Update on my girls...

My previous post gave a general update on what has been happening and here I'll try to focus on my girls, Giant Miss, now referred to as Giant Missus, Big Miss and Little Miss.  The girls are all adults and out of high school.

Starting with the youngest, Little Miss, in her Junior year of High School she started exhibiting signs of depression which only got worst when Big Miss Graduated.  They both had the same friends who also graduated that year and all of them either went to college or out on church missions.  Big Miss did alright with the changes because she was starting college and started attending the singles ward.  Unlike Little Miss, she gets along with people pretty well and quickly makes friends.  During Little Miss's Senior year of high school turned into a lot of stress because she was alone a lot at school and home because Big Miss wasn't there like she had been.

During the last few months of Little Miss's senior year, one of Ellie's students was given a puppy that they couldn't keep.  Ellie contacted me asking if we should get it for Little Miss as an emotional service animal.  I quickly said "Yes!"  Ever since then she and the dog have been best buddies.

Little Miss wanted to go into nursing and eventually work in the OR with anesthesiology.  She started college in the fall but wound up failing most of the classes.  It's sad because she's very talented and empathetic of others and she would've been so successful.  Maybe she'll come around circle soon and go back into school.  If she doesn't, it's okay.

♪ Hello, again, hello...

Neil Diamond wrote the song, Hello Again, which is in the movie, The Jazz Singer.  It's a song that laments the loss of a friend, probably a lost love.  In the case of the movie, it's over the break up of his girlfriend.  In my case it's about returning to writing in this Blog.  It's been six years since I wrote anything here and there's been a lot of positive things that have happened and of course some not so positive and some very down and dark times.

Both of the younger "miss" daughters, Little & Big Miss, have grown up, graduated high school and no longer live with me. Big Miss moved out after she started going to college and church with other young single adults.  Little Miss lives with Ellie because Ellie and I have divorced (more to come on this).  I got my associates degree and certification in ParaEducation where I specialized with students & people with disabilities (also more to come).   Giant Miss is now Missus and I have a son-in-law now.  Also my employment went from driving a bus (aka large van converted to transport wheelchairs and disabled/infirm/elderly) to working for in public schools, and finally I wound up working in computer technology again, but this time in a school district.  The not so positive include a terrible kidney stone, losing both my dog the Sheltie and big cat (more to come), and Ellie's car's transmission going out, leaving the job I loved, developing severe pain in my neck, shoulder and finally lower back (sciatica).  I also moved away from all mood altering meds except for the Lamictal, except for the St. John's Wort, only to get put back on Zyprexa.

Since I'm not certain how to write all of these events and situations, I think I'll break them up into separate blog entries.

Well, my new pup which I'll call Deirdre, is bugging the piss out of me and I'll have to take this into the house to finish writing.

I dunno know... I wanted to cut something.

I can't seem to remember where I left off at right now and sure as hell don't want to go back to read it right now.


Although... I believe I wrote about my useless, older brothers... All of whom lived with my folks several times after they were out of the house and married...


Where am I going with this?


Well, I'm going where I think I need to go.

A few hours ago, I was on the verge of sitting the curb on the side of the road, fishing out my knife and putting a slice across my arm!

This is not a suicide slice!
It's a cut!
There is a difference!

The difference is that the cut hurts and will hurt for awhile, while the other will typically end your life.

I needed to release tension and at that time a cut across my forearm was the only way I thought I could handle it.

Here's the backstory:

My dad had been sick and my younger sister and her husband have been driving our mom back and forth to his appointments, and eventually to the hospitals.


About a year ago, I spoke with with my sisters about how nasty and messed up our parent's house was and that our brother's kids weren't being cared for very well.

Now, my job at that time required me to call in any form of abuse. (child, adult, elderly, spousal, etc.)

So, I called social services.

Our dad's had several major problems over the years and about a year ago landed himself in dire medical care.  My brothers all started out helping, then kind of ran into their holes, leaving my younger sister to pick up all of the slack.

Recently his health got so bad that he was losing track of who he was, who others were and where he was.  All that he knew was that he wanted to go home.

Speaking with my sister, I told her that it sounded like he needed to go on hospice where he would be kept comfortable until he passed on.  She also told me that she was getting exhausted and on one occasion that one of the other brothers was with our mom and was supposed to wait with her until my sister got there.  Well, I guess that she needed to go to a clinic and he had something else to do!  So that asshole left her there at the clinic!  WTF?  Why would you just leave someone there like that!?  Seriously!  Our mom has been fighting with dementia and memory problems for several years.

That really pissed me off, so I decided I needed to come out here to help our mom and relieve my sister and her husband.  I ordered the bus ticket and then that same night, I got a call from my oldest brother and found out that our father passed away.

I got on the bus and came out here.  (Remember, I don't fly anymore!)

The bus ride sucked like hell and everytime I fell asleep I had to wake back up again for some dumbass reason.  That last one really pissed me off.  I was finally comfortable and in a deep, deep sleep.  Then a new lady getting on the bus practically sat on me!  It's not like I'm a little, bitty dude, and I was in deep sleep!


