The neighbors left for Michigan to find their cats – as predicted that German Shepherd is out there barking, non-stop.  I shut my windows last night meaning I didn’t hear any of it. 

I hope they aren’t gone long.  When I came out this morning, I peeked over their fence and told the blooming thing to SHUT UP!!!

Well, the battle to get tenants continues on.  Last night a lady called and we had a very long discussion on the phone – she sounded normal and has a decent  job.  I told her to call me back today after I find out if this other dude wants the room.

This morning, before leaving for work, a guy I thought was history wrote an email and said he was still interested and that he had been too busy at work to be able to come over and take a look.

The only bad part about all of this is that – none of them want the room until the beginning of the month.  The good part of that is 2 of them so far are offering sizable deposits to hold the room. Those deposits are non-refundable.  So, if nothing else, I’m hopeful that this situation will improve.  I am not so hopeful that the newest tenant is going to stay – and if he’s not – I hope he will leave soon because I have several people – 4 of them actually – interested in viewing the place for the beginning of the month. 

I sometimes learn slowly, but I do learn.  Near the end of last month, that guy that was supposed to move in that never showed – and who I called – and said he was going to bring the security deposit?  Yeah.  I won’t be doing that again, especially near the end of the month when people are looking to move.  Hand over money right now or I’m moving on to the next person is all I can say about that.  I’m pretty much going to take  a loss on that room this month unless I can find someone to take it for a week or 2 – there was a guy that was interested for having it for a week, but he found a place closer to where he will be working and took that instead.

Oh well.

That’s really my world right now – just trying to get rooms filled is a pretty much constant thing. 

But, I’m at work and about to log in…..must be about the day’s business.

ben

Busy day ahead.  Lots of deliveries – but mostly not too spread out, excepting the delivery in Coolidge.  I posted pics on my KCL blog of Coolidge before, so no need to do that again.  I forgot my camera today, anyway.

Michael showed up – again – out of the blue.  His comings and goings are unpredictable.  He missed so much school that he is failing every class and the school will drop him. He is now having to sign up to go to another High School – only this time, a bus will pick him up versus an very unreliable system of getting rides from his mother or whoever might be around to take him.  I never agreed with “his” choice of school to begin with.  Not that the school is bad, but I figured he would either be missing alot of school or be late very often.  At the school he’s going to, even 1 minute late counts as an absence. 

This was a very pleasant weekend, really, and I enjoyed it very much.  The temps are staying pretty nice during the day and it’s making it nice to live in the Sonoran Southwest once again.  How long that will last, who knows.  I am firmly entrenched in the idea of eventually leaving the Phoenix area permanently, the sooner the better.  They are selling 20 acre spreads up in the high country near the forests now at $19,995.  Those same lots were going for quadruple that a few years ago.  They allegedly have water and electricity available to be brought onto the properties.

I’m just saying.  My dream – a cabin up in the mountains.  The only drawback about that place is it’s way too far away – Showlow is a pretty good drive from here.  The Payson area would be better, well actually the Mogollon Rim area – further north and east of Payson – a bit cooler up there in the summer.  Payson has pine trees and all of that, but it still gets pretty warm up there in the summer.  Lots of snow and frigid temps in the winter, though, hence the need for duality of places to live.  It’s the thing to do nowadays, have a house in the Phoenix area and have another place somewhere where it’s cooler in the summer.

The Rim country was pretty steep in land prices but I would have to expect that to have dropped dramatically at this point.  I don’t expect there to be any better investment than land/property/house.  So the economy has tanked and everyone’s houses are worth half of what they were – it won’t last forever.  My only goal right now is to make the house payments and NOT succumb to foreclosure if at all possible.  My final payment in the 3-month trial is at the end of this month and I see no reason – yet anyway – why I won’t be able to make that payment. 

