Lets see, what has gone on over the past 7 months?  Well this fall I finally got rid of the hideous wallpaper in my living room and gave it a paint job.  Looks great.  Now I just need to do the rest of the house.  I’m thinking actaully of trying to hire someone to do it but alas, I trust nobody around here to actually give a shit and do a good job so it’s likely I’ll just end up doing it myself.  Gavin the Wonder Dog had knee surgery about 3 weeks ago.  I guess that was the big event of the year for me.  Talk about nerve wracking.  Not so much for him I guess as for me.  He is my child after all and having to put him through reconstructive knee surgery was pretty stressful.  You never quite know how a dog (or cat) might respond but he seems to have pulled through with flying colors and he is getting his stitches out this coming Friday.  He should recover about 80% use of his back leg by summer if all goes well.

Speaking of family.  I hosted my first Thanksgiving this past year at my house and it was a blazing success.  Everyone showed up, everyone brought great dishes to pass and nobody complained that I didn’t watch the football game with them on TV. LOL.  Really, it is wonderful to me to have so many family members living in this area.  They are all solid people and they’ve always given me plenty of encouragement in my life, sometimes when I’ve really needed it.

Sister Sarah and Brother-in-Law Brian were here for Christmas with my niece Lucy and nephew Christopher.  They’ve grown accustomed to staying at my house which actually has worked out quite well.  For everyone.  I’m always awestruck by young children.  Their lack of inhibitions and curiosity about everything around them is entertaining at the least and knowing how wonderful  their parents are at least gives me hope that they won’t mind contributing to my retirement fund once they start working.  The wonder years are ahead for them and I can’t wait to be that “cool but somewhat weird” uncle that likes to play Lego and shoot the shit with Ken and Barbie.

So beyond that, there is not a lot of new shit going on right now.  I am looking forward to profit sharing coming up at work and I’m looking forward to paying off my debts and maybe getting a couple toys as well.  Stay tuned for that.

I will promise that this year I will try to keep this blog updated more often.  Seems that whenever I have thought about writing, I’ve always managed to find something better to do with my time.  I guess that comes along as one of the pitfalls of home ownership.  There is always something to work on.  So, until next time.  Cheers!

I do have a new video to post here.  A couple of years ago I purchased a really nice Cannon HD video camera and over the winter it decided to quit working.  As luck would have it (amazingly), I had purchased a repair plan from Best Buy and so I sent it in hoping that I could at least get it working again.  No luck.  They could not fix it but they did offer to replace it.  This was the FIRST and it will likely be the only time in my life when I have actually used one of those extended warranty plans.  I hesitated to buy it in the first place but I’m sure glad that I did now.  I replaced it with a nice HD Sony Handycam and I’m fully impressed by its abilities.  The Cannon was a much better model however it was, not surprisingly, quite complicated and not very user-friendly.  This Sony is much better and is more to my skill level when it comes to videos.

So here is my latest video on You Tube.  It is a tour through my backyard (in HD if your net connection is worthy).  As you can see, I’ve got my fence installed now and all the trees and plants are finally in bloom.  I’ll try to update more often on this blog but you all will just have to get used to seeing fewer posts from me for a while until things settle down again for the winter months.  Sorry.

We are finally starting to approach spring up here in the northwoods.  The pot heads are coming out of the forest and visiting the store once again stinking up the place, and the roads are full of pot holes again too.  Life in Michigan: where tourists can pretty much count on losing an axle on the roads as soon as they cross the state line.  Speaking of traveling, I did finally take a vacation (after 6 months of constant work) and took a trip down to the corn fields of Iowa to meet my new niece Lucy.  It was nice to see that Sarah and Brian run a tight ship, emulating the fine examples of our parents.  Christopher has grown and is finally learning to speak using complete sentences, something that will always make him my favorite nephew (make sure you remind him of that) and Lucy was sporting a fine head of hair, clearly preparing to wear home made barrettes made of bright pink sequins for the annual family pictures.  It was nice to see them all and even help them to acquire new channels on their TV.

On my way home from Iowa I managed to spend $10 on tolls going through Chicagoland only to end up at Ikea to spend a paltry $35.  I had never been to an Ikea store before and I had planned on making some bigger purchases to help furnish my new house.  Once there, I decided that other things really needed to be accomplished prior to setting up a Swedish sweat lodge in my basement.  Really, I simply can’t have a country bumpkin, collection of random things going on.  I need more consistency than that so some planning is going to be in order.

