“The Iranian nation, with its unity and God’s grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman, February 11, in a way that will leave them stunned,” Khamenei, who is also Iran’s commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel according to AFP.

What, exactly, is the nation of Iran going to do that is going to stun everyone?  Hmmmmm?  If it includes the deaths of anyone outside their own nation with bombs or airstrikes or whatever they are thinking, the only thing that is going to do is piss everyone off - the word stun won’t be used, instead, the words annihilate/destroy/end the aggression - a host of other words I can think of, but stun? 

So, Thursday, presumably, the world will be watching to see stunning act of theirs.  The only thing I can think of that would really surprise the world - to some extent - would be them coming out and saying they already have nukes and capable of delivering them wherever they want them to go. 

I would love to be a fly on the wall in closed-door meetings amongst top officials in Israel right now.  They’re not going to sit around forever waiting for these jackasses to actually act upon their continual threats. 

Well, whatever.  I feel like s*** right now, I blamed it on a lack of sleep last night, and though that is true, that is only a small portion of what I am feeling right now. My nose is runny, I don’t feel right, I can’t believe I got over one sickness only to be assaulted by another.  I hope this is just serious allergies or something that are going to go away. 

The guy - actually couple - that were going to use the trailer I bought? Called me today.  “I have some bad news, Ben”…..  I don’t know what they could say that would be bad for me, so I thought maybe they were going to say something like they found a place to live, they don’t need the trailer, thanks anyway.  It wouldn’t be bad for me - I will finish fixing up the thing and sell it at a small profit.

The news - was bad for THEM.   He does odd jobs and such all over the place trying to get money to rent out the $20 per night hotel they are staying at.  I didn’t know that a church was making up the difference.  The church told them today that they can no longer afford to help them.  Sign of the times - churches are being as hard-hit as everything else in terms of donations coming in and the ability to help going back out. 

They want to move into the very-unfinished trailer.  I spoke very candidly my thoughts on that subject.  I wanted it finsihed before they came over here so they could live and STAY in there.  I have enough people in my house, the only reason they were going to come in here was to cook or use the bathroom.  Hanging out - was a definitive not.  I’m not trying to be cruel - but this was not the terms of the deal.  I figured at least another month before that thing is livable. 

It was not a short conversation as I spoke a half dozen different ways of making the same points as to be sure that we were very clear that we are on the same page, that he understood what I was attempting to communicate with him and that if the bridge is crossed, I WILL go there and deal with it/them directly.  This is not a permanent situation, either.  I fully expect the man to continue to try to find a full or part-time job.  There are a hundred businesses in an industrial park a little over a mile away from my house, I “suggested” - rather strongly - that he would go door to door over there and see if he could find anything. 

I have extensive background in dealing with homeless - these people don’t actually fall into the category of living on the streets type of homelessness.  The man does whatever he has to do to stay off the streets.  This is the kind of determination that I want to see if I am going to help someone. 

Why bother?  This has been my lifestyle since I was 20 years old.  I am now 46.  I have been given a lot of “advice” on why I shouldn’t do such things; what a waste of time it is to try and help people; have been personally attacked - verbally - both online and in person from so-called well-meaning people that, in my eyes, haven’t got a clue. 

In these times, I am even more motivated to help whoever I can.  Let’s wake up and smell the coffee: the government is not going to save us.  I have been saying that my entire life, I will continue to voice my stance.  It can help to try and get the economy back on track - but the Federal Government in and of itself alone is not going to bring this economy back.  If that were true, then the obscene amounts of money they have already spent would have done it’s job.  The Chief of Staff is more interested in spending MORE money on things that don’t do anything to help the economy.  The man is totally clueless.  So are most of the politicians in Washington.  They have no connection - I have said this repeatedly - with the average, common Joe and average, common Jane.  Working class people - we are the folks that make this thing work, not a bunch of rich politicians that have no clue what it’s like to have your power shut off: out of work and don’t have enough money to buy a bag of salad mix to put on your table; to face personal financial disasters that stretch you to the very edge of your fortitude and backbone to be able to withstand such, find a way through it and see yourself come out the other side.

Enough.  I am not feeling to well - c’yall later.

ben

Most of my friends from my high school years are dead.  I’m not making it up - I hung out with 2 different sets of friends - rough crowd.  The first set were friends I had in common with my middle brother.  I met all of them coming over to our house when they would skip school, getting stoned, drunk, taking whatever drugs they could get their hands on.  I was a 13 year old hanging out with people as old as 35. 

