I use to think the grass would be greener on the other side of the “fence”. Well it wasn’t and it actually was pretty much the same as the grass from where I had come from. I’ve discovered that the best grass is the grass you grow yourself, other people’s grass is only there to benefit them from your efforts.

If someone requests your permission to look at your personal information and your response is, “you decide”, this is a stupid answer on your part. Come on, take responsibility for your life, don’t let everyone else make decisions for you.

Seeing you has darken my day.

Everything comes to an end, I hate this. Because that means a new beginning is coming. Maybe I don’t want to begin again; maybe I’m happy with the status quo. Change is not always better or even good, when my father passed, that was a change that I could have done without.

I’m sitting in the woods, yelling at a tree, do I really expect it to respond to me? What if the tree did respond to me, am I now in the Land of Oz?

Post #500

I asked my spouse the other night that if the world did come to an end, should I expect them to still come home from work? I was just curious.

Can you pick out a conflict of interest, I can, I just don’t care to.

When a yes and/or no answer doesn’t apply to a question, stop trying to get one. Sometimes life is not as simple as yes and/or no, sometimes you have to think about it, and work at it before the answer becomes clear.

At a former occupation, one of the company rules was that you couldn’t read anything at your desk that was non work related, which is fine, even thou I ignored it all the time. That being said, one of my “coworkers” who was just a little bit into themselves to begin with, decides it would be a righteous idea to ask if they could read the Bible at their desk, who would possibly object to that. Not surprisingly my employers answer was no. Being the good god fearing soul they believed themselves to be, they were all indignant about it. Upon learning that the supervisor who had turned down their request was a deacon at a church and again showing themselves to be the up standing church going individual they in vision themselves to be, they of course put the other person down. “I wouldn’t go to any church that would have them as a deacon!” Why didn’t that attitude surprise me? No one else could possibly be as righteous as they are. What a pile of crap. They don’t really want to read the Bible; they just want to prove how much better than everyone else they “know” they are, by making a public display of reading the Bible, or putting on the pretense that they to wanted to.

I’ve been called many things, but clever has never used in reference to me.

Actually heard a coworker say the other day, this company should get rid of all these people and start from scratch, so I guess this means she’s the best employee ever and all the rest of us are just idiots, well how special for her, who should be the one to tell her to get over herself?

We’re I to know, would I be the one, or would it still go to the least qualified of us all? So perhaps I should act like I don’t know, and then maybe I’ll be the one? Who knows?

On my first phone call at work today, I pick it up and the person says I’m Mr. Smith; do you want to talk to me? Huh, you called me, right, but to be honest, if they weren’t paying me to talk to him, then no, I don’t want to talk to you.

Conserving energy is all about economics of movement and I’m good at it since I don’t want to move in the first place.

I look around me every day and people just miss the point, they want to whine and complain about things they have no control over. They’ll call 20 times in one day and not get what they want, because it’s not in the realm of reality and then think we are all f*cked up, look in the mirror dude. Miss your meds today?

The counselor nailed it when they told my spouse that always wanting better can contribute to depression. That you should be happy with how things are at this moment and not always dwelling on things being better. They did not like that one bit, but to me it does make sense.

People with no hope or dreams dwell on the little things out of their control and then find someone to complain about it to. The sooner they realize that this won’t help, the happier they’ll be.

When I put out the extra effort, it only gets me ignored, so what’s the point of even trying.

The little people, don’t they get it, in the end, it doesn’t matter, their still the little people with no influence on the outcome. They may think they have free will, but they don’t, it’s all an illusion, wake up!! I had to.

Human life, is it really what we think it is? We are born, grow up, fall in love, have kids, raise kids, grow old, then die. Is this really all there is to it? Are relationships really what they seem to be, or are we just fooling ourselves? Can we really be one with the person we love, the children we have, or are we all truly strangers, but we’re careful not to show it? You see people every day, but do we? Is this all real, or just an illusion? I know there have been movies on this topic, but what if the movies are not that far from the reality we think we see? What if some of us are aware, but we don’t realize it? Maybe our problems are just glitches in the overall scheme of things and that in the end it all really doesn’t matter? People die every day, but do they really live? Are we here for the amusement of some higher being, or are we here just to reproduce? I get these strange feelings sometimes that all is not what it seems, am I just a glitch?

Do you suppose my issue with making friends has to do with the above? I sense something on another level and I see the futility of it all? That getting to know glitches better is not worth the effort since in the end they’ll let you down and it’s not worth it. What if it’s all pointless?

I think everyone should have the opportunity to get depressed, just so they can see how much d*m fun it really is!!

I’m a great boss, by not being one.

