dangerous goods

I finally did DG a couple weeks ago. Spent the last two weeks at the DG desk. Still on the road, so I'm not into it, comfortably. Speed is a need and sitting doesn't work for me, it seems. Repetition will ease me into the natural flow to maintain rhythm, but I'm a ways from getting that opportunity since I've been on the road when I should be focused on DG.
Wife has been mad at me. Not sure how to fix the reasons she's mad. I guess I could try to sleep a normal schedule and get things started earlier in the day since I'm more of a morning person if I wake up early enough. Mostly feels like she wants a servant to clean up and such. She doesn't appreciate that I do pick up and vacuum... my three kids tend to be very much like the 4 kids depicted in Family Circus. It seems only way to get house work done is if everyone is gone, haven't had that scenario occur with family sick, winter break, early start times... being out of town, selling plasma, and such since last May. I can see why she's mad. I just don't parent well enough to do stuff with the kids.

Peak

I went to Pittsburgh the week before Thanksgiving for Courier school. Came back after three days only to be signed up for Dangerous Goods Specialist school for the week after Thanksgiving. Latter class was in Milford, CT.
I was sick with flu-like symptoms the week I returned. I missed a day of work. I was unaware that I got sick time until my paycheck said as much.
My wife and son have been sick since last Wednesday, while my youngest had a cold that turned into an ear infection over the weekend.
I've worked a lot with the training I had to do in addition to the work I already did, plus I had to travel on Sundays for my classes.
I really haven't had a lot of free time. I can't even find time to donate plasma twice a week to make it worthwhile.
When I was coming back from Pittsburgh, I stopped in my hometown to see my friend with gastroparesis. I didn't hear yes or no to whether she could see me so I just stopped at her parents' house. She lives with her folks and doesn't get out much. She wasn't feeling well, and her mom said she wasn't well enough to see me. I lingered at the house long enough for my friend to call to her mom to let me back to see her.
She just cried for the most part. Maybe lasted a few minutes, but tears seem to last a long time once they start. It's hard seeing someone you love in that state, but who knows when I will ever come that way again.
It's a 3+ hour drive and she may not feel well enough for visitors so it's not a trip I expect to make. I have no family there.
Peak season at work makes the holiday season harder to enoy... I'm expected to work longer than my normal hours which is funny considering I'm part-time and haven't worked under 30 hours since I ceased being a handler. My wages have doubled being the raise and increase in hours, so I have the tax problem of making too much money. It's a good problem to have, in the grand scheme of things.

Skipping Fall

Last week was cold. I work with a guy and he said we skipped fall. I know we had a lousy week here but a not so lousy week is in the near future, so I don't concur.
I like my co-worker. I spend more time with him now that I am out of the station, which is odd considering you don't think of couriers being in pairs or working together outside of the station, at least. We take separate vehicles to the same two locations. I stay at one while he heads over to the second. Before I head back to the station, I meet up with him and see if he needs help or such.
Weird week, it seemed. Being back, people seemed different. I'm off a couple days again, so I will be able to adjust more.
Rough going from a week at the beach and then back to the grind.
I was bored the first few days and hoped to be sent home early, but no such luck. Thursday and Friday, I had to stay later than usual. 36 hours is much more than my old 25 hour weeks that were only a month or so ago.
The first step to becoming independently wealthy to exploit every stream of income available. Not simply having a job and saving money, but exploiting free time to its max without losing effort elsewhere. Seeing that I have debt to abolish, I'm working on that front along with the long term 401k contributions and to help tax considerations. Paying taxes on money made makes money worth less, I rather use less money by choice than give it away to the government.

Alabama, more staining.

Fall break- we left on Saturday and drove until we hit Alabama around 7. We could have gone further, but the whole trip to the beach was meant to be not hateful. We got to our beach hotel around 3 on Sunday.

5 days and nights at the beach went well enough.

Drove home with only stops for gas, food and restroom reasons on Friday.

On Saturday, I was too meh to do much beyond mowing the lawn and filling the propane tank for some steaks on the grill. I did stain the lower deck on Sunday. 

Looks to be a couple weeks before I get to do more staining. The weather looks to be wet and cold.
Donated plasma today... the trip to the beach was rather expensive so all sources of income need to be tapped.