I am enjoying my new 47″ TV that I purchased with my profit sharing bonus at work.  Of course everyone I know is simply amused that I refuse to get cable TV to go along with it, they all think that I’ve wasted my money because I can’t watch 600lb men behave like fools at national sporting events in 3D.  Little do they know that there is more to entertainment than learning how many feet there are in a yard.  Like, perhaps watching the latest episode of Glee.  Gavin the wonder dog has been having a good time exploring his new house and it has not taken him long to get quite comfortable wandering around outside, soon I’ll be able to fence him in and I won’t have to stand out there and watch him every time he needs to go out.

I won’t even go into all the drama lately at work.  Let’s just say I’m glad I’ve got my shit figured out since at least that means I’ll be able to keep my job.

So that’s about all I have to say for tonight.  We’ve sprung the clocks ahead by an hour this weekend and so my body still thinks it’s much earlier than it really is.  I must be off to bed if there is any hope of me waking up in the morning.

It’s been a busy few weeks for me but now things are finally going to calm down for a while.  The Christmas madness is finally over and people really blew their wad this year.  This was my best year ever for sales but that means of course that I have to now work twice as hard this coming year to beat it.  People who work in sales never get a break.  If you do well one year, you are expected to do better the next year.  I’m sure that I will but it is added stress to think about.  Coming up at work now are weeks of re-sets, re-models, and immediate preparation for the coming spring.  In my business there are only 2 seasons.  Christmas and Spring (yes I know Christmas is not a season but it might as well be).  Everything I do right now at work leads up to the spring season when everyone under the sun decides it’s finally warm enough to do something other than sit in front of the TV and get high on whatever it they smoke up here.

So every year now that I’ve kept this blog, I’ve managed to come up with a few resolutions for myself in the new year and this year is no different.  I don’t tend to do very well keeping these New Year Resolutions but it’s interesting anyhow to come up with them and go back and read them later on.  This new year I resolve to:

1 – Put a stop to my almost daily burger habit.  3 days into the new year and I’ve managed to stick to that one by having a salad each day as my main meal.  While I’m at it I should really put a stop to my sugar habit too but that one is a little harder to kick.  I need sweets to survive my job!

2 – I am bound and determined to lose up to 20lbs this year somehow.  I don’t know yet how I’m going to accomplish that other than by just starving myself (which I would really have a hard time doing).  I might try to figure out an exercise routine, or maybe just get a little more into playing the Wii.  This one is in development right now so we’ll see how it turns out in a few months.

3 – With the purchase of my new house comes mountains of new responsibilities and irritations.  I am resolving this year to spend a little money actually doing things around the house that need to be done.  First and foremost will be the installation of a privacy fence in my backyard.  This year I will be spending my work bonus on things that matter rather than spending gobs of money on toys and other random things that I don’t need.

4 – Now that I am within walking distance of Interlochen Arts Academy, I am resolving this year to make an effort to go to some concerts.  Granted, in the summer, I should be able to sit on my deck and listen to a few but since I moved up here I have wanted to enjoy the fact that the talent coming out of the Academy is truly world-class and I need to take advantage of what is right in my back yard.

Thats about all I can think of right now but I’m sure as time goes on I’ll come up with a few more.  It’s hard to get motivated in the winters up here but I’ve got a lot going for me right now and even though I work 50 hours a week at a minimum, I do actually have a fair amount of time in which to accomplish things…so long as I don’t get lazy.

As we get closer now to the new year, it’s time for a little reflection on this past year.  It’s been quite a year for me.  Back in January of 2010, I had no idea that by the end of the year I’d be living in my own house, that I actually would qualify and get a mortgage after so many years of financial damage had been done to my credit report.  I had no idea that it would take me the better part of 6 months to fight with the credit reporting agencies about their own failure to report and document things correctly or that, by the end of it, it would only take me 30 days to close.  So now I own a house with a mortgage, in the little town of Interlochen with a dog, a yard, and new neighbors.  And I’ve done all this largely on my own except for the bits and pieces of financial help and MASSIVE amounts of encouragement I’ve received from my folks.  I think they are as impressed as I am that I was able to get this done without having to borrow lots of money from them.  It makes me feel good that I didn’t have to, after all, I SHOULD be doing these things on my own at this point in my life.  I have a good job, a good income, and finally, I will now have a tangible asset and of course a LOT more responsibility.

