lonecity.com

Its always been in my nature to just figure things out.  I suppose it came from my childhood where I grew up almost free from parental opression.  I see the young ones in my family now completely helpless when asked to handle the most obvious of tasks. 

Today I decided to give the back yard a good cleaning before the fall weather really sets in strong.  When I bought my home the previous owner had used railroad ties as a garden decoration.  While rustic and attractive in some ways, the garden decoration aspect of railroad ties is rather poor.  They become infested with earwigs and snails quite easily which turns the actual garden into a half dead unappetizing mess.  This time around the railroad ties had to go.

With the truck parked on the side of the house loaded down with branches and beams I was ready for the trip to the landfill.  The youngest person living in my house is a few months away from turning sixteen and she’s excited about getting her drivers license.  Normally I’m very stingy about letting anyone drive my car because I can’t afford to have it wrecked, but I thought today I’d have her pull it out of the driveway so I could get on my way to the dump.  She’s more than ready to go get the learning permit so I thought its time she started getting used to driving a car. 

When I held up my keys and asked her to pull the car in front of the house I expected a gleefull expression and some riddled excitement.  What I got was a look of stupidity crossed with a hint of terror.  She’s grown up so coddled by her mother that even handling simple tasks whether she wants to or not requires someone standing behind her telling her what to do.  It makes me sick to think what would happen if she somehow found herself alone in the world. 

I see it more and more in the workplace and sadly even at home.  People are becoming incapable of doing even the most basic of tasks.  In conversation I hear complaints about how the mexican people are coming across the border causing an immigration problem.  I hear how the american people are losing business and money to china because everthing is bieng manufactured overseas where its cheaper.  All of these things scare the american people.  Beneath it I see the truth. 

These poor people in third world countries have nothing compared to what we do so they work damn hard to get it.  They learn at a young age that to survive they have to get their own food clothing and shelter.  With nobody capable of protecting their total innocence they become strong or they become dead.  Its the natural order of things.  Citizens of the united states are on a quick road to their downfall and I’m sad to see it happening. 

Concider social security.  This is a mutibillion dollar government fund designed to make the weakest people in our society have better fuller lives.  That doesn’t sound like a bad thing right?  Now thing just how much stronger we as a people would be if maybe some of those people weren’t around.  If a potato has a cavity or cheeze has taken to mold, you cut away the bad part.  Cutting away the bad makes the rest of it better.  If you don’t cut out the bad spot all you’ve got is a rotten potato. 

I’m not saying we should cut off social security.  I know enough to know I probably don’t know what is best.  I’m just saying we as a people need to think more about the way we treat our children, disabled people, stupid people, ect.  Nobody ever learns a lesson from pampering.  Time-outs are not effective unless the child knows there is a consequence worse than making them sit in a corner.  You have to beat that kids ass at least once so they know you are serious! Once you’ve put the fear of god into them next time around a timeout will suffice.

Lately I’ve been thinking alot about how much and what my family eats.  This has mostly been a direct result of my devastating lack of funds.  You see eating things like macaroni and cheeze from the box, hot dogs, and ramen noodles isn’t really good for our health.  Sure it keeps us moving and out of a pine box, but you can see around our bellies that something is wrong.

I’ve also been thinking about all the soda I drink.  I know its bad for me, but I’m actually addicted.  I’ve been drinking coke since I was old enough to say the word.  Now I can’t get the headache to go away in the morning until I’ve had my first glass.  (where are the people who sued the cigarette companies when I need them)  The worst part about bieng addicted to something is that deep down you really don’t want  to quit.  I’ve stopped drinking coke for about a month at one point in my life.  I learned quickly that drinking soda for so long has damaged my ability to be normal.  I don’t feel the urge to drink anything but soda.  In fact I became severly dehydrated at the time.  The will or instinctive need to drink water just isn’t there. 

Between these two factors I’ve been thinking about all the commercials you see telling us to buy new refridgerators and save energy.  I’m all for the environment and I was almost convinced for that reason alone.  You see how buying a new fridge can save you lots of mony in energy costs and you think is it worth buying that new fridge.  After adding in that I really want an Icemaker and water dispenser in the door makes it even more worthwhile.  I think if Ice cold water was screaming at me every time I walk in the kitchen, I might just be able to ween off the coke habit.

Here’s where the story goes bad though.  About 10 years ago I bought a brand spankin new shiny fridge with all the bells and whistles.  Way over a thousand dollars it set me back.  It was at the time my family bought this house, and we needed a fridge to go in it.  I still bieng young went ahead and bought the extended warrenty.  Inside of the first year the fridge quit working and I needed it repaired.  Under warrenty it got a new compressor.  As it was stumbling across its first months from when the extended warrenty had expired, again it was dead.  This time the new compressor was going to cost me a whopping $400.  Doing the sensible thing I scrapped the fridge and got another one.