The second set were friends that were my own age, were not in common with my brother - another rough crowd.  Actually there was a 3rd set as well.  Those were the people I had come to know through talking on the CB radio.  I was a violent kid hanging around violent people and I didn’t care about life, whether I lived or died. 

In terms of death, I could list all of it, but it would take too much typing and time and really, isn’t worth going into.  But one murder/suicide is worth a mention. I had been picked up by friends to go to a party - as well as a carload of other people, one of which was a girl that lived a block away from me.  Skipping the partying/revelry/drunkennes, I was dropped off at my house. I was unbelievably high - I’ll never forget it because of what happened shortly after that.  I was looking at the stars in the sky, buzzing, it was 2:00am.  My parents had no control of me or my brothers.  They simply couldn’t deal with us.  Dad was off in his own world and mom had no chance. 

So, the car that dropped me off, dropped the girl off as well.  Well standing out there, staring at stars and - being on a different planet somewhere, I heard what I thought was an odd sound at the time of night: 2 very loud backfires from a car’s exhaust.  It didn’t connect in my thought processes at the time that that was not the sound of a car’s exhaust backfiring, but I couldn’t think what else it could be - I didn’t grow up around guns in my house - my parents were totally opposed to guns, gun ownership.  My mother has done a 180 degree about face on that issue, but that isn’t the subject here (though, I’m very glad for my mother’s reversal on her views on guns and the fact that she is a gun owner).

I saw the news the next day.  I had already known this girl had been stalked by a “man” who wanted her so badly, he couldn’t not continually call her and send her mail.  Let me address here that computers or the internet were a gleam in the world’s eye.  No email, no cell phones either.  He followed her, sat in his car outside of her house.  The situation had progressed to the point that law enforcement had been called numerous times and an Order of Protection had been issued, but that didn’t stop this guy.

The story -I heard it from this now-dead girl’s lips - is that she had continually told him he wanted nothing to do with her.  He continued to try and woo her.  She finally sent him a long letter detailing her need to be freed from his presence.  In this case, it was a “if I can’t have her, nobody can” - point blank range bullet to her head and then turned the gun on himself. I heard both shots but didn’t know what I was hearing until the next day when I saw all of this on the news.  It was eerie - I had heard the entire story from her - and heard her moment of what must have been a terrifying last momentsof her life.

Off the subject -well sort of - this is what I saw, over and over and over with my friends.  Murdered; killed in car and motorcycle accidents; falling off cliffs from hundreds of feet; shootings; knifings - I would never have gotten caught up in any of this - if my brothers hadn’t spend years persuading me to go from being a straight geek to a stoner/drug addict/violent person. 

I was shot at, threatened, threatened others, sent others to hospitals, destroyed property -long list.  Long ago and a different life that I have no desire whatsoever to partake in now.

Soooo, I was totally taken off-guard when a friend from that era contacted me via Facebook earlier this week.  It is a person I used to hang out with a lot.  I had so many friends that I can’t say I hung out with anyone all  the time excepting for a very few. 

Out of the blue, I have this message in my Facebook.  Hiya, how ya doing, this is Tom!  Tom?  He lived through all that s***.  He went off to the military - I tried to go with him but I was in trouble with the law and in the court system.  Army said no, come back when you’re done with court.  Tom went to the Army, I eventually waded through the trouble - but I never ended up going back to the recruiting office.  Instead, I went to a different type of military with it’s own boot camp - the mission field.  If you think that missionaries are wimps out there living off of donations and sitting around doing nothing, think again.  Yes, there ARE some like that, but the people I know are NOTHING like that.  It is a very rigid, disciplined and hard lifestyle.  I spent 5 years working 7 days a week with minimum 12 hour days and and more normal 14 to 18 hour days. 

For me, the possibility of hooking up with a person I knew as a good friend from those days - is not a light thing.  Most of my good friends are DEAD - fact.  The friends I made in church - left the church because of disagreements with the church or, shunned me because of a divorce that my ex-wife filed for.  Not worth going into - too long of a story.

I’m rather psyched.  It is something that I have longed for - just to reunite with people from my past.  I know of one other - a dude I also hung around with alot - but he lives in Colorado.  Anyway, we are going to meet up at a shooting range on Saturday, shoot some guns and reconnect. 

Back to the Superbowl…….

The room is - allegedly - rented.  The man that came over 2 days ago to look at it called yesterday - late and said he wanted the room.  Find out sometime this morning, he’s supposed to stop by with a check to hold it for him.  He originally wanted me to hold it for him until next month.  Not a happening event, it’s still the beginning of February for all intents and purposes, I need and want the money for the room now.  Not only that, but I simply don’t hold rooms anymore  unless a non-refundable, cash deposit is made for it. 

