Life | Piss and Moan

Hypocritical complaints

Posted on July 13, 2021 by backuphill

Photo by Adrienne Andersen on Pexels.com

I am know I am guilty of it. I am not exempt from it. I’ll admit it. I’ve got some hypocritical complaints about family members. It’s just really rich when someone will point them out to me, but not recognize that they themselves are doing exactly the same thing.

As you can imagine, blended families are a challenge. Actually, challenge may be the wrong word. It’s actually a special kind of hell, really. It’s a love and hate relationship x100. It’s unbearable and maybe survivable. It’s an age old story, but typically you don’t treat your non-biological children the same as you do your biological ones. It’s terrible.

Anyway, the youngest (my bio kid) just moved in after her graduation from high school. The relationship between her and step-mom is strained (at best). Of course, you can imagine all the reasons why…many of the same reasons why my relationship with my non-bios is strained. She can see the obvious differences between how she gets treated and how they get treated.

So, someone last night had the gall to complain about a “missed laundry day” and what we should tell her if she wants to do laundry outside of her designated day. Mind you, two of the three locally living non-bios do laundry at our house on a fairly regular basis even though they don’t actually reside in the house. The suggestion was that she should be told to go to a laundry mat to do her laundry…you can imagine that I pointed out that she does actually live here and that if she chose to do laundry at a time no one else was using the machines and did it in a timely manner so that it didn’t interfere with anyone else, I didn’t see a problem if there was a legitimate reason for missing her designated day.

I caught hell for that.

Heaven forbid that I mention anything about the non-bios and their status of being adults and lived outside the home for more than two years.

Never mind the fact that someone is secretly paying the leftover bills of another non-bio and his family who just moved out of state.

So, hypocritical complaints? Yeah. We have them. I bite my tongue on most of them until I can’t do it any longer.

It’s just laundry. It’s not a bad financial choice that will leave her asking for help years down the road, on a continual basis.

Give it a rest and me a break…

The fine print

Posted on July 8, 2021 by backuphill

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Don’t you just hate it when businesses offer something to their customers, only to find out “the fine print” would exclude you from receiving the offer?

Over the last couple of days I have been considering an upgrade on my cell device, an iPhone 8 Plus. I have done my research and I am ready to make the leap and upgrade to an iPhone 12 Pro. I have been watching the sales, the promotions, and looking at a different carrier so see if that would make a difference in the offer. I am currently with AT&T, and honestly I haven’t had any issues with them other than the cost, which seems steep in comparison to some of the others at the moment.

Anyway, I finally decided to pull the trigger after talking to one of the people at the phone kiosk in Costco. They told me that I could get the iPhone 12 Pro, 256GB, for only about $15/month with a trade-in of my current phone. That basically worked out to about an $800 trade-in value for my 8+. WOW! That’s a pretty good trade, which I have never done in the past because it just wasn’t worth that much and I could get more from selling it myself. Trigger pulled…I started the process.

So, I spend about an hour with the guy and we were most of the way done with the process and then I got, “Oh, wait, I didn’t see in the fine print of the ad that you have to upgrade your phone plan. Are you wanting to do that today too?”

WTF.

Is it “bait & switch”? I don’t really know, but it sure feels like it.

Why the hell do these phone companies give deals to new customers but really don’t care much about retaining their current customers? That is what really rubs me the wrong way. They do very little to incentivize you staying with them. There is no loyalty program – I’ve been their cellular customer for probably close to 20 years. No discounts or special upgrade deals for those who have been with the company for a long period of time.

Ultimately, I am going to end up doing what I have always done. Upgrade and then sell my current device privately.

It could have been so easy, except for that fine print. That fine print always makes easy not easy. It gets you every time.

Add title

Posted on July 7, 2021 by backuphill

Anyone else find that empty title line prompt intimidating these days?

I go to write a post and then it just sits there waiting for a title…and body…really the page just sits there and then I get busy doing other stuff and I decide I’ll do it another day. Then the next day rolls around, I open the page to do another post and the “Add title” prompt stops me in my tracks again.

Honestly, it isn’t the title that is holding me back though. It really just comes down to whether or not I really want to put the effort out to say what I want to say. Do I really want to put a post out there that will step on toes? Rile people up? Piss people off?

Is anyone even really reading these things? Is it worth my time to create if no one is actually consuming?

Questions I can’t really answer and certainly the stats area doesn’t tell you all you need (or want) to know about who is visiting your page, how long, where they go and what they look at, etc.

Something is lacking and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

So, add title…stares back at me.

Still staring…

Hey there

Posted on July 2, 2021 by backuphill

Hey there! How’s about you have a great weekend…and for those of you in the US, have a great 4th of July!

I have posted far less than normal last month, but things have slowed down now and it looks like there will some time over the summer to work on projects and get caught up on stuff.

With a long weekend coming up, I wanted to wish you all a happy and safe one.

I don’t really care. It just sounds nice. Let’s go with that.

See ya next week!

Baked ham

Posted on June 28, 2021 by backuphill

OK, it’s hot! It’s really, really hot!

These temps, up here in the Northwest corner of the United States, are not normal. If anyone asks, it rains all the time. Don’t move here. But, seriously, there are nice days here…except the the last two, and probably tomorrow too. It’s just unusually hot.