I learn my lessons though, and I learned the hard way not to spend thousands on a piece of shit fancy fridge.  So when it was a pinch and I needed that second refridgerator I looked in the want ads and found a dinousar of a beast that is probably from the seventies that made its way into my home for 50 bucks.   

My dillemma, I’ve got a fridge that runs well and obviously will keep running until a meteor hits it.  It costs me only the electricity cost to keep it.  Its ugly, its old, Its kind of like me.  I really want that new refridgerator and there are lots of benefits to buying it, all except the one benefit I really need.  The one where it saves me money. 

My point is that after watching those recycle your fridge commercials you start thinking its cheaper to get a new fridge.  Its not true.  I looked up the statistics and here’s what I found:  The average refrigerator upgrade from a model ten years old to todays technology saves the owner about six dollars a month.  With a fancy new refridgerator coming in at over a thousand dollars, the interest on the new fridge will cost more than the savings you get from buying it.  Even if I payed cash, (which btw is out of the question) It would take fourteen years to pay for itself.  My last fancy new fridge only lasted four years before it was time to scrap it.  There is no way a fridge I buy today is lasting 14.  Even if the hardware is designed to last that long, which we all know it isn’t (manufacturers are making things cheaper and less durable all the time), the chances that the fridge will be as energy efficient or worth keeping after 10 years are zero. 

The fact that I want a new fridge would justify some of the cost, and the health benefits of having the icemaker and water in the door would justify some more.  Bottom line is that the cost is just too much.  Looks like we won’t be getting a new fridge this year.  The finances just don’t make sense.

As a general theme, my blog over the last few months has been me bitchin about how much things cost.  I’m slowly degenerating into a homeless bum because I can’t afford to live in a home anymore.  Well folks, today thats not going to change…  at least i’m predictable!

On my latest visits to the grocery store I decided a few ripe peaches and a couple of big juicy apples deserved to find thier way into my fridge.  At an on sale price of just about a dollar a pound, these few fruits set me back a small fortune.  At present my household has three people in it, and there’s also a small food expense from when my sister and her two children come over to visit.  They can’t afford to live any more than I can, so I can’t feel bad about them joining us once or twice a week for dinner. 

I believe the us department of agriculture reccomends five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.  Thats what the commercials say.  Lets see now, three people times five servings at a buck per serving minimum works out to fifteen bucks a day.  Thats not total food cost, thats just for the fruits and vegetables.  I think we all know that eating enough of the right foods helps keep us healthy.  You can probably guess that my family is overweight.  We don’t get the right amount of the right foods even though we would like to.  A steady diet of ramen noodles, macaroni and cheeze, and whatever meat we can catch has us right in line with the national average.  (2/3 of the us population is technically obese.)

It wouldn’t hurt so much if I didn’t know what I was missing.  I was fortunate to grow up in a home with an orchard in the back, a large producing garden, Fruit dryers and canning equiptment in the basement, ect.  As a child I never once missed the opportunity to get my fill of fruits and vegetables, and honestly I wasn’t one of those kids you had to trick into eating his vegetables.  As evidence of this, my mother has photographs of me from way back before I can remember.  Except for bits and pieces I can barely remember highschool.  In these photgraphs I’m skinny.  I don’t ever remember being skinny, but those pictures can’t be fake.  In my teen years I was thin as a twig.

What this train of thought got me onto today is that I’m going to plant my backyard full of fruit trees.  I figure with the trends the way they are, today peaches are $1 a pound on sale.  By the time five years passes by my trees will be starting to produce and peaches will have reached $2 a pound at least.  If I can garner a few hundred peaches, a few hundred apples, along with the apricots and pears,  I could easily produce a few thousand dollars worth of fruit in just my small back yard.  I’m not thinking of selling them on the street side, but I bet it will reduce my family’s food costs something handsome.  There’s also the added benefit of my family getting more healthy while the rest of the world around me gets fatter and uglier.

I may have to stockpile guns and ammo,  five years from now when gas prices meet gold prices and people are robbing each other to survive, I’ll need to protect my trees from bandits…

There are many who have fallen prey to drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes.  I’m all for legalizing these things. Even the hardcore drugs ought to be available to anyone of an adult age who wants them.  Sure it seems like a strange stance given all the known problems it causes.  I don’t personally do any illegal drugs, but I am for them.  Why you ask?

