Categories
Cars Massachusetts Money Stupidity

Inspection Day Miracle

The spouse’s Chevy S-10 has had the service engine light on for months. One of those silly emissions-related things that cost a fortune to fix and seem designed more to support the repair industry artificially than to be necessary to us proles. At least, that’s what my nephew’s device for speaking to car computers said, and that’s usually what it is. $500 for… being able to get a valid inspection sticker for a car that has no other symptoms than conspiring to make you fail an arbitrary regulatory hurdle.

Anyway, the sticker expired at the end of September. Money was tight even to spend $29 on inspection, so you can imagine what the extortive repair would mean. I finally took it today.

I got in the truck, started it up, and… no more engine light!

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I was worried that it somehow cleared itself, and would be in the same state clearing it electronically would create. If you use a device to clear the error electronically, the computer in the car lacks enough data for the inspection computer to say that it’s working right for emissions. You fail, and have to give it a week or so to accumulate information, then get it retested. Thus if you have a rejection sticker and repair will involve resetting it, you really should get the repair done a week or more before the deadline of the rejection sticker. Otherwise you go over, even if you didn’t want (need) to.

But no… it passed! There were no other problems, and the computers had a friendly chat that resulted in much happiness on my part. Even if there is something wrong, at least we buy time.

Categories
Health Care Massachusetts Medical Money

Drugs and Change

Recently I got an ear infection. Not shocking, given my childhood propensity for them and the fact that I’ve been almost continuously sick since Sadie started kindergarten in September, culminating with and resuming after a quick bout of flu and about two days of feeling better than I can remember feeling since… I don’t know. Possibly as far back as 1977. Yet shocking in that I’ve tended not to have ear infections as an adult, or even as an older child. I used to have respiratory infections every couple winters, but my ears have never behaved like this.

I’d had the normal sniffles and stuffiness. In a meeting before work in the wee hours, I was especially stuffy. Near the end of it, fluid started dribbling out of one of my ears. Freaky! It kept doing so during the shift, then I went home and searched online for the symptom and what the properties of the fluid meant. Clearly it was not cerebrospinal fluid and I didn’t have meningitis. I didn’t even have a fever.

That was Saturday. I ended up going to emergency care at my doctor’s practice on Sunday, seeing an excellent doctor and getting diagnosed officially with a middle ear infection. That meant antibiotics, which were a bit slow but did clear it up. It stopped briefly right after I started those, but then the leaking ear went on leaking for a few days.

More importantly, this was the first time I had been to a doctor since last May. I’d been shirking, since they like to monitor my blood pressure regularly. Because I simply couldn’t afford to go! We got kicked off of MassHealth as of the end of 2009 for having the audacity to have low enough income to qualify, but an employer who offered insurance we couldn’t afford to buy or use. That’s just the two of us, not the kids, who remained fully covered, because we had low enough income to qualify, but…. what? Insurance from the employer that would have cost too much wasn’t good enough for them, just for the adults? In reality, looking at the rejection, there was some level of care they covered even for us, but it was unclear how to use it. Apparently it was a safety net thing where the doctors and hospitals were supposed to figure out what not to charge us for or something. Also, other people who were required to buy insurance got part of their insurance cost reimbursed at borderline levels of income, but if we were supposed to once we obtained it, I was never aware of that. Perhaps this year, if they ever get back to me, they’ll be clearer. That’s a whole other story, the kids being thrown off and our having to reapply from scratch. They’re seriously taking their time, and we’re overdue for checkups for two kids. Ugh.

Anyway, our insurance meant the first 12 visits to the doctor, or a lower number and some testing, since that’s not unusual, would have cost me entirely out of pocket. I can totally afford 10% of my income before insurance starts to pay 80% of the cost. Yup.

Plus I’d been off and on, mostly off, the three blood pressure meds since early 2009. When I saw the doctor the last time in 2009, I took the drugs for a couple weeks ahead of time, enough to have a passable blood pressure but have him mildly concerned about edema. See, the meds made me feel like crap, and left me almost unable to work. I’d take them, and after a fairly short time the managers would wonder why I was so darn slow. I’d wonder why I was so darn slow, and my brain didn’t work right. Not that this should have surprised me, since one of the meds was a beta blocker. The second doctor to treat me for hypertension avoided giving me beta blockers because they affected me so badly the first time. Arguably I lost my very first tech support job because I was on one. I couldn’t remember anything, couldn’t think as clearly as I ought to be able to, and had a total lack of ambition that went beyond ordinary levels of lazy or disinterested. Took me a long time to blame it on the pills, and I seem to recall that was only when I stopped taking them and transformed back. The second doctor to treat me was happy if he could keep me from going much about 150/95. The next time I went to that practice , seeing a different doctor because mine had left, after being off meds a while my pressure was 185 or something and they flipped. I sat in the waiting room for hours, waiting for meds they gave me on the spot to kick in and lower my BP enough that they’d let me leave. I don’t remember what that doctor gave me, but he specialized in hypertension and set out to determine a root cause.

