"You gonna get another job?"...
- Thread starter Volpone
- Start date
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
So...yeah. Here's how the day goes when I actually have time to be proactive:
Put together an updated "To Do" list.
Print it off.
Wait to print it off because I haven't used the printer in a long time so it needs to do "maintenance."
Listen to The Dog bark at the printer (she's already been busy barking at the guy who is renting garage space from me)
Review notes from my upcoming medical appointment
Get out my reading glasses.
Watch the bow fall off my reading glasses.
No big deal, this happened with the other bow a few months back, go get the Krazy Glue from the kitchen junk drawer to repair it.
Watch the little part that needs to be glued to the bow fall out of the hinge
Try to find my eyeglass repair kit that contains replacement screws.
Try to screw a tiny metal piece into the hinge of reading glasses (obviously without reading glasses)
Realize after the printer maintenance, I got a blank sheet printed out; reprint new "To Do" list; listen to The Dog bark at the printer again.
Which brings us to the present. Now I gotta glue the metal hinge part back into the bow (or is it called a temple? I forget) on the glasses.
I also have to post an ad for storage space but I forget the interior dimensions, don't know what I did with the sheet I wrote them down on, can't find the tape measure I want, and even if I could, the dog would go nuts if I went outside without her while my renter is working in the other shed. Ah well, at least it is just about time for lunch. I can do that instead.
[Turns out I don't have dimensions for the floor stored electronically anywhere.
]
Put together an updated "To Do" list.
Print it off.
Wait to print it off because I haven't used the printer in a long time so it needs to do "maintenance."
Listen to The Dog bark at the printer (she's already been busy barking at the guy who is renting garage space from me)
Review notes from my upcoming medical appointment
Get out my reading glasses.
Watch the bow fall off my reading glasses.
No big deal, this happened with the other bow a few months back, go get the Krazy Glue from the kitchen junk drawer to repair it.
Watch the little part that needs to be glued to the bow fall out of the hinge
Try to find my eyeglass repair kit that contains replacement screws.
Try to screw a tiny metal piece into the hinge of reading glasses (obviously without reading glasses)
Realize after the printer maintenance, I got a blank sheet printed out; reprint new "To Do" list; listen to The Dog bark at the printer again.
Which brings us to the present. Now I gotta glue the metal hinge part back into the bow (or is it called a temple? I forget) on the glasses.
I also have to post an ad for storage space but I forget the interior dimensions, don't know what I did with the sheet I wrote them down on, can't find the tape measure I want, and even if I could, the dog would go nuts if I went outside without her while my renter is working in the other shed. Ah well, at least it is just about time for lunch. I can do that instead.
[Turns out I don't have dimensions for the floor stored electronically anywhere.
]
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
God-dammit. Why is nothing ever simple? As I get older, I have increasing trouble swallowing solids. Especially if it is a fibrous food like ribs or chicken or celery or something I'm inclined to eat quickly. It's like I have a gullet like a bird and if I'm not careful, it clogs up. I can still breathe, but unless I can dislodge it with liquid and/or something like hopping up and down, I have to go retch until I can dislodge it. I also have a pretty good family history of cancer so once I got around to getting health insurance I went to see a doctor. Well, a nurse. The wait to see a real doctor is forever for new patients and this nurse-practitioner had just moved so he didn't have a lot of patients yet.
Went in, got checked up. He prescribed a Cologuard test and scheduled me to see a specialist for my throat. Cologuard came back negative. Specialist went ahead and scheduled me to get my throat scoped. She also wasn't particularly thrilled that the GP had prescribed Cologuard, given my family history so she wanted to do a colonoscopy too. That's all over a month away. So I looked at the prep that the colonoscopy entails and decided I'd just be content with the Cologuard this year, since my insurance isn't great (I wound up shelling out the $600 to mail a box of poop), but before I made the call, I wanted to double-check the false negative rate on Cologuard. 8% (I thought it was, like, 4%). So there's an 8% chance that I could have cancer right now. And there's a 60% chance it could've missed a pre-cancerous growth that a colonoscopy would catch and eliminate. So now I gotta think some more. Which do I hate less--the hassle and potential expense of an additional test or the relative uncertainty of my barely better than Russian Roulette $600 test? :/ I think I shall wait another day on this decision.
