Depthmarker

2012-01-09T06:43:00.000-06:00

Hello there 2012...

Last year wasn't a particularly bad year, but it certainly didn't have very many high points. The fact that I'm still employed is a plus, considering the number of people who don't have jobs right now. I'm still doing the technical writing job and I still live in an RV. My dog, Theo, is also still hanging out. He doesn't get around as well as he used to, but considering he is well over 15 years old and a large dog who has lived far beyond expectations, I'm thrilled that he's decided to stick around. I seem to be in a holding pattern at the moment, just in a "one foot in front of the other" mode, but I do have my eye on a renting a house in the spring. It may not happen, but I need something to get me focused looking forward and that seemed as good a thing as any.

I figure food is a safe bet...

2011-11-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

I'm on the morale boosting committee at work this month. It's a rotating position for three people who are charged with decorating the office in general and decorating the cubical or office door of anyone with a birthday that month (on their birthday.) We also coordinate a monthly potluck and come up with games/puzzles/some sort of activity with a prize for the winner. The only budgeted items are one cake a month for all the birthdays and a couple of gift cards for prizes. The committee last month set the bar pretty high with lots of activities, tons of decorations brought in from the committee members' personal collections and little Halloween trinkets on our desks in the mornings. It's going to be a tough act to follow.

Rob donated some fall harvest decorations he found on sale at Walgreen's and I found some red leaf garlands at Dollar Tree, but I'm afraid our office decorations are going to be a bit sparse this month since no one has a personal stash of decorations appropriate for November. However, I figure with the Thanksgiving holiday falling in this month, I can just make it all about food.

Tonight I'm making three dozen deviled eggs to take in to work tomorrow morning. Total cost, if you don't count the time, was under $5. Items planned for other days are homemade Chex mix, Rob's famous V-8 chili, a big pot of my homemade potato soup, a batch of cookies, maybe some cupcakes and who knows, perhaps I"ll spend one weekend making bread. I've got a couple of other easy and cheap dishes up my sleeve, but don't know yet if I want to devote almost every weeknight to cooking.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T20:52:00.001-05:00

Been a while since I've been here. I turned 50 back in September and did not buy that red BMW, nor did one magically materialize. At some point last year I decided I didn't really want one and the same happened with the new Camaro that caught my eye for a time. I'm pretty much against car payments and apparently I don't have enough desire for a new car to save up for one. I figure that no new car on the planet is worth eating ramen noodles all the time and forgoing decent coffee.

I'm still doing the tech writer thing with some phone coverage for customer service. It's an okay gig, but really low pay and no raise in sight. I often feel like I ought be performing at 120%, working longer hours or trying even harder to become some sort of brilliant, "document everything in a blink of an eye" employee because, well, that's how I've always operated. Then I remember that past history has shown that sort of behavior rarely results in a raise and usually only benefits my employer who continues to get more bang for his buck. This puts me in a quandary. I'm usually not happy in a job unless I'm pushing myself, but I'm also not happy when the "above and beyond" behavior isn't rewarded. You'd think after all these years in the work force I would have found a happy median between the two.

The people I work with, for the most part, are still a great group. We had our Halloween potluck today and I brought enough enchiladas for everyone. I had planned to make them myself, but Rob chased me out of the kitchen last night and I did give credit where credit was due when everyone raved about how good they were. It's nice that even though the company is growing we are still hanging onto some of the old smaller business traditions. Not so many dressed up today, but that was likely due to Halloween falling on a Monday. If I hadn't had such a simple costume, I probably would have passed on it myself.

Speaking of Mondays, I'm heading to bed early tonight despite the fact that it's Halloween, my favorite holiday of the year. Hope everyone had plenty of treats and fewer tricks today.

2011-09-02T19:50:00.005-05:00

We might finally get a break from this heat!

Tonight the weather forecast had this to say:

More stable conditions will quickly follow on Sunday night and Monday...with daytime highs on Monday moderated...from the much above normal daytime highs since late May. For next week from Monday through Friday...dry conditions are expected...with cooler overnight lows and moderated daytime highs.

Only got to 101 today so it's a bit cooler outside this evening (down to 96 degrees at the moment.) I think I might even sit outside with a cold beer just like in the old days before the summer from hell arrived.

2011-08-11T06:20:00.002-05:00

Plodding along

The weather has been brutal this summer. We've had week after week of high temperatures over 100 degrees and it's usually still over 100 degrees outside when I get home around 7:00 PM. The little A/C unit for RV can't handle these very hot and sunny afternoons so the inside temperature is normally sitting at 88 degrees when I walk in the door. That feels pretty warm after spending the whole day in a cold office.

This is also the time of year when it doesn't cool down much outside in the evenings so it's likely to still be 100 degrees outside at 10:00 PM. Instead of my usual after work ritual of being outdoors, I've been staying inside in the evenings whether I'm at home or at someone else's place. Mind you, visiting other folks does give me a change of scenery, but it's still too much time indoors.

In other news, my dad is doing as well as can be expected and plans to attend the family reunion in Fredericksburg this weekend. I'll actually get to go this year now that I'm no longer working weekends. I'm not looking forward to the drive, but I am looking forward to visiting with relatives that I have not seen in years and years.

Work has been keeping me very busy and things are rather chaotic since it's a new position doing things that have not been done before. It's challenging, interesting and occasionally frustrating, but I'm enjoying it for the most part. I forget to go to lunch most days because I get too wrapped up in what I'm working on to notice the time. I consider that a good sign, even if it's not particularly good for my health.

Theo is still hanging in there. Apparently he really likes the TV because when I would occasionally watch it in the evenings, he'd struggle to get off the bed and come out to the living room. And as soon as I would turn it off, he'd struggle back onto the bed. I decided to move it to the bedroom and run the cable in through one of the cabinets so I could just leave it on for him all the time. He seems very happy with the arrangement so far, especially when I do come back there to watch something. The only problem is that it's right by the foot of the bed and even though I've turned it off at night to go to sleep, I frequently wake up in the middle of the night to infomercials. I think he's just accidentally hitting the on button, but I suppose he could have figured out how to turn it on.

2011-07-30T03:50:00.000-05:00

Much has happened these last two weeks!
There are a few things that I can't blog about in order to protect the privacy of those involved, but there was so much stuff going on that I have plenty of other things that I can talk about.

First off, my father had a heart attack a couple of days after I posted my last post. He's doing as doing as well as can be expected for someone who cannot have any surgery. His first heart attack was over 40 years ago and the treatment this time is pretty much the same, except instead of spending 30 days in the hospital, he was sent home after 1/2 a week. Mind you, getting sent home right away is a huge improvement for the patient over staying in the hospital for a month, but the whole rest/recuperation, nitroglycerin for the angina pain and "hope for the best" type of treatment is straight from 40 years ago. But since there was no surgery or other obvious treatment, we have to keep reminding him of that old 30 days in the hospital routine when he gets frustrated that he's not bouncing back right away. There's a whole lot of saying, "No, you can't do that yet!" Hmm... in retrospect, maybe locking them up in a hospital for 30 days had some merit.

Then, the day after my father had his heart attack, I learned that the technical writer they had hired at work had accepted another job and was leaving at the end of the month instead of the end of October. As a result, I moved to the IT department full time this week and starting next Monday, I'm totally my own as the sole tech writer without the benefit of those three months of training. Ack!

But despite my father's heart attack, I have managed to cram an incredible amount of information into my head in the last two weeks. A bit of it was about technical writing, but much of it was researching software programs for code documentation and then learning how to use them (the tech writer had not used them before either.) In order to do that I had to learn a bit about the code I'm going to be documenting as well as test a multitude of software options in order to decide the best one to use. In addition, some of that code documentation was due by yesterday (I met the deadline) and I also had to learn a few other things there were not related to technical writing in order to provide backup for an IT person who was on vacation this week.

It was a pretty wild ride these last two weeks and yesterday evening, I was winding down with a old friend of mine by reviewing my two week cram session. I was also expressing my doubts about being able to do this new job and he just laughed and said, "Of course you can do it, because you are crazy smart." That made me laugh too because I've never considered myself "smart" and if he had just said "smart" or "super smart" then I would have immediately disagreed, but I was okay with "crazy smart". And that's the great thing about old friends, after so many, many years they know you well enough to know exactly what to say when you need a boost.

And in other news, a sad thing happened this week when my next-door neighbors, D&S, moved away to another place on Wednesday. They couldn't hang with the recent lot rent increase and found another place that is $200/month cheaper. They tried really hard to get me to move with them, but their new place doesn't allow dogs. We do plan to stay in touch and they are close enough that I can visit them on a weekend. Still, I will miss the day-to-day contact we used to have.

And with the recent monthly lot rent increase, I'm not likely to have another long-term neighbor any time soon. Many of the old-timers that have been in the RV park for years have pulled out this month. It will be interesting to see how the RV park culture changes if it ends up being mostly short-timers in the future.

2011-07-16T00:25:00.003-05:00

T.G.I.P.
P for payday instead of F for Friday. Finances were very tight this pay period because back on the 1st I found out that my rent had gone up $75 and I didn't have any wiggle room to allow for that. It was tough, but I did not have to sacrifice my somewhat expensive morning coffee having stocked up on it a while back when it was on sale so I weathered it okay. Now, I did have money in a savings account that I could have drawn out, but I purposely made doing that as difficult as possible by placing it in a bank that I could not easily get to in person during business hours and I had no way to electronically access the money, also done on purpose. That way, on a hot day when a cold beer really seemed like the best idea in the world, I couldn't give into the temptation to pull money out to buy a six pack. And there were a lot of hot days since we've had 14 consecutive days of temperatures over 100 degrees.

My poor little air conditioner unit in my RV is working overtime, but it's still usually 86 degrees inside when I get home from work. Normally that would feel pretty comfortable to my heat-loving self, but the office I work in is a damn freezer and that's what I get used to during the day so it feels really warm to me when I get home. Seriously, almost every chair in every cubicle at work has a blanket or a jacket draped over it. It might be over a hundred degrees outside, but we are wearing jackets inside - how screwed up is that?

Oh, and I got off early today so it was late afternoon instead of evening when I took the trash out to the dumpster and as usual, I was barefoot, not thinking about how hot the asphalt paving would be at that time of day when it was 103 degrees outside. And so yeah, I burned the bottoms of my feet. Not fun. There was a time when I was a kid that I could have walked that stretch without any ill effects, but these days of wearing shoes in a office every day, well, it was sizzle time. I've got too thick a callous on my feet to end up with any blisters, but it's still quite the burn. Oops.

2011-07-04T23:13:00.003-05:00

Very nice 4th of July
I was off work today and I continued my long time tradition of grilling hot dogs on the 4th of July. I don't know why or where it came from, but at some point after moving out from my parent's house and setting out on my own, I decided that I needed to grill hot dogs on the 4th of July. And I've pretty much done that every year since.

Usually, it's just me solo, doing the hot dog thing, but this year I got my RV park neighbors in on it. And so a bunch of folks came by; I grilled a lot of hot dogs; we all drank many a beer and had great conversation for hours. No fireworks because of the extreme fire danger during the current drought, but still a good time was had by all. And there was an extra bonus - everyone helped to clean up the mess and cart off the trash before we all headed off to bed! Awesome.

2011-06-30T22:49:00.003-05:00

1/2 of a new job
I found out yesterday that I didn't get the position that I interviewed for a couple of weeks ago, which is not surprising since I was definitely NOT qualified for the job and it wasn't just the degree requirement. Although they hired someone else, the interview still paid off for me. I was offered the opportunity to work 1/2 day in my current role in Customer Service and 1/2 day in the IT department until October and I'm very pleased with the arrangement.

Funny thing though, most every one I've told so far has been disappointed that it's not an increase in pay. I'm a bit puzzled by that because even though it's not any more money, I'll be doing more of what I like to do and that seems like a pretty good deal to me. Same money, but more fun. I don't see anything wrong with that picture, but maybe I'm just wired differently.

2011-06-24T07:55:00.001-05:00

Still waiting...
I haven't heard anything on the results of the job interview. Maybe by the end of today?

2011-06-14T23:10:00.003-05:00

Three hours in the hot seat
I had a job interview today that was three hours long. It's a job that would be extremely interesting and very challenging. I'm don't have the qualifications that they were requiring for the position, but despite that, I was asked to interview for it anyway. There's plenty of unemployed talent in Austin that does have the qualifications that they were asking for so I think my chances are pretty slim. Nevertheless, it was a real treat to get to sit and talk with the people that interviewed me (all of them brilliant) and that alone was well worth the three hours of my time. It reminded me a bit of the annual conference I used to go to in Canada. Although I was probably the least knowledgeable person there, I never had any trouble talking with all those movers and shakers of the industry and what a great opportunity to listen and learn. Same thing here, because although it was an interview and I did answer a lot of questions, I still spent the majority of the time listening to the people who were interviewing me. And that was a very cool thing.

2011-06-10T21:48:00.002-05:00

RV gardens
I've been posting about my veggie plants in pots and let me tell you, I am not the lone ranger here at the RV park. In fact, my handful of pots are nothing compared to many of the other residents here. For example, I have a new neighbor a few lots down that moved in this week. There must be at least 15 pots of assorted veggies that came with them, obviously planted months ago and doing quite well. Almost everyone has at least one tomato plant, most have five or more. There are plenty of herbs and flowers too. I never thought of RV-ers as gardeners, but they obviously are.

2011-06-09T19:54:00.003-05:00

The beat, er, HEAT goes on
Not a record high today, but 97 degrees is still plenty hot for the first part of June. I literally needed pot holders to hold the steering wheel on my car after it sat in the sun all day. I didn't have any pot holders though so I had to waste gasoline sitting in place while I waited until the A/C had cooled it down enough to touch. With gas prices as high as they are, I need to pick up a couple of cheap oven mitts at the grocery store to throw in the car!