This has also been quite a good year for me at work.  My income only continues to grow but more than that I’ve finally reached a point now at work where I can be considered an experienced manager at least by my companies definition.  In April of this next year, I’ll be entering my 7th year with my company and my 5th year as part of the management staff.  I think that without question, that gives me a degree of credibility and earns me some respect from my peers and employees.  People listen to me as a leader, not necessarily because I’ve got the experience under my belt but more because I have and can keep a level head in a VERY unleveled working environment.  I have been able to stick it out and make my job work for me as my career and I’ve been able to promote (or rather convince) other employees that retail employment can really work for you if you let it.  NEVER in my life did I envision myself becoming a retail manager, I think this job is not one that most people dream of having.  I never did.  But, it has worked out very well for me despite having to put up with random idiots, freaks, and fools, I do enjoy my job quite a bit and I enjoy the fact that it keeps me entertained.  I could never go back to a desk job at this point.  How boring, how tedious, how monotonous.  Every day is new adventure for me and I hope that I’m never forced to change that.  It takes a toll on my body but that is of my own doing.  Part of my new routine now going into the new year is to start taking a little better care of my aging body in hopes that it will last me a while.

My photography has also taken off quite well this year.  I purchased a professional level camera in February which has allowed me to capture quite a number of truly amazing photos.  While photography is still just a hobby for me, my work has been featured on Leelanau.com 4 times in the past year, I’ve had multiple requests from people to buy my pictures, I’ve even had to sign an affidavit at Meijer because they could not believe the pictures I was developing with them were my own.  That puts me in an exclusive little club at this Meijer up here.  Their little file isn’t very thick which I suspect says more about their inability to develop quality images using quality materials than it does about me since there are so many great photographers in this region who rightly choose to develop their photos through professional photo labs.  I am looking forward to moving ahead with my photography this next year and perhaps doing another book in addition to the others I’ve already published.

On the family side of my life, I am looking forward to the addition of a niece named Lucy.  This will make child #2 for Sarah and Brian and I could not be a prouder (is that word) Uncle!  I am always saddened that I don’t get to see them very often however that is not uncommon for people in our age group.  Families simply don’t all live in the same city or state any more and I accept that fact I think more than my folks do.  I know they would like to be closer to their grandkids and to Sarah and Brian but it’s not a reality that is possible at this time.  At least it gives all of us a reason to get out of the state every now and then and visit other places.  I’m sure if we did not have family in Iowa, we never would have made it out to Colorado this past fall.  Exploring our environment means having to take risks and having to take trips.  I can’t wait to make a trip out to see little Lucy and her brother Christopher this next year.  I look forward to learning the nickname for Lucy to counter Wally.

I’ll wrap this post up for now and leave by saying that I hope you readers do stick around.  There are lots of things going on in politics right now that I want to write about and share when I can find the time to do it.  At the very least, you will all find some amusement or pleasure in reading what I have to say.  Today then I’m off to clean out my garage in hopes that I’ll soon be able to park my car inside it.  Cheers!

Tomorrow night I’ll be sleeping in the new house and I can only pray that Gavin the Wonder Dog takes chill pill by then.  He was a ROYAL pain in the ass today although I can’t blame him too much.  His world and daily routine has crumbled right before his eyes in the past few days and he’s taken it fairly well.  It will take some adjusting at the new house for him but I’m quite sure that he will come out just fine.

It’s going to take me a while to recover from this.  Tomorrow night, I will have to get the house in some sort of order so at least I can get from one end of the place to the other without falling over boxes.  It’s going to be a real challenge.  I’ve got a lot of shit.  You don’t realize what you’ve got until you have to pack it all up and move it.

Now, I’m off to bed to try and get some sleep before all hell breaks tomorrow.  Hope everyone is doing just grand!

So, what next?  Now I have to figure out how to get out of this condo.  My garage is packed at this point with boxes and all kinds of random shit.  A good deal of it I’ll be able to move rather quickly using my car but it will be time now to recruit my folks and their trailer to see what we can get moved as soon as possible.  My next decision is whether or not I want to hire some people to move my big stuff.  I’ve called a couple of places and it would appear that I could hire this move for less than $500 which is a fair amount of money but considering my first mortgage payment won’t be due until January, I will have a little extra cash that I can spend getting this done.  I’ve got about 10 big things that will be impossible for me to move myself.  The rest is (or will be soon) packed up in boxes.  I will need to make a few more phone calls to see what I can come up with.  Once I get that figured out, then I have to get the carpet cleaned in the condo.  I agreed to do this when I moved in as a replacement for the cleaning deposit which I did not pay.  Going to cost me about $150 or less if I can find a coupon.  Ideally I’d like to be moved out as much as possible by Thanksgiving.  That will give me a few days to get this place cleaned up so as to ensure that I get my deposit back.  That’s really pushing it though because I am being consumed at work right now preparing for BLACK FRIDAY.  We’ll see what happens.