***
On the other side of the additional information coin, house prices are still crazy, but the market is cooling down. Unfortunately the interest rate on my home equity loan (HELOC) is heating up. 7.5%. That's...terrible. How can I afford to do a deal at that rate? Then I remembered how I kind of backed into real estate investing: Back during the paintball fad of the 1990s, I'd tried to open a paintball field. It was a solid plan and well executed. Unfortunately NIMBYs sabotaged my zoning. I fought it with the shitty hick town lawyer that was my Mom's friend and lost. This was enough of a setback that I decided to give the Marines another try. This time I got through OCS without an injury and had my Marine career. I tried having my Mom and brother run the paintball field for one season and it was staggering how badly they did, so I shuttered it. When I got out, I considered going back to it, but the paintball boom was dying out and I really wasn't looking forward to working for less than $1 an hour again with land that wasn't even technically legal to use.
After getting my MBA and failing to find a job because Portland, OR was already fucking doomed by the time I moved there, when I was almost out of cash I took a friend up on an offer to go work for the Marines out in Hawaii as a Reservist. I made a pile of money doing that. And I sold my paintball land for a ton more than I paid for it. That was what got me started on real estate.
But I'm rambling. The point is, I hadn't had the money to buy the land at the time, so I got a loan from my Mom. But what was the interest rate? I was pretty sure I had the paperwork somewhere so I went digging yesterday. 8%. I paid 8% for an 8 year loan. Granted, the amount I need to buy a house is a lot more than the amount I needed to buy vacant land in Wisconsin 25 years ago, but the bottom line is, I shouldn't be afraid to do a deal if I can find one. Well, gotta go. Time to make shit happen.
Went in, got checked up. He prescribed a Cologuard test and scheduled me to see a specialist for my throat. Cologuard came back negative. Specialist went ahead and scheduled me to get my throat scoped. She also wasn't particularly thrilled that the GP had prescribed Cologuard, given my family history so she wanted to do a colonoscopy too. That's all over a month away. So I looked at the prep that the colonoscopy entails and decided I'd just be content with the Cologuard this year, since my insurance isn't great (I wound up shelling out the $600 to mail a box of poop), but before I made the call, I wanted to double-check the false negative rate on Cologuard. 8% (I thought it was, like, 4%). So there's an 8% chance that I could have cancer right now. And there's a 60% chance it could've missed a pre-cancerous growth that a colonoscopy would catch and eliminate. So now I gotta think some more. Which do I hate less--the hassle and potential expense of an additional test or the relative uncertainty of my barely better than Russian Roulette $600 test? :/ I think I shall wait another day on this decision.
***
On the other side of the additional information coin, house prices are still crazy, but the market is cooling down. Unfortunately the interest rate on my home equity loan (HELOC) is heating up. 7.5%. That's...terrible. How can I afford to do a deal at that rate? Then I remembered how I kind of backed into real estate investing: Back during the paintball fad of the 1990s, I'd tried to open a paintball field. It was a solid plan and well executed. Unfortunately NIMBYs sabotaged my zoning. I fought it with the shitty hick town lawyer that was my Mom's friend and lost. This was enough of a setback that I decided to give the Marines another try. This time I got through OCS without an injury and had my Marine career. I tried having my Mom and brother run the paintball field for one season and it was staggering how badly they did, so I shuttered it. When I got out, I considered going back to it, but the paintball boom was dying out and I really wasn't looking forward to working for less than $1 an hour again with land that wasn't even technically legal to use.
