Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2012 (Mar-May) /
''Long-Vacation'' 2012* (Jun-Jul) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2012* (Jul-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2012* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2012* (Dec-Feb) /
''Lost-Spring'' 2013* (Mar-May) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2013* (Jun-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2013* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2013* (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2014 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2014 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2014 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2014 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2015 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2015 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2015 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2015 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2016 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2016 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2016 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2016 (Dec-Feb)
Following the journal entry dated 18-24 June 2012, the subsequent entries recorded in these ''Lost Seasons'' segments are reflective of events which took place when ''routine'' journal entries were not being kept-up with.
The time-gap was initially the result of what I'd referred to as my period of ''Radio Silence''... whereby I'd unintentionally fell behind on posting regular updates due to the circumstances mentioned from thence forward, namely, the result of having to shut down my computer system out of unavoidable necessity as part of my period of departure from the ''State of Hawaii'' to my subsequent ''transitional'' re-establishment in the ''Commonwealth of Virginia.''
This ''black-out'' period would regrettably extend into a much longer period of lost time, as I had allowed numerous other developments and circumstances to interfere with and hinder my commitment to update & maintain my personal records of activity (as will come to light as everything unfolds during this ''reclamation'' phase), which led me to adopt ''alternative'' methods of continuing to keep track of my experiences and exploits. Although the original intent for these alternate methods had simply been as a way of ''keeping current'' until the computer equipment I'd shipped ahead of my departure had arrived and had gotten ''established'' & ''connected,'' because of all of my misestimations and needless delays, I kept progressively getting bogged down further-and-deeper into backlog.
So what follows after the last dated entry of June 2012 are first the ''detailed'' record of what I'd originally planned on posting once I'd found myself in a situation where I could again focus time & attention to this activity -- then once those inclusions have been completed, all subsequent entries from thenceforth will be indicative of where various ''physical records'' (primarily in the form of calendar notations, as well as other types of loose ''jotted notes,'' ''sales/service receipts'' of various types, and ''dated photographs'') were resorted to in order to refresh cloudy memories and to compile the most accurate chain of events as they occurred.
In each instance, up until the point where the backlogged information has all been brought completely up-to-date, the day during which the actual typing of the new ''old'' entry is taking place during this ''catch-up'' phase will be plainly noted. Also, since a considerable amount of explanatory ''exposition'' is also necessary and unavoidable due to the loss of normal structure (as a result of not having maintained this journal with regular & timely updates), there will likewise occasionally be such disruptions in the normal flow of each dated entry for the purpose of supplying ''back story'' and additional insights (past or subsequent): such notations/inclusions will be indicated ((in this manner, i.e. enclosed within ''double parentheticals)).
~ (November 22, 2013 - Friday)
August 9, 2013 (Friday)
Spent the previous day (Thu., Aug. 8) searching for answers, trying to figure out how to switch the ''name'' of the ''I:'' drive to the ''C:'' drive, since in my ''system properties'' the ''warranty replacement'' drive is identified as ''D:'', but when I couldn't reconfigure it (from what I understood, it might not even be possible), I called ''Microsoft'' today to ask about getting an ''official'' installation software package of ''Windows XP,'' and I was told by the representative that they no longer stock ''XP'' for sale and that if I wanted it I'd have to find it through another ''independent'' source....
Re: the 1.5 Year Time-Gap...
August 15, 2013 (Thursday)
After a week of working on these computers, I had managed to successfully connect both of them together as part of a ''home network,'' which I thought would be more problematic due to the fact that each one was running a different operating system.
