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Archive Page: ''Lost Winter: 2013''

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Re: the 1.5 Year Time-Gap...

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)


~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (January 5, 2014 - Sunday)

December 2 - 6, 2013 (Monday-Friday)
''Week in Review''

I encouraged Gracie to walk with me to the apartment complex on Virginia Avenue Monday (Dec. 2), which she had been informed about by a local realtor she'd called and had been recommended by the ''Housing Authority'' when she tried to apply for housing assistance and was told they were accepting no new applications and were operating from a ''five year'' waiting list. ((I cannot remember when her Housing Authority visit took place, but I believe it was Friday (Nov. 29) or possibly Wednesday (Nov. 26), because that Thursday was a holiday.)) The place did not look all that well-kept (from the outside), and the driveway/parking situation was cramped and dangerous-looking, but she was quoted ''$425/mo.'' and it seemed like one of the better bargains (esp. for a ''nubie''), and it was conveniently located and within walking distance of her job and shopping.

Gracie asked my mother to take her to the property managers on Tuesday (Dec. 3) after I'd refused (claiming ''weather-related'' reasons), which I'd felt would've been a better arrangement anyway, since I was simply going to drop her off and let her go through the motions of putting in the ''application'' (with its ''non-refundable'' -WTF??? fee), but this way she had somebody to ''back her up'' and speak on her behalf.

On Wednesday (Dec. 4), Gracie and my mother again went out to the realtors so Gracie could drop-off the documentation which the real estate representative said she would need in order to process the application. I was told that Gracie still could not keep from bringing my name/existence up in the conversation, even when my mother claimed that she kept kicking her leg to get her to keep her mouth shut and not give any impression that she was going to be having somebody else ''moving in'' with her (when they first went to the realtors, Gracie kept trying to claim that I'd be willing to ''co-sign'' for her, which was definitely not part of any arrangements I'd made). My mother also told me later that Gracie's main saving grace (apart from the inclusion of the information that she did not have any children, which she believes made a strong influence on the real estate rep) was the fact that she had lost access to that  ''debit card,''  which forced her to write personal checks to my mother, because on that first day of their visit the rep requested that Gracie needed to provide copies of ''a few'' checks (my mother said the woman gestured with ''three fingers'') to show that she had a rental payment history, and my mother had vouched for her saying that Gracie had indeed been paying rent during her stay at the house.

While Mom & Gracie were at the realtors, I decided to go back to ''Cash Converters'' to look into purchasing a different laptop to replace the one I'd gotten from Tampa. I began to realize that it might have been a better idea if I'd just bought ''locally'' from a ''pawn'' or ''repair'' dealership, but again I was interested in a ''FireWire'' port, but they had none, then they suggested that I might want to try next door at ''PC Land.'' ''PC Land''  did  have one ''refurbished'' HP laptop on display that did have a FireWire port, but when I hooked my ''Apple Pro'' crystal globe speakers through the  ''iFire''  device they also would not work with this unit either, so I became suspect that the ''iFire'' device had failed... ((...weeks later, I came to the realization that what was really going on was essentially what those freaks on ''Melrose'' had done, that these things were being called ''refurbished,'' but the ''FireWire'' ports were left  ''void''  of any actual FireWire ''capability'' -- but I'll never know that for certain until (''if'') I reconfigure my original circuit board into something ''usable'')).

Gracie received a call from the real estate reps Thursday morning (Dec. 5) saying that they would be reviewing her application; later that evening she received another call saying that her application had been ''approved,'' and that she should come by the office the next day (Fri., Dec. 6) to pick up the key to view the apartment. (Gracie postponed picking up the key until Monday, Dec. 9, because of the heavy rain.)

December 7 - 8, 2013 (Saturday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

While surfing the web Saturday (Dec. 7), searching for images of women in ''panties'' (to use as screen-theme ''wallpapers'' for my laptop), a website featuring graphic displays of  ''child pornography''-- featuring very young children being made to engage in sexual activity with adult men --popped-up on my screen when I'd tried to ''click-out'' of a ''redirect'' attempt, thinking that by doing so I was going to send me to some site like a search engine or some-such. I stopped what I was doing to report the website that came up to the federal government's ''child exploitation'' division.

At work Sunday (Dec. 8) I accidentally uncovered how to adjust the ''brightness'' on my laptop screen -- it came about as I was fuming over the fact that I could not get the ''print screen'' key to take snapshots... fiddling around caused me to find the elusive ''fn'' key which the ''help'' feature kept telling me to click on when I was originally trying to fix the screen levels: because of this, the laptop has (thus far) ''redeemed'' itself... although I still think it would've been a better bet had I just bought ''locally.''

December 9, 2013 (Monday)

My mother took Gracie to the realtors again so that she could place a deposit for the key to have a look at the apartment that was available -- which actually turned out to be two apartments; when they returned the keys, Gracie said she'd be interested in the ''top floor'' apartment, and had rejected the ''ground level'' apartment because Gracie, who's not the ''neatest/cleanest'' person in the room, had (according to my mother) found the place to be ''too filthy'': my mother had also expressed her concerns for the girl's ''safety'' given that the ''ground floor'' apartment was not only partially hidden from view (in a partially subterranean manner), but also because the ''run-off drain'' was right outside of that apartment's front door).

December 10, 2013 (Tuesday)

My day began with the  ''Windows 7''  installation malfunctioning on my desktop.

((I also believe that it was earlier in this day that Gracie had asked me to ride her out to the realtor's office for some reason: it was most during this time that she had been given the ''checklist'' to record all of the problems she found with the apartment.))

Before dropping Gracie off at work, I'd insisted that we go to the apartment to look over a few things for her pre-occupancy checklist, as well as to take some snapshots of what were considered problem areas. She did not like the idea of doing this, especially since she'd wanted me to swing by ''Wendy's'' for some bullshi[r]t gimmick ''mushroom burger'' before work. The ''driveway'' of the apartment complex proved just as dangerous & unpredictable as I'd first suspected, which was only amplified by the fact that ''outside lighting'' is virtually non-existent or not well distributed for any real ''safety'' purpose -- when I pulled into the north-end driveway I was following another car, and in the dark I could not see that we were not going ''around back,'' as I'd expected, but was pulling into some tiny area in front, pulling up right alongside the sidewalk. When we came back out I was careless in allowing her to straddle the motorcycle without me preparing it for her ''wide-legged'' mount, and because the cycle was on its ''kickstand'' instead of on the center stand, and because the cycle was not ''leaning'' far enough in to keep her upright, she and the motorcycle fell over. I was so pissed because this was now the  second  time since I've had it that I've foolishly, because of my own ''carelessness,'' been responsible for dropping it on its side, and I was bitter about whatever new ''marks'' this incident had placed upon it. The owner of the beat-up ''Jeep'' that I'd been parked beside heard the crash and my agitation and came out of his apartment to ask if we'd hit his vehicle, to which I calmly replied, ''No, Sir,'' and explained what had happened, after which he came out with a flashlight which was a bit brighter than the one I'd had inside the seat compartment and helped me examine the damage on my motorcycle -- but to hear Gracie tell it, the guy came out ''cussin' angry'' about the whole thing.

