Jeff showed up - late - last night. I didn’t care, better late than not at all. It’s only a temporary arrangement for him staying, but - I figured to get the room filled with someone I already know and know will pay than the continuous line of fruitcakes, nuts and mouth breathers that seem to be showing up. It’s a reprieve from all of this, that’s what I can say about it.
This has been going on since - 3 weeks now or so? All 3 rooms are filled and THIS is how I am going to get ahead just before that first payment on the deferral is due.
Count down to 6 days off - day 5. Lol. Hope that doesn’t change!
Geeze, the news is rife with crap. Why is Quadaffi whatever the spelling is - even in the US? Firefighters killed in that huge CA fire; I think the worst and the best ending news is that girl that was abducted and then all the revelations of what happened to her during that 18 years of being - raped basically - still, she’s alive.
Anyway, I have just a little sigh of relief going here, though I start reading stuff on KCL and get a bit concerned, especially about Westy’s condition.
So, these people showed up the other day. I figure to rent out to whoever at this point, I’ve got to get those rooms filled.
They commit. Okay. Shake hands, we’re moving in, blah blah blah.
Today was the move-in day.
I called them a little over half an hour ago.
Oh, well, we’re not going to move in now, you have a house full of guys and my fiancee’ doesn’t want think it’s going to be good for us.
What? They were clearly informed of this when they showed up the other day! They KNEW it was me, John - the 62 year old guy, and probably the ex-Marine. This wasn’t a secret.
I just hung up on them. I would have gotten nasty about it, because they obviously weren’t going to tell ME about their decision, just leave me hanging. I still have half a mind to call them back and give them a piece of my mind, but I figure: you reap what you sow. Or, in common day language: what goes around comes around. It isn’t some pie-in-the-sky, it happens and that’s that.
Still, why didn’t they just say they didn’t like it and move on? Or if they didn’t want to be that blunt, many folks will simply say “I’ve got other places I also want to check out”. Okay, that’s usually a pretty good sign they aren’t going to be back. I don’t chew them out, get nasty, whatever when it becomes obvious they don’t like the place, I JUST MOVE ON TO THE NEXT PERSON.
Good grief and WHATEVER. I have had so many negative experiences with people in this round of trying to find new tenants - well - I’m just going to start telling people that if they don’t put down a deposit to hold the place, I am not guaranteeing it’s going to be available as I will rent it out to the first taker WITH money in hand.
Just unbelievable. After hanging up on that person - I actually think they made that story up and found something they liked better - or closer to where they were going to be working - and just wanted to make a story up - I called Jeff. He called earlier today still looking to see if the room was available or not - I couldn’t give him an answer. Jeff is coming over later on, he already went to court to get at least visiting rights to his son until this thing goes full-blown court action and custody battle and from the sound of it, it’s definitely a battle.
Well, I have 5 days of work and then I have 6 days off. Can’t wait. There is stuff to do Monday morning so I won’t have to be scraping to find something to do. Hopefully the week will be busy enough to make it go by quickly.
Well, John is moving more stuff in, the other guy is doing laundry, I’m now watching a movie and I bid you all a good evening! Also, just keeping Westy in prayer and wishing she gets out of the hospital soon, wow!! Come back Westy, we miss you!
ben
I continue to read the reports of Swine Flu potentially becoming a disaster that will overload the hospitals and require some extensive stays. Apparently it is hitting young people hard in different nations around the world and it’s effect here is only going to worsen.
I can’t afford to live in fear - especially for my son who goes to school and just like every other kid, could potentially be exposes to this crap. The news they continue to proliferate everywhere is increasingingly dim and at least a little scary.
I dunno. All I can say is I have good health insurance, I have enough paid time off to take at least 3 weeks off if I had to - though that will diminish after next week’s staycation - and I have short AND long-term disability. Mostly, I just pray to the good Lord for His hand of protection to keep us well, healthy and safe. And, of course, urge my son to make sure he is washing his hands after bathroom uses and educating him about certain things in public places.
