Winter boredom

Wow. There is just nothing to write about these days. Apparently the post-Christmas society slowdown can even apply to blogs.

I coined the phrase ‘post-Christmas society slowdown’ back when I worked retail at Target as a smartass reference to the way shopping always slows WAY down in January and February due to everybody having overspent for Christmas. Gradually, I began to realize that it doesn’t apply only to shopping.

Now remember, none of this is carved in stone. This is all merely how I observe things to be. I could be WAY off.

There seems to be a general malaise going on. My friends are going back and forth to work like automatons, with no real feelings about the subject one way or another. People don’t seem to be doing anything fun in their off hours. Speaking for myself, right now I only leave the house twice a week.

I’m not saying whether or not all of this is a good thing, or even a bad thing. It’s just what is happening. Things will pick up a little bit during the period around Valentine’s Day, and then will probably slow back down for another couple of weeks. It’s usually sometime between the beginning and middle of March that people start to revitalize.

Naturally, we all know that people are sick of winter. March brings hope for all of us that winter may be ending, and hopefully soon, even though it feels like forever. January and February are just cold and boring, with no end in sight. From my own perspective, the most exciting thing I’ve done all week is get a haircut.

Y’know, since that’s about as exciting as my week has been, I think that’s as good a place as any to close and post.

I know I said I’d be back Monday or Tuesday and it’s now Wednesday, but I think this entry has kind of proven the reasons for the delay. Hee hee.

Have a good week.

My own private cold war

It’s been a six-day hiatus for the Mid-Life Crisis, probably the longest I’ve gone between posts in quite a while. I think back at the beginning there may have been a time or two where I went almost two weeks between entries, but I’d have to look it up to be sure, and I don’t feel like it. Truth be told, there has just not been a lot of anything happening this past week. (Yeah, I know, as opposed to all my other life-and-death adventures.)

Tuesday saw Amber come up from the Cities, and we took care of a bit of estate business. Other than that, the majority of the week until Thursday was spent getting over that horrendous cold that I had. I either need to start having colds more regularly, so I’m better equipped to deal with them, or I need to stop them altogether. This one was pure misery. I’m just glad that it’s gone.

Thursday was the first day I woke up feeling like the cold was over. I was so ecstatic to be feeling better, that I immediately planned an entire day of activity, only to spend the day alternating between the computer and the TV. I didn’t realize while I was planning all the activity that while I was feeling a lot better, I was still tired from it all. Oh well.

Friday saw me take care of most of the stuff I wanted to do on Thursday, most notably haul a bunch of old crap to the dumpsters, and go grocery shopping.

I’m glad to say that as of this morning, I am now back to feeling 100 percent, and starting with tomorrow’s classified ads, I can resume the job hunt.

Not a great week, I admit, but I wanted to add some content. I don’t like going more than 2 or 3 days without writing something.

Have a good weekend, and I should be back here on Monday or Tuesday.

Double drugs, double kids

I’m sipping on an orange juice and waiting for my coffee to brew. I don’t like orange juice. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I don’t mind it, but it’s not a beverage that I normally seek out unless I’m under the weather. Then, I crave it.

I didn’t mention this in my last entry, but as I was writing on Thursday morning, and then all the way through Friday I had an incredibly sore throat. I went shopping Friday evening and picked up some Tylenol® cold medicine, extra strength, and also some Alka-Seltzer® Plus for colds, because I had a suspicion I was coming down with one. I was right. The fact that the store had these meds on sale at 2-for-1 prices also seemed a tad prophetic. I got up yesterday morning, Saturday, and had no voice. My throat wasn’t sore anymore, but my nose felt, and still feels like a bag of wet sand. My voice gradually came back, to a point, but I still sound like I’ve been gargling with drain cleaner. So, now I’m on a self-prescribed four-hour rotation of over the counter cold meds. 8:00, 12:00, and 4:00 I take 2 of the Tylenol® pills, and wash them down with a glass of Alka-Seltzer® Plus. 8, 12, and 4, the same med schedule that we had my Mom on last May when she was succumbing to her cancer. That’s a nice little flashback for me, but I can’t really help it. I haven’t had a cold in six years, and as a result, this one is really kicking my ass.

The coffee’s ready, which is a good thing. I gulped the last of the oj, and poured meself a cup. Like I said, I don’t mind oj, but after a few sips of it, the ultra-sweetness of it really starts to shrivel my tongue. The heat of the coffee is soothing to my throat, and almost makes me sound normal for a second or two after each swallow.

