It's Been A While

It's been a while since I put anything up here. Longer than I ever wanted to go with out putting something, anything up. What's going on? Life. That's what's going on. I've been working on the repo house we bought, mowing all the grass at 3 houses, and trying to hold my head high after a year and eight months with out any gainful employment. I believe I have well over 200 resumes floating around with the polite rely of "no thanks" from only 3 of them, the rest are mum on the subject of employment. I keep hearing the jobs situation is getting better but have yet to see anything resembling that statement. I have several income producing ideas that I want to implement but they all require an up front injection of cash. So I'll keep working on the house, mowing grass, getting the curent house ready to sell and keep my fingers crossed.

______________________________________



Things I'm working on.

Repo House known from this day forth as Juniper House

Current House known from this day forth as Kimball House

My Harley, the motor needs rebuilt and the tranny needs replaced

A Ranger model 103-2 .22 rifle

My M1A pistol grip stock

2 lawn mowers so I can keep the grass mowed

So even though I don't have a job per se, I do have things to do.



_________________________________________



Now for the meat.



I found this over at Drudges place. The Health Care Bill has a slimy little secret added to it, now all small businesses and self employed will be required to submit a 1099 form listing all goods and services they aquire over 600 dollars. This is so the gatekeepers of the healthcare bill, the IRS can tap into a previously unknown resource. These bastards won't be happy until they have taxed every business out of existence.



Are you a menber of an HOA (home owners association)? Keep up on your association dues! I have never liked HOA's and now I like them less over this. Evidently if you fall behind on your dues they have the ability and the desire to foreclose on your home! And they will do it faster than a bank will. So if your are letting the dues slide by to satisfy the mortgage, the HOA assholes will slip up behind you and take your home.



Related to my intro, take a look at this graph. I think it's wrong though. I have been off for 20 months and I know a bunch of folks that have been off way longer than the 25 weeks shown on this graph. In Missouri they have 5 tiers of unemployment. Not any longer, 3, 4, and 5 have been discontinued. There are only 2 tiers until the State can get a federal cash infusion. As a result of this everyone in MO that's on tier two is on their last financial leg until the funds are boosted or they/we can find a job.



___________________________________



Here's something I do very rarely. Post a picture of a woman. But as my header says I'll put anything I want on this site. I was watching Redeye the other morning and this goddess was a guest. Author, Imogen LLoyd Webber. I have a thing about attractive women with accents. Southern, Texan, Austalian...... Not only is Imogen attractive she has the most delightful British accent.

Weather woes. Gun seizures. Zimbra and Mediacom

We have finally made it out of the deep freeze! The last couple of days have been in the 30's and 40's and it appears that the next few days will all be like this. Now we have rain coming though. Add the rain to the melting 15-20 inches of snow and we'll have a midwinter muddy mess. My truck is already cutting furrows in my driveway, my redneck, hillbilly, nearly illegal gravel driveway. Really, it's almost illegal in my town to have a gravel driveway. No more new ones are allowed and it is a violation of city ordinances to repair, improve or add to your current gravel driveway. In other words, when it gets so muddy you can't get in or out, you can't have some more gravel delivered but must bite the bullet and get your drive paved or concreted. As if anyone has a couple to a few grand laying around to do that. Nothin' like bureaucrats at a work.
________________________________________

I keep getting emails about the UN pushing their anti-gun agendas on the US and how gun seizures are imminent. OK, I know the UN is anti-gun, I've know this for years. I have heard all the rumors about gun seizure in this country for years. With something like 200 million known guns in this country, that's a lot of collecting to do. I know there is a thing called NorthCom and supposedly this command is here to enforce the presidents wishes or put a stop to any insurrections in the US. How many of those soldiers that have been fighting for the US are then going to fight the People of the US? 'Cause you KNOW if the government or the UN tries to collect all guns there WILL be a fight. In the mean time, what are you doing to hold off any UN directives on Sovereign States of these United States? Are you in regular contact with your Representatives and Senators, do you belong to any pro-gun groups that lobby congress? If all that fails have you a plan to keep your possessions? Quit talkin' and talkin' about these things and do something about it. Demand that John Bolton be reinstated as the US Ambassador to the UN, demand that the US resist all efforts of the UN to replace US law with UN dictated law.
Or get a GPS and and a shovel and start acting like a techo squirrel.
__________________________________