After getting my MBA and failing to find a job because Portland, OR was already fucking doomed by the time I moved there, when I was almost out of cash I took a friend up on an offer to go work for the Marines out in Hawaii as a Reservist. I made a pile of money doing that. And I sold my paintball land for a ton more than I paid for it. That was what got me started on real estate.
But I'm rambling. The point is, I hadn't had the money to buy the land at the time, so I got a loan from my Mom. But what was the interest rate? I was pretty sure I had the paperwork somewhere so I went digging yesterday. 8%. I paid 8% for an 8 year loan. Granted, the amount I need to buy a house is a lot more than the amount I needed to buy vacant land in Wisconsin 25 years ago, but the bottom line is, I shouldn't be afraid to do a deal if I can find one. Well, gotta go. Time to make shit happen.
Loktar
Pinata Whacker
I should look into this Cologuard. Im thinking of chickening out of my colonoscopy that is scheduled for next month. Never picked up the prep medicine. Too worried about the medicine making me too regular and end up shitting my pants at work or needing to take too many bathroom breaks. Might reschedule the colonoscopy for April. Don't want the colonoscopy ruining Superbowl parties or St Paddy's Day.
jack
The Legendary Troll Kingdom
It's different than it used to be. After the first one I had I said never again. With the Cologuard, there's also now "virtual" colonoscopies using imaging and ultrasound. The still have to go in with the scope if they find a TOOMA HOWIE but that's really the last resort.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
OK. Here's the straight, um, poop: First off, the boring stuff: It has a...[Googles because he's too lazy to dig out and reread the pamphlet] 12% false positive rate. So 12% of the time it finds cancer, it's a false alarm. It has an 8% false negative rate. So even if it tells you you don't have cancer, there's an 8% chance you could have it. And according to a website I read before the above post, it can only spot cancer while a colonoscopy can spot and remove polyps before they become cancerous. You do need a doctor to prescribe it.
Now, the details (from memory because again, I'm too lazy to go get the booklet): You get the familiar box. You have to open it according to the instructions because it is your return shipping box (not a big deal, but it should be mentioned). The instructions are simple and comprehensive. You get a little plastic bracket that goes between the toilet and the toilet seat that holds a little plastic jar. You poop enough for a sample (Goldilocks poop--not too little, not too much, just right (and no pee)). Then there's a think kind of like a mascara--little vial with a screw-on cap that has a brush on the end of it. You dip the end of the mascara brush into the poop and screw it back into the vial with some of this preservative liquid that comes with the kit. Then you dump the rest of the preservative liquid into the poop jar and screw the lid on that. You put stickers with your information on the vial and the jar and fit it all back into the box (which, IIRC, has little compartments to hold everything in place--and a heavy plastic bag that wraps around it all inside the box). Then you take it to a UPS store. Do it on a Monday in a week with no holidays to make sure it gets to the lab in time. That's about it.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Nature is cruel and ugly. But it does a very good job of making sure the strongest survive. The Dog is part Shiba Inu. So she has a strong hunting drive. She especially likes to hunt rodents--everything from a groundhog to a mouse. She also does a lot of nose-work. So to tire her out and keep her stimulated, we'll go to the field across the street and she'll try to flush rabbits (and groundhogs in the warm weather). Sometimes she'll pick up a scent and try to dig it out.
I allow this because it helps to stimulate her and tire her out. Besides, 98% of the time she doesn't catch anything. She did kill a mouse once. Well today, just as we were about to go home, she picked up a scent and started digging. It must've been a shallow tunnel because she'd dig a bit and then she'd rip out a junk of turf with her jaws. Eventually she started pulling out fine dry grass. She'd found an abandoned burrow. Having achieved her goal she lost interest and wandered off.
Then I noticed little hairless purple-pink forms amid the dry grass. Couldn't tell if they were rabbits or something else. And I realized they were still moving. Probably the most humane thing to do would've been to just kill them all quickly, but I gathered up some grass, stuffed it back into the hole and then collected them up and put them into the hole (I wish I'd have thought to pile them closely together) and then put more grass around and over them. Finally I gathered up some of the chunks of turf and laid them over the opening. Will they live? Probably not. Will the mamma rodent find them and be able to make a new burrow and get them into it? Probably not. But there isn't much I can do about it now. I guess in the future I'll be more careful about supervising her digging. I feel bad to interrupt her when she's on a scent, but I also feel bad about little baby animals freezing to death.