The elusive 3rd tenant – very hard to find for some reason this time.  It’s been a couple of weeks at least and though I’ve had a lot of emails and phone conversations, nothing committed yet.  I have been posting ads every day now to keep my ad near the top.  I have put in all kinds of different thing – work for reduced rent; lowered rent for longer term commitment;  the only thing I can do now is either wait until the end of the month – there are 2 people interested in moving to my place at the beginning of December – or lower the rent amount by $50 or so and see if that lures anyone in.  Kind of defeats the purpose, though, that’s getting pretty cheap on the monthly rent at $325 if I were to lower it that much.  There ’s just a lot of competition now – people are catching onto the idea of renting out rooms in their houses – they don’t want to – but they are doing it out of sheer desperation.

I don’t blame them, I’m doing it for the same reason, I just wish there weren’t so many of them.  Or, at the very least, that they wouldn’t be advertising rents so low.  There are a lot now advertising rooms as low as $250 – which is ridiculous.  Might as well not bother renting a room.  BUT – the fine print is they are asking for utilities extra.

Anyway, work day approacheth, I must be about the business of getting to it.

ben

………..the newest tenant is a short-termer at max.  He came home today- for the first time in days - did some laundry and he just now left again.  It will not be a shock to find out he has fond other accomodations at whatever point in time and will be leaving.

All fine and well – I have several people interested in moving in at the first of December.  If his departure is going to be before or at that point in time, I would like to know about it.

I do not want to wait until the 1st of December for the 3rd available room to be rented out – I continue to write different ads for the room with different offers.

The weekend is over, it’s almost bedtime and I hear no dogs barking : )

G’nite.

ben

So, I was out there earlier cleaning out my car – vacuuming it and junk like that.  I haven’t actually done that in a while – I don’t particularly care for such activities when it’s 115 in the shade and probably 130 or more inside of a flaming hot car. 

I decided that neighbor wars are not worth it if at all possible.  I can tolerate a lot, but a dog’s barking keeping me awake all night long is just not a happening event - at least not one that’s going to go on forever if I have anything to do with it.

So, I talked with the neighbor, who said he started taking the dog inside at night.  Good, I thought, no wonder I didn’t hear him barking last night. 

I was also correct with my guess that his German Shepherds and my Great Danes had gotten into a dog fight while I was at work this week.  The hole in that fence was big enough even for the Danes to get through.  I didn’t hear whose dogs were on whose property, didn’t really care – the event is over and the problem is fixed. 

The only problem I have now is that he is leaving his dogs there for a couple of days while he goes back up to Michigan to get his cats.  Oh, sure, someone will be over to feed the dogs and give them water, but there is going to be no-one there to actually watch the dogs – read: keep them quiet at night.  If I thought my dogs and his would get along, I would simply offer to have them over here while he’s gone to eliminate that problem.  I suspect I’ll be in for a few more sleepless night, unfortunately.

I decided to BBQ today – it’s so incredibly beautiful outside.  The only real bummer is that there has been no rain for months, literally.  A while back it rained around the valley and yes, we did get a few drops of it, but I haven’t seen a downpour since last year, I think.  A good chunk of rain right now to clean up the grounds of dog urine would be extremely helpful.   I wash it off with hose water, but a good drenching once in a while washes all of it away. 

I’m slowly making progress on the drip system.  I work on it here and there – in between doing other things.  I’m about to go out there and start digging more holes for trees.  Those need to get planted soon before cold weather kicks in.  “They” claim that there is still time to plant trees and get the roots set a little, so I’m going to do it before it gets too late in the year. 

Time for lunch : )

It appears to me that numerous individuals are shifting away from KCL and back to Blogspot or other locations for their blogging host.  I only know this from going around to some of the links I had posted on this page to other bloggers. 

I had wondered if I was the only one thinking along those lines.  I’m not really into censorship, I suppose, but I just get disgusted going to the home page and seeing all the sexual innuendo s*** all over the page.  I clicked on one person’s entry this week and was floored to see nude photos of sexual intercourse taking place.  I had NO idea from the title of that person’s blog that that was what an individual was going to encounter when going to that blogger’s page.  The site should be registered as XXX. 

I went to Home Depot this morning for those wood slats to fix my fence.  I stopped McDonald’s for a cup of their fabulous coffee.  I REALLY like McDonald’s coffee.  It shouldn’t have been too much of a shock to hear Christmas music already being played, but it was.  I am not in the Christmas spirit and probably won’t be until nearer the end of this month of the beginning of next. 

