Jobs, Jury Duty, and new Do's

That shows me, I won’t be making lunches at night, getting everything else ready for the next day, and then going to bed early. Sure I popped out of bed on time and we were actually early to my oldest daughter’s school, but I was a waste of skin all day. I fell asleep at my desk a little after 10:00 AM (I expect to in the afternoon but not before lunch) and yawned all day and everyone asked "why are you so tired?"

Tonight, I’m staying up way late, not making anything until the last minute tomorrow morning, and you know why? Because I have to get up extra early tomorrow to drop the kids off at various other homes so I can make it downtown for Jury Duty by 8:15 AM. Yes, my number finally got called and yes they are still selecting jurors for the murder trial.

I called my interview sponsor today and it was all good news. First of all, he knew who I was as soon as I mentioned my name, he didn't have to file through a bunch of paperwork before finding my name. Second, the job is one I am qualified for and could probably still afford to make most of my house payments if it were offered to me. Third, we meet Wednesday morning not at the gate, but at a restaurant for breakfast. Because of security clearances and stuff I will ride in with my sponsor and potentially future boss where after a quick visit with HR I get to interview with another eight people before the day is through. That will be an awfully long time to wear a tie...

I called the juror folks and asked to be excused on Wednesday, it sounds like it shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll just have to see what happens with the big trial; maybe I already got cut.

On the way home I combined a haircut with dropping of my interview pants for dry-cleaning. I hadn’t been to this place in several years but I have always had good success before. The #2 clipper I asked for on the sides turned out to be (“whoops”, yes she said “whoops”), a #1. Luckily this place does a lot of military work because I now have the military do.

Fej

Persistence

Last night I finished the movie from Friday night where I fell asleep prior to finishing. Then, my dog and I listened to some music. I think he was unhappy with the volume but he didn’t complain.

I slept in late of course and while reading the news and drinking some coffee my wife called. That was strange because had she called just a few minutes earlier she would have woken me up. She rarely gets up that early. She was all excited because she found a house for rent in the kids’ current school district. It was coincidentally across the street from my middle daughter’s best friend. She went over and talked to my daughter’s friend’s mother, helped her finish dying her hair (weird) and they talked for quite some time.

It costs a bit more than the apartment but location would be great. She might just about be ready to take on the responsibility of a house again, I hope. Anyway, she is going to look at a few others also.

I began going through the divorce paperwork today. Among several major errors, my birth date, SS#, and a few other odd things, most of it seems in order. Then I came across the note. She was pleading for us to get back together, how much she still loved me, and it went on quite a bit. That depressed me a little and I have dropped going through it for now. Not that I want to get back together, hell no. This is exactly why I have waited so long though. I have been hoping that she will come around and face the reality of the situation. Good God, we’ve been apart for nearly 2 years, she has had multiple boyfriends, caused me no end of financial and emotional stress but yet she still thinks we can just go back “to the way things used to be?”

“Things” used to be screwed up back then too only we lived in the same house. I guess what I am really trying to avoid is having to throw the reality of the situation in her face, resulting in her bawling her brains out and me having to walk away. Yes, she needs to face the reality, she needs to come to terms with the fact that our marriage is over, and it will probably have to reach some climatic point I suppose.

With bi-polar disorder, the highs are too high and the lows are too low. She uses medication, lot’s of it, for the lows. I suppose that’s what I’m really trying to avoid.

Other than that crap, we had a good weekend. The kids and I went to a car show, a first for all of us. It was fun, really, it was.

Fej

New Suit and such.

I picked my kids up around lunchtime today. My wife sounded a little disappointed about me coming to pick the kids up, but she probably didn’t realize I had already received a couple calls from them asking me to come get them.

As we were packing stuff up she brought over a stack of papers. It was our divorce papers from this summer that she had taken from my house while I was on vacation. I let things be at the time, I figured she needed more time herself. She has filled out a lot of the information and I need to finish it. I plan to do so tonight and tomorrow. I’m happy to finally get the last phase started, but I too, have this odd feeling of hesitance. It’s real now, but I want reality, so I will finish this.

I am now on a two-day kid-free weekend, that’s Friday and Saturday night folks with no kids and what did I do? Shop for interview clothes (It was pitiful really, like I was in a foreign country), wandering aimlessly through several malls, and eventually made it home. Maybe I’ll try to finish the movie I watched half of last night, before falling asleep on the couch.

I’ll probably do the same tonight, but I do want to finish the movie, and escort myself to bed without having to wake up first…

Fej

No Drama Tonight

Enough of the stinking drama. It’s not going away, it’s nothing new, but today is Friday. That is a good thing.

Since the kids didn’t stay over on Thursday night we decided they could stay with their mom tonight. I didn’t really bother trying to find something to do, I felt more like going home. My little animal kingdom hates it when I get home late and I just didn’t really feel like going out tonight. I had to make an extra trip to drop off stuffed animals, pj’s, and other odds and ends for the kids at their mom’s. They only complained a little bit about me leaving.

I might watch a movie or something tonight. I haven’t watched a movie at home (Nick, Disney, and CN feature movies don’t count) in a really long time. I don’t know though, I have so much blog reading to do to :)

I have no jury duty on Monday either. This time the recording listed off a large number of jurors who might be needed for an afternoon trial but my number didn’t come up. Monday was the day scheduled for the murder trial jury selection to begin. My guess is that they have bumped it out a couple days or that my packet was rejected. I’m okay with either one; Wednesday is all that matters. I won’t be at work or at Jury duty on Wednesday. I’m so freaking nervous.

I’ve needed to get new shoes for work for quite sometime now so I guess I have a good excuse to buy them. I’m dreading shopping for what to wear at the interview more than the interview itself. I hate to shop. I also hate to shop for clothes, especially clothes that I don’t like to wear. I know, I know, in most situations you can’t be overdressed for an interview but you certainly can be underdressed.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Fej

More News.

No jury duty again today or tomorrow. I just have this sinking feeling about next week.

