"You gonna get another job?"...

[Volpone]

Bah. Getting cold feet. My "play" on this house was to offer what it sold for in 2019, with no contingencies and not actually having even been inside. After getting the e-mail, I went back for another look. There are a few problems with the vinyl siding. The roof has a lot less slope to it than I'd like (and is probably pretty old). There's some brush/trees that need to come down, and who knows what else. And my brain is still at 2017-2019 levels where the money I'm shelling out should get you a 1955 3/1 brick ranch with a detached 2 car and this ain't that. Oh, and there was some kind of...in ground tank behind the house. Big green plastic "manhole" with "dangerous gas" on it that, when I lifted it up appeared to have clear water in it. Septic tank? Storm sewer? Just me going insane and imagining something?

 

[Volpone]

Two unrelated quotes roll through my head as I procrastinate:

"Good is the enemy of great." From the book "Good to Great," about successful companies. The premise is that if you get comfortable with "good enough" you don't push yourself to be great. Got my rent money last night. Enough to live on. As long as neither of my renters flakes out or has bad luck. I *could* just get myself a little part time job that I enjoy. I've got more time than I need when I'm not working. It wouldn't be a bad life. Sock a little money away every month. 9 years until I can collect social security. Or if a great deal falls in my lap, I can always do that. BUT...if I did this deal and it works out, that's around another $14,000 a month coming in (granted, that will mostly go to pay off the HELOC loan but when it's paid off, I get a house that I, personally, have only paid a small part of). But who knows? Maybe the market will turn around and there will be good deals all over again?

The other one is a Patton quote: "A good plan, executed violently today is better than the perfect plan next week." That one would seem harder to hedge; it calls for action. BUT...maybe the good plan in this case is not to take on risk and just have a safe little part time job. Well, I guess I'd better either put in an offer or apply for a safe little part time job. Or both.

 

[Volpone]

I chickened out. Went back to have another look at the green hatch in the backyard. My peer/friend suggested talking to the neighbors and as luck would have it, one of the neighbors happened to step outside just as I was walking past. Eventually the whole family came out and we had a nice talk. They said the house wasn't connected to city water--it has a well and septic tank. This is more common than you'd think in Louisville. They said they'd heard it would cost $50,000 to get everything hooked up. That might be a bit high, but you never know. Someone tried to make a go of it in 2019 and lost it less than 3 years later. They said the person who lived there before that regularly said they wanted to burn it down. Have I just lost my nerve? Maybe. But I'm OK with that.

There must be at least 2 different personalities. Because there are people who've done a ton more deals than me, gotten into a lot tighter spots, and spent a lot more money than I have. But their takeaway seems to be "I've been in tougher spots and gotten out of them" and they keep going. Me, I'm like, "I got thrown a few curves on deals and I lucked out. One of these days my luck is going to run out." You make your own luck to a degree. But to another degree, you have to make the best of the cards you're dealt.

 

[Volpone]

I probably need to start a Bible study thread. Old Catholic and finally struggling through The Bible. Took advice and read the New Testament first. Good advice. It is relatively readable. The Old Testament is a slog. Brutal. Incomprehensible. Inaccessible. Often the good get punished and nothing happens to the bad. Or we get crazy cartoon stories. Or just "Here's Boaz. His mother was Shabob. He had 37 servants. ... "

 

[Volpone]

Rough night. If the local weatherman can be believed, we haven't seen sunlight since Sunday evening. The clouds and rain and dark are getting to me. But today I needed to get things done. Got a few things done. But nothing decisive. Everything I got done just required me to do more things. Then it was time to walk The Dog. The Dog picks the route and the pace. Today we went somewhere we don't usually go. We were on a fairly busy 4 lane 35mph road at rush hour. Suddenly a dog comes off the front porch of a house across the street, to challenge my dog. Down the steps, across the yard, no sign of stopping at the sidewalk.

