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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Well, they're gone... again... and the pain...

To start off with, I suppose it's the usual.

My freakin' legs hurt... AGAIN

I had a real hard time sleeping last night.

So much so, that I got up, listened to a radio show or two, while I was doing various word puzzles from a Puzzle Variety book that my uncle left behind.  My uncle bought those damn books by the case.

My pain medication use is skyrocketing right now.

I'm taking them 2-3 at a time right now.

I'm supposed to back off on these meds the month prior to the surgery so that the newer doses of the meds will be more effective.

Shit.. I don't know WTF is going to happen when I get there.

Damn.. I'm almost there already.

Only about 4 weeks before they replace the right knee, then at the end of August the left one will be done.

The last week or two, I've been pushing to get things done.

Like turning the large tree stump in the yard into a planter.

This afternoon, after work, I'm going over to a friend's house so that I can demo what Ubuntu 16 looks like on their daughter's touch screen laptop.

I need to do this, because the fucking Windows 8.x license is stored on a hidden partition of the original hard drive.

but...

The original hard drive froze up.

I mean literally froze up or seized if that's better for you to understand.

The damn thing wouldn't spin up.

I took the drive cover off, and tried to clean it up enough for it to spin, but it was pretty much damn stuck so that the platters & heads wouldn't move.

Since I owe this friend some time & money for some radio equipment, I ordered a new drive, and I will install it when it comes in next week.

I'm so freakin' tired right now, I really want to stop for the day and find out what's up with the car parts I ordered.  I need to replace the back spark plugs on the car, but this requires me to remove the upper intake manifold.

I figured if I took the manifold off and was going to replace the plugs, it would be worth the cost to replace the plug wires too.

As for Ellie and the Misses, they left early this morning for their annual girls club meeting in an adjoining state.

So I'm by myself all weekend.

So far, while I've been working and building/compiling shit, I've gone through my schematics & projects and organized them.

I suppose, I should start another post for what I'm doing with my radio & hobby building shit...

So there I go.

"I'm bored", Francis said, "Let's steal a car"

That line is from one of my new favorite quirky songs, Old Friends by Ylvis. (

https://youtu.be/D2NtlTFQznA)

 

If you haven't seen the video, take time to watch it.

You'll either laugh at it, or stand aghast.

I'm not going to do anything in that video...

I'm just bored.

I can work, but I want someone to talk to.

It's hard for Ellie to understand it sometimes.

Recently, Ellie wants me to perform like I did when I was in my 20s.

Well, things just don't work like anymore.

I am thinking more and more about just moving all my work hardware back to the fucking corporate site and driving there day or night whenever I need to work.

For the past 7 years, I've worked at home 99.9999% of the time.

It's gotten old, and I want my office & desk back.

I really don't like coming in here after I'm done working.

It kind of defeats the need for my office or desire to do anything with my other hobbies.

Since I was put on Zyprexa, I'm now very fucking tired for half of the day, until it wears off.

Working from home makes this hard to deal with.

Ellie will basically ride my ass until I'm out of bed.

She doesn't say anything, but instead, makes the bed while I'm still in it.

When she does this, she isn't really considerate about it.

She flips the blankets all over, turns on the fucking overhead light fairly bright everytime.

Whenever I worked at the corporate office, I usually showered and dressed in as low of light as I could.  That way she could sleep longer.

These days, it seems that she's just not being considerate or compassionate towards me or others.

Hell, I don't know if she's even nice in the classroom with the special need kids these days.


I love her, and I think that she's getting burned out from working.

One or more of the children in their classroom has been much more needy these days.

Ellie's not the teacher for the classroom, so I don't know if she's being assigned to work with the kid(s), or if she's volunteering.

Now Ellie will usually volunteer and try to fix and patch things up.

That's why she's started spending a lot of time at Sally's house.

Sally and her husband are hoarders.

There's so much shit in their house, that they were given new kitchen cabinets and they might not be installed.

I remember seeing the new cabinets in their kitchen years ago.  I couldn't help them do it at the time, and I'm not sure if anyone else I know with skills helped them.

