I know I'm getting old, how do I know, I'll tell you.
First, things hurt. Why do they hurt? Damn if I know, but things hurt when I get up, things hurt when I lay or sit down. Things hurt when I move, things hurt when I'm still. Now, mind you, they aren't necessarily the sames things, but they hurt. They don't hurt a lot, mostly just a little, but I don't remember them hurting before.
I break easier. And I don't repair near as quick or as cheaply as I did.
I'm grouchy and grumpy. Actually this isn't a symptom. I've always been grouchy, grumpy and generally in a bad mood, so fuck you. But it ought to be a symptom so I'm listing it dammit.
I don't drive fast anymore. I drive like my father used to before he started driving even slower. I also yell at other drivers, which is normal, but now I sometimes forget to use swear words, which is bound to be a sign of getting older.
My temper is shorter and more things irritate me. Of course so many things irritated me before that most people wouldn't know the difference, but I do dammit.
I need more sleep. I can remember working 11 hours, hoping into the shower, eating a quarterpounder, blasting my eardrums at a Metalchurch/Metallica concert, sleeping 2 and 1 half hours and going to work for another 11 hours. I also remember working 10 hours, driving 3, watching ZZ Topp, driving 3 more, sleeping 3 hours, working a 12 hour shift. If I tried that now I would be in jail for what I did to the first person that got on the one nerve I would have had left at work. I used to run smooth on 4 hours sleep and 6 was average for me. Now, six is minimum, and 7 is normal. I will probably need 8 hours of sleep on average in the next 5 years. That depresses me. I feel like I need to be awake for life.
Modern comedians don't seem funny. That has to be a sign of getting old. I never thought Sandler was funny. Dane Cook doesn't make me laugh either. I do still laugh, a little, every now and then, but not at those guys. I don't like rap music either, but I didn't used to either and I don't really like country music, I don't think that is getting old, but maybe wanting to shoot people for wearing there baggy assed pants down around their knees is a sign of getting old. Why do they want to look like a plumber? Stupid assed kids and their stupid assed pants. Also, if you're a young woman and you can see your stomach when you look down at your toes, don't wear really tight low rider pants with a top that is too small for you. We don't want to see your muffin top. Fat rolls aren't attractive. I have them and I cover them, you should too. Don't wear belly shirts, buy clothes that fit you now, not that fit you three years ago, or that fit your younger cheerleader sister. You aren't turning anyone on, we're just gagging. This isn't me being old, it is just a public service announcement.
I think torture porn movies are stupid. Horror movies need to be more scary than gross. If you can't do more than gross someone out, make different kinds of movies. Other people feel different, because they are still watching Saw 500,000, and Hostel 67. So I am old.
I need more than one reason to drive to town. When I was a young whippersnapper, I used any excuse to leave the house. Oh, I used the last piece of dental floss, better go to Walmart and buy some. As long as I'm in town I'll burn up a lot of gas running up and down the main strip. Now it's damn, ran out of food, should I go buy groceries? I have to go to town to work day after tomorrow. I can probably beat that bull over in the field to death and cut enough meat off him to survive until then. Plus I have some dog treats I can chew on.
The history channel is entertaining to me. Enough said.
I robbed the cradle. My wife is more than 10 years younger than me. I gots me a young, sexy chick. I must be a dirty old man.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
To Diet or Not to Diet
Okay, I have recently had to face the fact that I am a fat ass. It only took about two years of everyone from my doctor to the annoying little aches in my knees when I get up or sit down telling me I needed to drop some weight for me to finally really accept it. I am heavier than I have ever been in my life. I have almost tipped the 300 pound mark. I always told myself I would die before I weighed that much, but I only missed it by 4 pounds. To quote the wife, "Holy fucking shit, Batman!!!"
First, I was a tiny kid. I was a short scrawny little thing until I was about 10 or so when I gained a little height and became chunky. I stayed heavy, but not obese until high school, when around the 11th grade I started excercising regularly and lost a bunch of weight. I spent about an hour every night running, using a rowing machine, lifting free weights, and shadow boxing. It worked. Then I started college. I kept the routine for the first year, then the work load hit me and I got lazy. If I hadn't started into the martial arts and had a job that kept me somewhat active, I probably would have been a whale. As it was I was carried about 40 to 50 pounds extra. This was a liablility in the Kenpo classes, but actually helped in Judo and Juijitsu as it made my center lower and I was much harder to throw.