In yesterdays discussions of my wife’s odd experiences I almost forgot to talk about another big bit of information. She starts school next week.

At the vocational college like she had been talking about for the last two years to pursue a nursing degree? No. At the University maybe? Did her public assistance program get her into a program there? No. Maybe a private school that specializes in this area? Nope. She starts beauty school next week.

She was amazed at my amazement. “Didn’t I tell you?” and “Is this really the first time you have heard about this?” and “I thought you knew.” Don’t think for a minute that I’m bothered that she is going to school to eventually be able to re-enter the workforce one day, that’s not it at all.

She has been talking about going to school for nursing for the last several years. I think she would be a great nurse, seriously here, she has a personality that would make her a good fit for this job. It would take a whole lot of work but I do think she is capable. The real kicker in all of this is that a month ago I asked her about starting school. She went in to the usual explanations of needing to reapply, not having all of the paperwork she needed, getting a schedule that worked with picking the kids up from school etc. Yesterday, she drops the beauty school thing on me.

There are couple issues with this that you do need to be aware of. She dropped out of beauty school nearly 8 years ago, with only 3 weeks left before she graduated. She was pregnant with our second child and couldn’t be around the chemicals. I have no issue with that. The $3000 in student loans though, didn’t care. I just paid those off last year.

The main issue is that she starts next Tuesday, 8 AM to 4 PM everyday for the next year. (The fact that her roommate is also starting school for his Barber certificate is also worth noting.) Her public assistance program is picking up the bill at least. This however means that she can no longer pick the kids up from school. Not to worry though, my sister-in-law will be able to get the kids every day. I’m not going to go into all the details here but she is a bit more dependable than my wife but not a whole lot. She also has a 2-month-old child of her own and I just know there are going to be problems.

You know what? Tomorrow is Friday and that helps me a lot. I should buy a winning lottery ticket or something this weekend, which might help too.

Fej

why, oh why, do I....

I’m absolutely sick and tired of eating out everyday for lunch. I never thought I’d get to this point, but I miss the horribly simple lunches I normally make myself everyday.

Jury duty is a joke. I have not been called in all week so far and no jurors were needed for Thursday at all. This definitely means that I’m going to have to struggle through a murder trial, likely deciding whether or not this person is executed, and probably totally screwing up my interview next week.

Just to ensure that bad luck befalls my big interview next week, I will be shopping for nice shoes, a nice shirt, and I can hardly even type it, it’s just painful to think of actually wearing a tie. Yes, I’m sure I’ll find a combination that I like and also feel comfortable wearing. That will definitely cause jury selection for the murder trial to extend through Wednesday.

Do you think it actually helps to try and predict everything that could possibly go wrong? Or does it just invite the invention of some horribly unpredictable event that I haven’t yet contemplated?

Apartments - Imagination and Reality

So my wife went looking at apartments today. She called later and told me that she needed to go through a credit check and if that was okay. I told her it was and it should be vastly improved, don’t worry. That went fine but then she found out that when she moved into her two bedroom apartment a few months ago, that “she didn’t realize” she had signed up for another one year lease. Not a big deal, the new apartment complex would give her a free month of rent that would be the same in savings as she needed to pay to get her out of her current lease. I was all excited because now the kids would be in their school district, no more transfer hassles and they could bus it or even walk to and from school when she forgets to pick them up, or wake up, or whatever.

Uh, no. She mixed up the names, the apartments I suggested were not the same ones she was talking about. She was talking about new apartments that were close but not in the same district. They were in the same district that my oldest daughter spent about four traumatizing weeks in before we finally got her transferred to the correct school. But, “they have a Charter school, where every student gets a laptop by the 4th grade, and they have to take our kids before other ‘out of district’ kids and...” everything will be wonderful, blah blah blah. Let’s not think about ripping the kids out of the schools they have known and loved (well in a because they have to go sort of way) and toss them into a new one! It worked so well before lets just do it again! If you can’t taste the sarcasm here just let me know, I can lay it on thicker.

Then after all this crap from the last week, she just called, twice while I was typing this up. The first time so I could call all of her banks and creditors to cancel everything she had, since her purse had just been stolen. I think I was able to breathe the barely audible sound of “sure”. I didn’t do anything of course and 10 minutes later she called the second time to inform me that her stolen purse had been found buried in her trunk under some clothes. I just hate it when purse-snatchers pull that crap.


Fej

Worrying

I am becoming increasingly nervous about next week’s interview. I was even beginning to suspect that the interview email was an elaborate hoax to begin with. Why did she need my SS # and birth date? Was the large and detailed attachment real? Was this just some elaborate phishing scam that worked?

No, probably not. The recruiter did reply and my interview is still on for next week. I guess I really just wish I knew what job it was that I was interviewing for? I still haven’t told anyone at work about this yet. It would cause quite a stir but then again, everyone is looking for another job. I guess I’m most hesitant because everyone wants to get a job where I’m interviewing and I don’t want to mention it unless I actually get an offer. Otherwise it would be just depressing to say that I had an interview and got turned down.

I still haven’t been called in for jury duty yet. I really have not minded at all so far but here goes my paranoia again: this must just mean that I’m going to be selected to serve for the murder trial. We’ll see.

I offered to pay off one of my wife’s credit cards tonight. It is not a very large amount and my only real incentive is that it’s the only card we have with both of us as cardholders. Even though I hold a card with my name on it in hand, the morons over there won’t let me know any of the details. So I get my wife involved and explain that I’ll pay the account off if she closes the account. She agrees but we are disconnected from the company. I’ll pay it off but only after the account is closed. I’ve paid this damn card off twice in the last six months and this will definitely be the last time.

My drama is far from gone, my wife’s roommate’s ex-wife has supposedly been picked up for fraudulent activity, she will move apartments, and who knows what else. I don’t want to know tonight.

Fej

Drama?

The drama-meter is pretty low right now. The drama-potentialometer is pegged to the limit however. Things could blow any which way or nothing might happen at all.

