How exasperrating is it to try and text someone who says something and then disappears?  Voice texting, btw, not fingers.  I went to Dallas today, got the pipe and heading back I couldn't get either dog nailed down for picking it up. Finally, the first dog I posted on my FB wall texted me - I had emailed her several times and finally just left my phone number - saying she really hopes I haven't passed by Tyler yet? No, I was still 30 miles out.  Got it done in a Walmart parking lot.  I wasn't exactly impressed their reasoning to get rid of this dog.  They don't want to take the time to finish house training it to pee outside.

Ooooookaaaaaay.  I'm not necessariliy looking forward to it, but they sell pee pads now you set down by the door in your bedroom, for example, and the dog hopefully pees on that.  I don't remember the rest of how to get them to pee outside, Addler wasn't house trained but he refuses to pee in the house, I had nothing to go through there.  This dog is still very young and has a lot of growing to do.  It did not like getting into the truck and it was attempting to get out of the closed door on the passenger side - a virtual impossibility but she tried anyway.  It would be a little difficult to bring a tractor trailer rig into my neighborhood - not impossible but  if I can avoid it, yes, avoid it.  So the new guy living here came and got her from a parking lot 2 blocks away.

Well the Dallas drive took all day long because it's not only 400 miles of driving, there was quite a bit of ridiculousness to go through just to get the truck loaded.  1st stop the will call. Well you walk through the door and there is a sign in stark, bold letters telling you to push the ringer and wait.  So I did.  Even though there were 2 forklift  drivers and a man walking around the floor and then a minute later even more employees - right there.  After 10 minutes of waiting and being ignored, I walked to the office. No one in there. Back to the waiting area, where I finally got irritated and pushed the ringer - a very LOUD ringer - and held the button down.  Yup, just like that, I did it.  What kind of customer service is it to have will call associates ignoring their customers?

So some dude with an "air" of authority appears around a corner some distance away, waving his hands at me while he walks into the office.  Ringer kept right on going.  He's in the office, waving his hands.  Ringer kept right on going.  Come over here and tell me something.  Yes sir, we know you're here, one moment.  Yes sir, what do you need. Something!  Finally some other dude comes up to where I'm standing and says: well, I see you like to hold down the ringer.  No, dude, I hit the ringer when I first came in here and you and those guys on the forklift completely ignored me.  He looks around, says he didn't even see me standing here. How could you not? We may EYE contact.  Whatever.  Then there was an issue with the Purchase Order which took an additional 15 minutes.

THEN, I am sent out of that yard to  a guard shack down the street.  Sit there and watch a safety video, fill out all kinds of forms and sign them and get my paperwork.  THEN I am sent to yet another gate off the main street.  If they wanted to make this any harder for customers to wade through their maze of gates - 3 of them I ended up going through by their instruction - well I dunno.

Well whatever.  An hour and a half to get 5 sticks of pipe and a fitting.  The only good thing about it is that by the time I got back to the yard, it was time to go home.  I'm surprised the manager didn't just waste another thousand dollars having a hot shot driver bring it over.  That's what they do. Instead of giving us some real gravy runs that we could do, they hire hot shot drivers to take materials down to Baton Rouge or Sulphur and other places, trips that could be made in a day in any of our trucks, we get the run, we get the hours and the company is saved a significant amount of money.

Anyway, I'm home with the new doggy, Addler is a bit jealous, he'll get over it with time, the new doggy a bit skittish, I would have rather have gotten the dog at the beginning of this coming weekend and had 3 days to work with it getting it settled in, but I didn't want to lose the opportunity to get it so here we go. Tonight? May be a very long night, who knows.

However, one good sign: Addler and Aspyn (I don't really like that spelling, I may change it to just plain Aspen) are playing.  So yeah, that is what I wanted to get this dog for, hopefully it will pan out.

Meanwhile, I still have the ac problem to deal with and frankly? It will probably wait until the weekend.  It's obviously been going on for quite a while now, the floor is water-damaged around the AC closet, the wood flooring is buckled up and it has been that way for a long time and getting worse.  I'm pretty sure the man of the house saw what was going on here and just did nothing about it.  Because I remember some time ago walking through there and seeing the floor buckled, but not near as much as it is now.  And then, finding out they have never had it cleaned since they moved in here.  Ugh. This sounds like it's going to turn into a project. My plans were to try and borrow the pressure washer this weekend, not spend it trying to fix a plumbing problem and trynig to clean coils while I'm at it.  But, I watched the dude doing it when it was done at my house - and charged a fortune to do it.  All he did, really was spray some stuff in there and then wait a while and flush it out with water.

But, the charge was probably worth it.  You see, they guarantee the AC is going to work for a year after that. So, they do have a stake in it.  But, funds are kinda tight right now after that water heater deal and a few other things that came up, I'm guessing minimum $250 for them to come out and clean that thing and who knows how much they would charge to fis the plumbing problem.  There are things I won't deal with on AC units because I don't have the equipment, but this is stuff I can do and being careful, I won't damage anything.  I remember long ago when I caught Mary, a former tenant in the Phoenix house, vacuuming the evaporator coils.  She was using a hard plastic tip and was smashing the fins in on the coil.  Uhhh, Mary, do you see what you are doing?

She got mad at me because she was "just trying to help me". Yes, but you are damaging the unit and when the air can't flow through those fins, the air doesn't cool and the volume of air is reduced.  You are suffocating the system by doing that.  Oh.  She thought I was stupid and didn't know what i was talking about.  My first rounds at dealing with AC was in cars long, long ago.  It's the same principle.  Liquid gets heated as it passes through the evaporator, it is pumped to the condensor outside which cools it and reverts it back to a liquid and then back to the evaporator - back and forth.  Now that I know the coils haven't been cleaned, I also know that that is what probably has clogged up the drain.

Oh well.  Just not looking forward to it.

Well, long day.  Call this one done.

So, I purportedly have a run to Dallas today and I also have a tentative pickup of a German Shepherd.  Neither of those things are set in stone, I never really know where they are sending me until they hand me the paperwork.  The whims of the warehouse dude change from day to day and though I have done my best to work with him, he still talks a bunch of trash about me behind my back.

But then again, he talks trash about all the blue collar workers behind their backs so at least I'm not alone in that grouping.  I take that back, he also talks ghetto about the inside salesmen.  One of which has deccided he can't take the new manager's crap anymore and is seekng emloyment in greener pastures.  I watch the manager giving him hell, frequently, over minor, small issues that don't warrant anger and vitriol in terms of a reaction.  

People are going to leave sooner or later and it's all going to come down on the manager's head.  The only people that won't leave are the outside salesmen because the gravy train is very nice right now, they are making money hand over fist and they aren't going to care what kind of bs they have to put up with.  However, we are now losing customers beacuse of the manager's reputation.  Yeah, he's been around for 25 years in this business and ran the store long, long ago when - they lost business then as well.

However, per my previous statement, I have also done my best to treat him with respect and simply brush off  the frequent railings such as yesterday monring when he started in on everyone first thing Monday morning.  This gives a little more credence to the theory being floated around that his wife wears the pants in his family and that he comes to work to take it out on everyone.  Because every Monday morning? It's the same crap.  

I identified the problem in the AC last night but have to take panels off and take a look at what it's going to take to repair it.  It's obviously a clogged drain, but why is the drain clogged? I texted her - the lady that owns the house - and asked when the last time was they had the coils cleaned?  They hadn't.  They're young, they don't know alot of this stuff, I am going to make sure they learn. Especially with the AC, preventative maintenance is worth it's weight in gold.  I don't even have to call it a guess, I know the coil is going to covered with dust and dirt and whatever has accumulated in there and I really prefer a professional AC person to come in and clean it - but they want so much money to do it.  

I've watched several videos on how to do it and really, I may just have to tackle the job myself.  Vacuum it first and then there is a special foam spray you can buy at Home Depot to spray into it, let it sit in there for a while and then wash out.  But first, fix the clogged drain problem, which could be a nightmare, who knows.  I just know what it costs to have AC professionals to come out and I would rather try myself and this is a drain problem, not an AC problem.  

Well, time to go to work! 

Well, the termite guy came out to my house (in Phoenix), drilled a bunch of holes, filled them with poison, filled them again with poison and then sealed it up with mud.  I mean, every time I've ever seen termite exterminators going out to a house, that is exactly what they do.  The questionning is on my Facebook wall where several people said that if it doesn't cost $800 or thousands of dollars to deal with, it hasn't been dealt with.

Well, I'm not going to spend that kind of money on termites.  I have found Craigslist to be a viable alternative to many pricey services where people do side work from their regular jobs or they are advertising their services for cheaper.

My problem is, my house is surrounded by a sea of hoarders and slobs.  This is no exaggeration, not even slightly.  I have been informed that the Hispanic neighbors have so much junk piled up now (I am not living there and therefore my calls to the city to come out and force these neighbors to deal with this crap is also gone) that it's several feet high all the way around the house.  The bugs of various nature are coming from my neighbors.  I really despise having to pay for these services to be done because my neighbors can't see fit to keep their properties clean.  I am full tilt blown into cleaning up the current property I am at.  And then, upgrading landscaping and curb appeal.

