We were out wandering around a week or so ago, looking for something else when we happened across one of those Hostess Bake Shop clearance places. There was one of these near where I grew up and I remember my parents buying car-loads of Wonder bread for something like 20 loaves for $1, then carrying sandwiches made with freezer-burnt bread until Thanksgiving when whatever was left got made into stuffing. Mmmmm. Good times.
Anyway, we're both big fans of Banana Flips (yea, yea; just stuff it, will ya?) and we hadn't been able to find them for several years. So we head in and no Banana Flips. We asked at the counter and were informed that Hostess had discontinued Banana Flips about three years ago. What?!?!? Holy crap! I must have stood there with my mouth hanging open for a full minute. How could a company that continues to make those disgusting, pink, coconut-covered balls of glop discontinue the very food of the gods? I don't think I said anything for the rest of the day other than mumbling "What in the.... How in the.... Who in the.... WHY!!"
Anyway.
Hurricane Isaac completely missed us. It rained for three days straight and we've had some wind gusts that were barely strong enough to ring our largest Arcosanti bell. The highlight was a flood warning that came over the Emergency Broadcast System for some minor little creek. (Most likely a man-made drainage ditch dug by some developer literally selling swamp land in some real estate scam, but I digress.) As always, these things break into the TV show right at the most critical point of the whole thing. So we're squinting at the TV trying to read lips while this guy drones on about how many feet above flood stage this immaterial body of water is. Then he goes on some tangent about "normal" flood stage vs. some other kind of flood stage. Then he launches into the entire flooding history of this creek, yapping on about how many feet above flood stage it was in 1957. Dude! You're not on some frackin' PBS special! Shut! the Hell! Up!
So that was the extent of our suffering and drama related to Hurricane Isaac.
It does look like Isaac is going to test whether anyone in Louisiana learned anything from Katrina. Isaac seems to have stalled just off-shore and is beating the living crap out of the coastline. We'll see now if any of the federal tax dollars that were supposed to repair and improve the levees actually did any good, or if it all ended up in Swiss bank accounts like most of the pre-Katrina levee money.
We're still in various stages of unpacking and trying to unload furniture on Craigslist that won't fit in our 600 square feet. Craigslist doesn't seem to work in Florida, likely due to the high percentage of con artists and grifters that live here (approximately 98% of the population). So far we've managed to unload exactly one thing. We'll try some other avenues and we always have Restore if all else fails. At least it won't end up in a landfill. We still need some major plumbing work done and the electrical is becoming critical. We talked to the park manager yesterday about getting our power pole upgraded, but she wouldn't commit to anything definitive other than having "someone look at it." Bottom line, instead of new windows and doors in the Florida room or a bathroom redo, we'll be rewiring and replumbing. woo. hoo.
And I'm still pounding on the new scanner. The hardware seems solid, but the software was written by coked-up chimps on a Friday afternoon. The automatic mode seems to do a decent job, except when it decides that negatives are slides. There is no way to override without going into one of the non-automatic modes (Home, Business, Professional), and at that point, gods help you because not even something as simple as a check box works correctly, and the scan results SUCK. So far, I've been able to work around the glitches, but they seriously slow down the process. I'm still trying to get through 1986. Only about 18 years to go.
Well, back at it.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Neil Armstrong, RIP
The first human to step foot on any planet other than earth is dead. Nothing really to say other than, "Godspeed, Commander Armstrong."
Friday, August 17, 2012
Dealing with Idiots
My life has been reduced to dealing with people who are in obvious need of adult supervision.
Case 1:
A few months ago, we were informed that our check for our gas royalty payments would no longer be coming from the company that had been handling them for the last decade or so. Chevron had taken over everything. Awe crap. We all know what that means.
We filled out the new forms with all our info for taxes and setting up our payments to go directly into our money market account. The last money we were supposed to receive from the old company dropped into a different bank account as it always had. The next payment would be from the new company and would drop into our money market account. A month later, money is deposited into the old account. I call Chevron and ask what's up. "We no pay you money," says the annoying Chinglish voice at the other end. "You check bank; money someting else." I check bank. Money from Chevron. I call Chinglish back. This time her story was, "We Chevron USA; money from Chevron Michigan. We no Chevron Michigan. We Chevron USA." Fine. But if the money is coming from Chevron Michigan, then why in the hell am I talking to you? "Chevron USA pay you from now on." Ah.
Next month, no one pay us money. I call Chevron Michigan. "Sorry. We don't handle disbursements. You need to call Houston. Here's a toll-free number. No one ever answers. Just leave a message. Good luck." Thanks. I call the toll-free number. It rings a dozen times, then a robot comes on the line. "The party you are trying to reach is not answering. Sorry it didn't work out. This call will be disconnected." Click. Dial tone. Sweet Mother of God.
We were leaving for Michigan the next day anyway, so I just threw everything on the pile of crap to deal with later and tried to forget about it. When we got back, one of the pieces of mail waiting for us was an EFT Statement from Chevron USA stating that they had deposited our money into our account. Only there was no money in our account. Now I'm pissed. They screwed up our direct deposit and either our money ended up in someone else's account, or it bounced back and the ass-clowns didn't bother to contact us. I try the toll-free number again and this time get the answering machine. "Leave a message; we'll call you back." I leave a message. No one calls back. Next day, rinse and repeat. All last week, every day, I leave a message and no one calls back. Monday, I start being a smart-ass on the messages, talking like Richard Simmons; "Hi!!! It's your good ol' buddy Richard calling you AGAIN!!!! Here's my account number!!! Here's my phone number!!!! I'd really like to hear from you guys!!! I really do miss you!!! .... Asshats."
Yesterday I finally made contact with Mario, who barely speaks English. It wasn't so much an accent as much as it sounded like he had his mouth full of peanut butter sandwich the entire time he was on the phone. Like it was just too much work to move his lips. He strung out the longest and most incoherent line of corporate bullshit that I have ever heard. "Computer problems blah somthin' working on it blah crap blah accounting blah blah your account shows we owe you money somthin' somethin' blah Friday." So I'll get my money Friday? "Processing on Friday crap blah somethin' not payment blah blah 28th." So I'll get all my money for two months on the 28th? "I'll confirm somthin' blah I'll call you crap blah you can call me anytime." Sure Mario. No problem. Now go drive you're damn cart off the Rainbow Road.
And I don't believe for one minute we'll see anything in our account come the 28th.
Case 2:
Our car insurance is due, so one of the things I did while out-and-about Monday was to stop by AAA and change our address and renew our policy. I checked in at the front desk then took a seat to wait for an agent to be available. I get Mario. No, seriously. You can't make this shit up. Mario is another English-as-a-second-language person, but at least he's been here long enough that I can mostly understand him. I tell him we've moved and we need to renew, so he goes through the entire quoting process which involves 20 minutes of detailed questions that have little or nothing to do with driving or owning a car. Finally it's over and the answer is: our insurance went up nearly $200 from last year to this year mainly because we moved from a high-crime area to a low-crime one. Um... wai... what? One problem is that we don't get the renter's credit because we own the trailer, but we don't get the homeowner's credit because we rent the lot under it. The other is that the insurance company considers old people to be a bigger risk than gangbangers.
OK, Mario. Whatever. Lets do this. I hand over my credit card, Mario does some type-type-type and tells me I'm all set and that my receipt will be e-mailed to me the next day. He could print it out right away, but that would take about 15 minutes. I don't bother to explain that 40 year ago, he could have written out a credit card slip by hand and run it through an impress machine in about 30 seconds. I just accept that millions of dollars of automation has resulted in a situation where I cannot get a credit card receipt in anything less than a quarter hour. Mario stands up. "We're all done here! Thanks for coming in!" Um, where's my policy? Where's my proof of insurance that Florida law says I need in my car? "They'll e-mail it to you! You should have everything tomorrow!"
So I walk out with nothing other than Mario's business card. I just spent $1,200 and have nothing; I couldn't even prove that I was ever in that or any other AAA office on August 13, 2012. You've probably already guessed what comes next. Wednesday morning and no receipt, no contract, no proof of insurance, no nothing other than a $1,200 crater on our credit card. I e-mail Mario telling him I have yet to receive my receipt, and asking if my contract and proof of insurance will be coming via e-mail or USPS, and when I can expect them. E-mail response #1: "I sent it. Check your junk mail." Follow shortly by e-mail response #2: "Travelers will e-mail you a copy of your policy."
Free tip. When I tell you I didn't get your e-mail, assume that something went wrong on your end rather than implying I'm too stupid to have checked my junk mail when I don't get an expected e-mail. It's called customer service, Mario. Of course, no sign of anything in my junk mail either, so I send a response to e-mail #1: Nothing in my junk mail; could you resend it? And a reply to e-mail #2: When? And will it include my proof of insurance? Our current coverage expires in three days. No response to either of those messages. Later Wednesday, Debbie logs into her e-mail account and lo and behold, there is our receipt, contract and proof of insurance in her inbox. I have no idea what sort of automated hell sent everything to her when the only e-mail address I gave them was mine. I'm sure at some point in the last decade we gave them her e-mail address, but why dig that up when all the current forms have mine? I sent another message to Mario saying we found everything in the wrong e-mail account. Mario, the King of Customer Service, never responded to any of my e-mails. Thanks for the giant middle finger, Mario; we'll be sure to keep that in mind next time our insurance is due.