Too much rain for my liking

I have many blogs. I seem to repeat myself at times, if I'm not careful.
I've nothing new to say about the 2nd Amendment.
I used to blog more whimsically. It was a sort of diaryland thing, without focus or much purpose.
I have had a few more jobs than I care to have had. I have a blog focused upon that matter.
This blog is meant to be a weekly rehashing of my thoughts on the world. I interject a post from time to time, but I neglect weeks enough that such digression seems fine.
I have the unnatural ability to pursue things I've a weakness.
I lack the ability to organize my thoughts... yet I pursued being a librarian. I'm able to find stuff but being too neat, is too hard.
I was born with a problem it seems for I always had too much stuff in places that needed  to be less crowded. Mrs. Zieke(sp?) was kind enough to let me have 2 desks in 1st grade, or at least until we had a new student move to town.
I have trouble with driving, yet I am a professional driver.
Regardless, I started a blog posting about healthcare and health insurance that doesn't quite belong on this blog. Granted I do deal with healthcare and health insurance more than I like on a semi-daily basis.
Back in June, J had a blood test done to see if she had inherited a blood condition. Insurance denied the claim though the doctor was the one who suggested the testing. We lost the appeal, so $698 has to be paid... without going towards the deductible.
Back in June, we met the deductible for my youngest daughter when she had her heart scanned and such, yet we were still billed for her speech therapy sessions because they cap annual visit to 20 regardless of meeting the deductible, except when a need is documented. My youngest barely said words, so sessions  twice a week are in her best interest. I heard on Friday the sessions will be covered until December when our insurance is up. Many hours have bee spent talking with Humana... so I'll believe later...
I have Anthem and everything from my July 6th appt was covered or paid by the meager HRA money I have from my employer. My prescriptions are $5 each, but aren't covered by the HRA. By being off J's insurance, I'm saving over $1,700 a year
If everyone could work for FedEx, everyone would have health insurance.
I like FedEx. If I had to, I could walk to work. It's a mile or so from my home, which made the initial change in employment from the carwash that was 22 miles away seem worthwhile though the hourly wage difference of $.38. Carwash cut my hours and caused my carpal tunnel to be a daily concern, while I had guaranteed 17.5 hours a week and benefits beyond 401(K) at FedEx. Saving over $1000 a year on gas is a big hidden raise in itself, especial considering the time saved.
Anyways, having real cashflow with my current raises and work hours increased means I'm making double what I made at the carwash when I left.
I'm also less tired. Sure I'm grumpy on weekends of late from the rain and other diversions, but I'm physically able to do stuff around the house I've been putting off.

Yesterday, I got the top part of my deck stained before it rained. I'm sore today from using my carwash muscles. Still a lot left to stain... including undereneath and a second coat... stupid rain.
Might have gotten more finished but J quit on me and spent the rest of the day doing laundry since K and B were gone camping. K just did the day, while B was gone since Friday and came back this morning.
Only rotten thing about my promotion, aside from breaking in a van, is that I work at 3 of late and still get off work after 10. If I want to see my kids, I see them before they go to school. K leaves for the bus at 7:30, while B leaves around 8:30. D leaves around 12:25 and has Fridays off, so I see her most of all. We went a hayride with her classmates on Friday, but I had to work at 2:30 so we left sooner than intended. It was the 3rd different hayride I had been on through the pre-school. I went once with both the older kids. Strange they all went to a different farm. Thankfully, it didn't rain at all Friday.

threat of rain put damper on deck plans. Clogged sink blues.

I sanded the deck Tuesday. It was more hassle getting the sander and electrical cord out than actually sanding. I thought about staining today but the bathroom sink was slow draining and I decided to make the clog worse, it seems. Regardless, I fixed the clog after work, but now the drain leaks. I am not in the mood to fix the leak, and it's a minor leak that can be fixed in the morning.
Other than the dread of rain and not getting to finish staining, my mind has drifted to my concerns regarding gastroparesis. I wear green for my friend.
Stain dread and drain misdeeds seem petty when I think of how lucky I truly am to be able to eat, sleep, and do other normal things without trouble beyond my stupid carpal tunnel which is treatable with surgery...
Sure, I take medications that I'll take the rest of my life, but I'm in fair shape. I can donate plasma without trouble, at least.
I have no understanding of how bad gastroparesis is. I wish no one did.

Annoyed by lack of progress

I said rabbit, rabbit in hopes of good luck, but the month started flat. Weather was nice enough to start to stain Saturday, but we had morning plans and lunch before getting to it.
Spindles take forever and that's all we did by the time it got dark. Today we started at 10 with the elements attached to the spindles and we had to stop around noon to take B to a skate party. We then ate and got a new printer before I had to pick up B at 3. I then spent the next hour of so setting up the printer to print stuff for K's scout meeting at 5:30. By then, only an hour or so of daylight was left...
My mood was rotten. I was so amped to get the damn staining done that I'm bummed.
Hard part is essentially done, at least one coat applied, but time isn't a luxury I have if I work at 3 this week.
My carpal tunnel is not liking the staining.

