"You gonna get another job?"...

[Volpone]

Tired. Long tired. In Marine doctrine, one of the reasons you go from offense to defense is that you can't keep supplying an advance and/or your troops need a rest. I need to keep pressing the offense for at least 1 (probably 2) more working days. Gotta mow lawn at the rental (if it ever stops raining) and finish pulling up weeds from the concrete seams in the driveway. Today I got the fenceline trimmed back to where I can tolerate it, finished up with the mulch, and got a start on weeds in cracks. Will a renter keep up this maintenance? Probably not. They may not decide if the landlord cares about the property, I should too, but they certainly won't take care of the property if the landlord hasn't. But I'm getting ahead of myself (unless I already mentioned it): When the place came vacant I mentioned that it didn't need a lot of work. So the property managers came in while I was cleaning and addressing the smoker smell and loved it. They asked if it would be ready in 2 weeks and I said it should be. But I thought they meant they'd list it in 2 weeks. They listed it *that night*. So now I'm scrambling. I'd have liked to finally remodel the laundry room. I probably should've upgraded the AC; maybe even redid the roof. Clean the ducts. All that's out the window now. Just trying to get the place presentable.

Been doing just enough paperwork and e-mails to keep the wheels turning. Dishes, laundry, groceries. That said, I need to do dishes tonight but I'm too tired. I have no idea what I need for groceries. Usually I write things down as I run out, but I haven't been doing that this week. Haven't cleaned at my house for 2 weeks. Had to stay on top of lawns because my mower is old and dying and I've got a lot of lawn to mow. And as The Dog gets more settled in, she's getting more...outgoing? More dog at any rate. So she takes more time and energy. On top of that the vet called today to say the kittens they have are ready to go to homes. I realized I have Memorial Day off, so I should pick one up on Saturday to give me the most time to get The Dog to bond with it (I only work Mondays and Fridays). Truth be told, I'd have rather had a cat, but a kitten was available so that's what I'm getting. They should be fine.

 

[Volpone]

I've got a fairly long and rambling screed that formed this morning that I don't feel like codifying. Instead I'll say that I'd be interested in studying theology. But not like, I want to go to school to become a doctrine preacher. I want to study the different theologies out there. In D&D you could master 2 or more martial arts and that allowed you to develop your own style of martial art. I would kind of like to do that with theology. I forget when Judaism came along. But it got updated a bit over 2,000 years ago with Christianity. Islam came along and did a spin on things after that, but since then, not a lot. Then you've got stuff out there like Zoroastrianism and the non-Judeo-Christian religions. Add in...OK, forget that I said there was nothing after that. You've got your Mormons in the 19th century. Scientology. The Church of the SubGenius. I feel like I want to study ALL religion and boil it all down and update it and come up with something that speaks to our times.

 

[Volpone]

What the Hell. We'll give this a shot. Last year I got invited to go to a camp-out. Of course as it happened a friend managed to be in town the same day. And then he managed to break my back porch when he was leaving. On top of that, the battery on my phone was dying, so I decided to bull through and go to the event--even though I'd missed the entire day--but there was a bridge out so the route to the event was convoluted. And the battery on my phone was dying so I couldn't get it to reliably show me a route. So every time there was a place to pick a direction, I picked the wrong one. I think it took around 4 hours to drive 45 minutes. But I made it. In time to set up a tent in the dark, hang out at the fire pit a bit, go to bed, get up, have breakfast, and leave.

Anyway, it's been a year and they're doing it again. I've asked to come but haven't heard anything back. I even put in another feeler--without actually begging--but nothing. So I go to the group page and read their group criteria. It's all stupid bullshit. I mean, I get that this is their prerogative, but I resent that I'm awesome but they want me to jump through stupid hoops to meet their approval.

And I don't joke about being awesome. I am. It's been measured. Now, when I was Little, they put me in the Stupid Kids class. I don't know how or why this happened, but there it is. I was in with the Stupid Kids. Now kids being kids, during a break time, some of the Smart Kids were trading their reading books with the Stupid Kids, ostensibly for...I dunno why, but really to laugh at the Stupid Kids being unable to understand the material. So I'm reading a Smart Kid book and the Smart Kids are claiming I'm just faking it. So I read it out loud. Bang. Bumped up to the Smart Kid class. Part of the problem may have been that I just didn't turn in homework. Homework was boring and stupid. And my desk had storage space, so I just put the stuff in the desk until the desk was full to overflowing.