I have held rooms for people only to find out they neither want it nor bothered to call and tell me that they had changed their mind, hence the now-strict policy of - no holding rooms.  If he doesn’t show, I have 3 other people lined-up behind him.  One person was very insistent on getting the room, but the more I listened to her talking, the more I was convinced that she most certainly would not make a good fit in my house and I ended that conversation quickly. 

I am surprised at the large amount of interest in the room and the relative ease of getting it rented this time.  Several times in the past it has taken weeks to get a room interested and not a lot of response, really. 

Superbowl Sunday has arrived - though my team or secondary team isn’t in this game, it really (hopefully) should be a good game.  I’m rooting for the Saints just because I don’t like the Colts and am not a big Manning fan anyway.  I dunno why they always have to have these Superbowl games starting so late in the day, but that’s what they do. 

The guy wanting the trailer is showing up pretty frequently now and spending some serious time in starting attempting to get the project going and completed.  It is going to take a while to finish all of that, is all  I can say.  I figure to let him live here for a few or several months and then move the unit to a small trailer park that has very cheap monthly rates.  He can stay in it - I just don’t think I’m going to want that thing parked there permanently.  The monthly rental rate at that park is $150 last time I heard anything about it, plus utilities.  This guy does odd jobs all over the place, that shouldn’t be too terribly difficult for him to come up with.  As it is, he has been staying in a “motel” - if you can call it that - at $20 per night.  Yes, it’s real motel, but it’s skank and the renters are mostly filthy, dirty people that refuse to take showers.  I know this because I know that area and this guy was telling me about it.  The area is a total homeless world of people wandering about pandhandling, sleeping in a park, doing whatever they can to - exist. 

I’m not quite sure I like the idea of simply existing.  I have to have a purpose in life - without it, it would get awfully boring, mundane and really, what reason would there to be to live?  Helping people has been my life-long forte and I will continue to do so as much as I can, when I can.  Money is always the issue in such endeavors, but I remain steadfast in doing such simply because I believe the Lord would have me engage in such.  Yes, this has to do with God more than anything, not that I’m going to start preaching here, but never-the-less. 

I made my 5th payment on the “modification” that is already a done deal on-time.  If, by some chance, mortgage rates are way down there 7 months from now and I can make all 12 payments on-time, I would be able to qualify for a refinance.  I’ve been hearing of people getting 2 and 3% interest rates, which would be phenomenal - until you look at the details.  It’s a 5-year program.  After 5-years are up, your rates go back up to whatever they are before you got the loan mod.  That really wouldn’t appeal to me, at all.  My mod has no such inclusions, it’s 5.25% for the life of the loan, period.  I’m guessing they believe in 5 years the economy will be back on track and people will be able to pay through the nose again in interest rates.  Yeah, who wants to do THAT? 

I still have a sense of fore-boding - it has been with me for a little while now - that I haven’t been able to pinpoint what the source of it is.  I can’t even identify whether it’s for myself, or something that’s going to happen, I have no idea.  I’m not walking around in fear or a panic, in fact, I would like to rid myself of this feeling - whatever is going to happen, the bomb drop and get it over with.  Yes, that sounds strange, can’t help it or anyone else.  I have learned over the decades to listen to things insdie of me that are trying to tell me whatever - call it instinct, gut feeling, whatever - I tend to give it whatever amount of priority it needs until the situation, event - again, whatever - has passed. 

As for today - if the guy shows up again, I will be buying some materials to keep that project moving along.  I asked my neighbor yesterday if he wanted to sell some plywood he has outside of his house, he said no, but he would take me to where he got it and it’s free.  Just packing crates for shipped materials is all it is.  Got that - and as the conversation progressed while we were together, he continued to harp on the guy next door to him that started all that trouble with the girlfriend of his.  It led to a conversation about wireless internet - he was getting it from his neighbor - not for free, though - he didn’t want to pay to have internet installed cause’, as normal for him, he’s leaving in a couple of months for his home in Michigan and doesn’t want to get involved with a contract.  So, I offered mine in exchange for use of his old, beat up pickup truck.  Looks like heck, but works great.  I need to transport some materials for the trailer, I don’t have a pickup. 