So, thats my big news right now.  I wanted to post the video below because today marks the 35 anniversary of the sinking of the Edmond Fitzgerald.  Enjoy the video.  This is a classic song, one of my favorites.

In May, I came up with the money to pay off my past due balances that were showing up on my credit report until finally all but one was being reported correctly.  That one entry however, despite it having been paid, would simply not go away.  My frustration grew daily as I spent hours on hold with the creditors and with the 3 credit reporting agencies.  None of whom were helpful.  I spent my evenings filing disputes with the credit agencies, gathering mountains of paperwork to prove without a doubt that my debts were in fact paid and that I had no outstanding balances.  Phone call after phone call I went around in circles trying to get people to actually read the proof they had been sent by certified mail (which cost me a small fortune).  To make it short, it came down to having far too many hands in the pot and not enough people actually communicating with each other.  This ONE past due balance was preventing me from obtaining a mortgage.

Finally, now we are entering September and things are nearly resolved.  After another round of letters and dispute claims with the 3 credit agencies, the creditor (Midland Credit Management) has finally begun to report my payment correctly.  I received a letter yesterday from TransUnion declaring that I no longer had a past due balance which means that FINALLY, after 4 months of wrangling I might be on track now to get a mortgage and actually get into my own house by the time the snow comes.  Time will tell though.  I have to wait at this point until the middle of September to run my credit reports again to make sure that everything is showing up properly.  Of course, each time I run my report to check on the status of these things, it costs me points on my credit score.  There is nothing more frustrating than seeing your credit score decline BECAUSE you are trying to ensure things are reported correctly.  I’ll be providing another update on this sometime in Mid to late September and hopefully I’ll be able to share the news that I’ll be purchasing a house!

In other exciting news, Sister Sarah informed us yesterday that her next child is going to be a girl!!  We are all very excited for her and can’t wait to meet the new addition to their family.

On that note, with this pursuit of home ownership, I have in many ways now officially committed myself to living in this area for at least the next 5 years or more.  This of course makes the parents happy but at the same time they are not necessarily the reason I’ve chosen to stay up here.  Regardless of all the bitching I do about the people around here, I do actually like this part of Michigan.  It has done amazing things for my photography skills and I like the fact that pretty much my entire extended family lives up here even though I don’t get to see them all that often.  I’m not the type of person that just randomly goes out and makes friends with people and knowing that, it’s important to me to have family near me so that I don’t cocoon myself which I would be very prone to doing if I lived in a city where I did not know anyone.  That’s not saying I don’t have friends, but it is saying that I place more emphasis on my immediate and extended family than I do many of the other random people that I know.  I deal with the public 50 hours a week which is more than many people have to deal with people in a month.  It’s nice to be able to go to my folks house and not be forced to make small talk about stupid shit.  I can have quality conversations when I feel like it.  So, even though my boss at work has started pushing me again to promote with Menards and move into store level management, at least for the next 5 years I’ll be working on my management skills here in Traverse City.  I refuse to buy a house and not live in at least long enough to make a little money when I sell it. Lord knows, I’ll need a profit if or when I decide to take that next step at work which I think can happen any time I want it to.  It’s a nice feeling knowing that you have a steady job with very little chance of loosing it unless I fuck up in a big way and I’m just not the type of person to do that anymore.  I’ve become old and careful before my time and it’s paying off.

So tonight is Saturday night and I’m home enjoying a couple of cold beers and a little internet time before I head off again to work tomorrow.  It’s going to be in the upper 80′s for most of this week which means it’s going to be CRAZY busy at work.  Tuesday is my day off and it promises to be the hottest day of the week.  It’s of course the day I am acquiring new furniture from the relatives but oh well, free shit is worth a little sweat.

Anyhow, just a short update, you know in the summer it’s very hard to find time to write or post things.  Most of you reading this follow me on Facebook anyhow and thats about all I have time for right now.  I’ll leave you tonight with a recent picture taken this past week.