After inspecting the damage, and satisfied that the thing could start, I told Gracie that we were not going to have time to go to ''Wendy's,'' so I asked her if she wanted to stop by ''Crown Fried Chicken'' just down the hill a block away from her apartment, but she angry & upset over being so inconvenienced by somebody trying to help her and kept on insisting on wanting to go to ''Wendy's'' despite the fact that it would make her late -- which was not acceptable to me. Before dropping her off at the jobsite, I was going to try to placate her by going to ''Wendy's'' myself before going back to the house, but she wanted to keep making such a huge shit-storm about the apartment diversion and obsessively worrying about her ''back'' falling against the Jeep and projecting about how I'd probably cost her the apartment that I simply threw a ''F#CK-IT'' attitude and went back to the house and decided to just let her go hungry.

December 11, 2013 (Wednesday)

Gracie kept insisting on arguing with me about the incidents of the previous night as I was trying to repair the installation on my desktop computer: I'd been trying to save my ''preferences'' since the previous night after I'd returned from dropping Gracie off at work. She kept amplifying this out of proportion and thinking of all sorts of negative scenarios after she'd played back a recorded message from the realtors asking her to call them as soon as possible: Gracie kept trying to infer something ''ominous'' about the woman's tone and vagueness, trying to throw a ''guilt trip'' in my lap by harping on the belief that the call had something to do with the ''Jeep'' incident and that it was going to result in her losing the apartment even before she had a chance to get started moving in.

Later, I'd spent about a half-hour on the phone with ''Cox-sucker'' Cable complaining about their decision to drop  ''MSNBC''  from our line-up: ((I cannot recall which of us became aware of its removal first, but...)) the channel had been off for about four days, telling us to ''subscribe'' to it, before we decided to get to the bottom of this. This curiously all came not too long after Martha had discovered Rachel Maddow and began trying to watch her on a regular basis. I expressed my disgust with every department they kept transferring me to, letting the phone jockeys know that we did not appreciate the  ''Bait-&-Switch,''  which everybody kept trying to explain away with the claim that ''MSNBC'' was ''never'' supposed to have been part of our package line-up, and that if we wanted to get the channel we'd now have to ''upgrade'' to a different package: I essentially told them to go blow themselves by expressing that if they were going to play this game of taking down the  ''Liberal''  propaganda channel while leaving the Neo-Fascist Right-Wing  ''Conservative''  hate-&-spew propaganda channel untouched without any *REAL* ''balance,'' then if they were going to insist on taking something away from ''us''... then we were going to likewise take something away from ''them'' too, in the form of dropping some of their services! I said they ''could have'' handled this whole thing with some ''class,'' in that *IF* it truly/genuinely was a ''mistake'' on their part, then what they should've done was let those people who complained about the removal of the channel  keep  the blamed thing and treat it as a ''loss leader'' to retain customer  ''loyalty''  (since they want to refer to their service provider representatives as the ''Loyalty Department'') while letting the remaining 70% or so of customers who make up the goose-stepping knuckle-dragging Neanderthal redneck ''Conservative/Republican'' zombies and those who don't really care either celebrate in the streets over its removal or shrug their shoulders in indifference. My mother later in the day also told me that she too had called and expressed her displeasure over the change after I explained my call.

Reinstalled  ''Windows 7''  afresh again.

December 12, 2013 (Thursday)

Since Gracie could not respond to the previous night's call from the realtors before they closed shop for the day, she called this morning, only to hear that they'd wanted to notify her that they'd changed the lock on the apartment (which was only done because, again being ''impatient'' all the time,  especially  where the use of  keys  are concerned, she'd claimed that the lock on her door was not working properly, despite the fact that neither my mother nor I had any problems with it whatsoever).

December 13, 2013 (Friday)

Last night's reinstallation proved to be yet another waste of time, tried to remedy it by reverting back to a ''restore point.''

Gracie had asked me to take her to the realtor's office so she could drop-off all of her paperwork, including her ''checklist,'' and at first she wanted to place the blame on me for ''arriving late'' to the site, because the office was closed when I dropped her off, but I told her that if that was the case, then it meant not that I'd arrived late but that they had closed a half-hour early -- that's when she looked at the posted ''office hours'' and discovered that they close an hour earlier than the rest of the week on Fridays. So again, in a panic, she was worrying over not delivering her documents on time, saying that they were due on this date, until I'd pointed out to her that the notation that had been made on one of her documents stated clearly that they had to be returned  ''by December 16th'' (Monday).

December 14, 2013 (Saturday)

Finally realized at work that the ''theme sounds'' customized set-up on the laptop do not all playback: maybe they would if  ''Windows 7 'Professional' 64-bit''  were installed instead of the preinstalled  ''Home Premium'' 32-bit  platform. I also took time at work to activate Gracie's ''TRACFONE'' that her grandmother had ordered for her, with preinstalled ''600-minutes'' and a ''triple-minutes'' feature (which I already knew she would eat through well before the end of the 90-day ''service period,'' not just because of her talking habits but also because with the thing's being a  Google''Hem'Roid''  phone it had absolutely *NO* feature on the phone to indicate how many minutes or how many days' service was on the phone at any given minute -- unlike ''standard'' TRACFONEs which not only can display *BOTH* on the main screen, but can also be found through means of a ''service search.''

December 16 - 19, 2013 (Monday-Thursday)
''Week in Review''

On Tuesday (Dec. 17) I'd asked my mother if she would take me to ''Sears'' so I could see if they had in stock the combination cot w/mattress ''guest bed'' they'd advertised for about $100, and then follow-up by dropping it off at Gracie's apartment, since I'd enticed the key from her under the pretense that I was going to check on the circuit control panel to prepare her for getting the electricity in her apartment reactivated, since she'd kept putting off getting the service switched over into ''her'' name.

Prior to going into Sears, I asked to look around first in ''Belk'' for some shoes, since they were advertising a set in the flier I'd taken interest in. When I found what I thought were the shoes being advertised I was not all that impressed, so searching the displays I'd found a pair that I kind of liked, but the boxless ''display'' set was the only pair that was in my size, and there was nothing attached indicating if they were part of any ''sale price,'' but I did call attention to a ''40% off'' sticker that appeared to have fallen off of the shoes when I picked them up; a check at the cash register determined that they were actually ''50% off'' -- my mother, who also liked the shoes, chose to purchase them for me as a gift.

