And so I did. Went to Denny's that is.  It was the only meal of the day, I am sure.  I won't be hungry again until this evening, but I am going with George and his girlfriend to see the new Star Trek movie at the Imax theater at 5 something.  I doubt I will eat any theater food, not a big fan of it.  I was going to go with my son, but he wants to see it next weekend, so .......  I'll go twice, lol.

Denny's was packed with people and the kitchen was having a lot of trouble. I know this because I always sit at the counter.  You get much faster service and they keep your coffee refilled as often as you wish.  I got out my computer and started reading the news, got completely lost in a world of all kinds of stuff going on, including a jetliner that had to do a belly landing.  I've actually seen that happen up close and in person.  A twin-engine Piper Comanche.  The training instructor raised the landing gear just before touch down, intending to force the student to abort the landing, but.......it didn't quite work out that way.

I was treated to a very loud, exaggerated screeching noise and looked up in time to see the thing sliding on the ground.  Extensive damage, of course, including trashed engines by virtue of props that were still spinning on touchdown (and, of course, immediately stopped spinning as soon as the blades hit tarmac and did a lot of damage to that plane!).

Anyway, left there and went and looking at some more plants.  The stuff that died out last year in my front yard has left that entire side of the yard looking quite - barren.  I planted a yellow bell a couple of months ago, but I wanted more.  I finally found out what the tree is called that is growing on my property that wasn't planted, there are now 3 of them.  They're a version of an Acacia tree, desert version.  I asked the lady that was showing me around at the nursery who found the only one that they have.  She at first stated that they don't do well in Arizona.  I didn't buy that story but said nothing to her.  These trees are growing wild on my property, I didn't plant them and the tallest one is around 25 feet tall now.  The one that they had was in a 25 gallon box, but it was a scraggly looking thing and it wasn't even 7 feet tall.  $199 for it.  

Just saying, my wild growing trees are worth something, lol  I found a yellow bell plant - they are nice looking plants with yellow flowers - and I am going to plant it on the east side of my property.  I have enough of those kinds of plants growing over there now that eventually, the view of my neighbor's trashed property will disappear in a see of green and yellow. I wouldn't mind having a tree growing at the northeast end of the property, but I have the brakes on on that until I figure out what I want there.  I would, really, like one of those Acacia's, but I am not paying 200 for a scraggly looking thing. They have other versions of Acacia there, but they don't look as good and I simply don't like them.  So there.

Meanwhile, the feeling of having that car paid off and no more monthly payments is extremely good. It runs quite well, still looks good, has low mileage for a car that's 9 years old - 79,000 - and I don't see the need to have to buy another car for quite a while.  Hopefully.  I have upped my savings quotient - I have automatic transfers from checking to savings once a week - and am also doing a once monthly transfer.  No need to think about it, just done automatically.  This is to take most of that money towards the car payment and save it instead of finding new ways to stupidly spend money.  

Well, time to take a nap.  I don't want to be falling asleep in the theater, though I suspect this movie will have enough action in it to keep me from doing so anyway.  

ben

Woke up at 5 am this morning.  Fell right back asleep.  Woke back up at 6.  Fell back asleep and then didn't wake up until 8am!!  That's like sleeping half the day away for me!  lol  I was so tired by the time I got off work yesterday that there wasn't much energy to do much of anything.  But, uhhh, my appetite is mostly back and I think I am going to go out to have a bite - well make that a lot of bites - to eat something that tastes really good, probably chock full of fat and calories and have fun doing it : )








Wrote the partial entry below yesterday, thought I had posted it!
________________________________________________________________________
Got up this morning - finally started being able to eat again yesterday late afternoon, btw, which helps energy levels immensely - thought about the reason I had taken out the loan, sat down at the computer and proceeded to pay the car off.  I had been mulling the idea as to whether to do it or not - but I decided that much less in payments per month?  Good thing.

I then paid a credit card off that had been closed for a while now.  That company simply went out of business and closed everyone's accounts.  I had it down to $150 anyway, wanted that payment gone as well.  The rest of my credit cards will stay as they are, not paying them all as part of the point of the loan was to have extra cash around for emergency use.  I get a bit nervous if, during the summer, I don't have at least enough extra funds to fix an expensive central AC problem.  I actually did have enough extra funds to cover such an expense - but then there would be absolutely nothing if something like that happened.

Yesterday I paid the mortgage up to current.  I get so sick of Midland Mortgage and the way they treat their customers on the phone.  If you are delinquent on your payment, they go through a spiel that goes on for 20 minutes.  They stop short of asking your blood type, but you get the picture.  They ask you a relentless barge-full of questions that are the same questions, every single month.  Today I stopped the lady short: If I am paying my mortgage up to current, then it is no longer delinquent and I should have to be subjected to this ridiculous tirade of information that your company has informed me about 15 times over.  Blah blah blah.

I would like to speak to your manager, please.  Sure, hang on a minute.  She comes back a few minutes later saying a manager is not available as they are currently "tied up" but she can take my payment.  I refused, saying: No, I am not going to sit here and listen to this annoying speech, I shouldn't have to and when I speak to managers, they don't do all of that nonsense.  She took my payments and that was that, lol.

Just because I am feeling better doesn't mean I am at 100% and so, when I was still out at 3pm in the truck today, going from one place to the next to the next, I was starting to get very tired and I was also, concordantly (I don't CARE if spell checker says that isn't a word, go look it up!), getting extremely irritable.  10 hours?  No thanks.  I don't care about overtime when I am not feeling good, I don't care if I don't get ANY the entire week.  I got back to the shop and I got OUT of there.  Came home and sat down in my chair, just a very rotten week as far as I'm concerned and will be easily forgotten.  Well, excepting paying off the car, a credit card and getting the mortgage paid up, lol.

I'm still not feeling that good, actually, but I am a bit better.  I am going to show up at work tomorrow and hope that I can make it through the work day.  My manager and I have been gone the first two days this week, which doesn't bode well for the state of affairs at the branch with an inside salesman running it - who has no time for it - and a driver from downtown  - who is pretty good actually but hasn't been thrust into the world of having to deal with everything.  If one manager gets sick downtown, another steps into fill their place.  In this case, my manager leaves and I make the decisions of what goes where, when.

It's a managerial role without the official title.  Stomach pain is almost gone but I have very little energy and I have been doing much of nothing since Saturday.  Carrying a bag of dog food for 30 feet wore me out yesterday.  I know, pathetic but that's what this illness has been doing to me: depriving me of my energy besides the pain and other unpleasant things that I need not go into here.  It's weeks like these where I could care less if I get any overtime.  Get the week over with and get to the weekend.  That's 3 work days from now, might as well be an eternity.

