A simple place for which I fill the space with my rants and raves about whatever I want. You don't like it, don't let the knob hit ya in the ass on the way out the door.
Hello early morning. Wish you hadn't woken me for whatever reason. Even better, I wish you had allowed me to roll over and return to peaceful slumber for an additional three hours, before HAD to get up. Sigh. Oh well. Not sure what really woke me up, but there was no going back to sleep. So I got up from bed and sat myself in front of the computer. Sometimes it is nice to have that extra time there, as I was able to go through my three main email accounts and clear the junk out of them, take care of what needed replied to, and just sort it all out. Wish things in life were that easy.
I'm killing time this morning. Can't start work for about another 4 hours. Don't have much else to do either. I'll probably end up playing Warcraft. But first I will go through my blogroll, and my book sites to see what is new and interesting to me out there.
Not much to say abot anything that happened this weekend. We didn't make it out to look at fence panels. Friday evening, I had the Wife give me a ride up to the pub, and on the way we discussed it. The neighbor's house on that side has been empty for a couple years. She, or her daughter come by every few months and "check on" the property, but mostly it just sits vacant. There have been a couple times we have seen homeless trying to set up in the backyard. She has asked us to call the police if it happened again, but to my recollection it hasn't. Anyways, I guess she had been by earlier in the week, but after the storm. She had lost a tree in the backyard, and noticed that we had very temporarily gotten that part of the fence back up. She spoke to the Wife about block fencing. The Wife shared with me, and I am all for it. This fence is quite aged and weathered, and who knows when the next storm will come through and knock the rest of it down. I don't have the physical ability to get out there and set fence posts and panels.... and financially, we could afford to split the cost of aa block fence along that property side. The Wife will be talking to the neighbor I am sure sometime this week.
The oldest Son came by yesterday! Of course, it was to do his laundry, but still he came by! The laundry facilities at their apartment complex are expensive, as I am sure they are pretty much everywhere nowadays. The middle Son, that shares the apartment, hasn't been by to do laundry in a long time, so would not be surprised to see him be over some day soon as well. But it was good to visit with the older Son. He has plans to meet up with his girlfriend and maybe do a pic-a-nic lunch, then be by here again to pick up the last load of laundry he had left.
Spent part of yesterday watching "Bloodshot", with Vin Diesel. I wasn't impressed. It was one of those comic-book type movies. Then I spent some time playing Warcraft. Later in the evening I ended up on FB and watching videos, which led to YouTube and more time wasted. And I spent all day sneezing and wiping my watering eyes. For some reason, my allergies were just terrible, and I already feel them starting up again today. Which means I won't be trying to go to church. I am sure no one wants to hear someone sneezing and blowing their nose, and wearing a mask while dealing with it? I don't think so.
The title company reached out to me and finally asked for the payoff and an Identity statement for the sale of the old house. I wondered what had taken so long, but glad it is here finally. I'll print those off today, and scan/send them back. Sis said something the other day in a text that the "rehab" that is going on there is almost done. In theory, the contract reads until the end of this month basically, but I do hope we can sell this before then and close. I just want to be disconnected from it.
I am ready for this week to be over. With Monday's storm results, and just trying to make up the missed work time, this week has just felt like it has fragged on and on. Today I will finish up making up the missed time from work, but still means an extra hour today.
Tomorrow the Wife and I will be heading to Lowe's/Home Depot to see about getting some fence panels and posts (plus hardware) to get the fencing fixed. It will have to be delivered as we have no vehicle to transport the 6'x8' panels. Last time we ordered, it took several weeks to get delivered due to the incompetence and miscommunications within the store. Hopefully, those issues won't happen this time.