There's oh so much more, but this is already getting long and you get the point. This is what I've been doing all day every day instead of unpacking and figuring out where we're going to put everything.
The one fun bit I've been playing with the last couple days is our new scanner. Debbie needed to be able to scan documents for work. The reason would probably qualify as Idiots Case 3: There are various forms she has to fill out, some of which are PDF's. Some of them can be filled out on the computer, but the dipshits have disabled the save function meaning they can't be attached to an e-mail and sent to the main office. So they have to be printed, then scanned back into a PDF file which can then get sent off to the accounting people. As stupid as that is, the upside is that we now have a scanner. The strange part is that straight-up document scanners start at around $300, while hi-res photo scanners that can also do documents, can be had for less than a hundred bucks. After poking around a bit for reviews and such, we settled on the Epson V330. About the same time the scanner was delivered, I had unearthed all our old photos shot on 35mm film. So I've been using the slick little negative holder thingamabob to scan up to five photos at a shot. Works pretty well and the results look good enough on a computer screen. While I'm sure a professional place could do a much better job (at enormous cost), this works good enough for family reunions, weddings, etc. I may flag the occasional negative for a good scan at some point in the future, but for now, this will do.
And I really need to wrap this up. Later.
Case 1:
A few months ago, we were informed that our check for our gas royalty payments would no longer be coming from the company that had been handling them for the last decade or so. Chevron had taken over everything. Awe crap. We all know what that means.
We filled out the new forms with all our info for taxes and setting up our payments to go directly into our money market account. The last money we were supposed to receive from the old company dropped into a different bank account as it always had. The next payment would be from the new company and would drop into our money market account. A month later, money is deposited into the old account. I call Chevron and ask what's up. "We no pay you money," says the annoying Chinglish voice at the other end. "You check bank; money someting else." I check bank. Money from Chevron. I call Chinglish back. This time her story was, "We Chevron USA; money from Chevron Michigan. We no Chevron Michigan. We Chevron USA." Fine. But if the money is coming from Chevron Michigan, then why in the hell am I talking to you? "Chevron USA pay you from now on." Ah.
Next month, no one pay us money. I call Chevron Michigan. "Sorry. We don't handle disbursements. You need to call Houston. Here's a toll-free number. No one ever answers. Just leave a message. Good luck." Thanks. I call the toll-free number. It rings a dozen times, then a robot comes on the line. "The party you are trying to reach is not answering. Sorry it didn't work out. This call will be disconnected." Click. Dial tone. Sweet Mother of God.
We were leaving for Michigan the next day anyway, so I just threw everything on the pile of crap to deal with later and tried to forget about it. When we got back, one of the pieces of mail waiting for us was an EFT Statement from Chevron USA stating that they had deposited our money into our account. Only there was no money in our account. Now I'm pissed. They screwed up our direct deposit and either our money ended up in someone else's account, or it bounced back and the ass-clowns didn't bother to contact us. I try the toll-free number again and this time get the answering machine. "Leave a message; we'll call you back." I leave a message. No one calls back. Next day, rinse and repeat. All last week, every day, I leave a message and no one calls back. Monday, I start being a smart-ass on the messages, talking like Richard Simmons; "Hi!!! It's your good ol' buddy Richard calling you AGAIN!!!! Here's my account number!!! Here's my phone number!!!! I'd really like to hear from you guys!!! I really do miss you!!! .... Asshats."
Yesterday I finally made contact with Mario, who barely speaks English. It wasn't so much an accent as much as it sounded like he had his mouth full of peanut butter sandwich the entire time he was on the phone. Like it was just too much work to move his lips. He strung out the longest and most incoherent line of corporate bullshit that I have ever heard. "Computer problems blah somthin' working on it blah crap blah accounting blah blah your account shows we owe you money somthin' somethin' blah Friday." So I'll get my money Friday? "Processing on Friday crap blah somethin' not payment blah blah 28th." So I'll get all my money for two months on the 28th? "I'll confirm somthin' blah I'll call you crap blah you can call me anytime." Sure Mario. No problem. Now go drive you're damn cart off the Rainbow Road.
And I don't believe for one minute we'll see anything in our account come the 28th.
Case 2:
Our car insurance is due, so one of the things I did while out-and-about Monday was to stop by AAA and change our address and renew our policy. I checked in at the front desk then took a seat to wait for an agent to be available. I get Mario. No, seriously. You can't make this shit up. Mario is another English-as-a-second-language person, but at least he's been here long enough that I can mostly understand him. I tell him we've moved and we need to renew, so he goes through the entire quoting process which involves 20 minutes of detailed questions that have little or nothing to do with driving or owning a car. Finally it's over and the answer is: our insurance went up nearly $200 from last year to this year mainly because we moved from a high-crime area to a low-crime one. Um... wai... what? One problem is that we don't get the renter's credit because we own the trailer, but we don't get the homeowner's credit because we rent the lot under it. The other is that the insurance company considers old people to be a bigger risk than gangbangers.
OK, Mario. Whatever. Lets do this. I hand over my credit card, Mario does some type-type-type and tells me I'm all set and that my receipt will be e-mailed to me the next day. He could print it out right away, but that would take about 15 minutes. I don't bother to explain that 40 year ago, he could have written out a credit card slip by hand and run it through an impress machine in about 30 seconds. I just accept that millions of dollars of automation has resulted in a situation where I cannot get a credit card receipt in anything less than a quarter hour. Mario stands up. "We're all done here! Thanks for coming in!" Um, where's my policy? Where's my proof of insurance that Florida law says I need in my car? "They'll e-mail it to you! You should have everything tomorrow!"
So I walk out with nothing other than Mario's business card. I just spent $1,200 and have nothing; I couldn't even prove that I was ever in that or any other AAA office on August 13, 2012. You've probably already guessed what comes next. Wednesday morning and no receipt, no contract, no proof of insurance, no nothing other than a $1,200 crater on our credit card. I e-mail Mario telling him I have yet to receive my receipt, and asking if my contract and proof of insurance will be coming via e-mail or USPS, and when I can expect them. E-mail response #1: "I sent it. Check your junk mail." Follow shortly by e-mail response #2: "Travelers will e-mail you a copy of your policy."
Free tip. When I tell you I didn't get your e-mail, assume that something went wrong on your end rather than implying I'm too stupid to have checked my junk mail when I don't get an expected e-mail. It's called customer service, Mario. Of course, no sign of anything in my junk mail either, so I send a response to e-mail #1: Nothing in my junk mail; could you resend it? And a reply to e-mail #2: When? And will it include my proof of insurance? Our current coverage expires in three days. No response to either of those messages. Later Wednesday, Debbie logs into her e-mail account and lo and behold, there is our receipt, contract and proof of insurance in her inbox. I have no idea what sort of automated hell sent everything to her when the only e-mail address I gave them was mine. I'm sure at some point in the last decade we gave them her e-mail address, but why dig that up when all the current forms have mine? I sent another message to Mario saying we found everything in the wrong e-mail account. Mario, the King of Customer Service, never responded to any of my e-mails. Thanks for the giant middle finger, Mario; we'll be sure to keep that in mind next time our insurance is due.
There's oh so much more, but this is already getting long and you get the point. This is what I've been doing all day every day instead of unpacking and figuring out where we're going to put everything.
The one fun bit I've been playing with the last couple days is our new scanner. Debbie needed to be able to scan documents for work. The reason would probably qualify as Idiots Case 3: There are various forms she has to fill out, some of which are PDF's. Some of them can be filled out on the computer, but the dipshits have disabled the save function meaning they can't be attached to an e-mail and sent to the main office. So they have to be printed, then scanned back into a PDF file which can then get sent off to the accounting people. As stupid as that is, the upside is that we now have a scanner. The strange part is that straight-up document scanners start at around $300, while hi-res photo scanners that can also do documents, can be had for less than a hundred bucks. After poking around a bit for reviews and such, we settled on the Epson V330. About the same time the scanner was delivered, I had unearthed all our old photos shot on 35mm film. So I've been using the slick little negative holder thingamabob to scan up to five photos at a shot. Works pretty well and the results look good enough on a computer screen. While I'm sure a professional place could do a much better job (at enormous cost), this works good enough for family reunions, weddings, etc. I may flag the occasional negative for a good scan at some point in the future, but for now, this will do.
And I really need to wrap this up. Later.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Home for a While
We're back in Zephyrhills to stay for at least a few months. Maybe that will give us enough time to empty at least some of these bins filling up the entire Florida room. Yesterday I finally had a few minutes to haul off all the scrap metal that has been piling up with all the renovations we've been doing. Thanks to the metal thieves, that is now a long, drawn-out process. I had to show my photo ID not once but twice, give make/model/year and plate number of my vehicle, be photographed, thumb-printed and have a complete physical description recorded in the scrap company's computer system. All for $10.51 and a tee shirt. Damn metal thieves. I started joking around with the scrap guy about how it was easier to open a new bank account that it was to sell off a few pounds of scrap metal, but it's only funny in a sick sort of way.
