Tag: Assholes

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People seem very angry for no apparent reason these days.

Yeah I’m prone to anger and breathtaking rage myself, but for many years I’ve been the outlier and fight a daily battle to maintain my calm in the face of what I perceive to be insane stupidity.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m an outlier anymore. If I’m “normal” then things are way worse than I thought.

Yesterday on a walk with Jesse I was waiting to cross the road to begin climbing the hill to home. Jesse hadn’t slept well the night before. His stomach was making all kinds of noises, growling, gurgling, and he just didn’t seem to be comfortable. He spent a lot of the night with his head on my arm and every time he shifted around to try to get comfortable, I’d wake up and try to sooth him, making sure he didn’t need to go outside.

Earlier in the evening we’d been playing and he upchucked then he didn’t really want to play anymore. Instead curled up on the couch next to me while I watched some TV.

He’d not been all that thrilled with our walk and turned us toward home at about the 1 mile mark. Since we usually walk almost 3 miles I took it as a sign he was still not feeling well.

So there we are standing at the side of the road, I’m scratching his head while waiting for a truck and a Cadillac SUV to pass. Jesse was impatient so I had him short leashed to keep him from stepping out onto the pavement.

Honestly I was kind of zoned out, worried about him, but just standing there. As I watched the two vehicles approach I noticed the Cadillac was right on the trucks bumper and thought to myself that’s gotta be annoying as hell for the guy in the truck.

The truck made a right turn and the Cadillac accelerated.

At that moment a phone call buzzed my pocket, and Siri announced the call, asking if I wanted to accept. I was wearing my AirPods listening to a podcast and instead of letting go of Jesse to fumble my phone out of my pocket to decline the call, I shook my head. As expected Siri sent to call to voicemail.

While I’m crossing the road, I realize the Cadillac had stopped on the bridge and some guy is screaming out the window… At me?

I pause the podcast and listened…

Amongst all the nonsensical obscenities I manage to figure out this guy is upset because I shook my head.

REALLY?

He’s wound his panties in a bunch because I shook my head?

My breathtaking anger uncoiled because this moron was just wrong!

He needed a good old fashioned ass-kicking and to have his teeth knocked down his throat. Maybe both arms broken so he couldn’t jerk off for six to eight weeks while he sat in his daddies house whining about whatever he could whine about.

I think this kind of thing is why God didn’t give us telekinesis. I know if I’d had that ability at that particular moment, I’d have flipped his shitty Cadillac off the bridge and into the wash with him in it. I might have slammed the vehicle up and down a few times for good measure. 

From what I could hear, he thought I was making comment on his driving.

Well I had, internally. But I’d not done anything other than dismiss a phone call I didn’t want to have while humping myself back up the mountain.

A familiar whine brought me back. Jesse was looking at me as if to say, “Come on Dad  I want to go home.”

I turned the podcast back on and kept walking.

I was confused. What would make someone so nuts? Unless, he knew he’d been an asshole tailgating, and I triggered his self introspection & guilt.

Ironically, he was in such a hurry that he needed to be on someones bumper, but had the time to come to a full stop on a bridge to lose whatever time he thought he’d gained by yelling at a complete stranger for nothing other than shaking their head.

Seems to me the problem was his, so I’m glad I didn’t make it mine.

One day, unless he changes and grows up, he might encounter someone just as angry who’s more of an asshole, and also carrying a gun. At which point, best case he’ll have that expensive back window shot out. Worst case he’ll catch a bullet.

Either way, it’ll be 100% on him, and quite possibly well deserved.

Now in my calmer state I’m thinking, maybe he was having a bad day, and wanted someone to share in his misery. Maybe like me, he’s got some anger issues that he’s not learned to keep in check.

Perhaps it’s better to take the high road…

But there’s a part of me that would really have enjoyed seeing him bloody.

I’m encountering stuff like this frequently these days. I’m not looking for it, I’m just going about my daily activities and encountering people who are all right on the raggedy edge of decency and self control.

My family says things are very different where they live.

This kind of thing never used to happen in my small mountain town. It was a place where I could avoid almost all of the nut jobs in the city and could work on my own personal Zen.

The fact that I am encountering this kind of thing so frequently, even here, possibly indicates that the crazy has come to town and it’s time for me to go somewhere else.

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I’m day drinking, I’m so pissed off right now!

I honestly don’t know what the fuck is wrong with people but I’m so over it.

I’m spitting nails and perhaps I’m over reacting. But FUCK!

Way back when Jerry & I moved into the house after the fire. We’d had the fence replaced so the pups could run around in their yard. The fence was bright and shiny, it looked sterile as all galvanized fences look when they’re new. This was the second fence we’d paid for and installed on our property.

