The BIG News

I've been hearing this all day on the news, you'd think someone had been killed:

COLD BLAST IS COMING THOUGH - or some such thing.

About 2, 2 and a half years ago, a hard freeze hit this area.  It destroyed a lot of trees and plants all over the place.  

They are saying this thing coming through is going to be worse than that one and are warning everyone to cover EVERYTHING up or it's probably not going to come out too well in the end.  

Well, I take such warnings seriously, I have gone to FAR too much work and trouble to plant all of this stuff only to have Mother Nature come along and kill it.  I have enough blankets and sheets that I accumulated from last year to cover just about everything.  I got even more this year I should be able to cover all of it.  My Christmas lights will also help.  If I had big fans, that would help too, but I don't.  

So, Thursday afternoon I am covering everything up and it's going to stay that way for 2 nights in a row, the length of time they are saying the hard freeze conditions will be around.....................and hope whatever I do is enough, cause if it isn't, I'm going to be a very unhappy person if my plants all die or suffer serious freeze damages.  I can deal with some leaves being ruined, but an entire plant?  Gag.  

Tuesday 12/28/2010

Tuesday

I was just reading some pretty bad news for baby boomers. I'm at the end of that one being born in 1964. Statistics were showing that many have not saved enough - or at all - and are retiring early at age 62, therefore not getting the full retirement amount you could get at age 70 through Social Security.

Excuse me, but who the bleep wants to have to work until they're 70 years old? And WHAT, exactly, are you going to be doing at that age in the work force, greeter at Walmart entrances?

I have 16 years until I'm age 62. Guess I better get busy. I had 2% taken out of my paycheck this year - I wasn't going to do anything because of my financial situation, but I just let it ride after my company automatically reinstated it to 2% at the beginning of the year. It's about to break the 5 digit mark. Nothing to get excited about there. If it were about to break the 7 digit mark, woo hooo. 

Further reading had these people saying they are going to work until age 70. Have fun with that. I'm going to up my 401k deductions this coming year since our company is going to reinstate full matching benefits as of January 1st, I believe it is. I'm going to set it at 5% and see what happens. 

My goal, still, is in rental properties. Out or reach right now, but not forever. 

Oh, the situation yesterday out front of my house. I was out there doing something, whatever I don't remember, there was a woman walking up and down the street, acting as if she was looking for something. This went on for a few minutes before I asked her if I could her find something - I had never seen her before.

The next thing I know, this woman is on my property, standing next to me, talking to me as if we were friends and had known each other for years. That wasn't the bad part, the bad part is she was REALLY strange. Talking a mile a minute, giggling and laughing at everything, not necessarily the most coherent being I had ever encountered. It was really weird.

Then, one of the neighobhood kids that has been walking the dogs for me came up to take one of them. This woman went berserk. She wanted to take one of my dogs as well. I don't even KNOW this woman, I'm not about to let her just walk off with one of my dogs! This went on for 10 minutes at least. I was out there at that point waiting for the next prospective tenant to show up. 

Well, this guy drives up in his car and I'm trying to get rid of this woman. PLEASE leave now, I finally had to say, I have business to deal with, thank you. She leaves, the guy comes in, I show him the house, we start talking about all kinds of stuff. At the end of it, the kid brings back one of the dogs and this woman follows the kid right through the gate and into my side yard!!! 

She also left the gate open. Oh, it was all too funny to her, I was about to let loose but decided to just politely ask her to leave. You left the gate open. Haahahahahahheeeheheeheheheeehehehheee. 
I looked at her and said there was nothing funny about it, my dogs can get out when you leave the gate open, I was still tempted to tell her to get the bleep off of my property, I just let it go and escorted her out. 

One thing is for sure, that woman is NEVER taking one of my dogs ANYWHERE unless she steals one of them. I have this - bad - feeling that she is going to be back today. I think a bit more bluntness will have to be in order if so. 

Work day is here.

G'day.

ben

New Tenant

A 2-way street.
I have people coming over here, looking at the room.  They say that they are going to look at other homes before making any decisions.
Great, see all the homes you want, I reply, but I am on a first-come, first-serve basis.  If you decide you want the room but someone else gets it first after you leave, that's the way it goes.

It takes them by surprise.  It shouldn't.  That person is trying to put me on hold.  Just wait while that person is going to make up their mind, meanwhile, I have 10 other people that are interested in the room.  And, while that person is gone, they think they find a better place and baam, you've held the room for nothing.  Not only have you held it for nothing, you lost all those prospective people plus, probably, it gets past the first of the month and your prospects start thinning out substantially.

So, I tell them up-front, such as the individual that came over here today: I don't hold rooms.  I mean, spent a good 40 minutes with this guy, talking, showing him around, etc etc etc.  He finally said he likes the place, but, he wants to go see another house.  Wonderful.  I don't really say that, I'm thinking it.  You go see that house, I'm never going to hear from you again, I'm moving on.  I gave him an hour.  An hour was up, another guy that called yesterday wanted to come see it.  Please do.  He came right over.  We hit it off from the start.  I didn't have near the connection with the first person.

One thing you want when someone is going to move into your house:  a good feeling about it.  A connection, a "yes, this guy or girl can move in and it will be a good fit" type of thought and feeling.   This guy wanted to see EVERYTHING, including the ponds.  I showed him the ponds, he loved the dogs, wanted me to show him that the TV in "his" room works and that the satellite is hooked up and working.  Yup and yes.