I have always seemed to be more susceptible to whatever is going around that most people. I therefore do - odd things I guess - to try and keep myself from getting it. It isn’t an obsessive thing to the point I’m constantly thinking about it, it’s just things that I have trained myself to do as matter of habit. For example, I do not touch swinging doors with my hands when opening them. I just push it open with my foot. If I do have to “touch” the door to open it, such as having to pull it open, I use the wrong end of the handle on the door where no-one else is likely to even try to open it. The point is simply to attempt to avoid someone else’s germs that may be carrying whatever.
A lot of other things I do as well, not going to go into it, waste of time. Sound freaky? I get pretty upset, frankly, when a person who is obviously sick with something is going around a store or other public place, sneezing and/or coughing without even attempting to cover their mouth and nose with their hand or tissue. I have many, many times vocally dispensed my dislike of people doing such. Usually, it gets a very negative response from the person - I could care less. It’s proven fact, not some dream out of someone’s head - that all that stuff they are sneezing and coughing into the air is easily absorbed into another person’s system and then, their sickness becomes yours.
Nice. Sometimes I don’t say anything, I just back WAY off or leave the area altogether. You know, like standing in a line at the grocery store and some freak is standing there with a head and chest cold, coughing all over the place?
It isn’t foolproof, but it certainly can’t hurt to do whatever you can to keep yourself from getting sick. And certainly, with this swine flu pandemic getting worse - like now they’re saying it goes straight to the lungs causing severe illness - I’m all for doing whatever I can to keep that kind of crap out of my system.
Onto other things. Pete - my now-ex tenant, called from Boston yesterday - he is staying RIGHT next to a beach!! He invited me to come out and visit once he gets situated. He can do that - like get me a free air ticket on stand-by. I want to do it - and certainly before winter hits over there, cause when that happens, you can KEEP Boston!!
Supposedly another tenant moving in today. If not, Jeff wants to come back for a month/month and a half, so I’m good with that. In fact, I hope those people don’t show up, I’ll gladly let Jeff stay in his old room rather than taking in more strangers. Wait and see. Really, I wish I could help him out - he just needs a temp place. I can’t go kicking people out, so, oh well. Sorry Jeff, if it turns out I can’t help you. The military guy is in. Ex military, I should say. 4 years in the Marines, saw a tour in Iraq as well as going all over the world, apparently. He is in Ken’s old room now. Yes, I pretty much made that happen as soon as Ken’s stuff was out of there. My apologies to Ken as well, but money isn’t growing on any of my trees, I have to keep the flow coming in.
Besides, his mother already stated it was not feasible or worthwhile to keep his room open. His brother over here yesterday stated the same thing: Might as well rent it back out, Ken’s not going to be up doing much of anything for a long, long time, or so it appears. It has been relieving to say the least that I did not have to broach that subject with them, they did it with me and I think it was at the insistence of the social worker at the hospital. Oh, another reason not to have to really worry about SugarCane’s home invasion fears: this guy works on a armored truck pickup-delivery and owns a 45 caliber handgun. Basically will turn your head into mush type of thing. Dunno how long he’s staying, dunno really how long anyone is staying, I just go with the flow and try to keep the rooms filled.
Someone did something to some of my plants out front. I had thought at first a kid might have trampled on the plants, but - the death continues to move towards the rest of the large plant array in that particular area. My video surveillance doesn’t capture that end of the front, so I couldn’t see who did what. I am going to have to go out there and dig up all the dead stuff and try to stop the death erosion. I’m not particularly happy with whatever who did what with it. In fact, I would love to ………well that isn’t very Christianlike so I won’t go there. No good reason for anyone to do such a thing, I am going to move one of my cameras to catch more of the front yard.