Jury's out on the transplanted tree.  I have no idea whether it's going to survive, but I should be able to tell if it's going to die by tomorrow, I would think.  I am going to dump some more root stuff on it from Miracle Gro.
___________________________________
Extended time lapse.
Ate.  My navy bean soup sat there for quite a while and the salt in the ham apparently leeched out into the liquid as the ham itself in the soup was tasty and without a lot of salt taste.  I read online today that you can leech out some of the salt of a ham before cooking it by dumping it into water; sugar water; coca cola; apple juice; anything that doesn't have added salt to it.  I'll just try water next time, lol.

I'm around 60-65% at this point.  Not really that good for work but I am going tomorrow morning anyway.  My manager will be back - who will undoubtedly give me some junk about taking free time off.  Like, I wasn't really sick.  This is what I hate about working for any company: they don't necessarily believe you are sick when you say you are.  I have sick leave carry over every year, this is a clue that I don't take a lot of time off for sick leave.

At around 3:30 yesterday, I just decided it was time to go home regardless of how I feel.  Not only did I want my own bed and a long hot shower - I can take a hot shower in the RV but only a short one - I also had work to face today.  But I figured I probably wouldn't make work.  Anyway, my mom was all over that, you can't drive can you?  I dunno, mom, but I gotta get home.  Got everything including the dogs in the car and took off. Literally.  I would waste no time stopping anywhere, even for fuel - though that was getting to the low side.

I got to the top of a long mountain pass and came up on a Forest Service/green pickup sitting right next to the road with it's lights flashing.  Wondered what that was all about.  Then I come up to a man in khaki's with a Hawaiian Luau shirt on, he was doing the slow down motion with his hands. We were at a turn, couldn't see what was going on around the turn.  Well, around the turn was a very gruesome sight.  A huge crash with 8 vehicles, 2 of them pulling boats, one of the boats VERY large.  Those vehicles were all on the roadway still, minor damage.  It was the SUV that had somehow lurched over the top of the guardrail - there was no damage to any guardrail there - and was totally destroyed that got my attention.  There were a couple of bodies laying on the ground and no-one working on them - the medics were there - whether those folks were alive or dead I couldn't tell.  I found it odd that Highway Patrol was nowhere in sight - they are the agency that works those kinds of accidents and I found it VERY odd that they had a civilian out there directing traffic.  Why wasn't that dude in the Forest Service truck out there?

Got past that and just zoomed home.  My speedometer doesn't work, but I can tell you that I was not going 65 mph.  I was hurting and feeling it and I wanted the trip over with.

Got home, got the stuff out of the car, called the ops manager at work - my manager is on vacation didn't want to bother him - told him I was out of commission and no way I could come to work tomorrow and yes, I went straight back to bed.  It's now 8 am the next morning and I am just starting to feel a little better.  I haven't eaten anything in 39 hours, my stomach is growling like crazy but I am still afraid to eat anything.  I am finally starting to feel a little better.  My strength is coming back to me even though I haven't eaten anything.  I will get the nerve up later on to get some soup and see what happens with that.

I did have an incident on the way up there that I forgot to mention.  On the Forest Service road - which is a dirt road that can fit 2 vehicles coming at each other but just barely - I came around a turn and see this vehicle coming straight at me.  On the wrong side of the road and actually heading for the ditch on my side of the road.  This is what happens when you aren't paying attention to the road and are, instead, paying attention to your electronic gadgets or whatever might have been going on inside of that vehicle.  I was almost stopped before this driver finally swerved back to their side of the road, narrowly missing an engagement with a deep ditch that would have damaged the vehicle and caused it to get stuck.  I hate to admit it, but I gave the person a certain finger gesture that was out-of-line with my Christian beliefs, but I did it and very much so in the windshield to ensure that they would see it.  I was pissed - this could have been a head-on collision and no-one wins in those kinds of crashes.  The car had realty plaques on the side of it.

I made the decision and went through with it: I am taking out another loan on 401k.  Most would advise against it, all well and fine but I am doing it anyway.  I do not have enough reserve cash around in case something happens - ie: central AC breaks down.  It's already happened once and I was fortunate that I had enough funds to cover the repairs.  I'm going to pay the car off - I am sick of car payments and the 401k payment is FAR less than that car payment and at a MUCH less amount of interest - which I pay back to myself anyway.  I will make a payment-and-a-half on the mortgage and that will bring me up to current.  My credit score has plummeted because of this house payment situation.  At some point it will come back up - probably be a while - and then I will consider about getting a pickup.  Conventional wisdom is to take the car payment that you were paying and deposit that into a savings account every month and pay for your next vehicle in cash.

Great wisdom, don't know if I can wait that long, will try doing it and see how much I can save up.  I don't want or need a brand new pickup, but I don't want a piece of trash, either.  BTW, my car loan is down to $1,840.41.  I know what's going to happen when I pay it off: all kinds of offers will start rolling in to trade in my old car to get a nice, new one.   New vehicles have huge drawbacks around these parts:  extremely high registration rates and extremely high insurance rates.  Once my car is paid off, I will no longer need comprehensive insurance on it.  It is 9 years old, dunno if I should continue it or not.  I definitely only have minimum liability on the 1994 Buick.  I told my son if he crashes the car and it's his fault and the car is destroyed, that's the end of it.  Stay out of crashes! And he has.  He has been run into in parking lots while he's not even around and no, those people that did the damage didn't bother to leave a note, they just left.  Good thing I didn't catch them doing that is all I can say.  My son didn't even notice the damage.

I am a truck driver, I have to do thorough inspections every day.  It crosses over to my vehicles and even vehicles of friends/ acquaintances.  I don't necessarily say anything to them when I see their brand new pickup with a fresh ding on it, I just notice it.

Well this is enough.  My head is starting to doing it's thing again.  Almost like I have been drinking.  Funny the stuff that sickness does to your entire body.  I think it time to go lay back down again.

ben

My mobile broadband router is going on the blink.  It works and then quits and works and quits..........I'm up in the mountains for an over night stay. Getting up early - hopefully anyway - and getting back into to town in time to get to church by 8:45 am.

I am so incredibly tired today.  This work week just wore me out.  Manager gone and I'm dealing with a much larger load than I normally would have to, just a drain on the system.

________________________________

Well the incredible tiredness turned into severe sickness.  some sort of stomach flu.  I am stuck up here in the mountains - would have been home by now - with absolutely no energy, whatsoever, to be able to make the drive back.  It's  a bit afternoonish and if this situaiton doesn't change by say 5ish or so, I am calling work and telling them that tomorrow? I most definitely will not be there.

But I do wish I were home right now!

Well, the hour and a half freaking long wait to get my tires re-balanced was worth it.  I was a bit peeved because there wasn't that many other people in the waiting room and more importantly: only 2 other vehicles in a 6 car bay.