At the end of it, he says he has one more house he wants to look at.  I felt my face "fall", he noticed.  What's up?  "I don't hold rooms".  There is nothing else to say about it.  I do NOT hold rooms.  The phone was literally ringing off the hook while I was talking with him.  I said all of those calls were for the room - which they were.  I can't and won't hold rooms.  No thanks.  I have been there, done that, most of the time it does NOT work out, unless you want to put cash down, the room will be rented to whoever says yes first.

He thought about it for a few minutes and said yes.  This is the place for him, he didn't want to miss a good deal, wanted out of his current situation BADLY, done.  The other guy?  He lost.  He and several others were calling the entire time.  That first guy - I have no sympathy. It's a good deal here, it's a VERY good deal.

You see, it isn't quite the stretch for me to say, nope, not holding rooms, since they are going to sit there and tell me that yup, they're going to go check out other places.  I don't hold it against them, I just don't hold the room FOR them.  That's their choice and I might add they are taking a chance.  Whatever.  Not the first person that has regretted not saying yes right away.

Onto other things.

HAMP.  Home Affordable Modification Program.
I called today.  My lender, that is.  THEY sent me the paperwork out of the blue.  I don't have to fill out all of that paperwork, I did it over the phone with them today.   They ask a lot of questions, just like they did the first time.  Got to the end of it, they want paystubs for 2 months; a letter of hardship and proof of tenant payments.  Well, they had the pay stubs and the letter of hardship within 30 minutes of that call. I sat down and wrote up the same type of hardship letter that I gave them the first time.  Pay stubs were easy enough to get on my company's site.  I don't normally carry tenant contracts around with me, so, lol, I have that to send in.  Oh, I faxed that stuff over to them.

After all of this time, my lender is finally participating in the HAMP program.  NO guarantees, of course, but, I will hold out hope.  My lender is not reducing principle on properties. I have asked 20 times at least, today was no hold-out on that question.  Why should they?  I don't know, I just ask.  I ask for everything.  They can reduce the interest, reduce the payment, lengthen the term of the loan, apparently several things.  I do NOT want the loan extended another 10 years, that is useless.  I mean, it would bring the payments down, but it doesn't help.  I want reduced interest rate, THAT helps.  Bring the monthly payment down another $300 or more, that would be great help.

Is there any credence to $5 per gallon gasoline within 2 years?  I don't know.  This is the latest news story, the "experts" saying that $5 is coming within 2 years and that by the end of the decade there will be rationing.  I dunno.  I just don't know.  Last time they came up with this $5 or even more predictions, it tanked and we were back in the $2 plus change range.  Definitely feeling the bite at near $3.00 per gallon fuel now.

Strange stuff going on all over the place, the front of my house no different.  But, that story is going to have to wait until tomorrow, as I'm tired and I have decided to go to bed an hour early.

G'nite.

ben

Monday 12/27/2010

Monday

So, what do you think?
Should the babies that are born here - referred to as anchor babies, on U.S. soil from parents who are illegal aliens be automatically given citizenship? 

It's an incentive for them to slip over here, illegally, get their kids born here, now they have a "grip" on their own citizenship. I have no idea what the pro and con arguments are going to be in this debate concerning that of which they are taking up in Congress, should be some interesting reading. 

I think Mexico - the main supplier of illegal aliens - should take care of their own people and stop expecting them to come over here so that they can funnel money back over there. In fact, it would be good if Mexico could deal with the extreme violence going on on it's own soil. I can only imagine that many potential U.S. tourist shy away from Mexico at this point in time because of the violence and murder. You couldn't pay me to drive across the border right now.

Whatever. It's the week between Christmas and New Year's, traditionally a lot of people take time off during this interval and traditionally work is very slow. I do have a couple of deliveries today, that from Thursday, I haven't checked again today to see if anything new has popped up. Nope, just checked, just the same stuff that was in there. Well, at least there's SOMETHING to do in there. 

2011 will be a different kind of year for me. My son will turn 18, he will graduate high school and start his trek into adulthood by going off to college. Though, I guess he's not really going "off" anywhere, he's talking about going to a community college in the area and then to ASU, which is about 15 minutes from my house. My mom asked him yesterday where he was going to live while he is doing that, I did not hear the answer. I'm guessing he's going to stay with his mom or I, I don't know that for a fact. He doesn't make enough money to be able to live on his own or with other guys his age in an apartment somewhere. I mean, you get to an age where you sorta want to part ways with your parents. I understand that, I also understand it's hard times we are living in and money is tight and scarce.

Whatever, it will be interesting to see what happens and where this is all going. 

Meanwhile, I am going to apply for HAMP this week and see if I can get the federal stuff going towards my mortgage on the house. My lender told me on the phone some time back they aren't participating in that, now they have sent me the paperwork, lol. Letting the mortgage go for 2 months was a strategic thing - they won't bother to do anything for you unless you are behind on your payments. My property is now around 70k underwater. Something has to give here. I do not want to live in a house that may never see the amount I am paying for it. At the VERY least I want a greatly reduced, permanetly, interest rate. Like at least another 2 full points, if not 3. 

Well, work day is here. 

G'day.

ben

Visit To Mom's

Caleb and I went to mom's today to exchange Christmas gifts and have a bit of lunch.
Always a good visit, but she said that Christmas yesterday without us around (she went to my brother's for Christmas) was quiet.  Too quiet, apparently.  Did I sour the mood by not showing up?  I can't imagine the sparks that might have flown if I HAD shown up and middle brother started junk with me.  I would rather stay home alone with my doggies than do that.