By on our property, I mean we’d made sure that the fence was well within our property lines because we didn’t want to have any issues down the road. We literally had the property surveyed twice! Once, when the house was being rebuilt, and the second time, just before the fencing guys came in and reinstalled the fucking fence.

We had a neighbor that didn’t do or like fences at the time, but she understood and agreed that the pups needed a place to run and play where they couldn’t get hurt.

She died. There there was the meth head rental lady. Then there was the cute couple who during the pregnancy with their second child installed a monstrosity of a badly constructed wooden fence. (She kinda went nuts because at the time, the county was widening the wash, in the name of flood control and that forced anyone walking to be close to their property line. She was in momma bear protective mode and was super fearful of someone coming up and taking one of the kids. Likelihood of that was somewhere around .0001% but she would not be dissuaded and eventually her husband capitulated, even though he hated the wooden fence she made him install.) Shortly after they had their second child they sold the place and moved. Leaving behind the poorly built wooden monstrosity. Another couple moved in, they stayed a few years then he was transferred to New Mexico and they moved.

That brings us to the guy currently next door. Honestly, I’ve tolerated him. I’ve always thought he was a bit too arrogant and he always loves to correct anyone. In fact he corrected me during a fire evacuation when I’d taken the time from the road to inform everyone on the neighbor group chat that the primary evacuation route had been closed and that everyone was being turned around to the alternate route. At the time I was literally sitting in traffic on the alternate route and said so in the chat.

But Jerry who I was talking to on the phone at the time because we always remained in communication during an evacuation saw the text and immediately said, “Be nice. Everyone is stressed.” I should have let this guy have it right then and there, but in deference to Jerry I kept my mouth shut.

Anyway, In all the time not one person said a damn thing about the grape vines that Jerry liked and had me plant along the inside of our fence. We tended the vines and every once in a while we’d get a bunch of grapes.

Truth to tell, we spent more in water than the vines ever produced. But Jerry liked the vines and as they spread out along the fence, they softened the fence line and made for a cool shady spot for the pups to relax in.

At the time we planted the grapes, we also planted an overly ambitious apple tree. By overly ambitious, I mean that tree produced apples from the first year. In fact we had to remove some of the apples long before they were ripe because the tree had bent over from the weight.

The past 3 years the grape vine has spread a little bit along the fence and in all 3 years it’s produced some small but very tasty grapes.

There’s a narrow walkway between the fence and my neighbor’s house. He has a gate through the wooden monstrosity of a fence and while he rarely uses that gate, occasionally one of the grape vines will send a tendril out towards the gate. When I’ve seen that happening I’ve trimmed the tendril, or threaded it back through my fence allowing it to grow and in time soften more of the fence line.

Typically, I’ll do this once or twice in a summer, but due to the possibility of snakes taking up residence in the space between the fence and this guy’s house, I’ve also weed whacked the zone. It’s not a big deal for me, it helps him out, and I don’t have to worry about the dog getting bitten by a snake.

A couple of weeks ago he mentioned that he wanted to trim the grape vine on his side of the fence and I thought nothing of it. I figured he’d use his fucking brain and just trim it like a hedge. That wouldn’t hurt the plant so I said, “sure whatever”

This week I noticed that the vines were dying off running the length of my fence. At first I thought, “Well it’s fall and that’s pretty normal.” I went ahead and started giving the vine more water so that It could go to sleep for the winter.

The die off continued. Today I was outside and noticed only the vines extending along the fence were dying off. The central plant was still green and vibrant. “That’s odd,” I thought. Then I examined more closely.

That moronic son of a bitch had cut the vines wrapped through the fucking fence! Then to make matters worse in typical liberal democrat fashion had just left them there to die.

I say typical liberal democrat because A) He is a Hollywood liberal democrat leftist (he’s a voice actor) and B) because that’s so leftist, “Make a mess and expect someone else to clean it up”

I spent the next 45 minutes removing all the formerly productive (grape bearing,) now dying parts of the vine that I’d been training through my fence for literally years.

I don’t know if the plant will survive. It’s going into its winter sleep and without the leaves and additional energy it might not survive the winter because now it’s trying to heal itself and go into winter sleep.

This jackass destroyed a decade of growth and I’m doubting that I’ll get any grapes next year. He did this to a plant growing on my fucking fence. Typically once the plant has gone to sleep, I’ll trim and prune the older dead branches so that when the plant wakes up I’ll get new growth.

I was talking to my brother on the phone when I discovered this while I was cleaning up the mess I’d been left with. My brother who’s not a plant person but had seen the vines was understanding that I’d be pissed off.

He was blown away that someone would do something like that in the first place then leave it like it was nothing.