Home Depot already had a huge space filled with fake Christmas Trees and lights and decorations and such.  I understand that the economy is bleak right now and that companies are grasping at straws to try and seduce customers to come in and spend money – in this case making an attempt to get your thinking along the lines of spending money on Christmas gifts, but if you don’t have the money to spend on such things, it doesn’t matter how much appeal they try to do, it isn’t going to change anything.

I read story after story online about people who are desperate for work – ANY kind of work.  Professionals used to making 6 digit incomes are cutting grass on people’s lawns and doing house repairs – anything to try and get some money going into their coffers.  I would resort to whatever myself if I had to.  In fact, I have given considerable thought to what I would do if I lost my current position at my company.  I can’t say the options are very pretty. 

But, I don’t have to go there – yet.  This tenancy junk gets old just because of the transience of the nature of it.  I have decided this morning that I am going to run an ad for the room at a discounted price – IF – the renter will sign a 6-month contract.  Don’t know if it will work, but I am trying all kinds of things at this point.  I had a few calls yesterday on the room but I could tell within 15 seconds of talking to the person that they weren’t actually serious about moving over here – I didn’t waste a lot of time with them.

I wonder why such people even bother to call.

Anyway, I fixed the fence and finished cleaning up the mess from 2 weeks ago when I had the workers over here digging the trench – west side of the house anyway.  I had to get a loop close gadget to cap off the irrigation hose before putting all the dirt and rock back in that area.  Did that and shovelled everything back into place.  I also took down the styrofoam sheets that I had covering the sliding glass door – it was nice in the summer but it has cooled off enough (hoping it stays this way) that I don’t need that stuff up and the temps right now – very cool outside and a nice, cool breeze blowing in through the sliding screen door.  Really, nice to get some natural lighting back in here and have a bit of a view.

The view at this point is of the Sissoo trees – several of which are growing like weeds.  They were about 3, 31/2 feet tall when I got them, 3 of them are now over 7 feet tall.  That’s only like 4 or 5 months worth of growth time.  I had a hard time believing the nursery expert when I was buying those trees from them that they would grow that fast.  They are like hybrids, they literally grow as fast as you want them to if you water them enough.  I have also given them several applications of Miracle Gro as well. 

I planted 3 more of them yesterday and intend on planting 2 or 3 more today.  I want to get all the rest of the 5 in the ground.  I had to stand out there for a while and try to envision where to put them.  In other words, what will it look like when they are 5 years old and 15 feet tall?  Or taller?  At that rate of growth, I don’t think it’s going to take 5 years to get to 15 feet, more like 2 at most.  Once they attain a mature size, it will be awesome around here.  I’ll have something like 20 of them planted all around the property.  I have 17 of them planted now – take that back, there will be a total of 22 of those things growing on all side of the house – well I haven’t put any in the back because of the utility easement back there, but I have decided to go ahead and plant a couple back there – away from the underground utilities of course.  I know where all that stuff is.  They have a 20 foot easement, which is totally ridiciulous.  They don’t need that much space back there, period.  If they ever need to come in and dig up the ground to get at which ever utility, I may lose plants, but the 2 trees I am going to put in will be 10 feet away – at least – from anything underground.  I do have 2 Chinese Elms back there now, now that I think about it.  They are very small and it will be years before they grow into anything substantial. 

Well, I have to head to Anna’s Linens.  I was there last week wanting to buy some drapes for my sliding glass door – the vertical blinds are pretty trashed and I just want drapes there.  The doggy door is no longer there so the dogs won’t trash the drapes or if I buy vertical blinds again. 

C’yall later.

ben

Absolutely gorgeous morning here.  Seriously – I haven’t run the AC but for maybe 10 or 15 minutes – at the hottest point yesterday afternoon – in the last 24 hours.  Yesterday’s electric usage was $3.37 – way down from a high of over $15.00 for a single day only 2 or less months ago. 

I have to take a trip to Home Depot today and get some slats for that broken fencing in the back.  I’m going to be asking the new manager this coming week about the possibility of using the semi to get a load of block so I can simply have a block fence all the way along there. 