In other news, I’ve recently become a HUGE fan of the Musical Sitcom “Glee”!  I have pretty much fallen in love with this show for a couple of reasons.  Primarily, this show pretty much sums up my entire High School career minus some of the glitz and glamor.  In addition to that, they have taken and re-done a whole shit load of some of the most popular songs from my adolescence and then combined them with some pretty spectacular show tunes.  I would not be a qualified gay man if I did not melt over a good show tune and the kids in this show hit the mark every time.  I imagine, had I actually gone through and finished school, this is the sort of choir I’d be directing at this point in my life.  At the very core of the show though it is about a high school Glee club filled with geeks, nerds and a couple of jocks from the football team mashed together to demonstrate the complete drama of high school, and the triumphs of each of the kids as they work through that difficult time in their lives.  I relate especially well to Kurt, a kid struggling with his sexuality (he is openly gay) and a kid not afraid to excel using the upper range of his voice.  In the clip below (sadly there is no video, just audio), he is singing a duet with one of the leads in the show (Rachel) singing the incredibly awesome ”Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked.  I can’t help but remember my experiences with my good friend and regular duet partner Rachel as we both swam through the cesspool of adolescence together.  It is VERY rare that I get sucked in to shows like this but this one has really hit the mark for me and I’m sure many other choir geeks out there in the world.  I hope they can get a few more seasons out of it before it runs it’s course.  Enjoy.

In other news, I continue to amaze myself with my geeky fascination over technology.  Over the years, I’ve built up a rather impressive collection of old computers, cases, parts, hard drives and the like.  You know you can’t just toss that shit into a land fill so I’ve just never bothered to recycle any of it.  Last night, I hauled it all out, pulled out all the good components from the 4 old computers and reassembled them into a new hybrid computer.  My goal?  My big flat screen TV has an option to connect a computer to it and I have this urge to sit in my recliner and be able to surf the web.  Actually, there are all kinds of web sites available now where you can stream TV shows and movies (either free or for a fee) and by connecting this computer to the TV, I can now watch old re-runs of Silver Spoons, Family Ties, and the Golden Girls on Hulu.com on the big screen TV!  Shit, who needs cable any more, I can watch whatever I want for free via the Internet with the right technology.  So this morning I am re-installing an operating system before I head out to the lake for the day and tonight, we’ll see just how well it performs.

Anyhow, I need a life.

I’m going to be 35 freakin years old on Monday.  I’m not entirely sure where the past 10-20 years of my life has gone but I can’t say that anything that’s happened has been all that bad or that I regret any of it.  I’ve always tried to live my life the way I want to live it by my rules and for the most part, I get support from the people who matter for doing so.  I never thought I would end up back in retail, I certainly never thought I would end up living in Traverse City (seeing this place primarily as a vacation spot for most of my life), and I never thought that at this point in my life I’d be single again.  That last part bugs me a little bit but at the same time, I really don’t mind where my life is at right now.  I’ve always been fairly solitary, I do pretty well on my own, and to be completely selfish, I enjoy spending money on myself rather than supporting other people.  I make more money now than at any other point in my life (as it should be), I’m healthy, my parents are healthy, and I can pretty much do whatever I want, whenever I want within the confines of a retail schedule of course.  Looking ahead, just 35 more years until I’m 70 and hopefully (fingers crossed), I’ll be retired and living comfortably by that point.

I thought I’d share this picture with you as I approach my birthday.  They say that being gay is something you are predisposed to at birth and that social conditioning plays a roll but it’s not the only factor.  Do you think this kid is being socially conditioned to be straight or does he just have parents with boundary issues?  I can’t even begin to imagine Hooter’s being an appropriate venue for a 10 year old’s birthday party!   He apparently doesn’t seem to mind.

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I am nearly done now with what has been an exceedingly long week at work.  This week I clocked 72 hours at work which, generally speaking is about twice what any normal person would work at any other type of job.  It bugs me that I can spend all this time an energy training a well rounded and otherwise exceptional team of employees but my company thinks that things will utterly fall apart if at least one manager is not right there all day long.  Talk about putting absolutely no faith in the ability of my employees.  I am quite comfortable leaving any one of them in charge and leaving.  What could possibly go so horribly wrong in the short amount of time I am gone?  Nothing, it’s retail for shits sake.  It is not a nucleur laboratory!  Anyhow, I have a 12 hour day on Sunday and a 6 hour day on Monday.  Assuming my assistant shows up again after her vacation, I should be out of work for a day off by Monday afternoon FINALLY.  Even more, now I get to do the same thing to her.  On Friday I leave work at 1 PM and I will not be returning for 10 days.  I get to take a vacation.

