Wednesday (already?)/Claim to infamy

"At Dorrie's Fun Forum, a virtual watering hole for a number of journalspace users, annoyance over the outage (sample quote from "benb" on December 18: "Will JS ever get their act straight? How many times do we have to go through this before this kind of nonsense stops happening? My fear is what is happening to all of our journals right now -- what kind of carnage will we return to? Oh well. Nothing new under the sun.") through a remarkable amount of fretting within the community over various personality issues connected with the small firm. "

I actually went to the site and read it there. Then I found a bunch of sites on the internet that are reporting this JS disaster. Reaming is a good definer for I have found concerning the statements regarding the site's administrators.

I'm intrigued by this AOL auction and wondering who is going to end up buying it. Have to wonder with all the bad press whether anyone in their right mind should be paying ANYTHING for it. I guess perhaps whoever is bidding is considering a bunch of us might come back and actually PAY to use the service again.

Meanwhile, someone posted a blip about LiveJournal laying off workers. How many sites do I need to back up my journal, anyway? I have a CD burner in this computer - never used it. I wonder if I could just burn each entry into the same CD until that CD is full, or do you have to have a new CD every time you want to burn something? Surely someone knows the answer to that. If I can just burn an entry on their every time, that would be the easiest and safest thing I could possibly do.

Back to work - this week is really going by quickly for me. I spent most of the day today driving all over the AZ creation - in all directions, too. 2 more days and the weekend is upon us. I'm drooling over this weekend because of the NFL playoff games that are in-queue for both Saturday and Sunday. I'm a little nervous because I want the Steelers to win and move on - never any guarantees there.

Mary did not respond to my message to her - I demanded a reply by this morning - meaning I am going to print out a 5-day notice and attach it to her door today. If that doesn't get her to take action, I will continue on with the forcible detainer. Mainly, I just want the RENT! I'm sure that may be too much to ask for from a person making $22 per hour and getting OT every week. Yes, she has a 25% garnishment taken out of every check, still a chunk of change left over. She picks and chooses her priorities - time to give her a fresh priority that should top the list.

I haven't seen Michael all week - though I didn't expect to - kinda strange not having him around playing video games and such every night. Almost eery the quiet I can find in here at various times now.

Umm, well I'm out the door to take the dogs for a walk, a thing I have been neglecting of late because I have been sick. I haven't mentioned that I am still coughing from the sickness I acquired must have been well over a month ago. The thing is just hanging on, lingering. I didn't want to do much of any exercise until it passes, but these dogs are going stir crazy. It's literally messing with their heads the fact that I am not walking them - after taking them every or almost every day for at least a 2-mile adventure. So - just gonna do it. Take a slower pace so I don't get to breathing in this cold air too much - it just starts making me hack away.

Anyway, c'yall later and hope to find enough time to visit everyone's journals.
ben

Tuesday

This morning, I came out to the kitchen to find that Mary had left a rather long, hand-written, almost illegible letter back to that of which I put under her bedroom door last night.

I spent a good deal of time attempting to read the chicken scratch that's hers in hand-writing. I can't say I'm any better, which is why I type everything out and print it instead of trying to hand-write things.

The contents of the letter were nothing short of outrageous.

But, getting past the "emotional" element that she added for extra flavor, I replied today after getting home with yet another letter.
Mary said that I had only given her $100 off the rent for the last 3 months. In reality, I have given her fully $345 total for the past 3 months, and $645 for the 6 months she's lived here. Hard to believe she's been here that long.

I then addressed her attitude. She has started in on me on numerous occasions - of which I either just walked away or put the fire out, depending on the situation and how elevated her mood happened to be. In this particular letter, however, I left no stone unturned. Including the escapade with waking my son up at 4:30 in the morning and demanding he get out of bed and come out here to turn the phone on. I later learned that this "emergency" of hers in needing to make a phone call? Whoever she tried to call didn't answer. She put the phone down and then started in on my son. Ken, the newer tenant, was right there and not only backed up the story, but gave much greater detail.

I also commented on the unbelievable gall she had in approaching Ken the other day, literally getting in his face, and speaking in very loud tones: "The food you eat is going to give you a heart attack"! You would have had to been there. I further brought up quantifiable lies that I have caught her in and also the situation with Justine, the person who used to live here before being ousted by means of an Order of Protection. I told her simply that I did not believe Justine's story OR her's (Mary's) and that if the truth laid itself out on my kitchen table, a very different picture would be painted, and that picture undoubtedly would include Mary doing MUCH more in this event that took place than what she's admitting to.