So today, I met with all the other siblings at our mom's house and they started going through the funeral program, and at first I was willing to play a flute, but I had forgotten mine.  Then my brothers started getting a bit pushy and the real, dumbass, pious mother fucking one started trying to be cute and tell jokes.  I got mad, so when I went outside to chat with my little sister, I decided to just walk.

I just walked away, and walked for probably a mile before my sister contacted me and told me they were done, and wanted to know if I wanted a ride back to where I was staying.

During my walk, I was starting to break down about the loss of my father, but more so that my fucking brothers all of a sudden showed up and were there to help out...

This is where I emotionally had to find a way to gain control, and the first thing that popped into my mind was to cut my arm and have the pain get me back into control.

Or...

To take several pain pills and try to "gain control".

I did take one pill.

I've never had a problem with my meds and the doctor has but that would've been normal for me as I'd been taking 4 a day as needed by the doctor

Texting with my sister, she drove to where I was walking and picked me up.

Where will I be in a few weeks?

I don't fucking know, but I do know that I am going to help our Mom get things cleaned up, and help my sister get back to a semblance of normal  for her own life.

Our mom needs to be in a assisted living facility where they can help her throughout the day as she needs it.

Not sponged off of by my major asshole brother who lives with her.

It's different now than it used to be, and that's good. Right?

Since the last post lots of good and sad and even REALLY SAD things have happened.

I kept looking for work, even drove over 200 miles one day to take a test for getting post office jobs.

That day started good, I was doing dishes, when all of a sudden I remember about it, so I stopped, took everything out of the sink, then left.

While I was gone, Ellie came home and thought I had done nothing, and started to flip out.

She had called her dad, then when I called her she was completely pissed off.

I had to tell her and then prove to her that I this scheduled, then to also show her the text message date and time stamps that I had sent her just before I left.

Ellie was not happy that day still, but she realized she had nothing to really be mad at since I didn't just up and leave for no good reason'

It was shortly after that, when we had a stupid argument over our cat that she left.  She went to school with the Misses and then when they came home, she packed up a shit load of things and they left to her mom's house.

That night, Little Miss stayed with me, and I was glad.  It helped me feel better to have her here.

Now we're still married and reconciled.

BUT! I do want to conceded here, that I almost found out what the barrel of my gun tasted like.  That scared me a LOT.

However, during that few weeks, I spent a LOT of time looking at myself and writing down things and sending them to Ellie.

I started caring for myself and the house better.

Learning how to do yard work that I couldn't previously do.

In short, it was a wake up for me on a personal level, but it also woke me up to things about Ellie that are concerning.  She fights really bad anxiety.  She's VERY babied by her parents, mostly by her mom.

During the summer, while camping, she invited a small family close by to come over and roast marshmallows.  The little girl had never done it before.  After they left, Ellie and I went for a walk and she was really mad because the little family said they were going to come over again the next night so their daughter could do it again.  The child had never done it until that night.  So, Ellie was flipping out because she could not be alone with her family!  It's scary to think that, but it's true.

I did get a job as a driver, but I'm make about 1/4th of what I used to make.

There was a time there where I was signed up to work on the phone doing customer service.  A little bit into it, I realized their customers were all morons, and my own anxiety was getting to me and I was starting to use my pain meds to cope.  I also realized that they wanted me to help people who wanted to cancel their service stay with them.  That makes sense, but the way they did that was to offer them free stuff, then bill the hell out of them several months later for the new services and devices.  Fuck that.  So I left them, over my own moral convictions.  This was before the temporary split, so it did fuel that tension too.

It.'s all good now, but we had very little money, Ellie is a school teacher and we spent way too much money for her classroom supplies.  She also spent way too much money on these summer trips that were supposed to be paid for by the girls club...

This next year, employment for her will be up in the air too.  Her job is only for this school year and instead of teaching a dedicated grade still, she's now teaching specialized children.  Her pay goes up, but it also means we'll need to work on getting her additional college courses to get the special education endorsement.

In all honesty, I hate the education system and it's rife with hypocrysy

I don't know WTF is going on right now...

The LORD is on my side; I will not fear

Back in June 2016, I was laid off and my official last day was July 1, 2016.

When I found out, I was relieved and worried to some extent, as I believe I wrote here when it happened.

Since then, I had both knees successfully replaced, started receiving unemployment, and have been faithfully looking for another job.

I have only doubted and been angry with the Lord on a few occasions.  Mostly these were driven by pain and response to Ellie's anxiety directed towards me.

From the time I was laid off until now, I haven't really doubted that we would ever go hungry, be late on bills or have other problems.

Just before Christmas, I applied for a job that I received as an email alert through a popular job site.  The next day, I received a phone call asking if I was available for an interview.  I said yes, and I was told it may happen that afternoon!

The interview wound up taking place after Christmas.  The official job offer was pretty close to what I was making.  About $7k short of what I was making, which was a LOT of money.  This still, is a LOT of money.