Well, the deal is done.  It took me a while to figure out how to use Windows Vista, which is what is installed on his computer, and figure out how to get the network extended to him on his computer and enter the password.  All good and well, but the signal doesn’t reach inside of his house.  He has to take his laptop outside to use it.  He has a 40 foot 5th wheel RV trailer sitting next to his house that is blocking the signal.  I mean, there IS some signal strength in the house, but not enough to get the internet to work.  So, today, I am going to Fry’s Electronics and purchase a booster antenna and see if that works.  HE is paying for it, however, not me.  I was looking up ways to try and boost the signal, this was the cheapest method.  There are devices sold that receive the signal and then retransmit from another location - but they are very expensive.  The signal travels fine inside the house, don’t need such.  It has taken me quite some time to become familiar with wireless networks and figure out how to set one up and get it working on everyone’s computer.  I am not a computer geek, such things do not come naturally to me and sometimes I find myself getting VERY frustrated with computers to the point I want to pick the tower up, take it outside and smash it into very small pieces.

Fortunately, those feelings don’t occur very often anymore as I have worked through all kinds of problems on Windows and pretty much can deal with anything that occurs to it at this point.  However, wireless networks are not self-explanatory and the only way I was able to learn was to get in there and spend however many hours it took to finally get a grasp of it.  Yes, it’s probably an easy thing for you, after all, how difficult could it be?  Well, I didn’t grow up with computers, have not taken any classes on them and I can only say at this point that I am happy that I have been able to learn as much as I have without use of schooling.

Anyway, this entry is the ever-lasting one and I am going to end it.

G’day, folks.

ben

First off, just want to say thank you to everyone for all the great birthday wishes, including BB who offered up a beautiful cyber-space birthday cake in the form of a Mack truck!  Totally cool!

I did not go to work today - my company gives it’s employees their birthday off, which is also totally cool.  However, I have an open room so I spent the last 3 plus hours in getting the old tenant’s stuff out of there, cleaning it and cleaning the rest of the house as well.   The guy that was in there went to CA and never returned - over 2 weeks ago.  He gave me permission (in writing) to go ahead and re-rent the room as the reason he isn’t coming back right away is that he’s - totally broke. 

Well, I feel for the man, but I’m going to go broke, too, if I don’t get someone else in there.  I didn’t actually demand that he either pay up or let me retake the room, I really just let him make the offer to retake the room - he is a cool guy and I really don’t want to start an altercation with him.  So, that’s all good and his stuff is safe and secure until he comes back for it.  Meanwhile, I have a guy coming over in about 40 minutes, another one just called asking about the room, a person called last night and I have several emails from individuals interested in the room as well.  Hopefully, out of all of that, at least one of them will work out. 

Maybe doesn’t sound like the greatest thing to be doing on one’s birthday, but priorities are priorities.  And anyway, I’m done with most of the cleaning, I can take it easy after this dude shows up - if he does, indeed, show up - and do whatever I want with the rest of the day.  I am firmly set on having a glass of cognac and a very fine cigar that I picked up from a friend.  That will be later, thanks.

Oh, and the other tenant finally showed up.  He was 2 weeks behind as of today on his rent.  I figured he was having problems, he offered for one week and said he would have to make “payments” on the other $100.  Well, I decided to give him a break and let him off the hook for the other $100 - a one-time deal - but, as I have found out, it’s much easier to keep a tenant and work with them than it is to have to keep finding new tenants.  If he doesn’t make his $100 next week, then, perhaps, the issue is going to have to be forced.  I was also thinking of offering him the smaller, cheaper room if that would help him any - but he has a lot of stuff and I don’t know that all of that would fit into the smaller room. 

I was going to ask my manager if I could perhaps use his pickup - the company pickup that is - to get some materials for the trailer project today, but I have decided against it.  I have a potential tenant coming and if he doesn’t work out, another one right behind him.  I just don’t have the time for it, and really, a person should give themselves some kind of break on their birthday if at all possible, aye?

Plus I don’t have any food in the house - well hardly any - I am not counting my food storage stuff - so I need to get some grocery shopping done as well. 

Well, anyway, I have to finish a few things before this guy shows up. 

Have a great day!

ben

So, my new manager has been getting pretty - upset - about all the hours he is putting in, in which his boss says he can’t get paid for - it’s all over the allotted hours.  At least an hour every day is a freebie to the company.  He wrote an email to his boss today saying that since he can’t get paid for those hours, please advise everyone that he is going to go out and find a part time job after-hours and don’t expect him to stay after for the freebies.