In fact, if I had the finances, I would just have about 10 pallets of block delivered and lay it on the east side of the house and get rid of that chain link stuff. 

I was not awakened at all last night by dogs on either side of the house.  I don’t know if that’s because I was so tired my body just shut down or because my efforts to get the neighbors to do something about their dogs is actually working.  The latter would be nice. 

Thanksgiving is beginning to draw nigh and final plans have yet to be unveiled.  I usually have nothing to do with the planning of it – I’m at the mercy of my middle brother whose schedule is always the dictator of how any event that has us coming together will play out.

I don’t miss my brother at this point and I could care less, really, if we get together at all.  In fact, I am at the point in my life that if I never saw either of my brothers again, I would have no ill feeling about it at all.  I have made guesstures in trying to get together with my middle brother, who totally blew me off.  A week and a half later he wrote back and said he didn’t have time.  Yes, bro, you never have time for anything but your own little world. 

The thing that gets me is that they refuse to communicate with my dad and that is starting to piss me off.  At least give your parents some respect in their golden years and talk to them, at the very least send a card or an email once in a while.  But no, they are holding decades old grudges that are the makings of schoolyard pettiness. 

So, I have been blown off by my middle bro for the last time – I am not going out of my way to communicate with him at all.  My oldest brother I haven’t seen since last Christmas, notwithstanding the fact that he lives all of 25 miles away, if that.  He has absolutely no interest whatsoever to see or be with family, which I find remarkably strange and unnatural.  I have never had a relationship with him – not even when I was a little kid – there is no loss there as far as I’m concerned. 

The 2 major holidays – Thanksgiving and Christmas – tend to bring these thoughts out in me.  Regardless, I am going to spend the 1st Thanksgiving ever in my adult life with my dad, his wife and his wife’s family in Sierra Vista.  I have no idea whether Caleb will be able to go or not.  I have asked him to ask and I have not received an answer.  I will be addressing that again today – he has to ask his mother.  A good trade-off would simply be I have him for Thanksgiving and she can have him for Christmas, but in her world, things don’t work out that way.  It’s a completely one-sided – her side – view of things and there is no give and take.  There is a schedule for who gets him for these holidays in what years – but that burned up in the fire a few years ago and I haven’t gone to get a copy from the courthouse.  The schedule - whatever it is – is that I get him for both holidays one year, she gets him for both the next year.  This was also her doings.  I suggested that we split the holidays every year but she insisted that on this schedule.  I thought about it and figured she would end up regretting it, but I just gave in because I had had enough of her constant aruging. 

The insurance company is apparently leaving me hanging.  I have heard nothing from them in a week or so.   I was pretty ticked at that woman talking to me – the adjuster who continuously interrupted me and wouldn’t let me finish a sentence.  I imagine I ticked her off by complaining to her manager, couldn’t care less.  She was so completely rude I had no choice – from my veiw anyway – but to talk to her manager about the civilities of having a conversation without becoming cranky, pushy, and rude.  The manager totally agreed, actually, which surprised me.  I figured I would run into the same thing – birds of a feather. 

Well, anyway, I’m drinking my coffee and getting myself ready to go up to Home Depot.  Fortunately, those fence planks are pretty cheap and this fix job shouldn’t cost more than $10.  : )

Have a great Sunday!

ben

The neighbors on both sides of me and their barking dogs have caused me to create a counter-offensive that is an all-out war. I will not continue to lose sleep because of the noise of barking dogs continously yapping away all night long.

Apparently my letter got to the illegals on the east side today. I have made it no secret – I have been taking videos of those 2 Rotties over there barking like crazy during the day and night. Today, I was exaggerating that point on purpose – to let them know I am dead serious about getting this nonsense stopped.

It’s bad enough that I have to listen to this stuff during the daytime hours when I’m out there working on the property – it’s insufferable to be kept awake by it all night long.

I heard a lot of banging out there late this afternoon, is the point. They are apparently creating a fencing of some sort to keep those dogs away from my side of the property. I’m not positive of it – but – I haven’t heard those dogs barking since a few hours ago. This is, however, only a partial answer to the problem. It will stop them from barking at me and my dogs when I’m out there working – and yes folks, I do not allow my dogs to bark at them back – I have serious doubts it will do anything for the nightime barking. Only if they take those dogs indoors will that stop this nonsense.