I allow this because it helps to stimulate her and tire her out. Besides, 98% of the time she doesn't catch anything. She did kill a mouse once. Well today, just as we were about to go home, she picked up a scent and started digging. It must've been a shallow tunnel because she'd dig a bit and then she'd rip out a junk of turf with her jaws. Eventually she started pulling out fine dry grass. She'd found an abandoned burrow. Having achieved her goal she lost interest and wandered off.
Then I noticed little hairless purple-pink forms amid the dry grass. Couldn't tell if they were rabbits or something else. And I realized they were still moving.
Probably the most humane thing to do would've been to just kill them all quickly, but I gathered up some grass, stuffed it back into the hole and then collected them up and put them into the hole (I wish I'd have thought to pile them closely together) and then put more grass around and over them. Finally I gathered up some of the chunks of turf and laid them over the opening. Will they live? Probably not. Will the mamma rodent find them and be able to make a new burrow and get them into it? Probably not. But there isn't much I can do about it now. I guess in the future I'll be more careful about supervising her digging. I feel bad to interrupt her when she's on a scent, but I also feel bad about little baby animals freezing to death.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Bah. My healthcare provider will not do a gastroendoscopy with local anesthetic. I hate general anesthetic. And its cost. I also failed once again to talk to anyone in billing. Managed to leave a voicemail on a line that will allegedly get back to me in 48 hours. But I'm sure I didn't leave all the info they needed. Living is a lot of work.
[EDIT: So I see there's a local center that does nothing but endoscopy. So I called them to try to get a "sanity check" on if an upper endoscopy needs to be done under general anesthetic. Got a voicemail message but when I tried to leave a message, the mailbox was full. Living is a lot of work.]
[EDIT: So I see there's a local center that does nothing but endoscopy. So I called them to try to get a "sanity check" on if an upper endoscopy needs to be done under general anesthetic. Got a voicemail message but when I tried to leave a message, the mailbox was full. Living is a lot of work.]
Last edited:
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
One of my lifelong regrets is...I'm a smart guy. I see things coming. Unfortunately I'm rarely able to get people to listen to me. I've tried to address this fault with limited success and have eventually just given up on it like I have on memorizing people's names.
A house I wanted to buy a few months back...it was overpriced. I made a fair offer on it that was too low for the seller so he made a counter-offer that was still too high and raise some red flags. I made a counter-counter offer that...I assume it was rejected, but I'm not 100% sure it made it from the seller's agent to him. About a week after my deal fell through, it listed online as "pending." Periodically I'd pop online to see if it had closed yet and what it had sold for. It would still show "pending." Even houses that were being sold through probate were closing faster than this place--which is unheard of. Walked by it the other day and it looked like someone else was living there. But still "pending." Well today I looked at it and it is now listed as in preforeclosure. Obviously I'm missing a lot of the facts on the case, but it annoys me because, to me, it looks like the guy decided he'd rather lose $130,000 than $6,000, selling a house that was really only worth around $110,000.
And it annoys me. Because, while it wouldn't have been without some risk to me, I think I could've turned it into a really nice house and put a happy renter in it for $110,000.
A house I wanted to buy a few months back...it was overpriced. I made a fair offer on it that was too low for the seller so he made a counter-offer that was still too high and raise some red flags. I made a counter-counter offer that...I assume it was rejected, but I'm not 100% sure it made it from the seller's agent to him. About a week after my deal fell through, it listed online as "pending." Periodically I'd pop online to see if it had closed yet and what it had sold for. It would still show "pending." Even houses that were being sold through probate were closing faster than this place--which is unheard of. Walked by it the other day and it looked like someone else was living there. But still "pending." Well today I looked at it and it is now listed as in preforeclosure. Obviously I'm missing a lot of the facts on the case, but it annoys me because, to me, it looks like the guy decided he'd rather lose $130,000 than $6,000, selling a house that was really only worth around $110,000.