Whatever.  It's just something I have had to live with, though I used to call the city out on all of them because it's against city ordinances, constitutes a health hazard, degrades the property values in the neighborhood and personally affects me because of their cats and the bugs coming over onto m property and also the animal poop loading up on their property that eventually the smell gets so strong, yup, another call to the city.  Why do people live like this?  It's a simple thing to just clean up. I'm not asking them to install nice landscaping as I did, I just want them to keep their properties clean as city ordinances require.

So, I have to have an exterminator come out TWICE a month now.  I am only paying for one visit - I was going to cancel it because Mark said he would deal with it himself.  But the exterminator lady said please keep the account and I'll come out twice a month and deal with this problem for the same price.  Okay, I mean, it's 30 bucks per month, you really can't beat that, especially considering the scope of the problem there.  It certainly isn't her fault that the bug problems on adjacent properties are so bad that the only way to deal with it is twice monthly visits.

Over to this side of the world, I spent about 9 hours yesterday doing cleanup outside.  Now that their dog is gone, I can do that and not have to worry about it getting all trashed again within a few days.  The previoius owners of this house had expended a great deal of time and money from what I could tell in upgrading the landscaping and eye appeal, but it had been let go and the wood used for many of the projects was completely rotten.  I took all of it down and burned all of it.  It burned into the night as I kept adding stuff as I found it.

There are trees that need to be cut down as well. They are trees that started growing long after the giant trees were planted. These "natural" trees - meaning they started with the droppings of seeds by the big trees - should never have been allowed to grow. They are growing at extreme angles and over the tops of structures and fencing.  Bringing down such trees would require a professional with a crane. I can't do that, but I can cut off "offending branches"  which are hanging down almost to the ground and also the ones that are hitting the roofs.  I started that yesterday as well.

There is still alot of work to do.  Moving dirt being the largest thing right now and I will do that instages.  I don't need to wear myself out on weekends making the work week even that much more difficult.  It's next to impossible to get anyone over here - as I have said before but lamenting now - to help do that kind of work.  "Back in the day" you could hire neighborhood kids and they would work hard and not complain. Now, they start complaining before the work even starts. Why bother?  I don't.

Now that I have the freedom to do what I want - I sort of had that before but now I'm running the place and I will pull the levers on what I think needs to be done - it's going to get greatly improved.  It's more about the labor in getting things done than it is large amounts of money.  For example, the walls are covered with algae. 2 to 4 feet up from the ground.  It's ugly and it needs to come off.  This week I am going to ask the manager if he will let me borrow it over a weekend. Others have done so with him so I expect him to say yes.  Okay, I really don't expect him to say yes, there are huge double standards at that place now, but I'm going to ask anyway.

And, the next door neighbor has come around now.  She found a boyfriend and didn't want the appearance of helping a neighbor who is also a single man.  We got over that yesterday as I introduced myself to the man and we chatted about home improvement projects. She, the neighbor, pointed out the algae and I thought, yeah, that's pretty unsightly.  After looking it up, it also appears it can eventually damage the brick by holding in moisture and eventually causing the brick to come apart.  The entire house has either mold or on the vinyl parts, a huge amount of dirt accumulated.  It would be a day long project, maybe an entire weekend, to deal with it.

They want $250 for a decent, gas-powered pressure washer and I am just not going to spend that kind of money on a house that i don't own and will get nothing back out of it.  Well, excpeting that I have a nice place to live versus having to go somewhere else, start over and not know what kind of environment I'm going to end up in.  Not to mention having a Great Dane, which is an obstacle trying to find places.  I'm really considering staying in this area because of housing investment opportunities.  I need to get one going and get my feet in the water. Eventually having 10 of them would provide a decent income on it's own.

I am going to spend some time today investigating the options that are available to people who want to get involved in such ventures. However, I want to get outside and do a limited amount of work today.  Really, the pressure washer and the dirt moving are next on the list.  Well that and cleanup on the north side of the house.  Perhaps that is what i will start to tackle. They have accumulated a large amount of junk over there. I burned what was burnable from there yesterday but there are wet leaves piled up and it's very unsightly.  Oh, and I still have trenching to dig, that is hard work though.  Maybe I could do enought to get one more stick of pipe in at least.    Well, now that I have loaded myself up with a list, I'll pick one and try to get it done and the rest can be taken up again next weekend.

Well, that was interesting. Reading some things.  My room rental endeavors seem to be far more profitable than renting whole houses to individual families.  When the landlords lives in the residence, it is unlikely that a bad tenant is going to get away with anything for very long.  Damage, noise, nuisances? Goodbye.  You're IN the house, you SEE what the people are doing, they are kept  u nder check.  Plus, you are renting the rooms at a higher rate than what would occur if you rent the whole house.  I'm not against renting a house, I just know you incur less damage and loss with a live-ine landlord.

I dunno. Lots to ponder.

Oops, forgot about the lawn. The mower won't start and I don't have the right sized socket to remove the spark plug.  Gonna have to go get one.

Time to get something done.




 

I would like to announce this work week is over.
I have, patting myself on the back since I know no-one else will lol, done a very nice job of ignoring the new manager's unbelievable lack of any kind of social graces and have made all kinds of genuine, amiable gesstures in terms of greetings to him all week long.  How about I just do whatever I can within reason to win him over and that will be that.  Well I'm trying.  Yesterday, my 8 hours was "here" and I told the guy filling in for the dinosaur-aged-minded warehouse dude who is on vacation that I have been here 8.  Well let me go find out what he - the manager from now on, I'll get rid of the new part - says.  Yup, better to cover your @$$. He comes back, the manager says what's an hour?

Well you hear him say that every day, never.  Today was perplexing to me with him, though. We were audited not long ago by corporate and we failed because of the drivers. And not me, thanks and patting myself on the back again, I was the only one that was given a pass, the other drivers failed the entire store and the auditors will be back and who knows when.  Well, one failed part none of us had any knowledge of and that was forklift checklists that are supposed to be performed every day before you get on it.  A useless waste of time, if the thing works, it works if it doesn't call the repair service - but whatever.  I spot stuff wrong on everything. If it's broke, I point it out.  So, today, after a month of  all of us doing it everyday, we lapsed on a series of events that occurred as we came into the yard to deal with that included using 2 forklifts to unload a freight truck that had been unproperly loaded and we had to deal with it.

The perplexing part was him talking about "only one perfect man" that walked the earth, referencing Christ and a few other references to our Lord.  How can a man treat people the way he does in such an abhorent manner and reference the Lord?  Just extremely strange.  I am in a different land and people think differently here and I have tried to integrate myself into this regional thinking, but I'm hardly going to lose myself in it.  Some of it is bizarre and very foreign to me.  I still have trouble understanding what people are saying here.

Whatever the case, I was given the okay to take as much damaged pipe as I want out of the pile.  Thanks. I need more to complete the drainage project but I have no way to get it over here. I have no way of getting it over here, lol, but maybe we'll get another run this way. Actually there's a run to Dallas next week but it won't be my turn on the semi.  I wish it was because there is a dog over there that I really would like to get I just have too much going on here to leave for that length of time.  Still, I need a break from all of this stuff.  I have so much vacation hours saved up now I'm considering a week off soon.  No idea.  I just keep saving them up because I don't know what I want to do.

__________________________________________

Now Saturday morning.  Got up, put the rest of my stuff away that I had laying out.  I just find that that kind of thing is a weekend job, not really interested in doing that when I get home from work.  so now, the house is all cleaned up and the new lady here wants to scrub the floors.  Be my guest, there's the supplies!  Lol.  Seriously, I have so much stuff to get done outside that having that kind of help inside is a big plus.  I still have some things to arrange in my room but not really that muich.  I seriously want to dig out a small pond out front.

But, that isn't a priority though if I wanted to do it I would really have to get it done before winter. There's just a big mess out there right now from recent heavy storms that came through from the south - where all that damage was done in Baton Rouge and accompanying areas. We've been getting hit hard.  I also have more ditch to dig and I now have to mow the front yard every weekend since the next door neighbor won't do it like she used to when the owners were living here.  She found a boyfriend and that dude is over there right now, actually, helping her do the yard.  But, we have a new mower and it doesn't take that long. Still, another chore on the list lol.

The front porch really needs to be recoated.  I'm not sure that's anything I want to do this weekend though it doesn't look good out there. But I'd have to buy primer and the concrete paint and that would run the bill up to around 50 bucks. I kinds spent a lot of money on that water heater for m  house in Phoenix and I don't necessarily want to spend that kind of money.  In reality, I really would like to figure out another room so I could rent mine out.  The "extra" money every month would pay for the home improvements instead of  coming out of my pocket.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced if I could get a hold of 4 or 5 rental properties that would provide monthly income that would fund my retirement when I get there.  My credit should start going up in  the next few months, meanwhile I"m going to read up on people that are in the business and have the knowleedge.  I found another property so cheap, I would have loved to jump on it.  But, the house is condemned meaning either raze the house altogether or spend a lot of time and money making it livable.  I dont want a huge project house.  Replacing some drywall, fixing up kitchens and bathrooms are okay, but having to redo roofs or broken central ac units is not in the cards.  Too much money and too much time.