I discovered that something was munching on the leaves of my green bean plants today while I was at work, but there was no sign of the culprit when I got home. I was planning on planting squash this weekend, but maybe I'll do another pot of green beans instead in case these get munched to death. Oh, and a neighbor gave me some okra seeds to plant. I don't actually eat okra, but it might be fun to try and grow it.

2011-06-08T22:33:00.003-05:00

Checking in
I'm still doing well. A quick rundown:

I got a new BBQ grill, an off-set smoker, and cooked the best brisket I have ever made on Memorial Day weekend. I also discovered that I like bratwurst when it's smoked with mesquite wood, but not when it's smoked with pecan wood.

There was a lay-off at work, but it didn't include me. Up until this week I had been very busy at work and it's only now that I'm starting to notice the slowdown in business. Seems like half the USA is in a drought and the other half has had too much rain. Our business depends on the grass growing and it's not doing that in most places right now.

Speaking of drought, it's been unusually hot and dry here early in the season and we just had 5 days in a row of record high temperatures. This does not bode well for my veggie plants in pots.

Well, that's it for now - time to get to sleep...

2011-05-10T21:18:00.003-05:00

New age banking
I also had to take care of some business at the credit union this afternoon and met the most clueless "banker" I have ever met in my life. Mind you, I was at a branch office in a little bitty town and the "banker" couldn't have been more than about 24 years old so I guess some level of cluelessness is to be expected under those circumstances, but it was still a bit of a shock. And then I got to experience some sort of new electronic age banking thing where I discovered that the people you interact with are actually just drones who type in the information on their computer and then make a phone call to the real bankers who talk to me via speaker phone and then send the necessary documents to the drone's printer. And I'm glad I listened to the instructions the speaker phone banker gave to the drone because the drone either didn't listen or forgot them. Sigh.

Oh well, at least now I'm more prepared to win the lottery because if I do, then I'll know to drive down to San Antonio instead of dealing with the drones at the branch office.

2011-05-05T00:58:00.002-05:00

Checking in
I've been doing well. I'm up late tonight because I had to cook stuff for the potluck at work tomorrow and since I'm up late on a cool, dry night, I've got a decent wireless internet connection. I would not have been up late if I hadn't spent several hours earlier helping my mom (via phone call) with something that she needed to do on her computer. But hey, what's a little lost sleep when I have the opportunity to help my 87 year old mother with something that she's been unable to do herself for over a week? I've certainly lost sleep for much less valid reasons in the past. I figured while I'm waiting for this last rice dish to cook in the rice cooker that I might as well do a quick update.

Work has been going well. I'm now a Tier 4 employee which means I know how to do a lot of stuff, but didn't want to be a Shift Lead or Supervisor. Titles don't translate into more money since I still earn the same as I did as a Tier 2, but the work is more interesting and that's compensation enough at this point.

The weather has been really wacky this spring. We had above normal temperatures for many weeks in April and then got plunged into a below normal couple of days the first part of May. I can't remember ever having to run the heater in May, but this year I did when temperatures dropped into the low 40's at night. Crazy stuff.

Oh, and I found out I had money that I didn't know I had in a retirement plan with an old employer. I can't touch it for another 10 years, but it's essentially free money to me 10 years from now provided I find a new home for it in the next couple of weeks. Pretty cool, eh?

Ah, the rice is done. Time to pack it up for tomorrow and then get a bit of sleep...

2011-04-10T14:15:00.003-05:00

Always Camping Girl
I referred to myself the other day as "Always Camping Girl" because I am, in a sense, "always camping" given the fact that I live in an RV located in an RV park. I happen to love and have always loved to go camping so being in a state of "always camping" is a positive thing for me. It would not, of course, be considered so positive by the folks that I know who don't like to go camping, but in my case, it is a good thing. And from time to time, I remember the days when I used to load up my car on Friday after work and drive, sometimes for hours, then set up the tent and campsite so I could spend the weekend camping. And on Sunday afternoon, when I was packing everything up and making the drive back home, I would often wish that I could just stay put instead and why not just go to work from there so that when I got off of work and came home again, I would still be camping? Well, guess what, here I am now, many years later, doing exactly that.

And while RV living is fun, there are also things that I like about living in a house so I may very well live in a house again at some point. But I want that future house, if there is one, to somehow have the sense of "always camping" about it. I tried to create it at my old house with limited success, but I never really was able to capture the feeling. Now that I've been actually living it for awhile, I definitely want to take that with me and keep it when and if I move again. So maybe that future house will be a little cabin set way off the beaten path, or it could even be a grand house that has an expansive outdoor living space or it might be another RV with more kitchen counter space. Hell, it could take so many forms that there is no predicting what it will be or look like, but I definitely know what it will feel like.

Time and time again, I am surprised when I look at life my life and realize that I now have many of the things that I wanted so many years ago. I may not have the specific things I thought I wanted, but I have the essence of them and usually they are even better than what I originally imagined. For example, this RV is far better than my original idea that came about back when I had a tent.

And of course, there are still plenty of things that I want that I do not have at the moment, but the desire and dreaming of them doesn't have to mean that I'm unhappy with what I've got. It just means that no matter how good it gets, there's always the opportunity for life to get even better. And exploring, creating, dreaming and sometimes discovering that what you thought was "it" really isn't "it" after all, well, that's all part of the fun.

I have decided that I am going to spend the rest of my life feeling good and having fun, as much as possible. I told one of my friends the other day that my new mantra is to do more of what I want to do and less of what I don't want to do. That doesn't mean I'm going to quit my job because having that job provides me with the opportunity to do other things that I do like to do. Such as sleeping in a bed instead of on a cardboard box under a bridge. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking for a means of income that provides more joy than this one. I want to get to the point where I'm always satisfied with what I have, yet still eager for more. I'm already there, most of the time and I tell ya, life is pretty damn good from this perspective.

2011-04-06T22:32:00.006-05:00

A bad day turns good
I got up this morning and did my usual morning routine with an eye toward leaving for work a bit earlier than usual since there's been a lot of traffic jams lately and I was tired of getting to the office with just minutes to spare before clocking in. The "Oh crap, I might be late and get a written reprimand in my file" stress is something I'd rather avoid. I really need this job and to lose it just because Austin traffic sucks would really piss me off. But today I was right on track to leave 10 minutes early until I went to start my car and the engine turned over just twice before the starter went click, click, click. I was hoping to find corroded battery terminals when I opened the hood, but they were squeaky clean which meant that most likely the battery had given up the ghost and needed to be replaced. Or my alternator could be out, but the battery was almost four years old so odds were good that it was the battery. I looked around to see if any neighbors were out and about, but the early birds usually leave for work between 6:00 and 6:30 AM and the rest of the RV park tends to sleep in. As far as I know, I'm the only one that leaves at 7:00 AM so I left my hood up in the international symbol of car trouble and went back into my RV to notify work that I would be late or possibly not in at all today. It wasn't too much later that a neighbor knocked at my door to see if I needed some help. I got lucky; they were up much earlier than usual and noticed my hood up.

One jump start later and I was ready to head off to work. As a bonus, this neighbor, who is a retired engineer and therefore has a great deal of smarts, handed me an extra car battery and some jumper cables to take with me so I could jump my car after work using his extra battery instead of having to rely on finding someone to give me a jump start. His foresight saved me a great deal of grief because because after work the parking lot was almost empty and apparently no one else was getting off work at 5:00 PM today so there wasn't anyone to flag down to ask for a jump. But thanks to his extra battery I was on the road in minutes and I headed straight to the O'Reilly's Auto Parts store in Buda to buy a new battery, provided they had one in my budget range.

Now, it's two days before payday so I had a very limited amount of funds available. The counterman pulled up my battery choices on the computer with prices and I guess the look of despair on my face was pretty evident because another counterman intervened and directed him toward some cheaper options. He then took me over to the battery rack and showed me why he didn't think I should buy the absolute cheapest battery available, but here was one that was not much more and well worth the extra money. It wasn't a scam; I know enough about car batteries to know he wasn't bullshitting. And when I told him, "Yes, that battery you are recommending is the same battery that I bought from O'Reilly's four years ago," his eyes lit up and he told me, "If that's the case, then we can definitely do you right and make your budget."

Somehow, he managed to find the record of my prior purchase despite my complete lack of memory of what my cell phone number had been back then. It took him quite a while, but he was persistent and after applying a warranty and some other pricing voodoo, it more than met my budget. And to top it off, they even changed the battery for me right there in the parking lot, no extra charge. I haven't seen that kind of customer service in years!

The counterman joked that I had enough left over to buy some beer and that's exactly what I did. I bought some for myself to celebrate my good fortune and a 12 pack to give to my helpful neighbor. I was going to buy a 12 pack for the folks at the auto parts store, but was afraid that might be against company policy. But they will, at the very least, get all of my future auto parts business and I will also sing their praises.

And what started out as a bad day, turned out to be a very good one thanks to some helpful folks. Which reminds me to never underestimate the value of good customer service or even just lending a helping hand to someone. You never know for sure, but it just might make their day.

2011-04-02T16:45:00.004-05:00

A song a day
I've decided it's time to start buying music again. I used to be able to hear a lot of my favorite songs on a radio station for free, but it changed format a few months ago which left me with just Pandora. Pandora is great, but it requires an internet connection and that is something I don't always have. And with Pandora, just like radio, you can't play a particular song and have to hope it comes up in the rotation at some point. And so, for the last couple of months, I've been deprived of the music I love and have been minus a major source of stress relief.

I gave Rob our extensive music collection when we split up, which made sense since I don't have a CD player and no room to store CDs either. I figured I'd replace everything with MP3s once I had some extra money and solved the backup problem. Well, I've since solved the backup problem, but the truth is I'll never have a bunch of extra money.

To work around that, I came up with a plan to buy one song a day. At an average price of $1 per song, that comes out to about $7 a week. I figure this will keep me from spending too much over the course of the year. But in order to solve the problem of down time when I have no internet connection, I need to buy a chunk of music at the start and then switch to adding one song a day. So I decided to roll the start of my plan back to January 1st which left me starting with a deficit and at first I'll spend more than a dollar a day (but only as I can afford it) until I catch up.

I'm starting out with some of my favorite songs from the last 10 years or so that I didn't previously own (for the most part) and are also ones that I don't mind listening to over and over again. As you will see, I'm still very much a Metalhead. (click on the song to view on YouTube, although many have annoying commercials that you have to get through first)

What I've Done - Linkin Park

Coming Undone - Korn

Down with the Sickness - Disturbed

The Red - Chevelle

Bodies - Drowning Pool

Thoughtless - Korn

My Own Summer - Deftones

Cryin' Like a Bitch - Godsmack

Kryptonite - 3 Doors Down

You're Going Down - Sick Puppies

Outside - Staind

Break Stuff - Limp Bizkit

Psycho - Puddle of Mudd

South Texas Deathride - Union Underground

Numb - Linkin Park

Headstrong - Trapt

Pain - Three Days Grace

Last Resort - Papa Roach

It's a good start, but only about an hour's worth of music. More later...

2011-03-30T21:51:00.004-05:00

Fear
My mom has been dealing with a rather perplexing medical condition for the last year. First it was nothing to be concerned about, then it was definitely cancer,then it was maybe cancer, then it was definitely not cancer, then back to maybe cancer, then definitely not cancer again and at this point, the doctors involved have finally admitted that they have no clue what it is. My mom and our family have been dealing with the situation in our typical manner which is to not get too freaked out about it and instead, plan for the worst while expecting the best. However, I talked to my mom tonight as she told me about yet another doctor that she was going to see next week and for the first time, I heard fear in her voice regarding this issue.

Now that fear might mean that she was not comfortable with our plan for the worst or it could mean that she was no longer expecting the best or it could mean she was afraid of dying or it could be something that I haven't thought of yet. But there's a reason there and it troubles me that she's afraid and I don't know why. I have watched my mother face many a fear in the past 50 years, but it was always pretty evident what was causing the fear. This time, I'm not sure and she's not willing to talk about it. And so here I am, troubled about something that I can do nothing about at the moment. All I can do is let it go for now, try to get some sleep and look at it again tomorrow.

2011-03-30T05:37:00.002-05:00

Fire!
Yesterday morning the fire alarm went off at work and there were not any procedures in place to handle such an event. In a perfect world, that would have been thought of before we moved in to the building, but it's not a perfect world. Despite the lack of planning, everyone evacuated in an orderly manner via the main entrance. Had there actually been flames and smoke in the immediate area then I'd be telling a different story since using the main entrance involved walking a very long way through the building before getting outside. If there is a next time, I'll be going out via the fire exit. Duh!

It turned out to be just a small electrical fire in the elevator shaft and after standing in the parking lot for about an hour or so, the fire department gave the all clear and we returned to work. Of course, this means the elevator is now out of service and I'm not looking forward to the pain in my knees from walking up those stairs every day. A ground floor location has long been a requirement of mine for living quarters, but I never really thought much about it being a requirement for a job. I'd have to add that to my list of things needed for the "perfect" job.

2011-03-28T05:54:00.003-05:00

Update
It's been a while since I posted, but the change to Daylight Saving Time really kicked my ass this year. It came about right at the start of the busy season at work, spring allergies and the usual spring arthritis flares so it's not so surprising that I have done very little in the evenings after work or on the weekends these last two weeks. I have not read books, blogged, studied for an exam I plan to take later this year, played computer games, watched movies, worked on my jigsaw puzzle or done anything other than the minimum amount of housework and following the news a bit on the disasters in Japan. Instead, I have been enjoying the warm evenings, visiting with my neighbors and getting as much rest as possible. It's taken a full two weeks, but I think I may have finally recovered from the time change because this is the first morning that I've felt like touching the computer before heading to work. I'm hoping this is a sign that I'll have a little bit more energy at the end of the day.

2011-03-02T20:28:00.003-06:00

Intermission
Momentarily interrupting the Saturday story to post that I've decided it's Spring-enough to put out a hanging basket of petunias. We are not yet past the average last frost date, but a hanging basket can always be brought indoors if we get a late freeze. I'll need to wait a bit longer to do my banana tree in a big pot idea. I have no idea if you can successfully grow a banana tree in a big pot, but I figure I'll give it a try. With luck, come August, perhaps I can sit in the shade of my banana tree with a cold beer and pretend I'm on vacation in some exotic tropical location.