So I'm looking at the traffic and doing the mental calculations. The pickup that is on my side of the road will very likely hit him if he tries to cross the street. So I'm trying to dissuade the dog from running out into traffic, warn the pickup driver, and keep myself and my dog from getting hit if the driver swerves or loses control--all while trying to decide what I'll do if this dog actually makes it across the street and decides he wants to attack my dog. Too many things happening in not enough time. "THUD!" He didn't get run over but even running into the side of a car is not a good thing. Too much weight and too much speed transfer too much energy. Truck did not stop. He made it back to the sidewalk on his side of the street and laid down. Moved a few times. So now I get to decide what to do next. Jaywalking a busy street on a rainy overcast day during rush hour with a dog on a leash isn't a great option. And there isn't much I can do once I get there. I've got to do something with my dog and if he's just then the worry about facing down an aggressive dog resumes. If he's worse than stunned, there isn't much I can do and he could make his injuries worse because I'm there. The next door neighbor did come out of her house and run over to the dog.

Eventually the best I could do was take my dog home (a 20+ minute walk) and get her settled in and then come back in my car. By the time I got back the dog was gone and someone from the house was checking out their fenced backyard and their other dog. I tried to get his attention but also didn't want to interrupt. Eventually I just went home.

I really want to be angry at negligent dog owners, but this stuff happens to even the most careful people. Old Dog regularly escaped my fenced yard when she'd get separation anxiety. She once got grazed by a car while in pursuit of a rabbit (luckily the car was moving a lot more slowly). New Dog got a groundhog this summer and disappeared into a little woods near the house. Eventually I had to give up and go home and sure enough, she'd carried her trophy home across the busy 45mph road in front of my house. Watching my dog get old and then get sick and die of old age within about a 2 week period was stressful enough. I can't imagine finding out my dog got hit by a car. Sometimes life sucks.

 

[Volpone]

I need to figure out a way to make money--hell, live--without having to interact with stupid humans.

Guy is interested in renting a garage spot. He can come by today (this is a text conversation from around 8pm last night) so I tell him that's fine, just let me know when he'll be coming by and that I walk my dog around 11am and again around 4:30. No reply. So at Noon I get a text "is it still OK if I come by today?" :/

What part of "Friday works, just let me know when he'll be coming by because I walk my dog around 11am and again around 4:30." is confusing?

 

[Volpone]

...and he's flaked. "I'm training to be a firefighter and I'm needed at the station for the next 3 hours."

 

[Volpone]

FUCK. OK. So one guy is being flakey. No worries because I just got another inquiry. "Is it still w" [preapproves guy] "It is. I've got someone else interested but they haven't committed yet." "OK So it's available or no" WHY IS THIS SO CONFUSING? IF YOU ASK IF SOMETHING IS "W" AND I'M ABLE TO FIGURE OUT THIS MEANS "AVAILABLE", SEND YOU A PREAPPROVAL TO RENT THE SPACE, AND SAY "IT IS BUT YOU GOTTA ACT FAST" HOW CAN YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT THIS ALL MEANS IT IS AVAILABLE?!?!

Never mind. These are the same people who, at every intersection, are completely confused by what to do when the light turns green.

 

[Volpone]

I haven't had love at first sight with a girl in a long time. Forgot what it was like. But I was behind this girl at the supermarket checkout and she was amazing. 5'6" or so. Looked basically like if 2000s Disney or maybe the Mormons were going to cast "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." Dark brown hair in that kind of dyke haircut where it is cut short on the sides (even with a little wavy line shaved into it) and then there was a tousled mop on top. No makeup. Multiple ear piercings. You know that "wet-look" spandex vinyl type stuff? She had skin-tight black pants on. Probably some kind of clunky boots. I was too distracted to really note that. And I think some kind of black faux leather jacket, but again, I was too distracted because she was wearing a skintight black top underneath it that had about a 5" wide clear mesh strip in the middle that went from the neck to the waist--and no bra on underneath. Then she had like a sling bag thing fastened around her waist and hanging at her left hip. Great body. Not fat but with just enough curves. And on top of that she was competent and cool. She knew how to get through the checkout without fumbling and bumbling and tying up the line. Her little rewards card was on a keychain clipped to the bag on one of those retractable tethers so she just zipped it out and scanned it. And she made nice conversation with the checker. The whole package.