There is a very strong rental market in this area, I'm sure I could rent out houses and make a reasonable profit on them.

Well, I got a lot to do today, best to be getting offa here.

Well I wore myself out today. I was determined to get that ditch dug beyond the house and make the turn,which I did.  It's dug out over there and the 90 installed and that was it for me for today.  I have enough pipe to make it to the back yard but not to the creek, if I'm to ever finish the project I need probably 3 more sticks of pipe and likely I won't get them free as I did with the previous manager who just wrote it off and let me have them.  Wish I would have gotten all of it back then when I could have.

Speaking of that, my coworker got into trouble this week at work.  He apparnetly has been telling contractors that he is quitting and going over to HD Supply. One of them came into the will calll the other day and asked if he was still working there or had he departed to HD Supply yet?  It's one thing to look for a new job in greener pastures, it's entirely another to be looking at your current company's direct competition. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but keep your mouth shut until you make up your mind and you are actually working over there.

But, a few of my applications have called over there and asked for references.  Funny, they haven't gotten back to me at all.  But, the new manager told my coworker the other day that there  is no guarantee that he is going to give either of us a good reference.  Hmmm, well, that's interesting, because I am not asking him for a reference, but companies normally call current or previous employers and ask.  The thing is, if he's giving false statements intentionally, there have been a large number of lawsuits that companies lose because of it.  I would love to find out he's saying something ill of me, for I have done nothing but give stelllar work performance to keep myself clear from any negatives against me.

__________________________________

So, with that revelation, I can give my old manager as a reference.  He won't give a load of bs.  Or nt a reference, just the person to call. Regardless, it's Sunday and upcoming Monday.  I don't really know what's going on at work tomorrow, but I do know I don't really want to be there.  So, I am going to look at more job listings today.

Meanwhile, the transition here is going better. Addller is getting used to have free house roam - with me of course.  We are now hanging out in the living room instead of the bedroom. Sundays I do like to watch a bit of TV, usually whatever movies might be on.  I am at the moment decided not to get a receiver in my room since I have full access to this one out here, and frankly, it's cooler out here than in the bedroom.  Much more space as well, though Addler doesn't have his bed to hang out on out here.  That's up to him, the bedroom door is open he can go in there and lay down if he wants.

Friday at last.  Get this work day over with and head home, relax tonight probably and then spend the weekend trying to get some of this situation here finished.

Addler is still pretty agitated I guess you could call it.  He is barely eating and running all the place. If I leave him out too long he will start crying, literally. It's a bit much for him I guess.  Time will deal with it.  He'll at least eat the treats I am giving him so there is that.  I don't think I'm going for  the deaf Great Dane for the owner revealed it is also an escape artist without elaborating how it escapes.  Sorry, I don't need one of those. It really doesn't have to be a Great Dane at all.  A medium sized dog that eats a lot less food would also suffice.

I did get a new bathtub faucted that has an attachment on it to put a hand held shower to it.  You hit the diverter valve and walaah, instant shower.  All well and fine - and installed - but there was only a thing to screw onto the regular shower head threads, which I don't have.  So I am going to go back today and see if they have some kind of bracket I can buy to have it mounted  to the wall.  I don't want to sit there hold the thing the whole time trying to take a shower (but I must admit it is far better than nothing at all or taking a bath).  After skipping a shower yesterday since I couldn't take one, it felt mighty good to get in that shower stream this morning and clean up.  It also helps wake me up, hence the reason I take my showers in the morning.

I expect things to start normalizing around here pretty quick. The new tenants are getting used to my ways - I don't want the front door left open all day long, thanks.  I'm trying not to actually "say" "negative" things to them, I just show them.  There are 2 doors on the front: a normal wood door and then a glass door.  The lady wants to leave the wood door open and the glass door closed.  Sounds okay but in reality the glass door doesn't have near the insulating properties of the wood door and it is summer time and the AC is on.  So I just started closing it.  They are here all day so the AC is set at lower temp all day.

The only thing that may help combat the extra electricity is that she does all of the dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher that was run once a day, every day when my landlords were here.  They also don't have near the electronic devices to keep charged/running as the landlords did.  It may offset it, I don't know.  I already did say something at the get go about laundry.  No 7 loads per week stuff.  Keep it to a minimum, please, do large loads.

I mean, I know I'm going to have to say some things about electric use behavior, maybe, but still, they already declared they are very conscious about electric use and that at least made me happy to hear they don't just believe because they are paying rent that the have the "right" to use as much as they please.

Well, writing time over. Off to work.

One thing you learn when it comes to many co-workers: you can't really trust them.  You can't really confide in them unless they are real life friends as well.
Anyway, my coworker calls me today and starts complaining about how the new manager called him into his office and said that he had heard from outside sources that my co-worker was going around telling everyone he is switching over to our competitor.

I think he suspected that I had said something to someone, which I had not.  I know how this new manager works now, you don't give anything away to him at all.  Nothing. Some things are better left alone that most other managers wouldn't have a problem dealing with.  Not this guy, he's a real winner.  I think the thing that passed the manager off is that my co-worker is going to HD Supply which is a major competitor of ours.  Just to see what they would say, when I got back to the yard today after the second run I non-chalantly asked why he had gone home early?  Oh, he got himself into trouble.  Oh?  Yeah, he's been going around telling people that he's quitting and going over to HD Supply.

Who did he tell? Everyone. Actually, that does fit my co-workers MO. He talks a lot, too much, gets himself into trouble.  The problem is, there is some kind of glitch with HD Supply and they told him they may not be able to hire him after all.  Oops.  If I find a new job, they aren't going to find out about it until I tell them I'm quitting.  The new manager came in several weeks ago, lambasted everyone and then told us all that if we want to quit, he doesn't neeeeeeed no advance notice, just get your stuff and leave now.  Notwithstanding the fact that no-one had said anything about quitting.

I intend on calling the General Manager and telling him instead.  No need to burn bridges though I really kinda want to.  So anyway, the new manager took my co-worker's keys from him, told him to go home.  As I said, I just smile at everyone now and say hi and go along with whatever.  So far my searches have come back with negatives, even though they are advertised on the online job hunting sites.  They don't have any positions open and when one does comee available, hundreds of people apply for them almost instantaneously.  It's not really a driver's market for local jobs, it's always a driver's market for OTR or Regional.  I'm really glad, though, that I didn't jump on that.  I wouldn't have been able to stay here at this house for they would have sold it.  I can't be out on the road for a week at a time and attempt to oversee their house, just wouldn't work too well.

Electric use is going to go up here and they have agreed to pay for it. They are home all the time.  The ac was set at 78 when everyone was gone at work. I set it at 74 and I was informed they lowered it to 72 today.  Well nice and fine.  Just help yourself.  That's one of the no no's I have with tenants.  Do NOT touch the thermostat. If it is too hot or cold, we can discuss terms, ie: you pay the difference.  Otherwise, live with it or there are plenty of places up for rent around here - referring to Phoenix though, not here.  I told my landlords to install a locked cover over the thermostat because one particular tenant was turning it way down during the day.  Which in turn was jacking up the electric bill by over $100 per month.  He and his girlfriend had been there for  years, actually, but they decided to get their own place after that.

Another oops on their part.  They found out how much their appetite for electric use was costing and they said that I had spoiled them.  No, they had taken advantage of me and now that they are gone, we aren't going there again.  I won't allow it here, either, without the person or people compensating for the extra electricty.

I have definitely decided to let my stuff wait until this weekend.  Saturday I will deal with the rest of it and the house will look normal again. Another rainy day today and rainy days make me sleepy.  I am like ready to go to bed and it's not even 7 pm yet.  Oh, my stuff that is still out in the main areas of the house.  Nothing worth stealing, lol, my room doesn't have a locking door anyway, though I am considering changing that.  Not that I think these people are thieves, but I find more peace of mind knowing that no-one can go trifling through my stuff.  There are plenty of nosy people in this world that will do stuff like that for no more reason than to just be snoopy.

My checks have been cashed for the passport, though I don't know that that is any guarantee that I'm going to get one. I'm a little leery now going through this stuff with Texas and still not getting any word back on whether I will get the LTC or not.

Addler is still pretty skittish about what's going on here, but I suspect the loss of his pack is the real thing that has unnerved him.  His companions are gone and they aren't coming back.  Well one of them may eventually come back, but honestly? I do not like that dog.  It chews up everything. Plastic pots, plants, trees, garden hoses, you name it, even glass bottles.  It does this all day long and makes a huge mess out in the back.  I got so sick of cleaning up after that dog that I just started only doing it once per week.  They wouldn't clean up at all and I just wantd the place looking at least somewhat presentable. The back yard is basically a disaster and it will take quite a bit of doing to make it something appealing.