Umm, with that, I’m going out front now that I think about it to deal with this just before the heat gets up so high, you feel like a meteor just landed on your head.
ben
Well, what a morning. It’s all over - for now anyway. 3 and a half hours out at a large local park with hundreds of kids and parents. I’m very impressed with JR ROTC - the leadership is excellent and it trickles on down through the ranks. I took several short videos and intend on posting them on my blog when I get them uploaded. But…………
I mean, wow. Get home, Ken’s dad had left some nasty messages about how they showed up and I wasn’t here. A bit insulting to say the least, especially considering they said they would be here around 1:00 pm, not 11:00 am. I was home 20 minutes before 1pm - when they said they were coming.
The tenant taking Pete’s room also showed up with his first load - a giant bed. Good thing it’s a large room. He has a set of keys to the house now, I need not worry about him getting in and out of here.
On top of all of that, Jeff showed up needing a room for a short time. Jeff is an ex-tenant. He’s a good kid, now 19 I believe, going through some rough stuff with his girlfriend who also has his baby and doesn’t want to allow him access. Long story. I wish Jeff would’ve showed up yesterday as I could have given him the room he used to be in, but I have a handshake on that room and I won’t do anything with it unless those people don’t show up. If they don’t, Jeff can have it, otherwise, there’s nothing I can do about it.
The score of the weekend, however, is the KCL coffee mug coming in the mail. I love it!
Next: These other people are supposed to move in tomorrow. I have had enough for one day, plus it’s baking hot outside and I have no desire to do anything else. The only other thing of note was when I was talking to both the Colonel and a Sargeant that are both acquainted with Michael.
It wasn’t particularly good news about him - Michael is in the same program Caleb is in JR ROTC - but it definitely was not a surprise. Michael needs a haircut BADLY, his hair is so long he’s starting to look lady-like at least in hair length. The ROTC has a structure and rules to follow, and part of that is that the hair cannot be longer than X length. Everytime he shows up with his long hair, he gets 100 points off - whatever that means, but it’s towards whether he passes or fails.
Basically, his sargeant’s statement was that if he doesn’t get in line with what he needs to be doing, the Sargeant is going to drop him. Well of course - it isn’t fair to the rest of the kids that are learning discipline, routine and order in their lives to see another kid coming along breaking the rules and not showing up. The Sargeant went so far as to say they offered to PAY for his haircut and he turned it down. The Colonel offered as well.
Michael started giving me this story when I got home today and asked about it - I simply cut him off. I will not stand there listening to him make up stories. I have SERIOUS doubts that these 2 men would stand there and tell me they offered to pay for his haircut but, according to Michael, they didn’t actually say that. BS. I have tolerated less and less of Michael’s stories lately, I don’t believe a lot of his jibe and I don’t want to hear it, I have been listening to this junk from his entire family for years now, it’s a broken record.
Well, I can’t force Michael to do anything, but I can certainly make it difficult on him. Such as his arrival last night. He played games for a while on the TV and then went to sleep. The lifestyle he enjoys over here - when he IS here - is something I hope he begins to appreciate as he is forced to spend more and more time at his family’s place.
Anyway, I’m hungry. ROTC did feed everyone with a hot dog, some beans and chips, but that just wasn’t enough. I’m gonna hit up the fridge and get something a little more substantial to eat.
That freaking coffee mug is HUGE!!! It must hold twice the coffee of a normal cup~!
OH, well back to the normally schedule program.
First off, I am going to some - event - of my son’s JR ROTC this morning. Which really isn’t going to be that fun considering they’re holding it at a local park and it’s projected to be 111 degrees. I like my roasted coffee, I do not include roasting my flesh in anything that sounds enjoyable.
I had a weird dream that was what woke me up this morning. Ken was out of the hospital, had lost at least 100 pounds, was skinny and walking around like nothing ever happened. The part that woke me up was when he saw me - he said “Oh, hi” and left. Dreams are strange things at times, maybe all the time, there is no way for me to sit here and say what that meant. Maybe it doesn’t many anything.