On my way to pay for the guest bed, I passed by a display stack of giant ''2-pound'' boxes of  ''Whitman's Samplers''  selling for $20/box, which I'd purchased totally on an ''impulse.''

When we pulled into that shit-uv-va ''driveway'' at Gracie's apartment, my mother saw the Jeep that Gracie kept harping about and making an emotional issue out of, and... well, you know.

My mother believed that Gracie would both be thrilled and disappointed with the bed, because it was something that I'd bought for her, but at the same time it was far less than what she  ''could''  have had if she'd just allowed my mother to buy the mattress from a legitimate mattress shop that she'd intended on purchasing for her.

After dropping Gracie off at the jobsite I decided to go back out to her apartment taking over a few of her personal items that were essentially just sitting around the house, such as her manga, her still busted laptop, and the DVDs she'd brought from New Jersey with her, along with a few DVDs I'd decided to remove from my own personal collection, her weight scale, plus the ''comforter'' she'd purchased even after my mother kept telling her that there was one in the house that she could have: I'd remained in the apartment setting the few things up for her past Midnight into Wednesday (Dec. 18).

Also on Wednesday was when I'd determined that my cheap-ass trash  ''Hitachi''  2TB ''warranty replacement'' hard drive was just that, and that there was no way it was ever going to allow me to successfully (and ''permanently'') install an operating system onto the thing without giving-out, so against my better desires I switched it out with one of the ''400MB'' hard drives I'd bought  originally  for the purpose of eventually installing a  ''Linux''  OS onto the system.

While Gracie was again at work on Thursday (Dec. 19) I went to ''Dollar Tree'' at ''Towers Shopping Center'' to purchase a bunch of items for her kitchen, again having been given the key so I could check on the status of her electricity, which she was still being a worry-wart about, especially since the realtors encouraged her to get it on as soon as possible so that she could heat the apartment to prevent the pipes from freezing (and it was nowhere near that kind of weather). On my way out from the shopping center I went down Colonial Avenue thinking that I was on Brandon Avenue (which would've taken me to Peter's Creek Road, where I'd wanted to turn off) which took me so far off course that I had difficulty figuring out where exactly I was. I'd finally managed to reach Electric Road, and was going to swing into ''Lakeside Plaza'' to refuel before continuing on to the apartment, but the engine sputtered out of its last gas fumes just as I was about a half-block away from the plaza's far east entrance, so I had to push the machine up and off of the main road, then from the southeast end all the way to the northwest end of the parking area to get to the gas pumps.

~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (January 7, 2014 - Tuesday)

December 20 - 23, 2013 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

Gracie learned, then got mad, about the fact that I'd taken her weight scale and books to her apartment when she demanded to know where they were Friday (Dec. 20), which I'd explained to her was part of what I was trying to get her to appreciate -- that she now had this apartment but kept putting off doing anything with it when she could've at least begun moving a few small items in at a time and trying to acclimate to what were going to be her new (and ''personal'') surroundings.

I was hoping she'd come to an appreciation of this the next day (Sat., Dec. 21) when I'd recommended to her that prior to coming in to the worksite to relieve me she could have my mother make a brief stop at the ''Shell'' gas-station/quick-mart before stopping by her apartment barely two blocks away so that she could grab some books to bring to work with her: I'd made this suggestion because Gracie had called me at work earlier, saying that she wanted me to remain on the jobsite for a few extra minutes so she could buy a couple of 12 oz. cans of soda at $.85 a pop (no pun intended), whereas she could just stop at the quick-mart en route and spend less money for more soda, especially since my mother had already agreed to drive her to work and take her by her apartment en route. But when Gracie came in to relieve me, she started complaining about how she had to listen to a long upsetting lecture from my Mom during the ride to work. Knowing Gracie's penchant for over-exaggeration & emotionalism, I immediately asked my mother for ''her side'' of the events Gracie was upsetting over, and sure enough.... My mother had explained that just as she was approaching the last turn-off she remembered that Gracie had wanted to stop by the apartment before coming in to work, so she doubled back and had already reached the corner of the gas-mart when Gracie got indignant and decided at the last minute to instead double back again-- just as they were practically at the apartment --and just be dropped-off at work. So not only did Gracie not get the ''surprise'' of seeing what I'd done for her inside her apartment, but she also got berated by my mother because of her impatient & inconsiderate attitude.

Gracie was still acting indignantly about ''my mother's'' attitude after I'd relieved her later in the day, so she chose instead to walk to her apartment; when she again came in to relieve me the following day (Sun., Dec. 23), she told me she appreciated all that I'd done for her... but yet again she wanted to insist on getting a couple of sodas at the office building, and when she came back to our office she expressed some fear and panic when she revealed that in her classic impatience she'd managed to bend the building's key so severely that she was lucky that she had not broken it off inside the keyhole: I told her since she was responsible for it she needed to report what had happened both to keep everyone informed about the issue and to ''own up'' to her responsibility/accountability.

December 23, 2013 (Monday)

After some extended online waits, I finally worked up the motivation to register for  ''ObamaCare''  ''early'' (meaning, I'd decided not to put it off any further toward the ''March 31, 2014'' deadline). Everything went smoothly until I'd gotten to the absolute *last* page where I was supposed to ''confirm'' my application, but it refusing to let me do so, saying each time I revisited my account that my application was not ''complete,'' even though it would acknowledge that the application had been submitted. Later in the day Gracie was having a representative assist her over the phone, and while she was waiting to install  ''Adobe Reader''  so she could download a PDF she'd been recommended I spoke to the representative myself to inquire about why the website kept informing me that my application was ''incomplete'' any time I tried to ''opt out'' of any ''dental'' plan, but would pass me right on through as soon as I started filling out information requesting a dental plan -- the rep on the other end said that it was a problem that they were aware of and that I should just keep checking on it. In any event, I'd chosen to use a ''portion'' of my ''tax credit'' so that I'll be paying a higher monthly rate; Gracie opted to use  all  of her tax credit for the basic health care package and opted to pay for a separate ''dental plan'' on her own.

December 24, 2013 (Tuesday)

My  ''ObamaCare''  registration still kept telling me that my application was ''incomplete,'' so I decided to call myself and try to address this issue, especially since we were being given an extension by an extra day to meet the deadline that would allow our health plans to begin going into effect in January 2014. The representative I spoke with claimed that she was reviewing my application as I was speaking with her and that everything had been submitted effectively, and that the ''final page'' which the system kept refusing to redirect me to was merely a ''confirmation announcement'' page (I would have expected to have received a ''confirmation'' in my email as well).