I have the stuff to put in a small pond out front. Really, I do. The underliner, the liner and the pump.  Well I don't have the filter, no, wait I do have a filter too! Would have to dig up a lot of dirt to do it. But we spend our time on the front porch, not out back where the pond I put in is at.  So, anyway, I might get around to doing that since I have already spent the money quite some time ago, it was gong to go to do something else but that plan was halted with the dogs tearing everything up in the back yard.

Well, enough.

A rather grueling day yesterday.  I knew I had a lot to do, but I didn't realize had that much to do until I started in on everything.  Hindsight being 20-20, should have given myself at least 2 days to deal with all of this. Started at 6:30 am moving out of my bedroom, much more there than I thought. I had been storing up food for any kind of natural disaster or whatever else may come along that deprives us of the basic necessities of life and that  food had been taking up a lot of space.

Well, I have an entire pantry now! HUGE pantry at that.  All of that food is neatly tucked away in there at this point and that's numerous large boxes full of food that I don't have to have in my bedroom now.  That is a big plus.  The lady that was supposed to show up at 8? No show and I got back on my computer and found an email from her from the previous day stating she had some sort of family emergency in Houston and wouldn't be able to make it.

Panic mode, sort of.  Started sending out messages to all the other people that had replied and got a reply back almost immediately from one of them: can't be there right now, but in a couple of hours.  Well, it would have to do. Too much cleaning and moving things around for me to be able to get all of that done in the short time period I had to do it.  He did show up, though, about an hour and a half later and he went straight to work.  Nothing against men, but I had wanted a female person to do the work for I just find that they are the better cleaners and more eye to detail.  He did a great job, though and helped me clean up my room and move out of it and then on to other areas of the house.

And of course, the new tenants showed up way too early.  I told them it would be after noon - at least - before ready to move into my old bedroom, though the master bedroom was vacated and they could move in there.  They kept wanting to take stuff in to my bedroom and I kept saying no, we aren't finished in there yet.  Anyway, I still have stuff laying out in both the dining room and the living room and really dont' care.  I just had too much to do and I didn't have time to sort through all of it.  They will have to deal with that stuff being there until I can get to it, which ain't today because I'm back to work this morning.  In reality, it's just stuff on the dining room table and a corner in the living room with a pile of my stuff in there.

So, my new bedroom.  Well, it's a tad smaller but it's pretty nice actually.  I'm happy I agreed to stay and take over the house.  The biggggg drawback right now is a bathroom that doesn't have a shower, it just has a bathtub.  I don't do baths.  I don't like sitting in bathtubs and it takes too much time.  I am a hopper - hop into the shower, scrub down, hop out, 5 minutes and it's done. You can't even fill up the tub in 5 minutes, can you? Much less  sitting there...well anyway, just not for me.  But, the problm is, it's not set up for a shower.  There is no shower head.  The wall is going to have to be opened up to install one, gag.  Worse, I don't even know where the other side of that wall is, but I think it's the master bedroom closet.  This is a headache that I'm going to have to try to deal with this coming weekend.  Until then, I guess I'll be forced to take baths after work, I just don't have the desire to do that in the morning.

Oh now wait a minute.  Just saw a tub spout that has a divertor to attach a hand shower attachment to.  Yes!  Oh thank God. I don't want to tear out walls and install all that junk and spend all the money.  Good deal, hopefully that old one will come off easy enough and I can just install the diverter setup and walaah, instant shower.

Of course, nothing seems too easy in an old house, such as even turning off the ball valve at the street. We even have the tool to do it with, but that thing wouldn't budge.  I was giving it more and more pressure until I stopped, I was afraid I was going to break it.  We had a hose outlet that was leaking and I wanted to replace it, but you have to shut the water off to the house first.  The city came out and turned it off and yes, it started leaking.  They would have charged us $100 to fix it, too, if we hadn't called them to come out and turn it off.  So now, they have to install a new one and then it will turn on and off easily.

So anyway, there is a lot to do here in the next few weeks not the least of which is to find the drain on the pan for the ac unit and unclog it.  It's leaking everywhere and I have no idea how long it's been doing that.  I mean, the wood flooring is buckling up from the water, they must have known about this? I never came over to this side of the house, this is all news to me.  I'm assuming the drain is clogged and I will attempt to find the pipe, get a small drain snake and clear it out. Unless the pan itself is leaking, this ..... well I don't want to predict an easy fix.  It could be a nightmare for all I know.  Maybe it's why they didn't deal with it, but you can't just have water leaking in your house.

Alright, well off to work.  I am not really looking forward to work today, but then again I never do anymore, not at that place. Just that i would rather be at home and dealing with all of this stuff and getting it over with.

Rubber meets the road time.
They are gone, left at 2 pm.  By the time I got home, Addler was definitely an unhappy camper. No other dogs in the back yard with him, no-one in the house, not happy at all.  I am going to have to find another dog for him soon.  The Dane that was offered apparently is no longer being offered, they didn't like the fact that i couldn't drop everything I am in the middle  of and drive 150 miles to go see if that Dane and Addler are compatible and bring him home.

Found another one.  But, I am going to peruse the local Craigslist ads and see if there is another breed that might be a weeeeee bit smaller and go that route instead.  I am just a Dane lover, but I have had several other breeds of dogs as well that I really liked and loved.  I've had my share of mutts that all turned out to be great dogs.  I just don't want to start from scratch, ie: housbreaking and obedience and all of that.

There are a large number of breeds I don't want, including Beagles, Labs, Bassett Hounds and Greyhounds, but many more really.  I like other people's small dogs, I don't want one.  I want a dog that has a good temperament and not known to be aggressive by nature.  Which eliminates numerous other breeds including Pitbulls, Dobermans and Rottweilers.  I also don't want a known escape artist.  I have no patience for that and those dogs usually end up lost or dead, in a pound or someone else takes them home.

Well, the only night I'll have the house to myself.  Which matters not either way. I had no energy to move anything tonight, which is what I had given half a thought about anyway.  Meaning tomorrow is going to be gruesome getting everything out of here. I do, however, have a cleaning lady coming.  I put in an ad on Craigslist for $10 for cleaning and got probably 30 responses.  One of them was from a lady that claims she does tenant home cleaning, charges $10 per hour and has her own tools and cleaners.  Well howdy do! She'll be over at 8 am.  I would have had her come earlier but something tells me that getting up in the morning isn't going to be fun and since I don't really have to be up that early, I: won't.  It was extremely intense, 300 miles of driving in heavy downpouring rain today and that takes a lot of focus and wears me out mentally.

Whatever the case, I need to get to bed early cause' I know this is going to wear me out tomorrow.

I'm not sure what I"ve gotten myself into.  Do I really want to take care of someone else's house for 2 years?  Welp, I agreed to it though stipulated that "anything" can happen but promised to give well advance notice if anything happens that I need to skidoodle.  With that, I'm off to bed.

I was very happy to get to work this morning and have a run that was gonig to take up most of the day. Red River Army Depot was the destination in Hook, Texas.  You have to fill out an application to get into the place and they do a background check on you then and there.  The place is massive.  Lots of Army personel carrier trucks all over and all kinds of military vehicles parked alongside dirt roads on both sides all over the place.  2 hours just inside that place getting the truck in there, unloaded and back out again.

Tomorrow is going to be just as good with an even longer trip down to Corrigan.  I don't much care for the inevitable passing by the CMV inspection station which is almost always open and trucks are pulled in at random.....

Anyway, I got off work and headed to UPS store, got the documents notarized and shipped out to mom's place up in the mountains.  Hopefully the trailer will sell quickly, or even at all considering where it's parked. I'm hopeful someone will be willing to buy it and go up and get it out of there.  Otherwise, I'm going to have to pay to have the thing hauled back down to the Valley and that's about $300 bucks to do so.  Ugh.

Got home, there is a rental truck in the driveway and it's almost loaded.  This thing is growing wings and about to take off.  Helped the dude carry a king size mattress out to the truck.  Huge thing!

I'm stressing, I can tell, with everything that is going on.  And irritated with the LTC license.  I mean, even if they reject it, they must send a letter, right?  Out a good deal of money if they don't approve it. Passport, no idea what kind of parameters they use to determine who can get one and who doesn't.  They have my birth certificate and I will be happy when they send that back, it was quite a bit of doing to get that thing.

And, I'm trying my best in the spirit of Christianity if nothing else to be nice to the new manager and treat him with the Golden Rule, which he doesn't give back but there are plenty of scriptures about how you are to treat people regardless of how they treat you.  So, trying to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.  Where the rubber meets the road is also where you find out how much you are really willing to do the things that Christ and the disciples spoke and walked and lived in the New Testament. The man is rather self absorbed, putting it mildly and numerous other adjectives that would aptly describe him. But, no point in dwelling on that stuff forever.  I say that, but then he'll do something else and I'll be back on here writing about whatever it is.  My only recent complaint to him was today and that is about the semi trailer.  We trade it with the store down south and they - destroy the thing.  I mean, it's unbelievable.

Well enough. I'm going to get out of the bedroom and see if they need any more help.