Rode out to pick Gracie up from work, but did not realize that I'd arrived about an hour early (mistake #1); as I arrived I saw that the ''back gate'' which is supposed to be kept closed was open (because there are some employees who activate it from inside the gate but who neither have the patience or decency to re-shut it) -- and since the flood had taken out all of the camera monitoring operations around the property, leaving no way of telling what was going on at any given moment, I decided to ride through the gate with the intention of having it corrected from the control room... but trying to be all ''noble'' and shit, since the gate could be shut from inside the gate, I decided to double-back on the narrow strip of road and head back to the gate to do just that (mistake #2), and in my ''ego'' and my ''impatience'' I let myself roll-off onto a small driveway of loose gravel with too much of an elevation to carefully pull back onto the main strip of road (especially not at the ''angle'' I was attempting to do so), which resulted in my ''laying down'' my motorcycle and coming to the realization of just how heavy the piece of machinery truly was. I ran to the office, explained what had happened, and was going to ask Gracie to help me lift it back up, but fortunately an official worksite pick-up truck with a couple of male employees had arrived at her location right about the same time and I asked if I could enlist their assistance instead. Of course, what had once been in ''pristine condition'' since 2008 now had ugly scrapes & pock marks all along its right side.
August 19 - 23, 2013 (Monday-Friday)
Was highly pissed off Tuesday (Aug. 20) when I'd learned of how many features had been stripped from ''earlier'' versions of ''Windows Movie Maker''... (why da-phuk do computer software developers and website designers continue to pull these frustrating and infuriating ''Bait-&-Switches'' on us!?)
Wednesday (Aug. 21) was another ''buffet gathering,'' only this time we got thrown a curve ball, and instead of going to their usual ''digs'' (''Golden Pig Trough'') they agreed to get together at ''Hibachi'' -- sadly, I was not all that impressed with the food there.
On Thursday (Aug. 22) I just went riding just for the hekkuvit, then along the way decided to as far as the ''Natural Bridge,'' where I mulled around in the visitor center / gift shop for a look, picking up some additional ''local attractions'' tourism-oriented information on my way out.
Friday (Aug. 23) I decided to see whether I could install ''Windows 7'' on my ''Hitachi'' hard drive, and the installation was successful, although I was still uneasy about doing it because I'd used the ''authorization code'' from the refurbished ''family computer'' to activate it.
''Week in Review''
September 24, 2013 (Tuesday)
After having ''Windows Movie Maker'' constantly messing-up on me in ''Windows XP'' these past several weeks (which seems to have culminated right around the time I'd run this diagnostic/repair program called ''CCleaner'' during my heavy malware hunt-&-destroy operation), I thought I could reinstall a ''clean'' and ''fully-functional'' version if I'd removed ''Service Pack 3'' and reinstall the earlier ''Service Pack 2,'' which ''bundles'' WMM, because it can't be found as a ''free-standing'' program: It made no difference, WMM in ''XP'' is *still* ''phukt''!
September 30, 2013 (Monday)
Martha returned from her week-long visit to Ohio, which she left out for on Sunday (Sep. 22).
October 1, 2013 (Monday)
During our ''bill payment'' phase I had Gracie sit down with us and I taught her how to write checks (no one had ever shown her): this was in response to her having informed me that there were a few times when she'd accidentally identified her ''debit'' card as a ''credit'' card, and I'd encouraged her to call her bank and watch her mail closely to see if that might have affected her in any way.
October 2, 2013 (Tuesday)
Gracie kept insisting on wanting to treat me to the new ''Steak 'n' Shake,'' but just before we headed out I'd ended up badly bending the lever on the ''foot pedal'' of my foot pump as I was trying to fill air in my tires, then in the process I wound up stepping on and breaking my tire gauge.
October 9, 2013 (Wednesday)
Gracie (who typically doesn't like to go ''anywhere'') agreed to accompany my mother and myself on a road trip to ''West Virginia,'' up to a little coal-mining ''college'' town called ''Montgomery.''
