Following the leader, the leader...

I don't know if my view stats are just skewed from various Google searches or if I really do have 4 people reading this blog.

Really and honestly, I don't care if anyone reads this but me or potentially my family.

It is a fun idea that people actually read this blog, and possibly comment on the posts.

There are hundreds of entries, and not all of them are published.

The pictures contained with them have all been removed as Ellie didn't like the idea of personal identification.

These days, its harder to keep an anonymous type of guise.

I know I'm not fully anonymous, but I still try to keep myself away from the general identification of who I really am.

Well, if you're an actual reader of this mess of mine, put a comment up.

Just for encouragement sake?

Hot Diggity Dog!

At work last month, I spent several weeks working out a problem that had very little documentation and support.

I finally completed it, only to find out the group that I wrote it for was a bunch of whiner babies, and didn't think it had the same information they wanted.  Those who under disk & drive recover understand the data that I am providing.

This group, who are supposed to be drive/disk recovery guys, really have NO idea what they're getting.

Still at work, in the last week or two, I've been going through various other projects only to figure those out and nail them within days.

At home with HAM radio, I've been trying to find an amplifier circuit/device that is LOW cost, and doesn't need to throw out a lot of power; just a good boost.

I finally found a two stage amplifier that will work in the 140.000-600.000 MHz range.

In my stash of parts, I didn't have the amplifier transistors, and I finally got them in the other day.

Going on with everything clicking together, last night, I was scrapping an amplified TV antenna that was missing cables, etc.

After scrapping it for parts, I kept a small power switch component, which turns on the power to the circuit and also turns on an LED as an indicator that it is operational.

So, a small power switch with a little light?  Big deal!

Well, on top of that, the device included multiple small baluns and a nice 7805 regulator.  This regulator is 5v+, which will go right into the amplifier circuit so that I can keep the input power from blowing the amplifier circuit to pieces. :)

Then on top of this, another one of my HAM buddies, sent me an email that he several BNC mounts/etc he'd give me so that I could finish my project!

So for now, things are clicking pretty well.

Just make the pain go away!

This time, I'm not complaining about someone, "The Pain".

It's actually about the sinus pain I keep getting in my face.

If I had a sinus infection, it surely hasn't fully cleared yet, and it's getting consistently more and more painful.

Since I'm trying to work and deal with this, I am going to get pretty close to taking too much Tylenol from DayQuil, or Sudafed wanna-be stuff, etc.

I cannot get this to go away!

I'm getting tired of drinking hot cocoa, tea, broth, etc, just to try and get some relief.

My damn throat feels like it's swelling up, and I cannot figure out WTF it is.

 Just took a dose of generic DayQuil stuff.

Now, I finally decided the pain is getting so bad, I'm falling back into my stash of pain killers.  I've got 3 or 4 left after the one I just took.

I'm supposed to see my doctor on Wednesday, and I'll ask if he can prescribe me another 20.  Since the last time he prescribed me 20 was August 4th.  About 3 months ago.

Usually if a doctor suspects one of his patients is an addict, they will come back every month or less for more of these pills.  These are actually the lowest dosage that are usually prescribed, and over a year ago, I was talking approximately 6 of those things a day.

Right now, I'm starting to get relief from this pain, but I don't know why this pain is even occurring!

It's definitely not a migraine.  Or else the pain wouldn't go away after treating it as a sinus/allergy problem.

Also, if it was a migraine, why wouldn't the migraine specific medications actually help? (Migrazone, Imitrex, Zomig, etc, etc.)

Well, I'm starting to feel better and breath better.

I spent interrupted time between typing and now, going through some Radio Frequency Interference tracking. (RFI)

Sounds like a local radio station is either doing it on accident or possibly a local (doctor, dentist, etc.) office is using some sort of wireless broadcasting system for their sound system.  The broadcast being used is bleeding into the 2 meter HAM radio band.

They're not supposed to bleed into our frequencies, which is why I'm supposing it's a local office, rather than the larger radio station in the next town.

Oh Popeye, You're my Hero!

A few weeks ago, when I picked up Big Miss from school, she told me about something that happened during lunch.

Her group of friends were standing around chatting when someone said something about her best friend, and her best friend ran off.

After a few moments, Big Miss left the group to find her friend.  When she found her, she apologized and told her that she didn't hear what was said, or that anything was said to bother her.

Big Miss told me she held her friendship with this one friend over those of the others, and that this friend's feelings meant more to her than the others.

The courage Big Miss showed impressed me VERY much, as I cannot remember the age when I stopped caring for my friends like that.  Or that I really had good friends that I would protect like that.  Perhaps, I've been selfish my whole life, and with the exception of my folks and sisters, I don't care about the others around me.

Although, recently, my overall care towards my parents is waning.

So much of what they're going through is self inflicted, and when they reach out for help from me, it's really hard for me to want to help.

I want to tell my folks off for wasting their money.  Getting into debt, borrowing from their retirement to pay off the debt, only to go back into debt again.  For wasting money on my brothers who need help on occasions, but they've been supporting them like they're still young dependents.

Without going into a rant about other things, I am going to end this post, as I'm very proud of Big Miss for her integrity and strength of character she has at the age of 12!

At least I'm sleeping well again... I think

For weeks, I've been fighting frequent sinus pressure and pain.

This last week it finally hit me that it was another sinus infection.

I went to the local walk in clinic and got some Zithromax.

I thought I'd bake a loaf or two of bread then rest and/nap.

Didn't happen.

Little Miss wanted to make some of those minestrone meatballs so we could have some soup soon.

We used 6 pounds of hamburger and made enough for maybe 8-10 different batches of soup.  I didn't count the final batches we completed.  There were a lot of them. Perhaps 80 to 90 per 3 pounds of hamburger.

We got the bread going, rolled meatballs.  Then cooked and baked them up.

During this I was working on dinner. Mostly trying to de-bone this ham hock in a pot of beans.

Whilst cooking up those beans, I thought I might as well pull the meat apart and turn the whole thing into BBQ beans.

They turned out real well.  Only snag came from the use of several types of beans.  Two types cooked up real well.  One didn't.  We ate them anyway and had left-overs and today I put them into the crock pot prior to going to church.

I hope they're all cooked well it's dinner time.

After all the kitchen adventures I finally sat down with a heat pad behind my head and kind of wrapped around it.  I fell to sleep and slept real well.  When I woke up hours later I got up, pissed, and got into bed with Ellie.

I tossed and turned a bit, and if it wasn't for the arthritis pain, I would've slept without a hitch.

I still feel tired and have some pain problems, however they are getting better or tolerable.

Mayhaps you desire to - SQUIRREL! -UP

Back to SQUIRREL! days...

AGAIN!

I'd rather like to be "normal" again...  Although, when I was in my manic states, I would often get so focused on something it would be VERY hard to stop.

Often I get focused on something and cannot stop... Been like that my whole life...

Problem these days, is that I cannot stop losing focus right ... SQUIRREL!... now

The dogs in UP really hammer home the problem that many of us who have attention problems.

I don't know if this... SQUIRREL! ...

One of my coworkers from the Tech Support part of our company contacted me about what our tool is reporting on.

The tool reports on various aspects of Windows and common "gotchas"... Like if UAC (User Access Control) is enabled.  If things are being run from a terminal session... etc.

While looking at the various files & logs, it looks like the customer may have problems with  UAC, terminal server, permissions to various registry keys, etc.

I know I can put LOTS of technical details here for this... but this isn't a technical Blog...  It's my general "WTF?" type of journal/blog.

Finally, getting back to things about the SQUIRREL! 

I saw The Ogre (my shrink) today.  I told him about my concentration problems, and he said he wanted to try me on Wellbutrin... Said it might give me what I need to keep my focus, and maybe continue on the even keel mood path.