Courier life

I got my pay raise on my last check, so I cleared an extra $100 on my weekly pay check. I don't have a regular route yet, but I did fill in this week for a guy who hurt himself. He always struck me as being useless since he tagged along with a guy who is rather good at what he does and basically the one guy does the work while the other just hauls it back to the station. Being the guy who hauled, I found myself very bored, but being paid better makes it not hateful. I usually start at 5:30 and don't lunch and get home after 10:30, but these two have to start at 3 and take a break so they aren't over 6 hours without a break when they get back and help with the sort. That said I put in an extra 8 hours this week than last, so my check should be $100 more than this past check.
The huge downer of the promotion is that my kids get home from school after 3, so I don't see them much. I hadn't seen J during week regularly for almost a year, so it isn't too strange, I guess.
If I stay on this particular route, I can still donate plasma without any conflict. I donate at 1, so I am done at 2. Though I work at 3, the first hour is literally driving to the location we have our pick up. After an hour, we can take our 30 minute break. Nothing at this location is heavy. It's just documents and movies. Lots of each, but still they weigh nothing compared to the normal warehouse work I had been doing, but now get to do after 8pm. Sure I feel meh after a boring hour long drive, but I'm physically rested and my plasma donation isn't an issue.
Easy money is what I want make. Plasma donation is easy, but long term, I don't think it's worthwhile.
I made $450 in the month of September. I had a coupon for $300 if I donated 5 times within 30 days, but the way the center rates work is $20 for 1st visit of a week and $50 for a second visit in the same week. My 5 visit was on a Monday, so I go another $50 the next time I went in. The place was having $30 bonus to those who donate 7 times in the month of September, so my next visit was $50, then the following 8th visit was the 2nd in the same week.
Everything is a fluke, so I'm not going next week to allow my body to recover completely.
Plasma donation is win-win. I may sound greedy, but I also know my plasma will be used to save lives. My father have ivig treatments, and they helped him greatly to maintain a level of functioning. I want to be charitable in win-win ways. I don't have financial resources to give, but I can find ways to be just as good. I have my older children in scouts, so I think pushing them to be good citizens is a sort of charity given what good works those organizations spur.
I want to end cancer and gastroparesis. What all I can do without throwing money I don't have towards them, I don't quite know, yet.

too hot to stain.

90 degrees is too hot to stain, so the weekend was a waste. Saturday, I fought off feelings of a migraine and slept earlier than usual.
Today, the big annoyance was the Epson printer having some sort of paper jam.

Closest full of shoes I don't wear.

K got back from camping/canoeing yesterday morning before I started my second day of deck cleaning, but I didn't take note of his killing his older shoes until J decided to have him try on a pair of mine.
I have several pairs of shoes I have yet to wear from our trips to the outlet stores. I have never worn my Adidas running shoes, my Warhols, and a couple other Converse, while the Sambas were only worn during last year's vacation.
The pair she took weren't my favorites, but were $9.99, hence I got them. They're too big for him still, so they're still mine.
I have a number of dress shoes I don't wear. I bought 3 pairs of shoes from Bass shortly before I was let go from my last job that required them... 6 years ago.
Not sure I will ever wore in an office setting again, but shoes fit and are in mint condition, so I can't let them go. The dress shirts and pants have been worn, yet I can't get rid of them because I have to have something with which to wear those shoes, right?
They're like old friends. They're always there, it seems. I'm probably bad for neglecting them and not giving them a proper home, but I'm selfish and rather hoard in case I need them.
J tried to get me to throw out my jeans that I had couldn't fit into... joke is on her because I can fit into them again. When I donate plasma, their scale says I weigh roughly 160lbs. Probably 15lbs less than a year ago, but then again, I used to weigh roughly 150lbs when I bought the jeans back in 2014.

