what the hell....need to write something

I may as well write a blog. It has been a year or two. I am back in college, full time, with no job. I had the job I had been looking for since I decided to major in horticulture. I was an operations mgr. of a large LOCAL company. Company truck and a lots of perks. Long story short the owner died and his idiot wife decided that she would run (or ruin) the company. So I looked for a job, stayed drunk to the point of oblivion, got sober, and decided to say to hell with looking for work now and go finish my associates degree, and acquire some core class credits before I transfer to a state college. I said to fuck you to the landscape industry (I still love horticulture though). I am converting to Catholicism (just wanted to throw that in there), and have decided to go after my graduate degree and become a mental health/substance abuse counselor. I am transferring to Kennesaw State in spring to start my major classes for my baccalaureate. These are my goals for today. Who knows what the next couple of weeks, months, or years will hold, hell who knows what tomorrow will bring. I need to go to a meeting... I write this blog mainly for a history of my misadventures; I like to track the state of mind I am in every couple of months. So for my advice to myself in two to three years from now: If you are reading this down the road, you made an idiot decision if you are working a blue collar job, you are probably dead if you start drinking again, and congratulations if you followed you plan for 8-23-11.

Busy

School, work, economy, presidential race, etc.....It was a good weekend, despite an ear infection that I had the pleasure of suffering through all week. The weather was decent, and it was time to do some planting. In between homework sessions we had time to plant over two hundred bulbs in the landscape. We planted, in no particular order: crocus, daffodils, grape hyacinth, hyacinths, and allium. Now we just wait for spring....My last post was about the gas shortage. What a difference a week can make. The price for regular are in the $3.20 range and steadily falling. That's good......I will not bore all three of you who read this blog with all the other stuff that is going on. I will put it in summation. Algebra(ugh), physicology (Ok), horticulture(to easy). That sums up school, and that therefore concludes my post. Yeah....Fun stuff.

Time to plant

Today was a nice day. The temperatures are cooling down, only making it to the low eighty's for highs. I am done with school for the quarter and I enjoyed a somewhat stress free weekend. No homework. The break will be short lived, however, as I will be returning to school in ten days. A very short break between quarters.....We planted some new plants in the Garden (I like to think my yard has reached garden status). I chose to plant a couple things today that are on the fringe of our zonal area. We planted a Bears breaches hybrid (Acanthus x Summer Beauty) , which I am counting on good results from. I also planted a couple lily of the Nile (Agapanthus sp.), that are typically a zone 8 plant. We are officially a zone 7b, so lets hope Al Gore is right. I also have a ginger lily in bloom. Ginger lily's are a great plant and it has taken a couple of years for it to establish enough to flower. It was a good day, well spent in the garden......I have changed my site around a bit to try and make it a bit more interesting. I have a poll, on who you are voting for, which is interesting to me. I will try to add a couple more interesting things in the coming weeks....Tomorrow is the first day of fall. I am ready for the first taste in the air, which usually comes around the end of September. The only bummer is that I wont be able to plant any more perennials. It is however the best time to plant trees. Anybody need a tree or fifty planted? .......Oh yeah, I have included a picture of an Agave americana 'variegata' That has been growing through the winter and is doing well. Agave's in Georgia?

Where is the rain?

I haven't had that much time to put up any posts as of late. So here is the summation of what has been going on: School, work, no rain, sleep, repeat. It is hard to find anything exciting about those things. I don't want to seem negative, but just more of the same old boring stuff I always write about in this blog......Cathrine and Anna are in school again, Anna is officially a first-grader and Cat is in kindergarten. Cathrine's' school started two weeks later than Anna's, so last week was her first week of school. They both seem to enjoy school, and for that I am glad. As for my schoolin', I can't wait until it is over. I am ready for a break. This is the first and last summer quarter I have taken, and it is has not been fun. I am nearing the end though so I am hitting it hard to finish up. After this quarter I will have but a handful of core classes left......We are in the "dog days" of summer, it is hot,it is dry, and the yard is struggling. We need rain. Hopefully the rain from the looming tropical depression will be headed our way. Fingers crossed. The leaves are falling, from lack of water, making it seem like early fall. It is August for Pete's sake. It has also been rather cool the past couple of nights with temperatures in the upper sixties, an anomaly for Georgia this time of year. Not complaining about that one.......Other than that everything is going well. Same old grind, but every one is well around here.