Ordinarily I'd console myself that she was probably a lesbian. I really manage to fall for lesbians. Maybe in this modern era, I should just use "she, her" pronouns and "identify" as a woman so I can date lesbians. But I'm rambling. The thing is she was there with her guy. Or at least that was what it had seemed like when I'd noticed her out doing the shopping. He was dressed boring but he had black hair in a kind of rockabilly style with the top dyed bright pink. But not the kind of guy you might think of as an alternative guy. Had to be well over 6' and 190#.

I mean, nothing would've come of it anyway. Because I am not 32 like I think I am and my lifestyle would not be interesting to this girl, but dang. She was cute. "She's so high, high above me..."

 

[Volpone]

I am a pro crastinator. None of that amateur crastination for me. I'm also a lot more nervous than maybe I should be these days, so everything tires me out. Well, and I walk/jog about 5-6 miles a day--every day--with The Dog.

The company I worked for in my last Grown-Up job in Portland has some part-time openings for the job I started out doing for them--retail reset (I went on to have a desk job doing space planning later that was wonderful--until it wasn't anymore). Again, I'm overqualified for it, and even 10 years ago it started wearing me down when I was doing it full-time, but I have fond memories from it, I am good at it, and I get a degree of enjoyment from it. I like project oriented work and problem solving. And you can see a completed product. They give you a diagram of how they want a store display arranged and you take a tape measure and some other stuff and if, at the end of the day the display is arranged like the diagram, you've had a good day. I planned to put in an application today. Only thing on the agenda. It's 3:30pm and I haven't done it yet.

Got up. Got all the curtains open. Happy to see an actual day with sunlight for the first time in a week (we did get some glimmers yesterday but it was pretty weak). Got the coffee going and let the animals out. Watered the fern, fed and watered animals, cleaned the litterbox, went to the bathroom, and had breakfast. Did my online reading and took The Dog for her morning walk. Got home about the right time for lunch. Got the mail, ate lunch, had my afternoon nap/snuggle with the animals. One of my renters gave me a heads up that he was probably wrapping up in January. Then I got another message asking if he could come by. Then my phone started going at the end of my nap. I hadn't put anyone's names into my phone and the guy that wanted to come by was my new renter, who doesn't over-communicate the way the other guy does.

I should mention, walking The Dog is tiring. Obviously it is physically tiring, but it is also mentally tiring, because she does rude things like wants to wander around between buildings at apartment complexes and stand around next to mailboxes and stuff, I don't have to apologize for her that often, but it's always in the back of my mind. And she did get banned from one other apartment complex because the manager said they had older tenants who felt threatened by her.

And then my nap got ruined. Once I got the guy let into his space and The Dog was calmed down, I decided to shoot for another 15 minutes of nap but the moment was past. So no more excuses to not get that application out. Then The Dog came over and started whining. This means she wants to go Out. But I wasn't going to just leave her Out while the new guy was in the yard. She can be very protective of "her" yard. So we had to go for a short walk. Now I'm decompressing from the walk. On the plus side, she seems to be learning that people can be in the yard if I say it's OK. She was actually almost friendly with the new guy. She spent weeks insanely barking at my first renter every time he came over. He was going to let her smell him but she can get spooked and I wanted to finish with a success so I took being aware of someone and wagging her tail and having relaxed body language as a win.

But it was still tiring. Soon it'll be time for her actual afternoon walk. Let's see if I can run out the clock until then.

On an unrelated note, I've been holding off on shopping because I wanted to make sure I was making more money than I spent--and I never could find the time--but it looks like my "nice" jeans are done. They might serve for a few more washings but they're starting to get holes. Time to get out and buy stuff that I've needed for some time.

 

[Volpone]

I am presently still retired. It's funny, because all your life you have all these things you're going to do but you never have time to do them because you're too busy trading time for money so you can stay alive another day. Then you have time (but not a lot of money right now) and you don't even realize that you can use it for the things you've been meaning to do.

