Nice to not have to get into all kinds of BS with a vendor for once.

Okay, so Romney has announced Ryan as his running-mate.  He also made a statement to the effect that he is not going to engage in the same kinds of smear campaign - which I might add is the worst I have ever seen - coming from the Obama campaign.  Charging that Romney is a felon, a dog hater, a woman hater and then the latest that he hasn't paid taxes in 10 years.  All I can say is that concerning the internet, anyone that calls me an Obama hater or a black hater is going to find that conversation ended and over with in an instant and if it's on a format such as Facebook, unfriended immediately.  When the left can't come up with any factual response, they always resort to name-calling or simply making up stories that are not validated by fact.

OH, and I forgot about the ad that states that Romney "killed" that man's wife in that attack ad.  What a crock of S***.  That's about as low as it goes.  It's obvious, at least to me, that the Obama administration is fearful of losing - considering the bleak state of the economy no wonder.  Romney needs to start hammering on the economy and the dismal failure of Obama - without all the name -calling and made-up lies.  He doesn't NEED lies, the facts are plain and obvious and need to be hammered into the minds of those that are still undecided. Even some liberals establishments are wondering if the unbelievable, harsh and vile attacks might end up backfiring against Obama.

I am still waiting for the debates.  That's what's going to make or break either of them, IMO, at least with the undecideds.

Well whatever.  I just called the sportfishing place.  I asked them about the Tuesday departure.  It only shows 3 tickets sold so far.  The man's reply?  "It's only Saturday. We are sending that boat out on daily trips, I'm sure it will be a go by the time Tuesday gets here".  OIC.  So, they apparently rely on last minute ticket purchases to fill the boat up enough to make it financially viable to send out on the ocean.  Okay.  I just don't want to drive all the way over there and find out that it's a no-go.  I would then be sent scrambling attempting to find something else, probably meaning having to drive on down to San Diego.

Hey, that was fast! Obama campaign has already released a video condemning Ryan's economics! ROFL!!! Obama has had his chance, all he has shown is that he absolutely LOVES to SPEND taxpayer's money!!!

G'day

ben

I had a -black - woman last night on Facebook insinuating that I am a racist because I don't like Obama and because I am blaming him for the wrecked economy. The posting that I had made stated something to the effect of "On it's present course, America will eventually become a third world nation".

Note that I did not speak of president Obama or any other president for that matter.

I immediately unfriended her.  If people want to debate politics, all well and fine, but to throw the race card into it is a non-starter with me.  I will simply end the conversation, make the assumption that the person cannot engage in an adult conversation without throwing out all the dirt and muck, and that is that.

But, my statement was more about the sad state of America and it's rapid march into declining morals and godlessness. The idea that much of the newest generation is not receiving a good work ethic.  The idea that living off the government is more acceptable than earning a paycheck.  The concept that crosses should be removed off of government property because of "separation of church and state".

Whatever. I found a refrigerator. Looks to be in good shape, cold one side freezing the other with a functioning ice maker : )  Being delivered today.  Actually, while I'm at work.  Mark will be here, though.  He doesn't actually have to do anything, just direct them, it's an actual moving company that the seller has to bring the unit over here.  I'm guessing they won't want to remove the old refrigerator to put the new one in, though.  I would have moved the old one outside yesterday, but I don't have a dolly.  I can borrow one from work.

I am definitely only half awake here.  The alarm clock went off and I was in the middle of a deep, deep sleep.  It really sucks when you are sleeping that well to have to wake up to go to work.  The only good thing I can say is that it's Friday and after today?  9 days off : )  I'm sure they'll fly by but I am going to enjoy every minute of it.

The debate at work, however, continues on with my manager and the main branch warehouse manager arguing over whether a temp driver should be sent to my branch or sent to the main branch.  My manager's argument is that a temp driver does him no good.  He won't know how to pull the product and most of the accounts we service out of our branch they want an experienced person to deal with.  If the temp driver is sent downtown they need only load the truck for him and give him directions on where to go and be put on less "delicate" deliveries.

The Operations manager was CC'ed on all of it and finally intervened, lol.  I do hope they aren't trying to dump guilt on me about taking a vacation, cause' it won't work.  I earned those vacation hours and I am going to use them.  I usually only do a week long vacation once per year.  Before and after that, it's a day or two here and there.  If the company wants to have an operation that only 2 men are running, all well and fine, but it's going to have to figure out how to acceptably deal with these situations as they come up.  I am going to thoroughly enjoy myself on this vacation, even if I am doing absolutely nothing at all, though the fishing trip is a 99% go.

Well whatever.  Time to be off to work.

G'day.

ben