Due to the nature of the job, I needed to get government/military security clearance.  All of the initial paperwork took me an entire day+ to fill out, sign, fax, scan and email back to my new employer for preparing the clearance process.

The usual drug screening required for this took place, and I had to provide pictures of my Rx bottle(s) to validate some of the pain medications in my system.

Everything there cleared.

Then I had to fill out MORE paperwork, and then go through another security clearance process to get it directly authorized by the agency I am going to work for.

Again, everything there cleared.

I start work this week at home filling out forms.  Due to MLK day, I will work on location on Tuesday.

While many others were worried that I wasn't going to find employment, I wasn't fearful.

I was worried and concerned, but I wasn't afraid.

My biggest concern was that I might need to apply for disability sooner than later, because my medication might cause some employers to forgo the validation process.

Going even further with the latency of employment, many of the employers I met with either didn't want to meet my desired salary range, didn't like that I wasn't as "certified" JAVA developer (The language is a C language and it's damn easy to read... so WTF?)....

AND...

I ran into an old coworker that I trained many years earlier, who told me that he had been laid off as had another large group of people too.

Our local market place is flooded by people in my industry.

My new job isn't in software development, however, it is in a technical support type of role....

BUT...

It's the organization that I am contracted to work with that makes me proud to accept the lower pay... which is actually higher than the pay I was willing to accept.

It should be good!

Need to find your family? Win the Lottery... or join Facebook.

I recently joined the existing shit load of people on Facebook.

Immediately after I created my account added only my sisters as friends, ALL of my family was befriending me.  I felt like the pork chop tied around the neck of the ugly kid to get the dog to play with him.

The reason why I joined Facebook was to promote my self-publishing efforts I'm doing through the Amazon Kindle Self Publishing service.

It's really a nasty bit of mobbing by everyone on there.

You can't post any read only comments/updates.

This means EVERYONE can post to your comment...

I've had brothers post "cute" dumbass replies, and my own mom replying to a post... "why doesn't my little boy call?"

WTF posts like that?

If you want...

SHIT.

What a FUBAR system.  I'm really close to just cutting the whole fucking thing off.  Except that I want to promote my books/stories.

It's not easy being cheesy... or was it being green?

Recently though, I noticed one of my nieces posting about mental health troubles...

I know what that's like to go through.  It appears that it's all brand new to her.

I suggested that she watch the videos from BipolarStateOfBeing on YouTube.  Not the newest ones, but the original ones from 5+ years ago.  They helped me the most.

Originally I thought about letting her know about this blog... but I really don't want this to get around to my brothers, sisters, parents, etc.  then back around to my family here.  Especially back to Ellie.

I suppose when/if I die, then Ellie will know about this blog, and so will the Misses.  Until then, I'll just keep doing what I do.

It's healthy to journal your life, and even if this is just one side of my life, it's OK.

At least, my family gets to eventually see this part of my life, if they do at all.

While you were away, we changed the keys to the locks, and repainted your bedroom neon green!

It's been many moons and Google/Blogger went and changed all their UI on here.

I don't think it's too bad, but it's a change I wasn't expecting.

It looks and feels more like a Fisher Price toy.

Honestly, I don't know why everyone has to add more and more icons, instead of menus with words.  Are people getting that stupid that they can't READ?

"Back in the days" when I started with computers I had DOS, which on its own was a bit of a learning process... HOWEVER, the applications, except for a few, all had what were called, "MENUS".  They were all written in "English", which meant you had to read the screen to figure out what to do.  Maybe I'm too simple minded, that adding more graphics and less words to the screen is stupid.  Okay, it really is stupid to take away the menus... especially the shortcut references!  Microsoft has been doing this for years and now I'm even more frustrated, because I don't want to take my hands from the keyboard to do something.  This really applies to adding new keyboard shortcuts for features I use a lot more. (Mostly bullets and numbered lists.)

Oh well... it seems like the best way to do anything for people out there is to just make it stupid proof.

I'm a bit miffed now, and this diatribe won't lead to any sort of update to my life...

I guess I'll write another entry after I publish this one...

Being unemployed is a lot of work..

I never wanted to use social media.  I still feel that it exposes you to the world, and then you need to watch what you post and what other people post about you.

Previous to being unemployed, I was almost completely missing, even though I've had a huge presence through my coding and technical documents I wrote for my employer.

Since my name was never published with my technical articles or my applications and utilities, I really don't have any proof for new employers of what I've done.

The source code I wrote for those utilities belongs to my last employer, so I cannot even share it or possibly even use it with a new employer.

So, what do I have to show for my work?

"Hey, I have written lots of technical docs, busted out hundreds of thousands of lines of code... but I can't prove it aside from just saying it."

Kinda fucked up when you're working with the intellectual rights between employers.

Going back to all the work, I spent many hours setting up a Facebook account ot use for promoting my books & stories.

It turned more into a shit fest of: "Oh, look there's my brother... oh look there's my little boy... oh look there's...  Oh, that picture is Awesome!  45 people "liked" your photo(s)..."

So WTF?