There's still plenty of work to do on the house. Today I was going to tackle a few leaks in the tin shed roof that I was able to identify in the last rain--before another rain tomorrow--and maybe coat some more of the interior timber with linseed oil. But it never got up to the promised 50 degrees. I've been too lazy to read the instructions on the spray waterproofing stuff, but 50 degrees seems like a good temperature to work with aerosol cans and materials that need to dry. Slopping a rag into a bucket of 47 degree oil and wiping it on wood didn't sound particularly fun either. I mowed the lawn after the leaves were down to mulch them up, but quite a few still gathered at the garage doors, so there's more leaves inside the shed than I'd like. So I swept them out and got started on raking them back. That's another project: The approaches to the shed have a nice gravel base. But they also had 20+ years of sediment and weeds on them. I've made some progress, but the weeds keep coming back and you can only get so much soil out of the gravel at a time. I can't pave because the approaches slope down to the shed so I'd have to monkey with a French drain or something across the frontage or the entire shed would flood every time it rained. So I worked on that.

Then my renter who is restoring a car showed up. I haven't gotten around to putting anyone's names into my phone lately, so yesterday the new renter showed up when I thought it was this guy. And today I thought it was the new guy and was wrong again. And for some reason, my dog does not want people coming into my yard. It's wild. Because she's apparently OK with them being in the tin shed, but entering or leaving the property gets her all riled up. And this guy parked his car on the last bit that I was going to be raking so I decided to take The Dog for her walk an hour early. But then I got back and while she seems fine with him working in his bay, I didn't want to work on stuff and have her decide to go bite him. And I didn't want to put her in the house and then go back out to work (and lets face it, I really wasn't that hot to do anything outside as it was getting darker and colder anyway. So I...fucked off on the computer a bit and took a nap. Then dinner, local news, "Jeopardy!" and a cocktail before a nice hot shower. So now it's 8:37 and I am at a loss for what to do until it is late enough to go to bed.

I shouldn't be. Even if I don't want to work, I could play the ukulele or start on my autobiography or take up art again. I could just watch a movie or read something, but I'm just not used to having this kind of leisure time. I did look at the local dinner theater's Website. I think I'll shoot them an application and see if they need any stagehands or techs. I minored in that in college. It just never went anywhere because the town that was big enough to make a living doing that was also a union town, so you had to work your way up the union list to get any work and I needed to eat and stuff.

 

[Volpone]

Just a short note on...I dunno, dreamers versus doers? Practical versus idealistic? A little of both and maybe something else. I decided to make a video store museum in my basement--kind of like Colonial Jamestown. It's a pretty low priority, but I still do some thinking on it. Last night I found a source of a bookcase for below $40 that could be fairly easily adapted into video racks. Mentioned it on Facebook. My friend, the accounting manager with the artificial hip came back with: "Why not just get the real thing?" and a link to a retail furniture site. And then "just get some wood and some black paint and build your own," along with some photos of Blockbuster racks. I suspect the follow-on posts were because he looked at the Website and realized that: 1) No one sells video rental racks anymore and 2) everything on the site, being built for commercial stores, is obscenely expensive. (Well, fairly priced for someone running a business, but not for someone making a pet project in the basement.) The problem with building your own is: 1) it's going to wind up costing more than just buying cheap bookcases and modifying them and 2) it won't wind up looking as good. Keep it simple. The simplest thing is going to be to cut down the depth of bookcases and add a shelf or two (this may be doable with extra, donor bookcases, or I may be able to reconfigure, or scrounge from the scrap material created by cutting down the depth.

I'd love to have them be angled like store ones, with a wider base and narrower top, but this adds complexity to the build. And makes it harder to get them all to look the same. Being the same but not quite right trumps being more accurate but all slightly different. Well, I should probably do something productive now. Don't really want to. Options are: Take out trash, wash dishes (gotta do those) apply oil to the wood framing in the shed, and dig weeds and dirt out of the gravel approaches to the shed. I actually started on that before lunch and probably should do that, but it is kind of miserable work.