Well....my bacon wrapped chicken and jalapeno poppers turned out very nice, I dunno about the pary.  The man of the house was completely stone drunk by 8 pm and was throwing up 10 minutes ago - 9:40 pm.  In fact, there was no small amount of debauchery going on which finally got me headed back to my bedroom.  It's just that it was the last weekend they are going to be here.  The lady of the house was ignoring him - she is pregnant and not drinking at all I think they were disappointed that a large number of people who were going to come - didn't, including their best friends.  I mean, they're going to be gone  for quite a while, you'd think their friends would show up, especially with that kind of advanced notice.

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But, that's none of my business and last night is  now Sunday morning.  A HUGE mess in the kitchen, just got done cleaning all of that up. The lady of the house would have done it, but I just can't stand seeing piles of plates and pots and pans laying all over the counters and the sink, so I cleaned all of it up, which earned me free breakfast at IHOP so I'm not going to complain.  Not that I would have complained anyway.

This is going to be a busy day and busy week, at least until after Wednesday as they are preparing to move out - almost ready and they are leaving Tuesday night.  I have to move out of my bedroom and into the one across the house, but I can't do that until Wednesday morning.  Actually, I can move some stuff over there but it's the baby's room and even though the baby went home with Grandma yesterday, all of the baby's clothing and furntiure are in there, so I don't want to move anything in there until they are out of it.

It's going to be a lot of work that will need to be done in a short period of time, I wish I could hire someone to come over and help me, but this area is lax on the amount of help you can find with people who actually want to work.  Which just now prompted me to write an ad in Craigslist anyway and see if I get any replies.  I would really like to do a thorough cleaning of the entire house, but that would take more time than I have doing it alone.  The college students are flooding the town again, school must be starting soon, perhaps one of them needs to earn some extra cash, who knows.

After Wednesday things should settle down quite a bit, but adjustment to "new" life without my landlords/friends.  Said goodbye to the baby yesterday - he's 1 going on 2.  I hope these new people are what they appear to be - normal, quiet people.  They know each other which is fine I don't care about that.  It's a large house and plenty of breathing space for everyone to have their own space when wanted.  Everyone will have their own bathroom which is a huge plus.

One of them wants to pay the extra it's going to cost for all the movie channels.  More power to him, we all get to benefit from that but I'm not paying the extra, not even a portion of it.  I'm happy enough with what we've got already and frankly, I don't watch a lot of TV. I like watching movies and I'm a big fan of the Walking Dead - but the next season of it doesn't start for a couple of months.  Other than that, I can live with out it.  I'm more of an internet junkie than anything and I've been trying to taper back on that as well.  Well excepting Bible Gateway - it's got a bunch of versions of the bible and that is one internet activity that I can justify to myself if no-one else in using.  Facebook is starting to get old.  There's too many people full of anger and hate and using far too much foul language for my tastes.  I'm not quitting FB, I have just been cutting back my time on it.

My title for the trailer came in yesterday, meaning I can get that thing sold whenever my mom gets back up there, which she said would be this week.  Well I can try to sell it anyway, it's off the beaten trail and back in the woods quite a bit, not sure how far anyone is willing to go out of their way to buy something like that. But, there are a lot of people that have those things on their property up there, perhaps someone needs one in that area.  I'm giong to advertise in all local venues as well as Craigslist. up there as well as Craigslist in Phoenix.  My mom got a guy up there to fix 2 leaks that had developed in the roof and that guy said the thing is worth $2,500, list it for 3k and come down.  It's got a few minor problems but I really put alot of work into that thing incluidng new wall paper throughout and new carpet.  A good mattress and repairing the ac plus other stuff.  Just not going to give it away.

My LTC - concealed carry - still hasn't come through and fixing to call them again this week. It's been 2 months, I've been told it can take 3, but I'm still going to find out if they've even gotten to it yet.

I also applied for a passport yesterday. I was going to wait until I got my LTC, but forget that.  They said a passport takes at most 4 to 6 weeks but many people get them sooner than that.  I actually don't need it - yet - I just want it.  Bucket list stuff, you know?  If an opportunity comes up, I'll be prepared.  I really want to visit Europe, but more importantly to me, I really want to experience flying over the ocean!  I absolutely love flying, though it's a little much nowadays with crammed full airplanes.  But, I'm happy if I can get a window seat, which always happens.  Many people seem to want the aisle seat so they can get out of there faster? I dunno, but you don't get out faster, lol, you might get a few people ahead but that's it.  I'm not one of those first class flying people - the cost of flying first class is just too much for my wallet.  Still trying to decide whether to go to Hawaii in January.

I've been offered a Great Dane for free - but - one of these new people is bringing a dog so I'm going to see whether Addler and the new dog get along first. But, I'm concernend that the owner is simply going to have the dog in the house all the time, meaning Addler outside alone all day long.  Both of these people are on disability and  they don't work.  The disability check is substantial enough to be able to live off of though.  2 grand a month.  If you spend $500 on your living place you have $1,500 for everything else, which is more than enough, the dude doesn't have  a car payment, so yeah, I know I could make that work if I was forced into such a position.  Well back to the dog, I really don't want to get another dog, but there's no way I'm leaving my big boy out there for 10 plus hours a day alone, he'll go crazy and he may try to get out of the yard.

I'm also considering some options of building a stand-alone "apartment" so to speak.  I could build it with the money from the trailer and live here for free.  It would pay for itself in 5 months.  This is something they already wanted to do anyway so it's not like I"m doing something against their wishes.  But that would be a lot of work so that is just in the consideration department at the moment.
Final payment in the trial run of the mortgage modification coming this week and then I can not only rest easy in a greatly reduced mortgage payment every month, I also will get my credit back up afrter some time of on-time payments show up.  It starts the mortgage over to 30 years, but I have paid it down quite a bit from where it was at at first.  I'm not really concerned about owning that house, I just  want it to get me a good credit score.  I don't really think my landlords are going to stay there forever, no idea. If they leave, I have to sell the place.  So I'm hoping they'll stay at least a couple more years.  I was able to bring their rent down to $175 per month.  They are doing a wonderful job of running that place and they still like the arrangement.

Oh, and I finally had the pleasure of telling Directv goodbye!  After months and months of making phone calls to them to try and get a better deal and get  new equipment in there, I finally caved in.  My landlords agreed to the switch, I had a whole new Dish Network system installed in there under a 2 year contract.  It has a full house hopper that records from any tv in the house, up to 2,000 hours and all tv's can record at once.  I also have a 2 year price lock plus free HD for life.  Directv refused to offer me anything, even told me if I wanted to upgrade they would charge me more per month! They were so rude on the phone plus now you are automatically connected to call centers in the Philippines. The funny part?  When I said I wanted it shut off immediately, THEN they made all kinds of offers.  Helllllllllo? I have been calling since last year trying to get a better deal.  The dude said he wished he could have talked to me before we made the switch, he was offering $40 per month plus upgraded equipment.  I was already done with them at that point, though, the supervisor I had spoken with a few weeks previsouly had hung up on me and that was it.  I invited him to have management review all the calls I have made in the last 10 months and find out how their customers are being treated over the phone......

Now, the best part: the landlords say they love the new system and it's only missing one channel that they were watching.  I offered to upgrade to the next package but she said no, it's the Chiller channel, she hates it but he watches movies  on it sometimes, please don't upgrade!  Good enough, try to keep them happy and they will stay and continue to very nicely maintain my house.

On the job front, still putting in applications here and there at places that look like they might be a good fit for me.  I won't quit for just any job, but a good offer I won't turn down.  My coworker is allegedly putting in his 2 week notice sometime this coming week.  HD Supply is a big company and they have all the paperwork and junk to deal with in hiring a new-hire like all the rest of them.  His final required paperwork was turned in on Friday, now he's just waiting for confirmation of employment and he can issue his notice to current employer.  I would like to think that would help my situation there and it might temporarily, but they will just go out and hire someone to take his place.  The warehouse manager is hating life there now.  He thought it would get much better when the new manager comes in, but intead, the new manager literally gives him hell every day. He's at retirement age soon, it wouldn't be shocking to see him quit.  For 25 years of working there and being a big part of why contractors come in there, they are paying him less than $18 per hour.  I know this because he left his screen up - like he always does - and his paycheck was right there with earnings and everything on it.  I made this case to my coworker who is wishy washy about quitting: there is no future here.  Unless you somehow make it into outside sales, you are wasting your time here.  2 of the outside salesmen are getting up there in age, in their mid 60's, no idea how long they intend to stick around.  There may be opportunity there, even with the new manager.  But if and when are a totally different story.

My newest goal is going to remain in place until/unless something changes it.  That is, a mobile home park.  There's some property I am extremely interested in. Zoning available for MH park.  28 acres, plenty of land. Right on the outskirts of town.  Getting the land would only be part one, though. Hvae to pay someone to disign and draw up the plans for the city to consider and approve.  That's rather expensive from what I hear.  Then the cost of "building" the park, consisting of infrastructure, pads, and road.  Office would be a mobile home or modular structuree.  Have to factor in insurance and taxes. First year would be a write off though.  Lots of trees would have to come down - though it doesn't matter where they fall so I could do that myself, but you still have to get a stump grinder in there and tractor to operate it.

Well that's enough of that for  now.  I am going to have to spend some time educating myself on the business end of it if I am really going to follow through with it.