Would you hire this person, “I’m the best candidate for this job because, I have had many a boss who were fooled by my claim demeanor, believing I had no desire to succeed, who were later impressed by how well I did. Mostly because I work well with others and always strive to do the best job I can. I attribute this to my many years as an EMT, where you had to be in control, work with a level headed approach, act as a professional, and function as part of a team. Whenever I come across something I can’t handle, I’m not afraid to seek help and if that is not available, I try my best to make the correct decision. I would be an excellent addition to your organization, let me prove it. Would you hire this person, hope so? It’s been eleven years since I wrote this, how things have changed.

When one of my children was younger they said to us as we were going out the door, “If you don’t come back you suck”, ok, so I guess we’ll come back, wouldn’t want to suck.

I find people disappointing, they always leave and then I’m alone again.

My spouse asked me once if I was getting depressed, I said probably, they then say well don’t, we can’t afford it, like I have that kind of personal control, who are they kidding. I didn’t think it will get as bad as when we first married, for I have many ways to deal with depression now that I didn’t have before, like this blog plus the awareness that I’m susceptible to it. But to say, “don’t get depressed”; well that just misses the facts of the situation.

I took the units out to fly a kite once, one hide in the car and the other keep telling me to bring it lower. Then I lost the grip on the kite and its string got caught in a tree. As far as I know it’s still flying there, it was when I left. So what if Sandy has blown through here since then.

I’d like to think that I’m approachable, that anyone can ask me anything, but am I; it’s hard to judge for one self, what one might perceive to be true, may not be. It would explain some things if this belief was false. Actually it would explain a lot of things.

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Lowering The Bar Post

My words carry weight; unfortunately there so heavy that they only travel 2 feet out of my mouth before hitting the ground.

Post #475

The other night I heard this funny noise outside and I thought that it was some creature getting into the garbage cans yet again. So I opened the window to scare them off and looked down at the cans and nothing. But then I heard the noise again and looked up to discover that a huge branch on the neighbors tree was coming down onto the patio and roof of the my house, it was very odd, it was a perfectly calm night and it proceeded to come down really, really slow, so I guess gravity had finally won and it was time for it to drop.

When I was young and had no kids I figured that I’ll always be mountain climbing, not so, I miss just going out for a week and not caring what was going on in the real world. Say for example that if I was in the woods last Thursday, it would not have matter at all to me that the power was out, even if I had been aware that it had happened.

When one of my children was younger they grabbed two baby bottles and put them up theirs chest and stated, “I’m a girl”, I wonder where they got that from, no not really.

Doing the right thing can be difficult and it does not always turn out the way it should.

I took the children sleigh riding a while back. At one point my oldest was going back up a hill and a kid coming down the hill leveled them so hard their boots flew off. If that wasn’t bad enough, while they were sitting in the sled and I was retrieving the boots, another sled rear ended them. They didn’t think any of it was funny, I did, I wish I had a video camera with me. Then on the way home they were trying to come up with ways to blame others for their misfortune. First they said that if we had gone next day liked planned it wouldn’t have happen, then if I hadn’t made them go back up that hill, and finally if they were in school, we wouldn’t have been there. This tendency to rationalize is something to note.

At child birth class, there was a girl who wanted to know if she could return to the gym to work out 3 weeks after giving birth, the nurse said sure, if you don’t mind bleeding on the tread mill.

I was setting up a claim for damages to a rental car and the insured advised me they were from South Korea. So I went into the system to indicate this and only found the choice of Korea available and I mentioned it to him. The customer joked: I guess it was ass(u)med that no one from North Korea would be coming to the US anytime soon to rent a car so no distinction between the two countries was done by your company.

 

I don’t sweat the stupid stuff.

When you put in a claim for insurance you have to provide documentation to prove what you’re claiming. Usually when people can’t be bothered and just want us to write a check, they think threatening us with a lawyer will change things. Never does, but we’ll allow them their delusions. Well a client took it one step further, not only was he going to sue us, but he was going to make us pay his legal fees. This is a delusion at a higher level than I’ve recently encountered. If their lawyer is any good, they should be able to dispel these delusions, if not, they should drop the client.

I happen to get this client back the following day with a whole new attitude. I don’t know if they spoke to a lawyer, but they were a whole lot more accepting of the reality they were in.

I was driving down a three lane highway the other day in the far left lane when I noticed a police car pull out right after I went by and come up behind me, an oh sh*t moment, I was doing 70 in a 50mph zone.  But they didn’t have their light bar on, so now I’m confused.  Eventually I did hear their siren, but still no light bar, so I got out of the way.  Fortunately they pass me with one of the officers looking at me all upset because I didn’t yield the right of way and only then did their light bar come to life.  Not to be picky, but there were 2 officers in that car, maybe it should have occurred to at least one of them to turn the light bar on before speeding out into traffic.  I was just glad I didn’t get a ticket.