After I dropped Gracie off at work, I told her I'd be spending the night at her apartment and that I'd be there when she got off from work.

December 25, 2013 (Wednesday)

It had been a bit of a challenge for the both of us to snuggle and somewhat sleep on the small cot, but somehow we managed. We spent most of the day there (I cooked a couple of nasty ''oven pastry'' sandwich thingies, and we watched a couple of movies on my laptop before returning to the house -- no sex).

I was hyper-pissed that the place I'd parked & locked my motorcycle had attracted a bunch of dive-bombing birds that had been perched on some electrical wires which were not even  ''directly''  above where I'd put it! -- so as soon as I got back to the house, despite how cold it was outside, I gave the machine a quick but thorough bath.

December 26, 2013 (Thursday)

I called my Dad in New Jersey today, and immediately he went through yet another of his indignant mouth-pouting acts over an issue I thought he'd gotten over by now, or at least would've learned to stop bringing it up, but he still refuses to get over the fact that I changed a ''label'' that he'd given to me at birth, debating me about it for at least a good half-hour! This latest little huff of his though did have something of some value to come out of it, because based upon some of the things he told me that my sister has been telling him, it finally let me know just how ''treacherous'' she truly is in her resentment of our mother and in her unwarranted jealousy of me, and just how tightly she has this man-- who is not even her biological father --wrapped around her little finger to where he will believe absolutely anything this woman tells him and elevate  her  before and even above his own flesh-&-blood son!

December 27 - 29, 2013 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

Friday evening (Dec. 27) I kept trying to encourage Gracie to begin taking as many of her personal items to her apartment as she could when she asked my mother to take some of her things to the apartment: I tried to explain that she could get the greatest bulk of the move out of the way since the car had the space to accommodate all of it, where I would be limited in my abilities with the motorcycle -- but Gracie wanted to try being ''sly'' about it again by taking only a small portion of her possessions & effects, leaving the vast majority of her clothes, shoes, personal effects, and food items behind -- so as I was trying to hold them up from leaving until I'd bagged everything up, Gracie immediately pulled a  ''Exit, Stage-Left''  routine, and so they were gone before I was able to get everything out to them. While they were out, I tried contacting my mother to inform her that the rest of Gracie's items had been set inside the door and would be there if I had gone and left for work by the time she'd gotten back, but she came back before I was able to leave for work. My mother said she had not been aware of the call, so when I explained that I was trying to get the girl *ALL* of her stuff to her, I arranged to drop the items off at the apartment with her while getting a ride to work in the process. (This much focus was placed on getting Gracie all of her stuff to her because it was she herself who had proclaimed that she wanted to make this date her own personal ''deadline'' for making the transition complete.)

When she came in to relieve me from work Saturday (Dec. 28), I asked her how her 1st night ''alone'' went, and she said she'd done rather well. On Sunday (Dec. 29), when I relieved her from work, I'd brought along the rest of the food she'd left behind at the house, along with her oral hygiene products.

December 31, 2013 (Tuesday)

Gracie had come by to use the computer (and to bug me, even after I'd kept trying to tell her that I'd be needing my spare time these next few weeks to get my room and effects cleaned-up and back in workable order. While she was working on the computer I got back on the phone with ''Cox-suckers'' Cable to first ask them about how much of this latest bill we had needed to be paid or how much of it had already gotten paid (automatic deduction), since it was still at the old ''bundle'' rate and was ''payment due'' the previous week: the rep (who insisted that I again explain ''why'' I'd wanted to cancel service) explained that the ''auto-deducts'' took place on the ''due dates,'' and that the charges, even though each month was  supposed  be reflective of payment  in advance  of the month's service, were paying for that month's ''usage'' period which had to be paid no later than by the ''due date.'' Understanding this, and inquiring about the quoted ''end of service'' date I'd already been told would take effect, I asked if it could be arranged to have the service switched before the next ''billing cycle'' (which would've been ''January 2'') rather than waiting for what I had been told by an earlier representative (''January 13''), so we could avoid any extra charges and hoop-jumping, and just start fresh.

~ ''catch-up'' entry date: (January 11, 2014 - Saturday)

January 2, 2014 (Thursday)

While I was still asleep, my mother had already gone to ''Cox-sucker Cable'' to return their their ''converter box'' so they could return us to their bare bones ''basic cable'' package, which I would learn somewhat after the fact, because she called me while she was there but was only able to leave a message on the answering machine which I knew nothing about until I woke up about a half-hour later, and which I could not respond to because by the time I tried to call back the ''land line'' had already been disconnected and I could not locate my cellphone anywhere: when I finally was able to track down my cellphone she said that she was trying to contact me to ask me if I'd still be needing the ''cable modem,'' because the assholes at ''Cox-suckers'' had told her that they'd be assessing an additional monthly ''modem rental fee'' if I'd decided to keep it on site.

After she'd returned home, I asked my mother if she would take me out pay my motorcycle insurance, which was due today, because I did not want to deal with riding out in the rain: along the way she showed me a new alarm clock/radio that she wanted to give to Gracie, but wanted to give it to her in such a way that would give her the impression that I'd bought it for her; because of all of the buttons & knobs, I'd asked if we could instead present her with both that clock/radio and the one I'd purchased last year, and to let her fiddle with both of them and then decide the next day which of the pair she wanted to keep for herself.

I was getting frantically ready to go in to work as the time was rapidly approaching, only for my mother to remind me that it was still one of my days off. Even so, I'd asked if we could give Gracie a ride to her apartment and while there drop-off the two clock/radios for her to work with.

January 3 - 5, 2014 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

When Gracie came by the house to visit and do ''Internet-stuff'' on Friday (Jan. 3), she brought back with her the original clock/radio that I'd purchased for myself and kept the new one my mother had bought for her (which Gracie still did not know about); when she came in to relieve me from work on Saturday (Jan. 4), I asked her if she'd gotten around to setting-up her clock & alarms, and was not even surprised when she'd confirmed that she had not done so. When I returned to relieve her later that same day, she again decided to bring-up some irrelevant issue regarding a set of buttons in the office I'd already told her since the previous week not to concern herself or get paranoid over, and in her refusal to let the ''little'' stuff go, I'd decided I'd had enough of this sort of childishness and unwillingness to accept my explanations/recommendations about anything that she keeps insisting on putting some sort of worrisome ''negative'' spin on, so I flat out told her that because of this she could forget about any possibility of us ever becoming ''permanently attached'' as a couple, because I refuse to subject myself to another relationship where I'm feeling unappreciated and ''invalidated,'' and that all of the cuddling, sweet-talking, and ''gift-buying'' is never going to compensate for the fact that someone who is constantly trying to help her and make her life easier is constantly being made to feel irrelevant by relentlessly being ignored, disregarded, or untrusted. Of course, all of the tears and emotionalism gushed forth like a spring and she kept trying to use her classic teary-eyed guilt-tripping technique, but I refused to bite. After hanging around for three hours, she finally went back to her apartment with some composure, but when she returned to relieve me the next day (Sun., Jan. 4) she was at it again with the emotionalism, this time bringing the clock/radio which I'd asked her to bring in so I could  ''show''  her how to set/operate it, but with the pissy attitude of ''Take it back, I don't want anything from you.'' I spent about an extra hour on the jobsite trying again to talk sense into her head before leaving, with the original plan of attending ''worship services'' after a short nap, but allowing the ''tired feeling'' coupled with the threats of (unrealized) icy road conditions to prevent me from doing so this time around.