As it stands, my Christmas was excellent and I have no regrets not going over there. I only see my oldest brother once a year - at Christmas, so this year, I didn't see my oldest brother.  The situation with my middle brother?  Maybe we'll work things out by next Christmas.  I do take offense at my brothers shrugging off our dad and I make no bones about it, which is what started this contention in the first place.

I find it inexcusable that year after year, both of them completely ignore my dad's attempts to even start a dialogue with them.  I would rather that they have it out with him than to continue this unbelievable, childish s*** that has been going on for what, 6 years now?  Have it out, get it over with.  But they won't and from the sound of the way my middle brother talks - it's going to stay that way.  So, he got mad at me when I asked him about it.  He said that dad "only sends a card maybe twice a year".  Well what the bleep does he expect?  He emailed him, called him on the phone - to which my brothers wouldn't answer, sent cards, what else is a person supposed to do?

Well, enough of that.  I just get ticked off when I think about it.  Anyway, I DID send my oldest brother and his wife their normal Christmas present of  Omaha Steaks.  They like it, that's good.  They sent some presents for us to open with mother - so - Caleb and I both got $50 gift cards to Best Buy.  Caleb asked me if I wanted his card.  Well, sure, but it's for you.  Caleb got $75 worth of cards to go to Gameworks, THAT is where he is at right NOW.  I probably should have informed him that they have all kinds of cool stuff at Best Buy, well I did try to tell him, but he just said take it.  So I did.  $100 worth.  Best Buy sells Windows 7 software.  It's $199.99.  I'm $100 on the way there.

Spending money on anything but bills and necessities are pretty much on hold right now until I get the room rented out and find out whether I have to evict the non-paying tenant or not.  She got way behind before but then got caught up.  I'm guessing for as little time as she is spending here, she might be thinking of moving out. I am going to give her a good push in that direction or paying up: 5 day notice, will be delivered tomorrow.  Funny thing is, I just got a call from a small family that is looking to rent out 2 rooms.

If you add up expenses on renting out 2 rooms in my house versus renting out an apartment, you come up with my house being a much better deal.  You just don't have total privacy since the house is being shared.  The rent is flat rate, so, you are not spending all the extra money on electricity, laundry, internet, satellite and water/sewer bills.  Plus, with all these people short saleing their homes or getting foreclosed, a lot of bad credit that apartment won't rent to.

Anyway, I just keep running the ad until I get the room rented, however long that takes.

Christmas is over, New Year's to come.  I'm going to make one resolution this year and see how long I keep it.  Again, it's to work out with my free weights.  I do some here and there, the resolution would be for at least 3 times per week.  I would like to get myself in toned condition again.

Well, my co-worker and her husband gave me a little bag yesterday with some goodies in it, I was afraid they were going to do that and I wanted to take something over there to give in exchange - but I had no clue what to take, so I didn't get anything.  Anyway, there is a cigar in there and I think I'm going to go out and smoke half of it.  Oh, that's another thing.  Not a New Year's resolution, either, just going to cut back on cigars quite a bit after the New Year comes and goes.  At most once per month is all I'm going to allow myself.  I've gotten it up to once per week and I feel that's too much.  I was at once every 3 to 6 months.

Oh, I forgot, my mom: she absolutely LOVES her new TV!  It's a 19 inch flat screed HD LCD TV.  I got it on Black Friday.  She wants to get rid of Satellite TV in favor of - whatever you can get through the air waves.  She has a converter box - we set all of that up.  It works perfectly and there are a LOT more free, local channels available than I expected, one of which mostly shows movies (a think she liked).  Great quality picture, too.  Yeah, I know, 19 inch TV isn't that big, but that's what she wanted and I wouldn't have been able to afford anything bigger.  As it stands, I don't have a flat screen TV or HD myself.  I'm not going to get one, either, until I can afford to get at least a 48 inch version.

My mom is a bit - interesting.  She owns the house she lives in outright.  She only has to pay taxes on it every year.  Her expenses - obviously - aren't going to be that much.  If I could dump the mortgage payment I would feel like I'm rich!! Lol.  To talk to her about finances, though, you'd think she was dirt -poor and broke.  Not withstanding the fact that this year, she bought a pickup truck outright for cash, lol.  Okay, she IS on a budget: she lives off the interest/dividends of her investments.  Still, she refuses to buy herself this kind of stuff - the TV, last year a digital camera - so, I just have to chuckle when I give her this stuff that I KNOW she could afford to buy herself.  Well, it is nice to give her something she wants, anyway.

JD - the "elder" black kid that is still coming over here to use the internet when I'm not on it - well, I left him a Merry Christmas note last night.  Caleb said he was all bummed out cause I didn't leave a gift.  Yes, I thought, the gift is letting him use the internet, isn't that enough?  Oh well, I understand, it sucks to not have money.  I know the feeling all too well.  They don't get much for Christmas.  I thought about Michael and Anthony, pretty much figuring that if their Christmas goes like most of them, they got nothing or very little.  I do believe that this time, they are gone for good.  I have no sympathy.  They are ungrateful freaks of nature.  The best way I can put it without - going into obscenities.  That's about the best adjective to describe those 2: ungrateful.  Their mother was much more giving in her statements to me that I have helped them a lot, yes I have.  For those 2 kids to treat me the way they did when I threw them out of here, good grief.

Whatever the case, I'm going outside. It's absolutely beautiful weather out there.  The dogs?  Are crashed out like it's the middle of the night in front of me.  I mean, laid out, done, cooked, it's over with.  Yet, when I put on my "Farmer Ben Hat" - a gift from an ex-tenant (a great tenant at that) when he left, they KNOW what I am up to, get right up as if they just drank a Jolt cola and are out the door with me.  I'm telling you, though, it's
almost eerie to hear a dog snoring like he's some sort of human.