My friend LT stopped by yesterday and hooked me up with a few things to improve my wireless connection. It's not yet improved to the point where I can get a connection every time I want one, nor can it hang onto that connection for very long, but I can definitely get a connection some of the time and usually long enough to hammer out a short post or email. And that's a big improvement!

2011-02-26T15:57:00.007-06:00

Saturday, Part Three
(Click here to jump to Part One)

I rummaged in a few cabinets looking for the electric skillet. I don't normally cook on the stove since that uses propane and propane costs money, but electricity is included in the lot rent. Besides, having the cover down on the stove gives me the only usable counterspace in the tiny RV kitchen. One of these days, I'm going to find the right size sink covers to replace the ones that originally came with the RV. I'm not sure how many people have owned this RV, but they all took good care of it. Except for the sink covers which were MIA. The last owner only had it for a few months and I wondered if the missing sink covers had anything to do with that.

It was a major pain in the ass to do without the counterspace those would have provided. I laughed as I imagined a retired couple and the wife shaking a big wooden spoon at the husband, demanding a better kitchen. The oven doesn't work and given that it's spotless and looks brand new instead of over 10 years old, I supsected it had never worked. That bummed me out at first since I love to bake, but once I found out how much propane cost, I quickly got over it and decided the oven was just more cabinet space. Maybe it was something Mrs. Previous Owner couldn't live without, but I wasn't inclined to spend the money to get it fixed. My bread machine bakes just fine, provided one doesn't mind that everything ends up shaped like a loaf of bread.

I finally located the electric skillet in a cabinet over the bed. When you only have 150 square feet of living space, where things are stored is more about the dimensions of the cabinet rather than it's location. The location of the screwdriver needed to tighten the legs on the skillet, however, was in the kitchen junk drawer. I'm pretty sure almost everyone has a junk drawer containing at least one screwdriver in their kitchen. Some things never change whether you live in a house or in an RV.

Having brought the skillet up to acceptable safety standards, I went about cooking breakfast. Hash browns first since they would stay hot sitting off to the side on a plate while I cooked the bacon and eggs. A couple of months ago, I finally gave that precooked bacon a try and decided it was made for people who live in RVs. With just two minutes and my electric skillet, I can have hot, crispy bacon that hasn't made a complete mess of my tiny kitchen. I try not to think about how such a thing is possible. I'm not entirely sure you could make bacon any less healthy than it already is, but there's bound to be a price for that convenience.

I had cooked enough food to feed a family of four and in the process remembered that I had used my spatula as an ice scraper on my windshield a couple of weeks ago. I added "spatula" and "ice scraper" to the shopping list, ate a single portion and turned the leftovers into breakfast tacos that I could zap in the microwave for breakfast next time. No sense in cooking breakfast four times when you can do it once.

After the dishes were done I took a stroll over to the RV laundromat. As I suspected, the three washers and dryers were full. There was a line of full hampers lying in wait and quarters stacked on the machines just like I used to do at the arcade to claim my place next in line at my favorite pin-ball machine. The dryers run for 45 minutes so I did the math and determined there was enough laundry in line to last for another 4 hours. And that didn't include anyone who had not yet staked a claim.

I figured I had to go with the post-midnight plan and should go home and take a nap. By now it was three in the afternoon and if it had been a work day I would have been yawning my head off and more than ready for a nap. But I hadn't spent the day in windowless cubeland at the call center so I wasn't doing any yawning. I gave the nap idea a try anyway. No luck. The cloud cover outside wasn't enough to keep the RV from being too bright inside for a nap. I added "eye mask" to the shopping list and wondered if I was going to have to go to the sex toy store to find one.

I drive by one of the largest "adult" stores in the area on my way to work, but they probably were not open that early in the morning. There is no way I was going to burn that much gas to drive there on the weekend just to buy an eye mask. No, I'd save that for when I had enough extra money for a new vibrator and some porn DVDs. Except I don't have a TV and the DVD player on my computer is broken. Oh well, maybe Wal-Mart carries eye masks.

Too bad it quit raining; rain would make it dark enough to nap. I stuck my head out the door and asked for more rain. The clouds didn't answer, but my dog did, indicating that he wanted a walk.

2011-02-26T12:46:00.007-06:00

Saturday, Part Two
(Click here to jump to Part One)

Two books kept me occupied for the rest of the morning. The bad thing about being a fast reader is that a paperback which would last most people a couple of days will only last me a few hours. Fortunately I have a co-worker that keeps me well supplied with paperbacks. Otherwise I might cave in on my resolve to buy only one book every two weeks.

There was a time when I didn't buy books at all and did my reading on the internet. I had a nice reliable internet connection back then, but now my internet access is very hit or miss. If I can't get it on my computer, then I'll try my cell phone but I usually don't have much luck there either. Apparently my RV sits in some sort of wireless Bermuda triangle so I was quite surprised to discover that my Kindle always
has a flawless connection. I might not be able to call 911 to save my life, but I can always download a book. Go figure.

I resisted the urge to start on another book. I only had two left out of the six that my co-worker had loaned me yesterday morning and I needed to save those in case my planned after-midnight raid on the RV laundromat was successful. There was no way I was going to be able to stay up that late unless I had some good books to read. And beer. Yep, at some point before my raid I was going to have to cash in the change jar at Wal-Mart and buy some beer.

I had heard the helicopter take off earlier while I was reading. They were on the ground just about the right time for a shopping trip or brunch at one of the restaurants nearby. Then again, maybe they were shopping for an RV. That made more sense. It would have been pretty cheeky to land in the field unless they had business here or knew the owner, but I figured anyone that owned a helicopter was probably pretty cheeky to begin with.

I had been too involved with reading to stick my head out to look at the time and even if I had, all I would have seen is a helicopter taking off. Nothing that would have given me a clue as to their business here. Normally I wouldn't even have been curious about it, but it was slow day. I stuck my head out the door and confirmed that the helicopter was gone. Ah well, that was a dead end now.

It was still raining, but the sound of thunder wasn't weather related. It was my stomach reminding me that I had only eaten a half a can of Spaghetti-O's for dinner, drank coffee for breakfast and now it was past lunchtime. I looked around, but there wasn't anything that provided the necessary inspiration for cooking.

Normally I'd go with bacon, eggs, and hash browns on a Saturday, but I was out of butter. I could cook hash browns with vegetable oil, but that seemed sacrilegious. My stomach growled again and reminded me that if I went out to eat, the hash browns would most likely be cooked with oil so I might as well save myself the expense of going anywhere. Bacon, eggs and hash browns then. Maybe the food would put me in the mood for a nap.

(Click here for Part Three)

2011-02-26T10:08:00.010-06:00

Saturday, Part One

It's not every day that I have my early morning peace and quiet disturbed by the sound of a helicopter flying close by. Very close. As in sounding like it was about to land on the roof of my RV. I hadn't done anything recently that would require someone to send a S.W.A.T. team in to do an extraction so I stuck my head out the door and took a look. And damned if a helicopter wasn't landing in the field across the street from my RV. It wasn't painted conspiracy theorist black nor did it have police or air ambulance written on it. No TV news crew letters either and it appeared to be just a rather brightly painted private helicopter. Three guys that looked to be middle-aged were milling around and it didn't seeem that it had landed due to mechanical trouble. Shrug, maybe one of them needed something from the store and didn't want to hassle with trying to drive in Saturday traffic on a day when a major intersection on the freeway was shut down.

The helicopter was of less concern than the three hampers of laundry being loaded into my neighbor's SUV. Crap, someone got the jump on me for the three washers in the laundry room at the RV park. Looks like I wasn't going to be the early bird getting the worm today. Finding an empty washing machine around here was much like trying to find an open keypunch machine at the computer lab back when I was in college. Yeah, I'm old and went to college back when you used keypunch machines and cards to run computer programs. But in college I could pretty much count on the machines being empty early on a Saturday morning. That didn't translate too well to an RV park full of early risers who were not out partying the previous Friday night.

Okay, maybe I should try and grab the washers at 2:00 am in the morning when all the old geezers and hard-working stiffs were asleep. I don't have too much luck staying up that late anymore, but maybe I could go back to bed and take a nap. Nah, too much coffee. I'm not much of a morning person and when my alarm goes off at 5:00 am during the week, I'm non-functional until after I've had my third cup of coffee. Normally I don't set the alarm on a Saturday, but I was planning on doing laundry so I'd already had four cups. Scratch the nap idea.

I could drive into town to a laundromat, but given the previously mentioned shutdown on the freeway, that held as about much appeal as going to the dentist. I decided instead that I would get another cup of coffee and sit on my front steps to watch the guys in the helicopter. I looked out the door, but there were no longer any signs of life around the helicopter and it was raining now. Drinking coffee that was watered down by rain wasn't very appealing so I added "umbrella" to my shopping list and picked up a book. After all, there are few things more satisfying than staying in on a rainy morning with a cup of coffee and a good book. Might as well make the best of things.

(Click here for Part Two)

2011-02-11T18:52:00.008-06:00

Alice in Cubeland, a pseudo flu and RV living

Today was my first day at the new office and while it is definitely "cubeland", it's better than most that I've experienced so far in my working life. Then again, my generous opinion might be due to the fact that I only spent 2 hours working at my cube today. I spent the majority of the day in the training room helping out with some computer issues. Yes, we have IT staff to do that, but they were swamped with other urgent issues and training starts on Monday. They were also unable to figure out what was up with PowerPoint not behaving with the projector, but I knew how to fix that, having run into that exact same situation several times in the past. I often forget just how much experience I have and today was a good reminder that I could do IT work again if I wanted to go back in that direction at some point.

I was out sick yesterday with what felt like the worst case of flu I've ever had. I spent a miserable day in bed, drifting in and out of Technicolor fever dreams and wondering why every part of my body had to hurt all at one time, including my fingernails. Then Theo woke me up at 3:00 AM this morning because I had failed to take him for his evening walk and I discovered at that point that I only felt like I had a really bad cold (and let me tell you, it's no fun taking the dog for a walk at 3 in the morning when the temperature outside is 15 degrees Fahrenheit.) But given that I felt better, I either kicked the flu's ass in record time or it was just one very mean-ass cold virus.

I would have greatly appreciated having running water this morning, but as usual, the pipes froze overnight so I had no hot shower to clear my head or any running water at all for that matter. That should be the last work night that I have to deal with frozen pipes this season. We are predicted to have a much warmer weather pattern next week and after that, a night in the teens for the length of the time that it takes to freeze the hose outside would be extremely rare. I have enough camping experience to make do without running water, but I'm putting heat tape on the shopping list for next fall if I'm still living in an RV at that time. Or maybe I'll be able to afford one of those expensive heated hoses. Either way, I'm not planning on repeating this particular RV experience.

That said, there are many things about RV living that I do really like, but I haven't lived in one yet through all the seasons and I'll be curious to see how I weather the spring thunderstorms. I experienced some pretty frightening high wind speeds this winter and there will be plenty more of that in the spring, with gusts even higher that what I've felt to date. The only casualty so far has been my nerves and the barbecue grill which has been blown around the place a couple of times despite my attempts to secure it. Theo doesn't like it much either when the RV is rocking like crazy, the stabilizer jacks are groaning, the cover over the slide is flapping, the vents and windows are emitting howling noises and the neighbors patio furniture is slamming against the side of the RV. Although, I'm pretty sure he's going to like my tornado evacuation plan even less since it involves him wearing a muzzle while we hang out in the campground restroom. A plan I hope I don't ever have to put in place, but best to have a plan, just in case.

That reminds me, I need to buy a weather radio before the season hits because I can't rely on the internet access here and the radio stations are pretty useless these days when it comes to providing timely weather information. The next time I hear them tell me to go visit their website for more information about the weather, I just might smash something. If I had internet access, I wouldn't be listening to the radio for information in the first place!

2011-02-09T22:00:00.000-06:00

The Lone Star Beer sign

Once upon a time, there was a giant Lone Star Beer sign in Austin. Back when I was a kid, we would take the bus to the drag (Guadalupe Street) and one of the things one would do while hanging out on the drag was to go kick the sign. It was a ritual, perhaps our secular version of Mecca, and it was something I did for many, many years until one day the sign was torn down. I don't remember any political outrage or any protests from the kick-the-sign group; the sign was simply gone one day and that was it.

I can't help but wonder, if we had the internet and social media back then, could we have saved the sign? Would we have gotten wind of the plans to tear it down and mounted a successful public outcry? Who knows, but I've seen it happen in other cases. I think we could have pulled it off.

2011-02-07T21:54:00.000-06:00

RIP Gary Moore

One of my favorite guitarists is gone. Bummer.

2011-02-07T19:21:00.006-06:00

Big sigh of relief as I get home
The Monday From Hell is over. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the office was closed on Friday due to the ice on the road which meant that today was a busier than usual Monday. Mondays are pretty brutal anyway, but today was a killer. I did manage to have lunch with a friend of mine over at Nutty Brown Cafe which was a nice break from the chaos and was also my last chance to eat lunch there. Tomorrow is move day and I'll be way on the other side of town in the future. I'll miss that place, but I'll get to reacquaint myself with my old lunch haunts since the new office is located very close to the old call center where I used to work. I wonder if that Denny's still has good hash browns? I plan to get the answer to that question on payday.

My RV survived the big freeze with no busted pipes as far as I can tell. So far, I've found no water leaks, but some of my neighbors were not so lucky. We traded strategies for dealing with the next one and pretty much decided there wasn't much else we could do other than keep the furnace running and cross our fingers. The RV park wasn't spared either and we didn't have any running water for a day while they repaired busted water lines. At those temperatures, even some buried lines broke.