Its really simple.  When I’m out looking for a job, or I’m looking for a promotion, or to start a business, or even to find a good woman, there’s a hell of a lot of competition out there.  Millions of other jon doe’s out there who are from a mass standpoint indestinguishable from myself.  As much as it seems cruel I think mass drug use, would help create a separation and an edge whereby I can get ahead.  Perhaps its wrong of me, but if a few thousand of my closest competitors are too busy getting high to show up for a job interview I think that helps my chances of getting that really high paying job.  I say let them all get stoned…  I suppose I really am a heartless bastard.  I’d happily sell almost anyone down the river for a few bucks. 

I guess thats not really all there is to it.  I also belive that as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else people should be able to do whatever they damn well please.  I’m all for taking the speed limit signs off the leftmost lane on the freeway.  I don’t really care if gays get married.  More power to em.  What people choose to do is their business so long as they aren’t injuring someone else.  If someone wants to smoke a bowl its cool with me, they just damn well better not have kids in the house.  If a gay couple wants to get hitched amen to that.  They just shouldn’t be entitled to any tax breaks I’m not entitled to.  As a matter of fact I think the government shouldn’t recognise marriage “at all.”  Let people get married in church or wherever if they want to, but when it comes to paying taxes, everyone should be billed the same.  

Now I’m off on a rant,  Damnit, if your family has seven people in it, mom dad and five kids you should pay seven times the taxes of the single guy down the street.  What is the purpose of taxes?  Well its a grouping of a small portion from everyone to fund larger things that everyone uses.  (schools, roads, fire departments, police, ect)  If your god damned family has seventeen kids you can bet they use a hell of a lot more public services than I do.  Thats for damn sure. 

Sorry went off topic,  Perhaps I need to get high to blow off some of this anger.  But really sometimes the need to self medicate is overwhelming.  I Didn’t really have anything to say in this week’s blog, just needed a good rant.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have been following my blog, you would know that my financial situation has been slowly declining to the point of desparity.  I spent some time looking at taking night school classes thinking if I did a bit of schooling I might be able to get excited about going to work more.  The fact is that there is little hope of supporting myself and my family with Just one 40 hour a week job. 

I’ve owned a small CNC milling machine for years.  I bought it thinking I could use it to make printed circuit boards.  I don’t really know whether the problem with my home business idea was my lack of skill, the machines lack of capability, or a combination of both.  It definatly wasn’t well thought through.  At first I thought it was me, but as I’ve spent some time learning I think the machine may be more to blame than I initially thought.  Regardless it failed.  I did catch the bug and interest in CNC machining.  The G code was almost second nature to me, given my computer programming skills.  My thought was to take a few night school courses to bring my mechanical knowledge up to par with my computer knowledge.  Then I was going to try to get an entry level job loading CNC machines.  Mostly I figured if I got into doing something I had an interest in I might be able to tolerate having to work a second job.

I also took some time these last few weeks looking at job postings both online and locally.  I haven’t put any applications in as of yet though.  As much as I hate to admit it, I really do well at my current job.  I won’t say I like it, since I hate work in general.  They pay me better than anyone with my no college background and I’m near the non-management payroll cap.   I’d feel bad asking for a raise, since I’m already so far above the curve.  (I easily make 30% more than most of my coworkers.)

Anyhow, I’ve tried not to give any indication that I might be looking for other employment to my bosses.  However it seems the dread thats been painted on my face of late must have been obvious.  A few weeks ago I came up with a temporary solution to keep me afloat financially.  By working longer shifts and commuting less I can save 20% on travel costs.  I worked out the new schedule with my boss and even though I didn’t tell him this I figured that would make one more day I could work somewhere else should things get too dire.  Anyhow come last friday he called me into the office and offered me a small raise.  (I didn’t ask)

I guess the raise is probably enough to cover the rising cost of gasoline for another year.  Couple that with the savings by working one less day a week and I can probably maintain my current path for a while longer.  I can see that they’re really trying to keep me so its hard to want to go elsewhere.  The problem there is that I see things exactly the way the business sees things.  If one of our locations is losing money we’re better off closing it than keeping the doors open.  If someone isn’t working hard enough we are better off replacing them than trying to convice them to work harder.  Well even though I can see they want to keep me what it comes down to is that I simply will be better off financially if I find other employment closer to home. 

They really want me to stay, and they aren’t underpaying me.  It just isn’t economical for me not to be looking for something better.  So now even though I don’t want to quit, and they don’t want me to quit I need to.  I just have to feel like an ass when I’m looking for a new job.  Somehow I think I would be better off feeling under appreciated.