It is December, and I'm hot.

It is 82° in my house, with the windows wide open, the sliding glass door open as far as it can, with a fan placed in the window trying to bring in some cool air.  I miss the crisp cool air in the north, this house is always too hot.  It will probably be another three hours before it reaches the 70s..  

Reality is an illusion.

When I was in fourth grade, I remember writing these words as I created a very simple picture on an Apple 2e.  I remember a teacher commenting on how I was too young to know that.  I also remember printing it, and having it hang on my  bedroom wall for years.  It was something, I would later find Einstein had written.  I don't dare place my intellect to the levels of his, I imagine I am probably lower than average.

It was just something that had dawned on me, in my youth.  It has always stayed with me, a fundamental truth of perception.

I don't know why I am going on about this, I suppose I just want to keep my blog going by adding a bit here and there.  There really isn't very much to update, no adventures, no losses, no major wins.  Just saving a bit for Christmas and thereafter hopefully fixing up my sailboat.

$50 was too much

Today I helped move a hot tub from the back yard of a gentleman's yard to the front yard and loaded it into a trailer.  There were four of us there, the owner, two coworkers and myself.  It took all of an hour, after which he treated us to some ice tea and friendly conversation.

When it came to the end, he asked how much we should charge.  We all told him we were not sure, he offered $100, $75 or $50.. the others agreed to $50 but I felt it was too much.

I took it though, but now I feel like crap.  I should have told him no, but then I'm not sure how my coworkers would feel and if they would have felt obligated to take less as well.  Then there is the fact that we are so poor and it would help with Christmas presents for our kids.

I dunno, this is not the sort of person I am though.  $50 was just too much money, for a job that was this easy.. I'm used to making $8 an hour for doing similar work.  I feel like I've taking advantage of him, I don't know how people can do this to others without any remorse.

Last week, I was offered a tip for doing my job and turned it down.  That is the sort of person I like being, this.. it was just greedy.  I dunno, I have little else to write about and this has been on my mind all night.

I got a job!!!

Wow, it took long enough.  After probably thousands of applications, I found a real job, where I make a difference in people's lives.  I've been working there part time for the past month, but did not want to post until I past the month mark, and was accepted by the employees and employer.

I know that is silly, but I really did think I would jinx myself.  You have to figure, four years of trying with extremely limited success has to wear on the psychology of someone lol.

At any rate, it is working at a thrift store (no names, don't want to jeopardize the job just in case) that sells merchandise to help the poor.  I can actually feel good about going to work, because my labor is helping out someone and it is honest.  The pay is only slightly over minimum wage, at $8.00 an hour.. but I am fine with that.    It is 30 hours a week, and for someone who lives as frugal as I do it is a lot of money.

Labor Ready is hard work, it is inconsistent and you are sometimes treated like garbage.  I would suggest it to people who are as desperate as I was though.  The company doesn't pay much for the effort you put in, but it is work.  I would also suggest to seek out filling out surveys, even though the pay is lousy.. check out survey police on google, to find reviews on the different sites.  Be weary of scammers out there, never spend money to make money on these sites.  Most of all, I wish any of you going through hard times the best of luck.



After we catch up on a few bills, fix up our girls rooms, fix our central A/C, and save for Christmas the boat will start resuming repairs.

Family comes first of course.

Second day at labor ready

Ouch, it hurt.  This time, we were at Saint Leo college and the work involved moving two desks, two large night stands, two dressers, and a large cabinet to each dormitory room.  Oh, this was mostly on the second floor, with no elevator.

Four straight hours, of lifting things up to a second floor took a major toll on me.  Mind you, I stayed on the stair well most of the time lifting the furniture up the stairs over and over again.  People would cart the furniture to the bottom of the stairs where I and others would grab it, we would climb the stairs with the furniture, place it on other carts where they would be pushed away by other people.  This was a non stop flow, we would get to the top of the stairs with the furniture, and more would be waiting for us at the bottom.  There were many times where I had to stop for a few seconds, catch my breath, drink some water get yelled at, and get back at it.  By the time it hit 12:00 we finally had a break, the hour promised to us for the nine hour day.