Sometimes it’s not really the kids with the problems, but rather the kids are reflecting their parent’s issues as they live their lives. So this being said; I’m sorry that your mother abandoned you again like she did when you were a child, this time leaving your children alone. But you were the one trying to be Mrs. Cleaver and let her back into your life. Hate to tell you, neither of you are nor were Mrs. Cleaver and nor will you ever be. You’re just not emotionally equipped to take on that role; counseling, try it!!

I’m not writing quantity over quality on this blog, for I would need some quality writing first to make that true.

I love how people react around here when the weather man predicts snow. They act like the world is coming to an end and then all we get is a dusting of snow. The only ones who like it are the grocers that sell out of all the items people think are necessary.

It’s a little windy today, I saw a flock of geese flying south today against the wind, they were making better progress being pushed back north.

A while back my children were playing in their fort when an acorn fell out of the tree and landed nearby.  They were all excited about this.  So I decided to have some fun and picked up a couple of acorns and when they weren’t looking I’d threw them towards the fort.  They were chasing after them and having a discussion on how all these acorns were falling out of the tree, was a squirrel doing it?  They then started to go around the yard to collect more acorns as I continued to toss them in their general vicinity and this keep up for about 15 minutes.  Finally one of them caught me in the act of throwing them; it was fun while it lasted.

The only way to take care of a major league azzhole is to cut them down to size. If that doesn’t work, then to my Cabin In The Woods pleaze.

Had an employer that wanted us to open our minds to the future. When he says this, he doesn’t mean “our” future, but rather “his“ future and if anything, we’ll shape “his” future in a way that will not make him happy. Especially when he’s so busy putting us down. He’ll also never understand why we didn’t participate in “his” meetings. He says we can ask questions, but when we did, he doesn’t answer them, so what’s the point? He just doesn’t understand that we didn’t care.

Earlier I was reading about “The Rapture”, where God is supposed to take back to heaven all those who are ready.  Ready?  How can one be ready?  I believe the more “ready” you are, the less “ready” you really are, for you’re trying too hard. Plus you tend to make misinformed judgments about other people who you don’t think are “ready”, like you, thusly disqualifying you from being ready.

A friend of mine once owned a high mileage Saturn. About one in the morning they were awoken with the flicking of fire in their window. Apparently it had an electrical fire, which was bad enough. But by the time they noticed it, it was fully involved and the very low mileage Toyota parked next to it was also on fire. In one stroke, they went from having 2 cars, to none; instant pedestrians.

If I’m fooling you, then you’re more gullible than I thought.

I once use to think the more I suffered on a camping trip, the more of a real camper/man I was, that was stupid.

What do you mean my check bounced, I still have blank ones?

My 13 year old thought this might be a good pick up line, “I put the STD in STUD and all I need is U. They have lots to learn, plus the use of STD in any pickup line is a bad idea.

I don’t tweet, I don’t trot, but I do sit on the toilet and plot.

A customer was spelling out a word for me when they got to the letter X and said, X as in Eskimo. Not even close.

Post #450

They want us to make a decision based on no information. I advised that isn’t possible, we need information first, absence of info is not sufficient.

One college I went to had a brick surface between the buildings that had become uneven over the years. One young lady was rushing across this area in her 3 inch high Klogs and literally fell off them and broke a bone in her foot. It was one of the most obvious breaks I ever saw without the bone actually breaking through the skin. The price that’s paid for a fashion statement I ass(u)me.

I know it’s none of my business, but anyhow, what just happened?

Today when you get a medical procedure, they triple check who you are before doing anything. I remember one time in the 80’s we went to take a patient out of a hospital and back to their nursing home. When we arrived on the unit, the nurse gave us the patient chart and said the patient was in room 333, bed B. So we loaded the patient up and off we went. (The patient was unconscious). We made it as far as the ER when the nurse who released the patient to us, came running down the hall. She had told us the wrong patient. We almost made it out of the hospital, oops. After that I made it a point to check that I had the right patient, especially if they were unconscious.

Few people expect to die, even fewer want to, so why do they?

Got my teeth cleaned today since I’m getting a colonoscopy tomorrow and want to look good for the camera.

I’ll never know the pleasure of sending my daughter off to the prom since I had three dicks.

During the claim initiation process I’ll offer to either mail or email the claim form. It amazes me how often people hesitate and think about their answer. Really it’s not that challenging a question.