Speaking of vacation, this year I’ve decided to take a road trip.  Facebook has brought me back in touch with folks I’ve not seen or heard from in nearly a decade.  Last year, some of them came to visit me up here in the northwoods.  This year, I’m going to visit them.  I’m going to Grand Rapids for 2 days, then off to Chicago for 2 days, and then to Indianapolis for 3 days.  I’ll return on Saturday.  I’m looking forward to getting out of here for a little while and selfishly, I’m looking forward to ditching the dog for a short time.  I love Gavin dearly but every parent needs a break every now and then don’t ya think?  Aunt Nancy has graciously agreed to take Gavin for a few days at the start of my trip and then mom and dad will get him for the remainder.  Good lord, I hope he behaves himself.  I’m sure he will.  Well, this is a long enough post for today.  Hopefully I’ll get back in to writing here again as my schedule calms down….I’ve said that before.

As you all know, the cats are done.  It was an agonizing decision to make and certainly one that I did not want to make however nothing I have done to correct their problem behaviors has helped and I can no longer afford to continue letting them destroy this house.  Whatever their issue is, it is too costly for me to fix and I must resolve this problem as quickly and efficiently as possible.  In an attempt to do the right thing, I contacted the Cherryland Humane Society in Traverse City today to ask them what my options were for my cats.  The immediate response I got on the phone was intimidating, condescending and really horribly inappropriate.  As has been reported on the news, I understand that these folks have been inundated with pets since the economy went down the toilet.  People can’t afford them, their shelters are overcrowded and there are a LOT more animals today that need homes than there were even just 6 months ago.  That however is not my concern with this post.  I was asked the ages of the cats and becuase I’m an honest person, I informed them that they were 8 and 10 years old.  “Sorry can’t help you” was the response in short bitchy tones.  Apparently the Humane Society is not in the business of helping people whose pets are older than 5 years old.  They refused to consider them at all which tells me a lot about their primary focus (money).  The conversation continued and at this point I felt I was being treated as some sort of criminal for having the audacity to even consider giving up my pets.  Look, the issue is very simple here.  I have 2 cats that must vacate this house immediately.  There are 2 ways for this to happen.  Way #1 involves adoption through an animal shelter or adoption agency like the Humane Society who IS IN THE BUSINESS of treating animals with respect and dignity.  Way #2 involves leaving them in the woods somewhere.  NEITHER of those ways involve the cats STAYING in this home! Now, do you really think as an animal lover and someone who has had pets all his life is going to choose way #2?  I think not but that seems to be the only option anyone is willing to give me.

The humane society has made it perfectly clear that change can not and should not ever occur in a human’s life and circumstances could never possibly change.  They are intent on making what is truly one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make in a LONG time that much more difficult and in the process they’ve managed to piss off a potential donor or contributor to their cause.  There are very few non-profits out there that I would ever consider making a random donation to.  I support the Humane Society’s mission but they’ve been removed from my list due to the lack of professionalism exhibited by their employees.  YOU LOSE.

At the end of the conversation, I was given the name of AC Paws which is a pet adoption agency in Traverse City that works out of Pet Smart.  I sent them an email tonight explaining my situation and asking for their help in placing these cats in a new home while clearly stating that they can not stay here.  For now and until I able able to find some sort of support or help in this community, the cats will remain with me while I try to save up enough money to repair the damage they have already caused me both to my house and emotionally.

It’s too bad I am not yet able to afford my own house.  I’m OK with cats fucking up my own house, I’m NOT OK with cats fucking up someone else’s; ESPECIALLY when I can not afford to successfully repair the damage.  I’m off work tomorrow, likely will head out to Leelanau at some point.  I’ve not been in the mood lately for much writing.  I’ve been somewhat emotional I think due to the change in the weather.  I’m just not ready for winter this year..I hate winter to begin with.  I’m sure my mood will change soon.

The situation is not improving with the cats.  The house stinks…it’s 50 degrees and I have all the windows open right now to air it out.  I’m still cleaning up pet poop and the steps I’ve taken to try and fix the problem have not been working.  I’m afraid the end might be near for their existence in this house.  I just can not afford to fuck up a house that I don’t own.  As I was telling Jirar, if this was my own place, I would not even consider getting rid of them.  However, I don’t see how I can keep this up and not land in some pretty deep trouble when it comes time to move out of here.

