Rave: Off to Newcastle to catch up with a mate and get more tattoos. Rave: Possibly off to Guam for work shortly, .50cal Sniper course coming up as well. Rant: Got taken off the Solomon Islands ERW trip. Rave: It's raining so where I live might not get burnt to the ground this year.
Rant: If I go out of network for medical care, I can submit a claim for (partial) reimbursement of costs. I can go to my health insurance provider's website, download a .pdf of the claim form, fill it out on my laptop, but I can't submit it via the website. I have to print it off and mail it to them physically. The only reason they do this is to discourage claims so they don't have to pay money they are legally obligated to pay. Shit like this is why I'm going to vote for Elizabeth Warren and then make the fake "boo hoo" crying motion when health insurance companies go out of business. Fuck you.
Rant: some dude, probably in his 40s, I had a brief but pleasant conversation with while working departed with a kindly sounding "thanks sweetpea." I'm not in the south anymore and have not heard any random terms of endearment from strangers since I moved here 14mo ago. His tone of voice was all right but it deeply skeeved me out. Aaaand locking the doors.
RAAAAVE: Going to Spain with friends in the spring, just booked a table at Celler de Can Roca. Gonna go eat the most expensive meal of my life and spend the rest of the week drinking absurd quantities of cava. We're calling it a belated honeymoon to excuse all of our exorbitant decisions, plus we have to get weird before we decide to responsible-up and have a baby or something stupid.
Rave: The fall foliage in MA this year is the best it’s been in years. Absolutely beautiful. Rant: Car dealerships. Had to get my wife a car in a pinch yesterday because she’s leaving her job and they decided to revoke her company car immediately. MA has a stupid law where you can’t leave a car lot or dealership without having the plates and insurance issued first. The dealership we bought her CRV at is not necessarily giving us the runaround, but they are bottlenecked by one person at their office who deals with all that paperwork. I was kind of a dick to the sales guy yesterday about it and it’s not really his fault. Oh well.
RANT: One of my friends from childhood passed away. He was 53 and a brain tumor took him out. He was a guy you wanted in a foxhole with you, you just knew he would have your back and fuck folks up.
Rant: (checks Mint) $919.50 spent on food this month! (sets some fucking money on fire just for good measure)
RANT: Been sleeping like shit. I'll fall asleep almost immediately but wake up between 2-3AM, lay there for a few hours until I sometimes doze back off before my 6AM alarm. I've tried drinking, sexing, melatonin, Zyquil, TV on, TV off etc. but just can't seem to sleep through the night. No stress that I can think of. Shops are doing well, relationship is strong etc. Fucking exhausted right now.
RAVE: My wife and I moved from Nashville to Nebraska. We were both wanting to get out of the city, and it’s been great to be closer to family. RANT: Before moving, my job floated an offer of working from home in Nebraska, doing phone sales. It is really tempting, and I’ve been trying to follow up on it now that we’re settled in. But it seems like the offer wasn’t as solid as I thought - no replies to my emails, and only one phone call went through - where we planned for a call the next day, which went straight to voicemail. It kinda chafes me that ten years of loyalty seems to be dismissed so easily, but it might be a sign to move on for good. Any new job I take is gonna be a pretty substantial pay cut, but the cost of living is way down and I’m confident in my abilities, regardless of where I go. Just gotta figure out where that is. Just had to vent in an anonymous forum, thanks for letting me.
Rant: Grandmother died last night. She was 94 and last week was having some slight trouble breathing, which apparently was Stage IV lung cancer. Died 5 days after diagnosis. Really sucks and its hitting me much harder than I thought it would; its probably that I spent more time with her in my childhood than the rest of my grandparents combined and that she was the last living one. Her last words to me when I visited her over the weekend was, "I am so glad you came to visit." Fucking sucks.
Rant: Cooked fillet steak for dinner, finished it off in the oven using the pan i seared it in. Einstein grabbed the handle with bare hand while plating it. Four hours later, 6 freezer bricks, 6 cans of beer and the fingers are still hurting like all fuk. Sleeping is gunna be a bitch [edit] googled medical diagnosis: second degree burns At least dinner was nice
RANT: Talking some old man customer and his wife, he looks at her and says "Hey hun, this guy could be a movie star or something." Then looks back at me "Yeah, we've noticed that all the movie stars and celebrities have big noses. You'd fit right in." Neat.
Rave: House didn't burn down this week during the carnage in NSW. Rant: Our government is still in denial about the climate.
RANT: It's November 15th. There are 4 mother fucking full size, fully decorated Christmas Trees between 6' & 16' in the house. I can barely traverse the stairs because of all the assorted Christmas bullshit on display....Santas, snowmen, reindeer, and 3' Christmas trees.On the fucking stairs that people need to walk up and down. And he's just getting started. DOUBLE RANT: Every night this week when I've gotten home Crazy has complained about how tired he is and how hard he works. Fuck. You. I've been gone from the house almost 13 hours working a fucking JOB. You've spent the whole day doing something that you enjoy that absolutely no else gives a fuck about, other then wishing you wouldn't do it because it's highly annoying and inconvenient to everyone else that live here. I fucking hate Christmas.
Rant: How hard is it for people in a band to show up on time and/or prepared for a gig? Fucking impossible apparently. Bass player shows up like 5 min. before start time. Lead guitar player apparently forgets all rehearsals and prior gigs because we had no idea what the hell he was playing, but it wasn't what he was supposed to. And loudly, overwhelming everything else, despite being asked several times to turn it down . I was standing on top of my monitor and couldn't hear a thing. Three songs in I turned to our lead guy and asked, "When did we become a third rate garage band?" I don't get it either, because the guy plays these great leads when we're rehearsing and then forgets everything the minute we play live. Somehow, the people still lived it. Good thing, because the place was so packed they were turning people away.
RAVE: I PASSED THREE ASE EXAMS JUST NOW! THIS MEANS I CAN FINALLY GET MY ASSOCIATES DEGREE IN DIESEL TECHNOLOGY! I took the tests for HVAC, Steering and Suspensions, and Transmissions and Drivetrains (these are all for heavy duty trucks, by the way). RANT: A lot of the questions were nothing like the ones in the study guides, with identical questions having different answer choices. About halfway through the tests, I really wasn't sure I was going to pass, but I did it.
Rave: It only took about 11 year, but I finally went through with getting married. Rant: My liver hurts so, so much.