When college was over, I stayed pretty consistant in my weight for several years. I switched jobs and went through a downward spiral for a couple of years. The only thing that saved me then was that I had a scare with my blood sugar one summer when I was packing in the softdrinks and had switched to Diet drinks and sugar free deserts. During this period, I tried a diet drug combo called phen-phen. I lost about 30 pounds while on it, but it messed with my body chemistry I think, because I react differently now to certain food situations. It could just be another sign of getting older though. My dojo closed also, so there went the only regular exercise I had. I also discovered the internet and became a net potatoe.
My mother is fat, and she is convinced that one day, she will discover the perfect diet or pill that will magically slim her down. She tries every diet that comes along. She never seems to stick to one more than three days, and if she does and you question her, you will find she has modified it to suit her tastes, which usually means eating the exact things she is not supposed to have. Anyway, I have tried most of the diets out there and I don't have faith an any of them, or in any of the magic products. Diet pills rate right up there with penis enlargement pills in my book.
You see, diets don't work. You might loose weight, but you'll put it right back on when you stop dieting. To loose weight and keep the weight off, you need to change your life style. You either need to eat less, change what you eat, or increase your physical activity. For best results, you need to do all three, and it needs to be a permanent change.
I have lost weight 4 times in my life. The first time was as a teen and I did it with regular exercise and nothing else. The second time was on a diet drug that later proved to be medically dangerous. The third and fourth times I did the Atkins diet. The third time I dropped off the Atkins during the holidays intending the enjoy the good food and start back after the first of the year. I didn't and gained back the 60 pounds I had lost. I started back for the fourth time two weeks and 1 day ago. I weighed yesterday and I had lost about 18 pounds. I know that sounds like alot, but on the low carb diet, your first two weeks are called induction. You don't loose any for the first 10 or so days, then you drop a lot suddenly, then the loss is gradual after that, usually 1 to 2 pounds per week.
I am doing some different things this time while I low carb. First, I am walking on a treadmill at least 3 times weekly. I also am doing some other exercises. I think that will make a difference. But let's look at dieting a little.
I divide diets into 4 classes.
The first is the calorie diet. This is stuff like Weight Watchers, NutraSystems, Jenny Craig, ect. They make you set a daily calorie intake level and you eat only that number of calories per day. This works sort of, but I have 3 problems with it. First is the cave man effect. You see in the moldy olden days, if your chief hunter dude tripped over a tree root and missed hitting the buffalo with the spear, you might not eat, so the body interprets any sudden drop in calorie intake over a period of time as a famine and it drops the body metabolism. Now you are temporarily burning less calories. Also, your body burns muscle more effeciently than fat, so unless you consumed calories are protein, and most dieters are eating veggies, you are losing lean muscle mass more than body fat. Second issue, this diet doesn't really distinguish between calories. If you have work with a dietician they will teach you how to make appropriate food choices for your limited choices, but this is a hard diet to do own your own. I watch the women at work manuevering their calories so they can eat that chocolate bar. They kill a major portion of their calories for the day on a piece of food that is going to trigger an insolin release which will make them feel hungry for hours. Third, this diet makes me feel weak and puny. I don't want to do anything. I spend most of the day hungry. Also, I am not going to spend my life counting calories, so when I tire of it, I go back to eating what I want and gaining weight.
The second type is the low fat type. Sometimes this is combined with a calorie counter diet also. The best diet of this type is the American Heart Association Diet, which is what most diabetics are put on. I don't like this diet personally. There are parts I do like, such as eating more whole grains and less processed foods, but the meat restrictions are a pain. One of the issues with this diet are that people start thinking anything labelled low fat is good for you. There are low fat twinkies for Heaven's sake. There are good things about low-fat diets. Trim fat off of meat and buy leaner cuts, that's good. Cook with olive oil instead of lard, corn oil, or margarine. Use olive oil on salads and breads instead of fatty dressings. That is all good, but buying a bunch of stuff labeled low-fat in the store is just going to make you fatter. Why you say. Well, when they take the fat out, something has to go back in and it is usually carborohydrate filler, which turns to sugar in the body, which triggers insulin release in the blood stream, which makes the body think it's hungry which makes you eat more, which makes you fat.