She also blamed me for her receiving a ticket - that of driving a vehicle with expired plates. This is when she wanted to start using my car. I only demanded that she get insurance. I told her the plates were expired and that she would be driving it at her own risk in terms of getting pulled over by police. I also told her my experience was that since it was only a month past-due, the police probably wouldn't give her a ticket. I said PROBABLY - AND - encouraged her to get the car registered before driving it. My letter today included those facts and that I certainly am not going to take responsibility or culpability for her taking a risk.

She then stated in this letter of hers that her license had been suspended. Folks, nobody gets their driver's license suspended for expired plates unless there is MUCH more to the story that I/we don't know about. Period. Somehow, I am also culpable for the fine for that, as well.

I addressed that and then left her with the final paragraph. Stated that her actions, including verbal abuse against every person in the house, would have to stop, and stop immediately, or her presence would no longer be welcomed. I also addressed the fact that she did not, in any portion of her reply, address the demand for rent. I have not given her the 5-day notice. Well, I take it back, she did address that she had spent money on the door for her new bedroom and that it would be helping me out, yada yada yada. My reply was that I wanted the rent and could not care one iota about a door being put in, rent is more important.

So, tonight, she comes in and says not a word. She left a few minutes ago. Dunno what she's doing, where she's going, but I am supposing that I will end up posting the 5-day notice tomorrow. I was going to do it today, but I put it off this morning in order to read this letter of hers.

Well, onto other things. Not much else going on, thank God. Work went okay today - some things to do in terms of deliveries, nothing great though. Tomorrow morning I will be driving to Florence to make a small delivery and then over to Casa Grande to pick up some pipe to deliver to a college in Coolidge. These are all small towns - well I assume Casa Grande considers itself a small city - in the southern portions of AZ. South of Phoenix, anyway. Well, Florence is more southeast of Phoenix, Casa Grande is almost due south. The rural driving is nice, I like that.

I'm waiting on word as to when whoever is going to get moved out of our branch. I have no idea when the decision is coming down. Could be tomorrow, could be a month, might never happen at all. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm off to get some things done around here. Hmmm, gotta visit Dorrie's forum and see what juice is getting spilt over there.....
kinda starting, just a little, to get the feeling of the community we once had just because so many of us are making real efforts to find each other and visit each other's blogs. That's a good thing, and if we keep that community spirit together, that is, in the end, worth more to me than all of those words I lost - though I definitely will be "lamenting" that loss for a while.
Good evening, folks, have a great night!
ben

Monday

Not a terribly slow day at work considering there really wasn't that much to do - but when the other driver doesn't show up, then it sorta spreads what there is to do out a little bit making things take longer.
News came again today that if the other driver doesn't go to Albequerque, one of us (drivers, that is) is going to get transferred to the main branch.
Of course, I had to ask: who.
The boss said he put his 2 cents worth in and it's up to the general manager and the ops manager to decide what's going to happen.
It came up because I was asking about getting tires replaced on both the semi and the smaller (but still quite large) truck.
The boss responded he was waiting to find out which truck was staying - which was the instant, obvious clue that our branch is only going to have one driver. No point in having 2 drivers at one store with only vehicle to drive.

..........
Now, of course, if they were going to transfer me to the main branch to do something other than driving, that would be a totally different story. There is no word when this change is going to happen - like most things, the decision will be popped onto my boss and then he will have to dump it on whoever gets the news. I don't think the other driver wants to go to the main branch and apparently he has changed his mind about moving to Albequerque. I would consider moving over there - but - I have my son here, not there, no way am I moving.

As far as blogging home, I'm just sort of throwing my hands up in the air. If JS is ever resurrected - and I mean to the way it was before, not some "new" way that is inferior - I will be heading straight back there. I dislike ALL of these blogging hosts immensely. They are not near as user-friendly as JS was. I suppose I will stay here - but I'm not really just here. I have mirror blogs on both LiveJournal and Wordpress with the intended result that if any blog ever crashes like JS again, I have 2 backups that will still have all of my "old" posts on it. If all 3 blog hosts crash at the same time, losing all my date forever - good sign to quit blogging, permanently.

Another - interesting development here as Mary has decided that she is putting off my rent until Tuesday. That's tomorrow, which is also 6 days past due. I'm posting a 5-day notice on her door tonight. She claimed that she didn't get paid for 10 hours of overtime. Great, what about the 80 hours of regular time at $22 per hour? Even with the 25% garnishment that she is "suffering", and even after taxes, she still has plenty of money left to pay rent.