But let's get to where we found out I was awesome. 6th grade. Had a teacher where, if anything wasn't complete on homework, you got a zero. You failed. One of the questions was "b&w". Couldn't find it. Looked in the dictionary. Didn't know the answer so I left it blank. "Black & White." Like a television set. Got a 0% on the assignment and had to sign off on what a worthless turd I was. Had a meltdown. Wound up having to see the hick town school counselor.

Flash forward 6 years to graduation. Someone--I forget how this unfolded. Did someone tell me this or did I overhear it--said I was apparently the smartest person to ever go to this school. Great. Super. Why did no one tell me this? Why didn't the counselor. Or my Mom? Shit, or my Dad? Why didn't someone say "look, you're scary smart, learn to use that for good." Why didn't someone tell me it isn't normal to get dozens and dozens of mailers from assorted colleges after taking your aptitude tests? I don't know, but no one did. So I went to the shitty backwoods college my Mom went to. And spent years muddling on. Finally, 10-15 years ago, the lightbulb went on. The first spark was in some Marine professional development course. I had some question about some paperwork, so I showed the CWO from my old unit my binder and he said "holy shit, sir, you're smart." Literally. That's what he said. First time in my entire life anyone ever said that to me. No one ever told me I could be whatever I wanted to be. No one told me I was smarter than...no, that's not entirely true, I had a major once tell me I was "a Lieutenant of Marines, figure it out," which isn't quite the same, but it was a vote of confidence nonetheless. But anyway, no one really told me how smart I was.

And after the lightbulb went on I started realizing how really, really stupid so, so many people around me were. Not that they were bad or evil people, but at this point I realized I was saying things they didn't understand. I learned to "neck down" my conversation to a level that didn't confuse people. The movie "Idiocracy" really had it right. If everyone around you is too stupid to understand what you're saying, they think *you* are the stupid one. Shit, I guess that's how I wound up in the Stupid Kids part of my 1st grad class. Oh well. If I can figure out the next puzzle, I get to retire. I might be able to retire right now, but right now there's no margin for error. Or at least not as much of one as I'd like.

 

[Volpone]

Healing. After a rough year. It's funny, how chaos can sometimes be relaxing. Hot and humid. So I got The Dog Out for a Walk before breakfast. Even so, it was hot and tiring. Cat seemed OK with us being gone and they behaved well together. Having my breakfast and my computer time. Dog's napping in the guest room, Cat is snuggled into the chair with me. Eventually he starts to get rammy and starts bopping around the bedroom.

Now during my miserable job for my friend, I got in the habit of playing Solitaire. Solitaire on the work computer. Solitaire on my computer. Solitaire with an actual deck of cards. 3 games of each, trying to hit 33% win rate. My Mom used to play Solitaire so I've stuck with it after the job wrapped up. Anyway, I've been running 100% for so long that, with Monday off and the hot weather, and socializing a kitten with a dog, I decided to take it easy for the rest of the week. Oh, I'll still go to work Friday night. And I'll go on walks (runs) with The Dog. And work on all the chores I've let slide while getting the rental ready. But I'm going to be taking naps and farting around too.

Anyway, playing Solitaire. Since The Dog was on the futon in the guest room, instead of playing on the coffee table, I played on my bed. Had a game that it looked like I could win. Then the kitteh got up on the bed and thought playing cards were awesome. In spite of this, I managed to keep track of where the cards were and keep playing between kitteh tornadoes. At which point the Doggo jumped up on the bed and proceeded to lay down on the cards. Then the Kitteh came back to run around in the cards the Doggo wasn't laying on. I couldn't help but smile. I did still manage to keep the cards in enough order that I was able to play through and win though. So now a nap, maybe some lunch. Another nap. Tick, flea, and heartworm for The Dog, figure out when The Kitten gets her next wormer dose, and then clean long neglected bathroom and kitchen fixtures, attack the stack of paperwork in my inbox, and then see what's next after that.

 

[Volpone]

Bleah. Letting the bookkeeping go for 3 weeks makes for an unpleasant (but necessary) chore.