Type 3 diet is the fad diet. These diets don't work, but always seem to come with testimonials and warranties. The grapefruit diet, where you drink a glass of grapefruit juice, eat half a grapefuit, or take grapefuit pills with every meal to increase your metabolism. The latest seems to be green tea. You take green tea extract pills twice a day or something to boost your metabolism and burn fat more effeciently. Now I like green tea, I started drinking it back in the Martial Arts days. It is just chocked full of antioxidents which do good things for you body on getting rid of free radicals and using vitamins more effectively, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about it burning fat cells. Most of these diets are just effective ways to seperate you from your money. There are pills that will surpress the appetite and increase your metabolism, but they tend to have nasty side effects and aren't very healthy.
The fourth class, and I held it for last is the low carb diets. There are a lot of these, but the big three are the Atkins, the South Beach, and the Sugar Busters. I don't know much about the Sugar Busters, but I've done the other two and I think the South Beach is an improved version of the Atkins that might be a little healthier. Low carb works this way: The first two weeks are induction phase designed to put you body into ketosis. This is a fancy word for peeing sugar. Normally ketosis is not something that is desired, but if you are wanting to burn fat, you have to stoke the engines to run hotter. This is done by eating mainly protein with a very limited carbohydrate intake and the carbs you do take in should not be sugar. They need to be complex carbohydrates you body has to work to break down, like green vegetables. So basically, you eat meat, some cheese for calcium, and a cup of green vegetables, per meal. The Atkins made no recommendations on meat, the South Beach suggested fish, poultry and lean pork and beef periodically. After two weeks, you start adding a few carbs back into the diet, roughly 5 grams per day each week. When you stop peeing purple on the keto sticks, if you want to keep loosing weight, you take 5 grams of carbs back out of the diet, because you hit your personal limit. That number of carbs would be your maximum to consume daily without gaining weight. The South Beach breaks the weekly increase down and suggests a piece of whole grain bread twice a week, a cup of berries once, ect. Incidently, my doctor recommends the South Beach. There are only two diets that have ever been tested using scientific principle and those are the South Beach and the American Heart Association diet. I usually run into people who tell me the low carb diets aren't healthy. First, the books tell you to take multi vitamin supplements. Second, I've done the diet and had blood work done. I have excellent blood work when I am low-carbing. I never have bad sugar or cholesteral while doing the diet. I don't get hungry bad on the low carb and after the first 3 days, I feel really good on it. I have lots of energy. I do tend to crave bread, rice and pasta on the diet, but that's because I know I can't have it. I do miss my fruit, but fruit, especially citrus is out on the diet.
Theory. The theory behind low carb, is that man was initially designed to eat protein and complex carbohydrates. Main learned to process grains and by doing so made them easier to digest. Unfortunately this makes the body turn them straight to sugar. If you are someone who's body doesn't process sugar well, it gets stored as fat.
My theory is that different diets work for different people because we are all different. My body does not deal well with carbs, but can handle fat. Others may be the opposite. I do know that Low carb works for me, I just have to learn to eat that way all the time, so I don't gain back what I lose. I have to do it one day at a time, and so does everyone else. Wish me luck.
First, I was a tiny kid. I was a short scrawny little thing until I was about 10 or so when I gained a little height and became chunky. I stayed heavy, but not obese until high school, when around the 11th grade I started excercising regularly and lost a bunch of weight. I spent about an hour every night running, using a rowing machine, lifting free weights, and shadow boxing. It worked. Then I started college. I kept the routine for the first year, then the work load hit me and I got lazy. If I hadn't started into the martial arts and had a job that kept me somewhat active, I probably would have been a whale. As it was I was carried about 40 to 50 pounds extra. This was a liablility in the Kenpo classes, but actually helped in Judo and Juijitsu as it made my center lower and I was much harder to throw.
When college was over, I stayed pretty consistant in my weight for several years. I switched jobs and went through a downward spiral for a couple of years. The only thing that saved me then was that I had a scare with my blood sugar one summer when I was packing in the softdrinks and had switched to Diet drinks and sugar free deserts. During this period, I tried a diet drug combo called phen-phen. I lost about 30 pounds while on it, but it messed with my body chemistry I think, because I react differently now to certain food situations. It could just be another sign of getting older though. My dojo closed also, so there went the only regular exercise I had. I also discovered the internet and became a net potatoe.