I've been through this with her before. She says she's going to get money on some day in the coming week. It never happens. More excuses - the point is that she never intended to pay anything out of that check. I have already written a letter, the next thing is to do up another 5 day notice. If paying her rent is so far down her list of priorities that she doesn't offer to pay me ANYTHING when she has at least a grand in her pocket, she can just move onto the next place.

Ummm - nothing else, really. Not now, anyway. I have some dog dung to clean up outside and other things I want to get done out there before the sun sets.
C'yall later (or tomorrow)!
ben

Some Pics of my Trip

Okay, try to figure this out. The top pic is well underground at the mining operation in Tombstone, AZ. The man in the pic is the tour guide, we are at least 60 feet down, I think they said it's more like 100. It's very dark in there, they have lights set up here and there, but this guy was doing this in almost total darkness. There are 2 pics of holes. They aren 't really holes, they're shafts where they were removing the silver. The explanation was that the entire crew of people were give 3 candles to work under there. That's ONLY 3 candles for everyone. He further explained that they were basically working in the dark, but could tell the "feel" of the silver. And yes, we got to feel the streaks of silver in the walls and it did have a unique feel to it - though not so unique that I would be able to identify it in the dark.

The odd looking machine? An engine that produces steam. It would "drive" the piece of machinery that drills a hole into the rock. They would then put a stick of dynamite into the hole and blow that portion of wall apart.

Dad was having a hard time getting back up out of there. It was a lot of steps up and even people in good shape were panting. Ihad to stand behind him all the way up to make sure he didn't end up falling.

I was pretty impressed that he still has such desire to go do such things considering that it is obviously not that easy for him to do.

We all had to wear hard hats under there - the ceiling in man places was so low I had to duck WAY down to get underneath.

This is at the entrance to the building that gets you into the Kartchner Caverns. Can you guess which one is me? Lol. I don't remember being that much taller than my dad.

I've been setting here for hours attempting to navigate all the junk to be found on Blogspot in terms of trying to get the thing set up the way I want it to be set up.
I hate the pre-designed themes for the blogs here, I have gone beyond those borders and attempting to upload a couple of different blog templates that I thought looked cool - none of them would work.

Undoubtedly my own ignorance in that department, oh well.

And no offense, but having to do all that stuff on several blogs in order to be able to post a comment, including having to type in the "word" shown is a bit of a hassle.

The games yesterday, what a HOOT!!!
I DREAMED that the Chargers would win and potentially be up against Pittsburgh, I had no idea that it would actually happen. What a great game that was, too! Overtime, the Chargers win the toin coss and walaah, they actually manage to score and win the game. Manning never even had a chance to get on the field after overtime started.

The Cardinals also pulled off a HUGE upset, at least as far as I'm concerned, against the Falcons. I found myself actually rooting for the Cardinals. I know, kinda lame, I'm "supposed" to be a fan since it's my home team, but - I have always been a Steelers fan through thick and thin and will never let the Steelers take a number 2 spot on my very short list of favorite teams.

So there's a couple of more Wildcard games on today, I'll be watching those as well.

The extended periods of days off are over as of the end of today. For whatever reason, having a hard time getting my brain back into full-work mode. I don't have any choice in the matter, I'll be at work at 5:45 am tomorrow morning, and I will be there until at least 2:30 pm and that will be that. Afterwards - on one day this week anyway - I will probably be heading to Fry's to fill out an application in person and attempt to land a part-time job there.

My new tenant thinks I should just do the taxi thing for 48 hours during the weekend. Weekend Warriors they call them, people who just do it on weekends. I think I'd rather work at Fry's to be honest. At least, if I could get a job cashiering. Well, heck, if I had my druthers, druther be finding a job on the side driving a truck. That hasn't exactly happened, yet. As the economy dives further and further, jobs of any kind are becoming more and more scarce. Perhaps you might call it extinction. Not a heckuva lot out there and I did not bother to buy the Sunday paper today or last week cause' it has practically nothing in it. 3 pages - where it used to be friggin' 20 plus pages of employers placing ads for help.

Oh, I have pictures! Have yet to upload them to my computer, though. Try to do that later, I'm trying to get some laundry and other things done right now. Gotta make a trip to Fry's later on - for food, not a job - and I still have holes to dig outside, plus I was going to go get those poles today.

Again, this period of having all the time off is spoiling me. I could take another week off of work and not miss work -at all. Yes, I even have the hours saved up to do so. Lessee: 61 hours of sick leave; 40 plus hours of vacation; 24 hours of personal time and 16 hours of floating holidays plus 6 paid days off for holidays and I get my birthday off. That's almost 200 hours of paid time off for this year. Plus I accrue even MORE vacation time. 6.6 hours per month, to be exact.