I don’t generally consume inordinate salt, don’t seem to be affected by it, and am aware that they’ve found minimal correlation, even though doctors still ask. I believe they have figured out 1/3 of people can go higher on account of salt, 1/3 are not affected, and… 1/3 go down! I did 24 hour urine samples for levels of catecholamines. I got an MRI of my kidneys, looking for pheochromocytoma. Nothing. My current doctor, technically the fourth to treat this, also found nothing, in part taking my word for the prior guy’s findings, since the other practice never passed along my records when asked.

Nor did anyone find damage as a result of the high blood pressure, in the past anyway. I was already about to the point of going back to treatment, sure I was being affected by it. I started losing my eyesight when we switched to compact fluorescent bulbs, but I’m not convinced BP hasn’t been a factor. On the emergency visit for the ear infection, my blood pressure was 210 over… now I forget, but not as high as my record 220/140. 120 or 110, this time. Naturally this got me an EKG, and skepticism about my chest congestion pain when taking deep breaths being normal congestion. Heck, that’s an old familiar pain to me, the breathing pain. Without being congested at all I’d get it when I was a kid, if I tried to run any distance in elementary school. Singing, bike riding (I miss my bike!) and expanding my lung capacity mitigated it, but it come back now and then.

I was lucky that the doctor I went to on the Sunday let me go with instructions to resume taking lisinopril, the least likely to cause a problem, in an effort to start controlling it some, and to go to my regular doctor in a week to followup on that and the ear. The EKG showed very minimal signs of uncontrolled blood pressure but was basically fine.

On another note, nobody ever finds I have high blood sugar or cholesterol, despite my mother being convinced from the time I was young that I was fat and was going to get diabetes, have a heart attack and die. Knock on wood.

Backing up a little, the very last time I took the combo of lisinopril, atenolol and hydrochlorothiazide was in the fall for a week. After a week it turned my brain to mush and provoked depression like flicking a switch. It was remarkable to observe! Since it had been months since I’d touched the stuff, and it was completely out of my system, it was a clear test. I’d previously observed that, at least at times I tended to get dehydrated from work and weather, hydrochlorothiazide may have been provoking gout attacks. The emergency doctor thought that made sense, and that the actions I ascribed to the beta blocker made even more sense.

About nine days later I saw my own doctor, getting an extremely prompt appointment once I finally called. You’d think they were concerned or something.

My blood pressure was dramatically lower, like 165/100. My doctor was ready to give me an EKG until I noted I’d had one several days before.

I kept me on lisinopril and added back hydrochlorothiazide, but switched me to amlodipine instead of atenolol. To be honest, I thought I’d made my feelings about beta blockers clear when I first saw him and already thought they messed me up, and I thought – and maybe it was true initially – he was not giving me one of them. Eventually I learned that one of them was, and perhaps that was true all along.

Looking up amlodipine after I got home, I was amused to see it is prescribed for angina as well.

A week went by and…. No wait! Two days went by and it was as if I’d become a new person. It improved more from there. The combo, presumably to be pinned on the amlodipine, almost seems the opposite of a depressant. Since it worked that fast and with no side-effects, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the one day I forgot to take the pills caused a bit of a mood crash. There’s incentive! Skip a day, go all gloomy for two days before returning to normal? Naw, I think I’ll just keep to the regimen, thank you. My vision hasn’t improved. If anything, it’s worse. However, something else I suspected was affected by blood pressure went away, and the ear problem stopped dragging on, as it seemed to be. Google seemed to suggest that the ear symptoms could be tied in with blood pressure, apart from the fact of a very real infection.

It’s hardly perfect, since how glowingly happy can you be when you’ve gotten in a life hole with canyonesque sides, but I’m optimistic and energetic and alert and awake in a way I haven’t been for the most part in years. Not sure it was this good in the parts of 2003 and 2004 when I wrote about being on Lexapro. Who knew I needed it to counter the blood pressure drugs! Could have avoided the whole thing. I’ve also had some insight that goes deep and may help explain the blood pressure problem’s roots, while also helping me move on, but that’s another story. Time to make supper!