We've got more cold temperatures on the way and another possibility of sleet/ice on Wednesday. This time it's not slow business that's making my paychecks short since we've got more business at work than we can handle. Instead, it's the damn weather and I'm crossing my fingers that I don't miss another day of work due to icy roads. This is typical February weather here so if I can escape broken pipes for the next month, then I won't have to worry about it again for a long time.

The days are getting longer and I'm looking forward to the return of some sunshine in the evenings. I'm going to need it because the new office is a cubeland and I'll have no window. I so really don't want to work in a cubeland again, but maybe it won't be so bad this time. Ah, who am I kidding? I'm gonna hate it.

2011-02-04T18:40:00.002-06:00

snow day! It doesn't snow in Austin very often, but it did last night. one inch of snow by itself wouldn't have been enough to shut the city down, but we had sleet before the snow so underneath it was a layer of ice which made driving impossible. Of course people attempted it anyway and that made for some free entertainment this morning as I watched vehicals slide down the hill. A crowd of people gathered and cheered or booed or clapped as if we were at a ballgame or demolition derby.

I still don't have internet access at home, but I do have a smart phone now which can access the Internet. However it takes me forever to type a sentence so I doubt this means a return to regular posting. But I will try to post a line here and there and who knows, maybe I will get better at using this touchscreen keyboard.

2011-01-03T20:52:00.002-06:00

What a crazy day!

The phones are work were ringing off the hook today with back to back calls just like during the busy season. After the last two months lull, it was a bit of a jolt, particularly since I'm now a Tier Three staff and doing considerably more complicated tasks than I was as a Tier One the last time the phones were this crazy. I didn't mind the hectic pace so much because it made the day fly by and it was 5 PM before I knew it. However, I was definitely feeling a bit weary on my way home and what a treat it was to pull up in my driveway and have visitors literally waiting for me at my door to offer me a cold beer. And after we attended to Theo's needs for a walk, food and attention, I was then whisked away for a free dinner at Serrano's. Wow!

2011-01-02T10:57:00.003-06:00

Bread baking day

Theo actually let me sleep in yesterday and despite a rather late start to the day, I managed to get everything done that I wanted to get done, including baking some bread in my bread maker. It's taken me six months to get around to using it due to the narrow counter space that requires me to keep an eye on it during the kneading cycles. Otherwise, it will bounce itself right off the counter if I don't push it back from the edge on a regular basis and it wasn't until yesterday that I had the block of time and the desire to deal with that. I made up the recipe because that's half the fun of it and it turned out to be very tasty, though not as strongly flavored as I wanted. This time I remembered to write it down so I could adjust it later. Here's the recipe from yesterday:

Cheese/Onion bread (with just a hint of cheese/onion flavor)

Makes a 1 lb loaf in the bread maker machine

3/4 cup water

2 Tablespoons honey

1 Tablespoon Chicken & Tomato Bullion

2-1/4 cups flour

1 package of yeast

1/2 cup shredded cheese (I used a four cheese mexican blend)

1/2 cup diced sweet onion

Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order listed and use the Fruit/Nut bread cycle with a medium crust setting.

2010-12-31T18:51:00.004-06:00

Welcoming 2011

My preferred champagne has gone up to $40 for a small bottle, so this year I'm trying one from Spain, Segura Viudas Aria Estate Brut Cava, which was only $15 and supposedly fits my request for something bone dry and not very fruity. Plus, I have FIREWORKS! I haven't shot off fireworks in... it's been so long I don't remember. And I had no idea fireworks were so cheap. That little group in the picture there cost less than $20. Woo-hoo! I'm so excited that I'm not sure I can wait the five hours until midnight. I just might have to celebrate early.

Post-midnight update:

I was able to make it until midnight and our little group of revelers toasted the New Year right on time. Ah, good times, good friends & neighbors and good sparkling wine. T'was an excellent way to kick off the new calendar year.

2010-12-21T09:00:00.000-06:00

It's an extra coffee morning

I had a great time last night, despite the cloud cover that moved in and prevented me from watching the eclipse. It was so nice and warm outside - 65 degrees - that I stayed up way past midnight enjoying the outdoors and my rockin' mini-bonfire. I bought a bag of mesquite chunks that turned out to be regular firewood cut into 4 to 6 inch long pieces. That allowed me to have the fun of an actual log fire, instead of just burning some wood chunks. And well, campfires are a bit addictive for me so I stayed up later than I should have because I kept saying, "Just one more log on the fire and then I'll go to bed." Then again, if I had been able to see the eclipse, I probably would have stayed up even later than that so I guess in a way, I came out ahead sleep-wise. Anyway, I need to sign off now and go make another pot of coffee here at work. Apparently I'm not the only one needing a few extra cups this morning.

2010-12-20T10:20:00.002-06:00

Lunar Eclipse and Winter Solstice!

I've very excited about this and while I can't stay up the whole night to watch the whole event, I'm hoping I can at least stay up long enough to watch it start. It might be too cloudy to actually see the eclipse, but I'm going to give it a shot. I used to have a tradition of lighting a fire on Winter Solstice and although that's technically tomorrow night, I'm going to light the fire tonight instead. The fire won't be a real campfire because the the RV park doesn't allow ground fires, but I plan to burn wood chunks in my BBQ grill and that will be close enough.

I've always considered the Solstice to be the real start of the new year, not January 1st, and I think it's pretty awesome that I have a lunar eclipse marking the start of the first year of my new life. I don't have any idea what my future holds or where this new year is going to take me, but I'm sure it will be quite the adventure. Life always is. And while the future is uncertain, I do know what I'm doing tonight: cooking something on the grill, drinking some beers, setting up my outdoor Xmas lights, listening to good music, watching the flames of the fire flicker and the moon disappear for a bit. I might even see some meteors from the Ursids meteor shower while I'm at it. I couldn't ask for a better start to a new year! Cheers!

2010-12-10T13:00:00.001-06:00

Epiphany

I woke up this morning and discovered that the imaginary light bulb above my head had gone off during the night. The chaos and confusion was gone and suddenly it all made sense. This is a very good thing, but the timing sucked. Instead of being able to get a firm hold on my revelation, I had to get ready for work, drive to work and then, of course, start working. I know I can't reasonably expect an epiphany to only occur on a Saturday morning when I have nothing else to do, but come on "powers that be", can't you give a girl a break once and a while?

Now here it is lunch time, a mere 8 hours later, and I finally have time to write it down so I don't forget, but it's already too fuzzy. Sigh. Next time, maybe I should just be late for work.

2010-12-08T19:03:00.008-06:00

Fail

I got to thinking about my current situation and decided that since I've basically had a mid-life crisis foisted upon me, that I might as well try to act like I'm having one. But I don't really want a red sports car. Well, I don't want the car payment part of it because that would take all the fun out of a bitching new Camaro. I could take a lover since apparently there's something about being married, but separated that is attractive to men. I've had quite a few offers, but it just hasn't appealed to me. When the right guy comes along, that may be a different story, but I have no desire to go out and look for him.

And although people say this is the perfect time to rediscover yourself or to find yourself, I was never lost. There are also no burning desires or dreams that I put on hold just because I was married. Sure, there are things I'd like to do or learn how to do, but those are more along the lines of deciding what to have for dinner. Learn German, jam out to Heavy Metal or read a book? Soup, salad or chicken-fried steak? Same sort of thing.

With one exception, the things I feel passionate about are still in my life . I guess you can't have a mid-life crisis unless it's the real thing and a plain old, run of the mill crisis just isn't the same. Shrug.

2010-12-05T02:23:00.002-06:00

Bridges on Fire

Will they burn to the ground? I don't know. I haven't posted much here about the turmoil in my personal life, but it's been a matter of trying to stay on the best side of things as possible. I've given it my best shot and done all I can possibly do, but I've reached the point where I have to concede defeat. I'm worn out and tired of the struggle. The foot that's been trying to hold the door open on my marriage is battered, bruised and bloody from having the door slammed on it repeatedly and it needs a break. Time to let the door shut. It might open again later, but for now, time to rest and recuperate.

2010-12-02T07:14:00.003-06:00

No voice, no work

Hah, I woke up this morning with laryngitis. I thought it was just a sore throat until I tried to tell my dog to chill out because he needed his morning walk before I was even out of bed. If I didn't have a dog to talk to, I probably wouldn't have even noticed that I had no voice until I got to work. So thank you, Theo, for having to go outside so badly this morning that you saved me a pointless 30 mile trip.

I don't feel sick, other than the sore throat, so it's pretty ironic that I ended up with a day off work on a day where I'd really rather be there earning some money. Most mornings, I'd like nothing more than to to go back to bed for some extra sleep, but not today as I got plenty of sleep last night and I'm wide awake. Oh well, I've been needing to do some serious housecleaning and it looks like this is the perfect opportunity. It may even get warm enough this afternoon to open up all the windows and air the place out. And if the internet connection holds, I might even catch up on that month's worth of email.

2010-12-01T20:47:00.003-06:00

Still kicking

Haven't had internet access at home for a long time and there's been no chance to sneak in a post while at work. There was a time when not having internet access would have disturbed me greatly, but I find it only mildly annoying these days. I particularly miss being able to check the weather. I suppose I could hook up the TV to the free cable and watch the weather channel, but then I'd have to endure commercials and a lot of talking head jabber just to find out half of what I could get in seconds on the internet.

These days it's cold and dark when I get home from work and after I've tended to the dog and we've both had dinner, all I want to do is curl up under the covers with a good book. Even a bad book will do and I'm headed off to bed with one tonight that will, no doubt, have me asleep in minutes. I suppose instead I should take advantage of this sudden, unexpected wireless signal, but sleep is a more appealing notion at the moment than slogging through three to four weeks of unread email.

2010-11-05T23:00:00.003-05:00

Blink; it's Friday again!
Another week has flown by and with the weather turning colder and windy, I've had a couple of nights of hibernating in my RV which has been wonderful. However today, I decided that I'd had enough of the indoor life and since there was no blustery north wind to contend with, I spent the evening outside grilling sausage and hanging out until temperatures dipped into the low 40's. At that point it was time to go inside and crank up the electric heaters in preparation for the freeze warning tonight. My electric heaters can only raise the temp inside the RV about 20 degrees so I'm in for a bit of a chilly sleep tonight, but I've got warm clothes, good blankets and a big ol' dog that's willing to share body heat when it's cold. I could wimp out and use the propane furnace, but I'm trying to spare myself the expense. For someone who hates to be cold, this is a challenge. Right now, it's a still a balmy 60 degrees inside, but that's going to drop as the night goes on. I'm hoping that later on I will be sleeping, snug as a bug under the covers and not notice.

Something cool happened this week. I'd had a couple of invitations to go camping lately and had been thinking about getting the gear again to be able to do that, but I've hadn't had the extra money to actually buy anything. Then this week an old friend of mine, who I haven't talked to in about 12 years, sent me a message that he still had the camping stuff I'd loaned him and he wanted to give it back. I had completely forgotten about that; this was camping gear that I had before Rob and I got married and one of the few things I took with me when I divorced my first husband. Since Rob had his own camping gear, I didn't mind loaning mine out at the time and promptly forgot that it ever existed. Well, here I am years later wishing for camping stuff and suddenly camping gear appears. I'd say that was a pretty good sign that I should take up my old camping hobby again, eh? It is, after all, one of my favorite things to do and at this point in my life, there's no reason not to take it up again. Theo is a grumpy old dog, but I can board him if it's a group event or take him with me if I'm going solo. Despite protests from the peanut gallery, I used to go camping by myself all the time and never had a problem, even solo without a dog for "protection". In fact, it's probably a good deal safer than an evening out on Sixth Street in Austin and in my option, a hell of a lot more fun (though to each his own.)

Speaking of Theo, he's currently informing me that it's past bedtime and we should go get under the covers before it gets much colder in here. And I agree; see y'all later.

2010-10-29T08:15:00.003-05:00

Happy Halloween!

Yes, it's a few days early, but at work we are celebrating it today since no one will be here on Sunday. The employees have been decorating the office for weeks (I have a fake spiderweb tent over my cubical) and today even more decorations have been put up. Most of the staff are in costume and we are having a big potluck lunch. Ah, it so nice to work for a company that allows a little bit of fun in the workplace.

Time has really flown by this week and it seems like only yesterday it was Monday morning and I was groaning about long it was going to take to get to Friday. Maybe I'll remember this current time warp feeling next Monday when I'm sure I'll be groaning about it again, but I have no idea what's responsible for this perception. My weekdays are very routine and there's not much time for anything other than work and household chores and that sort of routine usually makes the days drag by instead of speeding rapidly along.

There's that old saying that time flies when you are having fun so I suppose I could be having more fun these days than I realize. It's not something I've thought about before now, but things are certainly better today than they were six months ago when I was unemployed, heartbroken and about to be homeless. Those were some really tough times and so yes, I would have to say that life is definitely more fun now than it was at that time. Perhaps it's all relative to where one has been and time will start to slow down again when this current routine gets to be old hat. Well, to quote another old saying, "Time will tell."

2010-10-27T08:29:00.002-05:00

Cornucopia

A cornucopia is the sort of decorative item you might see around this time of year for the Thanksgiving holiday. I apparently have acquired an invisible small one because I've had all sorts of unexpected gifts appear this last week or so. I've received a free BBQ grill, four free outdoor solar powered landscaping lights, three free t-shirts, six free dinners, one free lunch and lots of free beer. I've even received unexpected money. Yesterday I found out that I'm getting a small hourly raise at work and then later in the day, I found two $1 bills. Pretty cool, eh?

2010-10-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

RV living

This week has flown by! It continues to be very busy at work despite being "off-season" and the weather has been beautiful so it seems that everyone at the RV park is outside and visiting in the evenings. I escaped socialization only one night this week because I locked myself in my RV and didn't dare stick my head out so I could finish reading a book. Once the weather turns colder, we will probably all stay inside and then perhaps I will have plenty of time to play computer games, read books and be a hermit. For now though, this seems to be the time when everyone wants to be outside and visit with their neighbors and it seems I can't walk to the dumpster without being called over for a chat or two or three along the way.