They did not attempt to sell me a new tire to replace the used one I had bought there.  I sat there for such a long time I drained the battery down to 15% - which is when it shuts itself off - on my lap top and then put on my sunglasses and started to take a nap.  I fully expected them to come up with some sort of sales pitch - not saying Discount Tire is fraudulent or otherwise deceptive, but they are in business to sell tires and make money, not give away free tire rotations only - but they did not.

Instead, they pulled the car up front, the dude came in and told me that all 4 tires had been out of balance, 2 of them extremely much so.  I say that was good to hear because that simply means nothing else needs to be done and I didn't pay a penny to them today, the used tire is still good - and looks good btw, still lots of tread on it - so off I went.  I was going to get on the freeway when passing by a gas station that had changed names.  Sitting at a red light at the corner, I saw the sign: oil change only $15.99.  I did some turns to go back and then went in.

My "Oil Level Low" light came on the other day and did so a few months ago as well.  There is a small, slow oil leak. It's going to cost $600 to have it fixed - just replacing a bunch of gaskets but the labor is the killer because half the engine has to be taken apart.  Okay, 1/3rd of it.  Right now, I have no plans to fix it.  Only if/when it becomes a leak that I can see on the ground, then I will have to deal with it.  If I really had the motivation, I could do it myself.  I have done enough total engine rebuilds in my life, I just haven't done anything that extensive in quite a long time and a bit nervous about attempting it in my driveway.  I will wait until Caleb is gone for the summer and his/my car is parked in the driveway before attempting it. If I screw it up somehow, at least I will have something to drive, lol.

I have quite a lot of comment I would like to speak about the Obama administration and the now-labeled "Benghazi-Gate" per Fox News anyway and also this situation with the IRS admitting they targeted Tea-Party groups.  But it makes me mad, really mad to think about what this administration is doing to our nation so I have to just back off, take a breath and put it out of my mind.  Obama can't be President forever, thank God, but I wonder about the damage done before he exits office.

My mom sent me a pic of a very long snake.  It was slithering into a hole next to her porch in the back of her house.  Black and white the thing was.  I don't like snakes, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want them around if they are eating unwanted guests such as rodents.  Well, I looked it up and this thing is a King Snake and upon further investigation, those snakes actually EAT other snakes! Including Rattlesnakes!!!  Well done, Mother Nature and God, lol, that's a good one to have around me-thinks.  My mom was of the same mind.  She hates snakes but she let this one go - otherwise she would be out there with her .22 pistol attempting to fill it full of snake shot.  Lol.  Cracks me up to think the only time I ever saw her trying to kill a rattler with that thing, it was doing nothing to that snake, or if it was, it certainly wasn't anything visible.

Oh-ohhhh. The Hummingbird that owns my property is out there whining about the feeder being empty.  It is getting drained REALLY fast.  There HAS to be more than just that one bird feeding off of it.  It sits there and chirps at me when I procrastinate on refilling it.  NO, I am dead serious, that little bird owns my property, pays all of my bills and has a robotic maid serving me meals.  It always tells me about it when that thing is emptied out.  Which I just filled it up, what a week and a half ago? That's really fast for a bird that small! Gotta figure out what else is feeding on it. If it's other Hummingbirds, oh well, if it's other kinds of birds, they can go find some other source of nutrition.  It's not leaking or, obviously, there would be a lot of red stains on the ground below.  Nothing.

My plan is to go up to the property sometime in the morning, but plans can be changed by circumstances, we all know that!

ben

Sitting at Discount Tire, waiting eternally for them to simply balance all 4 tires.  Worth the wait I guess since it's free, but I am guessing they are going to come back and tell me that the used tire I bought several months ago is going to need replaced.  I wish they would at least GET that far with this, I have been here for an hour now.

I was thinking of going up to the mountains today, but it's already 4:15 pm and I haven't even started anything about packing to go, much less the fact I haven't gotten home from work yet.

Finally getting the shifting on the new semi.  Extremely fast.  Just too fast, it really shouldn't have to shift that fast between gears.  If I don't, though: clunk.  Not good for a tranny.  The thing winds up so fast you'd think I was driving a car, not a tractor trailer rig.  I dunno, guess it's new technology or something, certainly isn't acting like ANY other semi tranny I have ever shifted and I can tell you, I have driven a lot of semi's over the last almost 30 years now.

Driving at 65mph on I-10 is also irritating.  That's what the governor is set at and that's what i was stuck at on that highway today while everyone else was zooming past me.  We are going to deal with that soon enough.  I will keep whining about it until a tech is sent out to change it.  Besides the fact of going slow, it's taking forever to get from point A to point B.  The extra time driving today cost me a delivery this afternoon - they had already gone home by the time I was ready to go over there.

Well whatever.  The weekend is here and I dunno.  I will decide when I ever get out of this place whether I am going to drive up there today or not, but probably not since it's getting so late.  i don't want to be showing up there at 9 o'clock at night or something.  I may go up tomorrow morning since mother obviously doesn't want to spend Mother's Day alone.

I am wondering when George is intending to have his girlfriend move in.  Mark informed me the George told him he was having a phone line installed to his room for work.  He is, apparently, required to have a dedicated line for working at home, which is what he has been doing for a while now, but they want to make it official.  I want to charge the guy more rent.  I don't care if he's operating a business out of his bedroom, for all intents and purposes, but at the same time, it's using more electricity and he should have to pay extra.  If I bring it up to him, though, I am sure he's going to have a conniption.  Which has never stopped me before, lol.  We'll see.  Oh, apparently his work pays for the phone line.

The dude living in the mini van in front of the next door neighbor's house must be getting pretty miserable out there by now.  It's getting warm, very warm, not "hot" yet, but it will be there soon enough.  I don't get it, though.  What is this guy doing? Why isn't he looking for a job or going to school or SOMETHING? He is ALWAYS out there.  It's just weird, I guess.

Well enough of this, I need to put this computer away and get up and find out what's taking so long.

ben

It was time to say something.
This concerning an individual that they just hired maybe 2 or so months ago at the main branch downtown.
He doesn't do much of anything unless his boss specifically directs him to.
If you ask him to do something, he tells you he is busy.  I am usually down there at least an hour, often times more - I will watch him wandering around, doing absolutely nothing.

This is not the kind of attitude my company much cares for in a worker.  Strong work ethic is pretty much a pre-requisite for our company and people who do not want to work won't last long.

I was down there 2 days ago when the guy started in on me about a small amount of pipe he had pulled for a transfer going to our branch.  It had been sitting there since a couple days before that, I simply did not have the room for it.  It is a stock transfer, meaning it is going into our inventory, it is not slated for a delivery, so I didn't absolutely need to take it.  I had loaded the 48 foot trailer from front to back with materials we needed for deliveries, no room for it.  He got mad and informed me that he would no longer be pulling pipe for us and that he was going to be putting this pipe back.  I told him  to take a look at my truck.  Where, exactly, was I going to put it?