I got an email from my sister Corinna yesterday. This is the sister who I just now realized I never mentioned by name when I wrote about meeting my nephew Clayton last August. I also failed to mention that at Christmas, we all found out that she is expecting again. This is cool. Anyway, the email yesterday brought another small detail to light, and I immediately called her for confirmation. Apparently, at the most recent of her gestationary doctor checkups, it was discovered that she is not only pregnant for the second time, but also for the third time. Twins is on the way. This is pretty exciting news, I think. It’s gonna suck for her, though; she gets to carry twins through the upcoming hot & humid summer months. I don’t think she’ll mind too much though. I don’t know the exact due date, but it should be late summer/early fall.

That brings this Sunday’s edition of the Mid-Life Crisis to a close. I’m going to get this page saved, proofread, re-saved and posted, and by then it should be time to gulp another handful of cold meds.

Have a good day, and don’t catch my cold.

You are getting sleepy -- Well, not really

I went to bed at 2230 last night because I have an appointment at 0900 this morning. I have to go to an employment agency, and take a typing test. Silly as it sounds, there is a valid reason.

Most of you, my loyal readership (all six of you) know that I’ve been without proper employment for almost a full year now. Right now, in the first month of the new year post-Christmas time frame, is the worst time of the year to be looking for work, as there is just nothing out there due to businesses having their usual lack of business. As it happens, I found a job in the online classifieds yesterday that actually sounds pretty good. I’m not going to say much about it, because I don’t want to jinx my chances, but one of the job requirements is to be able to type 50 words per minute.

I’m pretty sure I can do that. I’ve never taken a typing speed test before, but that’s what the visit to the employment agency is all about. They’ll give me a test, and if it meets at least the 50 wpm requirement, I can go apply for the job with a legal test score in my pocket.

My dad also emailed me yesterday with the possibility of another job that he had heard about through his sources. I’m going to go apply for this one as well, and with any luck, maybe one of them will set me up with an interview.

So here I sit, at 0315, typing all of this up for your benefit, instead of sleeping. I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, Hey, Bill (which is damn silly to say to yourself) (sorry, had to steal a joke from Steve Martin) why do you sit here at 0315 typing all of this up for our benefit instead of sleeping? Darn good question.

Once again, I can’t sleep. I have no idea why. I’m not nervous about the typing test, because in the long run, it really doesn’t matter, and I get plenty of practice at it when I write these entries. I’m not nervous about the jobs themselves; I’m only filling out applications tomorrow. Nervousness comes when it’s time for the actual interview.

I did sleep a little bit, but not much. After waking up several times, I realized that I was sleeping in five-minute bursts. I know, you’re not supposed to look at the clock when trying to sleep, but I needed to know where I was whenever I realized I had slept even a little bit. I would sleep for five minutes or so, wake up for a ten-minute session of tossing, turning, and mopping up my drool from the previous five minutes (I know that’s gross, but I am a horrible sleeper) and then mayhap drift off for another blissful 5 minute REM session. I only hope that all of you realize that means Rapid Eye Movement, the dream state of sleep, and that it does NOT mean I was having erotic dreams about Michael Stipe. Oh, and for my readers who are my parents’ age, good luck understanding that joke.

Most of this activity happened during the two o’clock hour. Finally, about 3, I got up, grabbed my bottle of water off the nightstand, and headed in here to the computer to see what I could do to make myself drowsy. Hey! I thought. If I write an entry for the blog, that should put me out! No luck. The more I sit and type, the more awake I actually am.

Those of you who are regular readers have heard me grousing about my irregular sleep patterns more than once. I really don’t know what the problem is anymore. I have tried everything and anything I can think of to try and get my nocturnal patterns in order, and I have reached a point where nothing is working anymore. I’m up most of the night, and I keep crashing at least twice during the day for an hour or two at a time.

I’m asking you, if you happen to have any suggestions for a solution, please, pass them on to me. I’ve already tried everything obvious, except for sacrificing a goat in the mall parking lot at high noon sleep aids. Anything at all, no matter how strange it may sound. I’m at a point where I’m willing to try anything. Well, almost anything, as long as it doesn’t involve breaking the law.

Enjoy your day. Mine should be interesting.

Blocks and boxing

Well, amid much silence and absolutely no announcements whatsoever, My Mid-Life Crisis -- The Official Soundtrack passed over 1000 visits from people just like you. I didn’t actually notice this until about 1003 or so, and whoever did make the 1000th visit didn’t call attention to themselves, so, it’s apparently a minor watermark in the grand scheme.