Michael showed up last night - and went straight to bed. I do sorta feel sorry for him in that respect, there really IS no sleeping at his house. People are awake all night long, making noise - those people have no life. They don’t work, they do steal, and a lot of that is done at nightime, of course. Anyway, a kid trying to go to school during the day after having a basically sleepless night is prolly not going to have a good learning experience. At the same time - it should give the boy a little more appreciation of my place, versus taking it for granted.
I believe all 3 rooms are tentatively rented. Well, for sure the one room that I already have a $400 check on. The ex-Marine is moving in and the other is moving in on Sunday. Supposedly, of course. Money talks. I am not taking down any of my ads yet, though I am also not going to run any new ones until I see what happens here.
Ken’s folks are coming over today - which is going to make a tight schedule of doing this ROTC thing and then coming home and going straight to work on that situation. So, this looks to be a busy weekend. The man that gave me the money is moving in today or tomorrow - I don’t know which cause’ he didn’t know yet. I hope he doesn’t show up when I’m gone at ROTC. If he does, well I can’t really help him as he doesn’t have keys to the place yet. I also hope he doesn’t show up when they are moving ken’s stuff out - though he doesn’t really have that much stuff, really. A small computer desk, chair, computer, a small table and clothing. He has that junk dresser and chaise lounge that Mary gave him - those 2 items need to go into the trash can, frankly.
Which reminds me - I called the city of Phoenix, next bulk trash pickup starts September 12th with the pickup being on the 21st. I have several items I want to rid myself of, I will assume that chaise lounge and dresser will be included in that list of junk that needs to go.
I figure I can deal with a busy weekend now and then next weekend - the beginning of my second staycation. 6 days in a row off, baby!! Yeaaaahh!! I have some plans for that time - if the temps have subsided substantially - ahhhh yesssss, mama, the forecast is staying relatively the same for those days going down to the low 90’s!!! - I can get some stuff done outside without melting into the ground like a snickers bar in a 350 degree oven!
Okay, I’m trying to get my mind into the realm of going to some socail affair. No desire. If it was indoors, I would be all over it. I spent yesterday outside in the 114 heat/sun, I don’t want to do it today!!! Waaaaaahhhh! lol
I’ll assume that they will at the very least have cold water for everyone out there to drink - which is all I want anyway. Assumption not being enough, I’m taking a large, plastic cup of ice filled water to drench my heat sorrows in. I have never met any of these parents - and Caleb is a ranking cadet - so this really should be quite interesting. They are probably going to be looking at me like, where have you been all these years? But - they only have 2 events per year that allow the parents to come to and I didn’t even KNOW about it until I started getting pushy before this school season started. Like, what is with all of this stuff going on and I don’t find out about it until it’s done and over? The ex will not be there - she’s doing something else, so she says anyway.
Oh, and with cooler temps I’ll be ready to fire up that grill again. If I wasn’t so financially down, I would probably start doing the free meals thing again, but - well maybe once in a while. Nothing fancy. One of the groceries has bone-ine chicken breast for - I think it was 77 cents a pound and super lean ground beef for $1.37 or something like that. Yeah, that’s a pretty good deal, as long as they aren’t tainted cows and chickens providing that stuff! I was thinking about what’s going to happen to all of these people that are going to lose their unemployment benefits.
Allegedly, after the end of next month, more than half a million people are going to go off the free money roll and - they are going to be SCREWED, me-thinks. If you have nothing, how do you survive? It makes me wonder how many people are going to end up in the streets? I’ll tell you right now, if I see that stuff going on around here, I’ll do my best to at least feed people if nothing else.
As for my situation, I have submitted all the paperwork, I have contacted my mortgage company several times to make sure we’re still on track and I will continue to call them until I am sure there is nothing left to do but make the “first” payment on or before the 1st of October. Obviously, it is going to arrive well before the 1st of October - even a day late and the deal is off and I’m back to where I was, only worse actually. Meanwhile, if I get all these tenants in here, I will be WAY ahead by the time the end of next month gets here as I am fighting to keep the 401k loan money intact and get at least a couple grand beyond that while I’m not making any mortgage payments. Having 4k in the bank would be nice.