Ellie and the Misses spend 4+ hours the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and brought down an old couch and shit loads of other trash & junk.

That was only from ONE room in their upstairs.

They also have several other rooms and attic spaces crammed full of junk!

We know when Ellie has finished helping them clean up everything, that the hoarding will go back to usual.

See, the reason why Ellie is helping them, is that Sally & Husband need to get a loan to get their electrical system update.

The house is so messed up, it should be condemned.

Plumbing in there is old and messed up, walls have mold, attics are full of old mattresses & rags, etc, that there are probably mice, opossums, etc living in them, and their electrical wiring is FUBAR.

But...

Sally's husband inherited the house that was all paid off.

All Sally & Husband need to do is maintain insurance and Taxes for the property.

They both have mental health issues.

Sally is one of those "bat shit fucking crazy" Bipolar people.  Ok, she's not completely crazy, but she's definitely not firing on all cylinders.

Her husband has... I don't know, nor do they really have a 100% idea of what's wrong.

I think it's crazy shaken (not stirred) cocktail of schizophrenia, ADHD, and depression.

For me though, I am bored because I just want someone to chat with.

Ellie was sick over the weekend, and whenever I felt the possible urge to be intimate with her, I refrained from trying to get worked up.

The rest of the time Ellie wants to do it, it's really late at night, I'm tired as hell from the Zyprexa side affect...

That and I'm not feeling very close to her, because we just don't spend time with each other.

Last week, she put on a movie in the front room to watch it, instead of hinting that spend time in the bedroom.

Even if we don't do the humpy-dumpy, it's nice to just spend time interacting with each other.  Like playing cribbage or backgammon or even just chatting about stuff we did or want to do.

I love Ellie and several months ago we were really going at it, I felt so much closer to her than I do now.

Just seems that I can't get her to slow down and spend time with me.

I've bitched, moaned and ranted enough time.

Keep your stick on the ice.

Here it is again.

I'm tired as heck again.

The mania still seems to be going on.

It's not a fun mania this time.

It's been more of the pissed off & irritated state one.

Yesterday, it was a very highly sensory overload day.

Ellie was reacting very, very badly and adversely.

It was almost like she had to react, yell at me and all but sit on me and pummel me.

Now these are my perceptions.

I know that she was reacting how she thought she should be.

Her compassion is almost gone, it seems.

Let me get another insight here.

She works with autistic children.

About half of these kids run into sensory overload and start bouncing off the walls, screams, etc.

I'm trying hard to hold things in, but it's very hard like it was yesterday.

All I wanted to do was be left alone, if you will.

But Ellie wasn't going to leave me be.

It seemed that everything that I tried to do to minimize things just pissed her off.

Nothing that I was doing was personal towards anyone.

I was just trying to minimize things.

How do you like it when you're sensitive to the light and sound?  Even to touch?

It sucks.

Hurry up and wait... again.

I saw another orthopedic surgeon yesterday.

Rather, he was the replacement for the guy who was supposed to replace my knee.

Instead of just scheduling the fucking surgery, he wanted an MRI.

Before we actually saw him, they took another X-Ray of the left knee.

They can see the really bad arthritis in the right knee, but they can't see the severity of the arthritis in the left knee.

Despite how bad the fucker hurts, he just won't go in the and the fucking work.

He also took some time to "tell me off" about the amount of pain medication that I've been taking.

Well, FUCK HIM.

It's not like I want to keep taking this medication.

He said he was concerned because the pain after the surgery was going to be really bad.

I flat told him, I'd put up with the fucking pain after it was done, because that pain would go away!

He didn't seem to understand how much I would put up just to get the fucking knee fixed so that I could stop taking the damn opiods.

Well, after the fucking appointment, I was feeling pretty damn low last night.

My alarm went off around 6:30, to remind me about the HAM radio net.

It was my turn to run the radio net last night.

While running the net, I managed to forget my troubles.  I even stuck around for about 30 minutes chatting with a friend.

After I was done, I sat down watching House with Ellie and I started to nap off/on.

Ellie suggested that I sleep in the recliner because I was falling to sleep easily in it.