Categories
Money

Still Poor

Just checked. Didn’t win Megamillions. Don’t often do it, but bought one a few days ago on a whim when I saw the jackpot sign in Hannaford. $127 million would solve everything! And yes, I know, but even after taxes, and even being careful and all that. I guess now I ought to buy another, since $151 million would solve everything with a big fat “and I mean it” thrown on top for good measure.

Categories
blogging Business Geekery Health Care Humor Job Hunting Medical Money Music Politics Totally Random

Link Dump 2

Continued from and explained in Link Dump 1.

Schoolhouse Barack

Eggless batter for deep fried shrimp (works nicely for chicken, came out just like Chinese chicken fingers but that Henry can eat, moved from this to lighter tempura style)

It’s just a draft

Efficient markets after the financial crisis

RIP Fess Parker

Do you think you love me?

Controversial propositions (some good ones! including Bobby Orr)

The shocking ages of rock stars

Ethiopian Injera recipe and another and another and a detailed post about making it

Nerd, Dork and Geek explained in Venn Diagram

The parable of the satellite dish

Alien Versus Pooh

Latters to Scalzi, Pt 2

What if the jobs are never coming back?

Shy and introverted process the world differently

Quasars don’t show time dilation – what’s up with that?

Fighting allergies by mimicking parasitic worms

The whiskey standard

How to wreck a marriage

Truth in accounting (Madoff vs Social Security)

Massive tax change hidden in healthcare law

11 Music superstars who are technically one hit wonders

Most people carry neanderthal genes (big surprise!)

S&P Priced in gold

Creating a more private Facebook alternative

Caring for woulds when medical system has collapsed

Doubt cast on many reports of food allergies

Categories
Food & Cooking Kids Money

Not Sure I Will Ever Get Used To…

Buying almost a loaf of bread per day! It’s just crazy. The actual usage is probably about 3 large sandwich loaves per 4 days, 5 days if we’re on a slower streak or eating outside the house a lot or whatever derails the sandwich singularity.

Categories
Kids Medical Money

AWOL and the Tooth Fairy

Poor Sadie.

A couple days ago, she lost a lower front tooth. I mean, lost it, when it fell out in an unknown place, time and manner. She had been telling me it was loose, had been excited, and I’d thought nothing of it. Had no idea it might be that close to a done deal, with the successor well underway beneath it.

Deb noticed it missing yesterday, and apparently it had been lost the day before. Sadie was mortified to have lost the tooth, and claimed absolutely no idea when or where, apart from being sure it had happened the day before, or overnight.

We have yet to find it.

Less than an hour ago, we were eating corn on the cob. You know where this is going, don’t you?

Sadie asked me why her ear of corn was getting red stuff on it.

I looked, realized it was her mouth bleeding, looked and saw a two-tooth gap where one had been gone before. Oops! It was bleeding slightly where the tooth had newly self-extracted.

No sign of the tooth, naturally. Sadie is opposed to the possibility that she swallowed it, but hello, logic. So sad!

That’s two for two, out of the blue.

I investigated the Tooth Fairy, and got a consensus of a buck per, maybe a bonus to as much as five for a first or multiples. I also understand there’s precedent for missing teeth, or even the lack of or desire not to use a pillow. Thus I am sure as the budget allows the Tooth Fairy can come along and leave a stipend somewhere.

Meanwhile, Sadie opined that it’d be a good idea to use her side teeth as much as possible next time.

Categories
Food & Cooking Medical Money

Frugal Guy Cook

Of possible interest to the person or two still reading and in case you missed this , I have started a new food blogging concept to replace the old Married Guy Cook. Now it’s the Frugal Guy Cook. Besides food and cooking, it will incorporate shopping, saving money, cooking for fickle kids and coping with allergies.

Check it out, and by all means, links are welcome.

Categories
Cars Food & Cooking Kids Medical Money Totally Random

Teeth and Acid and Gas, Oh My

Due to genetics compounded by parenting errors and circumstance, all three kids require a mouth full of dentistry under general anesthesia to fix their teeth, relieve pain mainly in Valerie’s case, and set them up to get through to their adult teeth and do better with those. They’ve gotten better about brushing. We’ve all but eliminated drinking things with sugar, and thrown away the sippy cups. Oddly enough, the youngest was the one most comfortable using a regular cup, and most willingly ready for the change.