And with that, I am done with this one.

They are cleaning house today. Party tonight but also just getting ready to leave on Tuseday.  I have spent the morning attempting to find the correct information to fill in the passport.  It hasn't been easy.  The divorce  date is what I was haivng trouble finding and yes, the marriage date.  I went through the court documents that I could find and none of them had the marriage date.  It had the divorce date, which I also needed - 12/2/15. She got a marriage license a month and a half later and is now remarried.  Now can anyone tell me that there wasn't marital unfaithfulness going on when you divorced and less than 2 months later you are remarried?  However, he - Billy Lanier - is likely going to regret that decision for her lack of mental stability so there is that.

Anyway, I finally went through my bank account, found the Expedia deal I purchased to get the room for  the honeymoon, logged onto Expedia and found the date that way.  Yeah, a little brain work.

Anyway, off to the Post Office - they make appointments I found out the other day to do passport apps on Saturday, then over to Kroger's to get some party food, namely: the ingredients to make jalapeno poppers and cream cheese stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon.

And now that I'm looking,; i have to go!  I have to fill out the passport app once again - I goofed up twice now putting in wrong info, but now I have it all good.

Well I got her birthdate, I just need the marriage start and end dates - things I have completely put out of my mind for obvious reasons but should be able to find it easily enough here in my piles of paperwork.

I'm not actually looking forward to my landlord's departure. They are friends and we spend a lot of time talking and hanigng out.  I don't really have any  other friends like that out here.  I have a co worker that we sometimes hang out, but nothing like what goes on on a daily basis here. Hit it off pretty well with the the new tenants that will be moving in, though and they are homebodies, they don't appear to be people that go out doing much of anything, anywhere.  We'll see how that works out, soon enough.

Regardless, They're leaving in 6 days and the new people moving in in 7.  This is going to be a drastic change, to be honest, but nothing I haven't endured before. I don't care about tenants moving in, I just wonder what's to become of me here without any real friends to hang out with?  Church hasn't resulted in any of that and I am thinking of making a change. I love the pastor, he preaches the truth, it's good word.  But it's a huge church and unless you've lived here all your life, you have no chance unless you were imported from somewhere else to be on their staff, in which case, you are instantly everyone's friend.

Well, I've got a lot on my plate, but a church search here in town might find something I like, can deal with and - well it's gonna be a smaller church where you don't get lost.

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Co-worker found a new job - with HD Supply which is our largest competitior - and claims he is giving a 2 week notice on Monday.  We don't need 3 drivers.  We would be kept nicely busy without a 3rd driver, but almost guaranteed they will just go out and find someone else to take his place.  Considering how long it took them to find the last dude, though, maybe there will be a window of extended working hours.  But again, for me, it's so late in the year I think I want to wait until after the New Year - but that's not guaranteed if I get a good job offer from somewhere that would be foolish to turn down, I won't turn it down.  Anyway, my coworker will be making over $3 per hour more, it's a good move for him.

May have found someone to take the new doggy.  He needs to go.  He greeted me out front today.  He chewed through the rope to get free out of the back yard.  Next door neighbor's daughter told her she might want  the dog. Yes! Please come now! Free! UTD on shots! I've completely changed my mind now, if I get another dog, it will likely be a Great Dane. But, one of the new tenants moving in is bringing a mutt with him and perhaps they will get along. But, if he keeps it in all day long, that won't work.  Just going to figure this out as each step is taken.

BUT, I am on a plan now that gets the 30 pound bag of Large Breed Iams dog food for $18.95.  This was a find, it is $28 per bag at Sam's Club - when they have it.  It's a great price, it's medium quality food, it has meat as the first ingredient and importantly, Addler eats less of it to get full and that cuts down on costs and dog poop.  Chewy.com is where I got the deal and they still have it going.  Petco also had a similar deal.

Well, this weekend I'm going to spend some time getting  my room ready to vacate. After a discussion with the new tenants today, they are coming here earlier than I wanted on the 17th, but I warned them the room wouldn't be vacated early and it will likely be late morning or even afternoon before its ready to move in.  The other room, though will be ready to move in.  I just don't need pressure from anyone to do anything. They knew when it would be available from the get go.

So, I've been trying to rent these rooms out for a while.  Now I know from experience that it's a little hard to rent out rooms so far in advance, but still, this is really something that has to be done and over with before they - my landlords - leave.  Now that we're into August and they're leaving on the 16th, I have been ramping up the ads.  Took the price down to $485 in the master bedroom but kept the other room the same.  Have to cover the mortgage or this isn't going to work.  I'll be covering the utilities.  So I ran more ads yesterday and finally scored today.

Called the guy, started talking...and talking...and talking....best to get as much out as you can and find out as much as you can and give ample opportunity for any "slip-ups".  But, he was convinced, they drove an hour out here - 60 plus miles away - and they showed up.  Showed them the house, the rooms, the dogs, everything, they shook hands, gave me $480 to hold the rooms and away we go!  Woohoo! A load off my back.  Nice people, mature, older, this should work out well.  And here I was thinking of options to bring the rent down.

Now, I just got done checking out my new room - which is the baby's bedroom. It's a large room. Not as big as the one I'm in and no personal bathroom -but - the main bathroom will be my personal bathroom so no biggies there.  I don't need a huge room, enough for a dog bed, my bed and my personal stuff.  So, it's good. Make this work and move on with other things. Spending so much time with this that I have put off any job hunting.  The 2% raise was a slap in the face as far as I'm concerned, but that's what they did last year - though I was getting the 50 hours per week so that made up for it.

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Monday. Taking today and tomorrow off from work to get some stuff done in terms of bill  paying here and going to the town to switch the name over to me for the water.  I didn't need two days off, but I have 3 personal days besides all the rest of my paid days off and I wanted to use them before it gets too late in the year.  I'm going to ask for the 17th off as well, for that is the day after the home owners are gone and the new tenants move in and I need to get the rooms cleaned up nicely and more importantly, get all my stuff out of the current room and into my new room.

I just wanted some time off without using vacation hours.  I'm still looking for a new job, albeit only a few applications being put out here and there, regardless, I will get all that vacation pay in a check if/when I leave current company.  But to be honest, unless a really good offer comes along, it's getting late in the year and I want to make a trip back to Phoenix to visit mom.  I won't be able to do that if I get a new job and starting all over again on the vacation accrual.

Meanwhile, 3rd payment on the trial basis for the home loan modification coming up this month.  After that, the modification is permanent, the amount paid per month is almost $300 less and more importantly, my credit score will slowly go back up.  Takes at least a year I've been told. I  was checking my credit score. Some company in Phoenix dumped a $300 unpaid debt on there for a time that i wasn't even in Phoenix, I have to dispute that.  Other than that and the late pays on the mortgage my record is in good shape.  I'm really trying to get it back up so I can attempt to get a small business loan to start a mobile home park.  Some interesting online courses that cover all of this that I am reading through, though I wonder if I dont' need a bachelor's or an associate degree to make a loan like that more appealing to a lender.

I dunno, I just know I don't have the money to start one myself.  My plan is to acquire the land, permits, and install infrastructure and put on X amount of homes already ready to rent out, with extra spaces for RV parking and even more for those that want to move a home into the park.  This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time now, it's time to do whatever it takes to get it going.   I don't have enough in 401k to start it up, though there is enough in there to at least purchase land.  I'm going to devote some time to this endeavor until I figure out how to get it going.  I have to research other parks around here - which are few and far between and there is definitely a market opportunity for it.  There is also opportunity for certain chain business that isn't here yet.  It's a growing community and more and more businesses are being attracted here.

It isn't pie in the sky,  get rich quick. You have to start somewhere and grow  it as you have extra capital to invest.  Which means having a big enough property to do that expansion.  There isn't really that much property available in town, but there is plenty just outside of the main town and at low enough rates per acre.  A tax incentive would help, too, lol.
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Tuesday. The end of 4 days off.  Back to the grind tomorrow morning.  Which may not be so fun if the rain that just fell and flooded everything including taking down a tree in the back yard and a large branch in the front - stops everything at work as well.

We went through the grind of changing accounts over to my name.  Not that way I do it with my house in Phoenix - all accounts are in my name, I really do like to have control over that stuff because I see everything and how much everything costs.  Which, on another note, I got pretty mad when I saw the newest Direct TV bill.  They have been raising the monthly rate since last year.  This time it jumped from $117 to $134.  Unacceptable.  I have called them repeatedly trying to get some kind of deal, they refuse.

This is the by-product of ATT. They were bad before, but not this bad. Well, installation done, called Direct TV.  Channelled over to the Phillipinnes.  Woman insisted on all kinds of information, I simply asked for a manager.  Defiance.  Hung up on them this time, screw that.  Called again, trying to figure out how to get to disconnection like you used to be able to without going through all the hassle.  Ended back up in the Philippines.  This time, though, they switched me over.  Dude answers. Lengthy conversation. "Wish I could have talked to you before you switched".  I've called them a dozen times in the last 8 months, was met with not possible, not going to happen, not even a few free movie channels.