The RV park where I stay is not a resort park or a vacation spot so it tends to attract long-term residents. Some are full-timers who live in their RV year-round, others are folks that are staying in their RV for many months while their new house is being built and a few are there because it's more convenient and cheaper than staying a hotel during long-term medical treatment in the Austin area. Most people stay at least a month or two and many residents have been there for over five years.

I expected to encounter predominately retired folks in an RV park, but a large number of the park residents are my age and are still working full-time. Some of these workers are "travelers" who work on long-term construction projects and move on once those are finished, but others have regular full-time jobs in the Austin area. There are even a couple of college students and people in their late 20's/early 30's who have discovered that living in an RV suits them better than renting an apartment. The one thing you don't see much of is people with children and that suits me just fine. It's not that I hate kids, but they are not always well behaved and I don't miss one bit the brats down the street from my old house that used to scream at the top of their lungs on a regular basis.

People live in everything from tiny campers to large "park models" which have up to 400 square feet of living space. There are a few million dollar diesel pusher motorhomes, but there are also a few well-maintained older travel trailers that might be worth $2000 on a good day. There's plenty of diversity here and a surprising sense of community that I thought I would be missing once I no longer lived in a traditional neighborhood. In fact, I've gotten to know more of my neighbors at the RV park in just 4 months than I ever got to know in my old neighborhood where I lived for 15 years.

I'm content so far with my decision to buy the RV and I suspect I'm much happier here than I would be in an apartment. My long term goal was to eventually buy some land and a mobile home, but I may rethink that and work towards buying larger RV in a few years instead. Either way, my current RV should provide me with some trade-in value at that time and so I'll come out further ahead than if I had rented an apartment for a few years. Of course, there's no telling what the future will hold; I could win the lottery and that would probably change a few plans.

2010-10-18T10:04:00.004-05:00

This is so cool!

Click on the link below to read the article and see the video:

A father and son send an iPhone into space using a weather balloon

2010-10-17T20:32:00.002-05:00

Perfect weather

We've had daytime highs in the mid-80's and night-time lows in the low-60's these last few days and that is exactly my cup of tea. I wish it could be like this all year long. If anyone knows of a place with similar year-round weather that is not California or Hawaii, let me know!

I ended up not driving out to Cedar Creek today since Z had to drive into Austin to help his cousin and it made more sense to grill burgers here at the RV park instead since it's only 10 minutes away from his cousin's house. And man, it sure was nice to chat with him in person. It's been a long time since we've actually seen each other and while we've kept in touch by phone and instant messaging, it's just not the same as having a face to face conversation. Technology is definitely better than nothing, but I don't see how it could ever completely replace physical interaction. Although I could see where a really good holographic system might come close. Ah well, maybe in my next lifetime...

2010-10-16T00:02:00.004-05:00

Woof! It's bedtime!

Heh, Theo is barking at me, annoyed that I haven't come to bed yet and after midnight it is late for me to be up, but hot damn, I have internet access! One of the RV spaces between me and the wireless source is vacant at the moment so I've actually got a pretty stable connection right now. I don't have it in me to stay up all night surfing the web and I really can't do that anyway since I'm going to another car show tomorrow, though I don't have to get up near as early as I did last weekend for the other car show. After the show, I'm meeting another friend for beers and conversation in the evening and then on Sunday I'll be making a drive to visit with my friend Z out in Cedar Creek who I haven't seen in a couple of years. It's all gonna be fun, but I gotta wonder what happened to quiet weekends at home? I kind of expected that I'd be having a lot of those now that I'm "single", but it hasn't happened yet.

Pictures from today's car show. Too bad my camera only holds 5 pictures or I would have taken more. Need to buy a memory card one of these days.

2010-10-15T09:28:00.002-05:00

Feels cold to me...

Last night the temperature got down to the mid-40s which is not really all that cold, but it sure feels cold after a daytime high in the mid-80s. My RV has insulation, but it also has a lot of windows, more than most trailers it's size, and two uninsulated doors so it gets chilly inside in a hurry. I remember back in the 70s during the fuel crisis there was a saying "Conservate at 68" which has stuck in my mind, probably because of the discussion of whether conservate was or was not an actual word. But anyway, I decided to give that a try since 68 degrees seems like a balmy temperature. However, I have discovered that while it's plenty warm for sleeping and hanging around the RV, it is definitely not warm enough for my morning shower. Even cranking up the heater to 74 degrees wasn't warm enough and who knows how much propane I burned this morning while getting the entire RV up to that temperature.

I've been looking for an electric heater to use just in the bathroom, but it needs to be a very small size and most importantly, low wattage. It's really hard to find anything under 1500 watts which is way too much amperage to be pulling through my RV wiring and most of the "personal" size heaters are so cheaply made that I'd be afraid to use them. After some research on the internet, I think I may have found one made by a company with a good reputation that might work in my tiny bathroom, but I'm not confident enough to order it on-line. Of course, I can get the dimensions off the internet and measure, but it's not the same as actually seeing a product and holding it in your hands. So it looks like I'm going heater shopping even though I hate shopping in stores. But I hate it far less than I hate feeling that cold air after stepping out of the shower in the mornings.

2010-10-12T10:25:00.006-05:00

Checking in

It's been almost a month since I last posted and although things have been rather tumultuous, overall I've been doing okay. I rarely have internet access at home so I have to rely on getting a break in activity at work to hammer out a post and there haven't been many of those in the last three weeks or so. That is good news though because it means there was enough business for the company to hire me on as a regular employee after my temporary contract ended last week. I also got to keep my M-F, 8am-5pm schedule. The only downside is the long commute and spending two hours every day in traffic. It might be time to start thinking about getting a new car and I really like the new Camaro. I think I may go visit a car lot this weekend and take a closer look at one. I have no idea how I would be able to afford one, but it never hurts to dream.

2010-09-16T08:34:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday to me

Yesterday was my birthday. I've never minded getting older and for me, birthdays are just an excuse to have an extra good time that day. I usually don't buy myself anything for my birthday, but this year I made an exception. I decided to buy myself a Kindle because now that I'm reading books again, I've rediscovered just how fast I devour books. I bought a paperback on Sunday to read while I was at the laundromat and two hours later it was finished. That brought the total number of books that I read in a week to six. Five of those I will want to read again later, but I don't have room in my RV to keep a bunch of books so I ended up giving some of them to my neighbor. I got to thinking about the Kindle and the other variations of the same thing and decided something like that was a perfect fit for someone who lives in a small space, but loves books. It was a bit more money than I usually spend on myself and not a very practical expense at a time when I should be pinching pennies, but what the hell - who wants to be practical on their birthday?

I know it won't be the same as having a real book in my hand and I much prefer reading off paper instead of a computer screen, but I'm very excited at the thought of eventually having hundreds of my favorite books right at my fingertips. I guess it will be much the same as my migration from albums to MP3s. I still think the music sounds better off an LP, but it's very nice to have the convenience of all my music in easily accessed MP3 files and it's definitely the better music storage solution for RV living. I suspect the same will be true for books.

I wonder what's next? Digital clothing? I'd love to have shirts that could change color or design. That way you could have five physical shirts in the closet, but hundreds of choices. Hopefully someone is working on that right now and it will be in the stores soon so I can also solve my lack of closet space problem.

2010-09-03T21:59:00.004-05:00

A Texas Swing evening

My trailer repairs were finished today, but when I got home I found it was not put back where it was before they hauled it off to the shop. They did at least get it in the correct lot, but it's way too far back on the pad. And, I hate to admit this, but it's also crooked and I know that's going to drive me crazy. I was a little bit annoyed. Well, let's be truthful - I was very annoyed. They didn't even hook up the electric back up so the trailer was hot as hell inside. Could I live with it where it was? Nope. So that meant not setting it back up - no lowering the stabilizer jacks, unpacking breakables out of cabinets and drawers, and no picking stuff up off the floor since I was going to want it moved at least five feet forward. In other words, everything I had planned to do tonight if the trailer work was finished was not going to happen so that left my evening free and unscheduled. And for reasons too complex to explain here, I had a craving for an old fashioned honky-tonk. But a DWI is not something I want to experience and I have no idea if there's cab service or even an old-fashion honky-tonk around here. But I had cold beer in the fridge and a Texas Swing station already created on Pandora that would play the perfect music. And there was a cool breeze blowing outside so I cranked up the computer speakers and left the door open on the RV so I could hear it. My neighbor on the door side of my RV was gone so I could play it plenty loud and I kicked back in my lawn chair under the stars and found myself sitting in a great honky-tonk beer garden. It was a very nice couple of hours thanks to Shiner Bock, Pandora and the beautiful weather. Oh, and thanks to the stars as well - nice to be able to see so many more out here where I'm a tad bit more in the country than I used to be.

2010-09-02T18:33:00.005-05:00

A funny thing happened last night

I took the last of the "stuff" that was getting stored over a friend's basement. I pulled into the driveway on the side of the house, a dirt driveway that I had never used before, parked and unloaded the stuff. I stayed for a short visit which was long enough for it to get dark outside so when I backed up out of the driveway in the pitch black darkness, I didn't realize I was backing up too far to the right and headed for a retainer wall that I hadn't noticed when I pulled in. Instead, I thought I was just backing up down the gentle slope to the street until... oops! Yep, the right rear wheel went over the retainer wall and the frame came to rest squarely on the wall leaving the wheel spinning freely in the air. Now I do have an SUV, but it's not four wheel drive so I definitely wasn't going anywhere. After surveying the situation I realized I probably wasn't going to have any success getting someone to pull me off of that with a pickup truck so I bit the bullet and called a wrecker to come winch me off the wall.

This event was funny for several reasons. First of all, it just IS funny - I mean, this is the sort of stupid thing that, when you see people do it, you just can't help but laugh. After all, there was no harm done - no one got hurt, not even the SUV. For the second reason, I had unexpectedly received $80 not two hours before this and guess what? The wrecker fee was $85. It was as if the universe knew I was going to pull some bonehead stunt later that day and made sure I had the cash on hand so I could just laugh about it and still get home before midnight. The third thing that makes this so funny is that I have had nightmares off and on about this exact sort of thing happening ever since I started driving a car. And of course, this was nothing like the nightmares - just a bit of a bump, the realization of what I had done and a good chuckle over it.

Hmm... I wonder if this means another recurring nightmare is about to be retired?

2010-09-01T17:15:00.001-05:00

Countdown to a holiday weekend

I pretty much have no internet access at home these days and I've been way too busy at work to squeeze in a post. But being busy at work is good since it increases my chance of keeping this job past October when business slows down, however, I'm definitely ready for a break. Well, I've got one on the way since Monday is a holiday and for the first time in many, many years I will not have to work on the Labor Day holiday. In addition, I'll be spending the holiday weekend away from home which is also something I have not done in many, many years. My RV will be in the shop for repairs so I'm going to be staying with friends at a vacation cabin on a lake where I plan to do a lot of beer drinking, napping and book reading. There's no internet access or even cell phone access out there so it will definitely be a bit of "digital downtime" and that's going to be a welcome relief after these months working back at a call center. And there's just two more days of work to go...

2010-08-21T10:19:00.004-05:00

Each night my prayer is that I can get out of bed in the morning.

Posting has been sparse because I usually do not have an Internet connection at the RV and work has been far too busy for me to sneak in a post from there. We still have an Internet connection here at the house, but when I'm here I'm busy working on clearing out the house. Spending most of my time bent over at the waist sorting stuff and carrying boxes/trash bags has not been good on my back. And I wish someone had not taken off with the portable table that I put outside, piled up with "free stuff", but I guess they assumed the table was free as well since I forgot to put on the sign "Please do not take table!" Oh well, one less thing to have to get rid of, but I was using that table to sort things standing up instead of bent over.

Anyway, I am taking a short break right now to rehydrate since there is no A/C in the back room that I'm working on and it's very hot today (and has been all week since it's August in Texas.) Oh, and to rest my foot a bit because to add insult to injury, something stung my foot yesterday as I was carting a bag of trash across the yard. Probably a wasp or a scorpion, although the amount of swelling had me looking for fang marks (there weren't any.) That's two freak accidents that have prevented me from busting ass as much as I need to at the house. I guess I didn't blog about the other one, but two weeks ago I got smashed by a couch and twisted my neck and back and bruised a rib and I'm still recovering from that. But whether I'm battered, bruised or stung, the work must be done and it must be done by tomorrow evening. So I'd better get back at it!

2010-08-16T22:02:00.001-05:00

A perfect fit & what a storm!

I was wondering where I was going to put the dog food in the RV, but found this cabinet was a perfect fit. I was planning on a quiet evening alone at home, but Mother Nature threw a major wrench in those plans. I had stopped by Charles & Sheree's place to chat with the group of neighbors gathered there when one of those sudden Central Texas thunderstorms blew in with driving rain, high winds and lots of lightening. We all scurried inside their RV expecting it to blow over quickly, but it didn't. And so an impromptu dinner party ensued. Food was rescued off the grill and finished off on the stove, margaritas and beer appeared and a good time was had by all for the several hours we were trapped in the RV. By 9:30 PM the storm had passed and I was able to head home safely and determine that Theo and my own RV had weathered it well. And now I'm off to bed because I've gotta go sell lawn mower parts in the morning :)

2010-08-16T09:48:00.003-05:00

The fat lady has not sung yet

Rob had plans other than working at the house this weekend and so arranged for us to have a more time on clearing out the house. I did, however, manage to get quite a bit done over there on Sunday. I would have accomplished even more if it hadn't been so damn hot. Hopefully next weekend the heat will not be quite so oppressive and we can "get 'er done." I suppose there's never a good time to move out of a house, but doing it during the hottest month of the year is just nuts.

It is taking Theo awhile to adjust to RV life. I'm sure that some of it is due to being without the girl dogs since Irene had been his constant companion for all these years. There was a bit more howling and some barking this weekend, but I don't think it's going to disturb the neighbors. Today is his first day at the RV by himself for an 11 hour stretch while I am at work and I'm hoping he does okay. The 11 hour stretch is not a problem, he's used to that, but alone in a strange place... well, I'm hoping it doesn't feel quite so strange to him now that he's spent the whole weekend there.