Today I had an early appointment for some more lab work for an up-coming doctor visit. I just about screwed the whole thing up royally. See, I still have some lingering doctor appointments and such back in Sanford trying to figure out some weird things that showed up in a couple of my routine blood tests. I'm keeping those appointments because of that whole not-changing-horses-in-midstream thing. But when I made the appointment for the labs, I decided to just use a local Labcorp office instead of driving 100 miles on Death Highway. The problem was that I had completely forgotten that I did that. For the last couple weeks, we've been making all sorts of plans for things that I would be doing this morning while back in Sanford. It finally hit me last night while setting my alarm for 4:30am cussing myself out for making the appointment so fracking early in the morning that my appointment was only 10 minutes from our house. I'm certainly glad I realized that before driving across the state.
Unfortunately, the 10 minute drive turned out to be more adventure that I thought possible due to the World's Worst GPS, otherwise known as a Magellan. I hadn't done a Google map like I usually do because of all the chaos with moving and traveling around the country, but I shouldn't need to: I paid a bunch of money for a crazy lady in a box. I'll use that. I would have had better luck throwing knuckle bones to determine my route. It tells me to make a left turn. I make a left turn. It screams at me to make an immediate U-turn. So I do. The screen literally spins around a full 360 degrees, then takes a full minute to re-orient itself, then crazy lady starts screaming at me to make a U-turn. So I do. More spinning around followed by the little arrow that's supposed to show my location going cross country through some woods. Meanwhile, the crazy lady is screaming at me to make random turns down non-existent roads. I decide that it will be easier to just drive to the general area where I think the place is, then call for directions. But the screen finally catches up to where I am, and after I start screaming back at the crazy lady, she finally shuts up. Maybe now this stupid piece of crap will work? At least the green line looks like it's going where I want it to even though crazy lady is now sulking and fails to verbally inform me of the next two turns. The problem is, the green line doesn't take me to Labcorp, it takes me past their road, then a boulevard left, dumps me in a Bealls parking lot, then out the truck entrance, back across Labcorp's road into their parking lot and finally crazy lady stops sulking long enough to announce that I have arrived at my destination. Good God. At least the blood draw was uneventful, as was the ride home with the crazy lady in a box safely unplugged, turned off, and stuff under all the other useless junk stashed in the Durango's armrest. I'm so glad we have all this technology to make our lives simpler.
Speaking of technology, I'm a little late with this because of all our traveling, but here it is:
The most complex landing ever attempted and it went off without a hitch. Sweet.
Meanwhile, mostly forgotten on another part of Mars, Opportunity continues to collect data and take fantastic photos:
Looks like the ol' girl needs a bit of dusting. But not bad considering she was only supposed to last 90 Martian days and just clocked in day 3,038. I wish I had that good of luck with cars.
In any case, I need to scream at stupid people on the phone, get some furniture on Craigslist and unpack what I can while Debbie is working. And trim the grass. And do some raking. And dumpster more useless crap left here by our predecessor. And... well... yea.
Today I had an early appointment for some more lab work for an up-coming doctor visit. I just about screwed the whole thing up royally. See, I still have some lingering doctor appointments and such back in Sanford trying to figure out some weird things that showed up in a couple of my routine blood tests. I'm keeping those appointments because of that whole not-changing-horses-in-midstream thing. But when I made the appointment for the labs, I decided to just use a local Labcorp office instead of driving 100 miles on Death Highway. The problem was that I had completely forgotten that I did that. For the last couple weeks, we've been making all sorts of plans for things that I would be doing this morning while back in Sanford. It finally hit me last night while setting my alarm for 4:30am cussing myself out for making the appointment so fracking early in the morning that my appointment was only 10 minutes from our house. I'm certainly glad I realized that before driving across the state.
Unfortunately, the 10 minute drive turned out to be more adventure that I thought possible due to the World's Worst GPS, otherwise known as a Magellan. I hadn't done a Google map like I usually do because of all the chaos with moving and traveling around the country, but I shouldn't need to: I paid a bunch of money for a crazy lady in a box. I'll use that. I would have had better luck throwing knuckle bones to determine my route. It tells me to make a left turn. I make a left turn. It screams at me to make an immediate U-turn. So I do. The screen literally spins around a full 360 degrees, then takes a full minute to re-orient itself, then crazy lady starts screaming at me to make a U-turn. So I do. More spinning around followed by the little arrow that's supposed to show my location going cross country through some woods. Meanwhile, the crazy lady is screaming at me to make random turns down non-existent roads. I decide that it will be easier to just drive to the general area where I think the place is, then call for directions. But the screen finally catches up to where I am, and after I start screaming back at the crazy lady, she finally shuts up. Maybe now this stupid piece of crap will work? At least the green line looks like it's going where I want it to even though crazy lady is now sulking and fails to verbally inform me of the next two turns. The problem is, the green line doesn't take me to Labcorp, it takes me past their road, then a boulevard left, dumps me in a Bealls parking lot, then out the truck entrance, back across Labcorp's road into their parking lot and finally crazy lady stops sulking long enough to announce that I have arrived at my destination. Good God. At least the blood draw was uneventful, as was the ride home with the crazy lady in a box safely unplugged, turned off, and stuff under all the other useless junk stashed in the Durango's armrest. I'm so glad we have all this technology to make our lives simpler.
Speaking of technology, I'm a little late with this because of all our traveling, but here it is:
The most complex landing ever attempted and it went off without a hitch. Sweet.
Meanwhile, mostly forgotten on another part of Mars, Opportunity continues to collect data and take fantastic photos:
Looks like the ol' girl needs a bit of dusting. But not bad considering she was only supposed to last 90 Martian days and just clocked in day 3,038. I wish I had that good of luck with cars.
In any case, I need to scream at stupid people on the phone, get some furniture on Craigslist and unpack what I can while Debbie is working. And trim the grass. And do some raking. And dumpster more useless crap left here by our predecessor. And... well... yea.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
We're Here (sort of)
Debbie came and picked me up on Thursday and we made it back to Sanford in one piece (always a doubtful proposition on Death Highway, otherwise known as I-4). I spent Friday tossing everything into bins and doing a deep clean, with a short break to take all the equipment back to Brighthouse and shutting off our account.
[Interesting aside: Even though we have Brighthouse in Zephyrhills, it isn't the same Brighthouse we had in Sanford, so we couldn't use their move-your-service service. We had to get service installed here, then shut off service in Sanford. Because of the whole living-in-two-places-at-once thing, it actually worked out to our advantage, but I thought it rather strange when I called Brighthouse and they couldn't find any trace of our account.]
Saturday, we picked up the truck at 9am, started hauling everything out around 10am, rolled out of Sanford with a full truck by 2pm, made the 2 1/2-hour drive to Zephyrhills and had the truck empty and ready to return by 7pm. Sunday morning, we ditched the truck, drove back to Sanford to finish cleaning and turn in the keys, made it back here and collapsed in front of the TV. Monday morning was all about getting internet access working for both computers, then installing all the hardware and software that Debbie needed to be able to log into work Tuesday morning. We spent the afternoon at the bank, then the DMV to change our addresses, then Staples to buy a good chair and chair mat for Debbie's office. We wanted to pick up a file cabinet, but the Zephyrhills Staples doesn't carry large items in inventory: you pick what you want from the display models, then order it online and have it delivered to your house. Good idea if you don't have a way to transport something like a four-drawer file cabinet, but it means we have to wait a bit for the new file cabinet.
The trailer is completely full of bins and we're not real sure where most of it will end up. The only storage areas and closets we have are full and the entire Florida room is packed with more stuff. Some of the big items will be going on Craigslist later this month, but we simply have no idea where the rest is going to go. One thing is absolutely certain; we are not renting another storage unit. The space we have is the space we have and we need to learn to live in it and stop clinging to things. I know, I know; radical idea for someone living in the biggest hording culture in human history. We'll just have to be freaks.
And to keep from getting bored, we're heading back up to Michigan for the Wiklanski reunion this weekend. It will be a nice break from all things moving and unpacking. The problem is that all the work will still be sitting here when we get back. Ah well.
Another of today's fun little adventures involves trying to get our address updated with all the various places that insist on clogging up our mailbox. You would think that such a simple task wouldn't be that hard. You would of course, be wrong. If I hear one more person tell me that I connected to the wrong department, then either "accidentally" disconnect me when they transfer me, or give me a non-working phone number to call, I'm going to start blowing things up. And don't even get me started on the crappy coding on business and government web sites. These complete morons can't even get the basics right, as in here's a place to type an 8-digit number, but it only accepts five digits. Again, any place I worked back in the bad ol' days of COBOL and 24 lines of 80 green characters on a black screen, putting something like that into production was a firing offense.
Well, I need to get back at it.
[Interesting aside: Even though we have Brighthouse in Zephyrhills, it isn't the same Brighthouse we had in Sanford, so we couldn't use their move-your-service service. We had to get service installed here, then shut off service in Sanford. Because of the whole living-in-two-places-at-once thing, it actually worked out to our advantage, but I thought it rather strange when I called Brighthouse and they couldn't find any trace of our account.]
