Easy Come Easy Go.

Between a AutoZone, a grocery store, and all the bills that need to be paid by the 10th of the month my paycheck is already gone. Normally I try to put 10% of my paycheck into my savings account, but I decided to hold off on that this time. On top of that the Fabulously Gay Ex Roommate came by to pick up some more stuff finally. Of course he used to take care of the cable bill and now that is my responsibility. He noted the bill is due by Tuesday. Tuesday! It just came in the mail last Tuesday.

The last few months I've been using the rental checks as money to go into my savings account only. I didn't want to life off of FGR's money because I knew it was going away. While my bills seemed to be okay I have this gut feeling that something may be wrong. I decided to put my finances into a spreadsheet and get a feel for where my money is going. I only have November and half of October done, but once I put in more of this year I wonder if I'm not going to like the answers. Perhaps I can get rid of cable again.

How To Survive Black Friday.

For those who are about to go into retail battle for your cheap deals may I suggest a good strategy to get through the day.

A-M-A-Z-O-N-DOT-C-O-M

I avoid the malls, the people, the insanity, and it gets delivered to me usually for free. That's Christmas shopping I can get into!

Things To Be Thankful For.

As pessimistic and jaded as I am I do feel the need to be thoughtful on occasion. I must remind myself that things could be far far worse!

1. I do have a job in the legal field that pays my bills. Sure I don't like the job, the commute, the clientele, but I recall being unemployed around 2 years ago and wondering how was I going to survive and how was I going to make use of this shiny, but apparently useless degree I had. What am I thankful for, I'm now at a place where I can start planning for the next stage of my career and I have the luxury of time.

2. I have a family that loves and supports me. I may not relate to them very much but we do tend to help each other. Without their support throughout my life and especially through these past few years I would be in a far worse situation than I am now.

3. Doghound! It is obvious Doghound is in the final fall and winter of his life and is unlikely to make it to the next sunny spring day. So every time I find Doghound at my parents' home I make sure I pet him and play with him. No matter how bad a day I've had if I put Doghound in my lap and just pet him I will feel much better. I'm thankful for the fact Doghound makes me feel better so I better enjoy him for the time we have left together.

4. Thanks to the internet and eHarChemtach.com I'm dating again. Sure there are dates with no chemistry or only one of use feels something or I never want to see her again and she's still stalking me, but hey at least I'm in the market for female companionship. While I keep debating if I should hold off on dating again until I have a job with less of a commute so I have more free time at least I can write a food and coffee shop guide to Big City now.

5. The Internet. It provides me with information about things I like and the ability to describe the insaneness of humanity. While I'm not perfect I'm thankful for the fact I'm not as crazy, stupid, or useless as those people! Thanks to the internet I get to maintain my sanity.

I'm sure other people have more selfless and altruistic things to be thankful for. Eh I'll take what I can get. Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

The Logic Of Life.

Okay Small Town HR says I have to use my vacation time before the end of the year or else I'll lose it. So I need to find a day here and there before the end of the year to suck up what little vacation time I have accrued. We already have Thanksgiving and Friday off. There are no hearings scheduled for Wednesday. Hey why not take this Wednesday off and get a 5 day weekend?

I could get so much done in my real life by taking a day off. I can get to all the places I need to get to, but can't due to being at work. Cool!

So I'll be going into the office on Friday and possibly Saturday. Why? Without clerks, hearings, phone calls, people wondering in, and the normal chaos I can get more work done in 4 hours this Friday than I get accomplished in 3 or 4 days. I have several piles of files in my office the courts expect to be resolved. We're far too overworked and understaffed. To get anything accomplished means I put in far more hours than I want to put in.

Take a vacation day to not be in the office and go into the office on a day I already have off. Makes perfect sense right?

Maybe one day I'll have a job where I can take 5 days off and actually enjoy them.

I Dont Know, Can We Stipulate To Contempt?

If you lay the factual basis out, then yes contempt can be agreed to by all parties. If only more of my opponents were like that.

This idiot could have helped himself out in so many ways, but instead his levels of motivation and common sense were very low. I seriously can't understand the stupidity of some people. Oh well.

