More conviction, more strength to fight the battles.  Inner battles, I mean and am referring to the service at church today.  I wasn't even going to go, but something inside me said, no, you can't just stay home, you must go.  I was very glad I did.  Renewed vigor to overcome, fight the good fight of faith and come out the victor against the enemy's ruthless onslaughts.  This is spiritual warfare, in case you think I'm going Postal and gonna start shooting people, it has nothing to do with earthly weapons or earthly warfare.  In Jesus' name, I am going to overcome.

The weekend "grind".  Cleaned out the in-ground pond's filtering system, which was pretty full of fish waste.  Amazing how fast it builds up in there.  The water, though, is crystal clear.  The above ground pond I can now, finally say, is also crystal clear, you can see to the bottom, there is no murk or muck to obscure the view.  It was interesting to see the bottom of that pond is also covered with a layer of a sand-like-looking substance, it gives a very nice effect, actually.  Just the sand/small rock particles carried in by the strong winds that come through here relatively frequently, I guess.  It's nice to be able to look underneath the giant plant and actually see all the fish huddled under there.  Their hiding spot - they don't like something that's where they go.  The larger fish swimming around the bottom actually helps kick up the dirt/yuck stuff on the bottom and get it into the filter.  I had too many fish in there, I now realize, so, pretty much gonna keep it at it's current numbers.  The front pond - I still have put no fish back in it.

But, those little mosquito eating fish survived where all the rest of them died. Hearty little suckers.  They have that pond all to themselves, lol.  I have half a thought to go get some .13 cents per fish goldfish and dump about 20 of them in there to see what happens. They are VERY small fish, maybe half an inch to an inch long at most.

Debates.  That's what I'm waiting for.  I feel that the Presidential debates are going to be what determines who is going to be the next President of the United States.  A lot of "undecideds" are probably going to make their choice depending on who says what and what specific problems are specifically addressed.  We're going to fix this doesn't address HOW the economy is going to be turned around.  I will be watching these debates, they should be entertaining if nothing else.  I'll be interested to see if Obama talks the same way in person to Romney as he does on-stage, speaking to whoever at a crowd.  October 3rd is the first, scheduled debate - not too far off in the future.

Well, whatever.  Nice, large glass of sugar-free lemonade, going to go outside and get a few more things done today.

ben

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and cut that large, almost dead, plant down.  It will get a proper burial, ie: the trash can.  Once I get that down, I have 6, small, Cape Cod Honeysuckles to replace them.  I wanted the 8 or 9 foot tall Indian Laurel Column, but there was no way to get it home in my car and they don't care if I live across the street from them, it's $50 to haul it.  I absolutely refuse to pay $50 for hauling something this is 2-1/2 miles away from them.  I'll have to figure something else out about that.

Apparently our 2 man team at work got some kudos at the manager's meeting.
It's nice to get some sort of recognition just ONCE in a while.  I didn't even get that to my face, but hearing about it will just have to do.  One higher level manager was telling my manager "don't think your work is going unnoticed", is the way I believe it was presented to him.  It was put across as the statement that no other store in the United States could have pulled off what us 2 did in the last fiscal year.  Yes, we worked our @$$es off.  We had a few moments of - not being so nice to each other - but we got past that and are pretty much very busy every day. I'm not sure why management in my company is so short on  giving the good ole' pat on the back.  I don't mean every day, week or even month.  But once in a great while would be nice.

Well whatever.  I guess we are supposed to be in the "be happy you have a job" realm considering all those millions of unemployed workers out there, many of which have given up looking if you believe the statistics they are putting out.  I have a question: If Obama's Hope and Change didn't work the first 4 years, what's going to be different the next 4 years?  Oh, and since Obama is so behind all the "middle-class Americans", maybe he should takealookat the report the CBO just put out: that 6 million middle class Americans are going to have to pay the penalty for Obamacare.  Gee, Mr. Obama, I thought you were all about the Middle Class?  Oh, wait a minute, you aren't in that category.  You are rich, too.  You smash Romney for being rich and having bank accounts in the Caymen Islands, yet where is your own self bashing? Aren't you worth millions of dollars yourself?  And YOU think YOU can relate to the average, common-Joe/Jane?