In other news, Friday the 12th of January saw my stepbrother, Anthony 'The Bullet' Bonsante punch his way to victory against long-time rival Matt ‘The Predator’ Vanda. This took place at the Target Center in Minneapolis. I was unable to attend the fight for various reasons, but from what I’ve heard and read about it, it was a pretty good one. If I

Vanda 'The Predator' receiving punishment from 'The Bullet'

Photo copyright © Associated Press

understand correctly, this win gives 'The Bullet' a shot at the IBA middleweight championship title, presumably to be held in March at Madison Square Garden. I know I won’t be able to attend that one, but I’ve heard it will be broadcast on Pay-Per-View. I’ll definitely be signing up for that.

For those one or two of you that may have noticed, it’s been several days between entries for me. This wasn’t really done by choice; every time I opened up my trusty Microsoft Word® Document and commenced smacking the keyboard to fill it, very little actually resulted, and what did result was basically crap. You may think, ‘What’s the difference between that and everything posted so far?’ Well, the main difference is that while entries I’ve written in the past may have been boring or crap, they are at least well written boring crap. The stuff I was producing over the past couple of days wasn’t even well written; it all came out sounding forced, and I don’t like that at all. When I write, I need the keyboard to barely be able to keep up with the words I’m slapping down. This is how it’s going right now, and I tell ya, it feels good.

That’s about all the news that’s fit to post at this time. Have a great day.

Blah, blah, blah

I was right. The mistake was on the part of the electric company, but I had to pay anyway. I just gave them the same check back. Luckily it was still in my files; I’m not normally that organized unless I need to be for a job.

So here I sit on a Thursday morning. I’ve been up for about an hour now, sipping my coffee and surfing the Internet doing the same things I always mention when I have little to write about and wish to pad my word count.

I am completely unmotivated lately, and have been for a couple of weeks. My dad thinks it’s just because I don’t have a job to go to, and therefore I’m listless about everything else. He’s probably right. I used to dream about being secure enough to not have to work. I’ve had almost a year of no work now. Luckily enough, my residence is paid for and my monthly bills are minimal. This gives me a limited amount of freedom. I can come and go as I please, or do nothing for days on end. It’s all well and good, except it isn’t exactly the ideal scenario I had always pictured. For it to be ideal, I would need the financial freedom to pick up and head off on a trip somewhere to fill my time. Right now, I just have enough to keep me living comfortably.

Most of my past two weeks have been spent checking ads for jobs, of which there are none; post-Christmas is absolutely the worst time of year, and watching a lot of DVDs. I have the entire series of M*A*S*H on DVD, and yesterday I just finished a run of watching all 251 episodes in a row, plus special features. I have a few different TV series on DVD, but I honestly believe that this is pretty much the only program I could sit through for this long without getting burned out on it. Any other series that I own would need to be broken up in between episodes.

I’m also trying to plan my day today, for things I want/need to do once I get this entry posted. I know what I need to do, and I want very much to get it done, but when you consider that it’s been my daily plan for a month now and it remains unaccomplished, I really can’t make any promises. So, I’m not even going to mention what the plan is until I have actually finished it.

In between the last paragraph and this one, I just fired off an email to my cousin. I haven’t received any updates for a few days on my aunt’s condition, and I don’t want to start making phone calls or visits without knowing the full scoop. I don’t like to be disturbed when I’m sick, so I refuse to disturb anybody else who may be sick.

At the time of this writing, I notice that I only have about 15 or so more visitors to go before I hit the One Thousand mark. It’s not a completely accurate count; I had this blog going for a little while before I installed the hit counter, so I don’t know how many (or few) visits I had before then. Also, just so you know, I’m not padding my hit count by making repeated visits myself, either. I have it set to ignore my own visits. Hey, maybe if whoever becomes my 1000th visitor wants to let me know who they are, they can get an honorable mention in an upcoming entry. No prizes though. This is a low no-budget operation. All it costs me is time, and that’s not exactly something tangible that I can just hand over to anybody.

That’s about it for today. I’m going to run this through the spell checker, get it posted, check out this morning’s entries on FARK, and see what, if anything, I can get done today.

Thank you, please drive through.

Sparks

Back in October, once the sale of Mom’s house was finalized, I ran around to the various power companies, i.e. the gas company, electric company, phone company, etc. to inform them that we were no longer responsible for the house, and to settle all final bills. Most of it was easy, save for the electric company.