 

[Volpone]

Plans. I make them. Then they go sideways. And not like complex plans: "Today I need to file some paperwork, read a contract, maybe go downtown to talk to someone about said contract, and pick up some cleaning supplies stashed in the garage of the vacant rental. The weather's good for burning brush so maybe I'll get that going and read my contract outside."
Instead I got home from The Dog's morning walk and was going to change into dry pants (walking through tall grass in the morning after a big rain calls for a change of pants). As I was off to do this, I realized I needed to take out trash (I stopped to throw something in the can under the sink). Then I realized I needed to water plants (there's one plant that starts to wilt. When it does, it's time to water the plants). Just happened to stop and check The Dog for foxtails as the grass was pretty grown up (these nasty barbed seeds that hook into a dog's coat and work their way in and under the skin). Turned out she was lousy with them, so I had to stop and pick them out for about a half hour. Then I decided to top off The Dog's water--and it turned out she needed food, clean the litterbox, and feed The Kitten. Oh, and while I was taking the trash out from under the sink, I decide I should set a mousetrap. Which entailed the rechargeable flashlight. Which made me realize it is time to recharge the flashlight. So now I'm over an hour behind schedule and I've done nothing from my Plan.

 

[Volpone]

Tired today. "The History of the Peloponnesian War" starts out, basically: "In Olden Dayes, everything sucked because anytime you built something nice, barbarians would come in and destroy it." The author's premise was that Athens was able to rise to power because the land it was on wasn't particularly valuable so the barbarians pretty much left it alone. I'm kind of feeling that way today.

Slept in a bit because I still need to work for money and I did that last night. Spent some time taking care of the cat and dog. I needed a cat and a dog, but dang, they take up a lot of time and energy. Then I had to take The Dog for her morning walk. Because none of the grassy areas are cut and it was wet, her coat got embedded with foxtails (nasty barbed seeds that stick to coats and work their way forward and under the skin) that I spent about a half hour picking off. The entire time, The Cat wanted to play and I was trying to keep him out of my growing pile of foxtails and off of The Dog, who wasn't too happy about the procedure and I was worried might murder him. Then when I was done with The Dog I had to play with The Cat. By this point it was almost lunchtime, but I also still had some more stuff to do online before lunch. That's where we are right now. I'm nominally caught up but now, played out, I've got a kitten napping on my lap.

I don't know what I'd hoped to do today--maybe burn some more brush. But instead I'm probably going to have to meet with my property managers and give them ammo for if my dumbo ex-tenant really decides to fight the settlement of his damage deposit (long story short, he ignored the move-out instructions, didn't work with the property manager to do a move-out inspection, didn't get moved out until a day late, and is now trying to argue it wasn't his job to change the furnace filter, most of the the bathroom lightbulbs weren't missing, etc) and talk about handing him over to a collection agency for the unpaid April rent. Also, go work on the vacant house because somehow they haven't found anyone for it yet. I mean they listed it before it was ready so a lot of people maybe passed on it that would've been interested, and they probably have better pre-screening than I did. And the rent went up substantially. But when I've listed houses I've had multiple applications the first day I showed it, so I have a hard time understanding why they're not getting any interest, but I guess I'll do some of the staging I wanted to do in the first place but they said wasn't necessary.

Well, gotta go. The Dog is shouting at something and I'm hungry, I'm late for lunch, and there's still stuff that needs doing. :/

 

[Volpone]

Oh. Forgot the other thing: Last night the guy who roped me into doing accounting data analysis for 9 months for a Fortune 500 company called me while I was at work because he found an apartment that he thinks would be a great investment.

Now, I've told him before that apartments aren't great for small-time inexperienced investors--and why. But he doesn't listen. The last time he reached out to me about some real estate investment he wanted to do and then have me manage for him I told him I didn't even like managing my own properties, where I get all the profit, so I certainly wouldn't want to do it for a paycheck. But he doesn't listen. So then I tried to put him in touch with a guy who, literally that's what he does--his company buys houses, fixes them up, sells them to out-of-state/hands-off investors, rents them and manages them for the investor. But of course my friend didn't want to talk to this guy. Because...I dunno, that would make too much sense, I guess.

Or talk is cheap. It's easy to want to do something, but if someone shows you what to do to do it, suddenly there's all kinds of reasons you can't do it.