Valerie has massive cavities in rear molars, and has had a course of antibiotics on suspicion of infection.

She has a long history of flipping moods like a switch, dropping into full blown irrational tantrum mode for no apparent reason. That includes asking for random this or that, then vehemently not wanting the same thing she asked for. I’d wondered if she had sugar crashes and maybe had a food-related issue that way. A snack could help, after all, if she calmed enough to eat it. I’d wondered if it was a psychological thing. It was a matter of time – not much time – before I’d have asked the doctor.

Her back teeth are especially rotted.

She tends to get a strained sounding voice, almost hoarse. Noticed but didn’t give it much thought. Sore throat, maybe. Not a tendency to cough, though, or to spit up.

While she was on antibiotics, helped by her being able to distinguish and communicate more clearly what hurts, it became clear she had a major gas and heartburn problem, probably reflux. Turns out the sudden tantrum thing is a symptom. She’s missing some of the possible symptoms, but once suspected, I could see that it would come on like clockwork a while after meals, varying with what the meal was. She seems to get heartburn from some of the same things I do, so I can predict it more easily, or get it at the same time she does.

I need to find out what to do for her other than mere gas drops, which help but not always as much as I’d like. It can be almost like an off switch, though. She’ll be hysterical, let out a belch, then be fine. The whole thing got more pronounced and obvious on the antibiotics – that is, she had obvious gas, so there was no way to miss it.

She still confuses and conflates the two. I am sure she has tooth pain, plenty of it, but it appears that most of her “my mouth hurts” pain and tantrums are on account of gas and acid. I feel for her, because I know just how awful it can be when that hits. I give her a lot of latitude in choice of treatment. She’ll ask for gas drops if that is the problem from her perception. She’ll ask for ibuprofen if it’s the teeth, or if gas drops didn’t work yet and she’s frantic, which is the tough part.

Thus I’ll be glad when she gets the teeth fixed and the immediate aftermath pain of that is done. Then if she hurts the same way, it’s not teeth. Hers are scheduled first, on January 11. Sadie goes on the 14th, and Henry on the 18th. Three back to back trips into Boston in the car I am not sure will pass inspection it’s due to have before the end of December, for which I don’t have the money. Fun.

Worse than the confusion between things causing pain or discomfort, she uses “my mouth hurts” like an attention getting cudgel. That is challenging to distinguish from the real thing. Sometime, anyway. Other times it’s obvious, though not sure I could explain how.

Anyway, how weird is it to get a real post here? Time to get a shower, throw in still more laundry, maybe call the doctor about what to give her for the above, get the kids dressed, go pay my car insurance, get gas, and probably go to my mother’s to get the camera I left there and some pea soup they have for me. Maybe leave kids there and get my hair cut, but don’t think there’ll be time. It’s long overdue, though, and that would save a trip. We’ll see.

Categories
blogging Business Kids Massachusetts Medical Money

Dead Zone

One problem we’ve had lately is exactly this dead zone, which you can see as a sharp drop in the 30s before the steadier line upward. You have to click the chart to see a bigger version.

And basically if I do anything other than what I am now and/or work at home/online work as allowed, we then run into daycare issues. If I were on my own, I’d keep what I have for security and bootstrap from it. A part time other job even if I could get nothing full time. Return to being available for unpredictable side computer/support or other gigs. Use any spare time for building more passive but by no means self-constructing income streams. Six months and I could probably be back to “real money” without even relying on a single “full time” thing.

Right now our net effective income is actually down because our income went up, but not enough. A full time job roughly opposite the other full time job would net less than I do now up to hourly rates that start to approach those of a “real job.” It’s a conundrum.

The good thing is the kids are becoming more self-contained, so I’m starting to see clear to being able to do some of the passive side stream and work from home stuff without having to leave for on-site/emergency work of the sort I used to do. Just trying to work out a system where that is organized and balanced against housework…

Update:
This is the source and has more, and a second, more impressive chart of how implicit marginal tax rates fluctuate.

Categories
Business Geekery Job Hunting Money

Flow

Life may be like a box of chocolates, but Flow is like a good cup of coffee.

Great post about a concept I’ve talked about before, which is central to some of the types of work I do, and not at all necessary to others. At the old business, it was a mix, where I could be anywhere doing anything and answer quick questions that might come up, put out proverbial fires, but frequently not need a flow state at all. That’s the drive-by stuff, the small stuff.