October 15, 2013 (Tuesday)
As a result of her passing all of her tests from her job certification course over the past weekend, I let started to let Gracie know that she'd have to start preparing herself for life out on her own with a ''New Year's, 2014'' deadline. The subject came up when while we were in bed she kept trying to ''borrow'' some money from me, and though already knowing the reason why, I still wanted her to just come right out and say it: she confirmed that she had indeed depleted her entire bank account of funds, and so I made it a point to informer her that this revelation ''changes everything,'' because I'd intended to wait until the beginning of ''next'' month (November) before hitting her with this mandate, but now that she was operating from ''zero'' she needed to be made aware of the ''urgency'' of the matter.
October 16, 2013 (Wednesday)
It was ''family buffet day'' again, this time meeting in North Carolina. The weather was so nice that right before we were about to leave I'd opted to ride the distance on the motorcycle, which pissed Gracie off, had her storming back into the house to get her helmet. I tried to explain to her that because of all of the grief I'd gotten from her during our little excursion last winter (*see: ''January 11-13, 2013'') I'd had no intention of taking her along for the ride, but made a compromise deal with her that if she could maintain her composure up until we got to ''Rocky Mount'' (about 30 miles away), then we could travel the rest of the distance together. The first issue in going in this method is that my mother drives like a mad bat out of hell sometimes, and being ''Mr. Speed Limit'' as I am (I get uneasy even going ''60'' MPH), it's real easy for her to pull to far ahead of me to where I begin to lose sight of her; the other was that by the time we arrived in Rocky to pick-up one of my mother's cousins, I'd determined that the skies were looking too ''questionable'' to be riding the full distance with somebody else on back, so I left the motorcycle at the pick-up point and we rode the rest of the distance in the car.
This time we went to their local ''Hibachi'' in High Point, and it was a worse experience than the one we'd had in Roanoke.
Gracie received a call from a bank representative later in the evening informing her that some of their customers' debit card numbers had been compromised and her card number had been among them, so as a precaution they said they would be issuing her a replacement card in a few days.
October 17, 2013 (Thursday)
Rode out to several pawn shops in hopes of finding a replacement monitor for the ''family computer'' which was finally in desperate need of being thrown out, and I wanted to maintain ''separate'' systems between Gracie and myself, especially since I was still experiencing difficulties with my own system. My first stop took me up to the one just a few blocks away from the jobsite, but he only offered ''laptops'' -- while on my way out from there, the woman whom I'd met & had conversation with at her kiosk at ''Happy's'' flea market recognized me, and we chatted a bit again, then I continued on to my next destination at the ''Hershberger and Cove'' Roads intersection, but they had closed by the time I'd arrived. I then decided to take a chance and check out ''Happy's,'' to see if anyone there might have something, but I also knew that there was a second ''PC Land'' practically next door to it, so I thought I might also be able to find a spare or ''refurbished'' unit there as well, but when I'd arrived I noticed that directly next door to the computer repair shop was a large-scale operation pawn shop called, ''Cash Converters,'' which I'd stopped into first, and upon seeing the ''laptop'' display went to locate the ''desktop'' rack... and upon finding it I was pleased to find that they also sold individual monitors, and I bought one that was identical to the one that originally came with my HP ''tower,'' except in a ''smaller'' size (about 15'') for only $30 dollars.
October 25, 2013 (Friday)
Gracie was adamant that she was ''not'' going to be moving out on her own, despite the fact that I'd emphatically insisted that her final ''deadline'' was going to be the first of the year, which she kept trying to argue that I'd never told her.
October 25, 2013 (Saturday)
Called my Dad on my cellphone while I was at work, which was the first time I'd gotten any ''significant'' use of the telephone feature, having spent about 20 minutes talking with him.
October 30, 2013 (Thursday)
Took my motorcycle to get the ''inspection'' done; I changed my mind about having them do any early ''scheduled maintenance'' work, which was due to be done at the ''4,000-mile'' mark.
November 13, 2013 (Wednesday)
Today I heard the bad news that my old home of ''Hawaii'' did a ''180'' and changed their attitude about ''fag marriages'' and are now allowing them this ''special right'' that ''polygamists'' and ''incestuous'' couples are never going to have extended to them. This news shattered any dreams of my ever wanting to return to Hawaii, and has done much to drain me of any lingering ''homesickness'' I'm still winding down from... I'm even making conscious efforts to divest myself of using any Hawaiian colloquialisms.