G'day.

ben

Sunday 12/26/2010

Perfect day yesterday.
The Standing Rib Roast turned out beautifully.
Melt in your mouth steak goodness.
Had to cook it a bit more after pulling it out of the oven, though, for people that don't like rare meat.
Oh well.  I wouldn't dare ruin a piece of meat that delicious and that expensive by over cooking it, but what anyone else wants to do is their business.

I had a lady over today looking at the room for rent.  Nice gal, said she was going to look at several other places and would call me back tomorrow if she wanted it.  Meanwhile, I have several phone calls and emails out to those that contacted me yesterday about the room.  Hopefully I get a taker out one of them.

Going to mom's house in a bit less than an hour.  We have gifts to exchange and I know she wants hers, lol.

Not much else going on.  Tenants are gone.  One of them is going to receive a 5-day notice tomorrow - she is 2 weeks behind on her rent, has hardly been here and doesn't say anything about money when she does come through.  No point in dragging this out forever, she has a place to stay apparently so, let her stay there and let me get someone else in the room.

Oh, another 4 day work-week in-que.  Then it's fully 5 months before another holiday day off.

Anyways, Happy Sunday!

ben

Merry Christmas!

To strangers, friends and family alike, I bid all of you a very wonderful and Merry Christmas!!

In a few hours I am leaving for the Christmas breakfast - do that a couple of hours, head home and cook the nice Standing Rib Roast.

I could kick myself for forgetting to get some horseradish yesterday when I was out and about.  Stores are all closed today except convenience stores - which probably aren't going stock horseradish sauce, lol.

Anyway, not going to go into a long entry here, just wanted to send well wishes and warm greetings to everyone,
hope you all have a great day!

ben

Christmas Eve Shopping

Unbelievable and highly entertaining.
I made several stops today, all over the place.
First was Bashas.  Since I was giving away my Holiday roast and my Standing Rib Roast that I bought last month is in the freezer, well, had to get another one.

It was 10:00am or so and that place was PACKED.   I mean, I know tomorrow a lot of places are going to be closed, but I had no expectation to find that kind of crowd in a grocery store that early.  I go to the back to the meat department  - Standing Rib Roasts out. Ring the buzzer - guy says there are none but they will have some in about an hour as they sent someone to get them.  He then informs me they are going to be small.

No thanks.  I got a ham, though, cause they were on stupid sale and couldn't pass it up.  The line was LONG.  There were no self-serve aisles in that store, so I stood there listening to 2 men babbling away in front of me while a container of carpet fresh stuff was spilling out onto the floor - the guy had it in his hands.  I finally said something, nothing crass, just, umm, do you know you are losing the contents of your container on the floor?  I point to the floor which is covered with the granules.  Oh, they said, thanks for telling us.  Every container we picked up was leaking.  They put that think on the belt and covered the belt with it, too.  Personally, I wouldn't buy something that is losing it's contents, but that's just me.

I was surprised to hear the lady working the checkout telling customers Merry Christmas instead of this "Happy Holiday" junk.  That was pretty cool.  I wished her the same after I was done.

Drove over to the next Basha's.  Lots of people there, but nothing like the first one.  I walk to the back.  No Standing Rib Roasts out there, either, but, I overheard a gentleman talking to an employee - meat department that is - telling him what he wanted.  Standing Rib Roast.  Okay, then.  I waited until he came back out with a very nice looking roast and asked him if there were any more.  Yup, we just cut them to order.  Great, give me one like what that guy just got.  Nice.

Out of there, onto Walmart.  Needed a new phone cord, one of the dogs destroyed it last night.  Place was packed.  I wandered around, but, I am not buying a lot of presents this year.  My mother, my oldest brother and something for my son, that's it.  After a bit of searching, I found where the cords are.  They were sold out of the 25 foot cords, which is what I needed.  Nevertheless, I'm there, got some dog food and a few other things, got into a line, heard a few people going off, left.  Saw Gamestop in the same strip mall - just what I was looking for - a gift card for Caleb, that's all he's getting from me for Christmas after spending a lot of money to get that old car going so he could start driving.   Not a long line there, but the 2 people that were at the counters were taking FOREVER to make up their mind and buy what they were going to buy.

Over to Fry's electronics.  I wandered around that store looking at everything.  One can dream.  Got a 25 foot phone cord and got out of there.  The line was at least 50 people long, but when there are 30 cash registers going (at least), it isn't a particularly long wait.

Fry's Food Stores.  Made up in my mind that if something went wrong in there, I would just keep it zipped, smile, say Merry Christmas and move on.  Unless, of course, it turned into an incident such as with the meat department person over a year ago that wanted to get into a fistfight................

They didn't have any white dinner rolls left.  Well, they had one bag - it was opened.  I am NOT buying a bag of opened rolls.  The store's general manager - of whom I have had a large number of interactions with but none recently as I gave up on the self-service checkout junk and the terrible service there in reference to asking them to make it WORK - was standing there in the bakery department.  I asked him if there were any of those rolls in the back.  He went back, nothing.  Got the lady running that department and asked her. No.  Funny to be out of dinner rolls the morning before Christmas day, when they are getting nearer to closing time, sure, but it was all day before that was going to happen.

