Rave: Front row seats to my favorite musician at a venue a mile from my house on my 40th birthday. Talk about luck.
Rant: Husband & I have been renting out our old condo and our current tenant is the worst. She moved in Sept 1 and is somehow already over 2 months behind. Every time we try to talk to her about a payment plan to get her caught up, she gets more hostile. She's also dumb as a box of rocks and complained that the refrigerator door was broken (she wasn't closing the drawer all the way so the door would pop open at times from the pressure) and she's running the heat at 79* because she's anemic (?!). And despite her not paying rent, breaking a window, yelling at me, and violating the lease in a handful of other ways, the prospect of actually evicting someone is very yucky to me. I know this isn't a moment to have sympathy for landlords but we're renting it below market value to cover the cost of keeping it so my husband's grandma and aunt can move in if (when) their current situation becomes unaffordable. I just want it all settled before the new baby shows up in March. Not to mention the whole unexpectedly paying 2 mortgages during the holidays bit. Ugh. I think we're not rich or callous enough to be landlords.
Rave: A neighbor cleared some trees off their property and opened up a giant view of the lake right where the sun rises over it much of the year. I could literally sit in my favorite seat and watch the light sparkle and dance on the calm water of our cove, as I drink my first cup of coffee everyday. They probably did more to add value to our home than anything I've done over the years, because people love a good view.... Rant: Except, about four months ago, I bought a shed and plopped that motherfucker right in the damn way, so I see the sun rise over an Amish-built storage building. I think I may have it moved to the other side of the yard.
Rant: We had to let one of our dogs go last week, and today we are picking up her ashes. This past week has just sucked and I'm not looking forward to it. I miss my pup.
Rant: I'm sick for the first time in at least 5 years from either Norovirus or food poisoning. I hate being sick, damn it.
Rant - I'm getting to the point I'm not only wondering "why do I bother with this anymore" with a couple things, but for one of them I am really on the verge of just giving up on it. I have a small, local interest website that, no matter what I try to do, continues to falter. Now, after ten years, even my most dedicated users seem to be drifting away. I have spent an asinine amount of time on this over the last decade, and still people prefer the bullshit laden Facebook groups where you can laugh at a local junkie someone filmed instead of talking about why that guy is out on the street in the first place. I'm just about done with banging my head against a wall trying to figure it out. Speaking of trying to figure things out, I have absolutely no fucking clue what I'm supposed to do to reach readers for my books. I've written and released a fucking trilogy, and told myself I would now shift gears to marketing and trying to get the books into peoples' hands. But for all of the hours I spend working social media, buying ads, etc., it doesn't translate to sales as much as I feel it should. I've marketed this in my area heavily, since the setting for the book is right here where we all live, and no one seems to give a damn. The posts get lost in the aforementioned "haha look at the homeless junkie on Main Street" posts. Don't get me started on getting readers to leave a review, which would help my overall placement in searches. Sorry... I needed to vent. For the one or two who know who I am on here, please keep this between us, mmkay? Rave - I'm not a comic collector, but a while back I bought a graded G.I. Joe #1 which is pretty damned cool. I also ended up with another, autographed by Larry Hama and graded. Then while looking for a Christmas gift for my brother, I found a Masters of the Universe comic #1, graded. He already had one, so I bought it for me. Then it occurred to me it'd be cool to have all of the first comics, graded at 9+, for the three main toy brands I played with as a kid. That left Marvels Star Wars #1. I'd seen a graded version at a store a couple of hours from here back in the summer but balked at the price, which I don't often do. My wife and I went there today and I swore that if it was still there, it was coming home with me. We saw a couple other cool things I'd like to have bought, but the whole time I was building up to where I knew that comic was. I say "was" because it's here in my vintage toy collection now.
Rave ( I guess ) - My mood being what it is, I started "cutting the cord" from social media. I've started with the easy ones, and today got rid of LinkedIn, Twitter ( fuck you Elon ) and two burner Facebook accounts, one of which was used in conjunction with a dying endeavor. I'd like to shitcan my main FB account, but there's too many hobby oriented groups I enjoy, some wickedly funny meme pages, and my "official" author account attached to it. I suppose I could go through and trim out some of the fat from it though. We'll see.