Saturday, we picked up the truck at 9am, started hauling everything out around 10am, rolled out of Sanford with a full truck by 2pm, made the 2 1/2-hour drive to Zephyrhills and had the truck empty and ready to return by 7pm. Sunday morning, we ditched the truck, drove back to Sanford to finish cleaning and turn in the keys, made it back here and collapsed in front of the TV. Monday morning was all about getting internet access working for both computers, then installing all the hardware and software that Debbie needed to be able to log into work Tuesday morning. We spent the afternoon at the bank, then the DMV to change our addresses, then Staples to buy a good chair and chair mat for Debbie's office. We wanted to pick up a file cabinet, but the Zephyrhills Staples doesn't carry large items in inventory: you pick what you want from the display models, then order it online and have it delivered to your house. Good idea if you don't have a way to transport something like a four-drawer file cabinet, but it means we have to wait a bit for the new file cabinet.
The trailer is completely full of bins and we're not real sure where most of it will end up. The only storage areas and closets we have are full and the entire Florida room is packed with more stuff. Some of the big items will be going on Craigslist later this month, but we simply have no idea where the rest is going to go. One thing is absolutely certain; we are not renting another storage unit. The space we have is the space we have and we need to learn to live in it and stop clinging to things. I know, I know; radical idea for someone living in the biggest hording culture in human history. We'll just have to be freaks.
And to keep from getting bored, we're heading back up to Michigan for the Wiklanski reunion this weekend. It will be a nice break from all things moving and unpacking. The problem is that all the work will still be sitting here when we get back. Ah well.
Another of today's fun little adventures involves trying to get our address updated with all the various places that insist on clogging up our mailbox. You would think that such a simple task wouldn't be that hard. You would of course, be wrong. If I hear one more person tell me that I connected to the wrong department, then either "accidentally" disconnect me when they transfer me, or give me a non-working phone number to call, I'm going to start blowing things up. And don't even get me started on the crappy coding on business and government web sites. These complete morons can't even get the basics right, as in here's a place to type an 8-digit number, but it only accepts five digits. Again, any place I worked back in the bad ol' days of COBOL and 24 lines of 80 green characters on a black screen, putting something like that into production was a firing offense.
Well, I need to get back at it.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Living in the First World
Bahr's Propane came by today, on time and with everything they needed to get all the work done so we would have a functioning range and running hot water. Again, I'm not sure why it's so hard for some people to do that. Anyway, I can at least take a hot shower this afternoon for the first time in a month. In celebration of having a functioning stove, I feasted on Ramen for lunch. It will be a while before I can stomach microwaved food again.
Anyway, that's all I have. Debbie will be picking me up tonight, tomorrow I tear everything down and pack it all up, Saturday morning we go get our truck, load it, and hit the road. We have the truck until Monday morning in case we need to make multiple trips or something goes sideways. With luck, we'll be out of Sanford for good no later than Monday. Woohoo!
We probably won't have time to update anything here until we are fully landed in Zephyrhills.
Anyway, that's all I have. Debbie will be picking me up tonight, tomorrow I tear everything down and pack it all up, Saturday morning we go get our truck, load it, and hit the road. We have the truck until Monday morning in case we need to make multiple trips or something goes sideways. With luck, we'll be out of Sanford for good no later than Monday. Woohoo!
We probably won't have time to update anything here until we are fully landed in Zephyrhills.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Blogging from Zephyrhills
Brighthouse came today, on the day they said they would, on time and with all the equipment and supplies they needed to do the job. One hour later, we have phone service, cable TV and internet, which I am using right now to post this. I could name a number of people who could learn a great deal from Brighthouse Networks. My purpose on this planet is not to spend every day sitting around waiting for people who never show up or call when they say they will.
Debbie drove over Saturday night after work with a load of stuff. The place is really starting to fill up and we don't even have a third of our crap here yet. I'll be calling Restore to pick up another load of left-overs from the previous owners and some of the pieces we've removed that are still in good enough condition that someone can make use of them. That will open up a couple good-sized holes for us to fill back up with bins full of things we have no idea where to put. I'm thinking "landfill" sounds good, but we'll probably try to find new homes for most of it rather than dumpster it.
One thing we had to get done before we moved was to get a hard-wire network connection for Debbie's computer. For poking around on the internet, her laptop's wimpy wireless connection was good enough, but for running a voice and data VPN connection so she can work from home, a 56K network connection just wasn't going to do the trick. I had peeked under the trailer to see just what would be involved in running a wire for its entire width. It was ugly. Seriously ugly. So I picked up a 50-foot fish tape at Lowes, dug out the Ric's Stuff box that has all my network cabling supplies and tackled the job while Debbie was here to be the second pair of hands. It actually went pretty smooth and we were all set in a couple hours. That was the only thing I had on the to-do list for the day, so we made the decision to make a round-trip to Sanford to get our bed.
Our bed doubles as storage, and for the last week or so, we've been kicking stuff from pillar to post here in the trailer that will ultimately be stored under the bed. I made the bed so it breaks down for easy transport, and I thought it all fit in the back of the Durango. I measured how much space we had to make sure. Seven feet. No problem. A queen bed is only like 80 inches, right? A hundred miles later, we discover that either our queen bed is eight feet long, or I need to practice more with a tape measure. So we grabbed a bunch of other stuff instead and headed back to Zephyrhills. We were making pretty good time, until we got to the jackknifed semi blocking all lanes. We were able to get off I-4 and go around the mess without loosing too much time, but it meant that Debbie would have to drive back to Sanford after dark. She finally got home around 9pm after a (thankfully) smooth ride home.
So yea. Not one of our more productive days, but at least at this point, we're about 90% livable. I'm waiting on one more phone call from someone who was supposed to call me Friday and promises on poor ol' Granny's grave that he'll call me today. If I can get his ass out here before Debbie comes to pick me up Thursday night, we can move in and actually be living in a legal residence. How first-world. I'm not holding my breath. But no matter what, we'll be living here by the end of July, even if we have to take our baths in a galvanized tub sitting over a wood fire.
Well, I need to call the Restore people and set up another pickup and set up the truck rental for this weekend. And wait for a phone call, of course. It will be so nice when we get past this.
Debbie drove over Saturday night after work with a load of stuff. The place is really starting to fill up and we don't even have a third of our crap here yet. I'll be calling Restore to pick up another load of left-overs from the previous owners and some of the pieces we've removed that are still in good enough condition that someone can make use of them. That will open up a couple good-sized holes for us to fill back up with bins full of things we have no idea where to put. I'm thinking "landfill" sounds good, but we'll probably try to find new homes for most of it rather than dumpster it.
One thing we had to get done before we moved was to get a hard-wire network connection for Debbie's computer. For poking around on the internet, her laptop's wimpy wireless connection was good enough, but for running a voice and data VPN connection so she can work from home, a 56K network connection just wasn't going to do the trick. I had peeked under the trailer to see just what would be involved in running a wire for its entire width. It was ugly. Seriously ugly. So I picked up a 50-foot fish tape at Lowes, dug out the Ric's Stuff box that has all my network cabling supplies and tackled the job while Debbie was here to be the second pair of hands. It actually went pretty smooth and we were all set in a couple hours. That was the only thing I had on the to-do list for the day, so we made the decision to make a round-trip to Sanford to get our bed.
Our bed doubles as storage, and for the last week or so, we've been kicking stuff from pillar to post here in the trailer that will ultimately be stored under the bed. I made the bed so it breaks down for easy transport, and I thought it all fit in the back of the Durango. I measured how much space we had to make sure. Seven feet. No problem. A queen bed is only like 80 inches, right? A hundred miles later, we discover that either our queen bed is eight feet long, or I need to practice more with a tape measure. So we grabbed a bunch of other stuff instead and headed back to Zephyrhills. We were making pretty good time, until we got to the jackknifed semi blocking all lanes. We were able to get off I-4 and go around the mess without loosing too much time, but it meant that Debbie would have to drive back to Sanford after dark. She finally got home around 9pm after a (thankfully) smooth ride home.
So yea. Not one of our more productive days, but at least at this point, we're about 90% livable. I'm waiting on one more phone call from someone who was supposed to call me Friday and promises on poor ol' Granny's grave that he'll call me today. If I can get his ass out here before Debbie comes to pick me up Thursday night, we can move in and actually be living in a legal residence. How first-world. I'm not holding my breath. But no matter what, we'll be living here by the end of July, even if we have to take our baths in a galvanized tub sitting over a wood fire.
Well, I need to call the Restore people and set up another pickup and set up the truck rental for this weekend. And wait for a phone call, of course. It will be so nice when we get past this.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Quick Post Then On the Road Again
I'm back at the ghetto apartment for less than 48 hours and then it's off again to Michigan for the Vargason Reunion. In some ways, the renovations at the new place are going well. In others, not so great. Anything that we're doing ourselves is fine. The one thing I hired done is, of course, a complete screw-up that has left us with no source of hot water, no oven or stove, no hook-up for the washer, a scratched-up kitchen floor, and two open gas lines under the kitchen counter. It's the house in Alden all over again: incompetent "friends" who just wanna "help." Not this time. Their last chance to make things right was Tuesday before Debbie showed up to bring me back here. I was left sitting around with my thumb up my ass all day while they played the no-call-no-show game. Well, when you do that as an employee of Burger King, you are fired on the spot. So guess what, Steve and your little Merry Band of Men; You're Fired!