It isn’t the hottest part of the day, but the forecast is calling for a high somewhere in the neighborhood of 104 (105 depending on where you look) today. Of course, we all know those guys are rarely correct, so it will be hotter, for sure. At 12:31pm, it is currently 95 degrees outside.

Now, if you have been reading this blog for the last year and a half you will know that I have been working from home for the time of the “flu that is known by another name.” And, you will also know that my home office is in my garage. To further give details of my situation, know that my home and garage have no AC.

So, currently, at 12:31pm, the garage temp where I am working is 88 degrees and the house is 85 degrees.

I know know what a baked ham feels like, or a baked chicken. My family would probably say turkey. A baked turkey.

Anyway, stay cool out there…

Destructive behavior

Posted on June 23, 2021 by backuphill

Have you ever had a sudden urge or desire to engage in destructive behavior, either physically or mentally?

I am not sure what triggers the feelings (and I am totally in control, mostly), but two destructive behaviors I am currently contemplating:

Eat everything in sight.
Fight, either physically or verbally, everyone.

I know there are lots of other destructive behaviors out there and these are relatively minor compared to some, obviously, but today this is what I am dealing with.

Anyway, maybe it’s the fact that my “don’t give a damn” meter has reached beyond critical. Maybe it’s that I am tired, super super busy, and only marginally motivated.

I don’t know.

How do other people deal with this?

I know this is a passing feeling. It won’t last. But today, the feeling is strong. very strong.

What do you do?

Not forgotten

Posted on June 14, 2021 by backuphill

Yes, I haven’t been on here as of late. It’s been hard.

Not because I don’t want to. It’s because it has been so freaking busy at work (like unusually busy) that it just makes it hard to find time to get anything written.

The end of the school year is upon us and schools are trying to figure out how to navigate all the new rules, special situations, and data reporting needs, etc. so they can close out their educational year. The phones are ringing off the hook. The emails are none stop.

Add on top of that a handful of districts preparing for data migration to a newer version of the software and its hard to find time to breathe.

Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that I haven’t forgotten about you. Ya’ll are still on my mind, just not the only thing on it…

Hopefully things will slow down a little in a while and I get get back to my usual grumpiness.

Until then, keep an eye out for an occasional grumble, whine, complaint, or just a plain pissy point about common sense (or lack thereof).

Bad motivator

Posted on June 4, 2021 by backuphill

I seem to have a bad motivator. Yet, I have so much I could be doing. Anyone else having a hard time getting started today?

After a LONG, short week of work and every evening being dominated by gazebo construction (no, not done yet), I am just having a hard time focusing on what needs to be done at work today. I am already thinking about what I may be able to accomplish after work today, and yet there is a part of me that says, “You should just sit on the couch tonight.”

Perhaps another droid would like to take over and finish out the day for me.

Anyone?

Warped

Posted on June 2, 2021 by backuphill

Continuing on the projects theme from yesterday, the gazebo has been started and so far things are going fairly well.

Except…

Except that there are quite a few pieces of the wood material that is warped. Not horribly, but enough that making the gazebo square, which it needs to be for the roof, which could prove to be a major challenge.

I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything less. That’s the problem with these prefab kits you buy. Sure, all the pieces are cut to the right size, pre-drilled, and have all the components you’ll need but there is that one factor they just can’t account for – how much the wood will continue to warp once it is packaged.

Working on this kind of project also warps something else…my attitude.

I already have a warped sense of humor, so it doesn’t nothing for that.

Seriously though, warped wood sucks.

Here’s to straight boards, straight cuts, and no knots.

Projects, projects, and more projects

Posted on June 1, 2021 by backuphill

So, how do you know when you have too many irons in the fire? Is it that you just look at everything and can’t decide which is most important or where to start because they just all need to be done? Or is it that you look at everything and you just decide that you don’t know where to start and therefore just don nothing?

Currently, I have too many things going on that I can’t decide where to start, though there is a looking deadline of rain coming at the end of the week, so that dictates a little of the timeline.

Project one: I have a front yard that needs some attention. I have a hedge and a tree that need trimmed and some Sluggo (bait for slugs and snails) to put down. While these aren’t extremely time consuming and aren’t necessarily urgent, they are the final pieces to having the front yard cleaned up for the summer.

Project two: A garage sale purchase needs cleaned up and tested. The house gets exceptionally warm during hit weather, but there isn’t a heat pump to control the temp inside. So, while visiting a garage sale recently someone was selling a pretty decent portable AC unit for $25. It’s four years old and needs to be cleaned up. I had the guy run it before purchase and it appears to be operable, but it needs to be given some attention. Unfortunately, it won’t likely happen before the warmer weather this week.

Project three: The patio has been built in the back yard and a gazebo purchased. Spent most of the day yesterday working on putting wood sealant on it to further protect the wood into the future. Now the assembly of the gazebo needs to be done…a very time consuming task. Obviously, having it constructed before the weather comes in this weekend would be ideal as it would help to keep the water from hitting most of the wood. So, that seems to be the immediate winner of focus.

There are lots of other projects that needs to be done too, just none of those seem as pressing as these three.

When faced with a list of projects, how do you prioritize which ones get done first?