On Saturday my wife called to get my advice. She suspects her current roommate’s (her ex-boyfriends ex-friend and roommate) ex-wife stole one of my wife’s checkbooks and made new checks with the same account numbers. The fake checks did happen I’m just not sure they can be 100% it was his ex-wife that did it. I saw copies of the false checks so I believe that fraud did occur. The good thing is that our bank reversed a number of the charges but she’ll have to pursue the other creditors directly to try to get the return check fees removed. The other good thing is that this was her personal account and not our shared one.

The main reason she called me on Saturday was to see if I agreed she should tip the police about her roommate’s ex-wife. Apparently this isn’t the first time she has done something like this. My wife’s main concern was that this woman has a history of this stuff and tends to get just a bit dangerous when confronted. I can only hope that the stories she told me were really as inflated as they sounded.

I explained that I didn’t think it was my wife’s job to take this woman down, when the charges we might have to pay are probably not worth the potential trouble this might cause. The main thing that stuck out in my mind was that my wife has lost her purse a number of times over the last few years including when it was stolen from her car just last summer. How could she be so sure this particular woman was responsible?

I was playing with my own finances a bit today and had to make a trip to the bank near my kid’s school. I just happened to notice an apartment complex nearby that looked pretty nice. I absently thought to myself that it would be convenient if my wife would move there, the kids would be in-district and it could make a lot of things much easier for everyone.

When I called her this afternoon she told me that she had an eviction warning notice. This was due to having the police show up(harmlessly enough because she and the kids were roughhousing, they can be sooo loud together, my kids verified the incident in detail), an unauthorized tenant (her roommate) and reports of yelling and domestic disturbances. The main domestic disturbance occurred when her ex-boyfriend moved out. I planted the seed about the apartments I saw and she is sounding pretty excited about it right now.

I’m just trying to remember now, why we decided my wife should move out in the first place...?

Fej

Nevermind

I was all set to post another rant tonight. It was getting long and detailed, I even went to the Internet for some data to back myself up. Then I got tired of writing about it and decided I couldn’t put any of you through it either. The bottom line is I had a pretty good day. Even though my football team that did great all season while I didn’t watch a single game, lost. Probably because I watched the game.

Putting everyone through my rather significant frustration with the fact that you have to negotiate a price when buying a new vehicle was just not in me tonight. I’ll dive into why bargaining for commodity items makes no sense some other time, when I have a little more angst or energy, whichever.

Fej

Compact Parking Spaces

I hope the person who invented compact car parking spaces stumbles across my blog. Then they could realize my complete anger at what a stupid idea that was. Honestly, even if you drive a 2-door Civic, a Mini, a Honda or something else really small, wouldn’t you rather have the confidence that you have a few extra feet between your car and the next? Why shrink already small spaces even more for the benefit of compact cars? Let’s just cram a bunch of small cars together also so that people who do make the jump to fuel efficient small cars can get just as frustrated as the rest of us when some moron parks crooked or with 2 wheels a foot into the next parking space.

As we pulled into Toy R Us today, there were nothing but 8 empty Compact Spaces all in a row or the option of parking in ten buck two. I opted for a compact space and my monstrosity fit quite nicely by the way. (Thanks to my superior parking skills... of course :)

As we were unloading, another vehicle of equal size to mine pulled into a recently vacated “normal” size space. After putting it into Park and exiting her car without a care, her vehicle was just arguably sideways. The poor compact car next to her could barely squeeze out even though they had 2-3 feet of space of clearance prior to the Miss Parking Queen’s arrival.

I suppose it’s people like her and the guys who feel their precious vehicles deserve two spaces instead of one are the ones really to blame.

Cool, I ranted about something of absolutely no importance. I didn’t even bring up any of the drama my STBE (hereafter soon-to-be-ex) is trying to dive head over heels into. I will give it a day or two and if it doesn’t all pass over, I’ll be forced to blog about it.

Until then, you are stuck with me ranting about my parking woes.

Fej

A final photo of the night, I need a wide angle lens...

These are all from about 10,300 ft.

These are a few of the pictures I took from the top of the mountain.

It Figures

This morning, as I need to try to remember to do every morning, I shut the bathroom door behind me. I didn’t pee on a cat. The principle of the matter is, “should I really have to if I’m alone in my own house?”

Nearly 500 people were called to Jury duty orientation today. I’d say that close to 400 showed up. It was a really crowded room. This number of perspective jurors is a little higher than normal apparently. Why? Well I’ll tell you why, because they requested an extra 200 jurors for the “high profile” trial that will begin during my two weeks of public service. Yes, I was included in that 200 and had to stay afterwards to fill out a 20 + page questionnaire about the various things I knew of the case. I’m that much closer now to finding myself on a murder trial. I just have this feeling (I wasn’t brave enough to lie on the questionnaire to get myself removed) that I’m going to find myself in court for the final selection of the jury at least. I’m not so sure how enthused I am about sitting in on a three week (estimated) murder trial.

I don’t however have to report on Monday and it sounds like it shouldn’t be a problem getting out of jury duty to attend the job interview. Double bonus.

The squeaky wheel turned out to be a rather expensive break job. I think I’m starting to get a little numb when it comes to dropping large amounts of money when I really don’t want to. Yes, I could have done it myself. I didn’t feel like playing grease monkey this weekend though and since there appears to be a balancing problem I wanted a warranty from someone so I can just bring it back next time.

We took our Chinese guests up the Tram and had dinner at the restaurant on top. It’s a really expensive restaurant but the views are incredible. I’ll post a few pictures later if they turn out okay.

Fej

Hard to Control My Enthusiasm

I peed on a cat this morning. But I had a really good thing happen to me today so I’m now going to make a daily habit of peeing on a cat each day.

I’m only kidding, about making it a daily habit. I did pee on one of my cats but it was only because the dimwitted feline jumped on the bowl as I sleepily took care of my morning business. Then she jumped on my bathroom counter top to shake herself off... okay, you get the picture. So I figured it was a bad sign of what was to come today.