Why do I need to be notified that someone liked a picture of my bare ass?

I mean seriously?

Who cares?

I updated my profile photo with a picture taken 5 years ago, and everyone is like, "Wow, that's a great photo.".... and all I want to say is... "yeah it is... All of you have copies of it from the same damn family reunion we were all at!"

Then there's my mom... "I need you to call me..."  "That's a great photo of my "little boy""... Holy shit!  WTF would someone post shit like that to a site where most of that shit is public?


I should post something like, "here's the damn bitchy lady who used to yell at me about how poor my fucking grades were"  OR "Thanks for yelling at us kids for not putting the fucking lights on the Christmas trees correctly, when you wouldn't do it or even show us WTF you wanted done!"  OR  "WTF didn't you get an idea that I was depressed and my grades were bad about it.... Why couldn't you try and help me, instead of yelling at me!?"

Now, enough with bitching about Facebook and the idiots who use it.

Getting back to working hard being unemployed.

I setup a LinkedIn account, and spent several days filling in the various parts of the forms, and employers, and work experience, and projects I worked on, and then "connecting" with all the people I worked with over the years.

Now, the people I connected with are those that I trust.  There are shit loads of others from my last employer that I really, REALLY don't want to be associated with.

Hell most of the people aside from those I actually like are complete assholes!

Some of them are idiots and can't pour water from a boot with instructions on its heel.

A lot of them are heavy drinkers and drug users...  Yet, since this employer didn't do any drug screening, nothing was found, even though they were pretty damn fucked up sometimes.

So, getting back to LinkedIn (again), I think that I am now publicly visible through Google searches... Whoopie fucking deal.

Actually, I did several searches on my first & last name, then first name, middle initial, last name.

I found only "public" phone records, and a reference to my Facebook profile.

Otherwise, I am going to be confused with LOTS of other people with the same name, including several sports stars.

In short, it seems like a lot of fucking work for almost nothing...

Except that I had a great phone interview for an IT position, where the interviewer said she wants to meet with me and their other IT people for a formal interview.

w00t!?

I need the job... but I'm not sure how excited I am yet..

At least today I'm not feeling very excited.

I haven't been sleeping good for a variety of things.. one might be the pain in my legs still... (duh)  Another would be heavy caffeine use from not sleeping... (duh, again)  another could be the drop in pain medication.

The pain I have is being controlled almost completely with Acetaminophen these days instead of the opiods I had been taking.

It's a great thing to be off of them, for the most part... but it's also a possible reason why I'm not sleeping good.. it's allowing the pain to hit me harder at night, when the small doses I took through the day have worn off.

Right now, I am taken less than 1/8th of what I was taking three weeks ago.  In fact, I'm taking less than 1/2 of what I was using last week.

Hell, I'm not even using the muscle relaxers on any sort of regular basis.  I took some last night because I hurt my back on Saturday... and to hope they'd help put me to sleep... (HA!)

I did manage to sleep 4 hours last night, and if it continues with caffeine use the rest of the week... can anyone say... "Welcome to the Himalayas?"  I mean... "Welcome to a good old mania time?"

Oh fucking well.

That's one hot ass!

This is not a post about Trump or any of the other garbage going on in my country.  It's all a mess anyway.

I'm actually sitting on a hot pad and my ass is literally hot, because I need something to help ease the pain in my hips.  Okay, mostly my right hip... I don't know why the right one over the left one, but it hurts pretty darn good most of the time.  Perhaps it's the weather changes that are happening already.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm walking more and more than I was since I have better knees that don't hurt like hell anymore.

In any case, my ass is hot.

So the bastard wasn't clogged after all... whew?

Little Miss and I were under the house with a rented auger, working away, trying to get the "clog" cleared out.

When we were done, we put things back together, then brought all the tools outside, into the freezing rain so that we can rinse them off...  AND to also rinse ourselves off in the freezing water from the hose.

I had Ellie return the auger and while she did so we tested out the draining capabilities of things.

The damn thing still wasn't draining.  I sure as hell wasn't going back under the house.

Ellie was flipping out about the whole thing.  She was almost screaming and crying.  I hate when she does that.  I mean HATE when she does that.

So, I'm calling around to friends who are contractors.  One of them recommended a plumber friend.  I called this plumber and he told me that we might need a plumbing "Jetter" to get the lines cleared up.

While I'm calling around, Ellie decided that we "had" a clean out under the kitchen window outside.  I told her we didn't, but she still insisted that we did.


So, I had to go outside and show her where the pipes were all connected outside because she didn't believe me.

Well, she enlisted the help of Big Miss, and they dug around the pipe.  While doing this, they moved the rail road tie that was over the junction we added for the back bathroom.

Turns out the rubber junction collapsed because of all the weight from the earth, rail road tie and concrete poured close by. (Duh!)

At this current moment, there is still an open hole for this pipe.

I'll need to do some measurements, dig the hole out a bit bigger, then put in some brick/stones to support the junction from underneath, then to put in support around and over the top of the junction point.... finally, to also put support under the pipe from the house to the junction point.