Sounded like the superviser that hung up on me is going to experience a problem at least.  All of their calls are recorded.

I was just looking at property for sale around here.  I have to get something in my mind to get a grasp on some kind of goal  Lots of it for sale, one in particular is 27 acres for $25K. Expected monthly payment with a 5k down payment is $140 per month.  This is much more attainable than I had originally thought.  Of course. Small town, ample amounts of land.  Much more intensive research is going to ensue. Property taxes, business permits and taxes, viability of property pasrameters for intended use, potential problems and costs to fix.  Yes, now that I have this basic information - a bit of a surprise at that - I am going to start doing the research.  What I do about it, can't even begin to say until I come to a total cost of acquiring land and what it's going to take to make a portion of it into a mobile home park.

I'm not going to have enough to retire even if I work another 12 years, there might end up being a few hundred thousand in there, but that's just not enough, not imo.

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Wednesday morning.  My 4 day weekend over.  I used to enjoy going to work, considering the hellish, toxic environment it is now, I do not. I like getting out on the road away from the place when there are longer distance deliveries, but other than that, being at the yard just plain sucks. But, I've endured this "manager" this long, I can probably make it through the Christmas season and on into January, be able to take some time off and then refire the search.

New dog still an issue.  Came home yesterday, he was standing out front.  However, their dog hovers over it and attacks it.  Guess that's a no brainer.  If I were a dog and another were doing that to me I wouldn't want to be in that back yard, either.  They're gone in 12 days, the dog going with them so there is that.  Now, whether the dog will stay in the yard when the other one leaves remains to be seen.  Of course, the new dog actually has to live through the experience. No idea where it goes, what kind of traffic it may be running out in front of, if it will get lost, etc.
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Heat wave continues.  Tried to get the truck loaded before it got too late in the morning, but that was a non-happening event.  Didn't get out of there until after 11am and it was hot.  Humid type of hot.  Anyway, I get a call from the house today - in Phoenix that is - the water heater is leaking.  Wonderful.  Another $300 plus down the drain.

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$447 later and the water heater was purchased - just a few minutes ago actually - now the part about installing it.  Mark says he can do it, I believe he can - but still.  Spent that kind of money and have someone mess it up.  It's an easy install, hopefully he'll get it right. Same exact heater, nothing differnet about the hookups.  Instances like this I wish I was there to do this myself.

I left the tunnel under the sidewalk projecgt go the entire week. Just no energy to even think about dealing with that.  I finally got what was stopping it, for I had the hole coming in from both sides: huge root in the way.  I had to cut the root on both sides of the tunnel with a hacksaw blade, sans the hacksaw itself and in the blind, couldn't see a thing I was doing.  Got that done though and walaah, the holes came together easily.  Now to dig about 28 feet of trench to get it behond the front yard, really should be easy because the trench doesn't need to be deep and it's 4 inch pipe, so a fairly small trench.

Get to that in a while.  Meanwhile, still posting ads for the rooms available after the landlords leave.  Lost of inquiries have occurred so far but.....everyone needing a room right then and there.  Hopefully that changes, but it's still only the 6th, I was just really testing the waters and seeing if there was someone that wanted a place to secure in advance. I may have to reduce the rate and then-have to figure something else out to make up the difference.  I'll remain optimistic until the time comes that the mortgage has to be paid and if there aren't any rooms rented.  Then what?  Reduce the rate, that's all you can do, make up the difference by renting all 3 rooms out and figure out something else to do with me for a room - which I already have 3 ideas, 2 of them easy enough, 1 of them would require turning the backyard carport into a room.  This is something they wanted to do already for a workshop anyway, but the money and time spent.

I could do it though.  2X4's, door, windows, plywood or particle board, plumbing, electrical, dryway, bathroom setup with mini kitchen.  Concrete cutting to install toilet and plumbing.  There's already a roof and it doesn't leak, there's one plus!  Lol but that's not my first option.  Anyway, that's just going to have to be dealt with if the time comes and that bridge needs to be crossed.

Our raises came in yesterday's paycheck. 2% cost of living.  The raise the two of asked for, non-existent.  No explanation, nothing.  There is no future in that place unless you can get to salesman status, but that's the good ole' boy's club, the people that have been there for 20 plus years.  That's just the way it is there, there is no changing it and that isn't even the worst of that situation, the new manager is the worst manager I have ever worked for.  He jokes around with the good ole' boys but gives looks and "sternness" with everyone else.

Well back to the grind I guess. Just happy I have Monday and Tuesday off.  The weekend won't see quite so short.

I got to work this morning and faced a huge amount of material to be pulled, palletized, checked, shrink wrapped, loaded onto the truck and strapped down.  Which is normal. What was not normal was the extreme heat, the humidity was very high and it was HOT out there.  After 3 solid hours of it, I was not feeling well at all.  A heat headache set in, bad one and I lost energy.

I paid for that the rest of the day.  I mean, fortunately I was driving the truck but I was out of it.  Stopped once to close my eyes and nap for 20 minutes back on the road, to a delivery, to another delivery and then a third.  But on the way back, no way.  I had to stop for 20 minutes yet again and close my eyes.  I felt better after that and then it was when I finally looked at the weather app.  Real feel: 112 degrees with a heat advisory.  This morning before I left the yard, a UPS driver came back a 2cd time, went into the air conditioned will call room, sat down, drank several glasses of cooled water and hang his head down.  This wasn't typical heat.

Anyway, it's well before my normal bedtime but I am definitely going to bed early.  I just need to run another CL ad for one of the rooms and call it quits for the day.

Disaster.  Got a new dog for Addler to have a companion after landlord's move out and - this dog can scale a 4 foot chain link fence as if it's non-existent.  Ad already place in Craigslist to find it a new home. It jumps the fence, comes up on the front porch and waits.  Albeit the fact no-one is home.  No, the owners of this dog didn't bother to mention that little fact and it never crossed my mind to ask.  Now, they had a 6 foot fence in their back yard and the dog wasn't trying to scale that.  I dunno, but I have no attachment to this dog at all, so I'm going to find it a new home where it can either run free on a large property or someone has a  6 foot fence or whatever.

Found a trucking company with local hauling that is hiring in my town.  Pay is allegedly 55 to 65k per year.  My compliments at current employment came from auditors.  I put on a stellar show for them while they were there.  I was given 100% and the other drivers failed the entire branch because of their derelection of duty, is what I would call it.  Failure to fill out required paperwork on a daily basis, failure to adhere to safety standards among other things.  Of course, that irritated the new manager, but he still had at least the wherewithal to tell the other drivers to "do whatever Ben is doing".  That's his form of a compliment.

The general manager is in town, but he's sitting in the new manager's office all day long.  No interest to talk to any of them.  So, I don't.

My coworker has found new employment, and is now backtracking.  Supposed he is offered equal pay from the GM here on a verifiable job offer.  I could only refer him to the man that runs a plant down in Alexandria who gave him some very good advice.  That got him thinking but who knows.  I am still looking.  The people that keep calling me, sending me emails and even sending me cards in the mail is Marten transport.  They look like a good company - but - OTR.

Anyway, gearing up for the move of the landlords.  Running ads for the rooms and getting responses.  One person allegedly coming over this weekend to take a look.

I got tired of waiting for my LTC and called the TXDPS and asked them what is going on?  Well, sir, your revised application came through came on June - 15th? - whatever it was, they're telling me a background check can take 2 months and expect another month before I hear anything.  WTH. What kind of background check are they doing?  Moving ahead with my plan to apply for a passport the next time I take off of work, which will be soon enough for I have to go in with the landlord and have the water changed over to my name.  They want everything in my name.  I didn't do that with my house. I still pay all the bills every month - I wanted that, I want to know what's costing what and I have that ability with paying the bills.

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New doggy of course wasn't here when I got home. I posted 2 ads for the dog with no responses.  The previous owners weren't getting any responses, either.  After being at the house for a while, the dog reappeared from who knows where.  Soaking wet, smelly.  Nope.  I just put the dog in the back yard and figured he would jump the fence again and that's too bad.  He's now allowed on the front porch and he found that out straight up today.

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Now I understand why the new doggy doesn't want to stay in the back yard.  Their dog is not a very nice dog - it can be a real pickle - and is attacking the new dog.  New dog's name is Remington, I'm calling him Remmie cause 3 syllable names for dogs is just too much.  I let him out this morning and the  other dog attacked him right away.  I went off after her, but I can't be out there 24 hours a day. At the same time, they are moving the middle of next month.

I placed 2 ads to get rid of the dog and haven't had a single hit.  But, that isn't surprising considering the original owner wasn't getting any hits, either.  Probably because they listed the dog for $200 - I gave them $50.  Yeah, I am not a fan of shelling out big  bucks for dogs.  Addller is an over $1,000 dog that I got for free.  Anyway, I'm going to keep bumping the facebook ad in a local sell group and maybe run another Craigslist ad.  The only other thing I can do is take him to the pound, where they would undoubtedly kill the dog.  So I'm not really interested in that option.