I have been giving away free half hours for a long, long time now, I know exactly how he feels about it.  I have been tempted to simply pull my truck over somewhere on my way back from the last delivery on any given day where I’m over hours but haven’t had my break (1/2 hour is automatically removed from my time, every single day, whether I get the break or not) and simply sit there for 1/2 hour just to get my time out of it.  The company is making money, it’s not like we’re going broke and about to go out of business.  To achieve that, however, they had to shut down a lot of stores; lay off a lot of employees and get rid of a lot of equipment.

Well, whatever.  I don’t wonder if my new manager is getting himself into some hot waters for making such a bold statement to his management, but then again, who wants to donate their time to - work?  I also sent an email that I had no idea how it would be received - and really still don’t since I never got a reply from them about it.  I have “feelings” about things that might be happening soon - but I will refrain.  No point in dwelling on such potentials.

Tomorrow, Juice and Darnell - JD’s younger brothers - get out of kiddie prison/Juvenile Detention.  I have been writing about this for a while now, but I am quite curious if such time in such a place where you have no freedom, you do whatever “they” tell you to do, when they tell you to do it, has had any impact on them at all.  Juice will undoubtedly be over here the same day he’s out - unless he’s under house arrest - and I will get to hear what his time served might have done to his thinking of doing things while on probation that - he shouldn’t be doing. 

I’m tired.  I have  a lot to do around here and I have no energy to do it.  I’m also hungry.  I am still dieting, but have scaled back.  I am eating twice a day instead of once per day as I started the diet out.  I had a sandwich this morning and a little later, I will be having dinner - whatever that may be. 

So, I’m ending this one to go take a little nap, try to get rejuvenated and go outside and tend to some things that need - tending to.

ben

Lots of stuff going on.

I will be spending some time this week looking around for good, used materials to basically rebuild this trailer.  Starting with the exterior walls - which are actually in good shape, the metal that is - I will be tearing out the panelling, inspecting walls where it’s obvious there has been water leakage and doing whatever needs to be done to repair it and seal it.

Then, if I can find some good used insulation - maybe at Stardust (used building supplies) - I will put that in the walls and then put on new/used panelling, while checking the electrical wiring and out lets in the process.  That and carpet.  One entire section of the plywood on the floor has already been replaced by whoever had it last.  It will  need a twin bed for the back - I am ripping out the existing “stuff” back there and trashing it.  I will endeavor to keep the project’s costs low while attempting to make it look good, not just decent, in the process.  The major deal here is just to get it livable.  Running water/toilet/etc can wait.  The AC works great, which was surprising.  It cranks out ice-cold air.  No idea how much electricity is uses, but I can turn it one and see what my M-Power reader tells me in terms of kilowatt hours and then compute that into amount of money used. 

Tomorrow - this week - will be more than just a little interesting at work because of the email I wrote to the general manager.  I was put into a bad situation.  Do nothing, and these people will believe I am a sloucher who sits around the branch all day long, surfing the internet, doing nothing and getting paid for it.  Which to me, means at least a potential of losing my job, and certainly if there are more layoffs, my name would undoubtedly surface near or at the top of the list.

Say something - and risk making waves that may also prove the end of my job.  Why?  Who knows.  You never have any idea of what’s going on inside the minds of management or what’s being said behind closed doors, or what rationale and reasoning is being used to come the conclusions that they come to.  I am very certain of one thing, though: the General Manager - of whom I wrote the letter to - is not a man moved by emotional impulses or irrational thinking when it comes to such situations.  He has had to make many decisions in the last 2 years about who to keep and who to let go in terms of layoffs.  He has always stated he wants the “A Players” - people that go the extra mile, work their butts off, company people that are company minded. 

I did, obviously, opt for the latter.  I have never allowed a person, regardless of their rank or position of authority within a company or organization, push me around because they are on some power trip and want to exert their authority just because they can.  I AM, however, respectful regardless of what’s going on.  I can think of a few buttons that could be pushed that I might not be so respectful, that would include a person not being respectful of or to me.  This man certainly dissed me the other day when he came through the branch, mouthing his accusation and not wanting to hear a single word I had to say about it.  THAT is what moved me to action - he didn’t want to hear any reasoning behind why there might be a problem, he had come to his conclusion and that is what it was going to be regardless of what I said or felt about it. 

Yes, this situation is very troubling for me.  It will not rest until there is a conclusion - however that end may be and definitely determined by the GM - to it. 

So, that kind of over-rides anything else going on in my life right now.  In fact, I really can’t think of much of anything else.  I made my case and there is nothing else to do now —– but wait.

ben

I take great pride in my offerings at work. I work my @$$ off, I try to do the best job I can of not making mistakes. I am a safe driver and endeavor to avoid accidents at all costs. I almost always have a good attitude - maybe this week I was a wee bit grumpy because I was working when I should have been home, in bed, getting rest to get over this illness.