The higher the premium you pay for insurance, the greater the benefit you’ll receive. The lower amount you pay in premium, the lower the benefit. So when you only pay $20, expect crappy benefits. After all, you get what you pay for. Buy a Yugo, drive in misery, buy a Cadillac, and drive in comfort. Not the other way around.

I was sitting at a red light in a village in the only lane that goes straight into a two lane intersection. A funeral procession came through the light turning right towards the highway. It was a big procession so when my light turned green I stayed put out of respect. A person behind me, a couple of cars back, starts honking and being impatient and then went into the turn only lane and through the light all in a rush. The best part of this, it was a priest, a “supposed” holy man, who was being inconvenienced. What ever happen to compassion? I also noticed he was driving a new looking Lincoln, helping the poor? So this further confirmed my belief, that no matter what your occupation, an azzhole is an azzhole. Though he wasn’t the first priest or clergyman I have encountered that I formed this opinion of, just saying.

I knew of one minister whose practice was to visit the sick and injured of their congregation. But if a family member of theirs, like a sibling, was in a similar situation, there was not so much as a phone call. A little hypocritical in their view of what is important and their so called “calling in life”.

I don’t judge you from where you come from, I judge you whether you’re an idiot or not.

I can’t spell unfortunately. When I try to spell it the spell check either gives me different suggestions for other words or nothing at all. This unfortunately is kind of sad. As I’ve stated before, spell check was the greatest discovery of my college career. But even it can’t help if you can’t spell the word close enough to the actual word for spell check to figure it out. Unfortunately is my down fall.

A claimant thinks we should pay for the part of their claim that is not covered by the policy as a courtesy to them. Sorry were not in the courtesy business, but rather the reality of what you actually bought coverage for business.

I was with one of my children on a youth camping trip that had hundreds of children participating under the age of 11.  For many it was their first time camping.  It was a long and busy day.  Around 10pm my child and me went to bed, even though they wanted to stay up, I was exhausted.  But the woods were alive with the sounds of excited children and I didn’t anticipate getting any sleep, any time soon, as probably many other parents in the area were also thinking.  Then there was a gift from God.  It started to rain and it wasn’t a drizzle.  Nothing dampers fun more in the woods than pouring rain.  This greatly reduced the noise level as everyone ran for their tents.  Though the children were back up with the sun the next morning; sleep, who needs sleep.

I use to know a lot of information, but I think my brain put it in a useless info folder and then deleted it.

An aging banana is like a metaphor for life. As it gets older it starts to deteriorate, getting unexplained discoloration on its skin, goes soft, produces funny smells and easily breaks. Just like us.

One ambulance service I volunteered for was established in 1975. While organizing it they came up with 2 names for it. The first one was the Western Area Volunteer Emergency Services. The second name was the Fairmount Area Rescue Team. So it was either WAVES or FART, which one do you suppose was picked?

Was on a recent camping trip with my kids youth group where they were preparing steak and potatoes for dinner. They screwed up the potatoes somehow and using tween logic they decided that donuts were an appropriate substitute. On another trip Doritos were crushed up and used as a topping for steak. They said it was good. Then when I got home our milk was in a 2 liter Coke bottle, I didn’t even want to know why this was the case. Decisions by tweens are often baffling, increasing my desire for my Cabin In The Woods.

The camp we were at is known as Tic Central. There have been times where I’ve removed dozens over a weekend. This trip wasn’t so bad, I only removed 4. One of our newer members came to me to remove a Tic, but my Tic key didn’t work. Upon closer examination with another adult we determined it was in fact a freckle, not a Tic. The child then says,” I never noticed it before”, well you know about it now.

 

You hate it because you don’t understand it.

I was watching an elderly couple get out of a car and then retrieve their elderly dogs from the back seat. They all then waddled as they walked by, it was very amusing. It’s the little things in life that sometimes are the best.

Be happy with what you have in life. Desiring more and never getting it will destroy your ability to be happy. It took me a long time to figure this out, save yourself the pain of disappointment of unfulfilled desires and accept my advice.

I’m the leading authority when it comes to not giving a sh*t. Feel free to consult with me at any time, I won’t charge you a fee, for I won’t answer, after all I don’t give a sh*t.

It’s easy to take a life, much harder to save one.

I remember while on the way to a youth camping trip the car we were in was a bit old and in disrepair. The driver, who was known as a jokester, turned to my Dad and said, “I’m tired can you drive?” They then preceded to hand my Dad the steering wheel to my father’s shock. It was a good joke, thou I’m not certain my Dad appreciated it.