I hear that the jobs situation is not as good as the government expected it to be. No shit Sherlock. Some of those asshats in government should stay at my house for a while. No job for over a year, no prospect of a job. Excellent resume, great experience, but I keep getting rejected for jobs I have experience in and rejected for jobs that I can do because I have too much experience or no degree. I just received an email saying I was not qualified for the position of .....custodian. Custodian! I have cleaned restaurants, offices, warehouses as well as built offices and warehouses. But I'm not qualified to be a custodian. Several folks in the unemployment office say all I need is a degree. Great, no kidding. CTU online says they can get me a degree in as little as 2.5 years for a tiny little fee of 58,000 dollars. If I had 58 large I would start my own business and say FU to all the corporations that gave me all my experience but now won't hire me as I have no sheepskin.
____________________________________

In an effort to trim our expenses, several months ago we dropped Dish Network for our TV programming, Internet, email and phone service. We went with the local cable service for these things and knocked about 50 bucks off our bill. Great! Well maybe not so great. We have had intermittent problems with the TV reception that has stumped the technicians, we have had no phone service for the last 3 days, and they have converted their email system to a server called Zimbra. I really think a bunch of drunken kindergartners designed Zimbra. If you receive an email with pictures in it you have to click a button to tell it to display the pictures, if you want a full screen view of your email inbox you need to have the advanced version, if you want a calender, you need the standard version, if you want to cut and paste documents to an email, you have to configure the system to allow it and if you want to add a picture to the body of your email, forget it. Zimbra does not support this activity and they don't know when they will. I will say this loud and clear, Zimbra is total crap and MediaCom is total crap for keeping Zimbra. I see major changes come to this household in regards to our Internet needs. You know what's really sad though? There was nothing wrong with the MediaCom email service, nothing.

A whole lotta dealin' going on

On this day in history.......I was born! Cherry Pie is taking me to my favorite Mexican joint tonight where I'll have the Mexican chili over rice. MMMM goood.
____________________________________

Well it seems the fix is in for the senate version of the healthcare bill. A few Senators have been bought off with massive funding going to their states in the name of health care. I'm only talking a 100 million here and a 100 million there. Oh, abortion is back in the bill now. All of a sudden, there are democrats calling foul and other senators going "where's the funding for our states?". One senator is urging an investigation and another is talking a law suit over the deals. So much for hope and change. Some much for clarity and light. We're still hoping for change and it's still dim and dark. And I must say... all LIES! The House and the Senate are filled with lying bags of feces. They wouldn't know a truth if it smacked them in the face every morning.
I really liked the quote the douche bag Nelson from Nebraska made about his sweet deal. It distilled down to this ...I wouldn't have voted for this bill if they hadn't offered me that deal. How sweet is that.? Admitting on camera that he was holding out for the pay off. One good thing has come from all this. Democrat Senator Parker of Alabama is now a Republican. Yep, he changed party over the bs in the healthcare bill and the bs the democratic party has become.
____________________________

The weather guessers are hard at it here in the KC area. One Guesser finally said we won't know about Thursdays weather until it gets here. Way to go! Hell I can do that. When Thursday gets here I'll look out the door and know what the weather is doing. I can probably look out Wednesday evening and look at the moon and know whats going to happen in the next 12-24 hours. I don't need no stinking computer model.
_____________________________