I’m perhaps more needy of it than some, and may even have a harder time achieving the state than some. It’s how I write the best, or at least the most painlessly productively. It’s how I do certain things that are oddly at both the especially creative and especially analytical ends of the theoretical spectrum that calls those distinctive.

I always need it more for the equivalent of loading a program into my head and wrapping my mind around it. Or more accurately, when there is more to load, or material that is less fresh.

I may as well have been a programmer. If I could scrape by for a while and have a lot of uninterrupted time, (re)learning to be one is high on my list of possibilities.

Categories
Business Controversies Kids Money

These Things Aren’t Always Simple But…

His wife, who used to look up to him as a glamorous writer, begins to view him as an “unreliable employee.”

From Patriarch to Patsy

Via Dr. Helen, via her hubby.

Categories
blogging Business Food & Cooking Geekery Humor Job Hunting Kids Medical Money Music TV

American Idol Blogging (and way too much else)

Let’s see if I can sneak in a quick post around my daycare duties. They (and by “they” I mean Henry) tend to know the difference between my fingers hitting the keys for anything substantive and not, so I can type a tweet or something like a Google query or URL, but not a post or e-mail. Haven’t tried the in-between of writing or revising a resume or LinkedIn desriptions lately, but they fall more to the substantive if only in terms of concentration and here he comes, like clockwork. Well yay, he… nope, he started walking off until I started typing again. Okay, he left. And Val drew him back. Score! He couldn’t get to my lap so he gave up. Go me!

You will have noticed a distinct lack of American Idol blogging. Or other TV blogging. I mean, ignoring for a moment the limited blogging generally, which is a combination if things, partially overlapping, which see a subsequent post, if not a full explanation therein.

Sadly, for the moment we have settled into a reasonable combination of Deb working 2:00 to 11:00 PM, while I work out of the house 3:45 AM until somewhere between 6:30 and 8:00 AM, normally to just after 7:00 AM. Her 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM shift didn’t work well, though it could have if I’d set a strict bedtime for me and the kids of 7:30, and not worried as much about her getting supper of whatever we’d had not long after we’d eaten, or making her something when she arrived. In the last few months I struggled with being boxed into the role and slipped a bit, but generally I take the “feed everyone” job seriously. (On that note, Sadie says “more apple!!!” and I am called away…)

Where was I?

Right. I don’t know how I was doing the “FredCo” job well enough to be retained as permanent, because I almost never got enough sleep the whole time, and I sleepwalked through every day between shifts, which come to think of it may not have helped my enthusiasm for my domestic duties. Oddly, though, I had faith I would become perm, while Deb wasn’t so sure I’d even last the seasonal stretch. Doesn’t take so much: Don’t let anything stop me from going to work, focus, do the job well, be inexorable, try not to get so hurt I have to stop. The new policy is get to bed as early as possible and even if it were tempting to wait up for Deb, 11:30 PM would be out of the question. It means easier to have a routine that gets us there, with flexibility the 7:30 thing would not have afforded. So the target bedtime is 8:00 PM, but if it takes until 9:30 sometimes, oh well. If we are asleep at 8:30, that lets me sleep potentially as long as 6.5 hours, which is amazing. I was routinely getting 4 and under. If I got more, it was by Deb being the evening parent and the morning parent. She routinely got too little sleep, and had less time for herself than needed, let alone customary from before I had even a job tucked into a theoretically out of the way, brief time slot. Interstitial employment?

(Pause to peel another apple because Sadie wanted more. Apparently the Pink Ladies are a huge hit.)

(And he is on my lap.)

(And saved by Val needing to be wiped.)

(And finally closed door to try to finish this quick, since my solution of doing dishes to feel unencumbered went far worse than this did, with two of them mothing me.)

Now where was I?

I go to bed before Idol, and Deb works during Idol. Part of the charm was watching together. We also are too busy to tape and watch. Thus I have been catching highlights via Rickey, except for having caught bits of some of the audition rounds. I have some idea who is participating and how the competition stacks up, know some of the drama, know details of how they’ve changed things this year, and so forth, but the viewing experience? Not getting that this time.

Not to mention the TV problem

(Sadie pounded on door to roust me because Henry changed the channel and messed it up. He will not learn not to do that.)

Not to mention the TV problems we have had, which I troubleshot yesterday, resulting in a revelation as well as the expected.

The signal comes through rabbit ears, and through the miracle of cables and splitters we could record something on the VCR on one channel while watching another channel, or watch a tape. The DVD player hooked directly into the requisite red, white and yellow jacks, rather than the antenna jack.