My mother is fat, and she is convinced that one day, she will discover the perfect diet or pill that will magically slim her down. She tries every diet that comes along. She never seems to stick to one more than three days, and if she does and you question her, you will find she has modified it to suit her tastes, which usually means eating the exact things she is not supposed to have. Anyway, I have tried most of the diets out there and I don't have faith an any of them, or in any of the magic products. Diet pills rate right up there with penis enlargement pills in my book.
You see, diets don't work. You might loose weight, but you'll put it right back on when you stop dieting. To loose weight and keep the weight off, you need to change your life style. You either need to eat less, change what you eat, or increase your physical activity. For best results, you need to do all three, and it needs to be a permanent change.
I have lost weight 4 times in my life. The first time was as a teen and I did it with regular exercise and nothing else. The second time was on a diet drug that later proved to be medically dangerous. The third and fourth times I did the Atkins diet. The third time I dropped off the Atkins during the holidays intending the enjoy the good food and start back after the first of the year. I didn't and gained back the 60 pounds I had lost. I started back for the fourth time two weeks and 1 day ago. I weighed yesterday and I had lost about 18 pounds. I know that sounds like alot, but on the low carb diet, your first two weeks are called induction. You don't loose any for the first 10 or so days, then you drop a lot suddenly, then the loss is gradual after that, usually 1 to 2 pounds per week.
I am doing some different things this time while I low carb. First, I am walking on a treadmill at least 3 times weekly. I also am doing some other exercises. I think that will make a difference. But let's look at dieting a little.
I divide diets into 4 classes.
The first is the calorie diet. This is stuff like Weight Watchers, NutraSystems, Jenny Craig, ect. They make you set a daily calorie intake level and you eat only that number of calories per day. This works sort of, but I have 3 problems with it. First is the cave man effect. You see in the moldy olden days, if your chief hunter dude tripped over a tree root and missed hitting the buffalo with the spear, you might not eat, so the body interprets any sudden drop in calorie intake over a period of time as a famine and it drops the body metabolism. Now you are temporarily burning less calories. Also, your body burns muscle more effeciently than fat, so unless you consumed calories are protein, and most dieters are eating veggies, you are losing lean muscle mass more than body fat. Second issue, this diet doesn't really distinguish between calories. If you have work with a dietician they will teach you how to make appropriate food choices for your limited choices, but this is a hard diet to do own your own. I watch the women at work manuevering their calories so they can eat that chocolate bar. They kill a major portion of their calories for the day on a piece of food that is going to trigger an insolin release which will make them feel hungry for hours. Third, this diet makes me feel weak and puny. I don't want to do anything. I spend most of the day hungry. Also, I am not going to spend my life counting calories, so when I tire of it, I go back to eating what I want and gaining weight.
The second type is the low fat type. Sometimes this is combined with a calorie counter diet also. The best diet of this type is the American Heart Association Diet, which is what most diabetics are put on. I don't like this diet personally. There are parts I do like, such as eating more whole grains and less processed foods, but the meat restrictions are a pain. One of the issues with this diet are that people start thinking anything labelled low fat is good for you. There are low fat twinkies for Heaven's sake. There are good things about low-fat diets. Trim fat off of meat and buy leaner cuts, that's good. Cook with olive oil instead of lard, corn oil, or margarine. Use olive oil on salads and breads instead of fatty dressings. That is all good, but buying a bunch of stuff labeled low-fat in the store is just going to make you fatter. Why you say. Well, when they take the fat out, something has to go back in and it is usually carborohydrate filler, which turns to sugar in the body, which triggers insulin release in the blood stream, which makes the body think it's hungry which makes you eat more, which makes you fat.
Type 3 diet is the fad diet. These diets don't work, but always seem to come with testimonials and warranties. The grapefruit diet, where you drink a glass of grapefruit juice, eat half a grapefuit, or take grapefuit pills with every meal to increase your metabolism. The latest seems to be green tea. You take green tea extract pills twice a day or something to boost your metabolism and burn fat more effeciently. Now I like green tea, I started drinking it back in the Martial Arts days. It is just chocked full of antioxidents which do good things for you body on getting rid of free radicals and using vitamins more effectively, but I don't remember ever seeing anything about it burning fat cells. Most of these diets are just effective ways to seperate you from your money. There are pills that will surpress the appetite and increase your metabolism, but they tend to have nasty side effects and aren't very healthy.