Single (At Home) At Last!

The Fabulously Gay Roommate bought a house. He and his significant other are going to live there. Saturday was the big move out day. If you're helping someone move it is never easy and yesterday proved to be no different. FGR and I have many mutual friends from school. Sadly all of them were unavailable for the move. That meant most all of the other people helping with the move were FGR's friends that he met when was exploring and understanding his sexuality aka the gay friends.

There were mechanics, IT managers, artists, nurses, and just ordinary people regardless of their sexual orientation. For purposes of a move they just need to be able to lift and carry heavy objects. For this, the gay friends failed miserably. Except for the one friend who wasn't overtly flaming, the rest all had bad backs, bulging disks, strained back muscles, needed a cigarette every 20 minutes, had the ability to snip and gossip worse than a 8th grade cheerleader and whatever it took to be friggin' useless for a moving day. Except for the one guy, the rest of them couldn't lift anything heavy. Oh yeah, even my roommate was having muscle problems too.

This was going to suck for me in so many ways.

I arrived a bit late at the storage facility that held all of the Sig Other's stuff and I knew things weren't going well. For whatever reason, whenever there is a group of people over a certain size no one can make a decision. It's called diffusion of responsibility. Combined with the fact the FGR is notorious for being incapable of making decisions this is a bad double whammy. Towards the end I asked him if I should get my truck to put in the last of the big bulky items. I quickly realized I needed to simply get my truck and put the last few chairs and end tables in the bed. I was proven right as some things weren't going to fit in the U-Haul.

At FGR's new house the bad back brigade was nearly useless. I'm shoving stuff out of the truck or the other guy was and I was placing the items in the lawn or on the porch. Time was limited and I figured everyone else could carry stuff from the lawn to inside the house. FGR wanted to put stuff in the right room. He's nuts! He's not sure where he'll want half that stuff. Just get it inside and you'll deal with it later. I felt the need to harm someone as the bad back brigade went on a cigarette break...all the time. I think they smoked and gossiped more than they moved boxes!

All that labor, totally useless to the task.

They weren't much better when they came to my place to get FGR's stuff. Luckily he didn't have as much crap as his Sig Other. Seriously, they need a few trips to Goodwill and a few garage sales. I think they have a total of 6 televisions now. Once again FGR's couch drew blood. Whenever it is moved there is blood involved. Must be a voodoo couch. At least it wasn't my blood this time.

Wow this place is going to be quiet.

More Exciting Than Watching Paint Dry, Barely.

Dating is exciting in some ways and boring in others. It is exciting when you meet new people. It is boring when you realize there is just no chemistry between the two of you. I try go to for at least 2 dates. The first date you tend to be tense so I feel the second date is more realistic if you can get to a second date.

This was date number four. The first two were after insanely exhausting days at work so I couldn't tell if I was falling asleep due to an extreme lack of sleep or the fact I just wasn't really feeling anything with her. After having 2 more dates I've come to the conclusion: we just don't match up well in real life. Oh paper things look good, but that's why you have to test the theory and see if the reality matches.

I feel sorry for her. I can tell she likes me a bit. I think that is the worst part.

On the plus side I have date number 2 with someone else tomorrow night. Some chemistry is there so perhaps this could develop into something. Who knows, right?

I Just Wanted To Leave At Lunch.

I have far too many things going on right now in my life and far too little time to get things done. I was willing to take a half day of vacation today just so I could finally get to a few important things that needed to be done! It doesn't help when the people you need to see operate at the same work hours of 90% of people during the day including yours truly.

I had most of the morning hearings and The Boss had most of the afternoon ones. How about a swap and I leave at lunch. It was a simple plan that went horribly wrong. The Boss scheduled quite a few pretrial conferences today. For some reason he loves to get a lot of them done in one day. That method has proven quite problematic in the past but he shows no sign of adopting my "squeeze one or two in here and there" approach. The problem we run into is sometimes the courts will decide to schedule hearing during times we've scheduled pretrial conferences. Usually we adapt and can make it work. This time The Boss sabotaged himself. No wait, he really sabotaged both of us!