No.  If I have to endure another 4 years of that freak in the Oval Office, I'm sure I'm going to pull my hair out.  I haven't heard anything about what's going to be done about this "Fiscal-Cliff" we are approaching on January 1st, 2013.  It's a fore-gone conclusion that neither one of them are going to do anything about Social Security.  The Post Office is going to be insolvent very soon, they have no choice but to either deal with it or let it go under (want to talk about the ending of a LOT of jobs?)  Medicare will also be insolvent, I think they said 12 years from now.  Hey, I know what: let's just print more money!!! WooHOOOOOOO!!

I didn't go up to the property - while mother isn't there - because I didn't feel like it.  It would be drive up there today and come back tomorrow.  Not worth that much driving for only one night's stay.  I need a 2 night's stay for me to actually think it's worth that much driving and the prep going into going up there.  It's been a while since I've been up there after the conflict with mother.

Well whatever.  I have work to do.

I'll never live it down.
I'm telling you, it will never go away.
But since everyone thinks it's funny, it doesn't bother me now.
It's the situation where our company was having a "Town Hall" meeting.  If you can't attend physically, no matter, just call into an 800 number and give them the password/code/whatever.
Well, I was driving home from work one day while listening to the general manager and......arrived at home while it was still going on.

Of course, if the dogs happen to be outside when I come home, I get greeted.  By dogs. Large dogs with deep voices whose barks are very loud.  Well, these cheap cell phones from our work don't have a mute option, so the sound of those dogs barking loudly stops the meeting, actually.  The general manager can be heard saying: "is everything alright?, what's going on?" as the sound of my dogs barking can be heard over the speaker or whatever it is they have set up for those joining the meeting by phone.  I didn't hear what was said next, I had the phone behind me and I was yelling at the dogs to shut up.

Well, from what has been told me from numerous people that were there at the meeting, the entire place erupted into laughter at the sound of my yelling at my dogs to shut up.  They apparently thought I had yelled shut the F up, but I can assure you, the f word doesn't need to come out of my mouth to get my dogs to quiet down, instantly, when I tell them to.

That subject came up yet again when my manager was at an annual manager's meeting at some lavish restaurant/resort. You know, the kind of place the refills your water after every sip and replaces your silverware after each use? But, they were all laughing about it which was good enough for me.  I had thought badly of disrupting the meeting, to be honest, at the time.

Well, anyway.  I left the tire store today, got another tire at half price - it was under warranty and it's tread was below minimum tread depth.  85,000 mile tire that got 15,000 on it. Those tires are now 25,000 mile tires and cost a lot less money.  The used tire they sold me was re-balanced and away we go.  Out the door, into the car and on the freeway, cruising at my version of freeway speeds.  Very nice.  Nothing like fresh rubber on a car for great handling as well.

I'm half considering making the trip up north tomorrow with the dogs, since my mom won't be there.  But, the whole situation has caused me to step back and realize that - I would really have to have my own property to be happy.  Everyone does things differently and sometimes that grates on other people. You can't really do whatever you might normally do on someone else's property.  I don't mean anything destructive, loud or otherwise obnoxious.  Just you have to respect the owner's wishes and that can put a damper on the situation.  I thought I had thought this whole thing through before buying a trailer to take up there to have some time away from the heat at, but this particular thing totally escaped me during that thought process.

Well, whatever. My bedtime : )

Sitting at Discount Tire, waiting. The spare they sold me last week is vibrating; the "check tire pressure" light keeps coming on and I wanted the new tires on the front, as I asked them, not on the back.  I'm not dissing Discount tire, they always make things right, I just didn't want to have to come here today. But, I can't be driving a car around that has an extreme vibration coming from the front end, especially when I am at high speeds on the freeway, so, get it done. Fortunately, they aren't busy right now, I even more hate having to wait for long periods of time.