The fourth class, and I held it for last is the low carb diets. There are a lot of these, but the big three are the Atkins, the South Beach, and the Sugar Busters. I don't know much about the Sugar Busters, but I've done the other two and I think the South Beach is an improved version of the Atkins that might be a little healthier. Low carb works this way: The first two weeks are induction phase designed to put you body into ketosis. This is a fancy word for peeing sugar. Normally ketosis is not something that is desired, but if you are wanting to burn fat, you have to stoke the engines to run hotter. This is done by eating mainly protein with a very limited carbohydrate intake and the carbs you do take in should not be sugar. They need to be complex carbohydrates you body has to work to break down, like green vegetables. So basically, you eat meat, some cheese for calcium, and a cup of green vegetables, per meal. The Atkins made no recommendations on meat, the South Beach suggested fish, poultry and lean pork and beef periodically. After two weeks, you start adding a few carbs back into the diet, roughly 5 grams per day each week. When you stop peeing purple on the keto sticks, if you want to keep loosing weight, you take 5 grams of carbs back out of the diet, because you hit your personal limit. That number of carbs would be your maximum to consume daily without gaining weight. The South Beach breaks the weekly increase down and suggests a piece of whole grain bread twice a week, a cup of berries once, ect. Incidently, my doctor recommends the South Beach. There are only two diets that have ever been tested using scientific principle and those are the South Beach and the American Heart Association diet. I usually run into people who tell me the low carb diets aren't healthy. First, the books tell you to take multi vitamin supplements. Second, I've done the diet and had blood work done. I have excellent blood work when I am low-carbing. I never have bad sugar or cholesteral while doing the diet. I don't get hungry bad on the low carb and after the first 3 days, I feel really good on it. I have lots of energy. I do tend to crave bread, rice and pasta on the diet, but that's because I know I can't have it. I do miss my fruit, but fruit, especially citrus is out on the diet.
Theory. The theory behind low carb, is that man was initially designed to eat protein and complex carbohydrates. Main learned to process grains and by doing so made them easier to digest. Unfortunately this makes the body turn them straight to sugar. If you are someone who's body doesn't process sugar well, it gets stored as fat.
My theory is that different diets work for different people because we are all different. My body does not deal well with carbs, but can handle fat. Others may be the opposite. I do know that Low carb works for me, I just have to learn to eat that way all the time, so I don't gain back what I lose. I have to do it one day at a time, and so does everyone else. Wish me luck.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Why Did I Get Out of Bed?
Yesterday sucked. That was my day in a nutshell. I stayed up too late the night before chasing my wife around the house with whipped cream and an egg beater (don't ask). Anyway I was about 1:00 AM getting to bed, so at 6:30 the next morning when the alarmed beeped me awake, I wasn't too perky. I don't drink coffee, so I got up and absorbed a glass of caffine, Diet Pepsi brand. I let the Saint Bernard out to do her morning thing. I didn't eat anything, which was probably a mistake since I am back on the Atkins and nothing in the break room qualifies as high protein, low carb, or food. I checked my email then shaved, which takes some time for me since most of the surface area of my head is scraped daily. I dressed, went outside and started the car for the de-icing process. I fed the goats, came back into the house for the Pekinese, walked her for her morning thing, put her back in the kennel and the Bernard back in the utility room. Then I locked up and went to the car. Then I went back, unlocked the door and got my cell phone. I locked up again, went to the car, turned around and went back for my watch. I repeated this little scenario for my work cell, a letter I was supposed to drop in the mail, paperwork I brought home, photon torpedos, a chain firing 20 millimeter vulcan cannon, world peace, my shoes and Jimmy Hoffa. This should have been a clue.