Systems thoughts

When I was much younger, I thought being president would be an occupation that would be cool. My dad said it was dumb to want to be president. He said people go broke running for it and that everything in your life gets amplified to the point family and friends don't have privacy.
Why is being president so attractive? Fame and power have the negatives. People have exposed themselves as being deranged in their dislike of certain political entities.
I've come to the conclusion being President is goal-thinking. If I want to be rich and famous like the president, a systems approach would be simple to implement and adjust accordingly.
A year ago, I stumbled upon Scott Adams and his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. It basically affirmed a number of my beliefs that have evolved since high school.
Whenever approaching a system, a vague improvement is better than an absolute goal. I used to do an annual SWOT of my family. I had a management class in grad school, and SWOT was one of the things covered.
In my systems approach, I pursued jobs that fit my needs. My strengths were that I can do most things, but my weaknesses revolved around child care being more expensive than certain jobs would afford, thus working around my wife's schedule made most sense. Opportunities were getting raises and more part-time hours, while threats were elements of living paycheck to paycheck.
My wife never truly adopted my systems approach, so I guess my lack of persuasion was a weakness and threat to my endeavour of being debt-free, and all the benefits of being debt-free
Life changes, so SWOT changes. My kids are now older and my mom now lives near us and is able to help watch my kids. I have more flexibility to work hours during the day.
Back to being rich and famous, my personality is such that I don't really like being around crowds of people. Systems approach would suggest I work on the connections I currently have and let those connections expand organically.
Obvious connections are neighbors and co-workers in addition to existing friends and family. Find common points of interest and develop conversation accordingly. Keep everything simple and avoid areas of controversy.
People are usually conversation starved, but be aware of their time and your potential to be a pest. Five minutes is long enough to annoy people, so keep things short and allow for more conversation next time you see your acquaintance. Avoid diarrhea of the mouth. Twitter thrives because 140 characters is quick and easy, thus allows following seem reasonable. People will drop you on Twitter if you tweat too much and bore or offend them.

39

I did the plasma donation thing on Saturday. I was expecting something mildly horrible, but it was basically like getting blood drawn. I went again, today, my birthday, and it was no worse than Saturday.
I've had a bit of blood drawn over the years given my thyroid condition. Most phlebotomists are okay, but enough of them suck, then there's always the waiting while fasting.
Plasma donation takes an hour, but you are hooked up and having something done. The people doing the draws haven't been too hateful in my two visits.
My main annoyance is that I have carpal tunnel and get hand cramps easily from the pumping my hand and making a fist for extended periods of time.
$110 so far. Easily clearing $25/hr during the time that I invest into this endevour that is actually important to many lives.
My deceased father had ivig treatments for years. He complained about the cost. I called him a vampire. Yes, I said that to him because his logic was that something that helps others should be free. People donate plasma for $, so one would think that free plasma would be taken from uncompensated "donors." Very vampire-like... to get plasma treatments for no cost.
Not sure what I'll do with my blood money.

New Phone merits a vlog edition

• Yes, the phone reboot cycle came to a conclusion when I bought a BLU R1 HD Plus. Meh.

As my phone rebooted in a loop

I had a productive week.
I tore out the tile and re-tiled my main bathroom.
On Saturday, I started. First problem was the stupid toilet had a bolt I needed to cut off. I decided to remove tile until I had to remove the toilet.
Tile was laid with a super adhesive, so it took much longer than I expected. When I got to cutting the bolt on the toilet with my Dremel, sparks flew and it destroyed 4 or so blades. Kids needed to bathe, so I put a tarp down and was done for the day.
With the toilet out, I had to figure out how I was going to lay the tile best. It was a faux wood style,so the tile were rectangles that weren't easy to cut on the tile saw I have. I used the saw for giant tiles, so I knew I could work around my saw's limits. I spent my second day making cuts and laying it out like a puzzle. I got everything to fit snug before I was going to start applying adhesive and making everything permanent. It was late, and everyone wanted to bathe night before school, so I put off fixing them to the floor.
Monday, I had my mom come other to watch D while I put the puzzle together. From 9:30 until 12:30, I was at it. Everything looked great! Had to shower that night at my mom's.
It took another day to grout and another to re-install the toilet and sink.
Other things happened during the week, but I'm seriously annoyed as my phone started being stupid and did a re-boot loop which made me hard reset it. Now it's restarting as I setup the phone. Dumb. We shall see how it is in the morning.

Slime

I like President Trump. He's not picking winners, so much as letting events play and rolling with the outcomes without really being out of character. He will get absurdly critical of those that attack him or his family without substance.
The Nazi things of late is just noise being ginned up to fill the void of actual scandals. Not sure if those meh stories really amount to anything even if they are proven true.
Election wasn't rigged by fake news.

Blogger seems to be a scam

Hello gentle reader bot, I have been wondering why I had 28K visits to my other blog YESTERDAY. I supposedly had over 100K visit this last week, yet my adSense is still sitting at $10.71.
Russia and its hackers are to blame, I suppose.
Not much to say. Life is good. Summer is winding down. Will be nice to have free time again. Every day is something to do day, between speech therapy and rowing lessons.
I need to catch up on my Dyl-bert blog... I'm way behind.
System of blogging more regularly is fine as long as I never made daily blogging a goal, right?