Well, I did sleep OK, and right now, my knee doesn't hurt too badly.
 
Tonight, after the Misses get out of school, I'm supposed to drive them to the skating ring for an activity with their girls club.

I have been thinking about taking the wheel chair with me instead of hobbling all over the fucking place at the ring.

Damn! Was I sick!

Since all of the surgeries were cancelled for the Surgeon, which includes my knee replacement, I'm starting to see that it was probably good for me.

Although, it sucks because I still get to deal with the pain from the knees on a daily basis.

It does seem like providence, that it happened.

During the time between when I got the bad news and now, Ellie and the Misses have been sick with a fever/cold/flu thing.

Then the past 5+ days I've been sick myself.

Mostly with a cold, which turned pretty ugly Sunday through today.

It started with the usual cold, congestion, cough, etc.  Nothing major.

My eyes were having problems when I woke up on Friday and Saturday, because they were crusty with stuff.  Also, my ears have been really been FUBAR.  Everything was muffled and I had lots of pressure.

Saturday before Easter Sunday, I barely had any sleep.

We went out to Ellie's folk's place I started to get a lot of sinus pain, and it managed to get better by the time we ate dinner and finally sat down to chat.

After a bit, I got really drowsy, so I laid down in the spare bedroom to nap.

It wasn't good sleep because things were noisy, which they always are with all the nieces and nephews around.

When I got up a bit later, my eyes were really goopy.

In the bathroom, I cleaned and cleaned my eyes out.

When I was done, I went back to the bedroom put on my glasses.

By the time I got back to the bathroom, only a few feet, my eyes were goopy again.

I showed this to Ellie and she decided it was time to go.

Ellie's sister called out "Everyone! Wash your hands!"

Now, I had been doing that vigilantly since I had this nasty cold going on.

On Monday, I went to the walk-in clinic early in the morning.

The Dr. there said that the eye, cold, ear stuff should clear up soon if I kept things clean, which I had been doing.

Except he did say that the eye stuff was pink-eye and was most likely caused by rubbing my eyes after wiping my nose.

Basically, I gave it to myself by infecting my own eyes.

This Dr. also gave me an Rx for an antibiotic because of my frequent sinus infections.

(wow, does this post just keep going or what!?)

Monday Night, I took the Antibiotic, and "slept" which didn't really work because I got one of those nasty sinus pressure "headaches" that lasted all night, and most of Tuesday "morning".

Actually, after everyone went to school, I waited to take the antibiotic for a bit because I was feeling a bit queasy.

Well, it happened and I emptied my stomach and flushed my breakfast down the drain.

An hour or so later, I finally started to feel better, and I took the antibiotic.

I slept most of the day on Tuesday.  In between, I watched these REALLY cheesy B rated movies I bought on a DVD I bought for $6. (I'm going to toss the disc.  None of the movies were really that great.)

Well, today I'm feeling better, but my ear still feels like shit.  I have stuff dripping down my throat.

I don't hurt, but it still sucks.

I guess where I'm going with this post (finally!) is that I don't know if it's really been a curse that the surgery was canceled.

My only major problem with the cancellation is that I'm not certain when/if it will be scheduled again.

The current time frame I have for the actual surgery might be in August.

This morning Ellie said she's going to push for a bilateral replacement.  Which is replacing both knees at one time.

It'll be a lot of work for me, and possibly hurt like hell, but at least it'll all be over with in one shot.

Then I'll be two joints closer to being a Cyberdyne Terminator. :)

Perhaps she's just temperamental?

Things went really well with Ellie's mom.

I mean, when she's not acting/being icy, she's actually a very nice person.

Perhaps I got myself psyched up for no reason.

At any rate, I got her laptop figured out.

While it didn't yield anything, I went through the running processes and applications looking for a possible threat.

What she was running into was that she kept getting redirected to/through the ASK web page/sites/etc.

I went into Firefox, reset the homepage, manually reset all of the specific ASK settings using about:config.

When restarting Firefox the damn thing had already modified the homepage and other settings back.

I looked at the shortcut for Firefox to make sure that something else wasn't launching with it.

Only the Firefox executable was being launched there and it was from the right directory.