RANT: Had to flat deck the car to the shop because the engine temps spiked in a big way on the way back from picking the dog up from daycare. Seems like a busted thermostat or something similar to me. I think I shut it down well before any real damage happened. RAVE: Heard from the shop... it was a busted water pump. For some reason it was slow leaking in such a way that it wasn't detectable, so eventually the coolant drained enough that it no longer flowed through the radiator, so temps were chaotic for a bit once it got up to temp. Almost $3k in parts alone, including a one-use pressure sensor and other bits and pieces. Why the rave? All covered by warranty... including the flat deck! Insane. I'd never expect a worn out water pump to be covered, but it is. Should get the car back on Monday, and pick up the service loaner (a Macan) tomorrow.
RAVE?: Been casually looking for a job recently* and not much luck in the beginning but had an interview with an insurance company last Monday. On the way home from the interview, a smaller local shop saw my info on Indeed(LinkedIn?) and I interviewed Wednesday with them. They pretty much hired me on the spot if I wanted it. Another interview on this upcoming Wed at a larger shop and just now got a text from the shop I left to start my own asking if I'd like to talk about a GM position. Man, when it rains, it pours. *RANT: Remodels are dumb expensive.
Rant: I returned to the garage this morning to be greeted with the news that one of the new people did this to my truck: Apparently she tried to come around the back of all the vehicles and squeeze into ONE EMPTY PARKING SPACE next to mine to get to her spot in the next row over. Not even the row I was parked in. Those lines are there for a reason. Watching the video, she hit my taillight with her side mirror, backed up, and then proceeded to try to squeeze through there again, almost hitting the car on the other side of the empty space. She has a dent and stripe from my bumper running down the entire drivers side of her car, yet parked and went inside as if nothing happened. Didn't say a word about it to anyone. Thankfully, three people saw it happen and reported it. She apologized, but I was not nice. Nor do I feel guilty about that. She said she couldn't see because of frost on her window or something so I told her she was fucking stupid for driving like that on top of driving where she wasn't supposed to. Management asked me what I wanted to do and I told them to call the police. She tried to apologize again and I told her I was too pissed off and not to talk to me. She's sorry she got caught, not that it'd have been that hard to figure out later. If she was really sorry, she'd have gone right in and told someone what she did. I'm not going to walk it back later with, "Oh it's alright"... I'm done being nice, especially now that I have to deal with this crap when it was completely avoidable. Just two weeks in, my dog dies and my truck gets damaged. I'm one problem away from becoming a Top 10 country music song. 2025 can kiss my ass.
Several years ago we cut off contact with my wife’s family because they treated her like shit and kinda kidnapped my children. My wife’s parents have passed away a while back and she wants some of her personal effects that were in her dads house. I have volunteered to call and ask her brother for those things so that she doesn’t have to go through the stress. I can’t make myself call him. I’ve puked twice. The anger these people bring out to me is not good. This is a rant. I thought maybe typing it here would make me feel better about calling. Im not even sure what I’m scared of. Fuck
Rave: The dive trip to the Maldives to stay the year was unreal. Diving with Manta Rays and Sharks is amazing. Rant: Dude was driving to fast in the car park and backed into the front of my car as I was moving through the area. Didn't reply to any messages asking for information then sends one a few days later acting like a wanker. Rave: Insurance says I'm not at fault and have waived the excess. Rave: Finally moved into the new place and everything is settling in nicely.
Rant: A fucking rock salt shortage? Are you kidding me?!? I always plan ahead and had about 300-400 pounds on hand. The last week or so I’ve blown through most of it, unaware that there was a shortage. I’m down to 10# or so. I called where I usually get it and, as expected, they’re out. I’m not even gonna try the other bigger places like Lowe’s because I’m sure the local snow removal guys have cleaned them out already. Christ…