That aught to solve the problem and we can fill it in.

I really shouldn't be doing too much work like this because of my knees.

Besides, today, I have a job fair that I'm going to, just for tech companies/jobs.

Before leave I need to try tightening the belt of the car again.  I thought I had it done yesterday, but apparantly I made it worse.  Which doesn't make sense to me...

So I'll do it again...  then get cleaned up to go.

The damn thing is clogged awfully damn bad.

It started out that the bathtub and toilet didn't drain.

Then when we're running water down the kitchen sink it fills up the bathtub, and then the air in the line bubbles out of the toilet.

This is helpful, because I know where the clog is at...

BUT...

Yesterday, I used the strongest drain cleaner sold at the hardware store, which only managed to smell the entire house up.

Now it was only in the mid-60's yesterday, so I got really, really chilled with all the windows and open while fans blew the fumes out of the house.

I consulted with my contractor friend about getting the plugs off the clean-out pipes, because they were rusted shut.

When I told him where the clog was, he said I should just try running the snake through the kitchen drain.

So I sat down on a stool, and shoved, twisted/cranked on the snake, trying to get it down the pipe and get the clog out.

Well, I couldn't knock it loose.

I did manage to make my legs hurt like hell.

See, I had to stand up from that stool, which is only 8" off the floor, which is really hard on me.

Sitting and standing from that stool happened many times, because I got up to check the tub to see if it drained out.

Oh, it drained out once, and the toilet was flushing normally... for a little bit.

So, now I'm going to take the toilet out of the bathroom and run a longer and thicker snake down the toilet drain, which will straight down to the sewer line under the house, then push straight on through to the kitchen sink and hopefully it'll break up the clog or grab it so that I can pull whatever it grabs back up the pipes.

When I was talking my friend at the hardware store, he said he runs some of the drain cleaner down the drain of the washing machine drain whenever he washes dog blankets.

Now, Ellie and the Misses all have long hair.  Mine is very, very short, and the longest hair on my head is my goatee.

After he said dog blanket, I immediately remembered that Little Miss gave the dogs baths, because the little mutant dog rolled in shit or some other nasty stuff.  Both of them got baths, and the larger dog has long woolly fur like a sheep.

So, I know that it's probably a hair clog, along with who knows what else.

Maybe a baby wipe, or ???

When I was done trying to work the snake through the kitchen sink drain, I was in so much pain, I took the maximum dose of my pain pills and then wrapped in blankets and laid in bed, watching "Mister Ed" on my phone, then finally started wrote this entry.

A friend just called me and he'll come over and watch/chat/maybe help me get this done.

Now that I started documenting this adventure, I'll have to finish writing after I'm done.

I don't know what to do, Godfather. My voice is weak, it's weak.

Ok, it's not my voice that's weak.

My legs are weaker than I expected after the surgeries.

Physical therapy is going well, and I can almost straighten my right knee out 100%, and bend it to the same degree as my left one.

My left knee bends and straightens out just like it did before the surgery and the right one is getting pretty darn close to it too.

Things are going well for the range of motion, but the muscles really need to get stronger.

Climbing steps are better, but other things are really, really hard.

I managed to climb a ladder to put a few things into the rafters of the garage.

Going up the ladder was tough, because I was only strong enough for my left leg to pull me up the steps.  Then coming down was harder, because my left knee was starting to buckle with each step.

I'm trying to find a used exercise bike so that I can cycle and watch movies/YouTube or listen to music.

Hard part is that I don't see at my local Goodwill, and I would rather borrow one or get one for maybe $20 or so.  I'd rather not spend much on it.

Maybe I can ride my bike outside.

I'll just have to give it a try.

I took it out for a spin today, and it did pretty darn good.

Just a few days ago, I was still relying on a crutch(es) to help me get around.  Then over the weekend, I started using my cane instead.

Well, last night and continuing today, my leg just kept wanting to move.

• Bend it.
• Straighten it.
• Bend it.
• Etc.
• Etc.

This afternoon, I finally did it.  I went to Wal-Mart, put my cane into the basket, my hat into the infant seat and started to walk.

Then I started to walk more, stretching the leg farther and farther.

First thing I did, was to pick up a can of Pringles, only because they were at the front door.

Next, I found a new water jug/mug, because my last one fell and shattered.  Which I mourned until I finally tossed it into the trash can and started using one of the ones everyone else in the house were using.  Unfortunately for me, the replacement was almost half the size and it was driving me nuts to refill so often.

Then I walked around here and there in the store until I realized my leg was going to quit on me, so I checked out and came home.

So, here I am typing, wishing that the muscle ache I feel will only be as bad as it feels now, but I rather doubt that.

I finally took note, just before I left, that the blood rush/swelling which I had been getting for weeks had stopped.

Right here, I need to mention that earlier today, I went out and clipped off all the dead heads off the mums I planted out in my tree stump planter. (I don't know if I wrote about taking my chain saw out and turning the tree stump into a planter.)