Memorial Day week

• Monday- Having the day off we went to the pool. I wasn't quick to go for I had a coat of poly to do on my cabinet side panel.
• Tuesday- My mom went out of town. Fuzzy day in that it started early with speech.
• Wednesday- I  don't remember anything in particular, aside from we went for a walk and my son didn't want to go to the pool.
• Thursday- Pool day with the kids and Covfefe
• Friday- a day at the station
• Saturday- We had the kids try crew. Then got pizza at LC before we hit the pool later. 

Crappy refresher of the past week, I need to tweak it. Can't give a long account today. Samsung makes shitty washing machines so I have been having issues tonight trying to get the damn thing to cycle past spin. I could blame my wife for washing clothes too often, but Samsung really has a horrible product that has been horrible since 91st day we owned the cursed thing.

The weather has been nice. Actually really warm of late, so the pool pass has come in handy. I hate crowds, so I haven't been too enthused.

Have I mentioned my Chase Freedom card being dumb of late? Someone charged $3,250 to my card for a hotel in Pearl River, NY and it got approved! I noticed the charge 2 days afterward and had it removed as fraudulent. Today I noticed Chase charged me INTEREST on the charge I had removed. I called them and had them credit me, but I expect to have another call to make in a month due to how the previous credit was applied to my account.

Fates worse than death

I found myself bored tonight. I was going to blog, but my ASUS tablet was at 13% charge. I thought about what else I could do, so I thought of reading Dale Carnegie for the umpteenth time, but I notice Timequake beside it and thought how I haven't read it in a very long time.
As my ASUS tablet charged, I read Vonnegut's tired piece of work. I got to chapter 15 or page 52 for those that don't have a copy handy.
I think I own a few Vonnegut Books, but I know I own Timequake and Slaughterhouse Five. The latter I bought with a giftcard from my grandmother, I think. I don't buy books unless I have little choice. I like books, but I don't believe in buying them. Timequake was a present for X-mas back in '97 from my parents.
I have read Slaughterhouse Five numerous times. I have gotten something new from it after each reading, it seems.
I actually told a co-worker this aspect of book ownership on Friday. He's into Dave Ramsey, so I may have been too abstract in my explanation for him to read a book over time and get different meaning as life lived gives fuller context into the previously ignored words.
There are maybe a handfull of books I have read numerous times because they mean something to me enough to read multiple times... plus I own them, thus can re-read them accordingly.

• How to win Friends and Influence Others 
• Slaughterhouse Five
• The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, from A to B and back Again
• Freakonomics

I'm not a fan of Dave Ramsey. He seems to be like a pastor at The Vineyard where my former friend Mara once took me. John Lieb talked a lot, but all I heard was how he found Nietzche depressing so he never read him, yet knew enough to condemn his writings as an explanation for his death/insanity. Mr. Lieb also said stuff about money and how those new to the Vineyard were welcome guests, but those regulars were expected to pony up. I could be exaggerating, but I took notes, so I highly doubt the hyperbole end of my thinking.

Anyways, Dave Ramsey seems to mean well, but he's mostly hocking books for people to buy to make HIM RICH, just like John Lieb seemed to mean well, but he was hocking religion just so he could live well.

I'm a Clark Howard sort of guy, so I find anyone selling anything I can get for free as being a scamster.

I mentioned that I have quite a few other blogs. I actually added content to some of them this past week:

• Parenting Not From Concentrate - As a father of 3, I do things as a father that may be seen as good or bad things. Here I try to relate my life as a father.
• Reasons to Vote in 2016 - I am glad that Hillary Clinton was the biggest loser in '16.
• Bring Back the Fritos Chili Cheese Steakburger -  I miss eating my favorite meal. This blog is dedicated to the memory of the Fritos Chili Cheese Steakburger, and my search for a meal to replace it as my favorite.
• Job Search Not From Concentrate - I lost a job once, unexpectedly. Having an eye on the open job market is a good idea, for no job is ever 100% secure, in my opinion.

The thing about blogging that I find most interesting is that I change after time, so the  previous blog posts seem almost foreign after a while due to my context of life changing.

3 million

I should crop it, but meh, here's a screenshot of my stats from the original blog.