~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (January 3, 2014 - Friday)
November 15, 2013 (Friday)
This morning I rode to ''JCPenney'' to return the boots I'd ordered online and picked-up at the store the previous day (Thu., Nov. 14), which I'd purchased with the ''gift card'' my mother had sent to me ages ago (...I'd also ordered along with the winter boots a ''waffle iron,'' something I'd been putting off ever buying for literally about two and a half decades because I kept refusing to pay over ''ten dollars'' for one, but now I was no longer that concerned about the price, I was now more interested in ''using'' the gift card for something). The store had the right sized boots on hand, and when the exchange was made I was credited back a little over a dollar's ''difference,'' because they said that those boots had since gone ''on sale'' and went down in price.
After returning to the house, I asked my mother if she would drive me out to ''Lowe's'' to purchase a ''dorm fridge'' they'd had advertised on sale, and to drive it to the work site so I could set it up.
Later, sometime after getting dropped off back at the house, Gracie informed me that she'd ((knocked over? or had just become aware of)) the small stacks of coins I'd been keeping in the den closet which I use for hanging my clothes. This presented me with the perfect opportunity to do something I'd always wanted to do with her for a very long time, and that was to teach her the ''value of money,'' since she's not only very wasteful in her ''spending'' habits, but in how she non-chalantly tosses or disregards ''small change.'' I showed her first my stash of what I refer to as ''God's Money,'' and counted out over $124 in cash, then counting the coin stacks she'd mentioned and counted close to $5, then set ''20%'' of those coins aside and incorporated them into the larger amount, then explained to her that what she had just witnessed was how I'd been doing with the money I'd just shown her accounting for about 12 years' worth of accumulation of discarded or disregarded ''loose'' change that the original possessor or nobody else cared about which I then claimed... even explaining to her that even when I adjusted for the fact that roughly ''forty'' of those dollars (a very liberal estimate) were removed from the pile to compensate for those amounts when I'd found cash that had obviously been ''lost'' and not intentionally refused or neglected, and to adjust for the monies I'd found for about the year or two when I was still setting aside my original amount of ''50%'' (which was how I'd started what was originally a ''church donation'' ritual I'd begun to adopt shortly after getting established in Hawaii), that these adjustments still left me well-around $80-ish dollars! -- which meant that for even the amount that I'd presented in adjustment, it would translate that what was being presented in the pile on the kitchen table originally started out as a total of near or over $400! Sadly, the lesson attempt backfired, because she just had to tell my mother (to whom I'd explained what I was doing when she came back inside the house from where she's gone off to) how ''unimpressed'' she was with what was just shown to her, simply because of the fact that it took so long to reach that amount (which was only this large because I have been faithfully continuing the ritual despite my excommunication from ''The Society,'' so the money keep ''accumulating'' due to a lack of being in a situation where I can make a ''donation'' of it).
November 17, 2013 (Sunday)
After what I'd thought were errors in their (or my) system when I'd tried ((a day or two)) earlier to make new online purchases, turned out from investigation to be verification that ''Amazon'' was indeed beginning to collect ''taxes'' on behalf of Virginia: I'd learned that this was because Amazon would be building a distribution center in the Commonwealth... ''would'' be, mind you -- charging us taxes because of some ''new'' thing that does not yet even exist! Only the DVD order I'd placed was assessed a tax, because an independent dealership out of Tampa, Florida was shipping its from its own laptop location.
