camaro
Topic: Joe
Joe's friend Cody has a 1989 Camaro.  His father bought him a '66 Impala, so he no longer needs the Camaro and gave it to Joe.  Chad had to come over and work on it to get it running.  Thank goodness that we have a mechanic in the family. For a car that age it is in fair shape.  He has plenty of time to get it fixed the rest of the way.  A little body work and the heater blower is missing.  We hope to get it home this weekend and get it titled and so forth.  Joe did get an F in Algebra and so he is grounded. He does really well at the classes that he likes, but slacks in the classes he doesn't.

House woes
Mood:  sad
Topic: Vanessa

At the 11th hour a monkey wrench has been thrown into the works for Eric and Vanessa.  Everything looked to be ready to close on the house in Camden today.  Yesterday Chase Bank sent a rep out to inspect the house.  Now they say that they want an escrow set up to do some of the fixup. So needless to say they are disappointed about this.  So they are going to have to negotiate if they still want to go after this house. Eric is not happy with the realty company anyway. They waffled on the water being turned on. Turns out that they previous owners owed a water bill and so they were delaying turning on the water because they didn't want to pay it.

 

Easter

Good Easter weekend all in all. Weather has been cruddy, but the weekend was passable. We were even able to go outside and catch some fresh air after eating.  Elaina came along and just had a good time. She did not want to come inside when we got back home. Went down to the bridges and she had fun throwing rocks in the creek. Rode in the wagon and was even trying to stand up in the wagon - not a good idea.

 Every one was out Easter Sunday, just at different times.  So we got to see everyone thru out the day. Becky wondered if she made too much food, but it worked out just about right by the time the day was done.

Eric and Vanessa won't be closing on the first. But sometime in April.  So it will be several weeks more before they can move in. They are definetly excited about their first place. 

 

blizzard of '08

Well I guess it wasn't officially a blizzard.  But close - about a foot of snow and high winds.  Enough to keep us snowed in all day Saturday.  It brought back memories of 77-78. We played xbox monopoly - even got Becky to play.   Becky made several trades with Eric - but none with me. I had the first set of houses, but Eric kept accumulating property and so he eventually won. She accused me of pouting when I lost.  Then we played Civiliation on the lan, but couldn't finish in time to determine a winner.  All in all it was good weekend just stay home and snuggle.

The next day Elaina got out in the snow a little.  Vanessa pulled her around in a sled and made her some snowballs to throw. She did not want to come back inside.  

Eric and Vanessa have made an offer on a house in Camden.  It is a ranch style home and is in walking distance of the elementary school.  It is in fairly good shape and just needs a few minor repairs.  With the housing market slowing down, now is the time to be a buyer.  If they get it for the price they offered, it should be a good deal.

Chad and Sarah are still busy with wedding plans for the 31st of May. I am sure they will be glad when all of this is over. 

 Joe is doing drivers ed right now.  A friend of his has a camero with a v-6 in it and they are going to let Joe have it.  We are going to get a starter for it and see if it runs OK first.

 

farm - stress relief.

 

Well one of the reasons that I do the part time farming is that it gets your mind off of work and gets you involved in menial tasks.  So working on fences, working on equipment helps get you mind off of things, plus gives your body a work out. This past week I got too much of both.  Cut some firewood, but got the truck stuck leaving the field.  So got the tractor out and got it stuck too. So all I could focus on Sunday afternoon was how to get the blankety blank tractor out of the blankety blank mud. 

 The top part of the ground had thawed, but under that top layer, the ground was still frozen hard.  So the bucket on tractor couldn't dig down under that layer of frozen dirt. And the ruts had thawed enough that the mud made it hard to get traction.  Vanessa came down and gave Joe and I a hand getting it out. We dropped bricks and stuff down in the mud so that the tires could get traction.  What a way to spend an otherwise pleasant afternoon.

Did get to meet Eric's friend, Matt Apple, over the weekend.  A pleasant guy, he is a graduate assistant football coach over at Findlay. Played some computer games and hung out. 