 

[Volpone]

Today was a Day of Failure. And tomorrow isn't looking that good either. :/

 

[Volpone]

OK. One more on my friend: Back around 2010, when the pirate fad was pretty hot, I had a side venture of screen printed pirate themed women's underwear. Cami top with a jolly roger and "PIRATE CHEST" printed on it, boy shorts with a jolly roger on the front left hip and "PIRATE BOOTY" across the ass. Black or white. Someone might've been able to make it take off, but not me. So now I've got a trunk full of merchandise. My main gig was a retro motorcycle venture that got even less far along. But while I was working on these, my friend had an idea: frozen chicken waffles.

I mention this because I've never signed an NDA, the chicken & waffle fad has kind of passed (like the pirate fad), the odds of someone here stealing the idea and becoming rich are slim, and my friend had over a decade to do something with this and did nothing. At this point I think he'd be almost *happy* if someone got rich off it, because then he'd say "See?! I thought of this first!"

But yeah, his thought was that chicken & waffles was a hot foodie trend so a frozen breakfast option of it would be a moneymaker. I want to say it was supposed to go in a toaster like frozen waffles, but I can't remember for sure. I did a level of due diligence that was commensurate to what he was paying me--nothing--and told him it wasn't a great idea:
1) "Foodie" types don't really go in for freezer section premade things
2) Chicken has some preparation challenges to avoid food poisoning
3) Making something with a fried chicken patty and a waffle around it that would cook through in a uniform manner would be a challenge
4) The whole supply chain and distribution would be a headache to assemble
5) Even if it turned out to be a hit, there really wasn't much to stop, say, Jimmy Dean or Tyson or Eggo from swooping in and cutting you out
6) If it really was a good idea, chances are Tyson, Jimmy Dean, or Eggo would already be doing it.

He didn't listen. So I told him the next thing he should do was what Phil Knight did with Nike: Get a waffle iron and start experimenting to try and make a prototype that people liked. (The sole of the first Nike sneaker was made with a waffle iron, IIRC). Prove the concept before trying to mass produce. Of course he didn't listen and never did anything with it.

Truth be told, my advice applied to the motorcycle I was trying to bring to market too--if it really was something the American people wanted, Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki would be selling them. And if it was a good idea they'd missed, they'd quickly swoop in and cut me out of my own market.

On a different note, somehow he was on a pirate jag this summer and wanted a pirate ship. I had some experience with this when I was looking at marketing the pirate underwear, so I pretty quickly found him two or three 50' gaff-rigged schooners that were in his price range and located close enough to him that it would've likely been within my sailing abilities to get them to his town. He did nothing with that either.

 

[Volpone]

Huh. He called me and it was actually interesting. And at least seems to pencil out.

 

[Volpone]

Yeah, vanity and need for approval have queered my day. Reached out to the Realtor who sold me this house to ask her if she wanted to see how it was coming along. She wanted to shoot for today, around lunchtime. So now I'm stuck here, waiting for her when I should be doing something productive. I guess I could clean out the shed, maybe burn some brush. Hadn't really wanted to start anything involved or messy while waiting for her--and really wanted to work on the other property, but such is life. Unless I want to blow her off, I'm stuck here.

 

[Volpone]

Failure is always an option. Have a great $30 Wal*Mart rug I love. When I was listing my first rental, it had laminate floors, so I dressed them up and helped protect them for showings with rugs. Wound up getting the same rug. When I moved to the new place, Old Dog had some kind of issue with the living room floor so I put the matching rugs side-by-side. When it came time to list the place again, I pulled one of the rugs and put it in the rental. Much to my surprise, though, my tenant--and especially her kids--loved the rug (and all the other rugs) so I left them with the place. Now my old home is vacant again and it isn't moving at the current rent so I was going to pick up some rugs for staging. But my go-to rug is no longer available at Wal*Mart. Tried 3 places. Was set to just buy a different rug but the damned thing is twice as expensive (I forgot how cheap my old rug was until I started researching). Then it hit me: Order it online. Went and looked at the tag on mine to speed up the search and found it. It is apparently out of stock. Couldn't even find one on eBay.

I was going to also make a post about how Target is dying, but I don't feel like putting it together right now. I've been saying this for years, but my last shot at a store, I went to a Wal*Mart that is right next to a Target and man. Wal*Mart is crowded and bustling. Target is...lots of parking, no crowds. Interior looks like if you gave the boss' halfwit son a store to run so he just kept trying to do what had been a big hit 30 years ago the best he knew how. Sad, for as much as I liked Target for so much of my life.