I'm still wondering what's going to happen at the main branch at my company. Someone has to move to Albequerque (no, I won't even think about it). An inside salesman, to be exact. Which means, if/when that person decides to do so, someone will have to be promoted to take that person's place. I can think of some others that MIGHT qualify for the position, but the pickings are starting to thin out. People that are qualified are already filling other positions that have to have someone filling it. Wait and see thing - I have put my name in the hat more times than I can remember in informing management of my desire to get out of trucking.

Whether it actually materializes, who knows.

I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of - laundry.
c'yall later.
ben

Drive back was both fast and exasperating at the same time. There are far too many drivers out there now that think the inside lane/highspeed lane is the place to camp out and basically block traffic.
I ended up passing a lot of these people in the right lane. I'm not going to drive 65 mph in a 75 mph zone because some person is sitting in the fast lane and doesn't care that there are a LOT of cars stuck behind this person. You're sitting there, waiting for an opportunity to pass - yes on the right - after they pass a car. They're going just fast enough to slowly pass a car and also by the time YOU pass that same car they have made it far enough to block you from passing on the right.

So, I get home and the dogs, of course, go crazy. I gave them all attention, but then had to go to work. Get the Christmas tree outside, open up the windows - this place as STUFFY - BAD stuffy - turn on ceiling fans, whole-house-fan, and then go out and water all the plants.

Then, of course, I had to sit down and watch the Cardinals v Falcons game. A stunning ending - I had no thought whatsoever that the Cardinals would actually win the game. It was amazing to see the Cardinals pull out that win.

Now, I'm just waiting for the second game to start. Colts V Chargers. Colts, from my view anyway, favored highly to win. BUT - Chargers have home-field advantage. Perhaps another upset? Who knows.

I'm outta here - next game set to start.
ben

Saturday

Some good football (I hope it's good anyway) on later today. Dad and Millie are coming over to the hotel this morning, we're going to check out and head over to a favorite eatery of theirs. After that, we'll be heading back to Phoenix hopefully to arrive in time to watch the first of 2 NFL games on today.
Apparently Mary has had this guy over putting up the door and framing to turn the front family room into a rather large bedroom. Mary has complained about how small the bedroom is that she's currently in (of course, she got to SEE that bedroom before she moved in) and wanted a bigger room. I had thought about telling her to go rent her own apartment somewhere. Okay, it's just that sometimes she gets a little ....out-of-control.....is how I'll put it - and I have to end up dealing with her as if she were a little kid.
I already gave her permission to do that with the caveat that I am not responsible for the monies owed to her friend, in any way, shape or form, for the work that is done and further, that there is no rent deduction for the work and further that I will not be paying her anything for that work after she moves on to her next dwelling abode - whenever that may be.
If/when she leaves and if I don't like it, only a matter of tearing out the framing and drywall with the door and then a little patchwork on the drywall. No big deal. It frees up a bedroom. If our company starts cutting back hours: 5 hours per week cut is the talk of the town, I will not hesitate to rent out another room. It's that or sink. I figure if this economy keeps going in the downward spiral, our company will continue to be hit with slumping sales and yes, they will do whatever they have to in order to stay afloat, including laying off more workers and cutting back hours.
Happy new year, right? Lol. And some people wonder why I was and still somewhat am looking for a second, part-time job. I say somewhat because I filled out a lot of applications and received word back from only one of them. A minimum wage job, I passed on it. If I want to volunteer my time, I can think of plenty of things to do besides working at a concessions stand at the Phoenix Zoo.
This coming week will mark the start of back to 5 day work weeks. After having all this time off, that may be something of a chore to get used to. If there's nothing going on, it will be especially mundane. Yes, I'm glad to be employed, but when work slows down to a crawl and there's nothing to do, I tend to start fading out.
I've enjoyed a trip away from home, but - I'm definitely ready to go home and visit with my dogs. Michael has been over there for the last couple of days - after he told me he wasn't going to be there until I came back. Not that it matters - much - but, I just want to get home and see with my own eyes that everything is okay. I'm sure my dogs are greatly missing me by now. If I remember, I'm going to take a short video when I get home of all the noise and noises they'll start making. Duke starts whining like a baby and Prince makes this noise that sounds like a bear. Coco sometimes makes noise, but mostly just stands there, wagging her tail, waiting for me to unlock the gate and come inside.
Anyway, I'm offa here. Start checking everyone's journals later today when I get home.
ben

Kirtschner Caverns/Stuffed

Upon arriving at the caverns at 8:30 am, the place was already packed full of people.
You go into a main building, purchase your tickets and then wait. We had an hour and a half wait - the tours had already filled up that fast.
So, we looked at the abudant amounts of exhibits, had a coffee and watched a short film on how the caverns were found.