On the west side of my property – the dude that has a used car dealership running out of his house and our street – also heard me. He is avoiding me at all costs. Actually, yesterday after I got home from work, a rank woman was sitting out there in front of his house. I asked if he – Randy – was there. She replied in a man’s voice and with sterness that he’s sleeping. I laughed. Out loud, too. I know this person, she is the devil’s creation. This woman is the epitome of drug use – meth – and prostitution. She’s in her 40’s, I’m guessing, though she could be younger and just looks older because of the meth use. Okay, I shouldn’t say she’s the devils creation, we are created by God – but certain of us allow our lives to be shaped by other influences that long depart from anything that could resemble God’s creation. She’s very crass, calloused and hateful. Basically, this is not the neighborhood I will be retiring in if I have anything to do with it. In fact, if/when the economy and housing junk recovers, I will sell this place as fast as I can dump it and move to a place that has normal people living in it. I have been eyeing several places now – the only drawback are sometimes abusive HOA’s that attempt to control and run your life.

Regardless, I made it “known” my utter contempt for his new dog to be out there barking all day and ALL night long, in no uncertain terms, and also that I am videotaping it and am prepared to file a complaint with the city. I have been looking for my neighbor out there for a couple of days now – he usually is sitting out front. Now? He hasn’t been out there and is in his garage setup, with the gates closed. I don’t really care if he wants to not be neighborly – he is hanging out with that convict from the other side of his house and they are a pair made in – not heaven, thank you.

That German Shepherd of his actually broke boards off the fencing on that side of the house that has wood fencing. There is about a 6 or 7 foot wide span of wooden fencing there, the rest is mortar block. The space of broken fencing is large enough for dogs to move in and out, I don’t wonder if there was a dog fight ensued while I was at work. I examined my Danes thoroughly and found no blood or bite marks, I cannot examine that dog because it is afraid of me and will not come close to me. It also shuts up when I yell at it to – SHUT UP!!! Oh, I know it was his dog that broke the boards and not my dogs because the remants of the fence were in my yard, not his, meaning it was pushed in towards my property.

I was going to repair that fence today but got busy planting trees and totally forgot about it. It is high priority tomorrow – a trip to Home Depot to buy replacement slats is in order. Actually, I would just go ahead and lay block for that area and finish off the block fencing back there, but that is a project in itself and I don’t have any way to get a pallet of block to my house unless I either rent a truck from Home Depot at $20 per hour plus whatever fees and taxes or ask my new manager if I can use the semi. I haven’t treaded those waters yet – my “old” manager let me use the truck whenever I needed to – which I didn’t ask very often so as not to abuse the priviledge.

The weather is absolutely beautiful, for a much-needed change. I opened the windows this morning and it’s stayed that way the entire day. I turned the AC on for about 10 minutes earlier to cool it down and that was it. Finally it’s beginning to look like Autumn – aren’t we in winter already? lol

I wrote another CL ad – the lady I saw once took my departure from not going out there because of the accident personally. I actually pleaded with her that that was not the case, but – she has moved on. So – no big deal. No emotional attachment, no loss. My latest ad was pretty informative – my style of writing there is no different than here. So far, one lady wants to talk in instant messaging, another wrote and said it was “way too much information” – the entire sentence she wrote me, and the 3rd was a scam. On the second, I replied with a similar one-liner, actually 2 words: “Your point?” She wrote back that it was way too much information and that it was a turn off.

I wrote her back and said that that was her opinion, thanks, please move on. Why do people even bother wasting their time? Does she think her sentence is going to change what I write in an ad? I figure to weed out the people that wouldn’t be interested anyway once they found out this, that or the other thing. Get it out there and that should do away with 90% of any responses that are based on a paragraph of an ad that is all of 2 or 3 or maybe 4 sentences long. Perhaps people believe in luck or fate, all well and good, I have no such feelings, not after 16 years of a hellish marriage. I’ll just give my info – enough to give a good view of who I am without getting TOO personal – and if anyone is interested, cool, if not, oh well.