His response was the usual for him. “Well that’s fucking Californians for you.” Then he asked if I lived in an HOA community, which I don’t. When I told him that, he said just wait for it, that neighbor is probably going to try to start one.

He sold his place in Florida because the HOA wouldn’t let him plant a couple of trees in his fenced in back yard. The HOA made him get rid of potted tomato plants he was growing on his upstairs front deck. They didn’t like the aesthetics of the plants being on the upper deck and then kept hounding him about the plants after he moved them downstairs to his back deck inside a fenced yard. The HOA went so far as to forbid any “food plants” from the community.

His revenge was to find a field of dandelions and collect their seeds plus a ton of crabgrass then liberally distribute both throughout the community, 5 days before the sale of his house closed in springtime. With spring rains in northern Florida I’m betting they’ll have to tear out and re – sod the whole community.

That’s the kind of fuckers we are.

As I said he’s not a plant guy, but he likes tomatoes.

(As an aside, he’s laughing his ass off that DeSantis is likely to sign a law that makes HOAs illegal in Florida.)

I’m furious about what this neighbor did to my grape vine. There are a lot of layers to it.

  1. It’s a plant on my property
  2. it was growing on a fence on my property
  3. It was a plant Jerry liked
  4. It provided a cool shady spot for Jesse
  5. It represented 10 years of work and nurturing
  6. The plant had just consistently begun to provide grapes
  7. I’d actually offered to share the grapes with the fucking neighbor. (It’s not my fault he didn’t get his ass out there to harvest grapes before the birds & squirrels got to them. I had plenty.)
  8. That vine gave me some green along the fence that brought me a sense of peace because in the midst of a mostly grey landscape, (Unless you looked at or walked through the forest above us,) there was a deep green that I enjoyed whenever I was out there.

I guess I feel violated.

This guy has literally removed all of the natural plants from his yard. While overgrown he could simply have trimmed them back. He’s also pretty much destroyed the beautiful Japanese maple that was growing for years in his back yard. That tree was green and watching it change with the seasons was amazing.

He stopped watering it, then pruned the shit out of it, (badly) and is essentially letting it die.

I’ve included pictures of what he left me with. The vine used to extend all the way to the fence post you can see at the left.

Oh and don’t forget, he just cut the vine near the main plant. He left all of the vine threaded through the fence to wither and die making it much more difficult to remove because as it dries out, it’s no longer flexible. The stuff growing up his wall is a bit of Virginia creeper. Why he decided to fuck up my grape vine and leave the creeper is a complete mystery.

I’m tempted to tell him, “If you want to kill a plant, cut it off at the root.”

Now when I go outside I get to look at the side of his house, his shitty gate, and the exhaust ports for his tankless water heater. If you visualize the plant growing up the fence extending all the way to the left you’ll get a sense of the green wall that afforded me some privacy If I was sitting on my lower deck enjoying the sunshine.

As the plant goes to sleep, I’m sure I’ll find more vines he cut through but for the moment I’ve removed all the obviously damaged parts of the plant.

If by some miracle I’m able to stay in the house, come springtime I’m thinking I’ll move the grape to my back fence where it won’t inconvenience the neighbor and I’ll plant something really invasive and fast growing like Virginia creeper along my fence next to his house. He can cut that all he likes, he won’t make a dent in it. I’m thinking I’ll toss some Mexican Sage into the area between the fence and his house and I’m not going to bother cutting down the weeds between his house and the fence. Once the Mexican sage takes hold He’ll have a jungle and a hefty fine every spring from the county for fire abatement.

I think there’s a kind of prickly fence edging I can lay down that snakes aren’t supposed to like crossing. I’ll let him deal with the rattlesnakes that may take up residence on his property.

Thinking about it, he might have heard me talking to my brother. I was using my new AirPods during the conversation while I was cleaning up the mess he left me. I think I recall seeing him wandering around the moonscape his yard is now.

I hope he did hear me talking to my Brother. I hope he heard exactly what I think of him.

Were it not so close to my bedroom, I’d start dumping all of Jesse’s poop on that side of the house too.

I feel like I’ve been too nice. I’ve not said word one about his incessant music, (Oh I’ve thought some bad things, I’ve even played my music loud enough that his was being drowned out,) I’ve not complained about him using a leaf blower on dirt kicking up dust clouds, I’ve not said shit about him running a chain saw in the early morning or in the evening when I sit down to dinner and watch a movie.

I’ve been the ”nice guy” a.k.a. The doormat everyone shits on. The guy that just minds his own business and tries really hard to not make waves.

I’ve got enough on my plate without fighting with the neighbors too. I’ve been too quiet, too forgiving, and in doing so people think they can ignore me or walk all over me. Until they need something… Because, “Hey he’s a nice guy… it’s okay for us to fuck him over.”