Sometimes I don't understand some businesses. A few days back, the Wife (who has been working on going through her Mom's things still) had heard of a place that would take in blankets and coats/jackets to be distributed to the homeless. She worked at getting many of the spare coats/jackets stored and also blankets from closets in order to get them to this place. I never realized we had so many blankets. I told her I had no problem with giving them away, as long as it was not any of the quilts that had been made or passed through the family to us. Either way, yesterday she had gotten these items all together (about 2-3 large garbage bags) and loaded them up to take in. She was gone a couple hours. I was on the verge of texting her, thinking she had problems, when she came back home, disgruntled. Obviously, I asked what happened. Seems this company does not deal with public donations. They do hand out those items to homeless, but evidently only when it comes from blah-blah-blah. Yeah. I had quit listening already. In short, they wouldn't take the donation. Try to do something good, and this crap. So looks like the stuff will end up going to Savers/Goodwill.
I admit I have been doing that quite a bit lately. The thing where I am listening, until I am not. It seems my brain takes in the information until it says 'okay not interested anymore' and just tunes it all out. Truthfully, it happens more with my Wife than anyone else. Of course, she has a tendency (in my opinion) to prattle on about things that have nothing to do with the 'story' or explanation - like yesterday's trip. It's like hearing a story from somebody with ADD, that has to explore every tangent and offshoot, while they tell the tale. Sigh. The things I have to work on.....
I guess that is about all I got to talk about right now.
The past couple of days have been spent with me trying to get things done. Actually, more things than normal. Monday we had a rain front come through. Not a bad thing for the desert, and it is always good to get precipitation. However, it included some wind gusts, 40-60 mph ones, that sometimes take it out on the scenery. That being said, there was a small micro-burst that happened about a block from my house. Out on the busy street, it dropped at least two power-line poles. Which killed the power for about 2,600 people in the area. The Wife made the call to the power company, and they expected power to be restored by 5:30pm (it went out at 1:45pm). We sat around until about 4 then I hade the Wife drop me off at the pub.
While there, the Wife sent me a pic from the backyard. I guess that micro-burst had also knocked down at least 2 panels of the wood fence in the yard. On the other side, the neighbors tree has partially broken off and was hanging over the fence. Crap! We had just last year replaced 9 panels of the back fence from a storm that had blown it over. Now more. And now it was nearing 6pm, power was not on still. My Sis called and said she heard power was going to be out until 4am. I got busy and booked a hotel room for us for the night. I also made plans for the Youngest and I for school/work since we both need wifi. I already have to make up a little over 2 hours of work with the power outage.
The middle Son came by about 6am to the house, verified power and internet were back up. We checked out and headed home. I saw RM was talking about making some chili, and teasingly texted her asking when was dinner. She was nice enough, and I am sure she loved doing it, but brought by some chili at lunchtime, which very quickly disappeared. The chili took me back a few years, as RM makes it different than I do.
I did put in an extra half hour yesterday at work, and today will try to do that amount, and more. Somedays it is hard to do more than the 8 hours. It truly is a lot of reading, and though I love to do that, the content is sometimes not fun. Our current project was supposed to end this week, but has now been extended to about mid-February.
So at some point this week, I need to order some fence panels, posts and pick up some miscellaneous supplies to fix the fence. Finish making up the missed hours at work. Get another car donated and towed away. On top of the normal life things. I'm tired just thinking about it.
I sincerely hope, that after reading today's post title, that you are not expecting some soft patois, or a recipe for some Down South cooking, or anything much related to that region. Nay, no Creole, crawdads, or 'Deliverance' situations.
This morning's post comes early for me. I woke up an hour plus before I even wanted, or needed, to be up. With no apparent cause ... again. As I laid there, trying to get back to the land of Nod, the mind turned on and somehow I knew that Mr. Sandman's twinkle dust was of an inferior quality when he dispensed last night, and any possible effect it may have had was gone. I began to think about what am I going to do with an extra hour in my schedule this morning before work, and decided I should put it to use with the possibility of entertaining the one, maybe two, of you readers. So I began to think about what could I write about today.