2010-08-12T21:45:00.002-05:00

Theo's first night at the RV

The RV finally got moved and the steps finally got built so I brought Theo out to the RV tonight. He's been pretty freaked out so far. Every time I take him outside he heads straight for the car and gives me a look that plainly says, "Take me home!" Poor old man, I think he may be the worst affected by selling the house. I've stepped outside without him a few times, leaving him alone in the RV, and have heard him do something he never does - howl. And what a mournful howl it is. Hopefully he won't do that all day tomorrow while I'm at work. And hopefully I can work and not spend my whole day worrying about him.

2010-08-07T12:32:00.002-05:00

One week left...

One week left to get everything out of the house. I should be busting my ass right now instead of blogging, but I'm too exhausted. Last week was a real pain in the ass for a variety of reasons. I suppose the most irritating was that they were supposed to move my RV to another spot on Tuesday. So Monday night, I put everything on the floor, disconnected my hookups (except for the electricity) and put in the slide. But the people in that spot paid for another day so I didn't move on Tuesday. Which meant that when I got home I had to set everything back up again for the evening and then put it all back in the morning. However, on Wednesday, the people paid for another day again. Rinse and repeat for the entire damn week, including last night. I have decided that if they do not move today, then I'm just going to stay put. It would be nicer for Theo to be in that other spot, but it is not worth this aggravation.

There was one really cool thing that happened last week. There was an oriental style rug at work that I had admired and had thought at one point that I might get something just like it for my trailer to cover up the mauve carpet. Then one day last week I walked into the office and noticed it rolled up and sitting on a table with a note that said, "Want me? Take me!" And so I did. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this rug, no rips or stains and it has virtually no wear on it at all. I have no idea why someone would give it away. But it's pretty damn awesome that I was thinking about getting rug for the trailer and wanting one similar to this exact rug when it suddenly became mine for free! How cool is that?

2010-07-27T18:34:00.002-05:00

The heat is on

Have been working over at the house this evening and the sweat is just pouring off of me. The window units keep the house comfortable enough in this hot weather if you are just sitting around, but I've been hauling trash and packing boxes. The dogs were very happy to see me and they kept knocking each other out of the way to get as close as possible to me - it was an ever shifting kaleidoscope of dogs. Unfortunately the house smells of dog poop because apparently the dog's digestive systems are having to adjust to this new food. I had eight piles of diarrhea to clean up - yuck! I am also filthy having moved a lot of dusty stuff and that sweat is now turning it to mud. But we are running out of time to get stuff out of the house so I'm trying to get as much done as possible in the evenings this week even if it means being sweaty and stinky and running a bit short on sleep. I'll have to just keep reminding myself of that old saying, "I'll sleep when I'm dead." And stock up on coffee.

2010-07-26T22:10:00.002-05:00

I need more sleep
I haven't gone to sleep before midnight for four nights and a row and I'm determined to hit the hay early tonight. Despite being rather sleep deprived, I did manage to get some stuff done today including buying the lumber I need to build the steps for Theo. And I gotta say that was the best shopping experience I have ever had at a Home Depot. I didn't catch the employee's name, but he was friendly, courteous and helpful which is a rare experience in any store these days.

In other news, I finally bought an electric skillet this weekend. I was trying to find an 8" or 10" so it would fit in my tiny sink, but the smallest I could find was an 11". I used it to make squash casserole this weekend and quickly learned that it draws a fair amount of amps when it popped the RV park circuit breaker outside. I only have 30 amps total for the trailer and the A/C consumes a big chunk of that so summer will always be a bit of a juggling act.

Well, my eyes are closing at this point. Even with hitting the bed early, I suspect the alarm is still going to go off way sooner than my liking tomorrow morning.

2010-07-25T08:59:00.005-05:00

Another week flies by

A couple of weeks ago my computer's on board graphics card decided to go on the fritz. Sometimes it would work, but only at a non-native resolution for my monitor. By Monday of last week it was down for the count. I had been wanting to put a better graphics card in this computer since I bought it many years ago, but never could bring myself to spend the money for something that wasn't necessary. And now it was necessary, though definitely not in the budget. I had enough money in the bank to buy one, but that would leave me pretty much broke until payday (Friday of next week.) I struggled with that for a few days, but finally decided to spend the money. My computer is one of those "luxuries" that I do not want to do without!

And so, having purchased and installed a new graphics card, I was looking forward to spending some time this weekend playing one of my favorite games, Eve Online, which has always been difficult to play with my on board graphics card. Alas, it was not to be. Instead of gaming on Friday and Saturday night, I had unexpected company on both nights and ended up socializing until midnight. I was planning on being a hermit computer nerd this weekend and things went in a completely different direction, but that's okay - I had a great time and gaming can wait.

I brought Theo out to the trailer yesterday to see if he could manage the steps. I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be able to get up them and I was right. I ended up lifting him into the trailer so he could at least check it out for a bit. He was already freaked out by the road trip out here and trying to get up the steps freaked him out a bit more. And then lifting him up into the trailer freaked him out too, so his first visit here wasn't exactly pleasant for him.

Here's a picture of him where you can tell he was none too happy with the situation. I hung out with him at the trailer for only a short while because I could tell he really wanted to just get back "home". We'll have to build either stairs or a ramp that he can manage and do that very soon. He's going to need time to adjust and we only have three weeks left of him being able to stay at the house. Hopefully we'll have something built by this next weekend and he can spend Friday or Saturday night out here.

2010-07-17T23:47:00.004-05:00

Much more comfortable computing

I found a computer desk on Craigslist for $25 that not only fit in the Rodeo, but also fit through the RV door without having to take it all apart.

Before & After:

The window valences are a bit in the way, but I haven't figured out how to take them off yet.

2010-07-14T18:39:00.007-05:00

The house is officially sold & the RV is almost paid off
We finally closed on the house today, three weeks later than planned, but at least we still get 30 days from today to get everything out of the place. All the debt has been paid off except for the $7000 we've borrowed from my parents over the years, but at least that's an interest free, "pay when you can" loan. I also still owe about $700 on the RV, but I'll have that paid off in 30 days so I feel like I can now start on my RV redecorating plan.

First thing to go is going to be the couch/sleeper sofa and the table and chairs which I will put into storage in case I decide to trade the RV in later on. I never use the uncomfortable couch, other than to temporary hold my groceries when I come back from the grocery store, and the table is currently being used as a computer desk. With those two items gone, that should give me enough space to put in a comfy chair & ottoman, a small desk and a small table for two that can double as counter space (I currently have no counter space which makes meal preparation a real pain in the ass.) I also have eight window valences, some curtains and a bedspread to replace. That will get rid of most of the mauve and teal. I'll still have the floral wallpaper in the bathroom and on 1/2 of a kitchen wall, but I can live with that. Then there is the mauve carpet, but I can cover the living room carpet with throw rugs to disguise that and I'll just pretend that the carpet in the bedroom is brown (there's not much of it that can be seen anyway.) I haven't decided on a style yet, but I'll be on such a limited budget that it's probably going to be bohemian or hippy-chic and look similar to my friend Chris C.'s garage apartment back in 1978. Hmm... do they still make bean bag chairs?

2010-07-11T21:45:00.002-05:00

RV-ing
I went out to my RV this afternoon to do a couple of weekly maintenance tasks. It felt so nice out there that I decided to hang out for a while since I always feel like I'm on vacation when I'm out there. And what better reward for all my hard work this weekend than to spend some time feeling relaxed and comfortable! There have been days this week when I wondered if I made the wrong decision in buying the RV rather than trying harder to find a place to rent, but all those doubts vanished once I got back out there.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I thought my wish to by an RV one day was always in the context of doing it with Rob, but my friend Tracy reminded me how I used to talk long ago about buying a used bread truck (aka step-van) and turning it into an RV. I had completely forgotten about that. Then I also remembered that back when I was very young, I would fantasize about having an Air-stream trailer someday so I could just easily move to a new town every year or so. This was back when I was planning on being a writer and that just seemed like the perfect lifestyle for a novelist since you would be regularly exposed to new locations and new characters. And so while it seemed at the time that buying the RV was something completely unexpected and out of the blue, perhaps it wasn't really that way after all.

2010-07-11T00:00:00.002-05:00

Bit by Bit
I've been staying at the house this week with the idea of getting some stuff cleaned out and I've made a little bit of progress, but not as much as I'd like. There's just not much time to get anything done during the week after work. But now it's the weekend and I made a big push today on the bedroom and I'm currently blogging at midnight instead of sleeping because I have the bed all apart while I clean out from underneath it. The dogs are not happy since they want to curl up on the bed and go to sleep, but the bed is not there and that's causing much confusion. But it will all be back together soon enough and then I can sleep knowing that at least one room is cleaned out of everything but the bare essentials for daily living - just the bed, dresser, and alarm clock.

2010-07-04T08:09:00.004-05:00

Being Flexible
Now that I've pretty much settled into my RV, it's time to switch back to staying at the house for a few weeks to give Rob that same opportunity to settle into his new apartment before the house is gone. This will also give me time during the week in the evenings to work on clearing stuff out of the house, something I can't do if I'm staying out at the RV. I spent Saturday running errands and was finally able to get a PO Box out in Buda (there's been a wait list for weeks.) I also had to get another new tire for the Rodeo since the right rear tire started acting up on my way back from Buda. I guess it decided that it didn't want to wait until we closed on the house either. Damn tires. But since I now had good tires all the way around on the vehicle, I was able to drive out past McDade Saturday evening to visit with an old friend and finally see the house that she built several years ago. McDade is not that far away, about an hour's drive, but without a reliable vehicle it might as well have been on the moon and I had never seen her new place. We had a nice visit, but had to make it a short one because I knew I had an hour drive home. And on the way home I was thinking that so many of my friends live north... maybe I'll move my RV up that way if my temp job down south doesn't become permanent. I always swore I'd never live in North Austin or north of Austin, but perhaps it's time to stop limiting myself in so many areas of my life, including where I live. Time to be a bit more flexible...

2010-06-24T18:43:00.004-05:00

Serendipity
I had a flat tire yesterday, one big blowout of a flat where the tire literally comes apart. The flat in itself is not remarkable considering the tires on the Rodeo are ancient and need to be replaced. I was waiting until we closed on the house to do that, but the left rear tire decided it didn't want to wait and had to give up the ghost last night. But what was remarkable was how and where it happened. It did not happen while I was driving 60 MPH down Hwy 290. Instead, it popped while I was stopped at a traffic light. Yes, I was completely stopped and not moving and therefore I avoided the risk of rolling the car over on it's roof which sometimes happens with Rodeos when they blow a tire. And it also just happened to occur right next to a very wide median that I could hop on which would provide a perfectly safe place to change a tire. Except that I had no spare tire with me. It was in the carport at Garden Villa and as far as I knew, it was not a usable tire. And all the tire stores I knew of closed at 5:30 or 6:00 pm and here it was already 5:45 pm and I was a long way from any of them. So I called Rob (who was still in North Austin) and asked him to swing by the house and pick up the old spare and bring it to me because maybe, just maybe, we had pulled it off due to a slow leak and it might at least get me to the house. In the meantime, I figured I'd walk over to Wal-Mart and wander around in the air conditioning because damn, it was hot yesterday. On my walk to Wal-mart I looked up and saw that there a tire place in the same shopping center. I figured they were either closed or closing soon, but I might be able to at least find out how much a new tire was going to cost. So I walked over there and discovered they were open until 7:00 pm! That meant I had time for Rob to get there with the spare and I could just get a new tire put on that rim. One small problem though - we had no money for a new tire. However, the tire store just happened to be close enough to my parent's house that my dad could get there in time and front me the money for the new tire. Which is exactly what happened. Rob brought the rim, dad paid for the tire and then Rob, bless him, changed the flat for me. If that tire had gone flat at any other place at any other time, there's no way I could have had a new tire on the car and been back on the road the same night. Simply amazing.

2010-06-20T20:45:00.000-05:00

Plodding along
I've been spending about 1/2 my time at the trailer and the other half at the house. There is much stuff that Rob and I need to go through, but we have not made much progress on that yet. We also did not close on the house on Friday as planned and that's put a bit of a wrench in things, but hopefully it will get worked out next week. There's only a month left to get everything out of the house, but we have to wait on the money from closing before we can get a storage space so it's gonna be one hell of a crazy ride to get everything done once we do finally close.

The new job has been going well. Right now it is very easy work, but it will get a little more challenging in the next week or so as I take on more duties. I work with a great bunch of people and that's really the most important part of it. Monday and Tuesday are very, very busy days and I've learned it's not a good idea to plan any evening activities for those days - best to just drive home and collapse on the couch. Things do slow down the rest of the week and it doesn't seem like this is going to be one of those call center jobs where I'm left incapable of doing anything in the evenings all week long. And well, you can just imagine how excited I am that I don't have to work weekends!

I have learned a thing or two this week about living in an RV trailer. For one, no matter how long I spray the top of my head with the shower, I cannot get my brand of cream rinse out of my hair. There's just not enough water pressure. And I've learned that if you have an RV propane stove, you really need a good set of pots and pans because you can't get a good big flame and the cheap ones just won't distribute the heat. But I'll be buying an electric skillet instead of expensive pots and pans because electricity is included in my lot rent, but propane I have to pay for out of my pocket. The less I use the stove, the more money I save.

In other news, the old hot-rod crowd I used to run with over 20 years ago now meets up in a parking lot on Saturday nights very close to where my RV trailer is parked. I wandered over there this weekend and saw some folks I haven't seen in a very long time. I haven't sat around and talked about engines and camshafts and nitrous and rear end gears in ages and it was fun to dip my toes into that again. I can't say that I'll be building a race car again any time soon, but the thought did cross my mind. Who knows what my future will bring from this point?