Anyway, there was a wreck right before work and I ended up being about 15 minutes late for work. They are renovating our building. Basically, the landlord has to make certain changes if he wants his 5 year lease renewed. We are getting new carpet, new paint, they are knocking some walls out, putting come new walls up, pouring a new sidewalk around the building so I can sneak in the back door when I'm late, and expanding both employee bathrooms. In effect they are making lots of noise, dust, and confusion. Essential work items are being piled where they can't be reached, and other things are being left to be tripped over. Afterward, we are all to receive new office furnishings. Hopefully to include a filing cabinet with four working drawers and a lock, instead of the unlockable 3 1/2 drawer model I currently possess. I only had two clients to see that morning, but I had to prepare for a new case intake the next day, plus there is alway a billion things that need to be done paperwork wise, so the morning passed quickly and lunch arrived. I should have bought some McMeat from McDonalds.
I went home for lunch. Well first I went and paid a bill, then I went home. The wife was awake apparently suffering no ill effects from the late night whipped cream and egg beating (don't ask). So I nuked a can of meat, put some cheese on it, and we sat and discussed matters of great importance until I finished lunch, then I went to feed the chickens before returning to my place of labor. Of course, two of the sneaky little bastards staged a coup and revolted, breaking their shackles of oppression and running free, with me chasing the little buggers through, around and about the barn and into the yard, the damn goats cheering them on. I finally netted both little demons and stuffed them back in their pen. I was about 5 minutes late back from lunch.
My afternoon was reasonably busy, I don't usually stuff a Wednesday full, because that's when meetings, training, ect are done to us. I needed to drug test my first victim, I mean client. I brought him back for the meeting, gathered the required information and documentation, then escorted him to the drug room. There were no drug test kits. I checked where we stored the extras, there were none there either. I asked one of the managers, who told me we weren't out, but I needed to ask the woman in charge of ordering supplies where they were. I was informed that they were in the file room. The file room was a wide but shallow room in the rear of our building that housed the phone and networking equipment and massive rows of file cabinets where we keep our closed case files. It is going to be relocated to a more central area of the building, as it's present location is being turned into two rooms of unknown purpose and a broom closet. The filing cabinets have been shoved to both sides and walls erected. The test kits were in large boxes sitting on top of the filing cabinets and pushed as far back as the workmen could get them. There was no easy access.
The following feat should not be tried by anyone, ever, I am an untrained moron and only partially subject to the laws of physics.
I aquired a broom, white in color and not from the broom closet. I pushed a ladder against the newly erected, ha-ha erect, wall which has yet to meet with sheetrock, I climbed up the ladder and squeezed my upper body between two of the two-by-fours which make up the frame of the wall. Fortunately they were pine and flexible, I wouldn't have been able to do this with oak. I used the broom to hook and manuver the big box a little closer to me. The box was large and kind of heavy and the broom wasn't really intended for this sort of thing. When I got it close enough, I dropped the broom, took out my pocket knife and stabbed the box. I drug it up and pulled out of the wall. The box wouldn't fit. I squeezed back in and shoved the box to the left I banged it around and finally manuevered it into the space that would eventually be a door. I climbed off the ladder and retrieved my box. I carried it to the drug room where my client was waiting.
Our drug room is next to the lobby. The two rooms are connected by a bathroom, which serves as our whiz collection room as well as our public restroom. There are two doors. The interior door allows access from the drug test room. The exterior door allows access from the lobby. A bolt on the interior door allows us to prevent access to the drug room from the lobby. The interior door was locked from the inside. I banged on it a couple of times but got no answer. I had to go out through the main door, locking and unlocking it, into the lobby full of thugs, I mean clients, go through that door, after knocking, lock it, unlock the interior door, get my test kit pack, get my client, go in, close the interior door, and collect my sample. The I went to leave and found someone had closed the bolt on the interior door. I had to exit through the lobby again, unlock the main door, go through it, close and lock it. And I had to do this while keeping an eye on my client and balancing a test kit jar full of urine. This escape took so long that I was behind for the rest of my afternoon appointments. At least he didn't test positive for anything.
Anyway, there was a wreck right before work and I ended up being about 15 minutes late for work. They are renovating our building. Basically, the landlord has to make certain changes if he wants his 5 year lease renewed. We are getting new carpet, new paint, they are knocking some walls out, putting come new walls up, pouring a new sidewalk around the building so I can sneak in the back door when I'm late, and expanding both employee bathrooms. In effect they are making lots of noise, dust, and confusion. Essential work items are being piled where they can't be reached, and other things are being left to be tripped over. Afterward, we are all to receive new office furnishings. Hopefully to include a filing cabinet with four working drawers and a lock, instead of the unlockable 3 1/2 drawer model I currently possess. I only had two clients to see that morning, but I had to prepare for a new case intake the next day, plus there is alway a billion things that need to be done paperwork wise, so the morning passed quickly and lunch arrived. I should have bought some McMeat from McDonalds.