Thinking about it now.. I didn't tell him that I've been in and out of manic states for weeks now.

Nothing major in my manic states, just sometimes that I get going and obsessed with various things... that aren't really important, and usually not related to  SQUIRREL!

My God. Do you know what this means? - Doc. Brown (Back to the Future)

As you may not know, I'm a HAM radio operator.

Sunday is the day that my HAM radio club meets.

On Sunday, it was brought up to place an ARRL Technician (Element 1) study guide in our local library.  With this study guide, we wanted to include a stamp/label/etc. for our club

I contacted the library and not only would they accept the book but:

• They wanted us to do a public workshop on Amateur Radio.
• Provide various aged equipment for a display.
• Stuff as old as we could that worked or didn't.
• Possibly stuff between then and now.
• For me, I'd also include the currently low priced and VERY usable, BaoFeng radios.
• Here's a link to the one I bought on Amazon.

With this display and workshop, I want to accomplish the following:

• Provide information that we exist!
• We're just  not a bunch of old people!
• You don't need a lot of ca$h to get started.
• You don't need to have huge antennas to communicate.
• Many of the NEW things you can do with a HAM radio license (at least since I got my license 20+ years ago):
• Digital communications
• Internet/computer communications through the airwaves.
• Interact with the International Space Station.
• Volunteering in our community.
• Roles we currently play in the community:
• We provide communications for various functions (bike/triathlon/marathon/parades) where their cell phone and walkie-talkies won't work!
• Work with local police, ambulance, and fire teams during an emergency.
• You don't need to be an electrician, nerd or geek to have a license.

There are just SO many things that we can provide and help with.

It is a bit of a funky/different hobby to get into.

If you can join up with a club to participate with various activities involved with the hobby, it is more exciting that just getting a license and using it to "chat"...

“So, apart from casting runes, what other hobbies do you have? Forbidden rituals, human sacrifices, torturing?” -Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice

Back in August, I wrote about my employment fears.

While my manager told me not to worry about it, and if things did go wrong to try and reapply.

Since August 15th, many things have been going about the same as usual, for work that is.

What I found out today, was that there had been another Reduction In Force. (R.I.F.  in peace...)

This is basically where the bean counters & others who make the decisions go through and use a virtual baseball bat to knock off:

• teams & groups that aren't of absolute value or needs.
• individuals who are poor performers.
• individuals who are a pain in the ass. (If they're not ass kissing / banging the boss's (wife, daughter, son, boss, etc.)
• Those who's stats or circumstances are keeping them held down.

So far as I know, I'm still employed.

When these things happen, I don't like to be in the building for many reasons.  Part of it is seeing all of those unfortunate and duly earned people walking out or being prevented from entering past security.  The other reason that comes to mind is that working is harder to do, as you're paranoid if "you're next" or the day becomes a gossip day...

did you hear that bob in toilet flush management was let go?

It's just not very productive... again.. I don't know why they chose the middle of the week...

Just seems like a crap shoot.

So far, I'm "safe".. but I know I was getting close to the edge of the line because of my concentration problems...

Although, having Big Miss out of the house now, has relaxed me a LOT.

Get thee hence... go forth... be gone...

This isn't really a post that I didn't want to actually happen, but I am glad that thing did happen.

Large Miss has been shipped back to her mother's family.

After the 17+ years of being without her, I have become VERY disappointed with her decisions and continuance of things.

More than once, we asked her to just tell us the truth about EVERYTHING. Please don't lie.  If not directly lying, but don't lie by omission.

Like NOT telling us:

• that one of her ex-boyfriends wanted to do her physical harm.
• This puts everyone in the house in danger, if this crazy asshole is willing to cross state lines to complete his desire.
• Her little sisters, my darling and precious little ones, are in danger because of this.
• that her current boyfriend and fiance is being investigated by the FBI.
• because "I didn't know she was underage".

I don't know exactly what transpired with her boyfriend/fiance as the FBI agent could not give me any details.

The FBI & agencies who investigate things regarding "underage" circumstances don't generally get heavily involved unless there is probably evidence.

This is confirmed, if you will, that this guy coaxed Large Miss into sending him nude pictures of herself to him.

She was an adult she sent him pictures...  When it happened was after she met him last year when she was a very grownup 18 years old.

but ...I don't know...

I know this much...

I'm a papa bear and very fierce at protecting my little ones!

Getting back to this FBI investigation, I brought it up with Large Miss and she knew about it and had known about it for several days.

When I told her about the phone call, she didn't bat an eye, and shrugged it off... after all he was innocent since:

"I didn't know she was underage".

Now, I have been very worried and tense about her being here, since I don't thing I could ever truly trust her.  Her mom and grand mother told me what she had done with the pictures and how she had treated other children, etc...

10 months of going through this level of stress has really taken its toll on me... and Ellie... and Little and Big Miss.

I feel bad for her... not because of how abrupt she was evicted, but because she's still VERY naive.  She doesn't realize what she has lost.

There are SO many things that have actually lead up to this.  She never fully engaged the family here.  We had to ask her to do so many things.  She never willingly joined in activities. Never seemed to care when the rest of us went and did fun things on the spur without her.  Sleeping late or not getting up till mid morning. (9 to 10 AM)

What has been good though, is that she learned how a "good" family works.  That bad things can happen without lots of anger and screaming. (Like breaking valuable things or NOT doing things you've been asked to do.)

Obviously, the biggest thing we have trouble with is lying and the danger of lies by omission...

God be with her, and with you...
Vaya Con Dios.

Behind the Eight-Fucking-Ball

Perhaps it's not the "Eight-Fucking-Ball"... but behind the Eight ball.

This post, will probably make m e out to be some sort of druggie, but ... I don't know what to say.

If I say that "I'm not a druggie", then many will say, "... that's what ALL druggies say..."

Fucking A...

Last week, I saw a new pain management guy, who mocked me and pretty much insulted me throughout the visit.

As I wrote (I think), I called and made an appointment with my previous pain manager.

Today, when went to see the previous pain manager, it turns out that she "discharged" me from care... which means that she didn't want to see me anymore.

What does that boil down to?

I'm without a pain manager, and the "new" one will not maintain my current level of pain management... I have to wait 2 MONTHS till the next appointment, and no one else, so far, can/will give me what I need to maintain my current pain management needs.

I don't want to go back to the new pain management guy, as I think he's an overstuffed pompous asshole.

What it boils down to, is if my primary physician doesn't keep up on this, then I will be completely out of pain medication and completely into HELL.

I can handle pain, but trying to handle the pain and keep working is HELL.

The best way to equate what I go through is to put it as thus.

Try working, reading, watching TV, etc... while having to PEE really badly and you can't get go!

It's very hard to do, isn't it?

I'm unsure what to do about anything right now.

It feels like, since I went to see another pain specialist, I fucked myself... when it shouldn't have been that way.

“Pride and ego makes a mockery of an apology..." - T.F. Hodge

The other day, when I thought I was seeing a "great" pain management specialist, I had the WORST experience with a doctor ever.

I had to wait for a bit longer than I expected, but that happens with practically every doctor nowadays.  It's a given.

Once I start talking to him, he wanted to get down information about the head pain. (Aka, headaches, etc.)

When I started to describe things, he just used the blanket statement of migraines, and I told him that the recent pain hasn't been a migraine.  He went back that it was a migraine.  I explained that if I treated it was an allergic reaction or something that could be treated as a sinus irritation, it would go away, without any additional drugs.  Also that typical migraine drugs no longer work. (i.e. Migrazone, Imitrex and other similar medications)

So he started to mock me, as though I didn't know what I was talking about and that they were ALL migraines.

I then asked him if he was mocking me.... He didn't say yes or no, but the moved on.