No matter to him.  So today, I am down there again. He had put the pipe away.  I was going to tell this dude exactly what I think of him and his work ethic - but I waited a while and let myself cool down a bit. This guy has been talking to me as if he's been working there 20 years and is some sort of manager in the company.  I approached his manager and informed him of the situation - told me he was never going to pull pipe for me again and that he was putting the pipe that he pulled back, which he did and I handed him the transfer ticket that he had signed.  I then said to him that if he wasn't going to deal with it, I was going to speak my mind to that individual and that individual probably wasn't going to like it.

That was that.  The manager adamantly state he would speak to the man and that he could pull the f****** pipe himself and that was that.

Yes, what I wanted and needed to hear.

Changing the subject.  The lady whose dogs mauled Duke finally showed up - while I was writing this entry actually.  She handed me all of $8.  Yes, that's eight dollars.  Assessing her situation, she probably falls well below the poverty level and has kids.  Young kids, I was amazed she was still making babies after the last set she had.  Free rent - Hud.  Free food - Food Stamps.  Free medical - Obamacare.  Free cell phone - federal government, don't know which administration started that.  Free internet - maybe/probably.  Although not much of a life, if a person is so inclined, they can live completely off the government for free.

I flatly told her that she would have to come over at least once a week with something.  The city sent me yet another thing in the mail today that I have 7 days from the receipt of that letter to file for restitution.  I am not going to do that.  I am simply going to go after her personally for the money.  If it comes down to her not paying, I don't have to go after restitution, I can sue her in the local court. Well, I'll think about it.  Restitution is easier.  The court orders her to pay and if she doesn't then a contempt of court bench warrant is issued and she has to appear to tell the court why, exactly, she hasn't paid.  I am not totally dismissing that idea, I have 7 days to make up my mind.

Church.  So, I am going to start doing security at church once a month.  Unbeknownst to me, they had a meeting about security and what needs to be done about it, which is when the youth teachers stated they were not comfortable with the lack of anyone out there to stand guard, basically.  A few names were brought up, mine was one of them.

_________________

Interlude, long one.
I turned my mom onto Facebook and she is figuring it out, including how to start a chat with someone.  In this case - me, lol.  She was asking if I was coming up tomorrow - she's not up there but planning on either going up Saturday or Sunday. I replied that I would if I get off work early enough tomorrow.

Which was enough for her to assume I am going to be up there, lol.

I'm fairly well obligated to go up there at this point.  Ummmm, but there is a lot to do and it's time to go to bed for me - and the real kicker? - a LOT of stuff to do in our truck routing system tomorrow.  Tangle that with a disgruntled manager who is losing his vacation due to jury duty - he's coming to work tomorrow but only because the court apparently takes Fridays off - and has to be back at the court on Monday - meaning missing his flight to Chicago on Saturday morning - wow!  The workplace does offer some interesting - stuff.   It's a life unto it's own with so many different personalities, some of which grate against me in a particularly freakish way.

I don't wonder if this is part of God's way of forcing me to deal with the issues in my life.  You know, like not respond in kind to a person mouthing off and going off the cuff?  Or some freak attempting to tell me how to do my job?

Some stuff I wrote missing here.  I would re-write, but it's my bedtime.


G'nite.

ben

This woman whose dogs attacked Duke continues to blow me off.
I have a running texting conversation with her.
She is very poor is the biggest problem.
I am not being an ogre or a troll to her, but I do want her to pay for Duke's hospital visit, regardless of how long it takes her to pay it off.
As of yet, she hasn't given me a single dime.  Allegedly, she's coming over today to give whatever she can afford.
I dunno, but if you are going to have vicious dogs and they are going to get out of their confinement, then expect to have to pay whatever for the damages they cause.

That's all I can say about that.

The new truck.  Small cab, not much room inside of it for much of anything.  I have a lot of stuff I have to carry with me for the job, pretty difficult to find a place for everything when there are very few cubby holes to stick things in.  Not really happy about that.  It also shifts funny. It has the same exact transmission in it as the old truck - well obviously not exactly the same as the thing wants to be shifted from one gear to the next immediately with no hesitation and if you miss it, it lets you know about it.  In fact the shifting on it is pretty much - ridiculous.  I will get used to it, I guess, but I have never driven a truck with a transmission that doesn't have you wait a short period between gears.

It also has a stupid turn signal system. It's the same as a car.  It shuts itself off, which would be great excepting the fact that in semis, you are often turning the steering wheel in both directions to make a turn, which shuts the signal off long before you finish making the turn.  Pretty stupid set up.  The thing shuts the radio off when you start backing.  I guess they don't want "distracted backing", lol.  They had fluourescent orange seatbelts installed on it.  Apparently they want you busted if you aren't wearing it.  Kind of humiliating treatment, frankly, from a company that I have driven for for over 7 years.  As if I need this kind of treatment
because I must, somehow, be a bad driver and don't use my seatbelt?

Governor kicks in at 66 MPH.  Another ridiculous notion.  It often times happens on the freeway that the only way to get over to the next lane I need to get over to is to speed up and get in front of a vehicle.  Most drivers nowadays will not let you in, no matter how long you have had the turn signal on indicating that you want to get over.  Slowing down usually doesn't work, either, since there is usually vehicles behind them and they won't let you in, either.  I am going to ask to have it set up to at least 75MPH, which is the speed limit on the Interstates around these parts when you get out of town.

Well whatever.  I'll get used to most of it, I don't have a choice excepting to go find a new job I guess.  Not really interested in doing that right now and speaking of jobs, I must be out of here!

G'day.

ben

Back from church.

Instead of being bone tired as I was before I left, I am now wide awake.  

Ummmmm, so, here I am. 

I completely forgot that I put in for a week off at the beginning of June.

I am not sure I want to go up to the trailer, or if I do only a couple of nights.  

I would like to go spend a couple of nights at some fine hotel and just be alone.  No dogs, no people, no nothing.  This would be more rejuvenating for me than much of anything else I can think of - well I can think of other things but price tags make them too expensive to even consider.  

Las Vegas is only 280 miles away.  I have enough gold coins to get a pretty nice room for free.  I don't care about the glitter and the casinos - I could get far enough away from here to feel as though I have "escaped" and at the same time not have to spend a lot of money to do so and spend 2 nights there for free.  What about your trip there in August?  Who cares about August, I need now.  I can still build those coins back up and have enough to go up if I still want to with the tenants.  

But August may prove to be a busy month.  Caleb will be back for a short period of time and there are already 2 sending-away parties being set up for him and I want to spend as much time as I can with him before he leaves and I don't get to see him again for an entire year.  