Yes, it says over 3 million page views. The AdSense balance has stayed at $10.71 for the last couple years, so I'm not sure what the traffic is doing. I blame the Russians and other foreign entities  for running bots to mess up the numbers, for I know no one is really reading my blog that's semi-abandoned.
I forced myself to blog daily once upon a time. It was stuff I saw from an article that listed stuff. Almost like my Dylblog, I had something which I was reacting...  but most of the time it was like a Diaryland thing or a meh about articles or news of the day. I had blogs about my family life and my work life but those matters were there as well.
I think I mentioned that I wanted my blogs to be more themed. This one is about my current mood of thought on a weekly check-in. I don't have a theme beyond it's less spastic than the original.
"Fake" actually seems to be a theme here.  The branding of blogs as being themed comes from Breitbart. I think there were a few like Big Hollywood and such that mocked the importance of things.
The weekly blog is self reflecting a lot of late.
I'm thinking of reviving all of my blogs as departments of my essence, rather than be confined to brain farts here, I'll summarize the week's posts from Dyland or link to them.
I'll have to create a list and have a summary of what each blog is about... like an annotated directory page. I like abandoning stuff, but I also need to improve upon  my hobbies.
Wait, did I just say I like abandoning stuff? I mean, I like leaving stuff as though I was done with it. Much like a novel, things get shelved as being complete. Blogs are weird in that only a drama queen would declare a blog complete, it seems... may be I'm just being silly.
I have bipolar disorder. My brain doesn't work like most people's,  I guess. That said, I have clutter than needs situated. Once I get situated I may be able to proceed and complete something worthwhile rather than piece mealing half thoughts and full meanderings.

hobbies aren't real

I look forward to dying, for by then I can look back and remember all the good things and not worry about my short fallings.
I'm not goal oriented. I just take a day at a time with a desire for something that meets my whimsy. Usually, I'm too busy or tired for whimsy. By busy, I mean looking at my phone. UK Daily Mail is probably borderline fake news.  I wonder if I could give it up like I gave up Twitter.
I abstained from following hockey throughout the regular season. I loved watching hockey, but now I have no idea when games are played. NBA is an after thought, though I was keen on the Celts during middle school.
Steelers are hard to avoid after week 8, but I ignored them  a good chunk before the playoffs.
Baseball has been meh. I endured 20 losing seasons, then got a winning season that fizzled. Not been so keen this year because of roster and injuries.
Would be nice to give up on fake hobbies that accomplish nothing for me personally.
Sure I remember the night I kept a bar open way past closing as I watched my Pens lose in 5OT. I don't recall the game much...for I was pretty drunk. I think it was a Thursday, so it was a good drunk from bottled beer as opposed to Wednesday's cheap $2 mugs of Miller Lite, or Friday's cheap pitchers of Miller Lite when pitchers started at $2.25 and went up every hour by either .25 or .50.
I always finished my first pitcher before the first hour, hence my fuzzy recollection of something I never bought. Binge drinking was a hobby, I guess. I don't drink now, but then again it would be weird to drink beer when my wife doesn't. She doesn't drink coffee, but that doesn't stop me from drinking a few pots of coffee a day.
I might have a coffee problem, actually. There are worse things.
I look forward to the day I have the best cup of coffee. I drink cheap stuff, so better stuff has to exist. I have yet to have the courage to find it. I have coffee problem as it is with the Maxwell House. Best coffee I ever had tasted so good that I think I had to pee a few hours from all of the refills.

Stats aren't real

I've no idea why my stats say the things they do for this blog. 

I had a bad weekend to end the month of April. I just assume forget it, or at least a part that I won't share with my wife since she feels it's necessary to not share details with me regarding most things.

She doesn't worry about the things I worry. Ignorance is bliss.

Would be nice to be debt free, but she doesn't care about how much we have, so she spends on what she feels we need. 

I look forward to death. Debt won't follow me there, yet I feel like it's sending me to an early grave. 

Treadmill of spending is the way I view my wife's perspective. She makes more, so she spends more, regardless of her salary not keeping up with the cost of living.

I don't regret having three kids. I just regret not having more money.

A guy I know has a gofundme page set up for his daughter's junior olympics bid. Nevermind that the guy sells houses and seems to have money to spend on himself. 

Gofundme is littered with sad stories, and his just seems sad to be bunched into the same realm as those sadder ones. If I were shameless, I'd have a gofundme page to help with the various costs that would be nice to have someone else pay.

My Samsung washing machine is hardly 4 years old and has never acted well since we had it past 90 days. Would be nice to replace it, but we spent $600 on it and a new one costs just as much. I will never buy another Samsung product.

I went to HH Gregg to see if they had anything, but they were picked over. 

Sad when stores go out of business. 