Work is really slowing down lately.  We are starting to see some Black Friday shit show up at the store.  It won’t be long before they are cramming low margin crap into the store so we can contribute to the mass chaos the day after Thanksgiving.  I am putting my assistant on morning duty this year.  I’ve had to open for the past 3 years and I’m ready for a break from that this year.  She wants to open anyhow so she will not go out and blow all her money shopping that morning.  Works for me since I don’t participate in that early morning bullshit, I can sleep in then come in to work and clean it all up.  It’s a bit of an odd store to be in that day, we are usually pretty slammed in the morning selling all the shit we normally don’t even carry but come noon, it empties out.  Not too many people out there purchasing drill presses and appliances, or paint for that matter.  I’m sure we’ll see pretty good traffic that weekend though.

Well I must go now and make dinner and finish my laundry.  Here’s another picture.

I am a little distressed lately about my cats.  When I last wrote about them, I had indicated that they were living here on a trial basis.  Unfortunately, neither KD or Pooh has been able to correct some of the problems they have using the litter box and I simply can not afford mentally or monetarily, to allow their behavior to continue.  KD has begun marking again and I’ve spent the last month picking up Pooh’s poop off the floor.  Neither animal appears to be unhealthy, both of them know how to use their box becuase I’ve watched them both use it to make sure, neither seems to be under any great deal of stress or anxiety.  I’ve spent hours on the web looking for solutions and I’ve found nothing that is helping.  Tomorrow I will set up a 3rd litter box and I am taking down the baby gate that shuts off their room.  I keep them in the back part of the condo when I am not here, I am wondering if Pooh poops on the floor because he can’t get to the box fast enough.  By removing that barrier (which he has to jump over first to get to the box) perhaps this will reduce the problem.

It’s sad because up until last year, both of these cats had been great animals.  Jirar and I never had one ounce of problems with either of them.  Then, with Jirar leaving, a new roommate and the addition of another cat as well as easy access to the outside yard, both of these cats behaviors changed dramatically.  For fear of insulting the spy’s who read this blog, I won’t interject my opinion as to why my cats are now unable to cope with themselves.  I am willing to go 3-4 more weeks maximum trying to change their behavior.  If there are no improvements, I will be taking them to the humane society or I will attempt to find them a new home.  While I treat them like my children, they are in fact NOT children, they are pets.  Not expendable by any means but pets are bread to conform to the needs of humans, not the other way around.  I don’t have unlimited resources to fix the problems they are creating.

Tomorrow is a day off for me.  I think I will go out to the cottage with Gavin and perhaps spend some time on the boat.  It is supposed to be quite nice, it might be one of the last good days for boating this season.  Cheers!

I had to go to the Secretary of State this morning and renew my drivers license and also change my voter registration.  It never ceases to amaze me how busy that office is and how rude the clerks are.  I guess when you work for the state you have some sort of license to be a shit head.  Oh well, my new license is in the mail and within a couple weeks I’ll have my voter registration back in the mail so I can vote in the election this fall.  Without question it will be for Obama.  At one time in my life I called myself a conservative but I have never voted for a republican.  As I get older, it’s easier to see just how fucked up the world really is, the republican party to me is a party that is terrified of change, espouses hypocritical “family values” (Nice to see that abstinence only education worked wonders with Palen’s daughter…NOT), rules with heavy handed and unnecessary laws, spends uncontrollably, has NO concept what-so-ever of science, and is led by these righteous wing nut theocrats who really believe they are doing the work of Jesus fucking Christ.  Sorry folks, JESUS WAS A LIBERAL.

OK enough politics…it makes me crazy.  Gonna pack up the camera and the dog now and head out to Leelanau.  Maybe another post tonight with some new pictures!

I’ve received all my bills now for my new place except for my water bill (I suspect that is a quarterly bill here).  Looks like Gas and Electric combined will be under $65 a month.  My cable (which STILL is not working right) and internet will be my most expensive bills.  I’ll take it, I use those two utilities more than any of the other ones.  So, it looks like when I add up ALL my bills (debts, utilities, rent, gas money, food, and random shit) I can live for less than what I was paying just in rent before.  I might even be able to get that retirement account going this year…I need a few months though to make sure I have a reliable percentage I can sacrifice each week.  Just having arrived to a point in my life where I am not living paycheck to paycheck, I’d like to actually enjoy it for a minute.