The rest of the interview/appointment went pretty close to the same type of mood.

A few minutes after we moved on from migraines, he told me he didn't have ALL the medical records.  I told him that my other health doctors, etc, told me that ALL of my records were being made available to this QUACK.

Then he basically treated me like an ass for wasting his time.

I asked him if he was going to pick up and continue treating me to maintain my existing pain management plan.  He refused and told me I had to go back the other doctors to keep getting the medications.

This bothers me for several reasons:

1. Drug abusers typically "shop around" with various doctors & medical facilities to get more prescriptions for their drug habit.
2. I told him I wasn't asking him for anything new, only to keep things the same.  Even after explaining that I tried to go without one of my meds for a day and I only made it 6 hours into my day before I had to stop working and wait for the missed medications to kick in and start to alleviate my pain.
3. My goal in seeing a new doctor was that I was switching away from the other doctors' health networks as their administration and how they responded to my calls was ignored and not handled correctly.

Prior to leaving his office, I made a follow up appointment at his "earliest" slot which was 2 MONTHS OUT!

Then I was told I HAD to get "missing" medical records to him.

Upon leaving the office, I was supposed to stop by their "check out" receptionist(s) to setup the medical record release.

When I was out in their lobby I looked and there was a line a mile long to wait, and I thought to myself...

Why schedule and do the work to keep coming to a quack like him?

 I then proceeded right to my car, and called my original pain management specialist and scheduled an appointment with her.  Following that I called the QUACK'S office, and told them I had just seen him within the last 10 minutes and to cancel my appointment because I was being mocked by him and he was VERY rude.

In a few days, when I see my original pain manager, I will let her know it was a complete waste of time, and let her know that I really appreciated the way she treated me.  She really was a good doctor, and I REALLY did appreciate her, and no problem with her.  I just didn't like the way the umbrella medical network was handling my care.

When I called her office, they had setup a better system of contacting the pain managers, etc.  Which was part of my beef with wanting to leave in the first place.

You aren't going to leave me alone are you? -Edie Adams

I have no idea who Edie Adams is, but the quote works for me.

"Big Miss" won't just shut up and leave me alone.

I don't want to be talked to, I want to be ignored while I'm working.

It's really FUCKING IRRITATING to keep getting talked to, when I work from HOME to keep from being INTERRUPTED by ANYONE!

The fucking kid just won't leave me alone!

In many ways, I wish she didn't move here.  Or that she would move out on her own.

I doubt the latter will happen, as she's too damn clingy and stupid to get a job.

She often shows that she's a stereo typical blonde.  Really stupid most days.

FUCK!

Rudy Stop. You're throwing off my rhythm

That quote is from Patch Adams, where his roommate Rudy is afraid of invisible Squirrels who are out for his nuts.

I'm in a squirrel mood right now, but not completely.

It's not like I'm really distracted, but I cannot focus.

I feel antsy.  I want to be doing anything but what I'm doing right now.

Even if I stop trying to work right now, I'm going to feel the same way.  Except I'll probably try to do two things at once.

Like listening to an old time radio show, and doing a puzzle, trying to read a book or knitting my "coon skin" hat.  Or perhaps, figuring out additional modifications and tweaks to make my Ham Radio gear better.

Currently, with the radio, I doubt, I could really get much more out of it without bigger, better antennas or perhaps an amplifier of sorts.

Right now, I wish I had another operator friend that could be ready for me when I go out quite a ways to test my equipment setup.

Currently, my testing shows that my little BaoFeng UV-5R+ can do a LOT more than expected when connected to my slingshot antenna.

WHY can't I concentrate to work or even type this blog entry?

I feel REALLY distracted.

Right now, I want a fresh cut or deep scratch or something to help pull me into a state where I feel something.

Other than numb.

WAKE UP 

BASTARD!

Perhaps I'm not completely fucked up, but I feel that way.

Just not able to concentrate, and able to work.  What I'm trying to do right now is new and I usually like to get into new things and challenges.

I would see a doctor, but I don't know who'd be faster to see.  My new primary doctor or my shrink.

The appointment with the shrink is in a few weeks, while I might be able to see the family doctor sooner.

My inability to work and concentrate is getting bad, and I'm afraid that if I really don't start to produce work at my old fury I'll lose my job.

I suppose, I'll call my family doctor, although, I don't know if he can do anything to help, except to tell me to see the shrink.

I'm starting to gain my weight back because I cannot concentrate, and all I do is eat, because I'm bored trying to work, when I don't get anything done.

"Oh, again with the orphanarium!" - Dr. Zoidberg

I had to stop and rethink who is who in my family.

"Little Miss" is the youngest.
"Middle Miss" is my middle.
"Big Miss" is my oldest.

Big Miss has lived a very sheltered life with her mom the past 17 years.

Unfortunately for her, it REALLY shows.

I don't want my blog entries to become one of those... "You won't believe what happened next..." blogs.

Last night is continuing to confirm that she.... I don't know how to describe it... That she doesn't understand as much as she brags about.

She was asked to bake store bought cookies from cookie dough.

So, no measuring, mixing, etc.

Just heat the oven and bake.

 She told me that they were baked and put into the toaster oven.  There were lots of post-it-notes all over it, so that everyone would know not to eat them.

I didn't touch them.

They were for the young men from church who were helping us move some mulch around last night.

When I went to serve the cookies to the youth, I noticed that they were VERY uncooked.

The youth ate them anyway, but I was embarrassed that they weren't cooked well in the first place.

Thinking about the time of day that she baked them, I remembered that the house/kitchen/area around the stove wasn't warm at all.

As I think about it now, I think she was trying to cook them in the toaster oven, by using the usual "toaster" option.

 Did she not read the package for instructions?

It's REALLY hard to know how to talk to her about this stuff, without making her feel as though:

Dad is out to get me!

 How  do people deal with this without being blunt?

What I've had to do, in order to get the truth out of her, is to prove that she is lying.

She needs to learn how to swallow her pride enough to:

• Learn
• Ask for help
• Take feedback
• Not get offended by ANYONE telling her she was wrong.

I don't like being told I was or did something wrong, but I try to listen and learn, prior to saying or defending things.

She still defends things as though she was always right instead of taking it as... I was wrong, and I'm going to not do it that way again.

I suppose what I will do soon, is buy some more cookie dough and bake some cookies in the toaster oven with her present...

Going back to the kitchen/oven not being warm, I also didn't noticed that any of the cookie sheets were out. 
The baking stones were outside getting rained on, as they weren't brought in the last time they were put out there. (We put them outside last time, as we didn't have a good place to put them when after they got hot prior to cooking something else.)

Where am I going?  Again, I think she was lying and I can almost 100% prove it...

Yet, I think what I should do, is to bake stuff from the toaster oven.  When she's here... Perhaps, it'll wake her up, that she needs to ask for help.

Thinking about things now, this last week, she's been poking her head in my office, while I've been working.  Once in a while, this is OK, but I was getting updates, that she opened the door and close it again.  Or that the cat had did something funny and I needed to know, right then and there.

I told her that I really didn't know that much stuff, unless she really felt that I needed to know everything.

Well, that got her to stop bugging me as much as she did... and I suppose it also discouraged her from asking for help with how to bake things... especially with the toaster oven.

I can't say the cookie baking problem is my fault.

It's not.

It really shows that the family she grew up around did the following things:

• Didn't show her how to do things.
• Didn't spend enough time with her.
• Didn't let her do things on her own.
• Didn't let her fail.

She fails still,

And doesn't understand.

It's OK.

"...lucky! You ever take it off any sweet jumps?"

Tuesday, between myself and the doctor office, we got a new wheelchair squared away for me.