I’ve had a couple of phone calls today with people interested in the room – but I could tell after the conversation that I was not going to be hearing from them again. It’s become a very competitve market trying to get roomies and I am thinking of reducing my rate by $25 to see if it will lure anyone. I am seeing rooms going now for $300 and even lower. I will not go that low. I just won’t. I am currently receiving $400 for the large room and $375 for the room the ex-Marine is in and am asking $375 for the empty room.

Umm, this entry has gone on long enough and it’s past my bedtime. The German Shepherd is out there barking – as always – and I am going to go out and take yet another video of it – I have to have evidence for the city’s prosecutors for them to be able to do anything about it I take 5 minutes of it at a time – the barking goes on, and on. I am amazed, though,that I am not hearing anything from the dogs on the east side. That’s truly a good thing – I wonder if it will last?

C’ya later.
ben

The dog-barking situation has gone from very bad to hell-on-earth. The German Shepherd barks all night long – it takes breaks here and there, but it is a continual, fast-paced, higher-pitched barking the goes right through my ear plugs and past the sound of the big box fan I have in my room when I am sleeping at night.

It doesn’t help that I’m a light sleeper. I got up at 1:00 AM last night and went out there and took a video of both sides of my house, back and forth, I am in the middle of dog-barking hell. The German Shepherd on one side, the Rottweilers on the other. 3 dogs doing their thing all night long. I will take more videos – every night if it persists.

The reason is simple: The City of Phoenix requires either some witnesses – at least a couple – or audio tape of the offending dogs. I figure to take video footage of the situation – it will identify that yes, it’s late at night – very dark out there last night with no moon – and yes, I am being inundated as if at war with the noise of barking dogs.

I have received some pretty wild ideas from people at work. One guy – and he was quite serious – told me to get a thick steak, cut a flap on it and stuff rat poison in there. In other words, kill the dog. Number 1, I am not into killing dogs, number 2, it would be quite illegal and in these parts, animal cruelty gets people hauled off to jail on a regular basis. The next idea was pepper spray. I’m actually not totally opposed to the idea – but those dogs are on “their” property, I question the legality of it. One could possibly claim temporary insanity – it is certainly something that is quite exasperating to have to listen to at all hours of the night. Other ideas that are FAR worse than the 2 I just listed here. Things I would never engage in.

Instead, I called the Phoenix Police Department last night and they transferred me over to a recorded system. I have asked for 2 complaint forms to be sent to my house for filing against both properties. I sent out a letter to the illegals on the east side today – they should have that by Monday. I have been trying to get my neighbor to the west into a conversation, but he’s avoiding me like the plague. HIS dog is the one that STARTS all of it. I can’t imagine he doesn’t know that, but – he will after I get through explaining to him the situation of his dog keeping me – and undoubtedly others – awake all night long.

Well, changing gears, the weekend is here. I have just spent the last hour and a half doing some pretty good cleaning around here – some people said they wanted to come look at the room. Whether they show up or not, who knows, but I wanted to be prepared. I scrubbed the main bathroom as well – I have let it go to see if anyone else might possibly chip in to help out. I can’t afford to lose tenants over cleaning issues right now – and that is the only thing in the entire house that is an issue – so I am letting it go for now. I could get staunch and adament about it and try to force people to help out, but – that could also drive people out and I simply do not need that right now.

The weather is still warm – until this afternoon anyway. The sky is FINALLY overcast and the temps are cooling down considerably. For being the 6th of November and having 94 degree highs during the day – a bit ridiculous. Yet – still tolerable. I can deal with 94 degrees, it’s just that I hate paying the extra amount in electric bills that normally wouldn’t exist right now if it were like it normally is and I would simply open the windows to cool the place off. From the forecasts I am seeing, we’re not going to get down to highs in the 70’s until Thursday of next week. But – today’s high is high 80’s – that’s not bad, not bad at all, really.