I went home for lunch. Well first I went and paid a bill, then I went home. The wife was awake apparently suffering no ill effects from the late night whipped cream and egg beating (don't ask). So I nuked a can of meat, put some cheese on it, and we sat and discussed matters of great importance until I finished lunch, then I went to feed the chickens before returning to my place of labor. Of course, two of the sneaky little bastards staged a coup and revolted, breaking their shackles of oppression and running free, with me chasing the little buggers through, around and about the barn and into the yard, the damn goats cheering them on. I finally netted both little demons and stuffed them back in their pen. I was about 5 minutes late back from lunch.
My afternoon was reasonably busy, I don't usually stuff a Wednesday full, because that's when meetings, training, ect are done to us. I needed to drug test my first victim, I mean client. I brought him back for the meeting, gathered the required information and documentation, then escorted him to the drug room. There were no drug test kits. I checked where we stored the extras, there were none there either. I asked one of the managers, who told me we weren't out, but I needed to ask the woman in charge of ordering supplies where they were. I was informed that they were in the file room. The file room was a wide but shallow room in the rear of our building that housed the phone and networking equipment and massive rows of file cabinets where we keep our closed case files. It is going to be relocated to a more central area of the building, as it's present location is being turned into two rooms of unknown purpose and a broom closet. The filing cabinets have been shoved to both sides and walls erected. The test kits were in large boxes sitting on top of the filing cabinets and pushed as far back as the workmen could get them. There was no easy access.
The following feat should not be tried by anyone, ever, I am an untrained moron and only partially subject to the laws of physics.
I aquired a broom, white in color and not from the broom closet. I pushed a ladder against the newly erected, ha-ha erect, wall which has yet to meet with sheetrock, I climbed up the ladder and squeezed my upper body between two of the two-by-fours which make up the frame of the wall. Fortunately they were pine and flexible, I wouldn't have been able to do this with oak. I used the broom to hook and manuver the big box a little closer to me. The box was large and kind of heavy and the broom wasn't really intended for this sort of thing. When I got it close enough, I dropped the broom, took out my pocket knife and stabbed the box. I drug it up and pulled out of the wall. The box wouldn't fit. I squeezed back in and shoved the box to the left I banged it around and finally manuevered it into the space that would eventually be a door. I climbed off the ladder and retrieved my box. I carried it to the drug room where my client was waiting.
Our drug room is next to the lobby. The two rooms are connected by a bathroom, which serves as our whiz collection room as well as our public restroom. There are two doors. The interior door allows access from the drug test room. The exterior door allows access from the lobby. A bolt on the interior door allows us to prevent access to the drug room from the lobby. The interior door was locked from the inside. I banged on it a couple of times but got no answer. I had to go out through the main door, locking and unlocking it, into the lobby full of thugs, I mean clients, go through that door, after knocking, lock it, unlock the interior door, get my test kit pack, get my client, go in, close the interior door, and collect my sample. The I went to leave and found someone had closed the bolt on the interior door. I had to exit through the lobby again, unlock the main door, go through it, close and lock it. And I had to do this while keeping an eye on my client and balancing a test kit jar full of urine. This escape took so long that I was behind for the rest of my afternoon appointments. At least he didn't test positive for anything.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Happy Hellidays
Well, Thanksgiving passed by relatively uneventfully. I cooked a good meal, nobody showed up, but the in-laws did stop in for some supper left-overs. Then Christmas came. We didn't have a lot of money, so we bought for the kids, our parents, and a few little gifts for friends. My in-laws came in the Sunday before Christmas and haven't left yet. The rumor is they might leave this Saturday, but I have no hope left. I was told they were staying with a business partner and that we might have the youngest child, my wife's 15 year-old sister, for 3 days. Instead I have all three of them in our tiny little house. My wife and I have to hide in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart to have a private conversation. My mother-in-law keeps insisting on doing the cooking, laundry, ext. Only it's my food she's cooking and my stuff she keeps rearranging to suit her. I can't find anything in my kitchen and when I go look for something for breakfast, I find they ate it for freaking lunch. I bought enough food to do my wife and I for 3 weeks and give me enough food for lunch so I wouldn't have to eat out any. It's almost gone. They finally took a hint and bought enough meat for about 4 meals, some drinks, and some potatoes, but they are still eating my canned foods up. They even got into my peanut butter.