I'm more considering taking another week off in August and possibly doing something with him before sending him off - if he has the time of course and if it would work out.  A couple days on the ocean or something.  I dunno.  They have some great sight-seeing trips from pretty much anywhere along the California coast.  Just throwing things around in my head, see if anything lands anywhere.

As for Las Vegas, the Aria had a City View room - meaning it's high up - for 2 nights at 200,000 gold coins.  Of which I happen to have.  I actually have 380,000 gold coins on the game, it would leave me 180,000 left over and now that I have found the "secret" to acquiring gold coins quickly, I could build it back up again before August arrives - but again - a trip anywhere like that in August at this point is not necessarily a probable event.  I am certain that the parental heart in me is going to want to see as much of my son as I can.

Well whatever.  I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.  I AM seriously considering using my gold coins on my slated vacation.  It's only 2 nights, I think it would be a blast, to be honest.  Maybe do a little blackjack action, but the room itself, isolating myself.  Do you know what it's like to live in a house with as many people as I have living here?  I have only myself to blame, obviously, but I am subjected to all kinds of sounds and conversations and this and that.  

Ahhh, there it is.  Fatigue creeping back in.  

Time for bed.

ben

I am very annoyed right now.
First off a dog that shit on my bedroom floor last night.
Lack of sleep.
Manager gone at court today and when that happens I get all the phone calls and inquiries that he usually gets.  Annoyed salesman wanting to know when what is getting where and after a while I got rather curt with one of them that got an attitude with me.  Manager was selected for a jury and he is very upset - he is supposed to leave on vacation to Chicago on Saturday.

The new worker at our branch decided he was going to nothing.  When I was leaving to get in the semi and take off - for the entire day - I gave him some suggestions as to what to do with his day.  Sitting around on his ass was not one of them.  I told him if nothing else, there is plenty of clean-up he could do.  He simply stated that he was going to "wait for deliveries".  That was very annoying.  But I am not his manager.  However, his manager knows about it - I was talking with my boss after he finally got out of court today and I informed him of the new worker's decision to basically - do nothing.  Boss got mad - very mad.  We both work our asses off on a daily basis and a new person that decides that when the boss leaves, he's just going to sit around smoking cigarettes all day long?  That person will not last very long at our branch.
I asked my manager if he had a list he would like to supply to this dude - yup - and he's going to email it to me in the morning.  If the guy comes off with the same attitude again, I will simply relay that information to my manager and he can act accordingly.

And a lot of junk that happened at construction sites, making it take way longer to get the work done than it should have.  Like, getting off after 5:00pm.
The only bright spot in the day was when I got back to the yard - a brand new tractor.  Our new semi finally arrived and the thing is much better than what I envisioned.
It actually has chrome, lol
It also has an air horn, which the current tractor does not have.
Significance: I am tired of sitting behind people at stop lights that are texting and paying no attention to the fact that the light has turned green and has been green for several seconds.  An air horn will get their attention and if they flip me off, I don't care. I drive my vehicle, I don't sit around playing with electronic toys and not paying any attention to the road in front of me.
The AC works.  Yes, even after that long of a day of driving all over the place, I got in that new tractor, fired that beast up and took it for a spin around the yard.  No bad, but I suspect the governor is set too low.

NP, when it's due for an oil change, they can bring out their computer and set it up to 75 or 79 mph.
It has a CD player and really cool, it has electric mirrors - IE: adjust both sides with a switch.  It also has all wheel lock instead of the 2 wheel inter-axle lock, which it has that too.  Next time I get stuck in a pile of rocks at a construction site, I can simply flip that switch and walaah, I will drive right out of it.

The only thing I don't know about is the Detroit Diesel engine it has in it.  I haven't driven a tractor with a Detroit in it since the mid 80's.  I am a CAT fan first, then Cummins.  I am guessing Detroits have gotten better - I do hope so.

Well, whatever.  Long day. The kicker? I am leaving for church in about 10 minutes.  I do hope to sleep well tonight, lol.

I actually have plenty more to write, but, time has run out and I am pretty sure that when I get home from church, sitting down at the computer won't be any of my planned activities, IE: time to go to bed!

G'day.

ben

I was on my way to the town of Maricopa.  Not many ways in and out of there, I was on SR347.  About halfway there, I saw ADOT Enforcement pickups pulling off on the other side of the road.  Obvious their intent: a weigh station, replete portable scales and enough officers to be able to pull several trucks off the side of the road at a time to do inspections.

Whether needless to say or not, I did not come back that way. I avoid ADOT like the plague.  They don't give a damn about your trucking career and they don't care what happens to you when they issue you warnings which now count against companies the same as a ticket counts against you.  I would have to look it up, but I drove at least 15 miles out of the way to not have to encounter that crap.

Well, I was going to write a full entry but it's a few minutes past my bedtime and I am very, very tired, long day at work.

G'nite.

ben

The Phoenix Police Department.
Please.
Last night, the same house that has had extremely loud parties, ie: bring in a DJ and BLARE the music on a huge sound system all night long - had what I assume to be a Cinco De Mayo party.  It wasn't Cinco De Mayo when they started, but it certainly was when it ended.

It sounded as  if a band was standing in my bedroom with amplifiers.  That's how loud it was and that house is on the other side of the street - the next street over. I wasted no time calling the police.  4 hours later, they had not arrived and the lady on  the phone informed it was Saturday night.  Their call volume is huge on that night, they proclaimed.

Okay, so if this is a known fact, why don't they have a contingent to deal with it?  Just like a business, when it knows there is a heavy volume day, they bring in more employees.  Makes sense to me, especially when it comes to public safety.  But whatever, that's the Phoenix Police Department for you.

When the police showed up, they told them to turn down the music, which they did, and then shortly after the police left?  They turned it up again, so loud that it woke up RIGHT up out of the deep sleep that I had finally fell into.  I called the police again.

It was a waste of time.  The police show up, tell them to turn it down instead of threatening to issue citations. That's what they should have done: issued a citation after the second time there.  I didn't call the police again.  The music went on ALL night long, into the morning and well into the day.  I'll be calling the police chief's office tomorrow and asking them why their department finds it so difficult to enforce the simplest of ordinances yet they seem to find it so easy to pull their guns and shoot people.  I won't just go away, either. I will want an answer from someone higher up about it.  I made 3 calls to the department and their response to the situation was, in effect, tantamount to having done nothing at  all.

If it happens again, I will simply start calling the police and keep calling them every half an hour until they deal with it.  There is no HOA in this neighborhood and going over there to "discuss" the situation with the homeowner is also a complete and total waste of time. They don't CARE.  Completely selfish people.  I forced myself not to go over there because that ending probably would not have been too good.

Whatever.

I'll be going to bed early tonight to attempt to make up for the lost sleep last night.