The Boss doubled booked his pretrial conferences this morning, twice! Normally about a third of pretrials follow Option #1, and a third follow Option #2, and a third one or both parties fail to appear. Yet I knew that since it would be incredibly inconvenient if everyone appeared that would be exactly what would happen. Of course I was right. Karma is a bitch. and she hates me.

I wanted to try to take some of the overload, but I had my own court hearings in the morning. Every time I came into my office the clerks wondered if I could do something, but I told them I was either getting ready to head to court, or fixing a problem that came up in court, or trying to fix a problem before we went into court. I finally finished my morning hearings at 11:30 and suddenly I'm trying to do a pretrial with two parties and a file I've never seen before. Not only that, but they had 3 cases involving them so it took me some time to figure out what was going on. At least they agreed on the important things so that made my job easy. How to fit their agreement into the context of all 3 of their cases would prove to be a bigger problem, but not one that had to be fixed today. So lunch really started at 12:20 today for me.

Oh wait, The Boss also scheduled pretrial conferences for the early afternoon. Looks like I'll need to stay until 2:00 p.m. just to make sure everything works.

I'm just tired of having to catch all of The Boss' mistakes. How do you double book something that is totally in your control?

Oh well at least I got the big important things off my to-do list, but what a grind it was for the late afternoon.

Cascading Entropy Of Liquid Failure.

Let's see. Water got into the wall behind the bathtub so the wall needed to be replaced, along with two others since I had to replace it. I haven't had a shower at home since last Thursday. The leak around the tub drain that falls into the downstairs bathroom got worse. I guess the repair I did last year is failing. Now the kitchen sink that has a slow drip has sped up to a quite annoying tempo. My cell phone was catastrophically dunked into water and can't hold a charge for more than 36 hours.

All this within a one week period or so. Water, water, everywhere and it is seriously screwing up my life! When it rains around here it really pours.

Water And Cell Phones Don't Mix!

I swear if someone invents a cell phone that can survive being capsized with me in a deep creek or a bullet going through it I'll buy it.

I'm pretty good with my phone, but when I do something to it I REALLY do something to it! At least it still works after being dried out, but when the battery only lasts for 2 days that just isn't going to work. Given how little I'm at home I really need my cell phone. Maybe AT&T is running a special.

Paint The Town British Racing Green!

You Paint the World with Calming Colors

You are a true friend. You are very dependable. Your friends can always count on you to be competent. You are good at anything you do. You are a truly successful person ... though sometimes it's hard for you to appreciate your success. You are quite cautious and conservative. You like to weigh risks carefully.

How Do You Paint the World?

There Has To Be A More Dignified Form Of Transportation.

On the drive home tonight a piece of my car fell onto me. I was completely in shock. Normally my car doesn't attack me, but it did tonight. I hope the beast holds together, but I have to remember, it's not the years, but the mileage!

I Haven't A Clue.

The Boss is a nice guy, but rather clueless sometimes. Perhaps absent minded is the more accurate phrase. About a week ago I discovered he was going to be out of the office on Tuesday for a conference. After discussing his schedule, my schedule, the court's schedule he finally let it drop that he was going to a conference. Oh!!!! Suddenly that conversation make so much more sense!

I'm about to go home today and I'm chatting with a clerk for a few minutes. I mention that I'll be in tomorrow for only the morning and leaving the office around lunch. The clerk then mentions that Boss will be gone for Monday and Tuesday for a conference.

*Deep Sigh!*

If my workload is going to double, can someone let me know ahead of time? It isn't like the conference come up suddenly and the dates just fell from the sky. I'm doing more and more of Boss's job because he's burned out and some things just run smoother through me, but I'm getting tired of doing Boss's job because he doesn't get around to doing them or doesn't tell me he'll be gone. There's no malice behind his actions, he's just burned out and clueless.

I can't take this any longer. I need another job soon.

I Can't Win Sometimes.

The clerks stated they needed to get information faster so they designed a form for us to fill out during hearings. When done just hand the form to them and they'll do what they need to do. Important things will be done in a timely fashion and they aren't stuck for someone to bring the file to them or write an order or something that only an attorney needs to do first. Sounds like a good idea in theory, but in reality I find it nothing but a pain in my ass.