Another vacation?

Things have been hectic. No understatements. This is my last week of school for the quarter....Finals. We are planning a trip to the Smokey Mountains for the fourth and I am ready to go! I don't have much, as the week has been rather monotonous. Once school and work grant a break, I will have a more interesting post.....

Feels like Spring, but it isn't....

We had Cathrine's Birthday today and it could not have been a better day. It was a perfect Spring day. No humidity, temperatures in the seventies, and the daffodils were popping out of the ground.........I can not believe Cathrine is five years old. It is amazing. She is such an amazing little munch-kin that is growing up so quickly. I believe she had a fun day. This is the third birthday party that she has had in the past 10 days. What a lucky child. Five years old. Here comes kindergarten. We waited to have her party until this week because everyone was sick last week and it was a dreary couple of days last weekend. It was a good party and a lot of the family made it which was nice....I have included a pic of Anna sans her two front teeth. She has been making a killing off the tooth-fairy as of late!.........Not really much new around here. School is moving along relatively smoothly, and I finally understand the process of factoring polynomials (no small task).I have a full class load next quarter, I am attending full time(plus some).I am ready to get it over with. I will take a big step closer to my degree next quarter. I don't have anything else as of now........

The worst blizzard ever! For real! No....Wait........

There is a phenomenon that occurs in the south that happens about once a year. There is some sort of frozen precipitation that falls from the sky. Amazing in it's own right, that is not the event that I will be describing today. The actual phenomenon is the reaction that the masses have to this news. The cycle begins when the local weatherman predicts a chance of snow, usually two or three days out. This of course leads to the headline: "Winter Weather 08.....Snow will kill you", or something to that effect. Mass hysteria soon after ensues. There is a mad rush to the local super store so that people can stock up on bread and milk. This is no joke, as these items are not to be found on the shelves soon after the forecast is broadcast. I believe I would buy some canned soup, or potted meat, or something non-perishable if I participated in these 'snowmageddon' events. But seriously, what do I know. I should spend more time obeying the media........There was a blizzard that shut things down, I believe it occurred in '93. No power, impassable roads, and feet, not inches of snow. "The blizzard of the century" for Georgia, anywhere in the Northeast it would have just been another little snow. It was bad, but as I was then a teenager I though it was great. It was about a week before the suburbs eventually 'thawed-out'........This actual blizzard changed the way we perceived snow events. It was inconvenient, and for a few life threatening, but for the most part, the stories were mostly positive......I digress. The media loves these events. The news on now is discussing how the leftover wet spots, and they are few and far between, will re-freeze tonight and wreak havoc on tomorrow's commute.............It did snow. They did get that right and by storms end there were no appreciable amounts of snow to be seen. Soon after it landed it melted. Two nights before the snow did, however, accumulate and it was fun to play in. I have some pictures up..........I am amazed at the way people in the south respond to snow. I am amazed how they conform to the stereotype of the grocery store rushing, bad driving, stockpiling freaks that you see on the T.V. (that I am sure all the rest of the nation is getting a good laugh at). It is a good time to go to the super store however, as long as you are not buying bread and milk, because the lines are short, and the trip is quick. As long as you don't mind things being 'picked over' a bit, and you will have to listen to the cashier's recollection of the hysteria that visited the store just hours ago. It made for an interesting weekend and a couple of entertaining moments.

Other things that I have to discuss that will have to wait.
(I just want to practice my xhtml & CSS)

• The progression of Reel Easy, LLC
• My experiences with school, and Algebra
• The current economic decline and how it will affect our countries Gross National Product.
• That last one was just Bullsh!t
• Later..................
  

Reel Easy

It was a busy week. I finished the quarter at school, and i am glad that it is over. I think my GPA is still 4.0. We'll see. I haven't wrote a post in a while. I have been really busy, helping my father start a business. I have been doing the technical stuff. We have a website, and things are rolling along. I don't want to divulge to much info now, partly because that is all I have been doing lately. I will post a link to the new site, but I will through out a disclaimer: the site is under construction. reeleasycustom.com I have lots more to say, but I am tired. I will post again soon. I posted some stupid pictures bellow.....