Despite all of that, I went to church early today to take the 2 meeting course on becoming a member in the church. It was actually quite interesting learning about the infrastructure of the church and it's accountability.  Very interesting stuff, indeed.

The service itself was very good as well.  I was glad, regardless of fatigue, that I went.

Today is Mark's birthday, so we all wished him Happy B-Day and also I cooked a ham dinner of which they partook.  Actually, pretty much the whole house partook of.  IN reality, I was attempting to teach Caleb how to cook a ham, which with pre-cooked hams is pretty easy stuff.  After the ham was cooked, I showed him how to slice and had him have a go at it.  After a while, the ham was getting lopsided so I took over.  Yes, he needs to learn, but I wanted my ham intact in it's cuttings and so, he has the basic idea.  I had him cook some garlic flavored instant potatoes that come in a pouch.  I was going to show him how to make home-made mashed potatoes, but my potatoes? Were bad.

Yesterday, I taught him how to make spaghetti.  We will be repeating that course before he leaves for the youth camp in the mountains.  He loves spaghetti and I want him to at least have the cooking of the noodles down pat.  That's the hardest part of cooking pasta, IMO, getting it right without overcooking it.  I also told him that if he cooked a ham, he would have lots of leftover and gave him mock examples of what he could do with it in frying it up for a ham and eggs breakfast; taking the ham-bone and making a navy bean soup out of it; taking slabs of ham and putting them into sandwiches; well really, you can do a lot with him and it lasts so long.

We are done with the cooking, I am waiting for everyone to get done with what they want and then cleanup, which I would usually have done by now but - people still wanting to eat.

____________________

Done with all of that.  I have some standards around this house and even with all these tenants? I demand a clean kitchen at all times.  Clean up immediately after you are done cooking. I apply that standard to myself - but I was living that standard long before tenants. Dirty kitchens - are dirty.  They don't feel comfortable, they look bad and it's just an atmosphere I choose not to live with.  But more importantly: dirty kitchens attract bugs.  You may get bugs anyway with a clean kitchen, but with a dirty kitchen?  You're going to get cockroaches sooner or later,  a plain, solid fact and it doesn't matter where you are at on this planet.

Umm, the point: it came to me as I was cleaning up that Caleb will be subjected to random inspections.  Even though he's in his "own" apartment, that apartment is owned by the Salvation Army and they will undoubtedly have a contract that has some sort of statement in there that states that they can come into his apartment at any time, without prior notice and do inspections without any reason any more than they want to.

I don't know much about the Salvation Army excepting the pre-cursory writings they have on their main page and nothing I have found yet addresses what to expect being in a "missionary" setting, but I felt without doubt that this is what can and will be subjected to.  So, we have time to address that.  A place for everything and everything in it's place.  A bathroom that is kept immaculately clean at all times regardless of what's going on, including if he has people over, which he will be required to do (I know this much coming from him) to feed 3 or 4 or however many others on a rotating basis.  I'm not the king of clean, but I definitely have a good idea about it.

I can only prepare him so much, the rest?  He's going to learn the easy, hard or "Wally Thorpe's School Of Hard Knocks" way.  Probably some lessons will be difficult, undoubtedly.  Some things will be extremely grating, I can tell you this from experience on the mission field and having had lived with multiple, dozens and dozens of other people in a community style setting.  But, I believe the Salvation Army to be a much more structured environment and at least some of the problems I dealt with won't exist with the SA just for the fact of a solid, functioning and strong leadership chain. This is very important in such settings and without it, you find yourself fending FOR yourself in many situations that shouldn't even be an issue.

Well whatever. The weekend is over, it's time for bed and I'm outta here.

ben

For reasons I simply am not going to go into, I was awake much of the night last night - and I paid for it at work today.  10-1/2 hours on very little sleep.  I was begging for the work day to end so I could come home and just sit down.  And stay seated for a while, lol.  If it weren't still daylight, I would go to bed right now.  But, it's not even 6pm , not a happening event.

A discussion with the ex-wife last night had me committing to paying for half of Caleb's airfare to Hawaii.  I wasn't necessarily even thinking about going along that route, but she was and wanted to know if I would do so.  Well, why not.  But, Caleb is going to have to get other people involved with raising money for his journey. He is going to do that, but I fear the procrastination factor.  You can't just wait.  He only has 3 months or so to come up with the $3,500 he has to pitch in to the Salvation Army for his portion of the expenses incurred in him being over there for a year.

The airfare is going to have to be bought and soon.  I have heard nothing but the fact that the prices will go up as summer gets into full tilt.

Step of faith, frankly, as the airfare at the price we are getting it at - $303 - is non-refundable, clearly states that on U.S. Airways site and well, we certainly hope this is a go.

Whatever the case, the weekend is here.  None too soon.  Put in for a week off the first week of June.  Can't wait - though that hasn't been confirmed yet, lol.  But I am taking a week off regardless.  If not the first week in June, then sometime in June and probably another week off in August.  No plans as of yet, but probably a trek up to the mountains for at least a couple of nights and then whatever else, who knows.  Maybe nothing else, just want to take time off from work, I need a break.  It starts getting old and redundant after a while and that's when you know you need some extended time off.  I start getting cranky with certain people at the main branch that don't DO - anything.  2 new hires I have watched sitting around doing absolutely NOTHING every time I go down there, which is quite frequently.  Yesterday, I was down there and saw one of them sitting at a computer doing some kind of training.

I asked if he would help me pull the orders.  No, he replied, he needed to do his training on inventory.  Well, I said, pulling orders is far more important than taking training on inventory, you can do that anytime.  He then went into a diatribe about what good is it to pull orders if there is no inventory to pull it from? Yada yada yada.  His boss sitting right there, I frankly and bluntly told him I wasn't going to argue with him about it and would do it myself as I always do down there and walked off, rather disgusted at the whole situation.

His boss, however, knows that I will say something to my manager who will then inform the operations manager.  We spend too much time down there pulling our own orders.  They have multiple people working the warehouse and much of the time they appear to be idle, doing nothing, wandering about aimlessly.  However, when you ask them to help you, they do nothing and make excuses about how busy they are.  If I am down there for 2 hours and I see them doing nothing the entire time, that excuse doesn't wash, which is exactly what happens just about every time I go down there.

Anyway, that guy offering me the diatribe on inventory was soon busy helping pull the multiple orders that I was pulling, by virtue of his boss informing him to get up off his ass and get the job done.  It is a stark contrast to the guy that used to be in his position - the man that was killed in a vehicle accident up north on I-40.  I didn't have to ask him to help me, he would always offer.

Started this entry yesterday, it is now Saturday morning and George has his surround sound going at full tilt, which is quite annoying this early in the morning and knowing other people are probably still trying to sleep.  I am going to ask the new tenant if it is bothering him and if it is, George is going to have to refrain from using that thing early mornings or late at night.