Jerry taught me to be nice. What I need to relearn is how to be a raging asshole. That appears to be the only way to survive the liberal fuckers these days.

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Ya know, Maybe it’s me…

Why is it that Customer Service / Technical Support has gotten to be such a pain in the ass?

I had an issue with my watch connected to my cellular plan. I tried to resolve it and realized I was out of my depth. Going in, I wasn’t frustrated just curious and was hoping for a little clarity and assistance.

During the course of the troubleshooting I ended up speaking with 9 different customer service/technical support people. Three of the calls dropped during troubleshooting, only one of these people called me back. None of them had a fucking clue. Overall, I spent 4 hours on the phone and was worse off than when I started.

For clarity, this cellular company touts that their customer service is US based.

Every single person I spoke with asked for my name, my zip code, my pin, and a callback number. It’s crazy that after I’ve gotten hold of someone that every time they transferred me to a new person I had to give the authentication crap again.

I look at it as once I’m in the system, they’re transferring me internally and from my perspective I’m on the same damn call. 

After the 6th or 7th transfer, repeating the whole story, and having to authenticate gets really tedious!

When I was answering phone calls in a tech support department, I’d solve the problem or I’d stay on the line to hand a person off to someone who could. What passes for “service” in call centers these days is really crappy.

The last call I was on Thursday night, I’d finally gotten to a person who seemed like he might have had a clue and we’d reset my watch to factory defaults AGAIN. Then he put me on hold to check something, and the call dropped.

In the case of a smart watch, that leaves the customer with their device more broken than when they started. He never called me back and oh, their customer service department closed shortly after the call dropped.

I completed the setup of my watch to return it to functional, then went about my evening. The problem I’d called about was still present.

When I called the company the next morning, I went through the whole authentication bit, and explained the problem again then asked to speak with someone who was higher up in the hierarchy who had a lot of experience because the problem was apparently a difficult one that the “normal” troubleshooting steps didn’t resolve.

The woman I was talking to refused my request. Then demanded that I call them back on another phone, other than my only cell phone.

Uhh excuse me?

She said with more than a bit of attitude that I needed to go tie up a friend’s phone line to accomplish troubleshooting and refused to assist me further.

If you’ve read any of this blog, you know that was exactly the wrong thing to say to me.

When it became clear that she wasn’t going to budge. And was giving me attitude about it. I countered with, “Okay, then transfer me to someone that can give me a transfer PIN.”

[Transfer PIN numbers are used when you’re changing cellphone carriers and you’re taking your phone number with you.]

She hung up.

OH HELL NO!

Nuclear-Bomb-Explosion-in-City.jpgWhat could have been a major hiccup, possibly even a recoverable one, was now nuclear.

I called back, got another person, outside technical support, and made my intentions clear then explained why. I was nice. Well as nice as I could be given the situation. I suggested that she make a note of the account and forward it to their sales/marketing department, because this is how you lose customers.

She gave me the PIN. I walked the dog, came home, showered, and drove to the local T-Mobile store.

Don’t get me wrong, T-Mobile’s phone Customer / Technical support is terrible. They’re all in India, none of them know anything other than what their little scripts tell them to do. But unbelievably, my former carrier’s Customer / Technical support was worse!

The hell of all of this is that during the evening after I’d had the call drop the last time on Thursday night, I was poking around in the settings of the phone & watch and had discovered an anomaly.

I wanted to talk to a person experienced in phone number provisioning and e-sim deployment because I thought I’d found the problem and we could have resolved the issue. However I wanted to verify the theory before touching or deleting the anomaly and potentially making the problem worse.

In my naive way, I thought perhaps by talking to one of their higher level people who had actual knowledge, we could solve my problem. While making sure all the rest of their technical support people could have the knowledge incorporated into their scripts allowing them to solve similar issues for others in the future.

Silly me! I thought companies still wanted continuous improvement.

Anyway, I walked into the T-Mobile retail store. One hour later, after some laughs and honestly fun, I was back with T-Mobile and my phone & watch are working flawlessly.

I didn’t opt for the newest T-Mobile plans that have all the bells and whistles. I don’t have Hulu, or Netflix, through them, and I don’t have HD video streaming over cellular, or their new satellite service.

I’ve got what I need. Basic communications on both the phone & watch and enough data to handle my meager needs. Granted it’s more expensive, but if I have a problem I can walk into a store and have at least some hope of having an issue resolved. Or I can let them deal with their customer service while I have a cup of coffee.

An added perk is that I can get a new phone using Apple Pay’s zero % financing if I want to.

I guess, if all technical support is going to be shit, and all their reps are going to stick to troubleshooting scripts and never actually think outside the box, then we’re pretty much on our own.