I have been hearing on the TV that the economy is coming up. They say this because home re sales have come up 7 percent. They fail to mention that new home sales are down by 13 percent. I would imagine the home re sales are sales of foreclosures or emergency sales to get out of a house payment. Hell the unemployment situation here is Missouri is so bad that it takes 3-4 weeks to get an decision on your unemployment claim. I ran out of unemployment on November 22. I received a letter on the 23rd saying I was eligible for the federal extension. I called to verify that I had to do nothing further to receive the federal claim. The conversation led me to some other questions so I called back a day or two later and spoke with another person who told me that I didn't need the federal extension as I had a whole new claim to receive. I still have not been cleared for an unemployment claim 30 days later. I was told just yesterday it would be another 3-4 weeks. Turns out the hold up is from the temp agency that placed me for the power plant project I ran last year. When the job was over the temp agency had no further work for me in the area I have experience in. A few weeks later they called me asking me to work in ST. Joseph Missouri (over 50 miles away) for a couple hours a day 5 days a week. I declined as it would only pay my gas and no more. So now we come to this new claim. The temp agency is saying I quit so I have no claim! What bullshit is this? They never placed me for any other job from which I could take home a salary. The only thing they offered was a gas money job. That's it, gas money only. No money for my time, no money for the house payment, no money for groceries. It would only pay for my daily travel expenses i.e. gas, oil, etc. So they say I quit. Come to think of it gas was approaching 4 dollars a gallon at the time. I was driving 50 miles to the power plant and was going through 75 dollars in gas every three days. So that pretty much destroys the 100 dollar a week job they offered. Now if they offered a 10 dollar an hour job within 15 or twenty miles we could get by with that but not with a 100+ mile round trip.
What kinda bullshit is this any way?

A summit. We struck oil! On the dole. Papers and brothers.

The One Acting As President had a "job summit" today. Not with people that actually provide jobs but with top donors to his campaign. Every speech this guy makes sounds more and more phony. He's broken pretty much every campaign promise he made and done everything he said he wouldn't do. This government needs a real fixin'. Get a whole new party in office, people that will do what they say they'll do. If the new guys continue to run a government that continues to steal from the people and lie about everything then it'll be time for a different kind of change. Bring back the Constitution to the governing of the country, bring back a currency backed by something of meaning and substance. Put the power of the States back in the hands of the States. 'Nuff said.
_______________________________

I took Cherry Pie's Caddie to the funshow last weekend and the darn thing started spewing oil. I had to put 2 quarts in when we arrived and when we got home it was 3 quarts low. I took it to the shop today and they found the oil sending unit pukin' oil like a derrick out of control. Sixty Eight dollars later we are back in bidness. I do need to wash the oil accumulation off the back of the car tomorrow.
_______________________________

I received a letter from the Unemployment Office saying I qualify for the federal extension of 13 weeks. I called to confirm I didn't need to do anything different than I had been doing and the individual I spoke to said a check had already been cut for me. Great! I checked the website the next day and it said my claim was denied! I called them back and got a different person after 17 attempts. This person said I still had a regular claim to be utilized! OK, great. I checked the website the next day and found they had me down to claim the extension AND a regular claim! WTF? I checked a couple days later and they have it cleared up...I think.
_______________________________

A short time ago a friend if mine asked if I would serve some papers on one of his deadbeat tenants. He got the paperwork filed for me to be a special process server and I did the deed a couple days later. He was at court today on this issue and he called me from the courthouse. A woman he met there wanted my name and number as she has some deadbeats of her own and needs some papers served. This could turn out to be a pretty good deal as I charge WAY less than the Sheriffs department does so maybe this will make me a little money. I don't generally have too many issues with people. I'm 6'2" and 275lbs. A bearded biker looking dude, but I have a lot of HR type training and have dealt with upper management types for a long time so my appearance usually stops the bs and my demeanor gets the job done professionally.
_________________________________

Oh lordie, what am I going to do on Tuesday evenings now? The Sons of Anarchy ended their second season this week. Man, was it a good one! Last weeks episode was good too. I'd join a club if it wasn't for all the prospect bullshit. A guy I know joined a local club at the age of 50 and after a few years he became their enforcer. They got in a squabble with another club and his brothers said you're the enforcer, take care of it. He went over to take care of business and got his ass handed to him while his "brothers" stood and watched. He has since quit them and is going to head up a chapter of California club that is moving to KC. I wonder what he's going to do with all those tat's of his old club? And the bike that had to be painted in his old club colors? And all the that club jewelry he so proudly wore? Nothing like having brothers to get your back.
_________________________________

27 years. More to come. It's a feast!