(I gotta get a picture of me in a bad toupee if I'm going to start using that line.)
So as soon as we're back in Florida, we have to get to work fixing the damage left behind. Working with gas lines isn't one of my favorite tasks, but I'll manage it much better than the last bunch of fools, it won't cost me hundreds of dollars, and when I'm finished, the job will be done. Unfortunately, because of the wasted time, we won't get all the renovations complete that we wanted out of the way before we started living there, but we can make do and piece-meal it once we're moved in.
Enough of that. Done and done. Lesson relearned: If Debbie and I can't do it ourselves, it just won't get done.
Here is what we did get accomplished:
Florida room: Lots of water damage out here, plus a wall with a non-functioning pocket door that led to a completely dysfunctional laundry/storage area. Getting the old vinyl flooring in the laundry room up turned out to be pretty easy. The underlayment was molded due to water leaking in under the back door, so rather than try to separate the vinyl floor from it, we tore it all up as one piece and tossed it on the scrap pile, then put down all-new felt and underlayment. We will eventually put down some kind of permanent flooring, but in the meantime, we went with some blue enamel porch-and-floor paint. One distressing discovery: The florescent fixture you can see in the laundry room in the first photo? Some bright boy thought the best way to attach it to the ceiling was by running screws from the outside through the roof. And not just a few screws; over a dozen screws were driven through the roof. The best part is that they were too short and were doing nothing to hold up the light. They're just making holes in the roof. We've been finding this sort of thing, or worse, everywhere we look.
Storage room: Originally, all that was in the storage area were two clothes rods that had been positioned too close to the wall for a hanger to fit, and a shelf over the rod. None of it felt very secure, and when I took everything down I found that it wasn't just a feeling. Any significant weight on either the shelf or the rod would have resulted in a loud crash, most likely late at night. The shelving attached to the door seemed secure, so we left it. Everything else went into the dump pile and was replaced by Closetmaid rod and shelf on one side, and pantry shelving on the other.
Bedroom: There was a narrow wall at the foot of the bed that was only there to provide a place for the 1970's-style folding closet door to attach when closed. We never closed it, and the wall was in the perfect spot that whenever I got out of bed at night, I would come around the end of the bed and smash my right foot and the right side of my face into it. Every. Single. Time. So it's gone. And no, I didn't leave the 2x2 stumps sticking into the room. I was taking intermediate pictures while I was working, then forgot to take one when it was complete. Living around old people must be rubbing off.
Well, off to do last minute packing (to move), packing (for the trip) and cleaning things up.
(I gotta get a picture of me in a bad toupee if I'm going to start using that line.)
So as soon as we're back in Florida, we have to get to work fixing the damage left behind. Working with gas lines isn't one of my favorite tasks, but I'll manage it much better than the last bunch of fools, it won't cost me hundreds of dollars, and when I'm finished, the job will be done. Unfortunately, because of the wasted time, we won't get all the renovations complete that we wanted out of the way before we started living there, but we can make do and piece-meal it once we're moved in.
Enough of that. Done and done. Lesson relearned: If Debbie and I can't do it ourselves, it just won't get done.
Here is what we did get accomplished:
Florida room: Lots of water damage out here, plus a wall with a non-functioning pocket door that led to a completely dysfunctional laundry/storage area. Getting the old vinyl flooring in the laundry room up turned out to be pretty easy. The underlayment was molded due to water leaking in under the back door, so rather than try to separate the vinyl floor from it, we tore it all up as one piece and tossed it on the scrap pile, then put down all-new felt and underlayment. We will eventually put down some kind of permanent flooring, but in the meantime, we went with some blue enamel porch-and-floor paint. One distressing discovery: The florescent fixture you can see in the laundry room in the first photo? Some bright boy thought the best way to attach it to the ceiling was by running screws from the outside through the roof. And not just a few screws; over a dozen screws were driven through the roof. The best part is that they were too short and were doing nothing to hold up the light. They're just making holes in the roof. We've been finding this sort of thing, or worse, everywhere we look.
Storage room: Originally, all that was in the storage area were two clothes rods that had been positioned too close to the wall for a hanger to fit, and a shelf over the rod. None of it felt very secure, and when I took everything down I found that it wasn't just a feeling. Any significant weight on either the shelf or the rod would have resulted in a loud crash, most likely late at night. The shelving attached to the door seemed secure, so we left it. Everything else went into the dump pile and was replaced by Closetmaid rod and shelf on one side, and pantry shelving on the other.
Bedroom: There was a narrow wall at the foot of the bed that was only there to provide a place for the 1970's-style folding closet door to attach when closed. We never closed it, and the wall was in the perfect spot that whenever I got out of bed at night, I would come around the end of the bed and smash my right foot and the right side of my face into it. Every. Single. Time. So it's gone. And no, I didn't leave the 2x2 stumps sticking into the room. I was taking intermediate pictures while I was working, then forgot to take one when it was complete. Living around old people must be rubbing off.
Well, off to do last minute packing (to move), packing (for the trip) and cleaning things up.
Monday, July 02, 2012
Power tools and ants
Hey All --- Debbie here.
Ric is over in Zephyrhills working on things so we can move in the last weekend of this month. I took last Friday off work and we were over there together working Fri/Sat/Sun. We got to take down a wall -- finally figured out how to take up the old linoleum/wood floor in the laundry room -- take down the old paneling in the Florida room and then start putting down new flooring in the laundry room and one place in Florida room back corner where rain damaged/rotted. I got to use the power tool to take out screws from the old shelving and the old paneling. (And I didn't hurt myself! LOL) The big surprise was when I was part way done with taking down the old paneling in the Florida room under the fake vinyl windows. I started to take out one screw and a bunch of ants started running all over the place. I stopped and just yelled ANTS ANTS ANTS! to Ric. Of course we did not have any type of bug spray yet. Ric told me to stop hitting them and they should go back to their nest until I could make an emergency run to get some ant spray. They finally calmed down after I stopped hitting the wall with my shoe! We found them in a couple places in the wall under the windows -- nestled in the foam or between the foam and the paneling. Glad they all died with the ant spray! The first bunch I kinda went overboard with the spraying and Ric and I ended up inhaling the fumes for most of the rest of the day. Ric is busy while I'm gone with cleaning and figuring out how to reseal things so this does not happen again.
Well -- clothes are ready to fold and get packed again to head over to Z Hills tomorrow after work -- I have the 4th and 5th off since I'm working Sat.
Ric is over in Zephyrhills working on things so we can move in the last weekend of this month. I took last Friday off work and we were over there together working Fri/Sat/Sun. We got to take down a wall -- finally figured out how to take up the old linoleum/wood floor in the laundry room -- take down the old paneling in the Florida room and then start putting down new flooring in the laundry room and one place in Florida room back corner where rain damaged/rotted. I got to use the power tool to take out screws from the old shelving and the old paneling. (And I didn't hurt myself! LOL) The big surprise was when I was part way done with taking down the old paneling in the Florida room under the fake vinyl windows. I started to take out one screw and a bunch of ants started running all over the place. I stopped and just yelled ANTS ANTS ANTS! to Ric. Of course we did not have any type of bug spray yet. Ric told me to stop hitting them and they should go back to their nest until I could make an emergency run to get some ant spray. They finally calmed down after I stopped hitting the wall with my shoe! We found them in a couple places in the wall under the windows -- nestled in the foam or between the foam and the paneling. Glad they all died with the ant spray! The first bunch I kinda went overboard with the spraying and Ric and I ended up inhaling the fumes for most of the rest of the day. Ric is busy while I'm gone with cleaning and figuring out how to reseal things so this does not happen again.
Well -- clothes are ready to fold and get packed again to head over to Z Hills tomorrow after work -- I have the 4th and 5th off since I'm working Sat.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Done
As of 1:30PM yesterday afternoon, I am no longer an employee of Seminole County. Feels great! Of course it's not like I'll be sitting around watching movies or anything. We have a great deal of stuff to get done in the next four weeks starting now. I have a lengthy to-do list just for today, plus longer-term projects both here and in Zephyrhills. There is zero chance that we'll bored between now and our official moving day.
I don't have time for anything lengthy on today's decision that the Constitution of these united States places no limit whatsoever on the actions of the federal government. Combined with yesterday's decision that placed hard limits on what individual states are allowed to do, this pretty much nails the coffin shut on federalism. I had assumed from the start that there was no way that any branch of the federal government would block legislation so advantageous to multinational corporations as Obamacare will prove to be. Unfortunately, raging cynicism seems the safe bet lately.
Maybe more later when I knock out more of the to-do list.
I don't have time for anything lengthy on today's decision that the Constitution of these united States places no limit whatsoever on the actions of the federal government. Combined with yesterday's decision that placed hard limits on what individual states are allowed to do, this pretty much nails the coffin shut on federalism. I had assumed from the start that there was no way that any branch of the federal government would block legislation so advantageous to multinational corporations as Obamacare will prove to be. Unfortunately, raging cynicism seems the safe bet lately.