I really don't want to use a wheelchair, as I'd rather be able to move with my own legs.  Unfortunately, I cannot walk very far without my feet, especially my left one, and knees start to hurt like hell.

Around the house, and other "small" areas that I need to walk around, I get around pretty darn good.

Outside of the house, like the larger stores (the mall, Wal-Mart, grocery, etc.), I cannot make it very far.

Each of the stores, except the mall, usually offer a wheel chair or a "putt-putt" scooter for people to get around in.

For me, these spell out "look at the dumbass who is using this thing!"  The worse ones are the putt-putt ones, when you put those into reverse, a VERY loud beep kicks off.

To me, the beeping is an alert/action of "Watch OUT! Fatass is backing up!".  I'm not really fat, and never have had a significantly large ass.

I have lost almost 50 pounds from this time last year.

Looking at various models of wheelchairs, which are supposed to be similar to the one I'm picking up today, it looks like the usual. Adjustable, removable Foot rests, arm rests, etc.

One of them looks like it has a removable desktop... In a way, I hope there is a removable desktop or something like that.  I'm tired of going into the store, and being unable to actually store/hold anything on my lap.  Or perhaps, the new chair will give me MORE lap space.

Well, I will get the new chair in the next hour, and will provide more information when I get it home.

Somebody had better be dying

Last night, just before midnight, the phone rang and the caller just hung up

Well, we have caller ID, and we were able to see who it was.

It was Large Miss's boyfriend.

See, Friday, Large Miss's cell phone was turned off by her mom.  Or perhaps her mom didn't pay the bill.

This boy was having an anxiety or panic attack, and decided to include us.

Aren't we blessed?

Turns out this boy calls her phone like this often.

Well, I told her that this boy has been showing her disrespect by doing this and finally by calling the home phone like that.

I suppose it was good that Ellie answered the phone or else, I might have gone off a bit... Even if the line was dead...

I wonder if my daughter's got her cell phone figured out yet.

Perhaps not at all?

It'll be good, as she can't sit around texting and talking to her friends.

Well, I'll see what happens tomorrow.

Telemarketers... How to roast them in their own juices.... mmm, mmm.

For the past year, I average 1-4 calls a week from various telemarketers, with whom I've NEVER done any business with.

One of them continuously calls from the same number for a few weeks, then spoofs another phone number.

In the last 6 months, I try to answer all the calls.  Usually, they hang up on me, and once in a while, I've gotten berated for messing with their hoax calls.

This last week, I kept up my ruse, and found out that they wanted my credit card number, and expected me to just give it to them.

I asked why, and was told that they needed to check my "payment history"...

At that, I told the guy my grandson told me to be careful if someone calls and asks me for my credit card number.

The guy promptly hung up.

I figured next time, since I know how they target things, I would find a fake/test credit card number, to see how far I could keep going with these guys.

Now, one thing to understand is that I register a complaint with the Do Not Call registry. (https://www.donotcall.gov/)

This week, finally entered comments into the complaint form, that I would love to work with the government/do not call agency to track these guys down.

Going back to the fake/test credit card number, I found Android apps that will both generate and test the credit card number sequences.

I'm armed and ready to go now.

Suckers are going to get hell from me... again.

Last time, I used the name of "George Bailey"... They didn't ask me where I worked, or else I would probably have said "Bailey Building and Loan"...

It's a Wonder Life

This next time, and probably all future ones, I'm going to use the name of George Nelson... Probably use the Simpsons Address of 742 Evergreen terrace, Seattle, Washington... or something like that... I don't know...

If I gave them Juneau Alaska, they would know something was up.

"Watch out for that pesky squirrel...he'll take your nuts!"

This week has been a bit of a tough week concentrating on work.

Not a fully squirrel week, but very close to it.

I've had a rough time sleeping, between the summer heat, sinus & arthritis pain, and Ellie tossing and turning.

Last night I was at a friends' house until around 11:00 PM.  At first I was there helping her get things setup for scanning and upload her medical notes for work.

The first time I was helping her, we had things setup, and I thought they were going to be static.

It turns out that the scanner software has different settings for initiating the scans from the Software interface vs. the button on the scanner.

I reset the scanner button settings to dump the images to a single folder, without creating sub-folders with the current date.

Also setup Chrome to display the bookmark toolbar, so that she could easily get to the company's site for her data entry.

Next, I had her write down the steps for doing the entries.

Finally, I sat back while she kept going through the steps and getting the rest them done.

When we were done, I sat around chatting with George till around 11:00 PM.

Nothing too important, just general BS friends do.  Especially two people with the "gift of gab".

Ellie's home improvement projects this year are almost all done.  It's just a matter of putting everything back together... furniture, pictures, etc.

Our bathroom looks good and I feel better knowing that we managed to remodel it long before we ran into rot & leaks.

The bathroom is a purple, blue combination, the hallway is a dark tan and the front room is a bright, darkish blue.

It looks good and color differences between the rooms is neat to see, when you're in the front room and you look through the hallway to the bathroom.  Bright blue to the dark tan, to the purple.

Due to possible security concerns, I will not be posting pictures of what this looks like.

I really need to knuckle up/down and get coding for work. Things are starting to click together and I'm putting all the pieces together to accomplish what we need for our tool.

whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

The title of this entry comes from Matthew 5:39.

Over the past month, I have been simply giving in on arguments with Ellie... "do what you feel..." or "do what you want..."

I don't know if lying down on many arguments is really helpful to our family's financial situation.

This also applies to a broken tail light, because I was very SLOWLY backing out of my drive way, and tapped the wheel of a front loader that had been left in the middle of the street.  For whatever reason, the tail light assembly exploded.

If I had tapped the thing with my bumper or another car, I wouldn't have even left any marks or paint...

I left a message with the supervisor of the work crew, who met with me the other day... basically he said that it wasn't their fault.... Instead of arguing, I just gave in.

One thing that I haven't been giving in on recently, only because it's been part of our refrigerator warranty, is with Geek Squad over our ice maker repair.

Back in early July, we called to have the ice maker repaired.

One of their contracted repair guys stopped by the week after, looked at it and said that it needed to be replaced.

As of today, the ice maker still hasn't been repaired.  Due to travel and a busy July & August, we never thought much that it hadn't repaired yet.

Well, the past week or so, we started calling them, only to have no one call us back.

On Monday, I called and someone said I'd get a call back within 24 hours.  I said if I didn't get a call back in 24 hours, that at hour 24.5 or 25, I was going to call them and raise some hell.

At hour 25 of this period, I did call them, and over the next 30-45 minutes, I finally got connected to their escalation manager.

He personally guaranteed to call and make sure things were moving.  After speaking to him for several minutes, I finally realized that he was going to do it.  He sounded like me, when I was lead escalation handler 5-6 years ago.

Many times I hated working on escalations, only because most of these customers, the problem was due to their hardware or environment.

When I was done with them, I had basically walked all over them, and they thanked me for it.

It wasn't that I purposefully walked on them, it's just that I was able to fully prove why the problem was theirs.

I taught this same type of method to the newbies.  This process is what I called "parallel" testing.  What it means is that you run parallel types of tests that simulate/do the same things our software did.

Like VSS backups.  If the software used VSS to backup various parts of Windows, you then used Windows tools/commands to also use VSS to do the same backup.  If the process also failed, then it was out of our hands.

Circling back to my original start of this post...

I don't know if it's good that I "lay down" or "give in" on so many things.  Part of it is that I'm tired of arguing with people about anything.

Perhaps, its that I feel my blood pressure rise and heart rate start to soar...

It's not "Mite" to meet you ... again ...

Well, my new miniature roses, two reds & a yellow got hit by spider mites again... so it's not really Mite to meet them again.