Seems 2 cave hunters had been in that area and found a - whatever kind of hole it is, it's an opening into the ground that tells the cavers that there's something there worth exploring. They had squeezed their way in there only to find the first point totally trashed and had been spray painted with graffiti. Long story short - they came back some 7 years later, squeezed their way through 400 feet of tunnel/opening that was no wider than their bodies (a VERY tight squeeze, in other words) to find a room.

The rest is history. They found so much awesome stalagtite and other types of formations in there that hadn't been touched by man, that they kept the place a secret for 14 years. They were afraid people would find out about it, go in there and trash the place. Which is what people mostly do nowadays. It's ridiculous.

Anyway - it was absolutely breath-taking. Just to get into the place you had to go what amounts to a large door that resembles the kind you would find in a walk-in freezer at a restaurant or something. They do that to keep the humidity in the caverns. Once inside, they shut that door and then open another one just like it. The steps that they take and took when considering how to make it accesible to people without killing it was absolutely incredible. You aren't even allowed to take pictures in there because apparently the flashes - enough of them over time - causes things to change somehow. I dunno, it was kind of a bummer I couldn't take photos, but darn the tour was one of the best I have ever seen or taken.

The man that was giving the tour was SO knowledgable and was pointing out things all over the place. I mean, really, words just don't do this place justice. You can't explain a place like this, you have to show it in photos or film. The only thing I might be able to do is find photos online that the officials have taken and then give a little appreciation of the place through that. It's a world-class destination, people literally are coming from all over the world to see these caverns. I would have to say that it would be a trip well worth it.

Regardless, it was a great time. But, between stuffing myself this morning at the Continental breakfast and the giant dinner my folks just made me - I don't think I'll need to eat for days. Literally. Gain 5 pounds on this trip, easily.

When we got back from the trip, Millie served a HUGE afternoon dinner and then we sat and talked for quite a while. Millie is quite the talker. After quite a while, I realized that my dad was looking rather worn out from all the walking this morning and he had already suggested that we might go to the hotel and then in the morning, they would come get us, take us for breakfast and then we would head home. I took the clue - my dad is getting much older than I realized and age is definitely having it's effects on his body. Didn't want to push him, so I figured we would graciously leave and give him a chance to go take a nice nap. I feel like doing the same, but not because of the walking. I literally feel like I've just gotten done eating Thanksgiving dinner.

I certainly have no regrets coming down here and visiting. Plus, Mary called yet again to put me at ease about the dogs, the house and whatever might be going on over there. Having that comfort, I have no problem staying overnight and leaving in the morning. Caleb is having fun swimming in the heated pool and working out in the gym at this inn. My dad prayed with him this morning about his grandfather's passing.

I haven't spent so much time underground - in decades. You can get the sense of being - squeezed - considering at one point there's 470 feet worth of limestone above your ahead. The Kirtschner Caverns are not underground, but more, they are formed inside a giant rock - that of limestone or granite. It's just absolutely amazing the entire story of how it was found and how it came to be an Arizona State Park, basically, that the state has taken stewardship of it and definitely are preserving it.

Well, I'm gonna go take a nap.
ben

I just don't have the time to get around to everyone's journal right now. I don't know about later today. Sorry about that.
I'm still trying to figure out how to navigate full 3 different blogging sites because I am triplicating my journal entries and I want to know how to use all 3 sites. That is, undoubtedly, going to take quite some time.
Anyway, maybe c'ya later.

Monday

Marriot has a pretty good Continental breakfast going here.
Bananas, yogurt, waffle machine, bagels, boiled eggs, all kinds of cereals, coffees, all kinds of bread and all kinds of jellies, jams, even peanut butter. Even a Jimmy Dean egg/sausage biscuit with bacon! I stuffed myself too much, I think.
So, today's venture is suppoed to be a trip to - some sort of caverns, the name of which eludes me. It's not too far a drive up the road from Sierra Vista, pretty much the same as taking the trek over to Tombstone yesterday. Apparently these caverns are popular, cause' there were no reservations available but walk up tickets might be available.
I'm living in a little bit to head back to dad's house and then we'll leave from there. Caleb seems to be doing okay today, but I know this is weighing on his mind, the death of his mother's father. I'm imagining that when he reconnects with his mother, that will probably when some open emotion will occur. Of course, my dad's a full-fledged minister, so there may be some words today as well, who knows.
Of course, when I leave home, the thing I always start missing are my doggies! Lol - sounds pathetic, I know. I am a little worried about Prince's tail - just that I'm hoping Ken is actually dealing with it. It doesn't take much time to re-dress the wound, but - I don't know how motivated he is. More-so that he's shoving those pills down his throat.
Anyway, just a short entry.
Hope everyone has a grand day : )
ben