I get Spam at work all day long. I typically notice the unfamiliar name, the odd subject title, and sometimes an attachment usually already cleaned by our virus scanner. I had my fingers on the “shift” and “delete” keys (deletes the email permanently, bypassing the ‘deleted’ folder) but then I noticed the large attachment. Odd. And the subject was longer than the preview field so I decided to go ahead and open it.

I have an interview scheduled the week after next at the very place I’ve (and everyone else I know) been trying to get into for years now. I had instant butterflies and everything. Right then my wife called, she couldn’t make it to pick up the little kids on time since someone was making false charges on her account and she was at the bank and why the &*$## couldn’t she have called me just a few minutes earlier?

I raced (within the legal limits) over and picked up the kids. There was a really noticeable squeal coming from a front wheel of my vehicle also. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t that upset at my wife, and I went back to work to read over everything about my interview.

Holy crap I need a lot of paperwork, background information, and wait, yes, now it all makes sense: I also have jury duty that day. Do I risk rescheduling a possible one-time chance? Granted I’m legally obligated to go, jury duty is a pretty good excuse. Contempt of court? Is it really that big of a deal?

Fej

While the Dad is out...the children will play.

We took our Chinese guests to a casino for lunch today. What used to be a cheap buffet is not so cheap anymore. Than everyone but the Chinese and myself proceeded to dump quite a bit more than we spent on lunch into various machines and tables. I did spend $1. I found it in a machine. I didn’t win.

I have to help my wife out a bit more this week so I did stop by an ATM. Pretty slick that the casino gives out $100 bills instead of a bunch of $20’s. That way, if you want to just play a smaller amount you have to stick the larger bill in or wait in line to get change. It helped me resist any temptation I might have been feeling.

After work I picked up the kids from my parent’s and we went home. I had promised to take the guy I’m training to see a coworker play in his billiards tournament this evening. The kids usually do pretty well on their own so I left. I called home halfway through and they weren’t doing so well. My oldest daughter was completely flustered after chasing the younger two around the house. They kept locking themselves into various rooms and weren’t listening to her at all. Of course she was chasing them, undoubtedly using excessive force once she did catch them and that just fed the flames.

I lectured each one over the phone with very specific threats to the little ones and also explained to my oldest that she was more of a messenger than a warden. If they didn’t listen to her then it was my job to get after them and not hers. I called one last time as I left the hotel and asked her to just “inform” the little ones to get ready for bed.

When I walked in the door, the living room was in shambles. The little two were buried in a pile of cushions and pillows suspiciously matching my rather barren and uncomfortable looking couches. I barked a few orders about getting ready for bed and asked if their sister had instructed them to do so. They said “yes” and continued to laugh and play.

Without having to lay a hand on either one, they did go to bed and put the cushions back on the couch. The house is a mess again. Mr. Squidgee and Cashmire are sleeping high up in my closet tonight. There were many tears as my children fell asleep. I just hate that.

It was much easier to ground their stuffed animals then the actual children and soooo much more effective. I’ll have to remember this one.

Fej

Experimenting with children and static electricity.

Odd places to find your children...and then running for your camera before rescuing them.

A Bunch of Stuff

I missed a blogging night, I am such a slacker. I’m just barely squeezing in the time to post this tonight. Yesterday was my oldest daughter’s birthday party, which went very well. My house somehow ended up cleaner than it started. In the end, my younger daughter was invited to sleep over at a friend’s house. My oldest stayed with her aunt and it was just me and the little guy. Of course as I settle in to watch TV for once (me watching anything other than Nick, CN, or the Disney Channel is just rare) and my little man is way bored. Damn the History Channel and all the incredibly interesting programs that I miss.

Instead my son whipped me in darts, I ran the batteries dead in his RC car trying to “ramp it” in the living room, and then I ditched my nightly blogging habit to watch “The Empire Strikes Back” with him. He of course had to wake me up once it finished and we went to bed.

I felt kind of weird all day knowing that my kids were all at different places. They all made it back home later. My sister-in-law, hubby and niece (granddaughter) stayed over for quite a while this evening too.

My wife’s new roommate was picked up today for an outstanding warrant. She had to take care of his son this evening. She mentioned that the hearings for his trial (apparently he had beaten someone up last year) had all been postponed, but they still arrested him. I bought that initially then realized that he must have missed something, otherwise you don’t have warrants issued against you. I briefly entertained the idea of posting bail for him and then I slapped myself silly and managed to remain quiet...

Tonight was a whirlwind of keeping my printer working for my STB brother-in-law for his resumes, making dinner, playing darts, Star Wars Monopoly (we didn’t finish though), PS2 Snowboarding game, a couple rounds of Twister (don’t play this on a tile floor, FYI), and then a bunch of laundry and “get your stuff ready for tomorrow”, “Brush your teeth”, “Yes, I did say to pick that stuff up!”, and we might actually have a few kids asleep in a few minutes if I’m at all lucky.

Otherwise, hopefully my son will wake me up later and escort me from the couch to my bed.

Fej

Like cement shoes... dragging me down, down, down.

My sister insists on calling me early on Saturday mornings. Granted, 8:30 is not early by most people’s standards but those morning hours I spend in bed on Saturday and Sunday mornings are cherished I tell you.

She was asking when or if I had anything planned for my oldest daughter’s birthday on Sunday. I found it odd that she hadn’t telepathically received the invitation for the party tomorrow, 3:00 PM at my house. Huh. I completely forgot to tell her or my parents for that matter. Anyway, they can all make it.

Not only did it start but I drove the Jeep today. Talk about a lack of elbowroom, I’m obviously spoiled by the cavernous surroundings I’m used to driving in. It drove well though and hopefully I’ll remember to continue to run it every couple of days.

I cleaned like a pro this afternoon and preparing for the party should be pretty easy tomorrow. Luckily I did so because I’ll also apparently be doing some shopping I hadn’t planned on needing to do. I originally suggested we do some light catering from my mother-in-laws restaurant. My wife thought that would be ridiculously expensive and she could pick up everything we needed for much less. Ok then.