I went to the electric company’s main office, and showed them a copy of Mom’s bill, and told them to send the final bill to my home address, as I would no longer be receiving any mail at Mom’s house. They took down my address, and assured me that I would receive the final bill as soon as possible.

I did receive it shortly thereafter. It was a small amount, roughly $31.00 or so. I wrote out a check, sent the check down to Amber for her co-signature, and she mailed it to the electric company. Problem solved. All taken care of. Well, maybe.

A week or so later, I got the check back from the electric company, along with a letter stating that the final bill had been paid by auto-draft. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as we had been in the process of shutting down all of the auto-draft payments, but I didn’t argue. The final bill had been paid, and was no longer an issue.

This past Friday, I received an envelope from the electric company stating that the amount of the final bill, $31.00, was now WAY past due, and if they do not receive payment shortly, the matter will be turned over to a collection agency. Now I have to dig back through the files, find the letter and the check, and drive over to the electric company to find out just what the hell is going on.

Logic would dictate that since I have the letter and the returned check in my possession, the final bill should no longer exist, and I should be free to go about my business. But, there is a sad truth in existence in that the real world has very little to do with logic, and I’m going to end up paying this bill again.

That’s the beginning of my week. How’s yours?

My first aspirin of 2007

It’s now the third day of 2007. I haven’t really done much yet this year. I went grocery shopping during the day of the 31st. I wandered about the house doing absolutely nothing except surfing the Net and watching DVDs on Monday the 1st. Yesterday, the 2nd, I was finally able to go to the hospital in Crosby to visit my aunt, who has been there with pneumonia since last Thursday or so. She’s doing a lot better, but I don’t think she’s quite out of the woods yet. I don’t know if I’m going to visit again today or not. The visit yesterday seemed to be a bit exhausting for her, and I don’t like to be the cause of somebody’s illness getting complicated. Mayhap I’ll wait until tomorrow.

I had a whole 3 hours or so of sleep last night. I went to bed around midnight, but I wasn’t very sleepy, so I flipped on the TV. I looked through the listings, hoping to find nothing so that I could turn off the TV and attempt sleep. As luck would have it, I found a channel that was currently playing the final episode of M*A*S*H, the 2 ½ hour movie that concluded the series. It was more than half over, but I turned to it. There was really no reason whatsoever for me to have watched any of it; I have it on DVD twice. But, sucker for the show that I am, I kept with it until it ended at 0300. I did manage to go to sleep afterward, but I’ve been up since 0630 drinking coffee.

I started looking around the homepage for my blog setup this morning as I was thinking of changing the look of my page. New year, new look, why not? I looked through the choices for page setups, and I wasn’t really thrilled with any of the choices, so I left it alone for the time being. However, I did tinker a bit with the current setup. I know; it doesn’t look any different than it did previously. That’s because my tinkering turned into a huge misadventure.

I won’t go into certain details, but there’s a section in the setup of my blog that allows for the altering and/or changing of the current page template. I entered into this section to try and do some updating, fully confident in the paragraph that stated words to the effect of: “I will be able to restore my original look if I want.”

I went into the page where I could do my page editing, and began clicking here and there. What a horrendous mess this turned out to be. All of my links disappeared, my hit counter vanished, and my “About Me” at the top of the page took up residence in the sidebar, deleting some of the words, and inaccurately dividing words between lines. All of this may sound a bit confusing, so I’ll simply say this: My blog ended up looking like Absolute Shit.

I’ve been mucking about with computers and Internet stuff for almost seven years now. Suffice to say; while I do know a lot about them, there is still a lot that I don’t know. Once I had completely ruined the look of my blog, I did what anybody with my specific amount of knowledge would do: I panicked.

I tried reversing the edits I had made. No good, this only removed certain page elements altogether. I tried hitting the “back” button to get me back to where I had started. No good, this brought me back to the beginning, but all my changes were firmly saved. I went into my own files, where I had saved a copy of my original template. I added the original template code back into the setup. It was rejected. Ultimately, I considered deleting my entire blog, and starting over.

Finally, I found the button to click that brought me back to my original look. All is well again in my little corner of the Internet. I may still change the look of this page, but as of this little mishap, any changes have been pushed farther down the road. A considerable amount of experimentation will be required first.

It’s now almost 0830. I’m going to get this posted, and then see about getting my day started.