Whatever.  Not sure what I am going to do with today.  Maybe nothing.  Probably go outside and busy myself with landscape stuff, always plenty of that to do.

ben

Well I started getting a little more particular with the responses to my room ad.  I want someone mature, has a decent job or at least something that can pay their rent, have them eating and doing whatever they like to do without going around asking other tenants for help all the time.  Ridiculous.  You try to help someone out and they simply take advantage of you, or usually, of the other people in the house.  I find out about it after the fact as no-one wants to say anything to me because they know what I will: confront the person.

That dude I kicked out I asked him nicely when he moved in to please not ask Mark for cigarettes.  He doesn't have a lot of money and can't afford to support 2 people's worth of habits.  I find out the dude was bumming cigs from him all the time and Mark has a hard time telling people no (which is why I asked the guy to please not start asking - which was started when he asked if I had a cig when he first moved in [and flared the warning signs, but it was too late, he had already moved in]).

The guy that just moved in is 42 years old.  He is a manager in a company that is attempting to expand in this area.  He has a wife and 3 kids in Georgia.  He is being relocated here to manage this region.  He expects to move his family here in - the next year actually.  He paid 2 months rent in advance, he travels alot and doesn't know if he was going to be here on the first of next month or not and decided to pay in advance (though I am not anal about the first, if someone tells me they can't pay until the 3rd or 4th, whatever within reason, it doesn't bother me).   So there it is, a done deal for now anyway.

Fresh, other battles have begun.  Nothing major or particularly bad, some of it annoying, though.  Like the new truck that never comes - at work.  Supposed to be here 2 weeks ago, and then on the 29th and now who knows.  They keep calling and apologizing for how long it's taking.  Retarded. Give me a break. This is ALL that this particular company does and they are "behind in paperwork"?!!  What, did they suddenly realize that there was a pile of paperwork to be done on this particular vehicle? I just get very annoyed with incompetence.  They are being paid to do a job that is the only job they do and they can't get it right.  Whatever.  I'm driving around a hot truck and it's only 100 degrees now.  I don't have any say in it, cause' if I did, they would be getting earfuls from me.  Give a delivery date, you better keep it and if you don't, you need to give an updated delivery date.  Instead, they just keep giving excuses and don't know when the freaking thing is going to be handed over to us.

Next annoyance: Landscapers.  They are hired to trim the trees and hedges and use those gasoline-powered air blowers to clean the parking lot.  And they don't give a DAMN whether they cover your entire car with a coat of dust, leaves, rock particles and whatever else.  I came back to the shop today to find the lady that works out of another division but actually occupying one of our offices complaining about it.  She had just washed her car. My car was CLEAN.  NOT NOW.  That s*** they covered it with was still on there even after driving 75mph on the freeway. I will be calling that company's owner and having a discussion about it.  If it does not have a satisfactory ending, I will be discussing it with the property owner next time he comes in since he is the one paying for that "service", read: BS.

Enough. It's time for bed anyway.

ben

That was one of the shortest terms I have ever had a tenant in here: just less than a month.  THE shortest was the FIRST tenant, I think she lasted 9 days before I booted her out and all the ensuing chaos.  Anyway, he was in here yesterday with his girlfriend allegedly "moving out", but he didn't have that much stuff to begin with and they weren't walking out with anything, so the mind can only wander in to the area of what they might have been doing.

He stated he would be out by 9:00 pm last night.  Whether he was or wasn't, I dunno cause' I went to bed and found his room vacated with door open this morning, good riddance, don't let the door hit you on your way out and don't call me cause' I most definitely WON'T be calling you.

That's my way of saying goodbye to a person that has caused a lot of trouble.

Now the quest to find another roommate.  I was afraid that I might have trouble find another good person.  It's always a gamble.  They can put on a good face for you at the beginning and turn into a devil after they are moved in.  If they know their rights, they can make it difficult for you to get them out.  If they don't know their rights and they are starting trouble with everyone, you can just tell them to leave and see what happens.

It's funny how rentals go. I posted an ad last time and I had 15-20 replies in a couple of days.  I have had 2 ads up for a day and a half now with only 2 replies.  Well, whatever.  I need the money but I don't need a bad tenant.

All of this junk happening this week and here it is only Wednesday/Hump day.

I did have another ex-tenant call and ask if I had a room available last week. He calls from time to time wondering if I have a room.  I would not, however, give him one.  He did not and would not help clean up the bathroom and he was pretty messy in the kitchen.  He was always on time with his rent, though.  And we got along well besides those issues - but those issues are very important to me.  I don't like a dirty kitchen and I get a bit antsy with people that won't help keep the bathroom clean.

So, just going to keep posting ads until I find someone.

As for now..............time to be off to work.

G'day.

ben

Drama

One of the worst things to happen when renting out room is when drama starts happening.
You don't want to come home to a house full of people that are not liking it.
Yesterday? Unbelievable and one tenant gone in the aftermath.
Mark was missing a throttle handle to his bike and had found his wire brush broken in half.
He claimed that he had just had the throttle handle on top of his toolbox out there and that the wire brush was intact not 10 minutes earlier.

Enter the new tenant.  Mark asks him what happened to it, jumping right to the point and getting right at the start of it.
This goes on back and forth for a while, I said nothing.  I wasn't going to get involved with this situation unless it began to get hostile.
Well, this guy goes out front and then comes storming back in, he had "found" the handle.  He also left the gate wide open and the dogs went running right on out.

I'm just shaking my head in disbelief.  I went out and called Duke and Prince back - they will listen.  But Sophie?  I called her once and she completely ignored me.  Been done this road, not even worth chasing after her.  She's going to run around the neighborhood, get it out of her system and hopefully come back.  I'm also not very happy with the dude and we get into it.  Bypassing a lot, he goes into the house where George finally heard what was going on and now THEY get into it at the kitchen table.  I was getting upset with this dude so before I did anything stupid, I walked out front and started watering my plants, just get away from it, let the thing cool off and also wait out there for Sophie to come back.

It was about 15 minutes later she comes trotting down the street, sees me, I call her and she came right up to me.  For that I rewarded her for "good" behavior and figured at least if it happens again, there won't be a negative correlation with coming home and possibly getting reprimanded.  I put her in the back yard, I was waiting for Mark to get back, it's basically a futile thing to go chasing after a dog like that that is very agile and does not want to be caught.

While waiting, this dude comes out the other gate.  He didn't see me and I watched him cross the front yard and - yes - left THAT gate wide open.  Time for him to go.  That's all I could think.  I yelled at him this time: WHAT are you DOING?

This story goes on and on, but the end result?  After cross words exchanged, he is leaving as of today.

Well, another wonderful day at work facing me, no, the new truck didn't come in yesterday (as it was scheduled to) and here we go, off to the races!