A fresh weekend starting now, regardless.  Plans include more work on the east side of the house and potentially cutting down the large, almost dead, plant that really sucks that it is dying. 90% of it is completely dead with no hope of coming back.  I am going to have replace it - but how do you replace something like that?  With a 2 foot thing that will take 3 or 4 years to get as big as this one did (and effectively cut out the view of one of the hoarding neighbor's hoards).  So, if I want something even relatively large, it's going to cost.  I did see something a few weeks ago at the tree nursery, the thing was about 10 feet tall and was $75 plus delivery.  I can't dump a 10 foot plant into the trunk of my car, unfortunately, worse, they want $50 for delivery even though it's only 3 miles away.

I'm going to go back tomorrow and take another look around.  They have a HUGE nursery covering a lot of acreage and a lot to look at and take in.  Like, to make a decision after looking at all of that will simply require me to go back and look again.

Nothing much else new on the home front. Had ideas of going up to the mountains, but I ain't driving up there today, too tired. I wanted to tackle this mouse problem, though mother apparently has been all over it anyway.  Problem is, she's not up there so any mice will have free reign of the trailer doing whatever they are doing in there.

Hooker Gate. Okay, that's a new one. If the Obama administration isn't the worst overall consortium of people of what I consider to be of bad character (in some cases, that's putting it mildly), it's gotta be in the top three.  "Hope and change", he said 4 years ago, yet the

Thursday Night Football. Quite the joke tonight.  I compare it with a Little League Baseball game where one team has been - formed - illegally - if all the best players playing against a regular team that has both great, bad and everywhere in between players. The first team is kicking the second team's @$$. So it is with New York v Carolina.  Carolina being handed a dish.  A dish of @$$-whip that is.  Maybe that's more like a charged can of whipped cream.

I don't necessarily write entries every day anymore because - I don't necessarily have anything new, or I simply don't feel like it.  Not that I'm quitting, just get the urge here and there and other times?  Don't wanna.

The newest dish on Obama is interesting.  I don't care to discuss it as I am rather sick of politics, will November please get here, let me get to the polling place and get it over with? Thank you.  My vote has not changed since it became clear that Romney was going to be the GOP candidate.  I think others would have been better, much better actually, but I'm of the "Anything But Obama" camp.  Time to make some bumper stickers.

My manager was off work sick on Monday and Tuesday, at work on Wednesday and then gone today.  It's not that his replacement was a bad person or did shitty work, but that person does not run stores and though he may understand in theory what should be done, he doesn't quite get it in reality.  Which is okay, I just take the load and deal with it.  They don't bring managers in to take manager's place.  They bring in inside salesmen, usually, who already have a full plate in front of them.  I just give them a pass.  "Do you need help with pulling this order?".  No, I'll get it.  They can get back to their computer screen and I will sweat my @$$ off and be happy as pie.  Why?  Nothing like a good workout.  Lifting parts that weigh 100, 150, 200, 300 pounds a piece? I can dead lift 300 pounds, I really can't get it up higher than that, lol.

Weekend almost here.  I would like to go up to my trailer and see what kind of - situation - it is with mice.  I will not have a problem with killing them. My mother doesn't like the traps that snap their heads off and such, she drowns them in water.  Lol.  Well what's the difference? You are killing them just the same.  It's her way of dealing with it, so be-it.  I haven't been up there in a while now since the altercation with the dogs. I still am of the mind that the trailer needs to be moved off the property and do something else until I hear something different, but I don't want mice trashing the place.  She isn't up there right now and I don't want extended periods of time going without someone being up there and tending to the problem.  I am going to have to find out where they are getting in and taking care of that.