My father-in-law is either channel surfing on the TV or hogging my wife's computer. My mother-in-law finally cleaned everything to her standards, rearranged all my pots, pans and dishes to her liking and has taken to releveling the front yard by hand. She also insists on feeding the goats and chickens even though I've already done it, which is wasting the food I don't have the money to replace. They have their RV plugged into the house and are running the heater and lights, so I am sure next months electric and water bills are going the double. My only relief so far has been work and locking myself into our bedroom and watching TV in there. Unfortunately, it recently turned very cold, so on the days the sister-in-law isn't at her slut friends house, she is camping in the bedroom listening to the radio and talking on her cell phone. Since it is permanently glued to her ear, the battery is always low, so she has to plug it in to charge while talking. This means she unplugs something in the bedroom so she can lay on the bed and gossip and listen to music. She mainly unplugs by wife's reading lamp, but I usually go to bed first and I leave that light on so my wife doesn't trip over a cat or something coming to bed. So everynight she has been there this week I have had to crawl under the dresser and replug the hard-to-get-to lamp cord in. Now the sister-in-law is a lazy, disrespectful, ungrateful waste of a carbon-based life form, mainly because the parents let her do as she wants because it is easier on them. She is a little afraid of my wife and I, but confident that her parents will protect her, so she has been fairly snotty unless she wants something. My wife has thus far kept me from taking a machete to her, or shooting the other too, but I think she has finally reach her limit at having our lives disrupted.
You see, we had had the father-in-law with us for a week before the holidays. He was transporting horses from Kentucky to Tennessee in preparation for going to Florida. He had gotten word there was a quarantine coming to the track and was trying to get his horses out before they were restricted, he got all but three, unfortunately it earned him a 6 month suspension by the racing commission. He also had a falling out with his business partner last week, so I think that is one reason he isn't in a hurry to leave. Unfortunately they are way to comfortable in our house and I am about ready to go from zero to homicidal maniac in a half a second.
My father-in-law is either channel surfing on the TV or hogging my wife's computer. My mother-in-law finally cleaned everything to her standards, rearranged all my pots, pans and dishes to her liking and has taken to releveling the front yard by hand. She also insists on feeding the goats and chickens even though I've already done it, which is wasting the food I don't have the money to replace. They have their RV plugged into the house and are running the heater and lights, so I am sure next months electric and water bills are going the double. My only relief so far has been work and locking myself into our bedroom and watching TV in there. Unfortunately, it recently turned very cold, so on the days the sister-in-law isn't at her slut friends house, she is camping in the bedroom listening to the radio and talking on her cell phone. Since it is permanently glued to her ear, the battery is always low, so she has to plug it in to charge while talking. This means she unplugs something in the bedroom so she can lay on the bed and gossip and listen to music. She mainly unplugs by wife's reading lamp, but I usually go to bed first and I leave that light on so my wife doesn't trip over a cat or something coming to bed. So everynight she has been there this week I have had to crawl under the dresser and replug the hard-to-get-to lamp cord in. Now the sister-in-law is a lazy, disrespectful, ungrateful waste of a carbon-based life form, mainly because the parents let her do as she wants because it is easier on them. She is a little afraid of my wife and I, but confident that her parents will protect her, so she has been fairly snotty unless she wants something. My wife has thus far kept me from taking a machete to her, or shooting the other too, but I think she has finally reach her limit at having our lives disrupted.
You see, we had had the father-in-law with us for a week before the holidays. He was transporting horses from Kentucky to Tennessee in preparation for going to Florida. He had gotten word there was a quarantine coming to the track and was trying to get his horses out before they were restricted, he got all but three, unfortunately it earned him a 6 month suspension by the racing commission. He also had a falling out with his business partner last week, so I think that is one reason he isn't in a hurry to leave. Unfortunately they are way to comfortable in our house and I am about ready to go from zero to homicidal maniac in a half a second.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