A nice fall weekend

It was relatively calm around here this weekend. We had a chance to relax and do a couple of chores around the house. The weather has been nice, still no rain though. The temperatures are perfect, and the HVAC unit is getting to take a break. I love this time of year. If it would only rain....Halloween was Wednesday, and Cathrine and Anna had fun trick-or-treating. They both dressed up as princesses, and toured our neighborhood, and the surrounding subdivisions in search of candy. They made out well and I, I mean they, will have candy for a couple more weeks......There isn't much else going on. Work is the same, school is the same, and I'm not complaining. This quarter of school has been tough, but it is already half-way over. I have gotten used to my new computer, and although I don't like it as well as my previous one I enjoy the new programs. It has Windows Vista on it, and although it eats up a lot of memory and processing power it is reliably stable. I also upgraded to Office 2007, and It is a good bit different than 2003. I haven't used it much though, as my school work has to be in office 2003. The two versions are not compatible with each other which is really stupid......The leaves are turning. What leaves are left that is. This will not be a good year for fall color, which is a bummer but the weather is not cooperating this year. When is this drought going to end?......

Yet another fine week,.....well not that fine.

I have never been much of a thief. I think I stole a pack of candy when I was twelve or thirteen. I always felt guilty about it. I also have been a relatively trusting person, I have applied myself to the theory that If I do not steal I will not be stolen from. I also trust enough to leave my car and house doors unlocked. I know that it was a relatively foolish approach. I was even more trusting at work, repeatedly leaving my key in the seat, and not locking the doors.

One of the crew is always around the truck. We are usually within one hundred feet of the truck at all times, as we were on Thursday. We have two houses we do on Riverside Drive in Atlanta. The houses are in a quiet area, not far from the interstate, but very secluded. We were all away from the truck, blowing off a yard. We had made it up to the top of the driveway, and around the house to complete the maintenance in roughly ten minutes. When we were done I proceeded to walk down the hill to the truck. The truck was gone. O.K., someone has played a joke on me, one of the other crews has moved my truck to get a laugh. We took off down the street to find the truck. It was not there.

It took about five minutes for it to sink in; the truck was stolen. It was time to call the police and the boss. I checked my pockets for my phone. It had been stolen with the truck, both of them. I knocked on the customers’ door, but no answer. I walked over to a neighbor’s house and asked to use the phone. I then called my boss to make sure it was not a big joke. It was not. I then called the police. I explained the situation, gave them the address, and they said an officer was on the way.

Twenty minutes later an officer showed up. He asked all of the basic questions, never getting out of the car, and actually leaving the car in gear, and continuously rolling while I was talking to him. He then asked for the tag number of the truck. I explained that if I did not have the tag number, He could not file a report. The officer left and I went back to the neighbors’ house to make a call for the tag number.

I called 911 again and gave them the tag number, and the dispatcher said the information would be relayed to Sandy Springs. One of the other crews showed up and we had a moment to breathe. I had nothing on me, both of my phones, my cigarettes, my keys, they were all gone. We started to discuss all that was lost with the truck. We had a trailer with two mower, two string-trimmers, an edger, pruners, and lots of other stuff. I had lost my book bag and my lunch box. In my book bag were my brand new school books, and my laptop computer (my new one). In my lunch box was my dinner, and my medicines.

I was, and still am very upset by the loss of my things, but the realization that I had lost all of the equipment was the bad part. It was a rough afternoon and the rest of the day was very subdued, as everyone was still shocked by what had happened. Friday was spent working with another crew and reassembling a truck for my route. Needless to say there was lots of tension. Finding extra things to use on the temporary truck only reminded us of what we had lost.