The manager said he would look in a different part of the bakery where they must have had some, nothing there.  Instead, there were pre-packaged rolls, not the store's freshly baked stuff.  Well who cares, I'll take whatever they had.  The lady running the bakery started giving me a rather lengthy description of the different types of rolls that were on those shelves.  Thanks.  I didn't really need an explanation - they're just rolls - but I listened. I then went to get some bacon.  The stuff that was supposed to be on sale was - out.  16 oz Tyson bacon for $1.99.  Great price.  Gone.  They had some other bacon - 12 oz - for the same price.  Less product, but it  was still the best price per ounce left available - I'm having a Cobb salad with my prime rib tomorrow, thanks.

Getting out of there and wishing a lot of people Merry Christmas, I headed to the cigar place.  I wasn't going to have one this weekend but, it's Christmas.  I'm going to stop smoking them for several months - at least.  I just don't need an addiction, a potentially harmful one at that.

Home.  Stuff.  People. Issues.  Empty room that needs rented.  On and on.  The people showed up for the roast, got to talking and I was glad to help them.  My sick neighbor - has pneumonia - finally showed up outside.  He STILL sounded and looked bad.  Talked awhile.  Darkness.  Christmas lights on.  I'm in the Christmas spirit.

Leave out some milk and cookies for Santa?

Lol.

G'nite.

ben

Friday 12/24/2010 Christmas Eve Day

I am going to be out and about today.
I like people watching during the holidays.
Not for "strange" purposes, the entertainment more often than not
is in watching families that are going crazy trying to get everything
done, arguing, pushing, fighting, lol.  Really, it's sometimes just fun
to sit and watch.
I also decided to help a family out this Christmas with a dinner.
I haven't given out food in quite a while, just hasn't really been in
the financial cards to do so, I am sort of making up for that today.
A family is coming to get a roast and some fixings to go along with it
later on today.
That will be the extent of that kind of thing for a while.  There are a
lot of people asking for food help right now, I just can't do too much.
Anyway, just wanted to post a Merry Christmas to everyone.

Thursday 12/23/2010

Thursday

On the cusp of a 3-day weekend.
Usually, we get off early on the day before the holiday day. Basically, crews go home early at construction sites or go out partying, there is no point to staying open.

There are, amazingly, a couple of deliveries in the system, though - but - it rained all night long and I don't wonder if they will all call it a day before the day has even started. I will be finding that out a bit later, still too early to start calling contractors. 

I'm going to a Christmas breakfast at a co-workers house tomorrow. I'm wondering if I should take a gift with me and if so, what, exactly, should I take? Indeed. 

I guess the news of the day is that the tenant I suspected was moving out? Pushed that up much closer than what I expected. He came into the kitchen yesterday, handed me a money order for this week, told me he is moving out. I asked when. "Now". I bluntly asked him if he had EVER heard of a giving a notice in advance? He went into a litany of reasons why he must move, that he had to help out his mother in Alabama with money and this, that and the other thing. 

I then asked him if he was moving in with his girlfriend. Yup. Okay, thought so. Girlfriend has money, principal of a high school in Scottsdale. Nothing I could do, bye. 

I haven't gone in there to look at the aftermath, though I JUST got done painting that room before he moved in what, a few months ago? He hasn't been in my house all that long to begin with. Whatever. I'm bracing myself in case more of this kind of lovely news is coming from any of the other 2 tenants - it has happened that way before where 2 or even 3 are moving out relatively close to the same time.

I started putting up a Craigslist room rental ad while discussing this situation with him. He looked at what I was doing - you are putting up an ad right NOW? Yes, of course I am. What, am I going to sit here and wait until you are completely out? I would have started running an ad if I had had an advance notice of your departure.

The only good thing is that it is near the end of the month and it is the time of the month when people are looking to move. 

So, with that, I am offa here to go place yet another ad - 2 per day - until the room is rented.

G'day.

ben

Wednesday 12/22/2010

Wednesday

The Car.
I went over to Caleb's mother's house yesterday, go Caleb, went to the shop. My old car sitting there, acting as if nothing had happened. Or so I figured that car would say if it was ascencionate and could talk. 

The mechanic pointed me to a separate building. Okay. This building 150 feet from the shop. Kinda strange layout. I go inside that building and was very surprised at what I saw in there. They might be calling it the shop office, I was calling it a museum. The entire waiting room was lined with objects from the past. An old gas pump - like 50 years old at least - that had been completely rebuilt. Old Coca-Cola pictures - the real thing, not cheap fakes - lined the walls. Old fire hydrants and an OLD oven that looked like it just came off the factory floor. 

The stuff in there was in such incredibly good condition, I forgot what I was in there for a few seconds as I started inspecting everything. But, the mechanic came in. Turns out he is also the owner. He had driven the car several times, had it idling for hours (my over half tank of fuel was now done to a quarter tank, so I pretty much believed that). 

He had ideas - 3 ignition components that he recommended to be changed out if this problem persisted. Of course, he threw in there that one of them was "expensive, though" at $200. 

No idea. Just drive the car and see what happens. I drove it home, drove it to work this morning, nothing. 

Changing the subject, one of my company's credit personnel called me yesterday out of the blue. I don't normally get calls from those people. She was asking me what I am doing on Christmas morning. Nothing spectacular, I replied. Well, why don't you come over and join us for Christmas breakfast? Took me about a half a second to think about it and accept the invitation. This family are really cool people. I have no idea why she invited me, but she also brought a large pot pie for me to work last week, of which I consumed all of it.

No, she isn't single, either, she's happily married and I met her husband at the Christmas party, turns out he is also a truck driver. He hauls a fuel tanker taking gasoline to fuel stations around the Phoenix area. I've heard those drivers make good money. 