Tragedy

Wow.
Life is indeed strange at times.
Surreal.
I posted this on Dorries Fun Forum, but obviously I must post here as well.
I was standing here, talking to my son while he was on his MySpace account, when my cell phone rang.
It was the pastor's wife that my ex goes to church at. My son has grown up with these people - in my case, both as husband and now ex-husband of my son's mother.
She had some very bad news: my ex's father passed away today, had a massive heart attack and that was the end of that.
So, Caleb - my son - called my ex and they talked for a while - she is flying out to Florida tomorrow - where her family is from - and will be there for a week.

My son said he had just talked to his grandfather just 3 days ago and he was fine.
It's the 1st day of the New Year.
We are down in Sierra Vista, Arizona, visiting his grandfather from my side.

There is more here than meets the eye. I haven't figured it out yet, but - eventually I will. Besides the obvious and the irony of the situation in visiting one grandfather and on that same day, the other one passes - there is more here. Besides the fact that it's a New Year and we are all celebrate the passing of the old year. Beside the fact that JS has also died.

Very strange to me. I knew this man - he visited us while I was still married some years ago and stayed for at least a month. A likable enough guy, we got along well for the time he was here.

Prayers for my son would be appreciated for those that are of the praying sort. I would like to believe we could have a great time tomorrow visiting with my dad, but understandably my son probably isn't going to feel much in the mood.

Never-the-less, we are staying until Saturday unless he voices that he wants to go home before his mom leaves. He wouldn't be going with her, anyway, so unless he must see her, we will stay here and finish this visit. Maybe. See how he does tomorrow, but my dad is a very godly man, still ministering in a church and I do believe he will end up praying with us.

For me, I was not personally related to this man, and though I'm saddened at the loss for my son's sake, I am not really that much affected by it. I always think about my friends and family - extended and near - that are getting older. I also think about my own life - enjoy it while you have it, it won't last forever.

Still, what a way to start out the New Year.

There's some great people I have met on JS and I know at least some of you will be praying, for that I thank you and for those that don't pray, good thoughts or whatever you do will also be most appreciated.

ben

Sierra Vista

I should have known a Marriot Inn is going to have a public computer. Nobody is in this lobby to use it, I can sit here for as long as I like.Drove the almost 190 miles (a bit further than Mapquest determined it to be) in 2 and a half hours. I have no idea how fast I was driving since the speedometer on my car is acting up - it showed we were going 140. Lol. Of course, you can do the math and come up with an average : )
Upon arrival my son and I engaged my dad and his wife - Millie - in a couple of hours of conversation before heading out to ………..da ta da taaaaaaa - Tombstone, Arizona. Hadn’t been there since I was a little boy. We ate at the Longhorn Restaurant - a very nice meal indeed. After that, we decided to go into what once once a silver mine. It was quite fascinating, and yes I have pics - but no way to post them until I get home. We went down a flight of 60 stairs they had built just for giving out tours, and then - we got into some pretty tight situations. Mostly had to duck the entire way through there. It was cool, but I don’t really want to give a detailed report of that until I get pics up and then just explain the tour through the pics.
My dad has some pretty bad arthritis in one of his knees and started tipping over several times - decided to stay close and not let him fall over. He just had a stint/s put into his heart not too terribly long ago. We just took our time and mostly stayed behind everyone so we wouldn’t be getting in the way of everyone. Again, it was a fascinating tour and the guide was very knowledgeable and made the tour both entertaining and educational at the same time.
Tomorrow, early, dad and Millie want to go to some caverns whose entrance we saw on the way down here. My dad has always been like this - always going, always touring, always visiting new places or revisiting places he’s already been to.
I left my dogs in the hands of the newer tenant - Mary disappeared after coming home from work yesterday and wasn’t around this morning either. The new guy said he would do it and I said I would give him some money off his next rent payment if he would. That was even more agreeable to him - I can hardly expect tenants to feel like they should be responsible for the owner’s animals if they don’t want to be. Oh, and I didn’t ask, he volunteered. It would cost far more to have someone coming over and feeding them once a day and looking in on them twice a day, so.
I have not been out of town on any kind of trip save runs in the company semi since before my house burned down July, 2007. Very relaxing. I had not expected that. I thought I would be tense and uptight just being away from home. Not at all. The Marriot isn’t a bad perk, either, it’s a pretty darn nice place. My son is currently in the work-out room and plans to visit the pool in a while - heated pool of course.
This little trip is just what the doctor ordered. My only “concern” is I want to be home on Saturday before the NFL games start up for the wild card games. They are hopefully going to be good games, even if my team isn’t playing. That will be next week. Which, Saturday is the planned day of departure, anyway.
That’s it, I don’t want to spend too terribly much time out here as I would like to retire to the bedroom and see what’s on the tube.
Have a great evening/day, be visiting your sites after I get home.ben
edited: I have no idea what I did to my blogspot journal, I went over there and posted this entry to find that it only has that one, single entry and everything was changed. Not sure what I have done? Oh well, here’s the entry, anyway.
Edit 2: I realized my mistake, I made up another blogspot journal under another email account, and entered that account id instead of this one's id. All's well that ends well......