The form isn't particularly difficult, in fact it is rather simple. Given what the clerks want they really need some of the basic info of a case. The problem is I can't fill out the damn form to their level of satisfaction. For example, addresses.

I fill in an address.
Clerk: "Wolfrham, this address is the same as we currently have. Why did you fill it out?"
Me: "The form has an address field."
Clerk: "Well if it is the same we're just double checking something that is already there. It makes more work for us and the form is supposed to simplify things."

I don't fill in an address.
Clerk: "Wolfrham! How come you didn't fill in the address part of the form?"
Me: "There was no change in address. I didn't want you to double check an address that is already good. I wanted you to just do the things that need to go out ASAP!"
Clerk: "Well if you don't fill in an address how will we know the info we have is correct?"
Me: *DEEP SIGH*

I filled out the address field with the words "No Change" and figure this is fine.
Clerk: "Wolfrham! What is this 'no change'? No change from what?
Me: *Tick on face is developing and my blood pressure rises*

I'm about ready to either shove their form up their collective asses or bring them in and politely ask them how they would like the form field out for every field. I will gladly fill out the form they way they want me to, but I want ONE STANDARD! They more they tried to simplify and improve their work processes, but more complicated they've made mine!

Seize The Opportunity.

I'm not in an active job hunt mode, but if I happen to stumble upon something I'll take a look. I'm on one website today trying to find an address and there is a "Job Opportunities" link. I decided to click on it and discover there is an attorney position that I'm at least half way qualified for.

I think I'll fire up a letter this weekend. Why not eh?

I'm Just An Arms Dealer At Heart.

How to raise money for big purchases (like a home).

1. Save up as much money as you can from your job. Check.

2. Sell the few meager stocks you have. Check. (Bonus for being able to take the capital lose on the tax return next year. Not like the stock market is rebounding anytime soon.)

3. Sell a shotgun. Not done that yet and it sounds like a Small Town move, not a Big City move but I could probably get $150 for it.

4. Look around for other trinkets to sell.

Sometimes I wonder if I've been exposed to Small Town too long when selling weaponry is an option to raise money.

November 30th is the last day of the 10% first time homeowner credit. I hope I can swing this deal in the next 3 months.

3 In A Row!

I don't know what has changed or if suddenly things are working. I now have consistent internet access on our wireless network.

SWEET! Frustration level is coming down.

I was going to go into work, but waking up at 11 a.m. put the kibosh on that idea. Ah...sweet sleep!

Connected Upon Booting Up!

Okay what has changed! Booted up ye olde laptop and it connected to our wireless.

SWEET!

I admit the internet is mostly an escape, but I also do a lot of research online. Nice to have it back....I hope.

Poll Time

Which is the most annoying part of my life?

1. Insomnia that awakens me at 4:00 a.m. for the last 2 weeks.

2. Occasional internet access at home due to roommate's ...whatever he did to the wireless setup!

3. Inability to get orders written due to distractions at work.

4. Inability to get orders written due to attending a million hearings in a week.

5. Inability to get orders written due to solving other people's problems. Wait that sounds a lot like number 3.

I really need the ability to fashion an 8th day of the week that no one else has access to. I would love to have one day a week where no one can reach me, I have no hearings, and I can just catch up on things. People may say do more with less but we've reached the point of you need more to do more!

Spotty Internet Access Just Plain Sucks

The Fabulously Gay Roommate has been monkeying around with our wireless network. He's been trying to get the wireless printer to find our network and print! The wireless capability of the printer was the big reason I got the printer before the end of last year and yet it is the one thing we haven't gotten to work!

The Good: FGR says he can no see the printer on our wireless LAN.
The Bad: We still can't print to it.
The Suck: I have to screw around with my network settings on my laptop for at least 15 minutes before I connect to our wireless network. IF I CONNECT AT ALL!

If you don't hear from me for a few days assume that between too many hours at work, too many hours on the road, and the roommate's infernal modification of our network that I'm not dead, I'm just silent!