Speaking of single, I have been getting a LOT of hits lately on Plenty of Fish. Started talking to a few of them and one of them claims she wants to meet me. That's nice, please tell me something about yourself first! I mean, seriously. Okay, I do have the profile thing that asks you all kinds of questions and comes up with a personality analysis that everyone can see, I wonder about the accuracy of those things, though. Kinda cool to see some ladies taking interest if nothing else. One of them is a cowgirl, claims she is 42 years old and is on the go all the time. She's a pretty thing, looks more like late 20's than early 40's. 

Anyway, I am busying myself with responding to some of them and seeing if any of it might go anywhere. 

Meanwhile, 90% chance of rain today. Usually, that means it IS going to rain. Oh, and now, South Korea has turned on the rhetoric machine towards North Korea and supposedly is going to engage in the largest live-fire drill ever. Stay tuned folks, I'm sure they'll figure out how to get themselves into a real war pretty soon......too bad they are so hell-bent on such and our troops are over there. Then again, something definitely needs to be done about the nuke situation.

But, it's Christmas time. You couldn't tell that by reading the news. You also couldn't tell that by reading numerous online boards that I do with people getting into heated arguments over whether we should be calling it the holiday season or Christmas, Holiday tree or Christmas tree.

Hmmm, well, I have a Christmas tree in my living room to celebrate the Christmas holiday. 

My time's up for today.

Merry Christmas!!!
ben

Tuesday 12/21/2010

Tuesday

I have reason to believe on of my tenants is moving out - without actually saying he's moving out. A rather elongated discussion with Lynn (trailer tenant) yesterday revealed that he was moving a LOT of stuff out of his (the tenant that may be moving out) yesterday. 

This individual told me he was going to hang out with a cousin that is visiting from Alabama and then he was going back to Alabama for Christmas and wouldn't be back until the 4th, I think it was, of next month. I won't be waiting that long to post a notice of abandonment on his door, since he owes me rent for this week. 

Some people are that way, just leave, don't give any kind of notice. It's hard to start running room rental ads when you don't know when, exactly the person is going to completely vacate the room. Hence the need to post an abandonment notice. 

Umm, so, I am bracing myself for the eventuality - maybe very soon, of having a room vacated and having to try and find another tenant. Not a great time for something like this to be happening, but, worse has happened.

Well, work day got here before I knew it.

G'day.

ben

Monday 12/20/2010

Monday
4-day work week, since Christmas falls on a Saturday, Friday is off. So, it's Tuesday already!

My mother wrote me an email yesterday asking if I was coming to Christmas. This apparently isn't going to stop. I told her that I had an exchange with my brother, he's still playing his games, I'm not going to be there. I can stop by the day before or the day after if she'd like. 

My brother doesn't want to deal with his statements that I am evil, "just like dad" - to him that is a bad thing, and other malicious statements that lead me to believe that my presence at a Christmas "celebration" at his house would only turn into a disaster, as I will not just stand there and take his verbal assaults. I would just leave. This, in turn, would ruin Christmas for mother if no-one else, might as well just let the negativity fall in place beforehand. I don't really care one way or the other if I am there or not. In fact, I wish they would just let it go at this point - unless my brother wants to deal with the verbal altercation that occured.

He does not. Apparently, his idea of dealing with something like that is to get out the shovel, dig a hole and bury it, acting as if nothing ever happened. 

Whatever. It's only 3 minutes before work starting time, I was reading a lot of news before getting to this - NK apparently has backed down, Obama is going to face a tough campaign due to redistricting, a pipeline blew up in Mexico because of thieves attempting to steal whatever is going through that pipe, on and on. Even a story about Santa Clause was pretty negative stuff. Bookings are down. Santa charging $200 per hour? That's quite a lot of money, if you ask me, but you didn't.

So, that's it, the work day is here.......
g'day.

ben

Cafe World Tips 26: Gift Holiday Tree Ornament

This is a hack, folks, I'm telling you and warning you right now.  Zynga has doled out some pretty serious consequences to people using hacks in this game when they are found out.  Some people have their accounts completely removed, others face having all that the hack did for them removed from the game, including any leveling up it did.

For those that are hell-bent on using cheats - here it is:  http://apps.facebook.com/cafeworld/send_gift.php?gid=2948

I doubt it will last very long, though, Zynga is usually all over this stuff once they find out about it.  I only include it in my tips because people are going to do this stuff regardless, I just wanted to through out the warning.  If nothing happens, so beit, but if you face penalties for using it, well, all I can say is: you have been warned.

That cheat makes it so you don't have to do the Treasure Isle junk to acquire the ornament or you don't have to pay $8 Cafe Cash to bypass it.

Sunday 12/19/2010 6 Days Til' Christmas

The Playstation 3 stopped working yesterday.  It had the "Yellow Light Of Death" going.  Meaning you try to turn it on, the green light comes one, followed by the yellow light, followed by the red light, where it stays red.  Caleb comes out "just telling you" that it's broken.  Well whooopdie doo.  I don't have $150 to be spending on that machine in sending it to Sony to get it fixed.  That's what they charge, a flat rate of $150. Whatever's wrong wtih it, that's what it's going to cost. $80 of that money is just to get it there and back via Fed Ex.