In the Add/Remove or "Programs & Features" part of the Control Panel, there wasn't any program/etc that indicated that ASK was a separate installation/application.

At this time, I wished I had my personal applications and tools.

One of the tools I wrote gives me information on all MSI applications and MSI files in Windows.

I backed up her bookmarks out of Firefox, and was getting ready to just reset it or remove all plug-ins,etc.

What I found when I went to plugins, was a map assistant one.

Now, she told me she installed something when she was looking for driving directions.

I removed this plugin, and it then asked me if I wanted to remove the ASK plug-in...

I didn't even SEE an ASK plugin!

Needless to say, that fixed the ASK plugin problems.

What shocked me though, is that there are STILL people piggy backing these damn applications into their installers.

I don't think that the ASK stuff was embedded and hidden, but..

Like a LOT of users, when they're installing something that they wanted to, they just keep clicking OK or NEXT.

Which is how a LOT of this shit keeps getting installed.

Although, in the way-back-machine, these apps were just installed without any indication.

These days, they will prompt a user to install.

Again, keep clicking NEXT, and you'll get crap you don't want!

Anyhow, I'm digressing big time.

The other thing she had going on, was that she said her CD-ROM drive wasn't reading data correctly.

She has this CD that she couldn't read.

Looking at the physical disc, it showed that data had been burned to it.

Ellie had already tested the drive earlier that week with an audio CD, which worked fine.

I put the disc iinto my Majaro laptop and it didn't mount it up nor did it recognize the file system.

So, I put a different data disc into her mom's laptop and it read it fine.

Which means this CD is hosed.

Whoever wrote/burned it probably did not close the session correctly.

Luckily for Ellie's mom, she had another computer that could actually read that data.

Overall it was good.

Unfortunately, it does seem that Ellie's mom has some sort of spells where she kind of icy uncaring state.

During part of a large family discussion we were all part of, she said that she doesn't deal with sick people very well.

Not even did she deal well with her own children when they were sick.

I think this explains WTF she seems icy towards me...

Really hard to not limp or grimace while I'm walking these days...

...for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

19 Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. (https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/rom/12.19?lang=eng#18)

I wanted to write this up, because this has been driving me a little nuts and it poses me more questions than answers right now.

Perhaps by writing up what I know and understand will help me with my answers.  Or at least ease my mind about these things.

Recently, if I haven't posted info on this recently, a "friend" of mine confessed that he had inappropriate sexual conduct with his daughter. He & his wife adopted this child as an infant.

I'm surprised and shocked at what he did!

Obviously.

Well, my thoughts have been circling around and around about forgiveness and justice for his sins.

Let me back up a second or two here.

This last Christmas, I really noticed the theme behind Christmas movies and stories, including The Story.

All of these stories are almost all about redemption.

Christmas Carol, is about redemption.  Scrooge's friend Marley warns him about his sins and gives him opportunities to learn about his errors and in general path towards redemption.

When Christ was born, this is the start of mankind's redemption.

While He was alive, Jesus taught us the rest of the Gospel and fulfilled the Judaic Laws.

Men could repent the whole time before His birth, but it wasn't until His death and resurrection, that we could receive a full remission of our sins.

God gave us the laws.

These laws exist to help us live our lives as He would have us.

However, if Laws are to exist, there must be a punishment for breaking these laws.

Without some form of redemption or repentance, the punishment will be given.

Jesus died and atoned for our sins.

What this means, is that when we fully repent of our sins, he will take our punishment.

In essence, he will atone or take those lashes meant for us.

Everyone has a chance at redemption.

EVERYONE.

Where does this head with regards to my friend?

Well...

There are many, many forms of sin.

What he committed is horrible!

In my opinion, all sexual and abuse towards non-adults is an abomination before God!

With the exception of punishment for those breaking laws, I believe that any form of abuse towards ANYONE is a sin!

Abusing someone is taking away their rights & freedom.

The abuser performs actions against the victims by taking away their rights & freedom.

Whether verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual, it's all WRONG!

Now, vengeance...

I really, really hate knowing, hearing and learning about things like this.