2010-06-10T07:48:00.000-05:00

Lots of changes
There has been much going on that Rob and I have not blogged about, but the basics are that we are splitting up and going off in different directions. It wasn't my choice, but that's the way it is and I will just have to make the best of it.

The house has been sold and in five weeks, I will officially no longer live in South Austin for the first time in my entire life. I had an impossible time finding a rental since I've only had part-time income for the last year, plus I have dogs. Finding a new place to live wasn't working out very well and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I mentioned to my parents at one point that I thought I might have to just buy a used RV to live in and what a crazy idea that was! Well, my parents owned an RV for many, many years and it turns out that they didn't think it was such a crazy idea at all. In fact, they liked the idea so much that they went out looking for one. I didn't know they were doing this until they called me to say they had found a great deal on a gently used RV and asked me to come take a look at it, which I did.

Now Rob and I had talked about doing this same thing one day, selling the house and buying an RV, but for me that dream had always been in the context of our relationship. I'd never really considered it in any other way (or so I thought at the time, more on that in a later post.) So there I was on the sales lot with only a couple of hours to make a decision about this crazy idea. I puttered around the trailer a bit - stood in the shower, laid on the bed, pretended to cook in the kitchen, etc. and started weighing the pros and the cons. But there was just too much to sort out in such a short period of time so I stopped trying to do that and instead, I took a look at how my gut instincts felt about the whole idea. I was surprised to discover that I didn't have any strong feelings one way or the other. This was real different from how I'd felt when looking at the few rentals where I might have been able to get approved. That was always a "No, don't do it," feeling. But while there wasn't a "No" feeling, there also wasn't a feeling of "Yes, this is the way to go." either. It felt more like... well, like I was deciding what to have for breakfast or what to wear to work. How odd. I considered this to be a major, life changing decision and yet it didn't "feel" anything like that at all. And I thought to myself, "If it doesn't matter one way or the other, why not go for it?" So I did and became the owner of a 2001 Sunnybrook Mobile Scout FSK 27 foot travel trailer.

2010-06-04T18:54:00.002-05:00

WHAT A LONG , STRANGE TRIP IT'S BEEN

I know I haven't posted here in a very long time (damn you facebook!) and I will not be a contributor to depthmarker from this day forward.
If you wanna you can find me at FullMetalJackass
If you don't wanna , then so long.
it's been fun.

2010-06-01T23:29:00.002-05:00

Full-time employment, here I come
I have a new job, but it's not just any job. There's a business that I've had my eye on since about 2006 and when I saw the job opening posted on craigslist, I jumped at the chance to apply and wrote the longest cover letter I've ever written in my life in the hope of at least landing an interview. It worked. I got the first interview and then made it to the second interview and now I'm hired. Although I'm only hired as a temporary seasonal employee, there is a possibility to stay on full-time since one of the temps will be moved into a permanent position in October. That person might be me, or it might someone else, but either way, I'm thrilled to work there even if it's just for a short time.

I love my other part-time job, but unfortunately it has to go. I can't do both due to commute time involved with the new job and given that the part-time job is currently only paying about $50/week with no guarantee of an increase in income any time soon... well, time to resign. It was fun and I lost a lot of weight doing it, but I can't live on $50/week.

2010-05-27T22:12:00.003-05:00

Yea!
I had a job interview today. I interviewed with three people at the company and it went very well. I don't know if it went well enough for me to get the job, but I was pleased with my interviews. I would very much like to work for this company and I hope they would like me to work for them. I'll just have to wait and see... I should know something no later than the end of next week...

2010-05-24T07:15:00.007-05:00

Whack a Weed
Our lawn guy has pulled another disappearing act. That's something he can get away with in the middle of summer, but at this time of year the weeds actually grow like weeds. Several of them are almost as tall as I am. We have no lawn mower because they keep getting stolen and it's been cheaper to pay someone else to do the lawn than to keep buying another mower every time one disappears. Oddly enough, nothing else ever seems to disappear out of our carport, back yard or front porch (we've stored the lawn mowers in all three places.) In fact, there is a DVD player on the front porch that has been there for months and it's a lot easier to cart off than a lawn mower, yet it remains undisturbed.

Anyway, since we have no lawn mower and our lawn guy is in absentia, I have decided that today I will attack the front yard with the weed eater. I once had a neighbor that mowed his entire front lawn ever week with a weed eater so I know it can be done. I'm sure I will not be able to do it with the skill of said neighbor who was somehow able to achieve a perfectly cut St. Augustine lawn. Now I've only used a weed eater a couple of times in my life so I have no idea how he was able to cut every blade at an equal and precise height, but with our lawn o' weeds, precision doesn't matter. Even if I cut large areas down to the dirt, which I am likely to do because I am extremely unskilled with a weed eater, then the weeds will just fill back in, probably overnight. If I manage to pull this off today then I will have Rob take pictures of the aftermath when he gets home tonight and we can all have a good laugh.

Update: I only got half done this morning before it got too hot and steamy. I was going to do the other half tonight, but I have a job interview and assessment test to take - woohoo!

2010-05-20T05:51:00.005-05:00

A tip of my hat to Cobblestone Mills and Flowers Bakeries
Good customer service seems to be a rare thing these days so I'm pleased to share this example of it. I posted the other day that I found a loaf of Rye bread inside a package labeled Sourdough. I didn't mention the brand name in my post, but I did email the company and let them know what happened. It's a pretty big operation, with distribution in 29 states, and while I was hoping for a response, I didn't really expect anything other than a form letter. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to get an actual phone call. That's right, a real live person called me from the local area bakery to offer an apology and they also spent a good 15 minutes on the phone with me to make sure I remained a happy and satisfied customer. Yes, they are sending me coupons, but the personal touch of that phone call is what made the difference between my possibly never buying that brand again and being a regular customer. Good job!

2010-05-18T20:41:00.004-05:00

NWM's bad boss series

NON-WORKINGMONKEY

This short film is simply brilliant!

2010-05-16T11:04:00.006-05:00

An unexpected sandwich
I bought a loaf of Sourdough bread yesterday and set out to make myself a grilled turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch. Except when I opened the package I found a loaf of Jewish Rye inside instead of the Sourdough I was craving. I generally don't like Rye bread, but I was hungry and didn't want to go back to the grocery store so I grilled my sandwich on Rye instead. It actually wasn't too bad; either I've never had "Jewish" Rye bread before or my tastes have changed as I've grown older. I wonder if anyone else got a surprise in their bread package or if this was just some odd way of circumstances conspiring to get me to try something new? Or perhaps it was a reminder of Warren Zevon's advice to "Enjoy every sandwich."

2010-05-08T20:18:00.002-05:00

Decisions, decisions
I'm currently faced wtih a variety of major life changing decisions, none of which I'm comfortable blogging about at the moment so instead I offer this less monumental one - should I pay $30 for a pair of 34 inch waist jeans that fits or just keep sinching the belt on the 36 inch pair that I have until I get down to a 32?

2010-05-01T08:37:00.003-05:00

Stuck at 180 with a smaller rack
Back in November, I posted that my weight was down to 175 pounds. I didn't realize our old scale was off by 5 pounds so I was actually at 180 pounds at that time. Today finds me still at 180 pounds, but I have been losing inches during this time. Lots of them. It's a mystery how I can lose so many inches and still be the same weight. I know people will say, "Muscle weighs more than fat," but I haven't gained any muscle that I can see. Instead, I've lost 4 bra sizes, 2 pants sizes and 1 shirt size. And why is it the weight always comes off the boobs first?

2010-04-26T19:32:00.001-05:00

A WALK WITH THE DOGS AT DAWN

was very nice...Layla just walked into this shot.

2010-04-26T15:38:00.004-05:00

A quick story
Between my current "heavy workload" at my job and all the other stuff going on around here I haven't gotten around to blogging, but I did want to share something nifty that happened the other night. I had gone to Artz Rib House to pick up some BBQ for dinner and while I was waiting for my food I was able to enjoy some of the live music there. I don't remember who the group was, but it was three ladies singing and a gentleman playing an upright bass. They were singing old standards (and I mean OLD standards) and I thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if they sang Goodnight Irene while I was here?" The current song ended and one of the ladies said, "We have a special person here tonight and she's requested a song. We don't don't really know it, but we are going to do it anyway." And damn if they didn't play Goodnight Irene! I don't know who the special person was that requested it (it sure wasn't me,) but it was pretty amazing to have a wish granted like that.

2010-04-07T08:38:00.008-05:00

The change in EFT
EFT - Electronic Funds Transfer. I started paying my bills by EFT many years ago after an experience I had with a credit card company. Back then I paid everything via check and postal mail like most people, but the credit card company kept insisting that my payments sent by snail mail were late which allowed them to increase my interest rate and charge me some ridiculous late fee every month. The postal service had it's issues, but I seriously doubt it was taking more than two weeks every month to get my payment to a location that was only two states away. Once I started using EFT, I loved it and started using it for any bill that I could - no stamps, no checks, no driving to the post office and best of all, no waiting weeks for a check to clear. If a bill was due on the 3rd of the month, the money came out of my account on the 3rd of the month. Nice and simple. Until recently. These days I can no longer go by the due date on my bills. For example, I have a cell phone bill that is due on the 3rd of the month, but the money will come out of my bank account about a week before on a date that varies from month to month. It might be the 28th. Or it might be the 29th. Or maybe even the 25th. I find this highly annoying and would like to know who the hell is getting the use of my money for 5 or more days of "processing time". One of the involved parties, either the bank or the billing company is getting interest on that money for those extra 5 days or so. It's irritating even though it's not costing me, personally, a lot of money - after all, it's not like I'm earning very much interest in 5 days on $100. But back in the days of paper checks, the "processing time" was on the billing company side. The more efficient they were at "processing" payments, the faster they got their money. Under this new way of handling EFT, I'm the one paying for their processing time. I don't like it. I think I may go back to paying my bills in person. With cash. Except some places won't accept cash anymore. And that's another thing that really annoys me, but I'll have to save that rant for another day - time to go to work so I can make my electronic bank balance bigger next week with my electronically transferred paycheck.

2010-04-06T20:05:00.003-05:00

Woo-hoo!
Yes, I'm excited. At this moment, some things in my life are actually going quite well. Specifically, tonight, I'm excited about things that are job related. I have the opportunity to get more hours at the job I love. In order to do this, I should quit the other job because there are only so many hours in a week and I can't realistically do both for more than a week or two without collapsing from complete exhaustion. However, the hours at the job that I love are not guaranteed to be permanent and I felt that it was too risky to just quit the other job with no notice and burn bridges so I was going to attempt to some how, some way, juggle the two for a while. The problem with that scenario (aside from complete exhaustion) is that I have to do the extra hours at the job that I love and do them well in order to get those hours on a permanent basis. And I realized that might be a bit hard to do while juggling the other job, but I was going to do my best. Ah, but then the other job that I don't like as much changed dramatically which caused me to have get trained on something new and as it turned out, that made it the perfect time to resign with no notice needed and no bridges burned. And so it all worked out that I could comfortably accept the extra hours at the job that I love and painlessly exit the other job. Pretty awesome.

2010-04-04T09:07:00.004-05:00

I THINK I REALLY MUST BE GETTING OLD

Once upon a time there was this little baby girl that I could almost fit in my hand.And then suddenly she was a bright little girl , full of energy and filled with the imagination of a child.And then she was a teenager...and dark days would follow.
I was there for most of it...the good and the bad , and even though she wasn't really mine I felt I owned her , she was my kid.
and yesterday my girl got married...a beautiful thing. And I remember thinking how lucky I was to experience this twice. First time around was my son , another dark story with a bright finish and a brilliant future. Two happy endings for very important people in my life.
You could feel the love in the air...
And I spoke out to them (you know, pass the mic around and say goofy things during the reception) and I don't remember exactly what I said but it wasn't because I was out of my mind...well I was, but I was out of my mind with joy for her and her man.I remember saying at the end "Richard , you scored".not exactly genius , but right on the money.
I miss that energetic little girl and that sullen teenager...they are memories from long ago left in the back of my head.And they had to scoot in for a new memory , a glimpse of a new life starting to happen.

And I smiled to myself and said yeah , a reason for being.

2010-04-03T07:49:00.004-05:00

Two jobs, sort of...
I have two jobs; both are part time with varying hours and days. One of them had a sudden increase in work this last month and I have been running myself ragged to keep up. The other job has been very slow and I'm only working about 10 hours a week there right now, but I still have to get ready, log in and hope I get cut early at that one so I can get the extra work done at the other one before midnight. Having two jobs with varying schedules and hours requires a bit more coordination than I expected. I've worked two jobs before, but they were both set days and hours; this is something very different. And although it's sometimes a challenge to coordinate the two, I find that I like it better than the old 8 to 5, M-F routine where nothing ever changes.

2010-03-27T08:42:00.002-05:00

BEING WELL GROOMED IS AN ASSET

When I was a kid , there was this old man who drove a beater station wagon and lived near me in the hills and made his living selling eggs from his chickens.He had a bumper sticker on the back of that wagon that is the title of this post.He hated that the boys of my generation wore their hair long , pierced ears mortified him ... he was old school.
I used to hitch hike a lot (because I was too cool to ride the bus) , and sometimes he would drive past my outstretched thumb like I wasn't there and on the days he was inspired he would pick me up and try to convince me to change my heathen ways.
His wagon reeked of chickens and dirt , the odor of a poultry farm ...he was a nice enough old man , he just didn't cotton to us hippies.
The first few rides he lectured me on the virtues of being well groomed ... and I would shoot back my opinion on that subject and after a while we would just talk about "stuff".
I remember him because in retrospect I think maybe he picked me up because he wanted to understand and connect with a generation that was obviously alien to him and beyond his grasp. I don't think he ever understood , but he tried and we connected on some level ...
And after a time I didn't see that old station wagon on Bee Caves road anymore and it made me sad ... he was gone.
But the memory remains 35 years down the road and I think I understand that old man and his bumper sticker now , being well groomed is an asset. But it's more a state of mind than a standard of hygiene.