Screw that.  After that happened last time with the now-stolen PS3, I found people in Craigslist that say they can fix them.  I found one that fixes the YLOD for a flat rate of $45 yesterday.  We took it over there.  About 8 hours later, Caleb went and got the thing and we now have a functioning PS3 again.  My dad sent him a Christmas gift of $75, guess who's getting $45 of that?  Yes, indeedy, me, for getting that thing fixed.  He played it all night long, so I'm assuming he thought it worth the money to fix.

I wrote my brother back after he sent me a reply correcting me and telling me what Christmas is and what it isn't.  Not feeling to good about this situation, I told him such.  What's going to happen when we're in the same room and - he wants to open his mouth and let all kinds of s*** come out of it.  He hasn't responded.  I don't really care anyway, I doubt we are going to go unless Caleb wants to go by himself.  He isn't apologizing for saying the things he did to me, I take that as a bad sign, like, show up and WWIII is going to start. Who needs it.

Well, my Christmas tree is up, but I need lights for it.  Gonna have to go through all that stuff out back and hopefully find enough working strands to get it lit up nicely.

I was also out there yesterday going away at grass and some overgrown plants - I am just cutting them way back down and try to figure out what is the correct way to prune them after they start growing again to get them looking nice.

Fishies are doing nicely as well.  Hummingbirds - LOTS of them - coming to my property and feasting both on the feeder mixture and the Honeysuckle flowers.  Pretty cool to see so many different colored versions of them. Plus, there are 2 I guess that are mated cause' they never come alone, they always come with each other to feed.

Today?  I'm going to spend some more time out there cutting down some plants that need cut back.  It's actually quite relaxing and enjoyable.  It may not sound that way, but that's exactly what it is.  I also want to get something for my dad and send that out for Christmas - it's only 200 miles away if I get it sent out by Monday it should easily arrive in time.  I got the Omaha steaks for my oldest brother yesterday - at GREATLY reduced price plus free shipping, $30 at least less than what I spent on the same thing last year.  Caleb?  I am going to find a few small things so he has something to open at Christmas, but, I have spent more than enough money on that car and that's really going to have to suffice as a "major" present this year.

Happy Sunday.

ben

Saturday 12/18/2010

Got out there and started dealing with some landscaping issues today.
Got quite a bit of that done and then headed to Home Depot - wanted to get a live tree.
Well, they had them but they weren't near as big as I would have liked.  Went down to Lowe's,
they had "fake" live trees - made out of some plant, not a tree.  I already have an Italian Stone Pine
in the ground from 2 years ago or something, it's doing fine even if it only grows a few inches per year.

As for regular cut Christmas trees, Lowe's was sold out and weren't going to get any more in.
Back to Home Depot.  They had cut trees left - though not a big selection.  Don't need a big selection. I wanted about a 5 foot tree, nothing too huge.  They didn't have any, they were all 7 feet tall.  Got into a discussion with the dude - he was telling me that he had re-sized some trees and for whatever reason had gotten into trouble for doing so from his manager.  I said okay, was going to leave, don't want a 7 foot tree.

He then offered to cut it back anyway.  Lol.  He also gave it to me at the 5 foot tree price.  Apparently, none of these companies want to get stuck with too many trees, so they have cut back on the amount they are ordering this year.  Just an observation, but the guy at Home Depot predicted that the remaining trees on the lot would sell out today and that would be the end of it: no more trees have been ordered.

Proud owner of a nice tree in my living room.

Ummm, long interval.

And no time to move on with this entry.

G'nite.

ben

Café World Tips 25 – Teleporting Your Dishes From The Counters To The Tables – Get Your Buzz Rating To 105

Hello, fellow chefs and let’s get into this one a bit.  I will include information on how to fix teleporting that isn’t working, as I have helped a large number of players get it working correctly.

First, what is teleporting?  Simply put, it’s the act of blocking in your waiters and waitresses behind your counters so that they can’t get out.  They “throw” the dishes to the customers instead of carrying them over to them.  The reason this method of serving dishes is so wildly popular is that it almost totally eliminates and buzz rating issues you may have in your café.  The customers aren’t waiting for their food, they are happy, done.

BTW, did you know that you really don’t need more than 18 tables in your café?  18 is the maximum number of customers that will get served in a minute’s time.   That’s what the official count is, however, I keep about 22 tables in my café “just in case”.  The point is if you are not teleporting and have too many tables, waiters may have trouble getting to customers in time before the customer gets mad and leaves, causing your buzz rating to go down.

Anyway, how to set up teleporting.  Oops, just one more thing: teleporting is NOT considered cheating by Zynga, you will not get into trouble for it if they “find out” you are doing it, it’s a perfectly acceptable method to serve your dishes, even if, in real life, it would be quite impossible!

This is what you do.  Set up your counters in a box or rectangular shape.  You can use a wall as one side of the block, but you MUST leave room in between one side to the other so that your waiters have some place to stand inside of the blocked area.  In fact, you can use a corner of your café if you prefer and use 2 walls.  The point is to block them in, do not leave ANY open spaces. 

This next point is VERY important, please pay attention to this:  Make SURE that ALL of your counters are accessible to the waiters from INSIDE the block.  Do not put stuff in front of the counters inside the block, do not double stack your counters so that one set is behind another, your waiters MUST have access to each and every single counter from inside the block or it simply will not work.

I cannot stress that point enough because people often ignore it, put all kinds of stuff inside there, the waiters can’t get at a dish they are trying to serve, so, they just walk through the stuff in the way, get the dish and walk right through the counters and hand deliver the food to the table.  The whole point of this setup is to get them to stop doing that.  You want them to “throw” the food to the customers from inside the block or rectangle of customers.  The REAL point to doing this is to get your buzz rating back up!!

