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This started out as a comment on Dedicated’s recent article, Road Trip. It kind of, uh… grew.
I suppose I was lucky in that my parents pretty much didn’t care what I did, long as I came back in one piece. It could be due to the fact that I was their 4th, and all the protectiveness was out of their systems a long time ago. In fact, they were never really protective of me. I also only got my driver’s license and first truck when I was 18 (out of sheer laziness), so there was a pretty instantaneous transition from “hey, is it okay…” to “hey, I’m going…”
It always really gets on my nerves, though, when I’ve been on my own for a year and a half now, and I date girls whose parents don’t allow them to do much of anything, or need to know where they are, when they’re there, at all times. My god, this last girl… ech. We were at the mall. Burger King is right across the street from the mall. Yeah. She had to call mum. Both ways. Never, ever, did I have to do any such thing.
I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand how some parents can be so disgustingly overprotective and controlling. Worked out pretty well for my first serious girlfriend, who grew up in a house of bible-thumpers – she moved to CA, got married, got knocked up – and I’m sure daddy still hasn’t figured out that it’s his fault.
I remember college. Everything that we had to go up there for before the semester actually started, I’m pretty sure I was the only frosh around with no parent. I had no need to drag either of them there, and they had no need to be there. It’s not that they didn’t care, it’s because they’ve been through it before, and had no desire to treat me like a child.
I’m just so used to being able to do whatever the hell I want, and for some reason anything to the contrary completely boggles my mind.
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Pending the results of the drug test (which damn well better come back clean), I’ve got the job at the book warehouse/distro center. The pay is $10.61/hr, which is acceptable to me. I updated my budget for the first time in forever, and figure it leaves me about $50 short every month, not including emergency fund contributions (which leaves it $228 short). However, a second job should easily make up for this, so I’m thinking pretty optimistically about it. Plus, once my emergency fund is up to 1K, then I can commit that extra money to debt, and then following in the usual snowballing fashion. So really, as long as I manage to make it to that EF goal (roughly 4 months), I should be in good shape. On paper, anyway.
I’m pretty sure my truck’s registration and inspection are due at the end of this month. I’m not sure it’s even worth it, considering how little I drive the thing. Of course, some people have been telling me to sell it, but that’s not really viable either, as I’ll need it for bad weather, snow, etc. That and the fact that it’s close to worthless.
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I’m still alive, anyway. I’ve been busy doing trivial, mundane things for the past week. Why? Because a week ago I was suspended and demoted. Completely my fault (my inability to wake up in the morning), but I’m trying to turn it into a positive as best I can. The suspension was only for a week, and I was supposed to go back tomorrow, but it looks like I have more time off now. I was supposed to call and confirm my schedule, but didn’t. I still wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with this situation – up, down, left, right, in, or out. So, right now, I’m on call, and have one shift scheduled for the 27th.
Other than that, I’ve been spending this time catching up on things that I’ve fallen way behind on. Again, trivial, mundane, boring things, but ones that need to be done (in my opinion). Heck, I even vacuumed the place for the first time since I moved in (December). I hauled the shop-vac out of storage, checked it out to see if it was set up for dry vacuuming, and put it to work. Unfortunately, the floor attachment is clogged, so I focused on edges and problem areas with the nozzle. Made the place a lot cleaner, and there was a hairball the size of a cat stuck to the filter by the time I was done.
I spent this weekend up in beautiful Sugar Loaf, NY. It was Moo Moo’s 3rd annual Where’s George? gathering. I rode up there last year for it on my old scooter, and rode up again this year on my new one. As always, it was a blast.
Yesterday morning, however, as I was trying to sleep and recover from all the alcohol, sunburn, and severe aches from the ride, the pager went off for a multiple dwelling fire in the city. Somehow, based on dispatch times, it took me 9 minutes to get out and get going, which is pretty amazing considering the speed at which I sprung from bed and got dressed. I spent a full 7 hours on scene, which certainly didn’t help the recovery process. I can tell you this – closing one busy highway in the middle of the city at the intersection of another busy highway is quite the challenge, but I held my own (including procuring a police escort so that 3 oversized loads could divert from their routes). End result – one civilian fatality, two firefighter injuries. One is still hospitalized with a broken pelvis after an occupant he was rescuing more or less jumped down the ladder onto him and they both fell about 20 feet to the sidewalk. The other was my chief, who managed to fall down a flight of steps. He was treated for what I understand to be a broken arm and released.
As for the financial side of things… ahh… well, you know. A week off of work is not something I can afford. However, a mess of new job postings went up the other day, and I have an interview lined up in the morning for pick/pack at a local printing press. No idea on the pay, but if it’s not up to par on what I need to pay my bills and then some, I’m not going to take it – that’s a mistake I’ve made too many times, which has pretty much shot my employment history. I’m about $150 short of rent for the end of the month, and have $250 in the emergency fund. Everything else will have to wait… again. The good thing about this job would be the 4 day work week, which would make it a heck of a lot easier to find a second job.
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Walt Thiessen just wrote a great article entitled “Ron Paul Money Bombs: Not What They Used To Be.” This pretty well sums up part of it:
Instead of raising millions, the final tally board shows that they raised roughly $17,000 combined for 25 or so candidates.
Of course, I recommend reading the entire article. This does very much remind me of a few other, somewhat similar online phenomena:
- The e-gold bubble market going to crap after the cost to rent a bubble site fell through the floor, back in the days when there was really only one prominent distributor. The market very quickly became supersaturated.
- The PTR and PTC industry becoming oversaturated and pretty much falling flat on it’s face. Well, that and all the corruption.
- The Million Dollar Homepage. The original was a success, yes. The million cheap clones, however, only made money for the programmers who coded them up and sold them out at bargain prices.
On the internet, it’s all about being original, and the publicity that goes along with it. The market has become oversaturated with RP money bombs, and now they just don’t matter. No excitement whatsoever.
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Since my sister and her husband moved out from across the hall, I’ve had no internet (obviously, as I’d been mooching off of their network). So, posts will be few and far between – whoopee. Makes it pretty darn difficult to keep track of my finances, too.
No progress on anything, the girl is gone, and I really want to quit my job (but really don’t have another one lined up). Life is great, let me tell you what.
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