I had to cut the dead heads off because it wasn't watered well after my other knee was replaced.  The blooms that were on the plants when I put them into the planter, all wilted off.

Today, despite being in late September, the temp is close to 90 degrees F.  So, I'll have to water the plants tonight, just to make sure that they'll survive.

Perhaps I can get Ellie or one of the Misses to setup the sprinkler to get my planter?

Time to work... I suppose.

Before my first knee replacement, I tried to apply for state unemployment and I was denied because, "I couldn't work".

I complained that it was discrimination, but the chick on the phone seemed shocked that I would even dare mention that.  I had to say that because I was being denied because I wasn't able to work due to my disability and inability to work due to my arthritis and upcoming knee replacements.

Over the last week, I've been starting to work with my last employer's unemployment agency to look for work.

This week, I'm working on trying to get my state unemployment insurance payments going again.

Although, I am not sure WTF is going to happen.

I also need to work on getting an idea of what employers are where that can pay me close to what I need to keep my family and I living.

My last pay was about $83,000/year (~$41.00/hour).

I think we can survive on $50,000/year.  If I could find a job here in our little city for about that much, then I could probably walk to work most of the time.

I really, really would love being able to walk to work, instead of relying on a car.

Hell, maybe even riding my bike.

Well, I am about to dive into state unemployment website and bureaucracy now.

Wish me luck!

Must be "that" time again.

Well, maybe not the time you think it is, but perhaps it's the time for the monthly cycle sales...

Oh well.

Ellie has been getting pushed under a lot of stress, again, and she usually freaks out and starts to go totally berserk when this happens.

Don't think I'm over exaggerating, because while I am a little bit, but it's pretty true.

Yesterday, when she got home from work, she said she was absolutely tired and wanted to sleep/nap really badly.

Well, she couldn't.  The Misses are in two different sports right now, so they're on two different practice and game schedules.

So, she couldn't sleep because of that, then she started flipping out on me about something I did on Friday, which I shouldn't have done, but I didn't think anything about it when I did it.

I gave what I thought were a couple of "idle" threats to the physical therapist.  (I said I was going to punch him in the face if he didn't stop something because it was making my pain much much worse.)

What he did to warrant me saying this was that when he kept pushing my leg beyond where I could handle it, even after I said I couldn't do it and that the pain was already beyond what I could handle for the day!

So, on the way home, I got scolded by Ellie like I was 12.  That was not good enough, because she brought it up again yesterday.

Then on top of things again, she brought up, how she can't wait until I was off "the medicine", meaning pain killers.  Ellie said how she didn't want me to find a "new" way or "pain" so that I could keep using them.

You know what, that's a hell of an insult to me.

I'm the one who's cutting back on the pain med usage after the surgery right now, not her.  Not even the doctor is giving me suggestions of how much to cut back to.

When I cut back for about half a day, then I get nailed hard when my body's saturation level depletes and the pain completely hits me again.

Here, Ellie says, "Maybe you shouldn't have cut back so much?"

WTF!?

Ellie suggested that we go and see the marriage counselor again, which I am open to, because the marriage counselor is the same counselor I see in general.

When Ellie said I had to do it, I said that she could call the number on the back of the insurance card because it was the same phone number.

For whatever reason, this made her flip out some more.  "I don't want to do it!" she practically screamed at me.

Now, I wasn't telling her she had to do anything, I was just explaining how I do it.

I think Ellie just needs to see the counselor by herself.  Ellie doesn't handle stress well, and has bad anxiety problems...  Ellie will NEVER admit she has anxiety problems related to stress.  Nor will she ever take medication because of it, because "she's not crazy!"

I guess I'm one loony mother fucker then.

Now, I've been ragging on Ellie for most of this post, and it's only because I'm upset with her.

Mostly, I'm concerned about her more than anything else.

I Love Ellie!

Since I lost my job she's been riding on the edge.

Now going through the healing process of knee replacement has made this edge thinner.

Finally, working, and the kids going to school and sports, has made that edge a virtual piece of hair!

Yesterday, apparently, the thread she had been on snapped.

I love her, and I can't wait until I am recovered from the knee replacements and have another job.

The job can be any sort of hours right now, mostly because I want Ellie to struggle a little bit just for me to be employed.

It would be really good for her to struggle while I'm not at home to hear about it.

I'm sorry to say all of that Ellie.

I really, really love you!

The other one is installed and it hurts like hell... often.

The original replacement of left knee went well.

It straightens & bends well.  Muscles are in good shape, except for spending more time walking & using them.

Now that the right knee's replacement is done, things are quite different.

I wish that I had been logging entries during the entire recovery for the left knee.  Be it daily, weekly, etc.

The recovery of my right one is hard to determine how it's progressing because I don't have enough details per each milestone.

This is OK, as I am working at straightening the knee out more.  I hadn't been doing a very good job because the pain has been so fucking intense.

One of the things that really hampered the recovery of the right knee is an accident I had 6 days after my surgery.

I thought I had figured out how to get in and out of our tall bed by myself.

While everyone was out of the room, I thought I would get out of bed.