The reds are practically dead, but the yellow one, I got to it better, is surviving well.  In fact, it's blooming again, for the first time since I got it for valentine's day.

Very pretty blossoms.

One of the reds bloomed too, also with great blossoms...

However, when I pruned them both back due to the spider mites, neither of them have bounced back as good as they would've without the mites.

I think one of them is completely dead... the other one is still deciding if it's dead or not.

Meanwhile, I have orchids which are doing Wonderfully!  Especially since my office at home, is now downstairs!

I have several moth orchids (Phalaenopsis), of them actually.  One of them is one my wife bought me, which is amazing! It looks like it's been water colored. The other two, I bought at the newly opened Grocery Outlet.  It's been a while since I bought them, I don't remember what their blooms look like... I think one of them is yellow.

Ellie bought me another one, which is very unique is what's called a Pansy Orchid. (Miltoniopsis)

They are a bit finicky to get blooming, and all eventually will stop blooming after you buy them...  That's because they're really pushed to bloom so people will buy them.

I'm not an expert, and would have to read through the book(s) to refresh my knowledge.

I've been watching one of the Phalaenopsis, and it looks like I can take a cutting.  It looks I can plant the cutting part into another pot to get another one growing...

The plant is growing taller, and the roots are coming out from between the leaves further up the plant...

I need to do some research before I start cutting... :)

Damn bird!

My cockatiel, Phillip, is the tamest of the two birds that I own.

Yesterday, when I was feeding him millet to coax him out and onto my finger, decided that he needed to take off and fly out of the cage.

Well, the damn bird flew right into the hanging fly strip that I have in my office.  These fly strips were installed because the people in my house cannot ever seem to close the frickin' doors to keep the flying insects out of the house.

Since the little shithead bird flew into this fly strip, you can imagine that he got it plenty well stuck in his feathers.

To make matters a bit more complex, Mr. Rodriguez, the other bird, decided to fly out of the cage too.

Well, I picked up Mr. Rodriguez pretty easy and put him back.

Getting Phillip was the pain.

He was freaked out because he flew out and got caught in the fly strip.  He was scared and was biting like hell at anything that was trying to help get him free.

My fingers have some pretty nasty slashes in them prior to getting the fly strip completely free.

Thankfully, Ellie heard the commotion and was able to come in and help free Phillip.

I feel really sorry for the little turd, but I also resent him because my fingers still hurt really badly.

After all, it's his fault for flying out of the cage like that... but again, it's probably my fault for having caged birds.  If PETA folk are reading this, I'm sure I'm going to get hung up by the nuts for this happening, which was a total accident in the first place.

Well, I've got to get back to work today, and get back on top of things.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream..... Only keep the friggin sand!

Last night, I slept really good for the first time in over a week.

My biggest problem last night at one point, was that my feet, toes and right knee really hurt before I rolled over at one point.

As of now, my leg/foot joints feel like their full of sand, which the damn Sandman can keep if he's going to give me Sand during the night.


With the fantasy introduce by Frank Baum, in the Wizard of Oz, I wish I could be the Tin Man.  At least that metallic bastard could loosing up his joints simply by using oil on them.

Unless I want to appear as a sad sort of body builder, I doubt rubbing my legs with oil is going to be worth anything at all.

I suppose that's enough complaining about the pain, as I'm really tired of doing it in the first place.

Since I hurt so badly most of the time, I'm sure everyone else around me is tired of it too.

Currently, I feel that I've become the pain instead of just being myself.

Wow! Their insurance Sucks!

I just got off the phone with my big sister. (I'm actually much taller, but thinking about her as older, I still call her big.)

She spoke with our mom recently and found out about how things were going to go on with Dad.

See, our Dad, on Monday, was in surgery for work on his tail bone.  Due to some really bad spurs & what not, he needed work on it, so that he could go back to sleeping and sitting down normally.

Well, a few days later, he had developed an infection from the surgery.  This caused him to spend several days in the hospital.

Prior to his release, they were going to send him to a nursing home for some temporary rehabilitation.

Turns out their insurance wasn't going to allow him to continue receiving his injects to prevent anemic problems.

What is happening now, is that he's being released home so the injections can continue and a nurse is going to come over on a regular basis.

I worry on multiple situations on this.

1. Their house isn't really clean, so what type of condition is this for someone dealing with healing and infection.
2. My brother & his family live there, and at one time child services were visiting the house EVERY week to check on them, because of the squalid conditions of the house.
3. Our younger sister and her husband spend 2-4 hours cleaning up the shared/guest/front bathroom!  This includes cleaning up splattered shit on the walls & what not.
4. Since a nurse is going to be there on a regular basis, she'll note what's happening there.  She is REQUIRED to report of any conditions, like I saw last time I was there.  Any concerns she has or feels is bad, she's going to report on, for both the children and my parents.

I don't feel bad if anyone reports on their conditions.  My brother and his wife need to step up and help keep things clean, instead of just doing laundry, helping with the cooking and kitchen.

Seriously, the last time I was there, I went to the basement to look for something I left there.  The basement smelled like a REALLY bad gas station bathroom.  Not to mention the general filth and junk/piles of things all over.

Upstairs, where my parents are at, is almost as bad with regards to piles of things all over.  Not what appears to be trash, but just like a hoarder's home.

It's a good thing that I don't live close by, because I'd probably go there and clean things up... much of which would go to the dump or Goodwill, etc.  Just to get rid of so much stuff that's unnecessary for two retired people need to have.  My mom's dementia is getting much worse. LOTS worse, and my dad's health has been up/down for the past 12 or so years.

If you get the idea, I'm not sure what's going to happen, but what's going to happen should be better in the long run, even if it means that there's a ton more stress for the family there.

Can he be on the rag?

At work last week and part of this week, we've been trying to "bust code", to get our project caught up.

Our project "lead", is under stress, which I understand.

Yet, he's been "snapping like a damn catfish" or more specifically like a gal having a really bad PMS time.

Friday, I was away from the conference room we've been using to help focus our efforts, we he started things.

When I returned and tried to catch up, he started snapping like I was personally attacking him.

I told him, that I understood the pressure he had going on, apologized for missing the beginning information, and still got snapped at a bit.

Finally I told him that I wasn't there at the beginning and wanted to get the info so that I could get up to speed and just start working.

In short, this whole experience has wasted more time than it has saved.

It's not the lead's fault.. at least not completely, as our boss didn't really try to get this organized and relied on the "lead".

There's no reason why this couldn't have been organized by several of us without such a heavy work load.

Honestly, they have a BIG problem being efficient and getting things done in an organized method.

Today, I sent the boss the feedback about things, and he said he wished things had gone better, and knew the "lead" was snapping and over stressed.

I again, offered that I could help plan things out, delegate and overall help prevent problems like we've had this week.

After this experience... I suppose I'll have to wait and see what's going to happen...

I'm worried about my job... again.

Many times in the past, I've worried about keeping my employment... especially with a large corporation.

This year, they're forcing those who do not work directly with customers to take the full labor day week off, just to cut down on the financial obligation/sheet.

What does that mean?

It means that those with a large amount of Paid Time Off (PTO), will have to lose some of that.  It is sick and vacation days.  These are obviously very valuable for each person in different ways.  For me, these are for medical reasons. (Gout, sleep, bipolar, arthritis, kidney stones, etc.)  Others in the organization love their time off, and occasionally will build it up and take several weeks of vacation at a time.

Again, what does this mean?

PTO belongs to the employee, and when that person quits or is let go, that PTO gets cashed out to them.  So if I had 200 hours of PTO built up, making $50/hour, that's worth $10,000 before taxes.

So, why are you worried about your job?

I'm worried, as the forcing of a LARGE part of a company to burn up this type of $ seems like a good way to setup for a large layoff.  With the over all PTO buckets being burned up, the financial obligation by the corporation is LOWER than if they are full.