 

[Volpone]

Fuck I'm tired. I don't know how people do it. Got my dishes done and my trash out. Topped off the can with crap from the garage that I'd moved to the basement so I could rent the garage. Did a small amount of weeding on the driveway before it was time to walk The Dog. The Cat wanted to come Out too. Halfway through the walk it started to rain. Getting pretty dark by the time we got home. No sign of The Cat. Rain until well past midnight. At least it is fairly warm. And he's certainly found himself someplace dry and sheltered. So the only worry is if one of the neighbor's barn cats or the white feral cat come after him. At least he's getting bigger so he should be able to take care of himself. But every time The Dog alerts or something I go check the back door. Of course he isn't there.

Speaking of The Dog, you know those little cat toy birds they have that have a motion activated electronic player that tweets? Got one for Old Cat. She wasn't that excited by it. Finally found it back a few days ago. New Cat thought it was pretty cool. But The Dog thought it was REALLY cool and promptly stole it. In 3 days she pretty much ran the battery down and opened up a seam. So tonight she had it disemboweled. No matter. Because I bought a new one for The Cat so now The Dog has that to play with. :/

 

[Volpone]

The Cat is In. So I'm feeling a lot better.

On unrelated note, I'm pretty sure I snore. No one's told me this but I get the feeling. The Dog most definitely snores. I dunno. Maybe there are levels of snoring, because I find her snoring kind of pleasant and relaxing.

 

[Volpone]

Friends are a lot of fucking work. Being retired(?) I've got more time to fill than stuff to do so instead of going to bed before 10pm I decided to practice my ukulele a little. I decided to make a quick Facebook post on my progress before one last go-through. (I've got a 4 song set: "Rainbow Connection," "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World," "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head," and "La Vie En Rose." It's mostly a rain theme but "La Vie En Rose" from "How I Met Your Mother" and it's a nice little song. I can do it pretty well. And "Rainbow Connection." "Raindrops" has some weird chords but I'm starting to get them and the chord progressions. "Rainbow/World" is pretty simple, as far as chords, but it's so long and the chord durations change throughout the song and my notes are years old and pretty cryptic. But I'm starting to figure it out. Just haven't really figured out how the words match to the chords for the "What a Wonderful World" part.)

So I get a Facebook Messenger call from my friend. I figure "what the hell, I'll give it a try." And just as the call seems to connect, it drops and my phone starts ringing. A fair amount of talk about nothing. Eventually The Dog starts getting riled up because she can hear me talking so I'm trying to wrap up the call and he finally remembers why he called (oh, and he swears he didn't call me on Messenger so he has no idea how that happened): He got some damn clock at an auction. Victorian era Austrian clock. Since it was an auction, he got other clocks he didn't want with it. And if the clocks don't work, he'll take them to his clock repair guy and pay a lot to get them fixed. But the point is that there's a big 442 and a Star of David stenciled on the back of the clock so he wanted to know if I had any idea what it meant.

Dude. I'm smart. But I know nothing about antique clocks from 1890s Austria. I've studied a fair amount of military history, but that really doesn't go at all into whether or not the Nazis would've put stenciled references on the backs of clocks that were stolen. I know more about the Civil War than I know about that. Well eventually I managed to wrap up the conversation and my phone still has enough charge that I can go to bed. I could make one more run through "Rainbow/World," but I'm kind of thinking I should just quit while I'm ahead.

 

[eloisel]

Been retired two years now. Last night I had a dream I went back to work for my last employer with a new job title and at higher pay. In the old days, a promotion would have been welcome. Not so much now. I'm literally too busy. I wonder how I ever had time to work.

Best advice I have for people is to get a job with a pension separate from Social Security and work for a company that has matching contribution to your 401k as well as offers other retirement savings plans. Republicans are working hard to steal Social Security so it is very likely that no matter how much you paid into the program you will receive nothing from Social Security.

 

[Volpone]

THOSE DAMN REPUBLICANS!!!!

Here's a tip: Social Security is literally a Ponzi scheme. It takes my money to pay people who put in money earlier and relies on more money coming in to pay me. Ponzi schemes are illegal. Unless you are a Democrat President and start one. In that case you can force everyone who has a regular job to pay into your Ponzi scheme. And when it eventually fails it is the damn Republicans' fault.