It barfed a couple months or so back. Ended up having to feed antenna to VCR and VCR to TV using DVD cables, or leave the DVD cables on the DVD player. Switching between them had to be a physical act of moving cables, so it was a big deal to watch TV as it happened, or to tape it, which couldn’t be done while watching a DVD anymore. If the kids picked something we had on tape, like Mary Poppins, we’d make a proverbial day of it and watch multiple tapes, maximizing the benefit of the cable swap.

I’d meant to try the “old” TV, which is the newer TV, which is smaller, else there’d have been no reason to switch to the other.

(They just busted into my locked door. So Val could ask for help with one of her new belts she got for her birthday. Then succeeded herself. Then left him in with me, closing the door behind her, Go Valerie.)

It was fairly apparent that the antenna jack on the big TV was more or less fried, but that wasn’t beyond all doubt.

(Pause to let Henry out and stuff.)

Thus the desire to test, if not automatically, definitely switch.

I confirmed the diagnosis, leaving us a good working kind of small TV that can be used as we used to, and a bigger, older TV that isn’t good for much besides hooking to a DVD player. Which might be viable if and when it could go in a separate room for the kids, or if one of us had space and preference for it versus the fact we can watch DVD on our computers (or will be able to, in Deb’s case, once I put in the drive that I ordered), and versus the watching of Hulu that can and does happen on our computers.

Having started on the course of not being able to watch AI this season, I can’t see us suddenly starting to tape it, but at least now we could.

Except… we can’t. Not yet.

You know how Obama has an advisor on such matters who worked for a company that benefits from a delay in the switch to HD, so mysteriously a delay has in fact been invoked? That was not enough to stop Fox. Home of American Idol.

In my A/V geeking yesterday, I found that

(Pause to wipe Sadie and hand out snacks to the bottomless children and be amused at Sadie’s declaration she didn’t want to miss much of the show she was watching, ‘I’m watching PBS Kids!”)

I found that channel 64 was on an endless loop announcing you were not seeing their programming because they had switched, so get off your asses and get a converter if you don’t have cable or a new set, here’s how. That’s Fox in Providence. Channel 25 was gone entirely. That’s Fox in Boston. It’s a tossup which will come in better for us, so normally we’d watch whichever was clearer that day. Not that Fox was alone, since it appeared channels 10 and 12 were gone as well, essentially eliminating commercial network television as an option for us.

So much for the delay.

And TV watchers or not, HD transition delay or not, the coupons for $40 of a $48 converter box expire, so I will need to get one or two sooner rather than later. For an extra $8 I’m inclined to get a spare, just in case we use a second TV or one dies or whatever.

In long, that, folks, is why you have not been and probably will not be seeing breathless commentary here about American Idol this season. Maybe sometime in the season we will manage, or I will manage, to do some actual watching of it, live or taped. The “FredCo” job can’t be forever, if you ask me, just because it’s too little to be so much of what I rely on, and it’s too physically demanding. The trouble is that I have to transition to work that pays so well that daycare is not an issue, or that is “work” not a “job” and can actually fit in with the kids and dishes and stuff, either being relatively interruptable, or doable during time Deb can and will cover me as if I had left the house and was no more available than I am now Tuesday through Saturday mornings 3:30 to generally about 7:30. I’ve been interested in working from home at times in order to be available to help, but mostly that just doesn’t work. A couple of saving factors are that we live in a 24 hour, 7 day world, and that we won’t necessarily overlap hours entirely for the foreseeable future, even if I extricate myself from domestic box into corporate cubicle.

Now. I have another post in mind for here, and maybe I can put that forth today, but also I have a post I started last week, elsewhere, directly relevant to getting work, potentially to be seen by tens of thousands of people, potentially meme-setting in scope. But at least self-motivational and all that. I was white-hot inspired and then wasn’t able to work on it and lost the feel, but at least it can be done enough without the heat, so long as there’s time and permission to actually work on it.

Categories
Money Pictures

Camera

Speaking of money, and related to the lack of pictures lately (notwithstanding the Christmas backlog), our camera is dying. It’s been fantastic and I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another Kodak. In fact, I will go out of my way to buy another Kodak like it.

However, until we do, there’s not much photography happening around here. A couple weeks ago we found there’d been basically no pics taken of the kids for a month, because the camera is so balky.

Categories
Money

Tunnel End Note

You may recall we’d gotten behind on the gas & electric and had to do a fundraiser, then pay the rest of the arrears in installments, while also keeping current. Paying early each month, in fact.