She just called, telling me not to bother making payments to her mobile phone that has been shut off (over $400 owed there). Instead she asked that any money I was going to put towards that bill could instead just be put into her bank account, that happened to be nearly $500, negative.

The call could have been completed in 3 minutes or so but she drug it out much longer. In the end I said I would get the food, the house was already clean, I’d put some money in her account, and that she needs to get a job. She needs to get off her “benefits” and support herself. She agreed but there were also many excuses of course.

I’m sure the party will go fine. I suppose I need to actually buy a lottery ticket every now and then if I ever expect to win the lottery. I’ll give that some thought.

Fej

Run Away... blah blah blah...

I really wanted this week to be over and it finally is.

While picking up my kids tonight they put up the usual resistance to actually get ready to leave. They were all very anxious to go but couldn’t connect the association of needing to put on shoes and get jackets before we could actually leave. Finally we are heading towards the door when there was a knock. It’s my sister-in-law and my niece. The presence of my niece is enough to convince my middle child (the same one who was completely devastated by having to stay at her mom’s last night) to ask to stay over again. She quickly modified her request to stay with her aunt instead. No problem as her aunt had come over because she was fighting with her boyfriend anyway and would probably be staying the night.

Then my sister-in-law asks me not to tell her boyfriend where she was if he calls. First of all, my wife’s apartment would be the very first place he would look. Second, I’m not going to play that stupid game. I could just about go off on a rant here as my wife’s entire family has the same solution to problems: run away, far away, that will solve everything. But. I. just. don’t. care.

I thought about grabbing my daughter anyway to avoid her being present during any sort of confrontation but I doubt very seriously there will be anything like that. He is a good guy that I trust. I feel sorry for, but I trust.

I was pleasantly surprised that my mailman had noticed the lack of postage on my jury duty letter and had placed it back in my mailbox. Odd that he would since he never notices how many pieces of mail I receive almost daily that aren’t addressed to me. It makes me wonder just how much of my mail I do receive.

Do you think it’s statistically possible that the McDonalds near my house will ever, I mean ever, get a single order correct? Zero for umpteen hundred tries and I’m quickly losing confidence. But it’s just down the street and I didn’t want to cook tonight, so I’m holding out still for that slim possibility.

I feel kind of blah tonight. Not necessarily bad but certainly not great. I just need some mind numbing sort of entertainment to keep me busy until the kids are asleep. Yes, that sounds about right.

Did you know that "umpteen" doesn't get flagged by the spellchecker in Word?

Fej

Signs

Probably as a telltale sign of things to come, I completed and mailed my jury duty forms this afternoon. I dropped the envelope into the gang box (secured community mailbox) in front of my house. As I walked off, I remembered why I didn’t just drop it in the mailbox at work. That was because I didn’t have any stamps on it. Luckily I did remember to put a return address, hopefully I’ll get it back in time to mail it with proper postage or at least bring them with me next Friday. Moron.

I’m sure my two weeks of jury duty will provide many interesting stories, hopefully only a few about me screwing something up. That is all dependent on me not getting kicked off the jury or jailed for contempt of court for not bringing in the proper forms...

My wife seems determined with Tuesday and Thursday nights being when the kids stay with her. I have no objection to Tuesday’s but Thursday’s aren’t good. Mostly just because that is the last night to finish homework, sign nightly reading forms, and the night before tests and projects and such. My oldest did come home with me because of that very reason. She was able to finish before bedtime to my surprise. I have a feeling we’ll be finishing homework in the car tomorrow and filling out reading forms for the younger two however.

Maybe not. Sometimes my wife comes through and gets things done.

(Insert silhouette of a sad 7-year-old waving through the venetian blinds as we drove off, here:(

Positives, Negatives, Anniversaries

Figuring the kids would be without breakfast when I picked them up from their mother’s this morning I brought snacks. It wasn’t a wasted effort. We were early enough to stop and get a forgotten roll of paper towels for my oldest daughter. I waved the pretty bus driver on as usual (well two days in a row counts for me) and I was off to work.

I have been excellent about bringing lunch to work daily. I usually give myself a day off every now and then but 4 out of 5 days in the week I eat in. With foreign visitors here and our cafeteria having been closed over a year now, I’ve eaten out everyday this week and it looks likely that I will continue to do so for the following week also. On the positive side of this though, since the Chinese division moved from per diem to expensing, they have bought me lunch everyday. When they were per diem, they ate Ramen noodles and drank water to save the $35 a day for profit (a big chunk of change if you work in China). I would have too.

A negative thing has been my left shoulder. No, it’s not because I ate too much. It was hurting a little the last time I went to the gym. (Coincidentally, I paid three months in advance that day?) Since then and a full two weeks later, it has really been bothering me. I’m worried about making things worse so I’ve stayed away. Now, with the training this week and next, then jury duty the two weeks after that, it’s very likely I won’t even make it to the gym again until February.

On a positive note, I still receive Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogs even after two years of not buying a thing. Wait, I suppose my wife could still be buying things and never bothered to change the address. Who cares, I get the catalogs...

On a negative note, my raise was not only crap, but they screwed it up too. I won’t get the right amount for another 4 weeks or so.

Positive: I got a raise, I have a job.

Way positive: One year ago today, I quit smoking. I still want to, but I’m not. I guess I really don’t want to, I just miss it, but I’m glad I’m done. Dang, that is a tough habit to break.

Fej

Blogging Stuff

Just to save you the expense, I had a wonderfully normal, but busy day. I can’t think of anything all that exciting to complain about.

Never mind.

I am getting to the brink of annoyed regarding a certain group of animals in my house. That would be three cats and a dog that seem unable to function unless they are within about 4 feet of me at all times. This can be very trying. One is always underfoot, another on my lap, I seem to have a permanent monitor heat sink strangely resembling a gray cat of mine, and room on my bed is first come first serve.