 

[Volpone]

This is going to be super snarky. I grew up in the sticks. Hick town, nowheresville Wisconsin. Biggest town had a population of under 2,000. Big moment came when comedian Rondell Sheridan came to our college in the dead of winter and pointed out that if you live somewhere shitty, you can move. A lot of people laughed. I listened. I've lived in the Twin Cities, the DC area, around San Diego, near Honolulu, Portland Oregon, and lately Louisville Kentucky. A "Facebook Friend" from where I grew up posted a property listing near her. Decided to go to the Realtor's site and see what it was going for. Didn't find it, but I was amazed by what they were asking for--and getting--in Hicksville Wisconsin. I'm talking half million and up. Most expensive place was $4.2 million.

And it was UG-LY. Fucking knotty pine, hideous wallpaper, dock for your bass boat, hot tub with surround views of your private lake hideous. Pretty much everything on the site was fucking god-awful. So just for laughs I fired up Zillow and decided to see what $4.2 million will get you in Louisville.

Nothing. Because there's nothing that expensive for sale here. And that includes literal mansions. Closest I could get was, like, $3.5 million. And it had its own movie theater and shit. To be fair, some of the multimillion dollar places here are pretty freaking gaudy too. But at least they're built with hardwood. Who pays a million for a place with pine paneling, faux stone wallpaper and a white electric range? Geez. So glad I got out.

 

[Volpone]

8:30pm Sunday. Should wash dishes and wipe down countertops. Might. But I've got a belly full of mac & cheese and I just polished off a nice glass of whisky, so maybe not. :/

 

[Loktar]

8:30pm Sunday. Should wash dishes and wipe down countertops. Might. But I've got a belly full of mac & cheese and I just polished off a nice glass of whisky, so maybe not. :/

I washed my sink full of dishes at 8:30pm tonight. Hope to clean my apartment and sheets which are about a month or two overdue. At least I'm keeping up with paying bills, laundry, dishes, and taking out the garbage though.

 

[Volpone]

My life is the old Dunkin' "time to make the donuts" guy.

 

[Lanzman]

My life makes perfect sense. Lust and food and violence. Sex and money are my favorite kicks. Get me in a fight I like the dirty tricks. Cuz if you wanna run cool, you've got to run on heavy heavy fuel.

 

[jack]

It depends on my mood I think. Sometimes food and lust. Sometimes lust and food. Sometimes lust is food.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Volpone]

Just a random diary entry. Gah. Heatwave. 96 right now. 48% humidity. Sunny. Didn't get out of the 80s overnight. Worked last night so slept in a bit this morning, as usual. Got up and got moving. Got The Dog out for the morning patrol. She's smart and good. Stayed in the shade by the creek under the concrete bridge for most of the "walk," smelling out varmint holes. Took a break to go lay in the creek shallows to cool off and drink some water. I ended the varmint holes when I decided she was showing a bit too much interest in one that I figured was most suitable to snakes. I think we do have some venomous snakes here. Home for a late breakfast, to finish my morning reading and a few other things, get cleaned up and by then it was time for lunch. Nap after lunch with The Cat and The Dog while formulating a plan for the day--and the week, which promises to continue to be miserably hot.

Teh Kitteh needs his worming dose. The Dog is supposed to go to obedience class but it is at 5pm, across town, with possible traffic, and my AC has been acting up in the car (it's on the things to do list), so who knows about that. I did realize that I have some brushes in the basement that desperately need to be cleaned--that I haven't had time for--so that would be a good chore for today. But I saw I got my statement from my property management company so I logged on and had a look at it. There are some questions I need to tackle on that so I wanted to print it out. My trusty old printer died and I'm not terribly thrilled with its replacement. Trying to get this thing to print duplex with portrait and landscape pages was a lot harder than it should've been. Plus I'm due to change ink already. But the point is, the printer sits behind a chair in an unobtrusive corner of the new bedroom. While I was in the basement looking for brushes, it was printing. And The Dog went nuts over it. Standing there, barking at it as it spit out pages. In many ways she's a lot calmer than Old Dog, but in some ways she gets a lot more worked up. And this is one of them.

Ah well, that's about it. Back to work--and figuring out how to stay alive and move the football.