What else points to possible layoffs?

 Well, the bean counters announced that this was to lower the financial obligation and balances... for profit's sake, and that some (one/person/idiot/collective morons) made some BIG mistakes for purchasing things, etc. etc.

I'm not really at the bottom of things, which is where the least amount of impact happens, but I'm also not at the top of things.  Where I'm also at is a worry place.  I'm a software developer, and once an idea of conceived by one of us, it's a matter then of passing it onto someone who can also write code, but get paid less for it. (i.e. outsourcing/moving offshore the work)

I do work with a team in India, and have since 2009.  Personally, I don't mind working with the people from India.  For the most part, they are very honest and hard working.  In many ways, MUCH more so than my fellow Americans.  Many of my fellow countrymen have gotten into the entitlement mindset. ("Where's my disability check, that I didn't work for?")

Is that it for today's rant?

Yes, that's pretty much it.

Gout sucks, and life did too... Maybe I'm on the upswing... again.

I know that I'm not really over the gout... The feet & heels still hurt, but it seems more bearable, although, perhaps it more from the fact that I'm accepting it instead of fighting.

Personally, I still want to fight things, and always will be a fighter...

Maybe I'm still in a manic state where euphoria often exists, and things seem rosy and happy?

After all I am bipolar, and over the last weekend, I was in a manic state.  I've also noticed that I don't mind spending more money and my inhibitions for doing or stopping some things is much lower.

One of the inhibitions that I really don't want them to be lower, is my sexual desires & what not... Not stopping things with Ellie, but letting go around others or having a harder time not staring/wanting to do inappropriate things. (Not illegal, but inappropriate for a traditionally married person.)

Yesterday was a fun day, and I enjoyed myself.  Our Indian counter parts from the Pune Office are onsite with us here in the U.S.  Some of these guys are pretty dang funny, and interacting with other developers on our project is really insightful.  Many of our ideas overlap, while others bring very new & fresh perspectives.

About 1/4 of us come from various aspects of technical support from our company.  I come from consumer databases, AntiVirus/Computer security, and backup technologies.  Another one is also from the AntiVirus/Security real, but more specialized in the mail security systems, while we have another from the Network Security / Firewalls, etc.

Those of us from Technical Support, are all self taught.  We enjoy the aspect of being able to make a computer/electronic device do what we want it to and what it is capable of.  It's like that with my HAM radio & other gear.

The rest of the team, including those from India, are developers, and typically trained or carrier developers.

Speaking on HAM radio, I am a licensed amateur with a General Class license and eventually I'll upgrade to my Extra Class license.

Since I value my anonymity online, I will NEVER post my CallSign!

With a HAM callsign, you can lookup their fullname, address, etc, all through the FCC & ARRL websites.

It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood?

I've been fighting with the gout a lot recently.. in fact this time last week, I was in REALLY bad pain.

Over the weekend, especially Saturday, I started into a manic state.  I installed the sink cabinet, installed the new sink hardware, and the counter top.

If that wasn't good enough, I sat through a movie with Big Miss, and afterwords, I thought I was going to go to sleep... but I got up and kept going... Cut and installed the trim boards... Then got up, grabbed the paint can and painted the cut ends of the boards and nail heads that were put in... Next, I installed the brass floor strip that separates the linoleum from the hardwood floor... Then I put in the drawers of the sink cabinet, moved the dresser we're using for towels in.

My manic states usually only last for several days, but even today, I still feel a bit ramped up.

Now, I would've kept going, but I finally decided to watch Young Guns II and fell asleep through parts of it, and after turning it off, I passed out and fell to sleep.

Sunday was similar, as I was going through the house picking things up, doing laundry, etc.

One major sad thing about Saturday, was that my old/ancient cat, who was 15+ years old, died. He stopped eating about a week earlier, didn't really drink anything, and started using various rugs as his cat box.

The last straw was when I found him one morning with all of his paws wet with urine.  At that point, I knew it was time, and finally had him put down.

This old boy was a good friend and will be missed very much.

I suppose Google must be working again...

I'm not really trying to bog down Google here, but I saw that I had traffic on the blog here.

If someone or so found this, and find it entertaining or helpful, add a post, and if you'd like more perhaps, I'll republish all of my entries, which I started over a year ago.

Last year sometime, this blog went completely underground, and thus I lost all readership.

Having readership was never my goal, since this was being written for my sake, instead of for the sake of anyone else.

Although, if it wasn't for others creating VLogs on YouTube, I wouldn't have figured out I was bipolar.

If it wasn't for those individuals sharing their life, my life would probably be in the crapper still.

Well, that's all I'm going to write about for now... (My dang finger nails are so long I'm having a hard time typing right now.)

I am a man of constant sorrow!!!

I don't really understand why God has decided that I need to be a man of constant sorrow or perhaps a man of constant pain.

A month or so ago, I was able to wear my shoes again after the original bout of gout & what not.

Now, again, I'm FUBAR!

My feet have been sore and painful for weeks, but bearable.

Now, the fucking gout/swelling at the back of the heel is back again.

Again, I'm at the same dilemma, where the Fuck to go for remedy!

I saw my GP and he gave me some prednisone, and some more Colcrys.

The rest of Monday was painful, but not too damn bad.. I think.

Tuesday morning, the fucker woke me up again, around 3:00 AM.

I took my regular meds. the prednisone, and Colcrys.

Pain started to subside.  Yet, it was there through out the morning.

In the afternoon, I was able to take my regular pain meds, and the Colcrys.  My pain pills haven't been enough to control the pain and it seems that the Colcrys has been working really well.

I tested it by taking it hours before my afternoon dose of pain meds.  Then again that night, hours before my regular pain pills.

The pain subsided, not all the way, but bearable.

Last night, I slept pretty well, and didn't really wake up due to pain.

When I woke up, "Shark Tooth" Bruce was there, sleeping at my feet and I bumped the little fucker's head with my heel, and woke myself up the rest of the way.

The last couple of hours, I was trying to sit up and work, but the pain couldn't be controlled that sitting at my desk.  So now, I'm sitting up in the recliner, typing this and hoping I can get back to work.

I'm really tired of pills and this fucking pain.

I agree with a guy at church, that I seem to have been born to sustain pain.  I bore the kidney stone pain, now this fucking gout pain, and of course the sinus & migraine pains.

As I first started, I have become a man of constant sorrow, and it really fucking hurts.

My bipolar is under control, and I'm not really able to feel depressed about this current situation, but I really hate it though.

I sent a number of messages to my new GP and haven't heard back yet.  I wonder if I should just schedule an appointment with him, just to get better response from him.

I honestly don't know what to do.

It just fucking hurts.

Stable?

No horses, animals or livestock involved with this stable.

For the past 8 months or so, since stopping the Viibryd in December, my moods have steadily gotten better.

Not better enough for me to stop taking my medication, mostly because I still get into pissed off or angry fits.

Xanax is still my occasional friend, which helps me to slow down and deal with things when needed.

Over a month ago, I had the Ogre/Shrink, update my medication, so that I'm taking 400mg of Lamictal.  Two at night and two in the morning.

I'm feeling even keel.

The ability to concentrate and actually work, has gotten better again.

Previously, I had gotten back into the state of playing Backgammon and Logic puzzles for most of my day.

Today, I did that a bit more than I did the other day.

Perhaps, it's from my eldest daughter, Big Miss, coming into my office to ask me if I wanted the local store's ad/coupon book.

WTF would I want that while I was working?

Big Miss is blonde, but damn... I didn't think she was going to actually live/act the part of one.

I haven't been working in my office with the door closed recently, as it's been very hot, and I don't have the AC unit installed in this new room/office. (Yes, we moved Big Miss into the room where my office was originally, and moved my office downstairs.)