Had a lady who lives in Florida cancel her July trip to Uzbekistan because she thinks it’ll be too hot? Really, you live in Florida, too hot. I looked it up, Uzbekistan high is 104 degrees, Florida can match that and add in humidity to boot. However their lowest is -9, that would kill most people in Florida. So I would suggest she stay home in the winter.

Post #425

I just talked to someone who knows not of what they’re talking about, but still thinks their right. It’s impossible to get the correct information through to these people. They don’t want to hear it, though this attitude doesn’t change the facts any. But then they live an emotional based life and facts are irreverent to them, their opinion is all that matters.

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Do You Suppose The Farmer Should Have Said, “Sh*t Happens?”

Don’t be paranoid, if you think it’s going on, it probably is.

In the later years of my Dad’s life he had heart issues with the doctors putting him on water pills. So my Dad acquired a good knowledge of where the bathrooms were in his daily life. However on one road trip he was using a urinal instead of making frequent stops, a revised Clorox bottle perhaps. Plus they weren’t stopping to empty it, he would tell the driver to slow down and then dump it out the window. In one instance the driver didn’t hear the request and Dad proceeded to do the dump any way. Apparently as a result of this, the car behind them had to turn their wipers on. I do hope they didn’t have any windows open.

One camp I worked at did magic fire at the closing campfire, where we would have the children focus on the fire and it would magically erupt into flames. The ingredients of our magic fire were ∅, sugar and Ü, worked really well. The next year we got a new director who was a chemistry teacher and this spoil sport wouldn’t let us use the traditional magic fire formula, something about being too dangerous. So we tried to come up with a new one that he would approve of, all were a major fail. One attempt we tried was with the rocket engines you can buy, it failed to work, but once the fire got going, by other means, it did finally shoot off and out of the fire; it flew at the director, oops. I think the magic fire tradition pretty much died after that summer.

I don’t fear the wrath of God, I fear the religious zealot with an assault rifle that has bad intentions on their mind and blood lust in their eyes.

Did you read it? No, so then how are you an expert?

Had a claimant start to swear at me and when I asked them why they were doing this they said, “because I can you mother f*cker”. Perhaps that’s true in their world, in mine, not so much. They found out what I can do.

One district I worked in had a resident that wasn’t dealing with a full deck. One day she put all her home furnishings out to the curb and of course people started to help themselves. Then she called the police to report they were stealing from her. I know she really just wanted to be left alone and when AIDS came on the scene she started to tell people she had it. There was so much fear of it at the time that it was an effective tactic.

Another instance I was working retail and we had a lady in the bathroom stall singing away and slapping her bare feet on the ground. She wasn’t too interested in our request to leave. So we called the police, who were well aware of her. When the officer arrived she recognized him and asked if he could take her home, which he did.

I went to a round table meeting at work, but the table was a rectangle. I’m so confused, the invitation said round table meeting.

If you were smarter we wouldn’t be having this conversation because apparently this concept is beyond your comprehension level.

Had someone insist on spelling out Tina for me not once, twice, but three times?  How on earth have I been able to operate my life before this person came along to help me spell out such complex words?  Also I wonder if they are related to the person who insisted on spelling out Dave for me.

I offered a customer their reference number today, their response was, I can’t take it, I’m on the toilet.  Why did they share that with me?  Just say I can’t take it right now.

One of my supervisors recently sent out an email to the entire company with one little typo.  The added an extra “s” to as, kind of changes the whole meaning of the word.  Someday, maybe, they’ll live it down.

I’m never sad; rather I’m deep in reflective thought.

A lot of times when I was called out on the ambulance we would arrive at the scene to something other than we were told by dispatch.  One of the calls we were most often misinformed about were personal injury from a fall.  You’d leave thinking it’s going to be a blood & bones call and you get there and the patient actually had a stroke, that’s why they fell; now you need the paramedics.  One example of why you need to be ready for anything.  The person who called it in, may have seen the fall, but didn’t understand the reason, but then why would they?

On one hiking trip my sibling was amazed at the great gas mileage the car was getting until we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere in the mountains.  That’s when the reality of a broken gas gauge came into play.

Drinking/drugs may help you forget and dull the pain of regrets, but when you sober up, your regrets will still be there and it will still hurt.  Maybe you need another approach, like dealing with them?

I’m writing this crap faster than I can post it because I have a pimple on my dimple and old never gets new again.  Are you following along?

Had a lady call in to cancel her cruise because her sons made the playoffs; were playing when they were supposed to be on the ship.  The cruise was scheduled to leave same day as the game, they loss.  She was joking; couldn’t they win at least one game, I could be on the ship now getting drunk.