On the one hand going as cheap as possible has merit. On the other hand if you want to have the ability to have face time instead of having calls dropped while you’re trying to solve a problem,  and overall better cellular service then maybe it’s reasonable to pay a little more.

A year & a half ago T-Mobile really pissed me off. It was enough to make me flush them after 13 years or so. I went to another carrier and they were fine until I needed assistance.

Maybe the new paradigm is when something breaks, don’t call customer service.

Instead just change companies.

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I Tried.

So yesterday afternoon, I decided I really needed to get the heck out of the house.

I thought to myself it’s not going to be too cold, so I packed my tent, some water, my little JetBoil so I could have coffee in the morning, Really BAD coffee, the instant was very past it’s expiration date. I packed a small container of leftover chicken & rice for dinner and a bagel for breakfast. Tossed the sleeping bag in the pack, assorted dog treats, a little food for the dog and his collapsable bowls.

A simple overnight camping trip. No fire. It would have been nice to have a campfire but that’s out of the question in Southern California mountains this time of year.

I had my battery powered lantern, my headlamp, a few other items, and my old faithful handheld HAM Radio. It was in case of emergency, and allowed me to check the weather forecast if I saw clouds rolling in.

I purposely left my damn cellphone, sitting on its charger. I forgot to take my actual “Big Boy” camera! D’OH! Oh well…

Hiked about an hour up the mountain didn’t get as far as I wanted to because a certain someone had to stop every 4 feet to sniff every blade of grass. (Looking at you, dog!)

Got the tent set up near a nice rock outcropping that was almost perfect chair height. I had dinner, drank a little bourbon, and watched the sun go down.

It was blissful, silent, and except for the dog wondering what the hell we were doing, restful. Eventually he just accepted that we were fine, he had food and water, knew where I was, and settled down.

The evening was beautiful, just what I needed. Not quite idyllic, I’d have preferred a babbling brook too, but one makes do.

Around 8 or so, with a very confused dog, I zipped the door of the tent shut and  crawled into the sleeping bag. I don’t think the dog got much sleep.

He was on guard watching the view through the screen of the tent door and I’m not sure he liked the mesh of the tent roof. Next time perhaps I’ll set up with the rain fly so he doesn’t feel so exposed. I was just about asleep. 

My watch buzzed. A text message… “Please call me when you get a chance.” Okay whatever. I rolled over and went to sleep.

My mistake was not putting the damn watch in airplane mode right then and there.

Another message buzzed. This one from a person connected to the person who sent the first message. “I gave X your contact information. Nothing important, we haven’t talked in a very long time. How are you? Touch base when you have a chance.”

“Okay… I’ll get right on that, when I get around to it.”

As I was falling asleep again, I thought to myself, “I haven’t heard from either of these people in well over a year. They do know it’s Labor Day weekend don’t they? What the actual fuck is going on?” I drifted off deciding I’d handle it on Tuesday.

I had enough food, water, and dog treats to last well into Monday if I wanted.

It was a nice spot, a very small valley cutout in the “V” between two mountain peaks. This was not a proper campsite if rain was in the forecast but aside from the “Chair” rock outcropping it was pretty smooth and mostly level.

I could see the sky and stars, crickets were chirping, and I could hear a pair of owls talking to each other from trees on either side of the valley. I told my watch I was going to sleep. It went dark and would be silent until I told it I was awake. Aside from the dog shifting around and giving a nervous bark once during the night, I slept pretty soundly.

Dawn was glorious and I felt at peace. I made coffee, walking around my little campsite in my boxers and boots. No-one was around so who’d care? The dog has seen much worse!

He and I played “Fetch the Treat” in the cool morning air. I had my bagel with a bit of peanut butter and jelly, and thought about camping one more night.

My mistake was taking my watch out of “sleep”. I was considering hiking further up the valley and spending another night nearer the Pacific Crest Trail. That would mean a strenuous climb if I went straight up, or perhaps there was a way around that was less of a sheer climb. 

The watch has topographical mapping and I thought I’d take a look for another path.

More text messages, emails, and a phone call transcription from the person that texted me last night. The call was at 8:23am. The transcription was typical soft pedaling when someone is going to ask you for something but they don’t want to just come out with it.

I rolled my eyes and again thought, “Tuesday. I’ll deal with whatever this is, on Tuesday.”

I strike camp. There’s a path that looks like it changes elevation more gradually. The dog and I were walking happily in a rocky gully at the east end of the valley. There were some of the biggest pieces of actinolite I’ve ever seen, and large pieces of maybe calcite strewn around among the big chunks of granite.