I am not really going in the hole financially with not having tenants here - but that is only temporary. Just because of the loan deferral I am receiving through the feds on my loan. I have not been blowing money on anything. Whatever I have to have, yes, but other than that, no. I take it back - I did blow a couple hundred on my version of a vacation going to that waterpark, but that was it. Since then, I bought a couple of pairs of shorts and a shirt and that’s all. I still need to get some steel-toed shoes for work - I have been using regular shoes.
This one is getting long, think I’ll quit now.
Have a great Saturday!
ben
So, I got home from work today to find a nice surprise in the mailbox. LITERAL mailbox, you know, the thing beside the street that this real live dude or dudette actually comes strolling up in a blue uniform to give you pieces of paper? Yeah, that!
I knew who it was from and what it was - well I hoped anyway - as soon as I saw it in there. Without further ado, here is the video that I took concerning such. Warning: this video contains juvenile behavior laced with non-sensical laughing. It is silly, goofy and retarded. Parental Guidance is not suggested, as most kids would be found acting in such manner.
Amazing. This reminds me of the chaos in 1988 when a book and tapes and all kinds of junk were put out that stated the date of Christ’s return, which allegedly was going to be a 3-day span during Roshashanna/September of 1988.
It was amazing what “Christians” were doing - racking up untold credit card debt (they figured they wouldn’t have to pay it, so why not?), giving away their homes and cars and doing all kinds of wild, illogical and unreasonable things.
What’s the connection between the 2? Simply that there are going to be people that believe this stuff - your death date I guess - and act “accordingly”. Or very unaccordingly. I do believe there are things you can do in life which can affect your death date - for good and for bad - but I do believe I will NOT be going to that site and will NOT be entering any information. Apparently it’s just based on statistics, your age and such.
Thanks - but - no thanks. I think I will leave the day I day shrouded in the ages old mystery of - When? Don’t know, that’s in God’s hands, not mine or the hands of mankind, and that’s the way it SHOULD be.
Back to Christ’s return date - I remember standing up to an entire council of Christian leaders during that time in 1988 when suddenly, all of these people were going out on the streets and witnessing about the Lord and doing “good” deeds that they normally did not do. As of God couldn’t see RIGHT through ALL of that in EACH individual person. Give me a break. I was told by these people that I was going to hell because I didn’t believe them, and that I wasn’t saved. They had this smugness about them - they were leaders over groups of missionaries travelling around the world, they MUST be right, right?
Now, when those 3 days passed, and we’re all still here, I went back to them. No repentance, not even an offering of an apology. No, instead, they insisted they just had the wrong Rosh Hashanna and that it would be the NEXT year. This after belittling me and telling me I was no longer Christian and going to hell. The Bible CLEARLY states that No man shall know the day or the hour……of Christ’s return. That was the scripture I stood up to them with, and that is the scripture I will stand with to my grave.
Anyway, make a mad rush over to that website and find out when you’re going to die, I am not even going to visit it, and am so totally against putting that kind of fear into people’s brains, I am not posting the URL either, you’ll have to find it yourself.
The large bedroom is officially rented!!! GAAAAAASP!!! I’m dying here, folks! This has been WAY harder than I ever imagined. Some of these people responding to these ads are ridiculous. I got an email from a woman that was interested in the other room, but then directed me to her “room wanted” ad. I didn’t know Craigslist HAD a room wanted section!
Anyway, I went and she had this thing spelled down to the last drop of ink in the well. It was QUITE demanding and I just wrote her back and told her that, from my perspective and experience, she would do well to get her own place. NO-ONE is EVER going to be able to make a person like that happy, they will always find something to crap on everyone about.
The guy that committed to that room a few days ago? Did I write this in the previous entry? Don’t care - reneged. Whatever. I have been writing replies to emails and making phone calls ever since I got home from work today, mixed in with watering the plants and visiting with the gentleman that is moving in - and yes he handed me a check for the entire month of September.