So, when a manager accuses me of “spending a good deal of time” surfing the internet, well, I’m pissed to say the least. The story: Wednesday morning. Raining. I’m sick. I don’t feel well. It’s the end-of-month time and the company always wants to push out as much material as possible to get our numbers up as high as possible. So, I go out in the rain, yes, it was raining and it was raining enough to get me nicely wetted in a short period of time - pull the transfer orders. They are simply orders for material we have that they either need for a delivery at another branch or need for stock material.

I come back in, sit down at my computer and was looking at an order that was supposed to go, that I suspected probably would not be going out. Rain usually shuts most job-sites down. So, I am contacting the inside-salesman for the account via instant messenger while looking up Mapquest - on the internet yes, but totally work related - to see how to get to another delivery out in the far east valley. A “higher-level” manager comes walking through and asks me if I’m surfing the internet again. I thought he was joking, but I responded that I was attempting to find out whether an order was going to go or not due to the rain. He goes over to the water cooler and then comes walking back by me, looks down at me and says: “You spend a good deal of time on the internet”.

I was floored by this statement. When a manager says something like that to you, you figure he’s thinking you’re sluffing off at work, wasting time doing nothing. I’m 100% opposite of that mindset. I have been working since I was 10 years old and before that I was doing odd jobs for money. I have the old-school work ethic - work your @$$ off and you will be rewarded for it. I don’t LIKE being at work doing nothing, it’s boring, I don’t feel like I’m earning my pay and I would rather be out in the warehouse pushing a broom if there’s nothing to do than sit around doing nothing. This man did not wait around for an answer or an explanation, he told me he had come to this conclusion because he had been sitting at my computer when we had inventory last week and saw all the sites I was visiting - and then walked off. I mean, without even giving me the benefit of a doubt, this guy is my judge, jury and executioner.

 I went to get a cup of coffee and saw him standing in the main room of the building, I verbalized that I do get on the internet - when I come in early before clocking in - every single day. He got a foul look on his face while ignoring me. I became suspicious that this guy was telling other managers about this situation - we are a 2-man crew at the branch I work at, I guess if we wanted to slouch off, we could get away with it - or could we? NOT. There is too much work to do - we hit $260,000 worth of sales out of branch - most of that comes from the deliveries I make in the semi truck - this month. If I were sitting around F****** off, looking at the internet, there is NO WAY that kind of sales revenues would ever be generated.

I wrote an email to the general manager. If this kind of stuff gets back to him - well - what’s going to happen to my job? Buh-bye, nobody wants slouchers in a recessed economy where there are 1,000 workers for every job that is available. Even if it were a GREAT economy, I would NEVER sit around screwing off. I wrote about the incident and the fact that I often-times do not even get a break during the day - losing 1/2 hour of time that is automatically deducted from my hours whether I take the break or not - and that I had worked 10-1/2 hours the day before, sick and getting NO break at all. It was not a whiny letter, more of an information event, I’m covering my @$$. People are going to talk shit about me behind my back, all well and fine, but if I find out about it, I’m going to do whatever I can to rectify the situation. I re-read my letter before sending it - is it communicating what I want to say? Yes, definitely, I hit the send field on the screen and that was that.

Come to find out, yes, this man has said something to both the general and ops manager about this and gave the message that the internet, apparently, should be shut off at our store. UNBELIEVABLE. Without even ASKING my manager, at the very least, about what’s going on, without attempting to find out if there’s a LEGITIMATE REASON for the usage of the internet, he simply makes a carpet-sweep judgment and then broadcasts it to the world. I would like to say here that this man is not my manager, he’s not my manager’s manager and he’s not the manager’s manager’s manager - who would be the General Manager - a person I have come to respect and admire as well - and really, at least from my standpoint - has absolutely no business whatsoever interjecting himself into a situation of which he has no knowledge at all. A person should at least VERIFY the ‘facts’ before going around spouting them off to everyone. So, yes, I’m pissed.