We’d covered maybe another mile and the climb was getting steeper. The gully was narrowing, getting more rugged, I was looking at the Topo map searching for a possible path that could get us out of the gully without having to climb up 30 foot mostly smooth rock faces.

I didn’t have any rope or climbing gear and being alone, didn’t want to risk a fall. Even the dog was looking at me like, “Well, what do we do now?” He’s a very good climber and for him to look back at me probably means I’m not going to free climb a rock face.

Another voicemail transcript from the same person. The time stamp is 9:21. This one is more insistent.

“For FUCKS SAKE!” I muttered, making a mental note to shut down this kind of shit being forwarded to my watch. 

Another text message timestamped 9:23. It too is more insistent.

Maybe my real mental note should be, “Bring a fucking map, or the old Garmin GPS instead of wearing a smart watch while camping. Maybe I’ll just drop the hammer, and spend money I don’t have, on a decent Timex or that sweet Omega I’ve been jonesing for.”

Although, if I’ve got the Garmin I’ll know what time it is, if I’m curious. For that matter the HAM rig has a clock in it too.

The dog & I backtrack a bit, then find another path that veers off away from the gully and keeps moving up. I’ve got my eye on this sweet smooth spot that might afford a spectacular view toward the West. I doubt I’ll be able to see the ocean but the view itself should be commanding.

We hike a while longer, then stop to rest under one of the few trees. The pup is thirsty, I fill his little water dish and check our bearing while he’s resting in the shade. The hike is steeper than the Topo on the watch screen led me to believe it would be.

It’s a nice challenge and in all this has been a cheap adventure. I’m enjoying myself, I’m even thinking of stripping and doing part of the hike nude. Again, no-one around and the dog wouldn’t care.

BUZZZ! Another fucking voicemail transcript from the same person. The text of the voicemail appears more insistent than the previous two. Now it’s commanding instead of “call when you get a chance.”

BUZZZ! Another text message asking me to call, from the person who gave little Miss Insistent my number.

FUUUUUUCCCKKKK!

Can’t a man have some peace and quiet?

These are people Jerry used to work with. Little Miss Insistent is a business owner and like all female business owners, or female bosses, for that matter will not say what they fucking mean.

Instead they say something indirect and then get pissed when a man doesn’t read between the lines and JUMP to do whatever the fuck they are demanding without actually using demanding words.

After all if they used demanding words, they’d be rude. Instead they prefer to annoy the shit out of you.

Standing there, an unknown number of miles from where I want to be, I realize that I’m not going to have any peace until I call these women back. My phone is at least 3 hours hike down this fucking mountain and they’ve managed to piss me off.

So much for having some mental break time on a holiday weekend!

I decide, “Fuck IT! I’m heading back home, back to the noise of weekend projects, chainsaws, and cars blaring rap music as they drive to the meth dealers house up the block.”

The peaceful mood I was working on is gone.

I’m thankful that I had most of one night. I guess that’s all I fucking deserve or can expect.

On the way back down the mountain it occurs to me that this right here is one of the reasons I hate working for women. I don’t even work for these people but fuck if they’re not behaving like I owe them something.

Maybe I’m just easily triggered after years of this kind of shit when I was working. This is the behavior of bosses all over America that fail to plan then tell you at 5:00 on a Friday they need you to work the weekend. They’re not asking… They’re ordering you to flush your plans because they couldn’t plan. 

The capper is always that they’re never going to be in the office over the weekend. They’re going to be out with their friends on their boats, or at Disneyland, or the beach.

They thoughtlessly condemn their employees to a weekend in a cubical farm and come Monday morning they’ll ask how your weekend was. They tend to get pissed when you point out your weekend was spent in the office after you cancelled your plans to be with your friends at Havasu.

After all, the truth is rude. It’s equally rude to point out their hypocrisy. Then women will try to make it better by saying something like, “Well you’re the only one I trust to do this…” 

Which is also bullshit. What they really mean is, “You’re the only one dumb enough, or You’re the only one without family obligations, or You’re the only male in the department  & the mom’s need to be home with their children.” In any of the cases it boils down to since you’re a male, you’re the only one they can fuck over with impunity.

It’s a fucking holiday weekend! I don’t work for you & damn even though I’m retired is it so impossible to believe that I might have plans?

1874043 03400 1280c-1073273447.I swear, I’d love to find a S&M orgy to call them back from.

The slap of leather, groans, and “Ohhhh Daddy Fuck me harder!” Would make a perfect background for me to return the phone call. 

“Hello, how are you?“

“I’m good… ‘OH YEAH! Take my load you whore!’ “

As I’m pumping a load into someone would be perfect!