I drank a bit of Gatorade felt better, and the next three hours we repeated the process.  The last hour we went from room to room, taking the furniture out of the cardboard and throwing it in the recycling bin.

Two weeks ago I weighed in at 257, today I was 242.

Yeah, the labor is that hard.  I'm sticking with it though, I know it will get easier as my body adjusts.

The sad thing though, is that for working that hard I only made $54 for eight hours..

First day at labor ready

Well, I had my first job at labor ready.  It was on a garbage truck, I was the guy hanging on the back tossing all of the garbage in the truck.  It is a lot harder than I thought it would be, I've got bruises all over my arms from bumping into the truck.

Much respect to the garbage men out there, it is incredibly tough work.  I made it about four hours before I started to feel exhausted, dizzy, and out of breath.  At 250lbs I am incredibly out of shape, I think I may have been suffering from heat exhaustion.  At that point, I kept having micronaps on the back of the truck clinging on as hard as I could.  I ultimately decided to inform the driver that I couldn't do it for much longer and they should contact another person to take over.  I stayed another two hours working on the back while waiting for my replacement.

I was afraid I was going to pass out and fall off the truck, there isn't much room back there it is basically just a step you stand on, and you hold on to a few bars.  Going 40mph at times, while feeling really dizzy and all the strength being sapped out of you can be a frightening experience.

To top it off, I have huge blisters on my feet from going to Disney world last week, they got much worst after this ordeal and now I can't walk.

Labor ready was top notch about the whole ordeal, they told me they would find something else, I'm gonna take off tomorrow though in the hopes that my feet heal enough.

Woot, another job!

As I had planned a few days back, I decided to give Labor Ready a shot.  I already am getting phone calls for work, so I am once again gainfully employed.  I am a bit worried, as this is one of the lowest rungs in the work force.

I don't mean to sound discriminatory here, I am a poor person after all.  I just know that at this level, we have criminals, and people that are here due to extremely poor life decisions.  Last week, when I went in to apply there was a guy there talking loudly on his cell, complaining about how he was fired for doing drugs on the job.  That is the sort of thing that worries me, people with a nasty attitude on drugs, first because I would rather not deal with an idiot that is prone to violence, and second because I don't want to rely on someone at a work site who is drugged up and not paying attention.  I really don't want to deal with some sicko scumbag either, nor do I want to have people trying to do criminal activities near me.

I hope to find more people working there such as myself, live and let live types, who are there more so because conflicts of schedule, or are just down on their luck.  If I am to believe what I have read on the internet, a lot of people that work there are felons, crack heads, and all sort of nasty.  I don't know, perhaps I am lucky because I live in a nice town.  Outside of that one guy that was fired, most of the people I saw there were nice.

On the plus side, I have a job where I can work whenever I want.  I will be outside, doing hard labor, so I will lose weight, I will be learning new skills, and we may just be able to have air conditioning throughout the house for the summer.

For now, I am going to be assigned to working on the back of garbage trucks, slinging the garbage.  I don't mind that, to be honest.  It is honest work, it may be harder than working on the phone, I'll smell trash all day, but at the very least I won't feel like it by trying to con people out of their money.

The unfortunate part is, that is considered overflow work.  I will be on call for when someone calls out, or feels like a day off.  So, on the days where I get no call I am to report to a branch at 5:30 in the morning and be assigned work.  From what I have been told, there is more work than they know what to do with.  To be honest, I am excited to learn new trades.

I really hope there is work on boats, such as fisherman.  That would be really cool.

Outside of the employment scene, I am going to have to take off a semester from school.  I hate to do this, but I am paying out of pocket as I don't want to collect a lot of debt.  It is about $800 for six credit hours if you include the books, and at this point I just can't afford it.

I hate to do so, because I still have college algebra to take and it is best to take your algebra courses one after another.  I also want to get a bit more in programming.  I should be able to afford the winter semester though, as I will be saving up.

The boat is doing well, I've seen some coleman 5hp long shaft outboards that retail for around $500 new and have been considering purchasing one.  I have a feeling my boat will be in the water soon, and can't wait to take my wife and kids out on it.