Growling, spitting, occasional fights and chases through the house always result in some sort of clutter disarray and yeah, this is exciting huh. Sorry.

This whole blogging thing, while I’m truly addicted to it, realize it’s therapeutic qualities, and have made quite a few good friends already, man does it take some time! I feel like a total slacker if I don’t post something, I have this huge list of blogs I visit daily, and by the end of the night (usually late) I still feel like I’ve left someone out.

This isn’t a popularity gig for me either. I did the whole BE thing for a while (granted I did stumble across quite a few good blogs too) but that is just too much dang work. I love reading about other people’s lives, finding similar stories, funny stories, and all kinds of other things that make me want to spend all this time blogging, I don’t really feel the least bit obligated after all I suppose.

Prior to a rather dull conference call, I dug out the living room and yes there is still carpet in there. Then I realized why having all of the kids crap completely covering the living room didn’t bother me at first; our carpet is crap too. In the end, having a vacuumed (it’s a stretch to call it clean) floor, coffee table clear of all visible traces of food remnants, and furniture with pillows and cushions back in place, it does actually look a bit better.

Until tomorrow, when they come back...

Fej

More of the Bus Driver and KFC

Not only did the pretty bus driver hold up the line of buses to let my children and I cross the parking lot last week, but also we waved at each other today. That’s practically like we’re on speaking terms already minus the three steps and sliding door between us.

Thanks to the lack of a duty teacher, the buses however, were stuck waiting to release the throng of children inside. This left me blocked in the parking lot, now running late, to pick up my Chinese coworkers from their hotel. Then, the full size semi-trailer in front of me cruising through the residential neighbor hood didn’t help. He apparently radioed ahead and requested umpteen billion more large trucks to gather on the same road I chose resulting in my being several minutes late. Oh well, I suppose I really didn’t want to give them the wrong impression, I just hoped to make it on time for once. No one should really expect me to be anywhere on time because that just puts a jinx the whole thing.

After work I dropped them off at the mall for a while. Later in the evening they called and I picked them back up. I stopped at KFC (quickly becoming a staple food in industrialized China) so they could pick up a quick dinner. It’ obviously been a long time since I had KFC, in the US anyhow. I didn’t even realize how different the menus were between here and there. In fact, I’m pretty sure the last time I ate there, I was in China. Hence both of our confusion and luckily the place wasn’t real busy. We eventually made it out with food.

Fej

Sunday Stuff

I cleaned out my vehicle this morning. It’s amazing how much clutter can accumulate in such a relatively short period of time. On the other hand, I suppose we spend an awful lot of time in there.

We were doing fine on time so long as the car wash wasn’t busy. It was. Geeze Louise... some people are sooooo slow. We made it through eventually and made it to the airport, just a little late. I found my co-workers from China just leaving the baggage area. We took them to their hotel and then to McDonalds, and then to my parent’s house. I knew my kids wouldn’t last shopping. After showing them around my parent’s place we went off to, my favorite place in the whole world, Wal-Mart. They travel half way around the world, I have the entire afternoon without my children, and they want to go to Wal-Mart. They have two Wal-Mart stores in their own city in China, I’ve been to one of them.

Anyway, other than being a Sunday afternoon and extremely busy it wasn’t so bad. They were a little shocked that we could purchase guns, real guns. After all the walking around we headed to the checkout line. I figured it was about to close or something but there was no one at the last checkout counter, and at least 5 parties at the closer one. Nope, it was just a line of cattle. We checked out faster than I have probably ever done at Wal-Mart before. That was it though, they decided to call it a day and I took them back to the hotel afterwards.

After having dinner at my parent’s house the kids and I stopped by the grocery store before going home. Like Scrooge himself, I had the kids pay me back from all the crap they just "had to" have. I decided to count my cash for whatever reason and whoa!!! Where was my $20 I got in cash from the grocery store? A quick phone call and I was back to the store. Luckily my cashier’s drawer was exactly $20 over. I got my money.

Time for bed.

Fej

New Quiz

Okay. It's been a while since I've posted a quiz. I thought this one was pretty reasonable and I found it at Broken Angel's

Fej


! You are most like An Emerald !
Caring, giving, - and very emotional. You're the
person
people turn to with a problem. You worry about
everybody,
and genuinely want to help - a little too much
sometimes.
As an emerald, you tend to take a more backseat to
the other
gems, but your inner beauty soon captivates those
who take
the time to get to know you.
Congratulations ... You're the selfless gem
everybody needs as a friend.


?? Which Precious Gem Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

Jury Duty

I’ve been called up for jury duty. How cool is that? I’ve always wanted to do it. I just hope I don’t get put on some brutal murder trial that drags on for weeks. I report for orientation on the 21st and I start reporting daily for the next two weeks or something like that. Plus there is this huge form that asks for every bit of information there is about you. I gotta get that done.

Master Mechanic (that’s me folks) decided to get the Jeep running again. It just seemed odd that it ran so well prior to this last period of inactivity. I bought some starter fluid and got to work. After about 30 seconds of digging around I found the problem. It turns out that I neglected to re-connect the grounding wires to the distributor and coil when replacing the negative battery cable last week. Genius. Sometimes I am my worst enemy. If fired right up.

Since I was all excited about having the Jeep running again, I decided to channel that good mood into a mild garage cleaning. I didn’t tackle the whole thing, good golly, that would take days. I have piles of crap stacked up along the sides with just enough room to squeeze two cars inside. We can barely open the doors to get out but the cars fit. I rearranged all that stuff and did a good cleaning as well. I’ve got a little more room than before. I really need to do a big cleaning pretty soon.

Have a good weekend.

Fej

By Myself

You know, today went by quicker than I expected. It helped that a very good friend of mine was able to go out with me tonight. We consumed a few more beers than we should have, but a few less than it would have been worthy of noting.

Basically, we can talk together, drink together, and still realize that the trip home is the most important part of the night. It took us nearly 10 years to realize this fact but we know it well now.