I can hear that conversation;

“Where on earth are you?“

“Oh, I’m at the annual Labor Day orgy. They’ve got Viagra and Cialis in candy dishes everywhere. I’ve been fucking for 48 hours straight. ‘Yeah man on your knees, suck my cock.’ Uhh, What did you need?” 

I wonder if I should play a porn really loud in the background when I call back? Do you think they’d get the picture? Probably not, no-one has introspection, respect, or common sense, anymore.

Cell phones have absolutely ruined us.

There was a time when you left a message and that was it. No one had expectations of immediate responses. These days, it’s what? An hour before someone is hammering on your phone again?

Who the fuck calls someone on a Sunday, holiday weekend or not, at 8 or 9 am? There are people who might be in a church pew at that exact time. You’re going to interrupt their prayers & worship time?

This whole thing reminds me of a client I dropped. This daffy queen would wait till the day before every damn holiday then call to demand I rework his company website so they’d have new holiday pricing in effect at opening of business the day after the holiday.

It wouldn’t have been quite as annoying if he paid his fucking bill or at least gave me a discount on his services. Hell, I’d have swapped services.

When I finally dropped him, I realized that he didn’t value my service and he didn’t value me as a person. I haven’t missed the annoyance.

The last time I looked at his site, it was a mess. I’m sure he was paying someone a shit ton of money for it too.

Time for me to do something constructive. I’m going to go burn some aggression off with yard work.

Fuck technology and our hyper connected world! I’ve turned off the message forwarding to my damn watch. So If I don’t have my damn phone with me, leave a message! 

I sincerely hope everyone else has a peaceful remainder of their Labor Day.

[For those of you wondering, the photos are from previous walks/hikes, (except the orgy scene,) since I forgot my big boy camera. I thought this post could use some color.]

Posted on

Very confusing messages and candidate.

GettyImages 2230161607 640x480.We all know Newsom is running for President. Come on… we can admit it.

Okay, so what’s his message?

His gerrymandering thing is concerning.

Although I secretly admit that if they redraw the lines, my community might get taken out of Judy Chu’s district and put back into a district belonging to someone who has a clue about where we are, and how our needs differ from the aristocracy in her core area.

That being said, Newsom is 100% wrong. Polls suggest that the people of California oppose his redrawing the lines at this time. We supposedly have a Fair and Impartial redistricting committee put in place by the California electorate to prevent this sort of thing.

That committee was voted for, by the people of California. “Fair and Impartial” has become a somewhat nebulous term these days, especially when it comes to our redistricting committee.

I believe that the lines were in fact gerrymandered in the last redraw. There appeared to be a concerted effort to slice up conservative Republican strongholds in the High Desert communities, and in the Central Valley.

Not that it mattered too much in the 2024 election. If you look at the votes that went for Trump in California, even the coastal cities were a lot redder than in past elections.

Newsom, in my opinion is wrong forcing this issue because he’s essentially saying to the people of California, “You didn’t do it right, so I’m going to defy your will, the California Constitution, and I’m going to do what I please,” I think there’s a term for that… 

In fact there are multiple terms for that, most of which are applied to President Trump every hour of every day. “Dictator”, “Tyrant”, “King”…

How is what Newsom’s doing any different? In a way it underscores that in California the voters only have an illusion of choice.

To me it says, “You the people are in control, only so long as you do things my way. If you defy me, I’m going to take away your control.” That’s not a functioning Democracy, or Republic. That’s the very definition of a dictatorship. Wait, isn’t that one of the things the Democrat party hates about Putin?

Honestly, it’s not a good look for a future President. I don’t care which political party you’re a member of.

Newsom suggested on a podcast with tech journalist Kara Swisher, that Trump was going to place ICE agents at the polls in the midterm election as an act of intimidation.

Wait. What? How is that an act of intimidation? I thought only citizens voted in our safe, free, and fair elections. Why would that be intimidating? Unless Newsom said something he shouldn’t have, implicitly admitting Non-Citizens were voting in our elections.

Noooo that can’t be true. Non-Citizens, illegal or not, would never vote illegally.

I suppose that what he meant to say was ICE presence could deter naturalized Citizens from voting. I could see that, maybe.

But I’ve never known a naturalized citizen who was the least bit hesitant to proudly show their proof of naturalization.

I know a number of people who went through the citizenship process. They’re Mexican, South American, Russian, Ukrainian, and Algerian. These are people I know personally.

Hell some of them I helped coach for their citizenship tests, and guess what? We threw them welcome parties to celebrate their achievement in becoming U.S. Citizens. One of these people I personally took with me to the polling location for a presidential election. It was his first time casting a vote in this country and I was honored to vote with him.

These folks went through the process, they waited their turn, and entered our country legally and with our blessing.

Newsom’s concern about ICE possibly being at the polls could be assuaged if California implemented Voter ID.