Having my office downstairs has actually be really good.  My knees get a break from going up and down the stairs, and with the gout & foot pain, I was able to keep working.

Why not?

I have been thinking about reconnecting with the bipolar community through Google+, but cannot seem to bring myself to it.

Although, recently, I have started to watch the YouTube channels of bipolar people I used to watch and got to know.

There is another Gmail account that I have access to, but don't really want to get involved with things so badly, to utilize this account.

Writing in this blog, is like I previously mentioned, has been hard to do.

This is probably due to the security problems/concerns that Ellie has.

I don't blame her, although, I might be able to setup another blog somewhere, under a 100% anonymous account, etc.

Most sites, etc., want to validate users are "real" and not spoofing things. Like many of "us" used to.

I say, "us", as many of us using the internet regularly since the late 80's and early 90's know that you could setup tons of accounts under various users & names.

Now, everyone seems to want to validate who you are and also to make $$$.

Today, I'm doing OK, except for a headache.  Not even the gout & arthritis pain my legs & feet are bugging me.

Yeah, back in March, I finally was acknowledged that I had kidney stones, and they were removed.

A week later, I finally saw a pain consultant, and she got me onto another type of pain med, which started to work.

Then a few weeks later, I developed gout.  Which I diagnosed on my own.

The official acknowledgement/diagnosis of gout happened twice.  Once from an orthopedic doctor, and again by a podiatrist.

My Primary Care Physician (PCP), said that it couldn't possibly be gout, although it had previously been diagnosed.  He referred me to a podiatrist, which I saw the next day.

The podiatrist, said he was willing to bet a LOT of money that it was gout!

My thoughts are scattered right now, so I'm going to wrap this up.

Sometime "soon", I hope, I'll put in more information regarding my bipolar experiences, etc.

I am starting to wonder if anyone will help anyone they way they used to.

It used to be that a patient could go see a doctor or a pharmacist and receive recommendations or prescriptions of what will help them.

Like take 2 and call me the morning type of thing.

Or buy some ibuprofen and use them "as needed"....

Even when it came to my stronger pain pills, I used to be given a prescription with 30 days supply and it wouldn't be a problem...  If I didn't need any more pills, I wouldn't call the doctor for months... in some cases 9 months or more.

Over the past few years, especially since my arthritis in my knees & hips have been getting worse, I am almost being completely monitored from when the prescription is written to when it's being refilled again at the doctor office.

It's as though they stopped trusting everyone with their own ability to use their medication responsibly.

I've never called my doctor, but in two different times of dire need, to ask for more pain pills.

For me these days, there's no "buzz" or "aching need" or "unquenchable desire" to take more than is needed to get the job done.

The problem right now, is that the pain I've been dealing with for my knees & migraines is getting worse again....

So much so that the use of O2 isn't working anymore.  Maybe 1 out of every 10 times that I use it, I might get relief...

I'm going to call and return the tanks, etc back to the company who's been managing them.

While renewing the "contract" with the doctor, there was an additional "survey" regarding usage of things to determine how "addictive people" were to opioid drugs...  Part of the scoring was if you had family who were addicts or alcoholics...  Or if you are bipolar or depressed etc....
I can see why family ancestry thing might be an indicator if people were addictive my nature... but I'm not.... I can easily say no to things, and can control urges that might drive other people who are addicts or have trouble saying "no" or denying an impulse...

Another part of the "survey" was regarding my "behavior".

• Do I argue with people? (Who doesn't?  Especially if you have teenagers)
• Do you get upset with people? (Who doesn't?  Especially with teenagers)
• Did I take anyone else's meds? (Of course not.. that's something I wouldn't do, unless under extreme duress and nothing else was working and it was a matter of last resort and I couldn't get to an ER...)

There was just a lot more crap like that, that I didn't like on there... did I take more meds that I was prescribed, etc. etc.?

It's getting to a point that I'm afraid to ask or tell the doctors anything.... If I cannot be honest with them about the pain and how I have to manage it, then things are surely going to hell.

Perhaps I need move closer to Canada or Mexico so that I can walk into stores where some of these pills are just "over the counter"...

Well, I'm feel pretty freakin' mellow right now, because of the Xanax I took prior to seeing the doctor...  It helps me to calm down so that I don't shout off and really cause a problem arguing about "simple" things.

I feel defeated with my efforts to keep writing here.

It feels like my communication/hold on the bipolar world has been completely severed.

Today, I woke up initially just fine, no headaches, nor major knee pain.

Gradually today, I got pain in the right side of my head and it's getting worse.

My oldest daughter is a bit of a disappointment to me right now.

I'm working, and she often pops in to see if I need anything, or to tell me what she's going to do.

It's distracting and irritating.

I wish that she would just get her ass out of bed and get moving...

Right now it's just after noon, and she hasn't dressed or left the house yet looking for work.

My youngest daughter got into trouble this morning so bad, that the big wooden spoon was brought out.

She's been sulking really badly recently, and it's been pissing Ellie and I both off really badly due to her bad respect towards us.  Especially towards Ellie.

In fact the punishment got so bad, she's been banned from watching TV/Movies/etc for 4 weeks.  Also she cannot read her books after being sent to bed.

I want to say, "Serves her right".. and it does, but I don't want to make it appear that I have cruel thoughts towards my children.

Currently, I'm in a meeting with our team, and I think after it's over I'm going to use some Oxygen to see if it'll help get rid of the headache, but it's not guaranteed... I might need to contact the doctor again... but I don't see that things will change much from where they are.

I'm down and possibly needing help... but no one can.

Last few days have been very hard.

Thursday, we had cold temps and snow... then Friday, we had a bit more snow, which then turned into Freezing Rain!

Friday night, around 8:00-9:00 PM, the power went out.

Several hours later, hell started to break loose.  The limbs from our big tree started to crack and fall off, hitting the house.

Luckily, as the limbs broke and fell on the house, they drooped over, touched the house, then broke and slid down the roof.  Mostly destroying gutters & fencing.

Saturday morning, a neighbor came over with his chain saw and helped to trim the limbs off the house, fence and natural gas meter.

Later on, Ellie wanted to go out and work on cleaning things up and especially use the chain saw.  So, I showed her how to use the saw, etc.

Just after setting her up, I got a call from one of our neighbors at church.  They wanted to know if we needed help.  Shortly after our friends arrived, the missionaries were on their way to our friend's house when they spotted all of us working, so they stopped to help.  Again, shortly after that help got started, our neighbor with the chain saw stopped by again.

All of the limbs & what no were all cut up, and cleared out of the way.

This was a lot of work that caused by knees to hurt like hell Saturday night and Sunday....

Sunday, Ellie wanted to go out and work on the fence... So instead of getting my knees ready to rest and recuperate, I dressed in my working gear... Shorts, t-shirt and hunting boots.  No coat this time, like Saturday.
I measured the piece of timber we'd need, ran an inventory of what we needed... then Ellie went and got it.

She returned with it, and a bit later on, the missionaries showed up again, and we got the fences all done yesterday as well.

Needless to say, last night, my body hurt like hell!

Everyone was going to be early, my head hurt like hell and I was tired...

Ellie asked me if I was going to bed, so I got up and went to bed... She was expecting some action... but I had that damn terrible headache, and would be grateful if the damn thing went away so I could sleep.

She got all bent out of shape that I wasn't "all over her"... well, that's probably not what she wanted.. but it sure as well feels like that some days between us...  I never expect her to "jump my bones" just because I "want some"...

Moving to this morning, I got pretty good sleep... rather I felt better, no immediate pain... Just had to get up and pee...