If I had every penny that was stolen from me for Social Security and it had been put into a no-load mutual fund, indexed to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, I could retire a millionaire today. Instead it got stuffed into a big mattress in Washington DC that gets used to pay retirees and as a piggy bank to get raided by our elected officials. Do NOT try to blame the fucking debacle that is Social Security on Republicans. If it weren't for Republican President Ronald Reagan, the thing would've gone under by now.

 

[Volpone]

I loved Zendaya's line in the last Spiderman movie, because I've been saying that for a few years (somewhat sarcastically): If you don't try, you can never fail. If you don't hope, you can never be disappointed. That's about the way I'm feeling today. Oh, no big disappointments, but still...

I let The Cat Out because he likes to be Out. But I prefer it if he's In. Especially if The Dog is In. They both went Out this morning. The Dog's business Out takes a lot less time than The Cat's, so she came In while I was still watering plants and making coffee and stuff. Finishing up by bagging dirty cat litter to through in the trash. Saw The Cat, over at the other end of the property so I called him while I was getting rid of trash and he started barreling back to the house. Now, the other end of the property is a long way off and it was cold this morning, so I went back inside and watched his progress through the door and opened it as he got close. At this point The Dog went back Out onto the deck and just as he was getting ready to jump up onto the deck and run into the house, she fake-lunged at him (like a school bully making a kid flinch) and he instead ducked under the deck. After getting The Dog back in the house I tried to lure him out from under the deck, but he refused to move. Periodically popped out to call for him with no luck. Finally went out to have another look and he's off somewhere else now.

Then I did very well as MS Solitaire. Before losing. Repeatedly. I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I was able to successfully pour a bowl of breakfast cereal, put milk on it, make coffee, and pour a glass of OJ and then consume it all while reading the news online and seeing what everyone is up to. I guess that counts for something. And I've still got the majority of the day to fail at things.

 

[Volpone]

Successfully owning a house is just a constant, nonstop troubleshooting machine. Is the toilet flapper closing properly? What must I do to make it close properly? Are these stains on the wall next to my desk from spilling a drink or something or is the flashing around the chimney bad and water is getting in? How do I keep weeds out of the driveway? How do I keep water out of the basement? How do I keep squirrels out of the attic? It never ends.

 

[Volpone]

People that get upset about concealed carry, if they were smart, would just let everyone concealed carry. The vast majority of people--and almost certainly the less diligent or responsible ones--would get tired of it in under a week and not do it.

Technically, I live in the city limits. And realistically, it isn't more than 15-30 minutes to a lot of the big city landmarks. But I'm in The Country. A month or so ago The Dog flushed up a big beautiful buck out of the little thicket behind the apartment complex a couple blocks from here. And the street in front of the house is littered with raccoons that had run-ins with cars, in various stages of disposition (actually, at this point they're all pretty much down to fur and bleached bones). One of The Dog's favorite pastimes is flushing out rabbits in the aborted development across the street--probably even better than groundhogs, because after a spirited chase, the rabbit escapes, avoiding a painful and protracted death battle.

But there are still adventures with off-leash dogs--one will escape its yard or whatever. They are almost always pit-bulls and almost never have a collar so it can be...fun...trying to control the situation. I've been successful--so far. On top of that, other day while we were in the lot hunting rabbits, the neighbor came out to give me a heads-up that he'd been seeing a big coyote there (no wonder with all the rabbits). He showed me some pictures on his phone and that was the final nudge I needed. I've been meaning to carry a pistol on our walks--better to have one you don't need than to need one you don't have. Even so, thus far I don't remember this until about 2 blocks into the walk in the morning. And carrying it in the evening is a literal pain in the ass. This isn't even some kind of hand-cannon or anything--just a little .380ACP. But even that is so uncomfortable and annoying that it will be interesting to see if I'm able to stick with it or not. I'd really rather not carry it because it's just so inconvenient and uncomfortable. Shit, no wonder cops are cranky all the time. I had to wear body armor and carry a pistol for 6 months or so in 2003 and I hated it. Imagine that being your job every day for your entire career.