My buzz rating is at 105 and stays at 105.  On a rare occasion, it might drop a few points when I come into my café but then it goes right back up and stays there. 

You do not have to have the counters set up against the walls.  That was just an option.  You can create a box or rectangle of counters out in the middle of your café if you prefer, it doesn’t really matter WHERE you put  it, it’s how you set it up that’s very important. 

If my instructions above weren’t clear enough, just leave a message below and I will get back to you.  Also, if you have experienced a sudden drop in buzz rating, well, you probably did something in your café to cause it to happen.  I know, everyone always says that they didn’t do anything, but every time I have checked someone’s café to see what’s going on, I find something wrong and they say: “Oh, I just changed that yesterday and I didn’t know that would affect anything”.  Yes sir or ma’am, it did is my response, show them what to do to fix it, buzz rating goes back up to 105 and stays there, walaah, it’s done. 

BTW, one final thing here, you cannot currently have higher than a 105 buzz rating.  I have talked to people that say that it happened to them, but from Zynga, the highest it goes is 105.  So, don’t try to get it to get higher than it is possible to get it to go to!!!

Again, if you have any questions about this or just about any other facet of this game, I will be happy to try and answer them for you.

Friday 12/17/2010

Friday

Ummm, well, I had to deal with a comment on the Cafe World Christmas tree entry before coming here to post my daily tribe. I don't want to mix regular entries with Cafe World entries, so that's that. I play Cafe World daily and know a little bittle something about the game at this point, being at level 285, so, I sometimes share some of that information. It attracts quite a lot of visitors to the site, which interests me because I see on the Feedjit places that I have never heard of before.

I usually look the up on a Google search to see where the place is. For example, I am looking at a place called Saint-esteve, Languedoc-Roussillon. I have never heard of any of that. Look at the flag next to it, don't remember that one. If that is the name of one city, I would hate to live there, having to recite a syllable series of words to describe where I live, lol.

As for today, well, it was foggy driving to work! A nice change, it wasn't too dense so that you couldn't safely drive, it reminded me of snowy conditions, sort of. I'm sure the roadways will be filled with accidents this morning as people will find they just can't cope with such. It rained yesterday and it is wet and cold out this morning - I let the dogs stay inside, but they better behave.

I never heard back from the auto electric shop yesterday - not that I'm in a big hurry to hear about some huge bill. I hope it isn't that, I really just asked them to check it out and call me. 

Anyway, 8 days til' Christmas. The wet conditions made it so I couldn't turn on my Christmas lights outside last night. Oh well, hope that stuff dries out today and maybe tonight I will be able to. Actually, I'll go out there today and take a towel and hand dry off whatever is wet. The power strips are covered, they can't get wet, as well as the main outlets. 

Ummm, that's about it, I have several things I want to look at, including this newest, trillion dollar bill that has been passed and sitting on the President's desk. Hey, if they can add all that to the deficit, I would like to add my own, personal bills to that deficit as well. Why not? Doesn't Obama want to run my entire life? He can take care of my bills, too!

G'day.

ben

Cafe World Tips 24: Indoor Christmas Tree Has Arrived!

Okay, folks, Zynga listened (to a lot of complaints) and they finally came through with it.  Of course, you aren't just going to get one for free.  You aren't going to be able to go into decor tab to get it, either.  No, it's either pay Cafe Cash or do the ASK routine.

You have to ask for:
10 Fairy Lights
5 Chimes
5 Baubles
......and you have to collect Exotic Ornaments.

It's the Exotic Ornaments that is causing some players to get huffed and puffed (upset).
I have to agree to an extent, because you are going to have to play Zynga's Treasure Isle to
get the ornaments and have to go through the first 5 levels to get it.

I have no inclination, whatsoever, to play Treasure Isle.  In fact, I don't want to play ANY other Zynga games, so, the option is also there to pay 8 Cafe Cash and you are done with that portion of it.  I have plenty of Cafe Cash that I have acquired free, I am simply going to spend some of it to get this tree "built" and get it into my cafe.

One further note:  I did NOT get the giant popup that comes up when you are prompted to build the tree until WELL after a lot of other players I know got theirs up and running.  If you do not have yours yet, no worries (hopefully), it will show up eventually.

Thursday 12/16/2010

I see the House and the Senate are throwing around the trillion dollar word again as if it's totally meaningless, like finding a penny laying on the ground. Well, that's what this tax bill is, almost a trillion dollars. I hope they keep it up - just spend money like it's nothing. It will just refire the anger coals of those that voted out the Dems. Next time, vote them ALL out, at least those that are up for election. 

Well, McCain WAS sitting there talking about the absurdity of what is about to happen after the voice of America spoke: spending is out of control, we are voting to fix it. Well, obviously, it isn't going to get fixed. Not when you are talking about almost another trillion dollars that is going to be added to the deficit. They aren't listening to us, at least us that voted for the change we had a glimmer of hope for in the recent elections. They are screwing the nation is what bothers me. You simply can't keep spending money you don't have. Sooner or later, it's all going to come crashing in on you and then what? I dunno, those people running the country are all rich, what does it bother them? 

Yeah, another whatever moment. SLOW work week. Nothing in Truck Routing system for today. There is some stuff to do, but when there are no pickups, transfers or deliveries, it can make for a very long work day, indeed. Even at only 7 hours, it can seem like an eternity. It isn't totally unexpected at this time of year, but geeze, at least SOME deliveries would be nice.

Well it's Thursday so at least the work week is winding down.

My time's up for this one...
g'day.

ben