In addition to yesterday’s soon-to-be-ex-wife’s expenses, I dropped another $100 or so to get her power turned back on today. Apparently she is falling behind. I was informed tonight from my kids (while in tears) that mom doesn’t have digital cable anymore also. This didn’t tear me up all that much, but when my younger kids burst into tears about having to stay at mom’s (again), it was tough. I’m glad she dropped her cable expenses, but I was torn about leaving the kids over there.

I suppose I should worry more about the day my kids don’t want to come home than the day they are happy somewhere else. They aren’t happy now, but I guess they need time with mom too and I need time with, well, I guess just me.

Fej

Almost There

Tomorrow is finally Friday. I just have 0 incentive to work right now. I have lots to do. I’m not slacking necessarily, but I know I could be so much more effective right now if I just had some hint of ambition.

Last spring I asked our Chinese management to assign someone to take over some of my programming responsibilities. I was (am) tired of this project and they really need someone on their side of the ocean who can take care of this stuff. The guy they assigned to the task is the same guy I have worked the closest with for a couple of years now. He has desparately wanted to visit the US and now he has the chance.

It’s not the first time he’s left China. We went to Switzerland together a while back. I hope he enjoys his stay here and that I can show him at least a portion of the hospitality he has shown for me.


Other Stuff

I haven’t bothered to mention this since it’s just crap, but I really didn’t want to talk about this incident anymore. On Monday, the guy called back again, to say that the client rejected the settlement. They wanted about $300 more. We hemmed and hawed over it for a while, he at one point said, “Did you just say your soon to be ex-wife and her ex-boyfriend?” I must have caught him off guard because his voice sounded like an actual person for a brief moment instead of the Darth Varder/bill collector voice.

Then, I finally made good on the broken windshield from wife’s last rental car. She had this rental for close to 7 weeks while they fixed her car due to the most recent traffic incident. Not only did my insurance cover just $900 of the rental (about 4 weeks) but a rock hit the windshield and cracked it also. No biggie, I was using my credit card that had auto insurance (you know the “don’t sign up for any of the coverage’s, we’ll cover it” insurance). That’s only if you renew the contract every 15 days, or so I found out. The windshield I bought today (for a car I don’t own) brought the grand total of that whole incident up to about $1000. The deductible was only $250.

On a good note however, my wife drove out to a nearby town today to appear before a judge on a contempt of court charge. She had missed the original court date for this incident but made it out today. The judge dismissed the charges but court fees etc. were in excess of $350. Apparently the judge took pity on her (me) and waived it all. Phew.

Fej - Read the fine print.

Last year

I needed to pull up a date from last January for something at work. I was in China this time last year and I usually kept a journal while out there. After reading it again I realized it sounded more like a post to my blog than a personal trip journal, even though I wouldn’t actually start my blog for another six months. I found what I was looking for and then decided I’d post on of my weekend days out there. It’s long...

***

January 17, 2004:

I slept horribly; I couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing how I got back to my hotel. Was I passed out completely, did they have to carry me? Was I belligerent and obnoxious? Was I just really sleepy and drunk and managed to make it back with a little bit of help? I hope the latter is what happened.

I felt horrible too and I needed to call [oldest daughter] around 9:30 AM to catch her at her birthday party. I finally got through to her and it sounded like everything was going well. I think everyone was there as I talked to just about everybody [in my family]. Afterwards I called Y.Z. [A Chinese coworker who had invited me to his house the night before, we started drinking a lot of bijou] to thank him for dinner and getting me back to the hotel, he sounded appreciative and didn’t hang up on me so maybe at least I wasn’t too bad.

I then called Carl [Another Chinese coworker] and pushed out shopping until 11:30. I think I would have had to push it out until 4:30 PM the next day to really get rid of the hang over. I ordered breakfast in my room and started to get ready. The eggs weren’t so great but they brought a fruit plate that hit the spot. I ate a bunch of fruit and I’m sure that helped considerably. I took a pill for my head and went downstairs to meet Carl. He had more medicine for me so I brought it back up.

We went to the mall to look for robes, where I knew they wouldn’t have the right kind. Sure enough so we decided to go to the grocery store downstairs to get some tea. I got two types and decided to also take them back to my room. Carl went with me and Q. T. called at one point to confirm we had made good tea choices. We went to the Gold Street [super busy shopping street] and had lunch. The place is very famous of course but was pretty good. I was surprised I had any appetite at all but I think I did pretty well considering.

Afterwards, I found a cool cricket holder thingy and decided to buy it. We wondered around looking for J’s silly abacus and amazingly found them, at an office supply store no less. I picked one out and we walked around a bit looking at other stuff, partly because it was neat, partly because it was butt cold outside. Then we headed towards Culture Street again, and what do you know, but the taxi driver kept pet bugs. He had this mutant cricket grasshopper thing that could probably eat a cat. We compared cricket holders and Carl relayed their conversation to me: he didn’t let it fight, he could give it a bath (?), and it lived about 100 days. We started looking for robes again and Carl decided we should go to another street that sold traditional clothing. We hopped in another cab and off we went.

There I saw more normal robes [I was looking for a short traditional style silk robe], maybe they were made of real silk but they looked like something I could find just as easily at JC Penny’s. He also pointed out the dead people clothes. This was kind of creepy. They were basically sleeping bags for dead people made out of the traditional silk designs you see everywhere. Then, we went back to Culture Street. I was ready to give up but we came across another silk place we hadn’t been in before. They had exactly what I wanted but at a higher price and it came with pajama stuff too. They didn’t want to haggle much so we decided to look around a bit more. After unsuccessfully stopping at one other place, I realized I needed to buy the other one or just leave. I bought it.