The newest doggy has obviously been abused by it's previous owner.  Whoever that is, piece of s*** and a few other choice words.  It will literally be years before that dog is considered anything near "normal", but she is a cool doggy anyway, just has issues.  I won't be getting rid of her if that's what you're thinking.  No, most dogs I have owned are from what I gather to be abusive homes considering some of the issues.

Well isn't life grand.  It is, right?  It's what you make of it?  To some degree, I suppose that true, but to another extent, probably more reliant on what you  make of the true and living God.

Just throwing that in there.

ben

The idea that cooler temps are coming - while true - hasn't exactly arrived yet.  Highs still in the low 100's for the rest of this week.  It'll be October before the highs are in the 80's, of which I can stand pretty well because that usually means the lows are low enough at night to shut off AC and open the windows.  A task I will gladly do in exchange for a much lower electric bill.

It is interesting that an obese inmate, slated to be executed for shooting and killing a hotel clerk some 30 years ago, is now stating that he is too obese to be executed because it would cause a ""torturous and lingering death."  I have mixed feelings on the death penalty.  I sort of think that should be God's purview and no-one else's, yet there are people that have been executed that I thought nothing of - they "deserved" it and that was that.  The biggest problem I have with it, though, is if the system is wrong and the person being executed didn't actually commit the murders or whatever that got that person onto death row.  You occasionally read about individuals who have spent 20 or more years in prison for something that they find out that person didn't do, whether from DNA testing or a "witness" that comes out and says they lied.

What do you do with a witness that lies under oath, in a courtroom and is responsible for putting a person away for life or even death row?  

Well, whatever.  I was just reading that article and came to the conclusion that I'll leave those kinds of judgments in the hands of the Lord, that contrary to popularity vote, God is a merciful God and those that come to Him through Christ, asking for forgiveness of sin and truly repenting of it - find that mercy and that forgiveness.  

G'day.

ben

Amazingly, I slept through the night last night.  I mean, I woke up this morning, looked at the alarm clock going off and realized that something that rarely ever happens - happened.  It was almost shocking.  I usually wake up somewhere between midnight and 2 am.  I usually have to get up, get a book or get on the internet and start reading something to get me tired again to be able to go back to sleep.  If I don't get up and do that, I will lay there for hours, awake, tossing and turning attempting to get back to sleep.

Well, whatever, another work week.  I don't even remember if there is work en-queue for today, but I certainly hope there is, there is nothing worse than going to work and having nothing to do.  That would hardly be true right now, though, we have been grinding for weeks and the shop - the entire place really - needs a good sweeping and clean up.  That's one of the "casualties" of having a 2 man crew with the kind of workload we are engaged in.  We try to clean up as much as possible, but, that takes time and when there are deliveries to get out, the deliveries take precedence.  The company knows we need another person working there, but they have assessed that the workload is only temporary and doesn't warrant a third, full-time person.

Great.  Hire a part time person to come in and simply do some cleaning.  I am sure there are plenty of bodies around that would gladly take some kind of work over the nothing that is out there.  Instead, upper management determined some time ago that they would send one of the guys from downtown to help with cleaning up the place. He is supposed to come every Tuesday.  He hasn't been there in about - 2 and a half months now.

Whatever. I'm not complaining, just don't really like a dirty place whether it's my home, the truck, or my workplace.  I spent a good deal of this weekend cleaning.  Sort of a bug that just hit me and I went to town. The east side of my property, though not done yet, is looking much better now.  MUCH better, really.

Teachers in Chicago on strike; Netanyahu obviously trying to get the US to do something more than just sanctions with Iran; the Obama administration at odds with other nation leaders about whether the embassy attacks were planned or "spontaneous", the world is full of good news out there right now.

It seems to me that Netanyahu is not really wanting to engage Iran by Israel alone and would like some of the world's leaders to step up with them and take a stand, it also seems obvious, at least to me, that sanctions aren't going to work and in the case of the leaders of Iran, will only strengthen their resolve to get the nukes.

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

G'day.
ben

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