I had my mother ride be back to work and to take Gracie back to her apartment, partly because I wanted the both of them to talk about what had just happened, especially after I'd suggested to my mother that this would be a good time to inform Gracie the ''whole'' truth that I'd never claimed to have purchased the clock/radio for her, but only that I'd wanted her to  ''choose''  which of the pair she'd prefer, and to let her know who had actually bought the radio for her (as a way of always trying to impress upon the girl's mind to ''listen'' carefully to what people are  ''actually''  saying and not to what you ''think'' they're saying, and as a way to help her to become more ''appreciative'' of the things other people try to do for her to help her out).

January 7, 2014 (Tuesday)

Asked my mother if she would consider taking Gracie to work today because of the excruciatingly bitter near- and sub-zero cold temperatures, since I'd had a strong suspicion that she'd be trying to walk out in those horrific conditions (which she confirmed when I'd called her). I'd also informed Gracie that she'd have to take precautions to protect her water pipes, and she said she was already aware of what she was supposed to do because there had been fliers left on the doors of the residents with those instructions.

I'd also begun pulling everything out & out of the way in the room to clean out, wipe off, and sweep up -- could not believe how much had just accumulated and how much ''loose change'' Gracie had just carelessly tossed aside all over the place.

January 8, 2014 (Wednesday)

Asked my mother if she would help me take the dresser that Gracie had been using as her set of drawers out of the room since I'd decide that I no longer wanted to keep it in there taking up space and covering over the fireplace (which we then used to burn up our backlog of receipts and other ''sensitive'' documents which, as it turned out, we are both in the habit of burning when we are done with them, rather than just throwing them out). Even though there was more I would have liked to have done to ''rearrange'' things, there was only so much I could actually do, given the way the room itself was designed. When I finally decided to take a break away from it all after Gracie decided to return too her apartment, I spent the rest of the night online a website where I could watch the collected episodes of the TV series,  ''Fringe.''

January 9, 2014 (Thursday)

Had stayed up all the way into this morning from watching many of the old  ''Fringe.''  episodes before falling asleep and staying out for virtually the entire day, then came back to it to continue my viewing marathon.


*[[CONCLUDES backlog  ''Catch-Up''  phase]]*

~ (January 12, 2014 - Sunday)


January 10 - 12, 2014 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

Gracie had decided to come by Friday (Jan. 10) just as I was finishing up watching my last episode of  ''Fringe''  for the day, before shutting down to get some sleep on the ''recliner'' (where I'd been sleeping the past few nights while the bed is occupied with all of the items I'm still needing to sort & organize), and as I'd laid down to get my rest, Gracie had stripped out of everything but her bra and decided to cuddle up against me (...so much for being so mad & upset with me that all she was going to do was talk about ''job related'' stuff whenever we ran into each other on the jobsite) -- recognizing that for what it was, I took time away from trying to get my sleep to lick her pussy after rubbing on her down there for a while and smelling that she was ''fresh'' all over, for a pleasant change: it was uncomfortable trying to have two people trying to lie down together in that same cramped space.

Later that same evening, because of an email received from the  ''Affordable Health Care Act''  website, telling me that I'm  still  not ''enrolled'' in  ''ObamaCare,''  I went to the website only to find that it's still locking me out of completing registration because it's still refusing to advance me beyond opting-out of a separate ''dental'' plan: the representative I called was somebody who finally saw exactly what I was butting my head up against and explained that there's some issue with the website where it'll sometimes randomly catch applicants in a ''recycling loop'' that keeps reverting them back to a previous page and refusing to let them proceed any further, but his only recommendation was that I scrap the current application and begin the process afresh.

Martha had also given me $45 cash, which was from what she said she could get for the  ''Baretraps''  boots Gracie's mother had sent her last year but which she rejected because she said she ''didn't like them,'' and kept thinking that she was somehow going to sell them by herself (to whom?) and get $60 for them: I'd acquired them and received the above-mentioned ''spending cash'' for them as the result of Gracie first taking issue with the fact that I'd decided to slip-into the boots a couple of nights in a row (Dec. 18 and 19) as a ''put-on-something-quick'' sort of thing when I was taking her to & from work, whereby she had determined in her mind that because of this they were no longer ''new'' and so she felt that I should therefore buy them off of her, then it was in response to Gracie's indignant offense that I would dare ask her to take care of her portion of ''December's'' utility bills, believing that just because she was now paying bills at her own place that she should've been ''excused'' of paying her share of the bills which included her usage while she was still an occupant in the house, whereby I'd proposed that in exchange for those boots which she now considered ''corrupted'' anyway, I would therefore count them as a ''$60 credit'' toward her portion of bills and require only $35 from her for the balance... which even then was cutting her a two-dollar break.

Saturday (Jan. 11) had us descending into another ''why we're incompatible'' argument with Gracie. This time it was the result of me bringing something up, asking her if she had followed my instruction/recommendation by alerting our scheduling manager that the schedule she's currently working-- which was  ''supposed''  to have been a ''temporary'' situation, as stated by the co-worker she'd agreed to ''switch'' with --had put her in an a situation which is affecting her performance and which may effect her work status, because our on-site ''supervisor'' had come in on her but said that he would not inform any of the ''higher-ups'' about it because it  was  an accident. And Gracie had confirmed what my mother had told me that she had confided in her, saying that she had allowed herself to be ''scared'' out of doing the one thing that would have not only made her case for her but would've likely given her support in reclaiming her position, but now as it stands,  because  she's scared (for no good reason), our on-site ''supervisor'' could very well turn ''devious'' and hold this very thing over her head. So as she kept prattling on about her whys & what-fors, I told her I didn't want to hear any more of her ''explanation'' or her attempts to ''justify'' ignoring/disregarding my advice, and I immediately kept reiterating that each of the endless times she tried to snake back around to it when I refused to let her teary-eyed emotionalism impact me in any way -- I told her that though it was true that I was angry and bitterly disappointed with her where it involves her ''I-really-don't-give-a-shit'' attitude, I had to tell her several times that I also had to  respect  her decisions as an  ''independent adult''  who had to make her own decisions, take her own steps, and live with the ''consequences,'' if any, and that it was time for me to ''let go of the bike'' and let her take her falls & scrapes & bruises, and that in line with that decision to let her go ''her own way,'' I told her that from that moment onward I would no longer be offering her  any  advice about  any  thing, even if when ''asked.''