2010-03-24T23:43:00.002-05:00

STORIES ABOUT BEING 'FACED

Way...and I mean WAY back in the day some friend's of mine were visiting from Colorado for the pecan street festival here and we had consumed mushrooms , weed , alcohol and we were basically trippin' balls when one of my friends busted out some ginseng extract. evil energy in a little glass vial.
We were eating pizza at the time and laughing so hard...I shot one down and then had to have another.And then it was technicolor yawn time...instantly...I jumped from my chair and made a break for the half bathroom...as soon as I ran into the laundry room I was Linda Blair in the exorcist and projectile vomited the entire contents of my gut on the washer and dryer...the walls... the doorway to the half bath...the walls...the toilet seat...the sink...it was everywhere.and then I was done.
I stood there for a minute and started laughing again...looking at the pizza / frozen marg /stems of mushrooms / and the black satan that is ginseng extract. I made everyone come and look at it...at that moment it was some mad art.
After some teasing with my then girl about who was gonna clean it up , I cleaned it up.
We then attempted a game of darts in the back yard but ended up throwing a claw hammer at a tree branch...with the goal of hanging the hammer claw side in to the tree.
One of my friends broke his wristwatch , which was exceedingly funny under the circumstances.
We lived in a duplex and the back yards were separated by a chain link fence covered in vines...an adult brother and sister lived next door and I was loudly talking about my imagined incestuous relationship they were having to my friends..."Oh...no doubt...they are fucking each other BIGTIME..all the time".
Turned out the brother was sitting on his patio and heard every word
not to mention witnessing our kill the tree with the claw hammer game.
At some point my girl herded us back inside.
One of my prouder moments.
Not really...but when you are young and crazy...damn.
The memories.
:)

2010-03-22T06:41:00.003-05:00

Better
That last post was pretty negative, but no doubt it was due to the fact that I was physically exhausted, grumpy, and very sleep-deprived. I managed to get a bit more sleep/rest this weekend with a bit of fun thrown in and that makes for a better outlook at this moment. It's not that the situation has changed much, it's just that it all looks better from a more rested perspective. That said, it's gonna be another hell of a work week, much worse than last week, but I'm optimistic that I'll have a better handle on things this go around.

2010-03-18T11:56:00.006-05:00

Interesting times
Juggling two jobs has proved challenging. It's not the number of hours worked so much as it is the coordination of the work hours between the two. And even that wouldn't have been a problem if my scanning job workload hadn't suddenly and unexpectedly tripled. I'm grateful for the extra hours, but it's caused me to end up with no days off for the next several weeks. Ah well, it's only temporary and I'll muddle through somehow.

In other news, the call center where I work has decided to start doing random drug testing. I wouldn't have any problem passing the piss test since I don't use any illegal drugs, but it's bothersome to me as a matter of principle. People sometimes wonder why I'm so against drug testing since I don't smoke pot or do any other illegal drugs, but to me it's an invasion of my privacy and what I do on my personal time is none of my employer's business. Ah well, drug testing by employers is so commonplace these days it's probably getting hard to find a company that doesn't do it. This will be the first time I've ever worked for a company that did drug testing and while I don't like it, I need the money too much to quit. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be sacrificing health, happiness and now principles for the sake of earning $8 an hour. Fuck this economy - someone send me a winning lotto ticket!

2010-03-14T10:52:00.001-05:00

SOMETIMES IT'S THE SMALL STUFF THAT COUNTS THE MOST

The look on Layla's face just kills me...so very sweet and full of wonder / mischief.

2010-03-12T18:05:00.002-06:00

F*CK IT

Have you ever just come to the conclusion that everyone and everything is completely and totally full of shit? For example...I used to be very political , hopefully so , advocating for change and to throw the bastards out and recently it occured to me that they are all bastards and it doesn't matter really how many you toss, another bastard will take their place...doesn't matter what party...they are all the suck.
The right wing pundits are all spewing hate and vitriol non stop...such blatant complete horse shit and the sheeple eat it up allowing themselves to be whipped into a frenzy by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh and their minions in the press / media.
There are local radio personalities I would love to meet in a dark alley with a sock full of wood screws...they make me angry...no , they fucking enrage me...they make me want to shit in my hands and rub it in my hair (sgt. sam I'm talking to you). Nothing but hate and prejudice veiled in the soft false horse shit of what passes for christianity in their twisted distorted view of the terrain we are currently deployed on.
So I decided to tune them out and focus on my little microcosm of that same terrain.
Instead of talk radio in the truck between pools it's music...Slayer , Ministry , Melvins , loud and angry...but the difference is it makes me smile rather than want to drive into a ravine.
This hope and change thing has disintegrated into the same old song and dance...what a bunch of fuck ups...pandering to the same special interests only in a different , yet somehow similarly slimy way.
I have adopted a new perspective...and it boils down to this : I'm fucked , you're fucked , we are all fucked , so leave me the fuck alone while I try to navigate the mess that my life is and somehow stumble through it and (hopefully) the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train bearing down on me.
There is no more sense of community anymore...only cliques of people intent on slandering and defeating other cliques of people with a different ( and oddly, completely full of shit) agenda that has nothing to do with the fundamentals of being in this world.
"why can't we all get along"? is a fucking joke...it's just Rodney King being a titty baby after he got his ass kicked for being a baghead...nobody wants to "get along"...they just want to get over.
As much as I've tried to not draw a line in the sand...here is my line. Clear...defined...don't fuck with me.
You will be sorry if you do.

2010-03-08T09:28:00.002-06:00

Plastic Easter
One of my jobs involves seeing which products are on the shelves at grocery and drug stores. Every week I check the seasonal aisles and when I started back in October it was the Halloween candy that was stocked on those aisles. I was pretty amazed at the amount of plastic that was going to be handed out since half the candy seemed to be in some sort of plastic container. Some examples would be a couple of pieces of candy in a hand-sized plastic pumpkin or some M&Ms in a plastic tube with a plastic character on top. This kind of packaging held constant over Christmas and Valentine's day, but Easter has taken it to new heights. I assume this is because hiding plastic eggs in the backyard now takes preference over the old-fashioned hard-boiled kind. But this goes beyond the old empty plastic eggs that you filled up with candy out of a bag and then reused those same plastic eggs from year to year. No, these egg shaped plastic containers already have candy in them and don't appear to be reusable. Buy a bucket of them, throw them out in the yard and you are done. Perhaps it's convenient, but all that plastic seems so wasteful and unnecessary. Is a plastic egg really more fun to find than a hard boiled one?

2010-03-03T16:19:00.003-06:00

Printing, Don't Shoot!
I've been really busy lately and neglecting the blog, but decided to do a quick post to share with you something funny that happens here at our house. Our printer is located right by the front door and when it starts to print, it sounds just like someone trying to open the door when it's locked. After a couple of times of freaking Rob out late at night, I realized that I needed to warn him when I was about to print, something along the lines of yelling "Fore" in golf. And my phrase of choice is... "Printing, Don't Shoot!"

2010-02-22T16:00:00.002-06:00

THE FUN JUST NEVER STOPS

Just as my foot issue was getting better my knee blew up last thursday to thrice it's normal size.I have been in constant pain for what seems like an eternity , but let me tell you , the foot drop thing pales in comparison to the pain in my knee.They fixed me up at urgent care on saturday and gave me a script for vicodin and naproxin.
By fixed me up I mean they aspirated 60 cc's of fluid from my knee with the biggest needle / syringe combo I have ever seen.
yesterday I spent time with an old friend and he gave me a cane to assist my walking , which was a very thoughtful and kind thing for him to do.
Annabelle has taken very good care of me as well. And the dogs have been very protective and concerned.
While it's been a trauma , it's comforting to have so many friends and family backing me up and supporting *sometimes literally* me.

2010-02-20T19:36:00.003-06:00

Not my typical Saturday morning
I spent this morning sitting in the waiting room at the Victory Medical Center due to this:

That picture of Rob's knee is from yesterday - it was much worse this morning. He has either acute patellar tendonitis or bursitis of the knee. The doctor aspirated 60 ccs of blood and prescribed Naproxyn for the inflammation and Hydrocodone for the pain. Hopefully tomorrow he will be able to hobble about with less difficulty.

This was a four hour long ordeal due to the nature of the walk-in situation - no appointment and we had to wait for a doctor to become available. And on a Saturday no less. But folks, I'd so rather spend four hours here than at a hospital's emergency room any day and besides, previous experience has shown that the wait at the ER would have been much longer. Here you have comfy couches and chairs plus a very nice coffee shop. And it's much, much cheaper than the ER, with or without insurance. Total out of pocket expense for the visit plus prescriptions was $40 (with insurance.) But all of the credit for making this experience better than the usual misery one gets in these circumstances goes to the clinic. And Rob says to add that "Jim was awesome!" That's Jim Howard for anyone local that is looking for a new doctor.

2010-02-19T21:28:00.002-06:00

Fifteen plus years of software...
Today I dismantled and flattened over fifteen years worth of boxes of computer software. Over the years I had saved every box that every piece of software originally came in. From computer games to programing languages, the box that once contained the CD (or floppies in the case of older stuff) was stored away on shelves in a closet. I also had some stored in large boxes - yes, I had boxes full of boxes! It took me a good part of the day to break all those boxes down, make sure there wasn't any non-recyclable material in them and squish them flat. After I was done, the pile of flattened boxes, cardboard inserts and user manuals was about three feet high!

The pack rat part of me was sad to see them go. The practical part of me is happy that a large amount of useless clutter now resides in the recycling bin.

2010-02-18T07:11:00.004-06:00

A computer keyboard for those of us from the old school?
I've been typing for a long time. I learned how to type on a scaled down portable manual typewriter when I was about 5 years old. I used that typewriter for many years, then moved to a full-size manual once my hands grew large enough. Eventually my mother went electric with her typewriters, but I never liked them much. And when I entered the workplace where they were also using electric typewriters, I wasn't too impressed with any of those until I had the opportunity to type on an IBM Selectric. That machine was a typist's dream come true until, of course, computers replaced them all.

Not surprisingly, IBM's first computers came with a keyboard that had a similar touch and feel to the Selectric and while it wasn't quite the same, it was still pretty enjoyable to use. Maybe the "quiet touch" revolution put an end to all that or true touch typists fell by the wayside or died off. I'm not sure what happened, but it seems that keyboards just gradually became worse and worse over the years. I certainly have hated every one that I have bought recently and the one I have right now has got to go. I did a little internet research and I think I have found my next keyboard purchase. A little company in Lexington, KY still makes the original style IBM computer keyboards. Yes, complete with the spring technology that makes a click when you press a key like the old Selectric (or you can get a quiet touch version.) Check it out at Unicomp's online store.

2010-02-16T10:17:00.003-06:00

Back to the call center
Yep, it's true; I am going back to work for my old employer in a couple of weeks. There are quite a few advantages to this particular job over anything else I might do at this time. There's the flexible scheduling and the weekend workhours that dovetail perfectly with my other job that I love, but doesn't pay enough to meet my needs. It's a job that is not only familiar, but is also is something that I do very well and that greatly reduces the amount of stress I would feel from having a new second job. I still have friends that work there and if I decide I want to work from home again, then I can do so. But regardless of any pros or cons that I might weigh, mostly it was that the decision to do this just felt right. There is this "knowing" that this is the right job for right now. It may not be the right job six months from now, but for this exact moment in time, it's the right job. And I'm not even thinking about it as a "job", but as as tool that will allow me to accomplish some other things I want in my life. That's a real different attitude than I usually have about a job so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

2010-02-07T20:36:00.002-06:00

Don't judge a book by it's cover
I'm a redhead, but not a natural one. I was born blond and stayed that way until a good chunk of my hair turned grey in my mid-twenties. The grey happened practically overnight, after a particularly grueling work project that had me working 18+ hours days for about a month. Yes folks, stress really can give you grey hair.

So I did what most women in their mid-twenties would do if they suddenly had grey hair; I had my hairdresser dye it back to blond. I did this for a few years until she suggested I go red instead of blond since it would match my skin tone better. I thought, what the heck, it's the same price so why not give it a try? And she was right, it did match my skin tone better than the blond. So much so, that people have a hard time believing me when I tell them I'm not a natural redhead and that I don't have a drop of Irish blood.

Anyway, I spent one half of my life dealing with the assumption that I was a dumb blonde and the other half dealing with the assumption that because I have red hair, I have a temper. And quite frankly, if people are going to assume anything, I would prefer they assume I have a temper.

2010-02-02T21:39:00.004-06:00

I drink a beer unlike any beer I've ever tasted before
I was at the Flying Saucer tonight with my friend working toward my plate on the wall when the waitress suggested I try a certain beer. I'm all for trying a new beer so I went for it. I took the first sip of it and thought, "This is beer?" It was sweet, very sweet, but also sour and just sour enough that I didn't mind the sweetness so much. And what a nose, though I'm not so sure nose applies to beer so much as wine, but in this case, this beer was extremely fragrant and had a hell of a nose. I'm thinking at this point that it was the sort of beer I might have for dessert and would probably only ever want to drink just one. Then about half way through the glass, it's starting to grow on me and I can see myself drinking more than one, maybe two. By the bottom of the glass, I had decided that it was damn tasty, and could probably drink quite a few of them. However, I did not order another one or two or three since I was driving home later and it's a pretty expensive beer and out of my price range for more than just one. Still, I enjoyed it and will add it to my list of luxuries to have one I've won the lottery.

Here's the information on the beer from the print out that the waitress handed to me that I couldn't read at the time without my glasses:

Deuchesse de Bourgogne (BTL); Flemish Sour Belgium
Clear tawny reddish-brown with a sedate tan head. Sourish malty nose with a medium smooth body. Hits your tongue with a quick sweet and sour flavor. Very candylike. Smoothly transitions and leaves your mouth with a fruity syrupy flavor that hangs around for the next sip.

It's an odd beer (to me, anyway) and probably not the last odd beer I'm going to be tasting at the Saucer. I'm looking foward to the next odd find there.