Aging and Aches. That was going to be the title today. I'm feeling both today, and have the past few days. I mentioned on Friday about my hips (and knees, and shoulders, and back, and hands) all being achey. I narrowed the cause down to the weather - it being suddenly a bit chillier in AZ than the norm, and let's add in some barometric changes and wet weather as well. I know we always seem to need precipitation in any form here in the desert, and last year was like the 6th (I think) driest we have had in many years. But that weather has lingered through the weekend, and I know yesterday evening we had a bit more rain. This morning, it is a bit chillier than normal, or maybe it was just my impression coming from a warm bed. The phone informs me it is only about 47 degrees. My joints feel it.
The overcast and cloudy skies has made it a bit of notice for the Wife as well. Not only does she have migraines from scents (which she hasn't been able to smell much since April) but cloudy weather will kick them off as well. Most mornings she can tell how cloudy it is by how her head feels, prior to even getting out of bed. Yesterday, we both lay in bed, debating if we were going to get up and attend church that morning. I finally admitted defeat, and said I was not feeling up to it, that the aching was just not worth getting up out of bed and fighting to go sit (uncomfortably). So we basically cat-napped a couple hours more.
Back to this morning... By the time I got around about there, laying in bed, mentally noting what I was going to say, and how, that the urge to do the morning absolutions made itself known. Yeah. That 'back to sleep' thing was NOT happening.
So here I sit, waiting for the acetaminophen and daily allergy pill (that doesn't seem to work) to kick in, and trying to figure out if there is anything more to add today. Not really. But I did say something wrong earlier. Once I typed that line, this video stuck out in my head... Enjoy.
I'm up a bit earlier than usual today. Seems I woke a bit over an hour before the alarm was to go off, and pretty much knew immediately I was not going back to sleep. I have no idea what woke me. It could have been the cat(s) jumping onto the bed ... maybe a noise of something the cat(s) knocked over/on the floor ...maybe just the pain I feel in my hops today. I am sure the changes in weather we are having this week are setting off the pain sensors in my joints. We have had a some early morning, light showers the last couple days, and according to weather reports, should expect something more come early next week.
Speaking of weathering the storm ,,, should we talk about the new president? Yesterday was his second day in office, and I truly do not want to know what he signed as executive orders. Just the list I saw from day one were bad enough (my opinion). I only heard one small thing yesterday, and it was that he was "getting on top of" the Covid situation. I'm glad I don't watch news. It may not be smart, but it sure eases my stress level not being informed of stupid crap all the time. Occasionally I will tune into the local news radio, and within the hour I have a good idea of the news around locally, nationally, and if needed, around the world. Good enough for me.
It is Friday, a workday for me. Was another shorter week of work, due to the holiday this past Monday, and next week should be a regular 5-day work week. They offered to let us work 4-10 hour days this past week, but usually after 8 hours, I am pretty done.
Well, off to have my morning cigarette and see if I can find anything for breakfast.
Hmmmm. Not sure what to think/say about the Inaugural address given today. "Unity" was obviously the key word used. Talking last night with a friend, who is more politically informed than I am, we had some random thoughts.
Shutting down the Keystone Pipeline. Gas prices have risen here in the Valley about $0.20 over the past few weeks. I think they said this morning the average in AZ is about $2.40. With wanting to shut down this pipeline, prices are going to rise again.
Battling the NRA. I think Dems have always done this, and I am not surprised this will be an issue again (still). Already I know there is a shortage of ammunition across the US, depending on what you use/need/want. Mostly .9MM is what I have heard. I'm still thinking about getting a Colt .45ACP and maybe a 12 gauge. I haven't had the chance to go out and look, but probably will here soon.
Covid and the 'vaccine'. Oh, I don't know how I want to go about this one. Local news stations here state that AZ has a small percentage of the vaccine that we need. It will be interesting how the new regime in office will handle this distribution to states, etc. Personally, I don't know if I even want to get this shot. Excuse, shots, because you have to have two of them. I don't know offhand anyone that has received it, so can't say there are bad effects. I'm just leery about a "cure" that is rushed out to the world without proper testing and procedures. Maybe I am just not properly informed. Shrug.