You know, it’s FAR easier to just GO TO WORK everyday than go through all of this!! Okay, well one down, 2 to go. The ex-Marine is still in the running, I have no real prospects yet on the the 3rd room.
So, the first person that is supposed to move in here and hand me a rent check today - has done neither yet. Which doesn’t mean I’m giving up on him - he just said he would be over here tomorrow afternoon sometime after 3:00 - it’s 3:30. I’ll give it til’ 6:00 pm and then I’m calling him again.
I called the other guy who “shook hands and committed” to the room the other day - didn’t bother to call me and tell me he’s moving in somewhere else. “Yeah, I was going to call you….” yeah, like the 8th of never. He knew about this yesterday - again, a person’s handshake and verbal commitment is really quite meaningless in this day and age - at least in a lot of cases.
I have already called the next person in line for that room and wrote another one back online that he is next if yet the next person coming over today to look at it doesn’t want it. And on, and on, and on we go. And on, and on, and on I will go until this situation is mitigated.
Umm, so that’s it. I could say a lot of other things, but this situation is beginning to annoy me with people bugging out. It isn’t so much that they’re bugging out as it is that they agreed to take the room, shook on it, said they wanted it, then come to find out they not only aren’t coming in here, they didn’t bother to give me a call about it.
No, that does it for me for right now. I’m going to go take a nap. The “next” potential renter is supposed to be coming over at 4:45 pm, a little over an hour from now.
My boss handed me a vacation form I had filled out weeks ago and totally forgot about. I wanted to take 3 days off on Labor Day week and have 6 full days off to do absolutely nothing, another “Staycation”, cept’ a little longer than the last one. If he hadn’t handed me that signed form, I would have totally forgotten about it - and would still have had a 3 day weekend anyway. So, he approved it - but, I reminded him - he has to make sure that he can get a driver from downtown to fill my place.
In other words, did another driver already ask for time off and the opening isn’t available. He called the warehouse manager downtown to find out - no answer. I’m hoping for a yes, as that would equate into a 9-day stretch: 6 off, 1 on, 2 off. And then nothing until Christmas, hopefully. OH, and Christmas - AND New Year’s!!! The company announced early the days off we have for Christmas and New Years. It would be a half day on the day before each of those days, that holiday day off and then the weekend. That’s pretty good without taking any vacation time off. I would like to take a couple of days off on either of those.
Okay. Well, anyway. I just talked to the next potential tenant. Things are moving along rapidly here - as they should, it’s near the end of the month and people are looking for new places to move into - this guy sounded pretty cool. I dunno for sure, but it’s hopeful. He needs a furnished room - not sure on that one - but - for a person that might stay a little while, I could definitely furnish it. He claims to have learned clean skills in the Marines - and I don’t doubt that - but do those skills always carry on after they leave? I have NO clue. Again, it’s always a roll of the dice when talking about getting a new tenant in here. Definitely unchartered territory when trying to fill 3 rooms at once.
Oh, and what was I nervous about? Well, the gentleman that was supposed to move in today. I called twice, no answer, thinking about going to these other people. But - he called back and said he just didn’t want to drive yesterday with his grandkids and that he would be over tomorrow (today) with a check. Step in the right direction.
At this point, potentially all 3 rooms are rented. I have people backed up on a waiting list for any deserters. I still won’t feel any kind of relief until I get at least 2 rooms rented and the money in my checking account.
Well, anyway, I was looking at the projected forecast for my intended staycation: Saturday the 5th 102, 101, and down and down into the low 90’s for HIGH’S. Lord knows I hope they are RIGHT on this! Of course, today’s high: 111. Gag.
Work day about to begin - and as the rest of this week - abysimally slow. In fact, there is nothing in terms of deliveries and the branch I am working out of is poised to see the lowest gross sales for a month that I have ever seen here. We’ll be lucky to hit 75k - which is nothing and is far short of the company’s projected sales for this branch. Ugggh.
Ben B