And it annoys me. Because, while it wouldn't have been without some risk to me, I think I could've turned it into a really nice house and put a happy renter in it for $110,000.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
I put in a fair amount of weight after my dog died. Not going on 2 long walks a day, I got to the heaviest I've ever been. Started exercising and running again, along with better attention to caloric intake and burned it off. Then I got the new dog who, being younger, is more active, and I was able to stop running and exercising and be less strict on diet. But then I retired(?). Not working on an assembly line 2 nights a week, the weight has started to creep back on. Luckily I noticed it this time. I'm not thrilled with the idea of dieting and exercising, but I'm also not thrilled with the idea of being a big fat turd, so there you go. Actually, I am thrilled with the idea of being a big fat turd, but only if I can do it like Jabba the Hutt and throw nonstop parties with a house band and a girl in a bikini on a leash, but that's another story.
Loktar
Pinata Whacker
I don't want to be a fat turd either but so far I'm keeping myself slightly under 300. If I ever get 600, I'm killing myself, unless a heart attack kills me first.
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
I'm vain. When I was 20-30# overweight, a photo was what spurred the weight loss effort. Also, I feel a lot better and sleep better when I'm at an ideal weight. (I wonder if that's part of why I've been napping as much as I have lately--putting on a little weight). But it isn't my job to judge anyone else's choices. (I mean, I do, but not out loud or to their faces--unless they ask my opinion. Or maybe if they're morbidly obese and talking about their health problems I might raise the question tactfully.)
Volpone
Zombie Hunter
Yeah, no. Because I could also just sleep in and eat and screw around on the computer. :/
Had to get up today. Guy who's rebuilding an engine in my garage has the engine back in the car so he sold the Wal*Mart engine hoist he got and the buyer was picking it up AT 9AM ON A SUNDAY MORNING.
Yeah, right. Someone's going to actually show up at 9am on a Sunday morning. But I get up and get a text that he's on the way as I'm getting up. Super. I'd thought he'd arranged the deal already and I just had to let the buyer in--in which case I've got to be around because I can't just let some random guy rummage around in my shed. All I gotta do is put on some boots and go unlock the gate and the door and the poor sap can sit around in the snow that is coming down, waiting for someone who isn't going to show.
Well as it happens, they both showed up within 2 minutes of each other and had the whole transaction done in about 5-10 minutes.
WTF?
Earlier I mentioned never being able to get people to listen to me? I have the same thing with dealing with people online. CraigsList, the other guy who reserved a storage space from me, even a realtor I bought a house from. You make arrangements--and then the guy no-call-no-shows and you're stuck twiddling your thumbs for a few hours. This went down like freaking "Mission: Impossible" (the old TV show, not the movie)--it worked exactly the way it was planned--in spite of the snow.
Lanzman
No-one of consequence
My experience with all things medical is that NO-ONE in that industry is capable of generating a coherent billing statement, or providing even a sloppy one at the point of service. I just got a notice from my eye surgeon of a charge from a procedure that was done OVER A YEAR AGO. Grrr.
You want to know what pisses me off? Fuckers who are three weeks late with their rent. I also dislike leftist rent control laws which prevented me from recouping my loses when shit bags fail to pay their rent. Are they earning money? Yep, they have jobs earning money but are they paying rent, nope. They know they can get away with stealing and when they are eventually evicted there are tons of designer clothes, expensive electronics, and other shit they bought since they decided to stop paying rent.
These are not good people trying to work out their problems but deluded people who just think they can steal from other people. Sadly, the law in this state enables them to do so.
These are not good people trying to work out their problems but deluded people who just think they can steal from other people. Sadly, the law in this state enables them to do so.
Last edited: