Happy Thanksgiving!

A blessed Thanksgiving to all of my readers. As it happens occasionally, it is also my birthday - - 54th, to be exact. Here's a photo of the 54-year old fatman:

I make the skull beads in my hatband from the teeth of my enemies, incidentally. ;-)

Not My Year So Far

Sorry for the absence. I spent last week at the hotel while my car was being worked on - - or not worked on, mostly, the majority of the week it was just waiting to be worked on, and I didn't feel up to posting anything. 2015 was going to be The Year I Acquired A New Car (or newer than 1993, anyway), funded by my tax refund and a little bit of savings, but my old car isn't cooperating in the plan, and wants me to spend it all on itself, instead. And now a tooth is making distressing twinges in my mouth, so that will have to be addressed, as well. Living paycheck to paycheck is biting me in the ass so far in 2015.

Arrival

Retired my old watch after 20+ years, purchased a very similar watch from the same company, L.L. Bean:

Field watch. I have definite prejudices about watches. I want high contrast between the hands and the face for easy reading, I want a date window, and I want a 50's-style expansion band for comfort and easy on/off. Band on this new one is aftermarket, the watch came from Bean's with a leather band. This one is upsized a bit at 42mm, which makes it easier to read with my aging eyes. Let's hope it gives the sort of exemplary service its predecessor did.

Yard Work

Don't much care for it. Spent the last couple of hours filling in holes in the lawn, both literal holes - - one of them 2' wide and 2' deep - - smaller holes and uneven areas of the lawn that cause one to turn an ankle when mowing. We'll need to pick up some grass seed to cover the fill dirt. It's a good day for it, sunny and warm; tomorrow, on the other hand, we're scheduled for rain.

Still At the Hotel

I've been here the entire week, having driven in on Monday evening. Outside the weather is sunny and 50 degrees, so that the 8-10" of snow we got this week is melting away like the Wicked Witch of the West. Ventured outside today to go to my car, see if it would start - - it did. I went to deposit my paycheck and pick up some lunch. I'll still be here tonight, working an extra shift; I expect to head home sometime tomorrow morning.

Hopefully this will be the last of the winter storm events this year.

Car Update

Two alternators and a radiator later I'm back on the road *knock on wood*. Apparently there was a pinhole in the radiator spraying fluid into the alternator; I don't know if it was what caused the original alternator to fail, or if my nephew punctured it when he replaced the alternator the first time. The pinhole was discovered by the neighbor mechanic, who owns a shop down the road. He gave me the neighbor's labor charge of $100, bless him. Combined with $100 to pay for the new radiator and $100 to pay for a new battery, I've spent $400 on the car in the last month. Had to pawn a pistol to pay for today's work; I'll redeem the pawn two weeks from now.

Stupid Car.

Well, I really can't blame the poor car, I've been the one neglecting the maintenance for all these years, and now it's caught up with me. The car is a 1993 Nissan Sentra, my only means of transportation, and it's been very reliable for a lot of years with minimal maintenance, but old cars are subject to the same wear and tear of old age that we all are, and the Sentra is no different. I got paid a week ago and spent much of my paycheck buying a new battery and alternator and getting them installed, and I don't get paid again until this coming Friday, and that will mostly go to rent. Something is causing the battery to drain; I drove on the new battery for a week, and the car quit this evening on the way to work. I think I can get the battery charged and drive it to a garage tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest, but I haven't a clue as to what is causing the battery to drain and a mechanic will have to figure that out. I have a couple of pistols to pawn that I hope will cover it. Over on the sidebar is a brand new Paypal tip jar button. If you're feeling generous and would like to help out, I'm not too proud to ask.

Being poor sucks; it sucks even more when you know that no one is to blame but yourself for not establishing and maintaining good saving and spending habits. And the prospect of digging myself out of the hole I'm in is daunting -- no debt to speak of, but living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Just give me one good year, God, would you?



Update: Got the battery charged and the car started right up, drove it to a neighbor's garage. Turns out that the new alternator has already gone bad. The alternator was brand new, so a replacement is free, I'll just have to pay whatever labor the neighbor charged. Hopefully it will be the neighbor rate.

Apologies For Light Posting

Been busy since last Thursday with car problems; easy enough to fix when you have money, not so much when you don't. A new battery and a new alternator later, I might be back to the status quo ante. So much for buying a new lawnmower and other lawn care products this month.

Things You Find On the Internet

A picture of me from my Navy days, in training school at NTTC Corry Station, Pensacola:

I'm standing on the left side of the photo, with a full head of blond hair and glasses, under the boots of the wall art, next to the CPO. These are Cryptologic Technicians and the class was Outboard/Tacintel, which was a Navy HFDF (High Frequency Direction Finding) system for locating enemy ships via their radio communications. Tacintel was a satellite communications network, a primitive internet.

OK, It's Time...

...to trim my toenails.