There is a discount for paying each month’s bill early, which we have been doing, but because of the arrears we lose that, so in effect that has been adding a small amount to the balance at the end, effectively adding a month, which I calculated last month (since we couldn’t remember exactly and wanted to figure it out) meant April.

Well, the account has a notation regarding the payment plan and is flagged not to be shut off, but their computers are on autopilot as far as generating notices. Thus each month we get the bill, and then we get the pay or die notice.

This month? The amount considered so far behind it means a shutoff is less than the amount we pay. And there will only be one full and one partial payment to put us current, freeing the amount for other things and stopping the monthly loss of discount, not inconsiderable. Coinciding with downward seasonal fluctuation.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

Categories
Money

Official

My seasonal package handling job is permanent. Only 10 – 15 hours a week after the end of the year, but the biggest week of the peak season has been just over 20. It’s a foot further in the door with a good company that appreciates me, and continues to be a basis around which other things can be worked. As well as being expendable if and when that is needed.

Posting this before going to bed, following an extremely short shift that was not only light, but also had two trailers not in yet and plenty of people available to kill time waiting for them, then knock them out in a hurry.

Categories
Cars Money Stupidity Totally Random Weather

Speaking of Snow…

The downstairs neighbors are morons. They insist on the end spot so they can get out easily when it snows, then leave almost a full car length between them and end of driveway, making it hard for us to park in the next spot in, which we had to go in and out of twice for jobs before they ever budged. At least their newly moved-back-in son helped shovel, though me and the gal upstairs did most of it, including clearing their primo spot they abandon when it snows.

Saturday shift was surreal. Normally it’s been 3 AM to sometime after 7 but before 8, during peak the past week. Knowing trucks wouldn’t make it, they planned 4 AM instead, and when we all got there, nothing had shown. Two were due in maybe an hour, and two more after a further delay, so it looked like it’d be a late shift, but then the others ran so late we had only two trailers. As opposed to eleven the past couple of days. For the first hour we had a safety meeting to occupy the time, in keeping with the place being the most injury plagued facility in the company for no apparent reason. It’s new, but past the breaking in stage, and was designed to be very safe. For me most of the issue has been how the trailers are loaded, but that can’t be unique to the ones routed our way. Sitting down for that killed my momentum most of the way. I get little sleep and only keep going much of the time because I’m going. About a third into the one trailer I co-unloaded, I just crashed, feeling sick, almost like I was going to collapse, weak from all the shoveling effort the night before, and vaguely like I was ravenously hungry. I managed to shake it off enough, and it helped to take off my sweatshirt and work in a T-shirt when it was borderline for that, but I was damn glad when they announced there would be no other trailers. With so many people swarming the work, there was no additional stuff for me to help with, so I was out early.

Ironically, at the meeting they emphasized lack of sleep as perhaps the biggest cause of injuries at that facility. Felt very guilty. The thing is, for the amount of time involved, up to a point it’s possible to overcome and maintain your attention to surroundings and all. Which will make Monday interesting.

Normally there is no Monday morning shift. There has been a short one for a couple weeks, staffed by a few people. Due to the snow, they planned a mandatory Monday shift starting at 1:30 AM. Due to the trucks we didn’t get today, now it’s midnight. Or 12:01, as the manager pedantically put it, to delineate clearly it’s Monday. So that’s going to be massive. Basically a double, 7-8 hours long. Ouch. Immediately following a second significant snow (and ice?) storm and all that implies. Ouch ouch.

The good thing is that makes up for what would have been a three day week. I can look forward to no work on Christmas, unlike Thanksgiving, and no work the next day, same as Thanksgiving. There will be the huge day, the two last ditch days, two days off, one day on, then the normal two days off. Which only feels like one day, due to when the shifts fall and the sleep catch up factor. Then the peak season ends a week later, during which it presumably tapers off dramatically.

I could do without all this snow.

Deb got a trial by fire, having to drive in it. Which at least is much improved by weight in the back of the truck. We do need to get the Buick back into reliable service, as it should be a good snow commute car. It needs a battery badly. I don’t want to spend $70 I can’t afford on a battery until after I know it will pass inspection without any serious issues. That is, if it needs a couple tires to pass, as expected, a battery will be worthwhile. If it’s going to be beyond fixing any time soon to pass inspection, which I have no reason to expect but this is my life, no sense buying a battery.