Instead of going well, the damn leg slipped and bent beyond what I was able to handle. (90+ degree bend)  This was VERY painful.  I slumped to the floor and had to have my family help me to the recliner, where I took the max pain killers I could take.

Since then, I have been guarding the knee so that I don't want to bend it much because I fear the pain, and keeping it straight scares me too because it hurts so damn bad that way too.

With knee replacements you need to work on keeping the leg as straight as possible all the time.  If it heals bent, then you usually need revision surgery to correct the improper healing.

I don't want that.

Well.  I took a hiatus of writing this to put my shoes on, then to walk back and forth in front of the house for a bit to stretch out my leg and exercise it. (Of course, duh)

I don't feel like writing tons more right now, so I'll stop.

It's been a while, but the new parts are installed. I just need to work 'em out.

Last month I finally had my first knee replacement.

Sounds great right?

It actually was great... but...

Nothing bad happened, just unexpected!

When we arrived to the hospital, the surgeon informed us that he had the parts for the left knee not the right one.

Since I was already scheduled to have both knees done, we changed the paperwork over right then and there to have the left one replaced.

So, how was it?

It wasn't all that bad.

For anesthesia, I went with the spinal block.  What I didn't know about this procedure, was that it requires a urinary catheter.  I don't know if I ever had one in my life.  I mean, I had kidney stones, etc, but... well, nothing that tied my piss production to a bag.

The spinal block went well, and as far as a I can tell was that the catheter was "ok"... rather not a great inconvenience and painful...

That is...

Until the freakin' spinal block wore off.

It went from "OK"
to

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT THINGS HURT LIKE HELL!"
"GET THIS DAMN THING OUT OF MY DICK!"

Unfortunately, they weren't going to take that damn thing out of my piss pipe, so I wound up waiting for IV pain killers to kick in and work, and taking more oral pain killers.

They did use lidocaine or similar surface medication to ease the dick discomfort.

It took almost 30 minutes before it got better.

What I hated was that they were going to leave that freakin' thing in there for more than 24 hours.  I had to threaten pulling it myself for them to get another doctor's approval to remove it sooner.

See, the thing was... I was embarrassed about the presence of the damn thing up my dick, so I didn't really want to get up and walk.

Actually, the pain was pretty fucking significant, so I didn't really want to get up except for those times I needed to pee, which hurt like hell anyway.

Now, I'm not ignorant, nor did I think I was unprepared, but the spinal block, catheter and type of muscle changes along with the intensity of pain really surprised me.

Putting the spinal block and catheter aside, the pain and muscle changes really, really surprised me.

I expected a great deal of pain, but not so bad that I was on almost 4 times the amount of pain killers as I was prior to the surgery.

Even now, just over 3 weeks later, I need to keep a certain level of pain killers in my system to help me to sleep and keep the pain at bay.

The muscle changes, which I was expecting, surprised me.

I knew that the quadricep muscle was going to be cut & resewn together... but what I was not expecting was for it to bundle/bunch up so much that I really couldn't extend my leg very well.  It was bunched up that when I extended the leg, I couldn't straighten it out very good.  It felt like I had a bunch of rubber balls above the knee cap, which were allowing it to flex, but not keep it that way and wants to push right back down.

At this point, the range of motion has greatly improved.

I can almost get it 100% straight and bend it fairly close to the range of the right one.

Not too bad for three weeks.

What I really need to do, is work on the entire knee's muscles groups and stretches.

My knee wants to buckle if I'm not careful and concentrate on what I'm doing.

I'm serious!

I needed to concentrate and the first week and a half I had to literally tell my leg what to do.  "Get up" "Move" "Bend", etc.

What I am currently fighting is lots of muscle pains around the quadricep and down the calves/shins.

Ice doesn't work on the muscles, so I had to buy another 24" heat pad so that I can have it affect the large muscles groups better than the little heat pads Ellie bought several months ago when my original large one died.

The heat is great, usually.

My biggest concern and complaint that's not related directly to the knee is the freakin' foot!

My left foot feels like it's freezing when I have ice on it, and chilled 80% the rest of the time.

Rarely does it ever feel warm or comfortable, unless I'm wearing these fuzzy slipper/bed socks.

Even then, I need to watch out how tight the socks are around my feet.

It's not the whole foot really, it's concentrated across the top of the foot.

Having pain across the top of the foot isn't new to me, but it's not a great feeling when my leg is messed up and I can't keep the foot well supported unless I'm in bed.

I haven't slept in my bed overnight since the first couple of days home from the hospital.

It was just easier at first to sleep next to Ellie, but then it turned out to be very painful, because I couldn't lift my own leg back into bed.  So to the recliner I went.

I'm tired of the freakin' recliner now!

I tried going back to my recliner/couch/etc and it was worse on my legs than the one I've been using.

This morning, just before Physical Therapy, I setup my body pillows the way I normally did.  They kept my leg straight and I was comfortable enough to fall to sleep really well.

I'm going to try sleeping in the bed again tonight.  With my family gone, it'll be easier to do, because I won't have to dodge around the misses in my bed or kick them out of the bed or off the couch, etc.