January 17, 2014 (Friday)

Just shy of Midnight (i.e. Saturday morning) I made the discovery that another piece of my camera had broken... this time one of the battery contacts had snapped, and being that it was no longer ''bendy'' it prevented contact with the opposite end (I had dropped the camera inside the garage a few months prior, which resulted in a couple of cheap hard plastic ''hooks'' that keep the battery compartment door affixed breaking off, which I'd tried to ''krazy-glue'' back into place or ''improvise'' in some other way): on this occasions I had managed to ''modify'' the interior base somewhat with a contorted paper clip, which I could get to work with ''batteries,'' but which would not work with the AC adapter.

January 21, 2014 (Tuesday)
23:40, Eastern Standard Time

Went out an hour after I'd returned home from work to do some grocery shopping at the ''Food Lion'' at the ''Cove Road'' location, rather than the one on ''Shenandoah Avenue'' at the other end of ''Peter's Creek Road'' (which turned out to be a huge mistake): along the way I stopped by Gracie's apartment to ask her if there was anything she would like for me to get for her, and she said she wanted some pollack fillets and some frozen spinach. The air outside was surprisingly pleasant, and no snow stuck to the ground, but I did learn that the combination of snowfall paired with driver hesitation in the presence of a traveling police vehicle is the latest most frustrating traffic-related phenomenon I've experienced, reminiscent of some of the horse-blast I'd regularly encountered with O'ahu drivers.

January 28, 2014 (Tuesday)
21:45, Eastern Standard Time

Spent all day & night without once going to bed or resuming my organization of the bedroom, especially since a juice spill by the lanai door after work Sunday (Jan. 26) resulted in my pulling out furniture to wipe-up the mess and to let my mother mop over the area later, which needed to be re-mopped again after she'd misinterpreted the papers I'd placed on the section of the floor to absorb the spill as an indication of where I'd marked the ''boundary'' of the spill had occurred (???how does one come away with  that  interpretation???). Instead, I spent the entire day and night online, downloading select ''desktop theme'' images and watching movies/documentaries and a few vlog posts (it was also during this time that I'd learned that the hosting site where I'd begun engaging with my ''Fringe'' marathon had ''suspended'' the associated account) -- I was not even aware that snow was accumulating until I left the bedroom to empty my trash and brew a cup of cocoa-coffee around 15:30.

The rest of the day/night had been spent scouting ''Amazon.com'' for a replacement camera in response to the piece of $#!T cheap & fragile ''Nikon'' that kept continually falling apart: the search took such a long time because even though I was ''reluctantly'' intent on going with another similar Nikon model (a la ''the devil you know'') I would soon learn that what I'd experienced with the Nikon's ''battery compartment lid'' was a huge and common complaint of the customer base about their product, compounded with the fact that the same people revealed Nikon's ''nose-thumbing'' their customers as it relates to dissatisfied purchasers attempting to have ''warranties'' for their shoddy/defective merchandise honored... so I spent much of the evening reviewing alternatives from competitors, first almost deciding upon a ''Canon'' (which I'd always tried to avoid/ignore even going as far back as my old 35mm SLR days in Lawrence, Kansas), almost set to place my order on a ''Fuji'' after reading all of the fabulous & glowing review of the product UNTIL I'd decided to watch a few online reviews and actual ''field tests'' of the product in question, whereupon I simply could not bring myself to get over obnoxious noise emitted from the camera's ''zoom lens'' motor, so I re-evaluated the ''Canon'' again, this time following the discussions in Amazon's ''Question & Answer'' sections of their product reviews and got what I'd determined was perhaps a closer indication of more realistic and reliable information regarding the model -- by this time the item in question had gone down from ''six units left'' down to the ''last one,'' for which I then made a mad rush to stake the claim while bundling a few accessories to go along with it.

January 31 - February 2, 2014 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

Friday (Jan. 31) was virtually the ''last minute'' I'd waited before renewing my motorcycle registration, having to unwillingly submit to doing so online after learning that payment by check would be considered ''late'' and subject to a penalty if ''received'' after the due date, disregarding the ''postmark'' date, which other, more ''civilized'' government services grant as a breather: then again, what else is to be expected of anybody who puts  ''people''  out of work in favor of computer automation, then CHARGES YOU AN ''EXTRA'' FEE (penalty) for engaging in a face-to-face transaction  with  a genuine living breathing  working  person! (Over a quarter of a century ago I'd referred to credit cards as ''The Mark of the Beast,'' probably having no idea just how close to being true [in a ''metaphorical'' sense] those declarations would turn out to be.) With great difficulty, I renewed for  ''two years,''  despite the fact that what kept me hesitating was that even though it's still not set definitely in my mind as far as the ''timeline'' is concerned, I'm still not anticipating that I'll even remain in this state for any longer than after the following winter.

The entire weekend at work had me fighting to remain awake and alert: for some unknown reason, despite an abundance (in some cases, an overabundance) of sleep, I would be overcome at a certain point during my workshift (roughly by the 2/3 or 3/4 mark) by uncontrollable shutdown attempts which threatened to cause me to sleep on the job... which was an even tougher struggle given the fact that this particular jobsite does not offer me the benefit of crawling into a hidey-hole to grab any sort of a ''power nap.''

February 4, 2014 (Tuesday)
17:10, Eastern Standard Time

Since Gracie had decided that she wanted to spend the night while I was at work, I made the deliberate decision to do some ''after-work'' grocery shopping for stuff I really did not need just to bypass having to return to the cave with her, hoping that by time I'd arrived back at the house she would've returned to her place to get herself ready for work. I'd stopped off first at the post office where I found that all of my camera accessories had arrived, but still no camera, then I ventured out to the neighboring town of ''Vinton'' to see if they had their own ''Kroger'' supermarket, and to explore a bit more of the town, which was not the most enjoyable experience given the fact that the temperature was just slightly above freezing. When I did manage to come across one of their shopping centers where there was indeed a Kroger, I suspected that the area looked familiar to a spot I'd been attempting to relocate each time I've ventured into town, namely, trying to relocate the ''nursing home'' where I'd first found steady work in the early 1980s during my brief hiatus from Lawrence, Kansas, which was confirmed after I'd secured my groceries and headed up the hill alongside the shopping center, whereupon I recognized the bowling alley in back: I was then able to recall & retrace the original route I used to take to the jobsite riding on bicycle (which I'd later done on a flat tire for a considerably long time which I don't believe I'd ever repaired/replaced prior to trading that job for the one I'd gotten with the ''Macke'' snack vending operations center, now home to ''Canteen,'' which was just a few blocks away from where I was at that time residing with my mother and her  ''POSSLQ''  on 10th Street).