Maybe more later when I knock out more of the to-do list.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Checking In
Not much posting lately mostly due to not having a lot to say. We're still running back and forth to Zephyrhills to prep the new place whenever we have the chance. We are slowing making progress and we should be able to have the place whipped into shape by the end of July when we have to be out of our current apartment.
Related to that, I'm counting the days I have left at the library. Basically, I have a five-day stretch starting Saturday, then I'm done forever. And none too soon; the place is really starting to drive me nuts. Maybe it's because I'm short-timing, or maybe people are getting more crazy, or the summer heat is getting to me. Anyway. Five days and I'm done. Then things will kick into high gear for the move. Shifting our stuff in phases promises to make this less of a pain than previous moves. If we can get rid of some of the big stuff, it will be easier still. There are a couple back-breakers we still have left over from more-permanent living arrangements that I would really love to not have to move again.
Our apartment is looking more and more like a storage unit, especially after I emptied our actual storage unit into our second bedroom yesterday so we could save a couple month's rent on that. We keep finding clothes. There was a suitcase we didn't even remember having hid in the back of the storage unit. When I lifted it, it was painfully obvious the thing was packed full of something. It felt like books. Or maybe rocks. Nope. Clothes. Must have really needed them given that we've been unaware of their existence for two years. How in the name of the Goddess does that happen? There were also a dozen of our large plastic bins that were full of stuff. Some of it is packing materials like bubble wrap and packing peanuts that we keep rather than have to buy new every time we move. But several of them were waaaay too heavy to be packing peanuts. I haven't yet dared open those to see exactly what madness lies inside.
And that's pretty much been our existence the last couple weeks.
It's been a while since I've posted anything about our current economic mess, primarily because not much has changed in the last couple years. The stock markets are still going in circles, flitting up or down on every rumor or latest bit of one-percenter, bankster insanity designed to fleece the rest of us of what little we have left. The financial industry continues to play the same games, legal and otherwise, that caused the mess in the first place while the Obama "Justice" Department remains comatose. Meanwhile, millions of people who thought they were part of the middle class watch helplessly while they fall into poverty and their children are conned into a life of debt slavery with increasingly hollow promises of fame and fortune at the end of their Four Year Slog in one of our "universities". I only bring up the subject now because of a small glimmer of hope in the far distance: United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm. I know that sounds like the perfect cure for insomnia, but that link will take you to a piece by Matt Taibbi that gives some hope to even the most jaded cynics like yours truly. On the surface, the case involves three nobodies involved in a price-fixing scam on municipal bond interest rates. Like I said; Sominex, right? The good stuff is in the tapes and testimony showing a long list of major banks and investment houses ripping off pretty much every county and municipal government in the country for the last 10 to 15 years. Unlike most financial cases, this didn't end with a wrist-slap fine in exchange for no admission of wrong-doing and immunity from lawsuits; every local government is now free to start filing lawsuits (some already have). We'll have to see where things go from here. Remember when the robo-signing scandal was going to bring down the banksters? All we got from that was a "task force" of a few dozen people with no office to work in or even a published telephone number that has yet to accomplish anything other than a couple press conferences. That can easily happen with this bank scam as well, which is why I only give it distant-glimmer status. But still....
The New York Times had a piece describing Obama as a poor tortured soul for having to sit in a meeting to decide which Americans will be murdered by our military this week. If a cop started summarily executing bad guys, he would rightly be charged with premeditated murder. Why we allow this power to be exercised by our president on the advise of an anonymous cadre of spooks is beyond me. Another reminder that the nation I grew up in no longer exists.
And just because I haven't beat up on public education in a while, we have two young girls being tortured by forced sunburn. If a parent were to force their children to stand in full sun while not allowing them to apply sunscreen or go inside or even to wear a hat, they would be charged with child abuse and the children would be dumped into the foster care system. A teacher does it and, well, "We jus' followin' da rules, massa!" How do people so stupid and callous end up in charge of large numbers of our children?
Well, I have to go do my daily chores and get another truck-load of stuff ready to haul across Florida. Later.
Related to that, I'm counting the days I have left at the library. Basically, I have a five-day stretch starting Saturday, then I'm done forever. And none too soon; the place is really starting to drive me nuts. Maybe it's because I'm short-timing, or maybe people are getting more crazy, or the summer heat is getting to me. Anyway. Five days and I'm done. Then things will kick into high gear for the move. Shifting our stuff in phases promises to make this less of a pain than previous moves. If we can get rid of some of the big stuff, it will be easier still. There are a couple back-breakers we still have left over from more-permanent living arrangements that I would really love to not have to move again.
Our apartment is looking more and more like a storage unit, especially after I emptied our actual storage unit into our second bedroom yesterday so we could save a couple month's rent on that. We keep finding clothes. There was a suitcase we didn't even remember having hid in the back of the storage unit. When I lifted it, it was painfully obvious the thing was packed full of something. It felt like books. Or maybe rocks. Nope. Clothes. Must have really needed them given that we've been unaware of their existence for two years. How in the name of the Goddess does that happen? There were also a dozen of our large plastic bins that were full of stuff. Some of it is packing materials like bubble wrap and packing peanuts that we keep rather than have to buy new every time we move. But several of them were waaaay too heavy to be packing peanuts. I haven't yet dared open those to see exactly what madness lies inside.
And that's pretty much been our existence the last couple weeks.
It's been a while since I've posted anything about our current economic mess, primarily because not much has changed in the last couple years. The stock markets are still going in circles, flitting up or down on every rumor or latest bit of one-percenter, bankster insanity designed to fleece the rest of us of what little we have left. The financial industry continues to play the same games, legal and otherwise, that caused the mess in the first place while the Obama "Justice" Department remains comatose. Meanwhile, millions of people who thought they were part of the middle class watch helplessly while they fall into poverty and their children are conned into a life of debt slavery with increasingly hollow promises of fame and fortune at the end of their Four Year Slog in one of our "universities". I only bring up the subject now because of a small glimmer of hope in the far distance: United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm. I know that sounds like the perfect cure for insomnia, but that link will take you to a piece by Matt Taibbi that gives some hope to even the most jaded cynics like yours truly. On the surface, the case involves three nobodies involved in a price-fixing scam on municipal bond interest rates. Like I said; Sominex, right? The good stuff is in the tapes and testimony showing a long list of major banks and investment houses ripping off pretty much every county and municipal government in the country for the last 10 to 15 years. Unlike most financial cases, this didn't end with a wrist-slap fine in exchange for no admission of wrong-doing and immunity from lawsuits; every local government is now free to start filing lawsuits (some already have). We'll have to see where things go from here. Remember when the robo-signing scandal was going to bring down the banksters? All we got from that was a "task force" of a few dozen people with no office to work in or even a published telephone number that has yet to accomplish anything other than a couple press conferences. That can easily happen with this bank scam as well, which is why I only give it distant-glimmer status. But still....
The New York Times had a piece describing Obama as a poor tortured soul for having to sit in a meeting to decide which Americans will be murdered by our military this week. If a cop started summarily executing bad guys, he would rightly be charged with premeditated murder. Why we allow this power to be exercised by our president on the advise of an anonymous cadre of spooks is beyond me. Another reminder that the nation I grew up in no longer exists.
And just because I haven't beat up on public education in a while, we have two young girls being tortured by forced sunburn. If a parent were to force their children to stand in full sun while not allowing them to apply sunscreen or go inside or even to wear a hat, they would be charged with child abuse and the children would be dumped into the foster care system. A teacher does it and, well, "We jus' followin' da rules, massa!" How do people so stupid and callous end up in charge of large numbers of our children?
Well, I have to go do my daily chores and get another truck-load of stuff ready to haul across Florida. Later.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
New Place: More Work
We had another day off together, so we headed over to the new place to do some more clearing and to start loading the place up with our stuff. Most of the day was spent putting heat film on the living room windows. Unfortunately, being a travel trailer, the windows are the louvered, crank-out type meaning that instead of one big piece of glass per window, there are three. That made the process painfully slow, but it will look a lot better than our temp heat shields I slapped up last week using left-over Mylar from the apartment heat-shield project. The total cost for all the windows except those on the north side will be about $70, so not too bad. We hope the payback will be something like two or three months, but it will be hard to do an exact payback calculation given no one has lived in the trailer in the summer in a very long time. Anyway, here's what things looked like after the Restore truck came and went:
We're keeping the mat and box for now so we have something to sleep on when we stay there. Once we have our own bed moved over, these will be sent to Restore as well.
We emptied out the closet only to fill it back up again. Most of the stuff here will end up elsewhere, but for now it's out of the way.
Built-in dresser needs some work. Several of the drawers have busted rails; an easy fix, fortunately.
We're keeping the washing machine that came with the trailer, but Restore got the miniature 110-volt electric dryer. At some point, it may be replaced with a full-sized propane dryer, but not immediately. We'll use a clothesline for now.
We moved all the bits we plan to yard-sale into the laundry room to get them out of the way for now. All the existing shelving is so poorly done, it will all have to come down. Several sections collapsed with even the slightest bit of weight because the installation was so botched.