This is personal - the statement being made is that I’m a sloucher, which is total BULLSHIT. Should I be writing this on the World Wide Web? I don’t care. I pay the price to receive my paycheck, I do it willingly and with a good attitude, I have NOTHING to hide here. My manager and I work our asses off, there is nothing else to say about it. The man actually had the audacity to ask my manager why I hadn’t left yet, the day he showed up at our branch. He has NO CLUE what’s going on, yet is starting all kinds of shit. Again, there is nothing that will rise my ire more than baseless accusations - ESPECIALLY something that concerns my work ethic. It just FRIES me. I must move onto some other subject, because this subject is causing me small amounts of irritation and even anger. The weekend is here. I have no idea what I am going to do this weekend because, all day long, my mind has been consumed with this manager’s SHIT statements. I’m just going to end this one, I cannot get off the subject and hopefully a couple of beers and relaxation - and YES - SURFING THE FREAKING INTERNET - will help me calm down. Venting session over, and yes, it does feel better.

Unbelievable day at work.  First, I felt like crap.  I have been  sick - today was the worst day yet.  How I dragged myself out of bed, I have no idea.  I don’t really even remember driving to work.  I was totally out of it.  I went into automatic mode - there were several orders to pull and hardly any of it had been done yet.  It was almost 7:00am before I realized that the manager hadn’t shown up - who is usually there at 6:00am.

I called him, no answer.  I called my old boss downtown to let him know what was going on - I can’t delivere product and run the store at the same time, it’s one or the other.  After about 15 minutes, my manager called - he had overslept.

Onto the day’s business.  Delivery here, pickups there, more deliveries - all OVER the place. Salesman whining about getting his delivery done first.  His was not the first in the truck routing system, I go by who puts their stuff in there first, if the guy with the stuff in there first wants to okay it, then I’ll do the other one.  Well, it’s already after noon and I”m just leaving the yard in Phoenix - I have 2 deliveries, one of them a very long distance away by local delivery standards. 

Yeah, it was close to 5:00pm before I got off work.  No break, all day long, which only helped me feel worse.  I was ravenously hungry and couldn’t find anything low-calorie/good for a diet.  I settled on a small, carne asada burrito.  No cheese, no guacamole, it’s mostly just meat with a flour tortilla.  Flour tortilla? Big no-no  on a diet but I wasn’t about to go around feeling as bad as I was and further exacerbating the situation by not eating, either. 

Well, whatever.  I have been trying to find a person with the right kind of truck for days now to move that trailer over here, so far, no luck.  But, now that I know that the semi can pull the thing, I am going to ask the boss if he’ll let me use the company tractor.  My old boss would let me, I don’t know about this guy.   Umm, take it back, we did find someone who would do it - for $200.  Both the owner of the trailer and I balked at that.  $200 for 24 miles?  Bunk.  That’s almost $8 per mile!  No thanks.  A regular towing company would do it for less. 

I have nothing else.  Plenty to say but little energy right now.  There are things that need done around here - I am making Michael pick up the slack anymore.  He’s here, he’s going to work, period.  Today he took out the trash, turned on the dishwasher AND unloaded them after they were done WITHOUT my having to ask him.  He has found out that I am very intolerant of people living with me that are not going to pitch in and help out.  Yes, Michael left - for a while - but came back.  I prod him every single day about school - I continue to hear how he’s going to get registered and I continue to hear the excuses about his mom not having a vehcile available so they can’t go.

Take  a bus.  I have little sympathy - well in his case - I have no sympathy whatsoever - for slackers.  Oh, the dog crap was also picked up.   He knows the alternatives: Computer will be password protected so he can’t use it and the Direct TV cards will be removed from the receivers so he can’t watch TV.  That is quite the motivation for a person like that, trust me, it is. 

Oh, and it rained again today!  But I was in no mood.  Being sick, standing out in the rain attempting to load and strap down a truck isn’t much fun.  

I’m outta here.

ben

I have been thinking about this and anticipating it for a week now. 

Playing Cafe World and seeing that soup on there every time was too much, I hadn’t had that kind of soup in over 10 years - probably much long than that actually.

I started cooking the onions yesterday in a slow cooker - left them in overnight.  Took them out, put them in a pan and started cooking out the moisture.  “De-glazed” the onions several times until they were a nicely dark brown.   Simmered that, put a couple ladels full in a crock; covered with toasted French bread; covered that with fully 3 different cheeses.  Put under the broiler until the cheese was darkened - absolutely delicious. 

I made FAR too much of it, however.  I have enough of that soup to last literally weeks.  I will be eating on it for a couple of days and then freeze individual portions in plastic sour cream containers. 

A culinary delight and my first attempt, it turned out superb and the effort - definitely worth it.

I am still on my diet, btw - so I can’t really load up on the cheeses too much with it.  I did the first bowl just because I wanted the full blown deal, but any further servings the cheeses will be cut back.  Still, the biggest ingredient in this dish are onions and that doesn’t have too much calories in it. 