G'day.

ben

The service at the Salvation Army yesterday was pretty cool.  I missed my church's service excepting to go to the first 45 minutes of worship, but I was amazed at the worship service the SA had, very anointed.  I took a video of Caleb and another person who was also going through the ceremony to become a Soldier.  I don't really know what becoming a soldier in the SA actually means in terms of what they expect of you, though there are commitments he made yesterday that were interesting.   

I was also given a complement by one of his friends, lol.  "You're dad's pretty buff".  Oh really?  Nice to hear from the younger generation.  Vanity I guess, but I'll take it, lol.

That was it.  I didn't go to the baptismal yesterday for our church, I was plain too tired, it was a later start time and I wanted to see Caleb when he came home.   I also was still obsessing about that stupid bird that keeps eating my fish, keeping an eye on the sky and the ponds, waiting to see if I could see it come flying over.  I have only seen it once, Mark has seen it several times now. 

Start of a fresh new week.  Same old thing at work.  Oh well. I kinda get tired of it after a while which is usually a good sign that it's time to take some serious time off of work and get away from that rat race for a while, get revitalized, do something different.  Or just stay home, doesn't really matter, the point is to get away from it for a while.  The new truck is supposed to be in this week, actually, today, but I am not holding my breath on that one, they keep changing the arrival date on it.  

The truck I am driving now, the AC doesn't work well enough to keep up with the heat and this week is going to be warmer.  So, that new truck needs to get here, like, soon, very very soon.  I cannot stand driving around hot trucks and we aren't going to dump more money into it to try and get it fixed.  We have already spent almost 4 grand trying to get the AC fixed on it - and that at the International dealership - they don't seem to have a clue and it's a waste of money and time.  So, crossing my fingers that the new truck will arrive and I won't have to put up with nonsense anymore.

I am thinking of asking for a week off in June and in fact will probably put in the paperwork for it today.  

Regardless, it's time to be off to work!

G'day.

ben

So, Caleb has shown a sudden interest in learning how to cook.  This started about a month ago.  I finally heard why he is so interested in such last night:  His missionary stint to the Salvation Army will include him having to cook for himself.  He mostly has not cooked much of anything in his lifetime, relying on frozen dinners and whatever I cook or his mother cooks.

So, it's good to see that he will have to fend for himself in that arena.  Today, he will learn how to cook and glaze a ham - pretty easy stuff - and how to make mashed potatoes out of real potatoes (versus instant potatoes) and that should do it.  Well, throw in a vegetable or 2 of course.

Anyway, this will be a busy day. Start off with the worship service at my church, but then leave early to go to Caleb's church to see him promoted to a Solider within the Salvation Army, a necessary move for him to be able to go to Hawaii later this year as a missionary.  After that, our church is going to do baptisms at one of the congregant's homes in Gilbert so if there is time, I am going to travel over there and hopefully help pray in these individuals that need to get baptized.

I was baptized in lake Mead long ago so I don't feel the need to do that again.

For that, I am going to have to get off of the internet, go clean a pond filter, take a shower and get out of here.

Happy Sunday (or Monday to those living on the other side of the world, lol).

ben

It's all out war.  This war consists of having had placed an online order for a very realistic, cool-looking Great Blue Heron and also having had bought shade fabric to put around the ground installed pond to keep the Heron from wading in.

Frankly, if it were legal, I would just take the thing out with my pellet rifle.  It has a scope on it and it is very accurate.  I could take that bird out with one shot from that thing.  It isn't some play toy, it is a very powerful, air-driven rifle that looks like a real rifle.  Wood stock and almost 3 feet long.  The only way you can tell it's not a real rifle is the size of the barrel.  It is obvious after a closer look at it that it's not a large enough diameter to have any bullets going through it.

But I will have to dismiss that thought as I am sure if I did shoot the thing down, neighbors would be calling the police and I would probably get arrested.  Not worth it, especially considering there are other ways to deal with this thing.  I don't really want to go around shooting birds, anyway, it just pisses me off that this thing has taken to roosting in the pine tree directly behind my house which partially comes over my property and then feels free to eat my fish.

I went out and looked this morning, there are a LARGE number of fish missing out of that pond.  My only real luck is that the thing hasn't gotten any of my prized Koi, the ones I really like including the big butterfly Koi.  I can accept the loss of those other fish, but I would be completely infuriated right now if one of those 4 were gone.  So, in a few minutes, going to go out there and get this done.  I should take long since I already have posts cemented into the ground around the pond as I installed a shade cover over it a few years ago to keep some of the intense sun off of it and heating up the water too much.

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Phase 1 completed.  The screening is now installed and should be enough in itself to stop any of them from entering.  I am now going to reinforce it.  I wish I had a camera to run over there!  My Heron decoy/lawn decor will be here in about a week.  Between the 2, hopefully the bird will be stopped/deterred from doing any more damage.

Further inquiry into the internet has Herons not liking big dogs - I have huge dogs but they won't like me making them stay over there.  Fishing line.  Apparently trips them up, but I have read that it has limited success. Scarecrow.  A motion activated water sprayer that some swear by and others say don't work as the Heron will get used to it and won't care about water spraying on them (and also a bit on the expensive side).

I also read that they can just stand at the side of a pond, even an elevated one (the above ground pond is about 30 inches tall) and just wait for fish to come close enough for it to stab one.  Okay.  I have an answer for that but it's going to take a while.  My Yerba Mansa has about half of the pond covered on the sides.  There is no way a Heron can fish through that mass of plant sitting there.  But the other half of the pond doesn't have any of it and so - at least start the thing towards growing over there so the bird cannot access it at all.  Not to mention it looks nice having that plant growing like that.

Both ponds now fully protected - I hope.  Stood out there until the sun went down and did not see it come back to the tree.  I don't think birds wait until after dark to be coming "home", so not sure what's going on with it.  What I do know is that the blooming thing knows where my ponds are and it will be back, especially after getting as many free - and easy pickings - meals as it has gotten.

You think I am obsessing about this.  Yep, I am.  Those fish are worth a lot of money.  Koi are not cheap fish.  I spent a lot of time going around to homes where they were shutting down the ponds and either giving the fish away or selling them cheap.  All over the Phoenix metro area and even a trip to the town of Maricopa.  Once I acquired enough fish, I stopped.  I can buy more small Koi from Petsmart, but I still  have plenty of fish in both ponds so prolly not going to do that unless I want to get another Butterfly Koi - they are selling them now and they are such beautiful Koi fish.

I am definitely going to replace the fancy goldfish - don't remember it's name - I can get a couple at Petsmart -  small ones - for like 5 a piece.  It will be years before they are as big as the one that was eaten and found on the ground the other day - which is what sent me into all of this frenzy of shoring up my ponds and keeping that thing out of there.