November 19, 2013 (Tuesday)
Gracie came home in a huff and with another of her classic ''stop trying to control my money'' attitudes, explaining that she'd lost her birth control pills on her way back to the house and claimed she couldn't track them back down -- so I went out on the motorcycle to look for them along the route she claimed to have taken: on the ''return trip'' I was pulled over by a city police officer questioning me about my unusual riding and stopping at random places with my ''hazard lights'' blinking, so I explained ''what-&-why,'' then headed back for the house. But instead of going back inside I continued past the house to check my post office box. When I got back I told her that I could not find the pills, but I did find her ''receipt'' from the drug store lying on the floor in front of the counter of the trashy-looking ''Chinese Restaurant'' and again brought up my concern about all of the ''magazines'' she keeps wasting her money on, especially while she's in this phase of transition.
November 24, 2013 (Sunday)
Rearranged the back half of the bedroom in order to move the bed away from being between the two windows and closer to the heat vent (tired of it being too cold).
November 25 - 29, 2013 (Monday-Friday)
Monday (Nov. 25) I picked-up my laptop at the post office (a refurbished HP ''EliteBook'' which sold for $195 dollars and came with a ''FireWire'' port -- which was its main selling feature for me) after confirming its arrival online, then took it to work with me the following day (Tue., Nov. 26) where I spent literally hours trying to get a decent ''color balance'' with the brightest screen possible, because the screen was so dim that it was almost reminiscent of Martha's old ''Gateway'' CRT monitor when it began failing: because of this, I was really regretting my purchase decision and was strongly considering giving it to Gracie in exchange for her busted ''SMELL'' (''DELL'').
Because of her over-insistence that it's ''too soon'' or the ''wrong time'' for her to be thinking about moving out, she'd demanded of me a few days prior that I tell her about ''all the times'' when I had to be ''forced'' into ''moving out" on my own with little or no preparation, and I told her I'd get back with her with the details later, which happened Wednesday evening (Nov. 27), where I had her inside the TV den with my mother and I read in the ''entire timeline" from the time when I was made to quit high school and get my own place to prevent my sister and her ''girlfriend'' girlfriend at the time from being busted & charged with ''welfare fraud'' on up to the time of getting my ''own apartment'' in Honolulu (she'd claimed that she'd read some of what I wrote while I was still asleep); my mother also used the opportunity to share some of her own experiences with having to deal with life in the ''Real World'' where it involved having to find a place to stay at ''inconvenient'' times.
Thursday (Nov. 28) we had another ''family gathering'' at the ''country club'' in Rocky Mount, and I went with my mother (Gracie had to work) mainly in hopes of running into our ''family historian'' again to learn more about my maternal great-great grandfather, because I wanted to know more about our ''racial'' background and the rumor that ''G.G.G. Lewis'' might have actually been ''adopted'' into the family line. As we were ''cleaning-up'' after dinner was when I brought up the subject with Darlene (our researcher), and she verified that ''G.G.G.'' was indeed half-white and that he had had a ''white'' mother, but also added that she'd recently uncovered his ''birth records'' where it identified his ''father'' as having borne the ''family name,'' but any information identifying his ''mother'' had been left completely ''BLANK''...
Got into another heated argument with Gracie Friday (Nov. 29) regarding the whole ''moving out'' issue, so we had to have a huge talk to reinforce not only the reasons why but to stop it with all of the negativity that she kept trying to bring to it and to learn how to stop being so emotional about things not always going her way and to just ''grow-up'' and start learning how to deal with life in the Real World.
''Week in Review''
Winter 2011 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2012 (Mar-May) /
''Long-Vacation'' 2012* (Jun-Jul) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2012* (Jul-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2012* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2012* (Dec-Feb) /
''Lost-Spring'' 2013* (Mar-May) /
''Lost-Summer'' 2013* (Jun-Aug) /
''Lost-Autumn'' 2013* (Sep-Nov) /
''Lost-Winter'' 2013* (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2014 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2014 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2014 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2014 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2015 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2015 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2015 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2015 (Dec-Feb) /
Spring 2016 (Mar-May) /
Summer 2016 (Jun-Aug) /
Autumn 2016 (Sep-Nov) /
Winter 2016 (Dec-Feb)