Pretty Saturday Outdoors

Beautiful spring day here in the Carolinas. I've spent the last couple hours cleaning up a segment of the yard that had been allowed to deteriorate by the previous tenants: dead grass, unraked leaves, poorly placed stepstones, weeds, mud. First task was to pull up the stepstones and get them out of the way. Then raking and a little weeding; finally laying down grass seed. I took some "before" pictures; if the grass comes up well over the next month or so, I'll take some "after" pics and post them.

Granddad

Mother's father. Second-generation German immigrant. Born and raised in the Pittsburg, PA area. Served in the US Navy as a yeoman onboard the presidential yacht Mayflower, and after his discharge became a policeman in the Pittsburg suburb Mt. Lebanon. Here he is on his Harley:



I think his service revolver was a Smith & Wesson K-38 with a 6" barrel, but don't hold me to it. Only saw it once; he kept it on a top shelf of his closet. He told me the single-action notch had been filed off, making it a DAO revolver.

He retired to Florida and spent his senior years golfing and bowling. He was known as "Whitey," although his name was Arthur William. Never asked my mom how he got the nickname "Whitey," I guess now I'll never know. He wore a toothbrush mustache all his life; grew it before it became associated with Adolf Hitler, and apparently never felt it necessary to shave it off because of that.

I don't know for sure how much German he spoke; the only bit of the language I ever heard him speak was the old grace before meals:

Gott Sei Dank, für Speis’ und Trank,

für alles Gute das Du, der Herr, bereitet hast. Amen.


(God be thanked, for food and drink,

For all is good that you, oh Lord, have given. Amen.)


He didn't curse much, unless he stubbed his toe or barked his shin, at which point he'd mutter under his breath God-damned son of a sea cook!

He was a good man.

Apologies For Light Posting

Been down with a case of diarrhea, so have been in my bed most of the day. Contemplating calling off work, which I almost never do.

Y'all stay safe out there.

Pre-Dawn Musings

It's foggy this morning here in the Charlotte area. The air is still and moist as I step out onto the back porch while the dog goes about her business. Over in the bushes a catbird squalls. It's not cool yet here in the first week of September, although a cold front approaching promises cooler weather in the next couple of days.

Summer lingers. The lawn needs mowing, but is so wet from the frequent rain that it's a chore to cut, and seems to spring back up almost overnight. The neighbors to one side of us seem to have surrendered to the grass and are apparently waiting for fall to take care of it. They're transplants from Pennsylvania with a Pittsburg Steelers banner displayed from a pole on their front porch. My sister refers to them as Yo Gabba Gabba and Yo Gabba Mama.

The quiet here in this new neighborhood is pronounced compared to our old house, sited on a main road. No tractor-trailers shake this house, as they did the old one. Going out to the mailbox isn't a case of taking your life into your hands here, and it's unlikely the mailbox will be knocked over by careless motorists as the one at the old place was more than once. And no, no one ever had the common human courtesy to stop, apologize or even leave a note; hit and run, and a murdered mailbox lying in the grass to be replaced.

Hurry up, fall. Summer's been miserable.

The New Neighborhood

We moved this past month, as I think I noted here in the blog. One of the neighbors rides his young daughter around the neighborhood on the riding lawnmower every night, they just went by as a matter of fact, with the mother driving tonight. I find it very endearing.

The Lords of Convenience

Typing this on a huge new laptop I purchased from my nephew Jeremy. He had it cleaned up before he brought it to me. I uninstalled the McAfee antivirus that was on it and installed Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free, unobtrusive and easy to use. Also installed Pidgin for instant messaging, and am currently installing Lord of the Rings Online, which I have been unable to play since my desktop went out a couple of weeks ago.

Here's the cool part: I installed Google Chrome to be my primary browser, and since I had previously installed it on my defunct desktop computer, Google was able to import all of my bookmarks from the Google servers. All my bookmarks are here and ready to use. I'm loving it.

In Other News...

...we have completed our move to another house. It's another rental, but a smaller house (only two of us now, my sister and myself, so that's not a problem) in better condition, not on a major road (thank all the gods) and rent about $200 lower than we've been paying. This one has a 1-car garage that is loaded with our excess belongings, they will be weeded down and some of them sold this fall (when it's cooler) in a yard sale. Turned over the keys to the old house to the property owner. A page is turned.

We're still in the same general area of NC, the suburbs of Charlotte.

Don't want to do this again for the foreseeable future.

Busy...

...moving to a different rental house not far from where we were living. Doing it all ourselves, so packing up, moving, unpacking.

Not much time for blogging right now. My apologies.

Not Feeling the Motivation

Not to blog, anyway. We (my sister and I, and dog and cat) are in the process of moving, and when you live from paycheck to paycheck with no savings that isn't a pleasant experience, not when you have to pack up about 17 year's worth of possessions. Too many of mine are books, and I need to winnow the library drastically, because most of them I am just not going to re-read, or even use for reference.

So...I'll blog when I'm in the mood. Don't know how often that will be.

OK, Tax Returns Filed

Got my W2's when I got to work last night, and just finished e-filing with TurboTax for the third year. Didn't have to pay a cent to file, either federal or state. Getting a big refund for the first time in years, which is a good thing. I'm satisfied.