Happy New Year!

Yes, folks, it's actually 2009!
I can't imagine what kind of messes the government will create or the condition of the economy by year's end, but for whatever reason, I'm going to remain optimistic.

But, my mind isn't really on that right now, I'm just about to leave. I mean, JUST about to leave.
I was trying to print out my dad's instructions and realized I haven't used the printer since the computer crashed and - there was no driver for the printer!
Okay, I'm just sitting here waiting for this thing to print it out - it's a slow thing - Canon i550 bubble jet printer. It has this windup - like a pitcher in a baseball game - cept' it takes it much longer.
Okay, deal done.
I really don't have time to write out a an entry that would be - normal - for me, I must get moving so I have time to visit with my folks this afternoon and on into the evening.

Hope everyone is doing well and putting the JS disaster to rest - I know that's hard for many of us - but, blogging is still available and I think it's possible to just move on. Considering we can all connect on Dorrie's page if we somehow are separated, that's a pretty good deal right there.

Take care - hugs to everyone, Happy New Year!
benb

Lamenting

I'm not sure I'm gonna get used to THIS place. I enable "translation". Great, somebody that doesn't speak English can translate.
NOOOO, that's not what this friggin' thing does: it starts translating EVERYTHING I'm writing into HINDI!!!!
WHAT?
I turned the translation crap OFF - permanently.
I tried to reply to people on the last thread, it was asking ME, the owner of this blog, to post my credentials!!
BUNK!!
I turned all that crap off too - ANYONE can post, I am NOT moderating this place, and I don't want people to have to enter a bunch of letters/words after they try to post a comment.
....
....
I never had that on JS, I ain't havin' it anywhere else.
......
I'm not real happy about any of this situation going on. Me and however many JS refugees like me that aren't happy, either.
It just doesn't make any sense that the site wasn't backed up on disks; external drives; friggin' CD's. I don't know how this stuff works, I do know that everyone on the planet that is in business backs up their drives. I guess everyone but J friggin' S.
.....
I can't get it out of my mind. I'm really TRYING to drop it, but - then again - I only found out TODAY that JS is a goner. People posting that we should just get over it? Sure, GIVE ME SOME TIME, THANK YOU. HALF A FRIGGIN' DAY IS NOT ENOUGH FOR ME, THANK YOU AGAIN.
.....
I don't mean to offend anyone, but - have some respect. Some element, an atom's worth of empathy for those of us that are REALLY not liking what happened and yes, it's affecting me/several others GREATLY. Maybe it's just that some had far more vested than others. Granted and understood. Now, PLEASE, grant and understand that I don't get over things like this in 12 hours time. I have 4 years of this vested: or - roughly 1,460 days - I don't even want to try to guesstimate the amout of hours I have into this. Maybe I don't even want to admit it.
...........
When I find something that allows me line breaks instead of the way it's publishing now, I'll stop the dots in between paragraphs/sentences.
.........
Well, I had a lot I wanted to say, but I'm just fed up with this particular day. Good riddance to 2008, 4 hours and 2 minutes until 2009. If I wanted to digest the expert's take on 2009, then I would probably be getting sick as the predictions are far worse than what has already happened this year.
..........
I'm ending this before I really start into things...................
G'nite.
Oh, and if you don't see me for 2 or 3 days, it's cause I'm out-of-town, at my dad's place and I don't have internet access.
ben