Despite wanting to wake up enough to have some action with Ellie didn't work... I just couldn't get myself into a high enough consciousnesses to stay awake.

Whilst getting dressed, I mentioned that I REALLY hurt... then things seemed to get pissy.

I just tried to stay the FUCK OUT OF EVERYONE'S WAY at that point...

Just after Ellie left... I texted her asking her if she was angry because I couldn't figure out if she was or not...

Being in my current state, I sent her another text over an hour later, telling her when I last texted and if she was ignoring me...

To boot, I called the doctor about my FUCKING KNEES! 

See, three weeks ago he did steroid injections, and said he would "QUICKLY" (FUCKING EH, right?) follow up with additional "visco-supplication" shots to help, as he "found" that to be the best way to deal with it...

SO FUCKING WHAT NOW?

SO the FUCKING DOCTOR IS ON VACATION NOW AND NO FUCKING SHOTS OR ADDITIONAL PAIN KILLERS>

Now I sit in fucking pain and currently am contemplating hurting myself...  or taking more pain pills than I'm allotted to get the fucking pain under control.

I HAVE no FUCKING Ice Cream!

DAMMIT... I've been so good and losing weight... so much so.. that by doctor's scales I'm down 40 pounds now.

SO WTF?  I want Ice Cream to help drown my sorrows and worries...

Good thing I don't drink or do drugs or I'd probably be roaring drunk or stoned by now...

Ellie and I just started texting now... that and some Xanax I took is helping me feel better and calm down...

Shit from work isn't going that well either... so I'm at fucking odds to what to do about things.

Adware sucks.

Since I come a security background, I know that I've done some pretty stupid things with my android phone.

I've installed various things that I shouldn't have, for various purposes... Like a wma->mp3 convertor... It required options not available on Google Play...etc...

However, I have installed things through Google Play that have appeared to made the adware worse...

In fact, my phone was running "fine" until last week... when I got a pop-up for installing a new "Free" - "iPhone 5s Keyboard iOS 7"...

I don't know why it was showing up in the notification part of my phone, unless Google decided to notify its users about it.

Unfortunately, and stupidly, like a sheep, I clicked and installed it...

Now I started to get all sorts of adware popping up asking me to install additional apps.

After clearing off, almost all the custom apps I installed, I got to a point where I didn't really see any other apps causing me a problem...

Yet, I still got an alert that I need to install the Google Play service, as the Google maps required it...

It did not require it... I could open Google maps, browse maps, locations, etc. Just fine.

BTW, I installed Norton's Android AV software, other application tracking and ad-tracking software.  It seems that there's stuff that's much NEWER than these know how to deal with, even with current signatures.

I'll still install the Norton Android AV software, as it's free through my employer.

Well, I managed to sync up my address/phone book and my calendar, so I'm going to factory reset.

Wish me luck!

Catching up to January 29, 2014.

Christmas was... well Christmas... Things went really good.  No family fights/arguments/etc.

A week or two ago, I get a call from my oldest daughter telling me that she wants to move in.

See, she finished the school term at the college in another state, and went back home to her mom.

During a conversation Big Miss was having with a friend, her half-sister got irritating... her half sister got their mom involved, and after much yelling, their mom slapped Big Miss, raking with her nails... Big Miss had scratches on her face after the encounter.

Now, I love my child, even though I haven't seen her, nor interacted with her on a regular basis for many years.  (Interacting with her was always a problem with me, because I had to go through her mom to get to her... and her mom and I well... we argue a LOT and her mom isn't really my favorite person.)

I regret not interacting with her more, and not taking more time to save more and more money to visit more... but it's hard to save money when you're beating off a county/government from taking ALL your money for child support that they feel the kid deserves, despite how much/little you make. (Flat 15%, instead of a rate for the area they live in...)  Too many times I got calls from my Ex asking where the money was.  It was garnished by my employer and I had no control over how long it took to get from them to the county, and then the county to my Ex.

So, I really stopped responding to the phone calls and screened them, because all it became was a bitch session by my Ex.

Even after they first left, I used to get pages/calls from Big Miss (at this time around 2+ years old).  Big Miss and I would chat/talk for quite sometime, even if it was strange communication.
When they started moving across the states several times, this communication from them pretty much ceased being friendly, to being confrontational by my Ex.

I know I put a LOT of blame on her, but I just got tired of the arguments and de-stressed from it to find internal peace.  I did find the peace, and started sending more funds and gifts, when I could...

Now that Big Miss is here, the first week went as I expected... Lots of talking and her "detoxing" from the situation she just left.

Currently she has a cold, and I understand that, but she's basically been hiding in her room and not interacting with the rest of the family except for meal times.

Last week I installed a new wireless router as a hotspot and put a wireless fob on Ellie's computer so that we can get her system to communicate with the rest of the house easily through the wireless, instead of figuring out how to connect the CAT5 from place to place in the house, without lots of drilling and attic crawling.

Well, this changed as I "disabled" the original Wireless network, and renamed it.

I setup my phone to use the original Wireless network, and no one else can go straight to the internet as they're going through the hotspot to the firewall then out to the internet.... as it should be for security.

Since Big Miss has been hiding in her room, watching YouTube, using FaceBook, and generally just sucking bandwidth, I configured the new HotSpot to turn off the wireless from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

It's not a long disconnect time, but it's enough for me to feel that she might actually start working more on her Driver's permit, as she doesn't have driver's license, which means that she doesn't have a government issued ID.  This made it hard getting her money via Western Union... but I got it to her for the trip.

While disconnected, I also hope she fills out the job applications she has, so that she can start to earn her own money.

I'm not going to pay for her to waste the left over money I gave her for the trip and for all the "new" stuff she said she needs. (Dresses, belts, etc.)

It's not that I don't want to help her.... I just spent close to $300 a few weeks ago to get her here.... so she can make do with what she has to get along...

At least she has a good, warm place to stay with good food to eat...  Unless she went back to her mom's house and dealt with more confrontations/etc... she'd probably be on the streets or spend LOTS of her time couch surfing and not getting anywhere.

I really want her to succeed and make something of and for herself instead of just idling around.

This isn't as detailed as it could be, but who the heck wants to spend all day reading more than I already posted?

I also really need to get into the corporate system to fill out some yearly forms... (Whoopee... If my pay wasn't tied to this, I would skip it or make excuses for not filling them out.)

Screw it...

Let Ellie get mad at me...

I haven't really posted/written anything since this blog went private.

I don't understand why that is... Perhaps it's that it doesn't feel like this is going to make any difference in my life unless I can actually share it with someone.

Ellie never read it in the first place, and I really don't want my kids in grade school to read what I'm posting... it might actually cause problems.

Being private, this blog sucks and seems like a waste now.

I used to post here every single day if I could find something to write about.

Part of it was just venting out my frustrations and part of it was logging information to see how many people hit/read my posts.

It felt like I was helping people by making my thoughts/posts visible.

 Now, I really don't give a shit.

I'm really tempted to make everything visible again, and to hell with Ellie's paranoia about people finding out who I really am.  The government probably already knows who I am, but I'm not doing anything that's a threat to the country.. rather a threat to any of their political parties/factions/etc.

As to individuals who really want to find out who I am, I know the hardcore hackers/etc. can do it... I know if I wanted to find out about someone I met online, over time I could do it.
 (Gathering information about places they've been, where they're near, etc.)  It also helps when they use their real name.

For me, I just feel down about this blog and really don't give a shit about it these days.  Not even as a general journal anymore.

Since I deleted ALL of my accounts (Google+, YouTube, & Hangouts), I feel very isolated when I'm working.

I really don't miss Google+, but I do miss posting comments to YouTube videos.. Although, I think I need a Google+ account to do that even now.

Without those accounts, its also hard to notify people of blog changes, new entries, etc.