The Florida room is mostly emptied. We kept one of the kitchen-table-and-chair sets so we would have something to sit on until we get some of our furniture moved over. We're also not sure if our current table will fit, so it's also a form of insurance.
With a big screen at one end, we could do some serious Wii Bowling in here.
Even cleaned out the kitchen looks alarmingly small. This may turn out to be one of the first major renovation projects.
China hutch filled with our good china that has been in storage since we got it as wedding gifts. We decided it was time to ditch the old stuff Debbie bought for her first apartment and start using fancy dishes.
Our empty living room. We'll be heading over again tomorrow after I get out of work, mostly to take another load of stuff that we won't need before August, and try to finish up the heat film on the windows. We'll also be working on a detailed list of projects that need to be done before we move in, then figure out how to make it all happen in the six weeks we have before we move in. Fun stuff.
Well, I need to get dinner started.
We're keeping the mat and box for now so we have something to sleep on when we stay there. Once we have our own bed moved over, these will be sent to Restore as well.
We emptied out the closet only to fill it back up again. Most of the stuff here will end up elsewhere, but for now it's out of the way.
Built-in dresser needs some work. Several of the drawers have busted rails; an easy fix, fortunately.
We're keeping the washing machine that came with the trailer, but Restore got the miniature 110-volt electric dryer. At some point, it may be replaced with a full-sized propane dryer, but not immediately. We'll use a clothesline for now.
We moved all the bits we plan to yard-sale into the laundry room to get them out of the way for now. All the existing shelving is so poorly done, it will all have to come down. Several sections collapsed with even the slightest bit of weight because the installation was so botched.
The Florida room is mostly emptied. We kept one of the kitchen-table-and-chair sets so we would have something to sit on until we get some of our furniture moved over. We're also not sure if our current table will fit, so it's also a form of insurance.
With a big screen at one end, we could do some serious Wii Bowling in here.
Even cleaned out the kitchen looks alarmingly small. This may turn out to be one of the first major renovation projects.
China hutch filled with our good china that has been in storage since we got it as wedding gifts. We decided it was time to ditch the old stuff Debbie bought for her first apartment and start using fancy dishes.
Our empty living room. We'll be heading over again tomorrow after I get out of work, mostly to take another load of stuff that we won't need before August, and try to finish up the heat film on the windows. We'll also be working on a detailed list of projects that need to be done before we move in, then figure out how to make it all happen in the six weeks we have before we move in. Fun stuff.
Well, I need to get dinner started.
Saturday, June 02, 2012
New Place: Work Begins
We both had Sunday and Monday off last weekend, so we headed over to the new homestead to start the cleaning up process and to find anything that we will need to get fixed before we move in. But just to give you an idea of what we had to deal with, here are the pictures from our "first look" at the place:
Obviously not move-in ready. In fact, it looked like it had been abandoned. We found out later basically that's what happened. Some stuff was cleaned out, but it was a long way from everything. Later when we started opening up the drawers, closets and cupboards we found more of the same. On our first pass, we filled 20+ of the large, 30-gallon trash bags with the stuff that we couldn't imagine anyone having a use for; Wendy's salad containers, dozens of coffee mugs, butter containers (some with mystery contents), unlabeled spray bottles with odd-smelling liquids in them, dozens of glasses with no two alike, every Christmas dodad ever sold at the Dollar Store and enough fake flowers to fill the fake flower section of a large craft store. The previous owner had a thing for toothpicks, which we would find in every room, in every closet, on every shelf, in every drawer. Toothpicks. Big Paul-Bunyan-sized toothpicks. We'd no sooner think that we'd found them all and one would fall out of a curtain or one would turn up hidden in some crevice. There is so much glitter from all the Christmas decorations embedded in everything that we're not sure we'll ever be completely rid of it. We still have all the big pieces of furniture to deal with; queen sleeper, love seat sleeper, two kitchen tables with two sets of chairs, recliner, swivel rocker, queen bed. (We're thinking a big donation to Restore; they'll come haul it all away for free.) The stuff in the last photo is some of what we thought we might get some nickles for at the next park-wide yard sale, so we're hanging on to that for now. Unless it accidentally falls into a trash bag.
The outside looked like this:
Piles of leaves everywhere, a dying lime tree, another large, overgrown dying lime tree, a couple volunteer bushes from the other side of the fence, one of which was disassembling the fence with its roots. And all sorts of odd bits around the yard; part of a fountain, part of a bird bath, in-ground sprinklers that don't seem to be hooked up to plumbing, a plastic tarp anchored to the ground with 6" Ardox nails, a bucket of dirt. After several more bags for the dumpster and 30 bags for the compost pile, here's what the yard looks like:
Clean slate. We don't know what we're going to do with it yet, but at least the obstructions are mostly out of the way.
We'll take some after photos of the interior once we get rid of the big furniture. I'm calling Restore on Monday to see what days they can do pick-ups. If the stars align, we may have a mostly-empty place to start moving our stuff into sometime next weekend.
Later.
Obviously not move-in ready. In fact, it looked like it had been abandoned. We found out later basically that's what happened. Some stuff was cleaned out, but it was a long way from everything. Later when we started opening up the drawers, closets and cupboards we found more of the same. On our first pass, we filled 20+ of the large, 30-gallon trash bags with the stuff that we couldn't imagine anyone having a use for; Wendy's salad containers, dozens of coffee mugs, butter containers (some with mystery contents), unlabeled spray bottles with odd-smelling liquids in them, dozens of glasses with no two alike, every Christmas dodad ever sold at the Dollar Store and enough fake flowers to fill the fake flower section of a large craft store. The previous owner had a thing for toothpicks, which we would find in every room, in every closet, on every shelf, in every drawer. Toothpicks. Big Paul-Bunyan-sized toothpicks. We'd no sooner think that we'd found them all and one would fall out of a curtain or one would turn up hidden in some crevice. There is so much glitter from all the Christmas decorations embedded in everything that we're not sure we'll ever be completely rid of it. We still have all the big pieces of furniture to deal with; queen sleeper, love seat sleeper, two kitchen tables with two sets of chairs, recliner, swivel rocker, queen bed. (We're thinking a big donation to Restore; they'll come haul it all away for free.) The stuff in the last photo is some of what we thought we might get some nickles for at the next park-wide yard sale, so we're hanging on to that for now. Unless it accidentally falls into a trash bag.
The outside looked like this:
Piles of leaves everywhere, a dying lime tree, another large, overgrown dying lime tree, a couple volunteer bushes from the other side of the fence, one of which was disassembling the fence with its roots. And all sorts of odd bits around the yard; part of a fountain, part of a bird bath, in-ground sprinklers that don't seem to be hooked up to plumbing, a plastic tarp anchored to the ground with 6" Ardox nails, a bucket of dirt. After several more bags for the dumpster and 30 bags for the compost pile, here's what the yard looks like:
Clean slate. We don't know what we're going to do with it yet, but at least the obstructions are mostly out of the way.
We'll take some after photos of the interior once we get rid of the big furniture. I'm calling Restore on Monday to see what days they can do pick-ups. If the stars align, we may have a mostly-empty place to start moving our stuff into sometime next weekend.
Later.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Facebook IPO
My parents were pretty consistent in one particular way: Whenever I would get hurt doing something I was told not to do, the most sympathetic statement I was likely to hear was, "Serves you right."
"Analysts" insisted that Facebook stock was worth 100 times current earnings. No reason was ever given why that should be so given that Google, Apple and the like, are running around 10-12x earnings (historically normal valuations). It just was so shut up and dump your life savings into Facebook stock. Why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing is beyond me, but hey, good luck with that. So now everyone is speed-dialing lawyers looking for someone, anyone, to blame for the inevitable outcome. It's Zuckerberg's fault. It's this or that Wall Street firm's fault. It's the stock exchange's fault. It's Al Gore's fault. (Why not? Makes as much sense as anything else.)
First of all, why would anyone fall for the same scam that's been being run with internet IPO's since the late 1990's? We've heard all this crap before. It's different now. All those old metrics for judging the worth of a company don't apply in the Internet Age. XYZ's growth potential is unlimited. Revenue will only go up. Blah, blah, blah. And every time, it all turns into a giant, steaming pile. Every. Single. Time. If you fell for it again, well, serves you right.
Secondly, even it you've been living under a rock for the last decade, you have to know that the big Wall Street firms all operate the same way; fleece the retail investor for the benefit of themselves and a select few of their clients. This has always been the case, although back in the 80's and 90's, stock funds were returning enough money that no one took much notice. Now that the stock market seems to be on a perpetual cruise-to-nowhere, everyone has realized that certain people seem to make money no matter what happens, and those certain people don't include us. If you are so willfully ignorant that you don't know this and you're investing in stocks, serves you right.
Finally, Facebook is claiming that 1 in every 7 people on the planet will be a user by August. Just how much growth can you realistically expect beyond that? A 100-times-earnings valuation would imply an expectation of 10x growth. Have aliens contacted us and expressed interest in becoming Facebook users? In any case, like all straight-line projection, this is probably complete BS. If you invest in any company based on not just what is likely BS, but ridiculously flimsy BS, then serves you right.