That was my crowning jewel of the weekend.  I am still waiting to hear back about getting the travel trailer, but I think it may be tomorrow before anything happens. 

I am still not feeling well - I guess I have a “low-level” chest cold.  It definitely isn’t the full-blown deal, but it’s enough to make me feel - crappy.  So, any big plans of working outdoors are going to be severely curtailed today and tomorrow.  Monday - as long as everything dries up this weekend and no more rain - will be a killer day at work with a bunch of deliveries that have been put off because of the driving, saturating rains that we experienced this week.

Meaning I don’t want to go to work all tired because I spent the weekend working outside.  Okay, I am going to do some carpet cleaning - but just on high traffic areas, nothing too stressful here.

G’day folks.

ben

I drove over this afternoon to pick up my son from his mom’s house. 

He started asking me this question that is my entry’s title.  ????  The way he said it, I thought maybe he was referring to the Tempe Lake dam - it’s an inflatable thing that can be deflated to allow water to run through it.  That’s because that lake is actually built in a dry riverbed.  The dry riverbed is not always dry, in cases like now, when there has been extreme, and I do mean EXTREME, amounts of rainfall, they have to open up the dam up the river and turn the dry river into a - real river. 

Instead, I was curious why he was asking about this particular thing, so I asked what was going on?

Some thing in school - no, that’s not it - some program  or educational thing that teaches you what to do in extreme emergencies - including if a dam breaks.  Well, if a dam breaks and you’re in it’s way, it’s one of those put-your-head-between-your-legs-and-kiss-your-@$$-goodbye deals. 

Well, he says, they say that if some dam around here breaks, you have 1 hour and 30 minutes to get out of the way of the onslaught.  Well, that’s the Roosevelt dam and if it breaks - I don’t know if we are in trouble or not.  I live on the base of a mountain - it’s above the valley floor.  I simply said that we are on the base of a mountain, if you happened to be here if it happened, you would probably be okay, but to be safe, we would grab the dogs and run up the side of South Mountain and get to the top.  Only another Noah’s Flood would cover THAT high. 

The discussion has progressed, as I brought up my concerns about a potential, horrific emergency:  the meltdown of the Palo Verde Nuclear generating plant.  If THAT were to happen, we would be in serious trouble.  My escape route is I-10 south.  I-10 is 2 miles from me, south would be the only way to go and it would have to be immediate, get whoever you can, get in the car and get out of town and don’t plan on coming back for a while.  I don’t know what my mother’s plan is - if she even has one.  In a disaster like that, you have to find an escape route that is close and won’t be stopped by massive panic of everyone else also trying to get out.  She would be in trouble, I think, being in Sun City.  NO - I take that back - she could head north up to Wickenburg towards Las Vegas.  Well, not a great route since it would take you in the wrong direction - you would be passing by the plant even if 30 plus miles to the south - but - what choice do you have.  Going any other direction would never work - the roadways would be filled with cars and there would be no getting out.

The key in such a situation would be to get out immediately - waste no time, don’t worry about personal things, worry about saving your life and as many of those with you that you can.  Unfortunately, the dogs would have to be left behind to fill the car with humans.  It would suck, and I would be greatly affected by it, but - obviously - human life is worth far more than canine life. 

It was an interesting conversation.  I used to be of the “survivalist” mind - get everything you need stockpiled in advance in case you have to go live off the land.  I’m not quite so motivated now, but I am stockpiling food stuffs - just in case.  Seeds and guns too.  I’m one of those people that believes everyone (normal people that is) should own a gun.  Protection is my mindset there, not necessarily hunting capabilities.  But I digress and that’s a whole different subject with numerous paragraphs of my thoughts on it, so I won’t go there on this posting (though I will throw in here that I am very glad my mother changed her tune on guns and now owns 3 of them). 

As for today - I have felt like junk all day long.  I have a “low-key” sore throat that has plagued me for 3 days and I have not felt good.  I have awakened 3 times this week feeling VERY nasty and today was one of those days - I am only NOW, within the last hour, feeling a LITTLE better than this morning.   Great, go to bed and wake up tomorrow morning - yucky?  NO, I will not have to get up in the middle of a very deep sleep since tomorrow is Saturday and nothing pressing, so I hope that I can get a very good night’s sleep, indeed.  The 5th wheel trailer deal seems to be going through.  Looking for tomorrow afternoon possibly to get it over here.  Umm, nothing else, really, and I don’t want to write anything else, anyway.

G’nite.

ben