My memory has a been really good tool for me, but it is also a cruel curse.  I remember and can recall terrible things I've done and things I've seen & heard.

For me to learn that a friend has done this terrible deed is very hard on me.

Emotionally, I want to cry, shout, throw things and in short, throw a tantrum because of his actions.

Getting to the message here:

What should happen to him?

I cannot say.

There are lots of things that I would like to have or heard done to him.

Yet, it's not my place.

Since he also has a chance at redemption...

Should he forgiven?

Will he be forgiven?

Can he find a true repentance for this sin?

Or does his repentance for this sin only lower the punishment?

With his repentance, is it going to be where he's "paroled for good behavior"?

Will he get punishment, but not the full brunt of it?

I don't know.


Should I be worried for him?

No.

Well, as a Christian...
And just in general for who I am...
I do worry for him...

BUT

I want justice and punishment to be delivered for this abhorrence!

Here's my problem.

He's not my family.

I'm not related or connected to his family in anyway, but by him.

Yet, why I do I feel so much pain for his family over this?

After I learned that this happened, I offered to help his wife with their computer needs and try to liquidate his radios & equipment.

While, I am going to buy & trade work for his HF radio & associated equipment, it's not the reason why I'm doing this.

My intent of helping them was not to buy or take his stuff...

I don't know, I feel that they need my charity.

I cannot afford to give them any finances, I can give them my time...

In short, since I am not going to get any sort of Vengeance for this, and it's not really my place...

I can get peace...

More importantly.

I can give of my services to his family.

I don't necessarily know why I need to do this...

I just need to.

WTF ME?

I'm glad Ellie is here as my emotional support, but I really feel like a kid sucking on his mamma's tit some days.

I don't want to burden Ellie with my emotional baggage... but dammit.

It's hard to know where to turn.

Perhaps "The Standard Mormon Answer"?

Pray and read your scriptures

I know that's not just a Mormon answer.

It's the answer for every religion that I can think of.

My personal belief is that God doesn't punish people because they've done something wrong, because that would be jacked up.

I also don't believe that mental illness or emotional problems are also a punishment and that you've done something wrong, which is why you're fucked up.

However, I do understand that the Holy Ghost isn't as close when you're not attempting to be closer to God.

Maybe I just answered my own question...

Someone had better be dead, deathly sick, suspended or on their way to prison...

My damn knee surgery has been cancelled!

The mother fucker's office, called me right out of the blue on Friday telling me that the surgery was cancelled and that they weren't scheduling any further things with this doctor.

So WTF!?

I'm glad Little Miss was home from school sick that day.

I don't honestly know what I would've done.

Today, I'm fairly calm compared to the swearing and crying I did on Friday and Saturday.

It was complete shit for me to go through.

All weekend and even last night, I didn't sleep good.

Over the weekend, Ellie's sister suggested that I call and get the records in any form possible, including X-Rays/images, and a letter/statement why the surgery was cancelled.

The records department was very good about getting me the info I needed to fill out to get the records requested.

Then I had to speak to the main desk at the surgeon's office and ask them for an official letter,which they said would be mailed to me soon.

I also told them to get it to the other surgeon's office so that I could avoid having to go through all of these tests again.
Last night, I believe I averaged about 2 hours of sleep before waking up in a great deal of pain, rolling over then eventually falling to sleep again.

I have been thinking about my sleep patterns for the past few months.

It's a freakin' miracle if I sleep completely through the night,1-2 nights a month.

It's freakin' lucky if I sleep 4-6 hours straight 1-4 nights a month.

I'm lucky if I sleep 2-4 hours straight the rest of the time.

Completely fucked, if I sleep 1 hour at a time, or at all.

Thinking about all of this shit...

Needless to say, I'm not sure how I really feel about my last post.

After all, that salad dissertation has been in the back of my mind a lot right now.

I really don't want to be known or think of myself as:

• the who's always in pain...
• the guy who's knees are really messed up...
• the guy who's always swearing and complaining.

Don't worry.... Be Happy... BE WHAT?

One of my recent posts went into an argument that Ellie and I had.