Yesterday we all had something to be thankful for. I had something else to to give thanks for. Thursday marked 27 years of wedded bliss with Cherry Pie. Thanks babe, for the best years of my life. You're my wife, partner, confidant, lover and best friend. When I'm ready to tear down someones world you are there to calm me down. Thanks for all you have done.
_________________________________

Well I finally got through to the unemployment folks and I'm all set for another 14 weeks but it seems the government is saying the unemployment situation won't improve until 2012. Any bets? 2012? WTF? I thought all those trillions being pumped into the economy (RIGHT NOW) were going to make everything all right. Oh that's right, all the money went to the big banks who bought other failing banks and then spent the rest of the money on what? Oh that's right its a SECRET! A great big fat secret. A secret that has produced NO jobs. Thanks for nothing Washington. Oh, sorry about that, thanks for the extra 14 weeks of unemployment insurance. I'd rather have had a job instead of another 14 weeks on the dole.
_________________________________

Well the Big Feast was everything I'd hoped for. Lots of food, desserts, drinks and family. And plenty of Jeff Davis Pie. I do need to mention one other thing, Cherry Pie makes the best pecan pie in the world. The deep fried turkey came out great, crispy skin, moist meat and and tender.
Gallons of sweettea were poured, potatoes and gravy by the pound were consumed. MMMMMM.
___________________________________

I'm baaack. Mathews and Tucker, Unemployment, and so on.

The Son and his Bride have been here for the last few days so blogging has taken a backseat. Between all the visiting, traveling, shooting and eating out the site has suffered but suffered for a good cause. We ate so much good food while they were here I will have to fast for a couple days to get back to my usual slim trim 270 pounds. The two of them left this morning at 5 ay em to travel back to Virginia. One leaves on deployment in November and the other leaves in February so we won't have any chance to see them again for a long while. If I can scratch up the funds to do some work on the Harley I will try to ride out there when they get back. A new tranny, cylinder base gaskets and since it will be open I might as well put in fresh pistons while I'm at it.
_________________________________-

I guess a lot has happened over the last few days. It was announced that the deficit grew by 181 billion in July, the House upped the request for jets from 4 for 200 million to 8 for 550 million. I heard on FOX that the deficit is growing by 75 billion every week. That's a lot of money WE have to come up with.
_________________________________

Take a look at this article on Unemployment by the numbers. It breaks down the unemployed and underemployed and gives a good overview of the jobs situation. Not a rosy picture.
_________________________________

Take a look at the video in this link and listen to these two buffoons. Prepare to be angry. One is MSNBC's Chris Mathews and the other is Cynthia Tucker from the Atlanta Journal Constipation. Mizz Tucker believes all opposition to the proposed healthcare and basically any opposition to the Prez is based in racism and douchebag Mathews wants to inject all those people with sodium pentothal until they admit they are racist! These are the kind of fools that are getting their points of view put on tv. What nutjobs, I can't think of any thing remotely civil to say about these two ...these two .... aarrrrghghghhghh!
____________________________________

I sure get a kick out of all the Politicians that are having their asses handed to them at the townhall meetings. This is what politics is supposed to be like. Hold their feet to the fire and get some answers from them. Make them realize they work for us. I am shocked at the brazenness of some of the politicians who have declined to hold meetings because they are scared of their constituents. They need to be removed from office immediately as they are not doing their job.
_____________________________________

I dragged up some memories from a childhood spent in servitude in an agricultural family and canned some picante sauce that I made. That was an experience but it all came back readily. And the sauce is badass good! Oh, I layed in another couple hundred rounds of .22 to replace the ones we shot up. The local Wally World actually had a box of .40 on the shelf as well as two boxes of .357 and 2 boxes of .223. That's the most I have seen there in the last few months. Is the ammo drought ending or was it a fluke that I was there when they had some ammo on the shelf?