So, finally we were now off to buy DVD’s. So, what do you know? This taxi driver remembered me from last November when I had ridden with him before. A city of 9 million or so and taxi drivers remember me? We went to a big technology store, Cybermart I think. We looked around awhile and then found the DVD’s. I picked up a few at one stand and a few more at another. I decided that was plenty for today so we went back to the hotel. I thanked Carl and went to my room. I killed some time doing email and stuff and then went to Cozy’s for dinner. I had pizza and a couple beers. I was ready to leave earlier but between various visitors I didn’t leave until 10:30 or so. The singer from the band came to say hi, the owner, a girl from the bar, and two other giggly girls at another table wanted me to sit with them afterwards.

I decided to at least say “hi”. I think they were college students that just wanted to practise their English. I stayed for a while but decided to leave as politely as possible. I told the taxi driver “bin jin wan li” [Chinese for my hotel], but of course we were headed for the TV tower [the exact opposite direction]. I asked to go to [a nearby, more common hotel] instead and he cussed a little in Chinese (I think something like "dumbass that’s the opposite direction from here"). Then as we approached I used my limited Chinese and pointed to get dropped off at my hotel where he said something like, “Oh, bin jin wan li!” Oh well, I made it.

***

Pretty lengthy for a personal journal I suppose, I guess it was just a sign of things to come.

Fej

My mom often buys presents with a certain theme in mind. Sometimes we all get one of these particular items. Three guesses what this year's theme/item was.

No. Just one guess, you really shouldn't need more than that.

Fej

Grumpy

Day two of what is going to be a long five days has nearly passed. I’ve complained before about how hard it is to get back into the swing of things at work, but this time seems worse. It did help that I was pretty busy at work today.

My poor dog also has to get readjusted to having no one but the cats around during the day. I feel like he has been extra clingy this evening. Each time I step backwards, I step on him. If I even approach what appears to be a sitting position anywhere in the house, he finds some way to get in my lap, rest his head on me or at the very least just lean against me. I hate that this gets on my nerves. Mostly because this poor dog’s life revolves around mine, which hardly seems fair for him.

I picked up two of my three children without incident. The oldest had been invited by her mother to take advantage of free passes to a local gym pool. It wouldn’t be a big deal, but I picked them up at 5:30, and they all appeared ready to leave.

I finally tried calling at 9:30 PM and they were just leaving the pool. Hello? It’s the first school night after a long break, now it’s after 10:00PM and still no child. I called again, she had “just one more errand to run”.

Now, I’m just grumpy. I don’t like being grumpy, I don’t like being around grumpy people, but I’m not going anywhere so I’m stuck with a grumpy person tonight.

Fej

!

(Big whiney groan) Today was my first day back to work in 16 days. Absolute torture. I could have so stayed home another 16 weeks or so. To make matters worse, I made it to work on time for normal employees, not just “my” normal time. Is it just January still? Why can’t it be time for summer or winter vacation again?

I mentioned in yesterdays posting that my kids had a tough time staying at their moms yesterday. I got a call from my youngest daughter at about 3:30 PM. She was nearly in tears, missed me very much, and wondered how soon I would be there to pick them up. I assured her it wouldn’t be long. It was almost longer because I forgot I showed up at work on time and therefore could leave “early”. Thankfully traffic was very forgiving likely because school is out still, and it only took me fifteen minutes to get to the apartment.

Upon arrival I was presented two heavily taped presents from younger children 1 and 2. Inside were very nice drawings from each of them, not your school quality just-to-get-by kind of work. Then there was my daughter’s letter. In-between a lot of "I love you’s" and "I miss you’s", there was the phrase, “if only mom still lived with us, it would be wonderful!” The worst part was the exclamation point, she really did it up so that it stuck out very obviously amongst the rest of the full page letter.

I suppose that the talk I have so long avoided, with myself, not just my kids is quickly approaching long overdue. They need to know what’s coming next.

Fej

Mom's or Dad's place...

We slept in late again, but for the last time... Okay, I’m getting a bit melodramatic here but these last two week have been really, really nice.

I finally pulled out the cash for my kids to spend their Christmas money today. We went to Toys-R-Us and they did rather well. Not one of them spent all of their money but surprisingly my younger daughter, the typically more frugal child, spent the most this year. Not a big surprise though, their parents are hardly worthy of being considered appropriate examples when it comes to saving money.

I have withheld from splurging on myself as of yet. I have my eye very specifically on the Denon AVR-1705 home theatre system. It is more than I need right now, but I will hopefully be able to acquire the additional components over the years. I may still break down and buy it this week.

Today was my last day of vacation, it’s been more than two glorious weeks away from work. My only regret is that today, my kids put up the biggest fight of all at spending the night with their mother. I first got the call from her at lunchtime. I thought I had mentioned that they would be spending the night with their mother right then and there. Whether I did or not is irrelevant. They all just about lost it this evening as I asked them to get ready to go over to her apartment. They had spent the afternoon playing suspiciously well together, I had hoped it would transition nicely into mom’s place. There were a lot of tears, a last minute dart game that lasted way too long, and promises of trying to get grandma or aunt’s and uncle's to take them later in the week instead of mom.

If I were to hear of this sort of talk of me, it would just about do me in. While it would hurt her deeply, I don’t think she would be completely taken back by this. It will take a long time for my children’s mother and them to build their relationships properly again. It was really hard to make them go over there, knowing it wouldn’t be as bad as they expected, and that I do, really, need a little time to myself every now and then.

Fej

Happy New Year!

New Years Eve finished off with a bang for the kids and I. My middle child and I both passed out sometime during Bug’s Life. My son woke me up coincidentally right at midnight, as he was still awake. Sometimes the fireworks and gunfire (yes, I do live in a community of gun wielding rocket scientists) are pretty bad, this year didn’t seem to be as heavy as in previous years. I was really too tired to pay that close of attention though.

I slept rather uncomfortably between my son (the sideways sleeping heat magnet) and dog. The phone started ringing at a ridiculous hour, 9:30 AM! Okay, not so bad but getting up for work on Monday is going to be really tough I think. We had a good New Years day spent leisurely at my parent’s house, I even remembered to pick up my grandfather this time too.

I appreciate everyone’s well wishes for my family and me; I wish the same in return. Happy New Year!

Fej