I have planned this weekend to continue on with the drip watering system – if I can find any sleep, that is. Lack of sleep affects my entire day. I busted @$$ this morning in getting out deliveries that just HAD to be there – this morning. On the first rush-delivery, the contractor put all the stuff into their storage. It wasn’t taken out to where the men are working, it was put away. We shorted them 140 feet of pipe – he said no big deal. “We’ll use it eventually”. ALL the material was to be used “eventually”. The salesman had made such a huge ordeal out of getting it out there. Whatta crock – the rush didn’t come from the contractor, it came from the same salesman that ALWAYS has rush jobs, and 90 or better percent of the time, the material sits there for days or even weeks until the contractor gets to that portion of the project.

The point was today was relentless in unloading, loading, loading again the truck and making the deliveries. I love that kind of work – unless I’m wasted tired.

So, with that, I am going to finish the cleaning I started and see if these people show up – in about an hour from now.
ben

……….that my style of writing is not compatible with a site such as KCL. KCL serves the purpose it apparently intends to serve: smut; crassness; utter abandonment of civilities.

For example, I went on there this morning and the entry at the top of the list on the home page was entitled: “Scratch an itch” and then the writer proceeded to identify that that itch is the need to get laid, and how she would like to do so today by just about anybody and that she really needs a regular “f*** buddy”.

Nice. There was a day and age when I was in tune with such speech and thinking, I am not there now and neither do I ever intending on regressing back to such a state.

I am not condemning these people who write such – but I want no part of it. It seems to me that more people than not write in such a fashion on that blogging host – the “if you don’t like it then leave” mentality is in full force over there and at least temporarily, I have decided to leave.

This little journal here is cloaked in anonymity – not that I am attempting to remain anonymous, but hardly anyone knows about it and for the time being, that is a good thing. Even those that know about it probably won’t remember that it’s here and that I am actually using it. My other blogs are going to go dark and silent for a time. How long, I have no idea. I will still log in to KCL and visit various journals of writers I do like, but – I will not be writing over there at least for a little while.

I have to reconcile my differences with those that seem to think that spewing forth vile and vitriol are the thing to do.
I dare not write this kind of thing even on my blogspot journal – I am sure it would get back to the “powers that be” at KCL and a huge rift would start. I am not intending on starting a major ordeal and that’s why I am writing this entry HERE, not over THERE – where it would surely start another huge ordeal.

I made my case a while back and temporarily the crap stopped, at least on the home page, but it was oh so ever temporal.

Anyway, the work day is starting and I must be out of here.

Whatta day.
For having no deliveries to make, it was an amazingly LONG day and it was WARM out there. I was sweating away.
I had pickups to do all over the place, but by the time it was done, there were a lot more pickups and several orders have been placed in our truck routing system for tomorrow.
I ended up 2 and a half hours over my hours just for today, for this week I’m almost 4 hours over.
Crazy, I know, but I don’t really care – if they want to give me the hours, I’ll take them. They don’t want to give me the hours, however, and I figure the Ops manager is going to try to come down on my manager for the excesses.

However, it’s very difficult to try and pre-arrange a truck driver’s schedule in terms of hours. In the slow times, of course it’s easy, but in moderate to heavy volume delivery and pickup days, it’s a little bit ridiculous to think a person can just do all of that in X amount of hours and then be done with it. The problem is not mine – it’s management’s and they are going to have to deal with it as they see fit.

What I do know is that I busted @$$ today. I wasn’t sitting around talking to people, I was working my butt off.

Anyway, I got home and called back a lady that had called looking for a room for her and her husband on a temporary basis – they are moving here and want to take their time finding their own place. Then a guy called – claimed he was a manager of an employee that works for him at the mall a couple of miles down the road who was transferred to his store and was asking how far my place is from the mall. If one wanted to, you could walk the 2 miles. So – I do or do not expect a callback from this guy, meanwhile this woman wants to come tomorrow – they are flying in from wherever they are at now – to look at mine and a couple of other places. I’ll keep this up until that room is rented – and then probably have to face another roomie gone, who knows. Cyclical it is.
That’s it.
For today anyway.
I’m tired and I am not going on too long here. It felt good to be working hard again, though, I wish business would pick up to where it would be busy all day long, every day.
Anyway, I’m outta here.
ben