I do hope that some bright Republican campaign person takes that thought and runs with it. With voter ID in place, there’s no need to have ICE at the polling places is there?

Newsom told Politico that he believes Trump will run in 2028.

This is a presidential candidate?

Has he read the United States Constitution?

Just because his auntie has become fossilized in Washington D.C. doesn’t mean that Presidential term limits don’t apply. He claimed he’s been sent two dozen Trump 2028 hats.

So? Sure there are people who’d probably like to see Trump in office for 3 terms. However that’s not likely to happen because it would require amending the Constitution.  Changing the Constitution is a big deal and should never be taken lightly. I’ll stand up with a bunch of other people from both political parties to prevent that.

Not because I’m worried about Trump having a third term. But because If we open that door, I believe we open the door to amending or nullifying every other right or limitation of government power enshrined in the Constitution.

Like the right to free speech, freedom from unreasonable search & seizure, to bear arms, and anything else a President or political party finds inconvenient.

We saw in the Biden administration, and during COVID, that there are people who would, without hesitation, abridge our freedoms. We know now that censorship (a clear violation of the First amendment,) was in fact being applied to social media, & internet information sources by our Government. We know this from testimony in congressional hearings.

Even with the Constitutional protections in place, there are breathtaking examples of misuse of power. Those misuses are not limited to the Biden Administration.

Biden’s people were just more rabid, and less subtle in how they tried to take our freedom.

Don’t get me wrong, I have questions and concerns about the Constitutionality of some of Trumps Executive Orders, and if he’s over-reaching the boundaries of his office. I’m also not particularly thrilled about the white house ballroom, and I personally don’t like all the gold leaf he’s applied to rooms in the White House.

That’s not based in politics, it’s a matter of taste and I think it looks tacky. But that’s my opinion. I prefer quiet contemplative spaces and gold sparkling everywhere is distracting to me.

I believe Trump is as prone to all the same mistakes that power and wealth bring as anyone else. Technically he’s “Nouveau riche” so I’ll make allowances for his flashy style. I’m eternally poor, so flash is not in my repertoire.

Thursday and Friday in the wake of the latest school shooting, we have people demanding to take gun ownership away from all Americans. Yet, most of the recent school shootings have been carried out by a very select and specific group.

A group I should add that enjoys considerable legal protection and who actively attempts to censor all dissenting opinions, under the watchful eye of a particular stripe of media & government officials who are interested only in virtue signaling.

These people are not howling for gun control to be safe, they don’t care about children or even who is doing the shooting.

They want the kind of censorship and oppression that’s becoming commonplace in the UK, where grannies can be arrested for saying they like bacon at a muslim protest. Where little girls are arrested for defending themselves against rape in Scotland.

Scotland!?!

Of all places I’d never have expected a little girl to be arrested for defending herself. I’d have expected her to be hoisted up on the shoulders of burly men in full clan colors, taken to the town square and having the mayor say “Good on you lass.”

But nope! She’s arrested for protecting herself, only because some scum migrant thought he was entitled to have his filthy way with her. Had it been anyone but a muslim migrant she’d be sitting home with her parents having a cup of tea. Why? Because politicians keep virtue signaling and making excuses that Muslims don’t understand they’re not supposed to rape women or little girls. What happened to “Believe all women?” Or that violence against women mustn’t be tolerated? Or that sexualization of children is bad?

All that goes out the window, when politicians, any politicians, can use the situation to virtue signal. Usually, they’re virtue signaling to a group their either fear, or that gives them some perceived advantage with a voting block.

Newsom claims he’s getting tough on crime, yet refuses to fully fund proposition 36. He claims it would be too costly and the state is running a deficit. Proposition 36 passed in a landslide. Something over 60%. It was the will of the people, you know, that “Democracy” Newsom claims to represent…

It essentially reversed a soft on crime stance that permitted theft up to a certain dollar amount without being a felony. So, go to your local Target or Walmart with a calculator, stay under $900 or so and steal as much as you can. Just stay under the limit and you’ll be out of jail, if you’re caught, within hours.

At the same time, Newsom is spending millions on his gerrymandering scheme “Defending against an existential threat to Democracy.” 

Let me get this straight, he’s denying democracy, to “defend” democracy?

He’s doing this over Texas redistricting to improve representation of a two party electorate? Texas politics is not something I’m at all conversant in. But if Texas is un-gerrymandering its congressional districts in an attempt to create more balanced Congressional representation, isn’t that a good thing?

Don’t even get me started on Newsom’s messaging on X. He’s all over the map!

Maybe Newsom really is a “Lizard Person” He’s certainly acting like a chameleon hanging on a flatscreen TV.