Sadie just came along and if I had more, or was leading to any further point, I can’t remember. Plus it is time to work on the kitchen and think about supper and, speaking of exhaustion, have more coffee. I am so glad this is a full night of sleep tonight, in theory. Last night I got about 2.5 hours. Since coming home this morning I’ve gotten maybe an hour equivalent of micronapping or simply resting. Tomorrow night, before the megashift, I don’t expect any. The best I could possibly expect would be 2 hours. Mmmm… coffee.

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blogging Business Job Hunting Medical Money Totally Random Weather

Not Official But…

The job I have totally not blogged about as intended is planning to keep me beyond seasonal. I am “reliable and a hard worker.”

I’d been wanting to post about how cool it is, in terms of logistics, handling and managing physical stuff, being no-nonsense and well run, and reminding me of a computer program written in physical form rather than in software. It is, after all, a sorting and routing routine. Then there’s the physical fitness aspect, and the fact I’m so capable to handling it, offset by the downsides of how easy it is to be injured and how grueling it is. In the “here’s an entire day or two of exertion to do in 3 – 5 hours” sort of way.

More significantly, I’d been mentally composing a post about my psychology and aspects of my employment history it resonates with, and it being a mental as well as physical reset. I’m not the fastest at unloading trailers and slinging 1000 – 2000 or so packages a shift, but I’m up there, without losing quality in the process. My boss at my last job like this would probably not have been satisfied I was fast enough!

Anyway, in a cosmic sense it’s not enough, but in an ohshitwhatarewedoinginjanuary sense it’s fantastic news. If it’s less intense and we finally get used to it and manage bedtimes and such better and get the cars fully reliable and do some strategic child offloading, many things could be possible. It can hardly help but be a better year, but still, why not shoot for a good one.

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Humor Job Hunting Kids Medical Money Pictures Totally Random

Curls Galore

Speaking of Valerie’s hair, we trimmed it for the first time the other day. No pics yet, but it came out fantastic. And speaking of pics, I still need to create an online card from. well, less to work with than I’d like. On the plus side, it’s not limited to the size that will look good and fit on a printed version. And speaking of limited funds, I need to get a job that doesn’t result in a new bruise – mystery or otherwise – or other injury each day, and that doesn’t pack a full day or two of physical effort into 4 hours.

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Cars Geekery Job Hunting Kids Money Totally Random

Cards

I have a list of about 140 or so people to send our now traditional Christmas cards to this year, including the addition of a lot of people who generously helped us out, by way of thanks.

We ordinarily get picture cards printed, featuring the kids, which is a challenge. I mean, three of them, together, looking at the camera, perhaps smiling at the same time? It’s not pretty. I don’t really have one I’m happy with yet, though one is close, except for being too dark without adjusting it.

Well, that’s almost $60 in postage and almost $50 in printed cards. I expect that to be enough to cover stuff needed for the Buick. Or it covers the preliminary look see at the truck, which will then tell us what we have to raise to get the check engine light off and the poor thing sounding better.

So.

This will be the year without a picture card, or not many of them. and without a snailmailed card, or not many of them. There are some pretty decent cards we have left from years past, of the traditional variety. But then, it’s getting late even to send them. I keep forgetting Christmas is here already. Ten days? That’s nothing.

So.

Look for no card in the mail, most of you who might normally get one, and instead I will attempt to post the card/picture we would have used in a special location I will disclose to those on the card list I can e-mail or give the info in a traditional card. Stay tuned, if that’s you.

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Birthdays Humor Job Hunting Money

For Deb’s Birthday…

I got me a job.

I start Tuesday at 1 AM for a seasonal, part time package handler job in a local distribution center. Normally it’ll be 3 AM to 8 AM, peaking starting a little earlier, and usually ending earlier when it’s not peak. Preferably I can stay after 8 AM if there’s an emergency, like a truck delayed by traffic. I’d expect that to be rare, and hope we can handle it by Deb having some flexibility and/or being able to bundle the kids to someone, or have someone run down to watch them for a little while.

Ironically, they called while I was taking the kids to hang out with Sharon and their cousins while I did a one-shot spot of computer work worth about three days of package handling.

It’ll help. Plus the structure, exercise, and if I land something else I may be able to keep it and just be extra busy for the last bit of the year. If it really works out, there’s a chance of it going past the season. We’ll see, as it’s a rough, cannon fodder kind of job. Being slightly less worried about money for a while will help. It’s incredibly annoying to be in situations like right now, where I can afford $29 to have the car inspected, but that leaves a buck to buy and mount the two 14″ tires it needs.

Kids are making unpromising sounds in the other room. Off I go…