The "cousin reunion" in Australia has been cancelled, at least for our side of the family for an unbelievable blowup initiated by my midle brother who lit off on a group MMS message on the phone.  I'm not even going to go into it, but it was blatant, overly excessive, full of language, accusation and a lot of other adjectives.  I wouldn't even think about spending that kind of money to fly over there for - what? The same thing that happens at Christmas get togethers?  Amazing he can make it in life with that kind of anger issue.

I'm considering the Hawaii trip at the beginning of next year but that is up in the air for me right now with a horid job situation and still looking for a new, local job.  The new manager allgedly has stated that if I go in there and complain about the hours of the pot head who was reinstated - and this is a good ole boy's club going here, nothing less - he is going to change our hour again from 9 to 5.  We were at 7 to 5, I said something about him getting far more hours than me and he changed it in anger to 8 to 5 and now stating if I say anything else, it's going to be 9 to 5.

Anyway, Saturday - morning to be precise.  I was online last night looking at Petco's sale on Iam's large breed 30 pound bags of dog food.  Amazing price at $19.12 per bag. Even Sam's club charges $28 something for that same bag.  How convenient that during this sale, however, Petco is out of stock.  Not only could have I gotten the food at a greatly reduced price, I could have set up repeat delivery for $18 and change per bag, which for that kind of food is simply incredible. Iam's is a sort of in the middle dog food.  It has meat in the first 4 ingredients, with chicken as the main ingredient and it's what I can afford.  The cheaper foods either  meat somewhere beyond the first ingredient and usually by products and usually corn products as the first ingredient.  All I know is Addler doesn't have to eat that much of the Iams and he is very healthy looking. He does get treats, of course, but still.

I was a bit peeved at Petco having this "sale" and not having it in stock.  I called them because I have never seen them out of stock - excepting for this wonderful sale.  They guaranteed me they would sell me at the sale price when it is available. But this morning, I though, I wonder if another online pet supply company has it on sale too? Maybe it's an Iams promotion to it's sellers.  Sure enough, a site I have used before - Chewy.com - has it for the same exact price, free shipping over $49 and repeat delivery for the $18 price.  Yup, signed up for that one.  That's $10 per bag savings.

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Quite a lot done yesterday. Getting the front of this house in good shape to have some eye appeal when a potential room renter shows up.  Numerous projects.  When it rains, the house is on a downhill from the street and the water just pools up right in front of the porch, right on the concrete walkway up to the house.  You can't use it - it's several inches deep worth of water.  So I'm installing a drain and pipe to take the water away, and yes, it rains frequently enough here to make that a project that needs to get done. I also finished up - hopefully, I'll see next rain - the gutter.  Same situation, when it rains the water just pours off the roof right down where anyone wants to walk up onto the porch and also a lot of water added to the pool of water.  Now it's diverted to  the side of the house and away from that area.  Lowe's had fllowers on sale for a buck per pot, small plastic pot thing, and I got several of those to add curb appeal.

Today, if I feel like it of course, I will continue with the pipe/drainage project. The hardest part is the the only place to divert the water is to the south side of the house and  to get it there, the pipe has to go under the concrete sidewalk.  I think I almost have that dug out, hard to tell when you can't really see what you're doing but I'm pretty sure I'm almost there.

Cleaned up the front porch and still, even after I get done with the pipe, more projects to go. The porch cement needs a fresh coating of concrete paint and the wrought iron posts holding up the porch are beginning to rust so all of that needs sanded, primed and repainted.  But, I wanted to get the most glaring things done first.  Who wants to live in a house where the rain water precludes you from actually getting into the house without getting your shoes and feet soaked?

I'm starting to get some interest in the rooms available - or will be available - now that it is starting to get closer.  I was looking at Craigslist yesterday and was surprised how many room rentals are being posted.  I thought this was a smaller market.  My pricing, at least, it right there in line  with everyone else's, that is why I went there looking at ads and saw quite a large number of postings just for yesterday.  So, I need to up my posts to at least once per day as the time to rent it out gets closer.  Earlest move in date is the 20th of August.  The latest I need to; get both rooms occupied is the 1st of September.

Back to the dog - this post has been written over several days.  I just haven't been into writing as much right now for the vast amount of things on my mind, the biggest of which is a very toxic work envirnonment.  I meant, the new doggy, it's a Dane/lab mix, jet black, great personality and finding out, fast learner and very obedient.  I didn't think I could work with a dog that will just jump the fence at will, but a few revelations have halted my desire to find him a new home.  First, "their" dog, the homeowner's.  It is not a nice dog in many respects and attacks the new dog - his name is Remington.  I am calling him Remmie for now.  Remmie is no figher, he's pretty chill, laid back and docile.  He's got an interesting look, I'll have to take a pic and  post it...I haven't done that because I thought I was getting rid of him.

Second reason beyond the other dog attacking him, is that the dog is a fast learner.  First, he would come up to the front door after jumping the fence and wanting in.  I took care of that post-haste: NO, you are NOT allowed on the front porch.  The dog learned that one quickly.  The first time he did it, he was muddy and got on the porch furniture and made all of that muddy as well.  Then, starting Friday, I just took him to the back yard, dumped him over the fence (no harm done to the dog, but I wanted him to go back in the way he came out) and told him NO again, you STAY.  I did that 3 times and then Saturday, he didn't get out at all.  So, if I have even a glimmer of hope that I can train the dog to stay in the back yard, then I am good with it, I will keep him and hope that it works out.  He really is a very nice doggy.

Onto other things.  I originally had decided that I would wait until my LTC license came before applying for a passport, but I have subsequently changed my mind after learning that it will be at leaast another month.  I am going to get my passport photos taken and then, when I take off work to deal with having the utilites changed over to my name I am also going to go in and apply for passport.  Opportunities to do things that require a passport won't necessarily come  along until I have one.

My 3 month trial program for home loan modification is 2/3rds over.  One more month and it becomes permanent and then I can get my credit score headed back in the right direction.  I have different things floating around in my head, nothing I am going to go into here yet, but plans for the future. It would require a good credit score and some business knowledge as well.  Anyway, my monthly mortgage rate is being brought down by almost $300 per month - and the total payment including taxes and insurance  is very doable.  I'm saving money wherever I can.

Along those lines, once the owners are gone, I am going to buy a shed and get my stuff out of storage and save the $43 per month.  I've let it go on indefinitely and it's time to deal with it.  They have 2 sheds but they are stuff full of stuff.  We were talking yesterday after I had done quite a lot of work out front and the lady was like: umm, when we come back is our house going to be all changed? she laughed. I said well if it is, it's going to be a good change! I already have almost everything I need to install a Koi pond out front - a small one obviously no more than maybe 3 or 400 gallons.  The one I put in in the back has been a pain because it's in the line of fire - rain turns the water black after coming through the trees and the trees are always dropping leaves and junk into it.

There is a place right in front of the porch where a small pond would be a wonderful addition and would compliment the appearance of the house dramatically if I did it the way I envision it. I know it's not my house but the cost is not prohibitive and it's more muscle work and motivation than money.  I pretty much expect that wherever I'm living, whether I own it or not, I'm going to leave the place better than when I came.  This will definitely be true here.

The thing that is sorely missing around here is anyone that actually wants to do some physical labor for a fair wage.  One person told me he would charge me $100 to haul a rather small amount of dirt from around back to around front.  You can't really get kids to do that kind of work anymore, they are spoiled, addicted to video games and physical labor is not any part of their MO.  I paid 2 kids in this neighborhood more than I should have to clean up leaves last year and they didn't finish the job.  I was pissed - but - live and learn.  Even putting a Craigslist ad and offering $10 per hour doesn't do any good.  I just resolved to do the work myself and gain the health benefits as well from doing that kind of labor, though I feel I get enough physical labor at work already!

The world of politics - I'm pretty much sick of it.  The bantering, the lies, the propoganda, the endless polls. Been taking a break from it.  I know who I'm voting for and listening to this constant stream of people from all sides is burning me out.  In fact, I'm going to see the new Star Trek movie today, 3-1/2 hourrs from now actually.  That should be fun, I haven't been to a movie in a while.

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Finish this and post it. 4 or 5 days (at least) in the making. Yes, I went to see the Star Trek movie and yes, I thought it was awesome! So glad I went.  A nice diversion from this current state of so many issues going on.  And so glad I saw it on the big screen, just gives such a different view of a movie when you have it on a huge screen with surround sound, it's just cool.  It was also interesting to see so many young people getting into a Star Trek movie.  Perhaps Star Trek still has a future.  Too bad the real Spock - Leonard Nimoy - died earlier this year. Such a great actor.

Got home from that, mowed the back yard and then landlords came home (they're really my friends, but I call them landlords just for reference sake).  Gonna miss them. They are moving in less than 3 weeks.  Gag. They had these HUGE steaks and invited me to dinner.  Sure!  He smokes them - there are 3 grills out back including my propane grill.  The smoker is nice but the part where you get the fire going is rusting through.  The main part of it is still in nice condition. It's fixable.  Ate dinner with them and watched - whatever that new movie is based on Finding Nemo.  I'm done for the day.  Face another week at what I consider to be a hellish work place.