Saturday was spent realizing I had no phone, and no computer. My computer was used for school, for pictures, for music, and for my bill paying, and on-line purchasing. I have canceled my credit cards, and will be forced to change my e-mail address; an email that I use for school, for business, and for personal correspondences. I purchased the cheapest cell phone I could find, and it is a big step down from the Smartphone that was stolen. It is amazing how much of a part of my life my computer was. I lost two years of digital pictures; of which I had no backups. I lost my school projects, and some valuable software. My textbooks were stolen, which I just bought two weeks earlier.

I was told I might be able to claim my losses on my home insurance policy, so I called expecting a big fat "No". To my surprise, everything was covered. I was very pleased to say the least. My boss called me later in the day and told me that someone had called and asked if he knew his truck was parked at a church in Atlanta, nearby Turner field. The truck had been found. The truck was in tact (no trailer of course), and the radio had been stolen. The keys were in the ignition. My book bag, my cell phones, and my lunch box were missing.

My boss had met up with an officer at the church, and asked him if the truck could be dusted for prints. The Fulton county officer informed him that the truck had not been reported stolen. Forty-eight hours after I called 911 and reported the truck stolen, the paperwork had not been filled. My boss finally got in touch with a Sandy Springs detective, and asked him if the truck could be dusted. "I'm not coming down there" was the response he received. "And you can't bring it up here because there is no one on duty." Apparently the entire precinct is shut down for the weekend. If I were to guess, I would say Sandy Springs has a population of eighty to one hundred thousand people. So, Monday the truck will be taken to the precinct to be dusted for prints, and maybe, just maybe, we will have a police report filled for a stolen vehicle.

There are a million things I could say about the situation, but in the end it just doesn't matter. I am continually educated on the way our world is, and find out how slow, and bloated our systems are. I know that we have lost a lot as a company, and I have lost a lot of my things. In the end it is only "stuff", and I am glad that no one was hurt. I have learned yet another lesson I did not want to learn. My trust is slowly waning. I refuse to drop my school classes, but I will be playing catch-up, for the rest of the quarter.

.....I don't know why I wrote all of this, it could be the fact that I don't have any composition homework, or that I just wanted to get it off my chest. Having things stolen from me really pisses me off, and the dealing with the aftermath of having things stolen makes even more irate. I had to break into my own truck to get proof of ownership, so that I could have a new key made. I was also forced to buy a new book bag. I had a German backpack that was WWII era. I had it for over twelve years. It was made well. I broke one of the plastic brackets on my new pack the first night I had it. It's the little things that make life worth living.......

Can I write something dumb?

I started school last Wednesday. I haven't been in more than six months. Whew. I am taking composition and rhetoric, and an online intro to computers class. I lucked out, and have the opportunity to experience a new teacher(professor), who has a PhD in English. I say that sarcastically as the new teachers are known for being extremely overzealous with there course work, and homework, and they are synonymously known for keeping the students in class for the entire alloted time period. I have just completed my third essay this week. Huh. I am not complaining, as I am always, well almost always up for a challenge. It will be interesting to see how much this class will hone my writin' skills.:) The other class I am taking will be extremely easy, but I am taking it on-line, so I am sure it will be way more complicated than necessary.....I digress. I am glad to be back in school. One step closer to my goal..........Nothing much has been happening around here, and that is a good thing. It has been pretty relaxing.......And now it is time for the weather report. It will be hot and dry. Highs in the upper eighty's, to ninety in spots and no rain. No rain for the next three months, or more...It is really ridiculous around here. We are in a serious drought, bad enough for the climatologists to convince the local water commissions to issue a level 4 water ban. No outside watering of any kind, whatsoever. This sucks for me on many levels, not only at home, where the grass is slowly turning brown, and the freshly planted shrubs are approaching permanent wilt , but also at work. No one wants to plant shrubs or re- seed fescue lawns if they can not water them.......O.K., I am done with my whining. Every thing is fine around here. We went to the festival this weekend to watch the parade and munch down some carny food. The girls had a good time. The got their fill of candy from the parade. It was a good weekend. I didn't take any good pictures this week. Sorry.