Have I mentioned that I've been remodelling the main bath? My mom offered to pay for someone to do it but of the 6 places I contacted, on 2 got back to me and they both said they were too busy to take my money. I just don't have the motivation to do it all in a timely manner given I work and my wife doesn't let me have time to do anything the way I want to do it.

death isn't real

Occasionally, I'll scroll through my text messages and find myself wondering where time went. I don't text much. I don't have friends with whom I hang, so my life is rather centered around my kids and wife. I have a couple childhood friends whom I have done a better job of being in touch since my youngest was born.
One is divorced, while the other has been very ill much of the last 20 years. I love them in a way I can't explain. I was mildly obsessed with them when I was 7, so I was too young to have adult love ruin things (read Warhol's philosophy to get my meaning).
I'm not sure I'll see either anytime soon. I'm afraid my ill friend doesn't have much longer for this world. I'm probably feeling guilty for not seeing her since 2002 or so.  She had moved back with her parents, I guess she wasn't well enough to support herself but no where near the sort of ill she has been. I used to worry about her while in college. She took advantage of he good days and made one forget how truly ill she was. She explained to me that she wasn't well so she had to do whatever she could physically do to enjoy life. She drank a lot. She hung out a lot with people who went by their street names enough that no one knew their real names.
She isn't overtly expressive about her health like my father was, so I have that feeling that she's in worse shape than my dad was. My dad told people he was dying, which gets tiresome after a while.
I couldn't really do much for my dad as he was on his death bed. He wasn't aware of anything.
There's a certian peace one emits when one's aware of the reality of a bad day potentially turning worse quick and beyond the point of return. No. I'm sure my friend is "fine" in terms of being less assertive in my life. If she wanted me to come see her, well it would be bad. She hasn't felt well enough to truly call on the phone, so her wanting to talk to me would be a sign of getting her loose ends tied.
I hate not being able to do anything but drop words her way. We're not the same people we were. She's always given me that weird feeling of helplessness.
Anyways, I hadn't heard from her since Xmas. I saw on FB that she was still active, but a post from March filled in that she'd not been well since Xmas. I'm not friends with her on FB. I'd probably say something wrong because our politics aren't exactly the sorts that mesh. There's other matters that seem to be jarring, but only because I'm selfish and other failings of that variety.
Given my incidental stalking, I expressed in a text something wellmeaning. She replied in a way that makes me feel warm and sad. I shouldn't be crying as I type, but it was one of those replies that cannot be repeated without tears.

promotions aren't real

My carpal tunnel decided to remind me that I hate my hands and my limbs attached to them. I unloaded 3 days last week. I have been unloading a bit more ever since April started. Our team lead quit, and he hadn't had me unload since January or early February when the newer handlers started.
Though I drive a little for a bulk pickup/shuttle run before my package handling and don't set up, I was officially named team lead on Tuesday. No pay raise, just a layer of responsibility into which I'm wading my toes. I want to be fair, so delegating has been hard. I want to give everyone a chance to have variety and exposure to other parts of the handling but the "new" people haven't really progressed to have my confidence after 3 months.
I lie. 1 of the 4, I have complete confidence. His dad is a courier, and his brother is the team lead who quit. He's young but treats the job like a lifer would. Only one of the other three has a lifer mentality Her husband works in the morning and is a lifer, but she has health issues that make her unreliable. She had brain cancer a while ago, so she seems to have brain issues that makes her to have quirks.
My other handlers are totally opposites. A college kid who was in my son's BSA troop, who is smaller than my son. I expect him gone after summer when he starts taking evening classes. The other guy is 25, over 6' and 200lbs. He just got a second job, so who knows how long he'll stick around to be a handler.
I hate my team.

Holidays aren't real.

Easter always bothered me as a holiday. Christians celebrate the horrific death of Jesus Christ. Where does a bunny with painted eggs fit in? The fact that Easter never consistently has the same date explains a lot about the holiday being fake.
Fake is a harsh term for pagan, but pagan is a harsh term for fake.
Anything relating to full moons and spring equinox sounds very pagan... and that's how Easter is determined each year. I could be lying, because I never actually looked up why Easter is always a different date. I think I heard it in college by a guy who taught my international studies class on Western Europe. I think his name was Mr. Martin, but I forget. He showed foreign films and gave his class extra credit if we attended a couple French films. Tough class, so I did every extra credit thing I could do... even attended a military history lecture that was meant for a ROTC audience.
I really liked college at times. I'm not sure I needed college, but I got a lot out of it beyond a career.
Not sure how my kids will go to college, but I imagine they'll go. I highly doubt they'll ever go to church, but I wouldn't be bothered. Their mother never went to church and she's a decent person. She may be anti-social in the sense she has no desire to have friends over the house or to hang out with non-relatives. She's a good mom. Kids love her almost as much as I do. We have good kids, at least, they mean well or don't try to be evil.
This Easter, dinner was at our house. My mom and my wife's parents, grandmother and sister's family all came over. I never envisioned being such a person to have family over, but it happens more often than I can keep track. I have 3 kids with 3 separate birthdays, unlike my sister inlaw who only has two boys who share a birthday. I seem to eat a lot of pie and cake since we tend to get more leftovers than the rest whenever we host family gatherings. I really hate to see good food go to waste.