Joe = 16
Mood:  celebratory

Well the youngest has finally turned 16.  And to boot it was a snow day, so he got to stay home and play world of warcraft all day.  He still has to do drivers school, then he can get his license. Not sure if he will use Chad's car afterall or not.  He may have a lead on a camero from his friend Cody.  He did get in a fight the other day.  The other kid started it and Joe finished.  Still has to do a Saturday school. 

 

tractor owie
Joe got the tractor stuck on ice.  There are some ruts going into the field by the schoolhouse. They filled with water and it froze.  Joe got down in the ruts and couldn't get out. Vanessa tried to help out and ended up taking a tumble when she stepped down from the tractor. I guess her foot snagged on something when she dismounted. She took a tumble and now has a nasty bruise on her elbow.  They finally got it loose and put away.

hay

We have a standup water faucet out by the barn.  Joe was feeding the cows last night and  accidently dropped a round bale off of the bucket loader of the tractor.  It rolled and hit it, breaking it under ground.  When I installed it years ago from the house, I fed it straight off the house plumbing with no cut off.  So this morning I hooked up a cut off valve and left it turned off. This spring I will have him dig it up so that I can make a permanent repair. 

work woes
Mood:  down

Here at work it is like being on death row.  Everyone in our department is expecting to get the axe sometime in 2008, we just don't know when.  So morale is as low as I have seen it. I describe it as being in charge of the crew shovelling coal in the number 4 boiler on the Titanic. It's hard to tell folks to keep shovelling harder when the water is around your ankles. 

 Management gave that dismal announcement in the first week of the year, but no further news is forth coming. So rumors are flying left and right. It's hard to keep track of them all. I wish they would give out some information, a time table, numbers, something.  A lot of folks are feeling like mushrooms...

 Attitudes seem to differ. One person stated that they want to be like the orchestra on the Titanic - playing until the deck slips under the water. Another said, it doesn't matter I am getting let go anyway so I'll do the minimum until they lay me off. I am with the orchestra folks - I'll be able to keep my head held high if I am among those let loose.

I look for things to start happening soon. They are deciding on an offshore vendor to do our jobs.  Then there will be a training/ramp up time. Then we will no longer be needed....

Chelsea is back at school at Sinclair. She is still working/studying and staying on her own.  We generally see her on the weekends. She did stop in last night for Vanessa's 25th birthday.  Vanessa is doing well as is Elaina.  Joe is doing OK, he is going to be a student aid for chemistry. So he must have some aptitude for that. His studies are going much better right now. Maybe he is getting more mature.  Chad is fine too, he and Sarah are working out plans for the wedding.

customer service
Mood:  irritated
I am fed up with customer service. Wouldn't it be nice to call for help and actually have the phone answered by a real person instead of silicone sam the automated answer man or his wife - silicone sally? How about if the first person you spoke with could actually help you with your problem? A person feels like they are on a telephone merry go round as they are transferred from department to department.

And don't get me started on the nationality of the person answering the phone, most often Peter is actually Pierre and Ralph is actually Raul. I guess they think that Americanizing their names will fool you into thinking that you are actually speaking to someone down the street, not from the other side of the world who could care less if the stupid American gets their problem fixed or not. They dutifully follow their answer trees and when the tree says to transfer you get transferred to Department X, and now you are talking to David (actually Darhan) who is probably in the next cube over and just has a different set of answers on his tree, and guess what - his answers won't help with your question either.

It boils down to a battle of wills. They hope to grind you down until finally you realize the futility of ever getting help and give up. Phone rates and foreign labor are cheap. So they can flip you around from person to person for pennies a day. The only thing you have on your side is persistance. The hope that thru some random process you will be connected with the right person at the right time and they can answer your question.

I am posting this after spending 35 minutes with a cellular company - Sprint. I was transferred 5 times and finally the person knew what to do and it took like a minute to tell me what to do. But I recently did similiar stints with a Aetna - a health insurance company and Skyway - a satellite company. It's an epidemic.