Fun weekend

A couple things happened this week that have not happened in a long, long time. It rained (over an inch and a half), and then it got cold, well not cold but cooler. Good stuff. We had fun with the girls, we took them to the air show in Rome. I enjoyed it a lot as I have been wanting to see an air show for a couple of years. There were a lot of interesting planes and some pretty intense stunts. They even had a jet-powered porta-jon. You don't see that every day. The girls had a chance to sit, and climb on the planes and helicopters. It was good clean family fun.......With the cooler temperatures upon us it was time to add another piece of the landscape we're constructing. We put in another bed in front of the house. I put in another irrigation zone, and planted some 'shearable' shrubs in the bed, to achieve a formal look. Plants included loripetalum, compacta holly, and dwarf yaupon holly. It will take a couple years to take shape, and we still have to put down more mulch, but I am glad to have the hard part done........I start school soon..Oh boy, English and a basic computer class. Not exciting but necessary. I look forward to the challenge The English 191 class anyway.........

Can I get a break?

This is the last week of school and I am so very glad. I finished my final project for design (picture), have completed my Final homework for Spanish, and I am ready to take the final and get it over with. Come on already. I had plenty of time to catch up on my homework as I had a long weekend because of my teeth. I was forced to go to the dentist, and have a tooth yanked. I am so tired of my teeth hurting! I do believe I have solved the problem, as I found out I was confusing the pain in a molar with the wisdom teeth I had just had removed. After two days of excruciating pain I was forced to go to the dentist and face a decision between a fifteen hundred dollar root canal or a considerably cheaper extraction. I chose the later. It is amazing at how the brain will work after a couple days of pain. I feel a huge amount of empathy for people who live in pain. I just want to have a weekend off. No pain, no complications. I feel I may be asking for a miracle. I would just be happy to have a week off of antibiotics. I feel like an old man talking about my aches and pains. It is that my teeth are all that have been happening in my life, so it seems...........ANYWAYS, Anna had her first soccer game(picture), and her team won....The weather is fantastic here. Seventies and fifties. Fantastic. The time change allowed us to hang out in the yard till almost eight. with short sleeves on. Nobody is complaining about that......Speaking of outside I do believe I have figured out what I want to do with the yard. Nailed down a plan, for this week anyway. Now I need to find someones yard to do so that I can have some money to work on mine. Tis' the season. I might even draw up a design. I want to practice more, as I am proficient in drawing skills but I need a lot more practice to be great at drawing. I don't have any problems picking plants or 'the right plants' but I need to master lettering............Rambling. Thats about it. Oh yeah, the temps are finally nice enough for us to put all those cactus outside. Seed flats too. I hope we dont have to bring them in until November.

Horray for Wednesday!

I have a rare two days off of school. Fan- frickin- tacstic. We had a good day at work today. Well we didn't actually work. We went to a pro-day event, a sort of 'convention' for landscape pros. They show off the new equipment and give away shirts and hats and all that good stuff. I enjoyed it because I was able to attend three classes and get a couple of recertification credits that I need for my pesticide license. As expected they were very boring. I did learn a couple of things. It has been very hectic lately. I have overloaded myself, and with the addition of buying the house I am a bit stressed. It will be over soon. I have posted a pic of a couple of orchids that we have had for a couple of years that is about to explode with flowers. It is very drab around here and they will bring a much needed boost in color..... It has been very cold lately highs in the low forty's. I actually saw a couple of geese walking on ice in a small lake. It is rare to see any lake or pond frozen around here. The cold has allowed us to use our fireplace. I have enjoyed lighting a fire in the evenings(when I am home).O.k. that's about all that I have. Oh wait, the greenhouse. Yeah, I don't have anything to say about that, except for the fact that there are a lot of dead plants in there. We haven't even placed our order for seed yet. It will be a late start this year. I have decided to take the spring off, well maybe I will take one class. I will be able to spend some time over there then. I need it, as I feel the spring 'bug' coming on already..........Soon, soon it will be time for the green to come back, soon........

To busy to write a blog

I just don't have any time lately. Work, school, sleep. Repeat. The weekends are spent doing homework, as I don't have any time to do it throughout the week. Going to school four nights a week is a lot harder than anticipated. I can do it though, only five more weeks in this quarter. I am ready for it to be over, as the design class is definitely the most challenging class I have taken so far...I don't have much else. Work and school are really the only thing that I do now. Not very exciting. I wish I had more time to do things around the house, as all the projects have basically come to a halt. It is o.k. for now, as we have run out of funding. I still have so much I want to do. Everyone is good. I wish I had some pictures, but I don't.