Weekends aren't real.

I've had weekends off ever since I quit the car wash. I enjoy not working weekends, but I get the full 48-hour contact with my family.
I really don't see my wife during the week. I wake up when she leaves for work. I leave for work while she's driving home from work. I get home after she's gotten the girls in bed.
When I do see her, she complains a lot. I really don't feel like doing much. I'm a walking bruise at the moment.
She knows I get sleep now, but I don't think she appreciates the boxes and such I move throughout the week that leave a mark. Being in tight quarters and working fast with boxes of every size is a workout. Not hard to do, but hard on the body after a work week.
We got a playhouse kit rather than go by the the blue prints that have you buy lumber and build from scratch. The kit was way cheaper and less annoying to gather given the materials list wasn't easy to complete from the websites of the lumber stores.
My father inlaw was excited. He likes woodworking, so he was delighted to help put our girls' kit house together, though I really didn't need any help.
Our Saturday was spent around the inlaws coming over and such. The playhouse got mostly together, but it was dark before it was complete.
Today I woke up  I had a few things to do. After finishing the dishes, I  ate breakfast then completed the playhouse. I went to Sam's and Harbor Freight. Got a tarp at the latter to cover the playhouse. I also got a solar powered security light. I have a shed that is 16'x10' which gets lacks electricity, so I wired the light to be inside.
I spend a lot of time on my phone looking at news. Baseball season started, so I have that habit as well. Next weekend is Easter, so we'll have people over again, blah.
I need to do a number of things. Just need to focus on the priorities and let everything else sort it self out.

Weeks aren't real

Not sure where time goes, but I lack the ability to manage mine well. Something about having children makes life seem meaningful, yet utterly chaotic.
I lie. I have it easy. I rarely see my kids these days, it seems. I sleep more, but I work shortly after they get home from school and get home shortly after they go to bed.
My youngest has speech twice a week and afternoon pre-school Monday through Thursday. My free time is relative to what I can do with her home and what needs to be done and/or what I feel like doing when she's at school.
Today, I got the tires rotates on the Passat. I don't drive it much now that my work schedule overlaps with that of my wife, Jennifer. I also work a whopping mile away from work... almost walking distance.
While I was getting the tires rotates my son called from school. He had a a headache and needed me to bring him some Tylenol. I was very lucky that I was about to get my keys back from the tire people. I was also lucky that I had time to get home to wait for the bus as well, given my detour to my son's school.
I have a lot of chaos in my life in that I fail to complete things... or start things. I ceased having goals, so I just need to get my system in order and proceed slowly towards succeeding in getting shit done. I swear a lot now that I work ina warehouse around people that swear a lot.
I started going to the YMCA to run/walk around the gym. I need to get my body active, for it seems the lack of such has sped up time. Nothing about running seems fast when you are the one running. Time stands still in that you are stuck on a lap until it's finished... finishing doesn't end quickly enough. At least, I don't think so.
I didn't go to the gym today. I felt meh. I'm a little battered from unloading trucks.
Week is almost over, yet I have so much I need to do... namely, my city income taxes.
I have an orthodontist appt in the morning. I'm also expecting a delivery, which I should be home to receive... I might not be able to go to the gym if my delivery isn't delivered by 1pm. So I will be lacking the illusion of freewill, which means I must do something as a compromise.

New Year, new blog and Birthdays.

I started a blog in response to the blog and Dilbert Strip by Scott Adams. I got some traffic Friday from interacting with Scott on Twitter.
I may resurrect other blogs. I may organize them better. Not sure, just been busy of late.
Job I started in November is progressing. Seems to have opportunities to get decent raises. I have signed up for health insurance and enrolled in 401(k), I have had 3 paid holidays, though it's part-time. Nice job considering I got it while on vacation.
Had a joint birthday party for my daughter with my nephews tonight. Seems hard to lose weight during holidays, but I also have 2 kids with birthdays, and I like cake.