Part of what I was thinking about while writing that post, I wanted to continue in another post.

It was regarding the use of pain meds...

But...

More importantly, it's being or becoming your ailments.

What I mean, is that I often become my pain.

Almost EVERYONE becomes their pain or ailments.

I know this, because as I was reading through my old journal entries, I noticed that a LOT of what I was feeling like.

Even over the past few years, I noticed that one of the first things I've talked about with people, or where things go is towards the pain I experience.

In the past, without the pain, I was always discussing thing I did, or things I saw, things I wanted to do...

Instead of

"Oh HOLY CRAP this HURTS!"

Or

"I just hurt all the time!"

Now that I look at it and think about it, it sucks, and I'd rather not chat with people who are like that.

It's boring and makes that person just seem unlikable.

I notice that Ellie does this about school/work/woman's club stuff.

Ellie's mom does this ALOT about the same things.

There was one night, they stopped by to take us out to dinner.

I hadn't had a chance to talk to Ellie that night, and I never, EVER got a word in until they left the house to go get into their car.

Then I was upset and talked to Ellie for a few minutes before we got there.

I really feel sorry for Ellie's dad.

He's a really, really good guy.

He's not quite like my father, but he's someone I greatly admire.

There are times, I wonder how much he actually says.

Don't get my wrong.

I love Ellie's mom.

Recently though, it seems that she's always giving me a cold shoulder, no matter what the situation is.

Then when she needs something she's over friendly, etc.

I'm really tempted, if this doesn't change, to just tell her no.

No matter how nice you can be, if I'm constantly getting the cold shoulder from people, I just don't want to help them anymore.

WTF help someone who's just ignoring you?

Anyhow, going back around to the start of this post.

You, me, myself and I, should think about who we are, more than what we're going through.

It's not fun to become your ailment, and definitely not fun for anyone to talk to you.

I know it's really hard to not be what's hurting or bothering you.

Like, I need to back off talking about being Bipolar and how bad the pain in my legs hurts.

Here's the last part of a sermon/talk from a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

I call it the "Salad" part of his talk:

Elder James B. Martino taught, “In our trials, let us not become bitter or uncommitted, but let us follow the Savior’s example of becoming more earnest, more sincere, and more faithful. ... Let us not complain, … let us serve others, and let us forgive one another. As we do this, all things will work together for good to us that love God.”

It's a Salad, because of the number of times he says: "let us"

I only think about his words from a video I found several months ago, when I was struggling called "Reflections". (https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/reflections)

When I watch or hear it, it really gives me something to think about.

I'm a bit anxious... but I don't know why...

Ellie and I have a great relationship...

I think.

I mean, I love her and she says she loves me.

But today, I'm anxious about it.

It's probably nothing...

...again...

It's only founded on the idea that she might not want the Misses here after I return home from the surgery.

I'd like to have them home on the Friday or Saturday after the surgery is over.

I want to see and spend time with my girls.

Granted, it might only be for watching movies, but perhaps we can dye our Easter eggs that day.

We like to do silly stuff like that.

In fact, I'd like to take them out today to shop for our Easter dying kits, just to see what is out there.

I've made up my mind...

I'm going to take them out after I pick them up from school today to look for the dye kit.

Maybe it'll be a local pharmacy chain, because Wal-Mart & the other store we go to in town have basically the same kits.

The pharmacy usually has different things, and more novelty items.  That and they'll have seasonal treats that we'll buy as part of our monthly treat "program".

Big Miss and I started this tradition last year.

We decided that we were going to go out once a month when I pick her up on Weds' early release day and get a treat.

It could be ice cream treat from DQ or a milk shake from the local burger joint... or some sort of candy treat from the stores we shop at those days.

So today, I think it'll be something from the pharmacy when we pick up the egg dying kit.

As for Ellie and I...

It's probably nothing at all...

I just don't like it when she starts talking to her parents about when/where the Misses might be/go without talking to me first.

I just love being with my daughters.

Just as much as I love being with Ellie.

It helps me to be calm and strong.

Even though, in the past, before I got help & treatment for Bipolar Disorder, I was a complete asshole at times.

I love them all.