We've been down this road not once, not twice, but dozens of times over the last decade and a half, so pardon me if I seem unsympathetic to those who have been crushed by this latest fiasco. Let me be completely clear: I am unsympathetic.
"Analysts" insisted that Facebook stock was worth 100 times current earnings. No reason was ever given why that should be so given that Google, Apple and the like, are running around 10-12x earnings (historically normal valuations). It just was so shut up and dump your life savings into Facebook stock. Why anyone in their right mind would do such a thing is beyond me, but hey, good luck with that. So now everyone is speed-dialing lawyers looking for someone, anyone, to blame for the inevitable outcome. It's Zuckerberg's fault. It's this or that Wall Street firm's fault. It's the stock exchange's fault. It's Al Gore's fault. (Why not? Makes as much sense as anything else.)
First of all, why would anyone fall for the same scam that's been being run with internet IPO's since the late 1990's? We've heard all this crap before. It's different now. All those old metrics for judging the worth of a company don't apply in the Internet Age. XYZ's growth potential is unlimited. Revenue will only go up. Blah, blah, blah. And every time, it all turns into a giant, steaming pile. Every. Single. Time. If you fell for it again, well, serves you right.
Secondly, even it you've been living under a rock for the last decade, you have to know that the big Wall Street firms all operate the same way; fleece the retail investor for the benefit of themselves and a select few of their clients. This has always been the case, although back in the 80's and 90's, stock funds were returning enough money that no one took much notice. Now that the stock market seems to be on a perpetual cruise-to-nowhere, everyone has realized that certain people seem to make money no matter what happens, and those certain people don't include us. If you are so willfully ignorant that you don't know this and you're investing in stocks, serves you right.
Finally, Facebook is claiming that 1 in every 7 people on the planet will be a user by August. Just how much growth can you realistically expect beyond that? A 100-times-earnings valuation would imply an expectation of 10x growth. Have aliens contacted us and expressed interest in becoming Facebook users? In any case, like all straight-line projection, this is probably complete BS. If you invest in any company based on not just what is likely BS, but ridiculously flimsy BS, then serves you right.
We've been down this road not once, not twice, but dozens of times over the last decade and a half, so pardon me if I seem unsympathetic to those who have been crushed by this latest fiasco. Let me be completely clear: I am unsympathetic.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Moving Again
Everything has fallen into place and we are definitely moving across Florida to Zephyrhills to the same park my parents use as their snowbird nest. The place is smaller than what we are in now, and came filled up with the previous occupant's stuff. We've already tossed about 30 large garbage bags of anything small enough to bag up. Now we have to get rid of two kitchen tables with chairs, a recliner, a swivel rocker and a queen-size bed. Then the real fun: Getting rid off our stuff that we no longer need or just won't have room for. We also have some repairs and improvements that need to be made; the place has set empty for a couple years, which in Florida means water damage. We been in all the cracks and crevices cleaning stuff out and no sign of mold, so at least we don't have to deal with that, but water has definitely gotten in several places at some point.
So the focus has now shifted from figuring out if we can move and where, to figuring out the how. We have some time; our current lease doesn't run out until the end of July making it possible for us to gradually shift our junk rather than doing the big bang move-everything-in-48-hours kind of move we been doing. So for the next two-and-a-half months, we'll be spending our days off driving stuff across the state and doing a bit of work while we are there. That means even less here than usual. At some point, we'll take some photos after we've cleaned up more of the debris and gotten rid of some of the excess furniture so everyone can see our McMansion.
We spent our first night there this weekend. Definite improvement over our current location. It's probably the first time in over a year I haven't been woken up by some inconsiderate jackass. Being able to spend the occasional night there will definitely improve my over-all mood. I'm sure living there will have its challenges. For example, we already know that people there (including my parents) are very... um... interested in whatever you are doing. Most are retired and have little else to occupy their time, so they snoop. In fact, one guy was so interested that we scratched a possible off our list because it was too close to him. That wasn't the only reason why it didn't make the cut, but we really didn't want to live close to one of those people. But so far, it's a vast improvement over what we have now.
In any case, I need to get caught up after spending two days on the other side of the state and get ready for another exciting day at the library.
So the focus has now shifted from figuring out if we can move and where, to figuring out the how. We have some time; our current lease doesn't run out until the end of July making it possible for us to gradually shift our junk rather than doing the big bang move-everything-in-48-hours kind of move we been doing. So for the next two-and-a-half months, we'll be spending our days off driving stuff across the state and doing a bit of work while we are there. That means even less here than usual. At some point, we'll take some photos after we've cleaned up more of the debris and gotten rid of some of the excess furniture so everyone can see our McMansion.
We spent our first night there this weekend. Definite improvement over our current location. It's probably the first time in over a year I haven't been woken up by some inconsiderate jackass. Being able to spend the occasional night there will definitely improve my over-all mood. I'm sure living there will have its challenges. For example, we already know that people there (including my parents) are very... um... interested in whatever you are doing. Most are retired and have little else to occupy their time, so they snoop. In fact, one guy was so interested that we scratched a possible off our list because it was too close to him. That wasn't the only reason why it didn't make the cut, but we really didn't want to live close to one of those people. But so far, it's a vast improvement over what we have now.
In any case, I need to get caught up after spending two days on the other side of the state and get ready for another exciting day at the library.
Monday, May 07, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Universe is a Prankster
So today I finally decided that it's been more than long enough since I applied for my Enrolled Agent status with the IRS. I called the Enrolled Agent hotline this morning and the first thing I hear is a recording stating that everyone with a March 31 renewal date has had their existing license extended indefinitely due to the IRS being backed up processing renewals. That sounded hopeful. When I did the "press one to speak with a representative" thing, instead of being put into a queue I was dumped into some anonymous IRS drone's voice mail. Not expecting that, I managed to mumble some barely coherent message as to why I was calling. Not that it mattered; a couple hours later, I walked down to our mailbox to find this:
Sweet. If I had procrastinated just a whee bit longer, I could have saved myself a phone call. Now I get to make a second call telling whoever, "Never mind!" I also like how it is a violation of federal law for me to use the word "certified" when I describe myself, but not only did the IRS send me a "certificate" that I am required, by that same law, to have on display, the certificate says that it is to "certify" that I am enrolled to practice before the IRS. Nothing like having the right hand clueless as to what the left hand is up to.
In less happy news, I got a phone call a couple days ago from my parents to let me know that one of my "mom's" from the church I grew up in passed away. She's been in severe pain for years, and at the last, she was essentially kept in a coma with pain meds. But it's over now; rest in peace Aretha. And I'm sure the donuts are fantastic and are served all cut up into small pieces.
In other news, it is a near-certainty that we will be moving. We made an offer on a new place that we were sure would be rejected. It wasn't. So the next few months are going to be busy while we figure out what to pack, what to toss, what to sell and what to give away. The new place will be significantly smaller that our current place, so we need to do some serious downsizing once again. I'm OK with that; we can never have too little stuff. The nice thing is we will finally be in a place that we own instead of rent, so we can make changes. We'll also have a small patch of dirt we can play in for the first time since 2006. It's nothing fantastic and will likely end up in the Gulf of Mexico the next time a hurricane blows through, but if we can make it for two years and a bit without a major catastrophe, we'll be ahead of the rent-vs.-own game. In addition, it has the distinct advantage of not being anywhere near here. Nothing is final until two weeks from now, so there is still plenty of time for monkeys and wrenches to go flying, but at least the finish line is in sight.
Things will likely remain quiet here until we get settled.
Sweet. If I had procrastinated just a whee bit longer, I could have saved myself a phone call. Now I get to make a second call telling whoever, "Never mind!" I also like how it is a violation of federal law for me to use the word "certified" when I describe myself, but not only did the IRS send me a "certificate" that I am required, by that same law, to have on display, the certificate says that it is to "certify" that I am enrolled to practice before the IRS. Nothing like having the right hand clueless as to what the left hand is up to.
In less happy news, I got a phone call a couple days ago from my parents to let me know that one of my "mom's" from the church I grew up in passed away. She's been in severe pain for years, and at the last, she was essentially kept in a coma with pain meds. But it's over now; rest in peace Aretha. And I'm sure the donuts are fantastic and are served all cut up into small pieces.
In other news, it is a near-certainty that we will be moving. We made an offer on a new place that we were sure would be rejected. It wasn't. So the next few months are going to be busy while we figure out what to pack, what to toss, what to sell and what to give away. The new place will be significantly smaller that our current place, so we need to do some serious downsizing once again. I'm OK with that; we can never have too little stuff. The nice thing is we will finally be in a place that we own instead of rent, so we can make changes. We'll also have a small patch of dirt we can play in for the first time since 2006. It's nothing fantastic and will likely end up in the Gulf of Mexico the next time a hurricane blows through, but if we can make it for two years and a bit without a major catastrophe, we'll be ahead of the rent-vs.-own game. In addition, it has the distinct advantage of not being anywhere near here. Nothing is final until two weeks from now, so there is still plenty of time for monkeys and wrenches to go flying, but at least the finish line is in sight.
Things will likely remain quiet here until we get settled.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
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