Gracie's body odor had been so overpowering that after I'd returned and put away my groceries I had to strip the bed of its top sheet and mattress cover before I could lie down to get my rest.

February 7 - 9, 2014 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

My mother thanked me Friday morning (Feb. 7) for taking the clock/radio she’d originally purchased for Gracie out of my room and setting it up in hers the previous evening, after I'd suggested to her that she relocate her receipt and the packing box and return it for a refund, as I felt I could not get any real use out of it myself because of its penchant for running fast: she said the radio function on it was a better sleep aid alternative than going to sleep with the television (which of course sounded like a good news scenario to me, being that I'm responsible for reimbursing her the charges deducted from her bank account to cover the household electricity usage).

Before coming into work Friday, I first rode out to the post office to retrieve my  dejikame,  which an email from ''Amazon'' had alerted me had arrived: I spent the entire work shift fidgeting with it and trying to understand it, having gotten through about a quarter of the way through the ''instruction manual'' which, disappointingly, can only be read from a ''PDF'' file off of the software disc -- nothing that you can grab hold of, flip through, or take with you... thanks, guys :(

I left the camera at work so that when I came back in later Saturday (Feb. 8) I'd try to resume where I'd left off.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday morning finally trying to get around to working on structuring (...or more accurately,  re-structuring) my  ''Windows 7''  environment on the desktop, after over an hour of downloading/installing ''automatic updates'' while dealing with the frustration over being told that the Windows OS I'd installed was not ''genuine,'' and my multiple misreadings of the  ''product key''  I kept trying to enter to ''activate'' the system had me worrying about just how much usage I'd be able to get out of the system if the code had not been accepted; later, before getting ready to go to work, I'd spent what time I could trying to get my font folders to match-up between the two operating systems.

Back at work on Saturday, after messing around with the camera for a while, I wound up spending considerably more time trying to reorganize the mess of files on the laptop after realizing just how inattentive I'd been to trying to keep everything structured and easily accessible -- thanks you fudge-dick munchers on Melrose Avenue for phukking putting me in this situation in the first dambed place!

And as if things hadn't been going badly enough for me these past couple of weekends, rushing on my way to work Sunday (Feb. 9), one of the straps on what remains of my backpack completely detached, causing me to question whether or not I want to invest any more time in attempting repairs, or if I should give in and just replace it outright.

February 10, 2014 (Monday)
18:20, Eastern Standard Time

Whatever ''hex'' the cosmos and/or its entities have decided to assault me with this month had continued in the form of my causing physical damage to the vehicle of one of the employees at my job site just a quarter of an hour prior to my clocking out for  ''pau hana time.'' I had to stay on site an extra 3/4 hour to assess & document the damage and write a report explaining how a malfunctioning gate access control was likely the reason for the incident having occurred -- I'll not know anything of the outcome until I return to work later for my next shift. (Gee... thanks again, World!)

February 13, 2014 (Thursday)
22:50, Eastern Standard Time

The weather really caught us off guard. Where we'd been getting all sorts of reports early in the week of impending winter precipitation these past few weeks, it was only when they'd announced ''scenarios of uncertainty'' about this mid-week's expected forecasts that the accumulation of snow not only finally occurred this season, but it also bore down upon us in monster amounts! What had begun the previous evening continued on into late this afternoon to where we were literally shut in: the snow accumulation on top of the garage roof is easily over a foot deep with roughly six to eight inches generally throughout with much deeper spots where were windbreaks caused drifts to pile up.

My mother and I both tried to call Gracie to check on her (I of course being more concerned with whether or how she'd be getting to work, as I sure as all did not want to be bothered with coming in), but hers was the only call that would not connect, registering little more than a hiccup of a ring tone before being slammed altogether, which led us to believe that perhaps it was an indication that she had used all of her pre-paid ''phone minutes'' again.

As part of the calling test, I used the opportunity to try to call my father's personal number, but I was unable to get an answer, so I instead called his sister there in the same town, whom I passed on to my mother who said she'd not heard from my aunt in years.

I also used the weather as an opportunity to do some more testing & learning the new camera, and in so doing came to understand what many of the ''customer reviews'' were saying about how the camera would wash out photos that were taken if the ground was snow-covered, but also discovered very quickly that it was apparent that too many of the users who complained about that particular inconvenience were probably just too lazy to read the instructions on how to compensate for excessive lighting using lens aperture ''F-stops'' and ISO ''film speeds'' rather than just relying solely on the ''point-&-shoot'' automatic feature.

February 14 - 16, 2014 (Friday-Sunday)
''Weekend in Review''

Waking up earlier than usual on Friday (Feb. 14) I took the initiative to begin clearing the driveway of this close to knee-deep white powder that had engulfed us, until my mother halted me what I'd been able to accomplish at that point by saying that she would use her car to clear a path, only to find herself getting stuck and calling me back out to try to help her dislodge the vehicle. When it became evident that there would likely be no way to break through the barrier, I'd resolved to carry through with my initial intent of walking to work, though I tried to be somewhat hopeful that over the course of the workshift enough snow would have melted to allow her to retrieve me so that I would not have to walk back, but I knew not to place too much promise in something like that happening.

It was during this time also that I decided to tamper with my  ''Nikon-specific''  AC power adapter, which failed to work after I'd improvised a way to work around the broken contact leads inside the battery compartment so that at least ''batteries'' could continue to power the device, and though the manipulation made for a tight fit because of having to remove the contact leads of the adapter to the outside of their housing case, it did in fact result in my ability to regain use of the accessory. Now that I've managed these improvised ''fixes,'' I'm feeling ''over-deviced'' by now having to be in possession of two fully-functioning cameras where I truly have need of only  one,  regardless of the fact that I can get some greater flexibility and sometimes better quality from the ''replacement'': I would come to the decision that since unlike the  ''Canon''  the  ''Nikon''  comes with its own (though limited) ''internal memory,'' I'd use the latter as a general ''tote-around'' (incidental) camera for just routine daily activities and for work-related purposes, and the ''Canon'' would be used for more formal and ''quality'' photographic/videographic projects.