Warm spring day

Yeah I know it is not spring if you read the header. It feels like it though. It almost made it to seventy degrees today. Crazy weather, what's new. I am not complaining, as it was a nice day to work outside. I did some more painting, this time on the outside. Ah the fresh air. I am surprised that I got anything done, as I had my wisdom teeth removed Friday morning. It wasn't that fun, but it wasn't that bad either. It has been two days and things are getting back to normal. I ate my first solid food in a couple days tonight for dinner. No more soup! I am still feeling a little groggy. We have been knocking out things around the house. We are close to being "unpacked", and the whole upstairs is painted. It feels like home now. Oh, but there is so much still to do.....I started back to school this week, and good grief four days a week is going to kick my ass. The most I have done previously is two days a week. I am taking design, which will be educational and challenging. Lots of technical drawing. Spanish is my other class. It feels like I am in high school again, as I had three years of Spanish in those days. It will be a breeze, but we are forced to converse and study in groups. It will be frustrating, as most of the people in the class have never spoken any Spanish before. Oh well. Time for some more Ibuprofen. Teeth, or places where my teeth were previously are hurting. Later.

Settling in

To say it has been a busy couple of weeks would be an understatement. We have been moving nonstop. We have managed to accomplish a lot, but a lot remains to be done. Moving is done, and we were out of the apartment on the first of January. We have lots left sitting in the garage waiting for a place. It will take some time. I have just finished painting the whole upstairs, with the exception of one bathroom. That was a process. Lots of work for sure. We have cleaned, painted, and moved furniture to pretty much the entire upstairs. The basement is a different story. I will have to save those rooms for another day. I need a break. I am happy at what we have accomplished, but I am overwhelmed by the amount of work left. It is nice owning a house though. We need time to settle in. I had to go back to work after 16 days off, and that was rough. I enjoyed my vacation. I had problems with my wisdom tooth for a couple of days, but it has subsided. It did however convince me to finally have my wisdom teeth removed, which will happen next Friday. I am not looking forward to that, but I will be glad to have them removed. I am going to have them removed surgically, and I will have to go under for the surgery. Oh well. I have so many other things to talk about, but I am ready to relax. I go back for a full week of work tomorrow, and I also start the winter quarter at school tomorrow. Four nights a week this quarter. Cathrine and Anna went to a friends birthday party this afternoon and I have included a picture of them with their hardhats on. It was a Bob the Builder party. It is really pouring here and I just heard some thunder. Nice April storm, in January. This weather has been crazy. All of the bulbs I planted are popping-up, and a lot of the early flowering trees are in partial bloom. Very weird.

The leaves are STILL falling

I have found my new least favorite thing to do. That would be blowing leaves. Five days a week, eight hours a day. Yeah....It is a rare Sunday, as I have no homework, and we finished early at the greenhouse. We even had time to cook a good dinner. Thanksgiving is coming and I am looking forward to it. We all have four day weekends coming up. We finally planted the beds and cleaned up around the greenhouse. The beds are nothing special, I used only the left over stuff we grew. They will mature nicely, as long as the damn deer don't eat them. The population of deer must be decreasing, as all I hear at the greenhouse is distant rifle fire. Thinning of the heard. They have been a real nuisance this year. I planted about fifty bulbs in the beds and the deer have been digging them up. Pain in the.......We found the house we want. We even put a bid in. We were underbid, and did not get it. That was a bummer. It did however give us more time to get a better loan. Now we have everything ready to go except for a stinking house. There is not much to choose from, and even less to choose from in our price range. This area is growing so fast it is hard to believe. It will be completely different in five years. I am sure will will find a house I just don't know how soon. I just want a house under 150 that is worth buying. It sounds stupid, but we need some more subdivisions. Never thought I would say that. It will be time for the minivan soon. Good grief.......School is good, I am taking Design and Spanish next quarter. Spanish will be no problem, design will be interesting.......The girls are good, the 'Valerie' is good.....