Wednesday More

Got off work early -- 11:30 am to be precise. The boss said not to sign out, I would get paid for an entire day, just the same as everyone else. The whole company shuts down at noon, but everyone that was at work gets paid a full 8 hours. Nice.
My mind has been full of this JS nonsense all day long, since I read that rather stunning news this morning on Dorrie's site about JS / Bye-Bye. I take solace in the fact that I'm not the only one that misses JS - dearly. Talk of asking Dylan to bring it back up from scratch has surfaced - I fully support that idea to the point of actually committing to continue to pay for my use of it, but is Dylan even interested in doing any more of this?
Talk of Dorrie taking over JS has also surfaced. Dorrie - if you did that - certainly a lot of people would be indebted to you for it, I just hope that if you are really interested in doing it that it doesn't take over your entire life. Again, I would pay for the use of JS to help pay for the service needed to be able to have the site and whatever upgrades and whatever else there is in maintaining a site like this. If enough people paid, it would be great if you got a salary or something out of it, too, since I take it that running something like this is akin to a full-time job. Honestly, I would think most if not ALL JS'ers would come back if someone as highly held on the JS scape as Dorrie were taking it over. These are all just comments in passing that I"ve read, though, nothing concrete. Even Bobby stated he would be willing to write a check for several hundred dollars to get JS up and running - undoubtedly hoping others would do the same. I would certainly send in some small amount - I just can't afford that much right now.
On my benb1.wordpress.com site I have started to copy and paste on to new, respective entries the posts from my JS past that I am finding. So far about 115 of them. I don't know how to find all of them, I am sure there must be more somewhere, just a matter of finding out how to retrieve them. Foregone conclusion, from the myriad of sites I have been reading, that getting 4 years worth is not a happening event. Not from Google, anyway. I have been searching the web and will continue to do so until I have either found what I'm looking for - or just ready to hang up the towel.
I had my neighbor's mechanic change the oil in my car just a few minutes ago. Same price as the oil change places - yes - just MUCH more convenient. Like, in my next-door-neighbor's driveway. An easy job, I didn't want to do it, I have all but totally quit doing mechanics after some 25 years of doing so. I just need to do some laundry, give Mary some instructions on Prince - shoving pills down his throat and changing the dressing on his tail - and that's it as far as getting ready. The car's vibration is all but gone. There's just a little hint of it at speeds of 75mph. I figure that the mechanic that told me that Discount Tire has the right balancing equipment but not the qualified personnel to USE the equipment must be right. I'm waiting til' after this trip to see if my dad will, indeed, give me some more money this coming year. I ain't asking but Iwill definitely be grateful. I'm also going to seriously pursue a part-time job at Fry's now that I have info on how, exactly, to go about it so that you get noticed by management. Working an extra 20 hours per week will be nothing different than the life I used to have in trucking at 60, 70, 80, 90 and more hours per week. Not exactly GREAT - but I'm looking to protect myself. If you read anything online, then you might run into the stories that all of these business mortgages are going to change this coming year and the comanies will owe much more money on the payments. That's what I read, anyway.
The prediction is a Sunami of foreclosures YET to come. What kind of devastation will THAT wreak on our economy? Don't want to know, but if it happens, will find out whether I want to or not. Having a second job is at least some protection.
The dogs were not able to penetrate my chain link fortress today. I'm sure they tried. It would be obvious if they had made it over, under or through it.
I've worn myself out thinking about this JS mess. Really, I have. I've spread myself out on 3 blogs - 2 repetitive sites and now my other Wordpress site to save my cached JS entries. And now, since it's apparent many people are headed to Blogspot, I'm going to simply start posting my entries in 3 places instead of 2: TrooperRat.livejournal.com; TruckersJournal.wordpress.com and TruckingJournal.blogspot.com. It will take some learned discipline to copy and paste an entry to 2 different blogsites, but in the end, it will be worth the peace of mind in doing so. I've lost too much, the sting of the loss is still very real. I can save some of my old journal, but all of it? Not unless there's some place I can find that's been caching my journal for years and still has all of it. I know those robots have been coming a long time, I don't remember the name of the robots (I visited the sites a couple of times) - and I have no idea how to find them.
Well, I don't really know if I"m writing again today or not, and again, I don't know if I'm going to be able to post any entries when I'm at my dad's, so - I'll bid ya'll a goodbye for a couple of days - or not - and will be visiting as many of your journals as I can. I do visit all of them, but I don't think you can see exactly who has stopped by, like you could on JS. I guess the only way to validate it is to comment.
ben

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