They've been sleeping around Ellie a lot these days, which I don't care about, but I do care that I can't just pick up and move from place to place to lay down and try relieving the pain better.

Well, this is really long and rambling.

I'm also pretty damn tired.

If it wasn't for watering the garden, I would go to bed right now.

I saw it coming... It still doesn't mean it's not FUBAR.

I don't know if I previously posted my thoughts about wanting to retire and actually hoping it happened, in some sort of secret, good way.

I didn't actually retire, but I was retired, if you will.

My employment with my company after almost a full 20 years has been ended.  I didn't do anything to warrant getting laid off, except I think I did... sort of.

I was laid off as part of a reduction in force, which is better than just getting fired.

It means that I was laid off with approx 6 months of pay and benefits, and they had to cash out all of the paid time off I accrued.

Now, I wasn't trying to get laid off on purpose, but I wasn't trying as hard as I might have been able to.  Although, I was trying damn hard to keep my job.

I dunno, it's hard to say.

With sleeping problems due to bipolar and arthritis that was #1 against me working really well.  Then #2 the heavy use of opiod pain killers.  I'm not addicted to them, wherein I'm not taking them for any sort of  a buzz or high.  I need them physically due to the pain.

I know when I no longer need them for pain, I'm going to have emotional problems weaning away from them, because of all the years that I've been taking them.

Then again I might not.

So here's the skinny of the work situation:

• I was not trying to get laid off on purpose.
• I was having problems working due to pain & bipolar sleep patterns.
• Emotionally, I was cracking because of the problems with sleep, etc.
• I needed to get away and take a break from things and taking vacation time wasn't going to be enough.
• Knee replacement was a HUGE deal with me.  (See sleep & emotional notes above.)
• If there was going to be a reduction in force, I was considering telling my manager to put me on the list...

See, I didn't want to be laid off, but I wasn't going to discourage it if it came to it.

When it comes to a business decision, it was what I was expecting.

I'd seen this same behavior before from this employer.

Their budget is too high and they need to reduce, this is how they do it:

1. They look at the top level/higher paid groups.
2. If they see that they have "too many" individuals that are on a team, they skim them off.
3. Managers are more expendable than grunts.
4. IT and other infrastructure staff are expendable.
5. By cutting higher level managers/staff, more grunt positions can be saved and customer facing work doesn't "change".

Well, I was a developer for a Tech Support tool, and they saw "too many" in the USA that were employed.

As a developer though, once you come up with a working concept and the infrastructure is in place, they can outsource your code and project to India and can your ass.

In truth, I was glad to get laid off, and I'm not worried about the future in any sort of sense.  I'm at peace with things and I expect to pick up the pieces and keep going.

Well...

I suppose that there is to say about the work situation.

My first knee surgery is coming up next week.

I'm excited to get it fixed...

but I'm also a bit anxious... I want it to be successful... Not the recovery, but the whole procedure, where they put me to sleep and then the cutting/shaping.

OK, it's not the cutting.  It's just the scenario that I might not wake up.

I don't want to leave my family yet.

I love them.

Current state of HAM radio, projects and related shit.

I have my YouKits Ek1a that died... again...

Rather, it's a good receiver, but is useless as a transmitter.

I also have an old school Midland 13-510 2 Meter radio.

Back when I got pretty much all the radio gear that belonged to my friend, he had several kits which weren't finished or started.

A QRP antenna tuner and an Oscilloscope that he started, and didn't realize it had SMD parts.

So he put in all the other parts, but the SMD.  Then he took the whole kit, put it back in the shipping bag and put it into his box.

Well, I got it, saw how to solder SMD components and finished it.

Soldering SMD is much easier than I realized.

You just need to put a small, and I mean small, dab of solder on one pad, then hold one end of the part to that pad, and heat it up.

I'm a stubborn bastard, so I used my 100 watt solder gun.

Sounds like too much power & heat?

Yes, yes it was... at first.

Then I learned I could do the work faster and safer with it still.

I figured out that if I hold the trigger down for a second or two at a time, until the solder finally melts, I can let go and just wait for a few more seconds for it to cool down.

Worked fine.

After I finished it and ran the self tests & adjustments...

I needed somewhere to put it, since it didn't come with it's own case.

Many people online made their own "cases" out of plexiglass, etc.

Me...

I work in wood, so I made a wooden box that holds the whole unit pretty darn snug.

I even included a small compartment so that test lead(s) can be stored.

When it came to the lid, I didn't want to play around with hinges this time.

So, I cut out a piece of 1/4" plywood that fits the inner part of the box snugly.

Then I cut another piece of wood that matches the outer size of the box.

As you may guess, I glued the top & inner pieces together, so that the inner piece was centered in the top one.

This morning, I put it all together and it is snug and I have to pry the top off just a little bit for it to open.

Now, at least, it will go into the drawer with my other test tools, without me worrying about damaging the screen or the whole freakin unit.

Well, I haven't had much sleep today, so I'm going to skin out.