The pets are adjusting fine to the new condo.  I do have to separate them however when I leave for the day.  It seems that Gavin is just too dam smart for his own good.  2 baby gates and a door he could never slide through has not been enough to keep him out of the cat food.  Fortunately, my condo is set up nicely so that I can separate the cats in the back and dog in the front and everyone has all kinds of room to sleep all day long.  Like the pets, I am really liking it here.  I still have a ton of unpacking and sorting to do but I am taking my time now since everything I really need is in its place, now it’s just the little shit I have to find places for.  Soon it will be time to start thinking about decorating for Christmas (yes, my retail mind thinks Christmas starts in September).  I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do.

OK, well off to bed now so I can actually get out of bed in the morning. Here is a picture of a VERY tired Gavin on the last day of my “residency” in Leelanau.  We just finished playing fetch.

Things do indeed change, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.  After landing a job with Menards I quickly found out that I could indeed make a good living selling shit to rednecks.  I also had a knack for managing people.  So after a year of proving myself, I became a manager which sunk me even further into the retail culture that grabs hold of you with easy work for good money and doesn’t let go easily.  Jirar on the other hand was dreaming of cities and airplanes.  We both knew going into it that we would never stay in this region forever.  We are both city boys at heart and while it is good to get away from all that shit, after awhile of having to plan a 45 minute drive just to go to the grocery store or get fast food it starts to wear on you a bit.  It costs a fortune too.

The coffee shop dream hasn’t died for me yet…maybe for Jirar but someday, I do still intend to have my own business.  I’ve learned a lot in 4 years of working serious a retail job.  Running a multi-million dollar sales department for a multi-billion dollar company has taught me extraordinary lessons about business in general.  It would not be impossible for me at any given point to drop it and start my own thing….were it not for the money I make selling shit to rednecks.

So, now we move on.  Jirar no longer has any physical ties to Leelanau, or to me, he has gone off to discover himself in a new city, with a new job.  I have finally gained some of my independence back but I miss terribly the companionship of my ‘marriage’ to Jirar.  We will both move on to discover new things, we will both meet new people and go new places.  Each of us will always know of each other, the advantage of leaving on good terms is that anywhere we are in the world, I know I can call up a person who knows every intimate detail about me and that person will listen and understand me.  Marriages do end (about 65% of the time in the US) but solid friendships apart from the intimacy can last a life time.  As I move on in my life, I’m thankful for the support I’ve been given and that I continue to get from my family and friends and I know Jirar is thankful for the support he gets from his family and friends.

We all want good things to last forever but each of us knows that change is an inevitable function of time.  So here is a cheer for change, may it bring new adventures and new people into the lives of those who experience it.

The picture above was taken from my back deck in Leelanau at sunset about a year ago in the late fall.  I’m saddened that I won’t have the every-day opportunity to capture pictures like this but never fear, Leelanau is only a 30 minute drive out to the parents house.  No reason anyone should expect a decline in my photos.

Look for an increase in blogging as we move into fall.  I have a good 2 weeks yet of unpacking and settleing in.  Fucking Charter Cable has to come out here AGAIN and try to install my cable box correctly this time.  It never ends with the dam cable company.  If it were not for the fast internet, I’d never even bother.  Oh well.  Life goes on.

So now they are moved, hopefully they know where the litter box is and where the food is.  This is a trial run for those of you who have been following.  If KD’s health does not improve and if Pooh does not start using his litter box, steps will be taken to put them out for adoption.  As much as they are my children, they are still indeed PETS (not kids).  I am in no financial position to sink hundreds of dollars into trying to cure whatever it is that ails KD, nor am I about to fork over hundreds of dollars to replace carpet and wallpaper in a rental because my pets destroyed it.  It just ain’t gonna happen folks.  Call me uncaring, cruel or whatever, they are pets NOT people, I will love them if they can all be successful and adapt to a domestic lifestyle for which they have been bread over millions of years.  If not, they will have to go.

I got to meet Christopher tonight for the first time.  He’s adorable, funny, and quite small (well normal for 4 weeks old but small to me).  Been a LONG time since I held a baby, can’t honestly say I’d want to do it 24/7 (don’t worry Sarah and Brian, eventually he’ll stop asking you for food every 2 hours) but it is kind of special to have a new person in the family.  It will be fun to watch him grow up.

Well, now I have to go pick the poop out of Pooh’s fur.  Wish me luck.