By the next day (Feb. 15, Sat.) my mother had cleared away the sidewalk, which again was not sufficient enough for me to navigate through with the motorcycle without potentially hazardous complications. But by the time I'd gotten myself prepared to again walk to work I saw that there was going to be no way that I could walk that distance and arrive at the jobsite on-time, so I commenced to widening several areas where my mother had dug her paths in order for me to (with considerable difficulty) maneuver my vehicle out onto the road -- it would not occur to me until well after I'd been on the jobsite that for all of the difficulty it took for me to ''get out'' onto the road I'd not taken into consideration that I would have no way to ''get back in.''

After arriving for work I had to inform Gracie that she would have to remain over to report on a couple of events that had occurred on her shift that company management needed to be informed about, so she was on site ''officially'' for an extra hour doing that, then she kept trying to pull out all the excuses again as to why she wouldn't our couldn't ''walk'' back to her apartment: first attempting to call a cab and being told to expect a 45-minute wait, which caused her to change her mind about that, then changed her mind about changing her mind, then when a cab arrived well before 45 minutes she did not depart with it because she claimed that the cab that came could not do ''credit card'' transactions and that the driver could barely understand English and was kind of unpleasant, so she came back and called the cab company again asking specifically for a car that would accept credit card transactions, then decided to try to call another cab company and being told by them to likewise expect a long tedious wait -- all the while I kept trying to impress upon her that for all of the runaround she had to keep getting confronted with she could have long-since been back to her place and not having to fret & stress over not getting enough rest or time to cook or worry about any possibility of not being able to show for her next work shift. She had still been on site waiting for these ''cabs'' for close to two more hours on top of the extra hour for the time she had been instructed to stay before she finally gave-in and left in a huff to do what she should've done in the first place, whereby she would've saved both ''time'' and ''money'' had she not allowed ''pride'' and ''emotion'' to keep getting in the way of her  ''rational''  thinking.

While Gracie was going through those motions, I made certain that the two vehicles which had been violating parking protocol by taking up space in my designated ''reserved parking'' area got cited appropriately for arrogantly deciding upon themselves that ''reserved parking'' mean that they can appeal to an ''exemption clause'' in their own cases based simply on the behavior of the weather -- this has been an ongoing problem during the ''cold weather'' months.

Gracie called me Sunday (Feb. 16) somewhere around an hour and a half prior to our shift change to inform me that she'd be arriving on site 1/2 to an hour late; she actually arrived an hour and a half late, which not only re-absorbed the extra hour she'd clocked in during the previous shift, but also ended up ''losing'' a half-hour from her regular ''40-hour'' work week.

Fortunately, by the time I was to head out back to the house the ice on the roads had melted (still with a few ''slushy'' spots at some corners & intersections), but the air outside was so bitterly cold that my motorcycle threatened not to turn the engine over until it had completely drained my battery, so in order to avoid this I shut everything off for a few minutes before attempting to restart the engine. And of course attempting to pull back onto the property proper kept proving to be a lesson in desirous willful self-infliction, so I more or less quit while I was ahead, so to speak, and left the motorcycle wheel-locked in place onto the cleared patch of sidewalk along the roadside: getting back out again later proved almost equally as difficult.

During at lull period at work I called one of our ''cousins'' in North Carolina to inquire if they were still making plans to travel to Roanoke this week for  ''Ohana Wednesday''  and to let them know that there would be an extra member, as Gracie kept saying that she wanted to go with us.

February 18, 2014 (Wednesday)
23:35, Eastern Standard Time

''Ohana Lunch'' at ''Golden Pig Trough'' happened without Gracie: she had called my mother late the previous night informing her that she would not be accompanying us because she had ''things to do'' -- my mother suspected that it might have had something to do with her ''laundry'' situation.

Although I did not consider the amount I'd eaten to be very much, I'd gotten ''stuffed'' rather quickly, and the tight pants I'd chosen to wear only made matters worse (and the pants were nowhere near that tight or ''short'' when I'd purchased them): the result was me going straight to bed right after I'd been dropped off at the house while my mother continued on to visit her friend.

After napping I took my new camera outside to test a few more operations with it, then continued in transferring images & video files from my camera memory card to my hard drive as I'd begun doing the previous day: it was disturbing to be confronted with just how  chaotic  and disorganized all of my files (especially my photographic/videographic media) have all become as a result of taking my equipment to these half-baked arse-holes whom I'd let work on it! During this time of trying to get a sense of what I've got, what I'm missing, and trying to track down where everything is, I discovered that there was an additional bit of information I'd missed during my ''catch-up'' recollections which I'd only become aware of when I was trying to confirm the dates of certain photos/videos I'd taken on the  ''Nikon.''

February 28 - March 2, 2014 (Friday-Saturday)
''Weekend in Review''

Left for work earlier than normally on Friday (Feb. 28) because I wanted to purchase a new ''time card'' for my  ''TRACFONE''  so that I could take advantage of the ''40 extra minutes'' promotional (which of course I had no real need of anyway) which had this as its expiration date, but numb-nuts that I was, I had to ride all the way back to the house in order to get the promotional code that I'd forgotten to bring with me... such are the prices I pay for being the reigning King of Procrastination.

Again, for much of the weekend, I was attempting to ''color-correct'' my laptop screen, and fighting with one of the on-job computers which is now getting into the habit of refusing to recognize my DVD movies: it'd gotten to the point where I attempted to switch out the optical drives of the two units only to discover that they were not compatible... all of this on top of one of the mouse units constantly giving me grief to the point where I'd slammed it to a state of partial inoperability.

Our company manager called me at the job site Sunday (Mar. 2) to inform me that my regular relief person had called to say he'd be a ''no-show'' (which may have been weather-related, since he's always declared emphatically that he will not show up for work if it means driving in the snow), so I called Gracie to let her know, since she had asked me to call her if he had decided to call-off so that she could come in to work, but she sounded tired and ill on the other end of the phone, and I was concerned about whether she'd be able to make it in, even though I'd arranged for my mother to pick her up first before picking me up after work bring me back to the house (because of the rain and predicted snow, my mother had driven me to work and then took Gracie back to her place). Gracie called back later to say she wanted to come in late to wait for the supermarket to open so she could get some medication, to which I'd explained to her that we have an on-site nurse who would be coming in while she would be on her shift and that she should take advantage of that perk to see first what the nurse could dispense and/or suggest, then just go from there.

Also on the health-related issues front, this weekend saw me getting hit with vertigo again, but fortunately not enough to where it would affect my job performance to greatly, or my ability to ride the motorcycle.


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