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)
Nothing of any significant note really comes to mind. Perhaps the inexplicable fact that my migraine attacks-- and often associated soft-stool intestinal irritations --have for the past few months become far fewer and more infrequent might be worth mentioning.
September 1, 2015 (Tuesday)
Another disaster this morning, resulting in my twice in a row arriving to my instructional class late (this time by 17 minutes): in this instance, however, a large part of that blame rests upon my own shoulders, as I'd insisted on relying too heavily on the ''snooze'' feature of my cellphone, which behaves somewhat inconsistently.
Had a bit of a scare this afternoon during the ''lunch break'' period: I'd decided to do lunch at a pizza shop called, ''New York New York,'' which sold ''by-the-slice,'' but once again I'd lost track of time and tried to ha'alele out of there with only five (5) minutes left on the clock to return to class, but about a half block into the rush I'd discovered that I did not have my checkbook, which contained extra cash and my secondary (primarily for ''online purchases'') credit card. After checking a few spots nearby, I'd asked the person at the walk-up order window if anyone had retrieved it from the ledge where I'd remembered placing it before I'd lost track of it -- fortunately, they did have it, so that was a relief, but I was still upset that the minor incident had only served to make me even that much more late in returning to class. As fate would have it however, though I did return somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 minutes late, the Course Instructor had himself not returned, and class did not actually resume for about another five minutes after my arrival.
After class let out early, I'd again returned to the Asian market, mainly with the intent of purchasing a whole roast duck, but quickly decided against it when I realized that the full bird would cost $20 and I deemed it too scrawny for that price. I did purchase a couple of different bottles & brands of fruit-flavored sake to give them a try and to decide what to take on the trip back to Virginia: I found myself somewhat liking the American-made ''Hana'' brand ''lychee'' variety, though it packs even less of a ''bite'' than the Japanese-made ''Kitaya'' brand ''Kiri Mist'' and has a lower alcohol percentage (8% vs. 9% respectively), but on the ''plus'' side, the ''Hana'' brands had considerably less of an ''oily'' mouth-feel to them; another plus for the American brand was that its bottles contained 750ml. vs. ''Kitaya's'' 500ml. I was also pleased that I'd finally found an Asian grocery since being outside of Hawaii that stocks ''tonkatsu'' sauce (purchasing a couple of bottles for the trip back), ''soba'' noodles, and (though a bit too expensive) ''furikake'' rice seasoning.''
Unmentioned Highlights from Previous Quarter...
23:50, Eastern Daylight Time
Septermer 2, 2015 (Wednesday)
Followed through on my determination to get to class with considerable time to spare this morning, but even then had obstacles thrown in my path, this time in the form of a line of fuel or chemical cars on the railroad crossing the highway and stopping traffic for about 10-15 minutes, so at the end of it I'd still arrived at the classroom with just scant minutes to spare.
Took the first segment of the instruction test this afternoon, passed with an overall score of 94% with the second and final testing session to take place on Friday (Sep. 4).
I'd also contacted the appropriate licensing office during the first classroom break and set up an appointment with them for Monday (Sep. 7) to submit my application and provide them with the ability to submit other required documentation which they can help with the fulfill, and it had been my intent after having been excused after submitting my completed classroom test to use the GPS in order to navigate to the physical location of the licensing site, only to find out that the charge on the device's battery was non-existent, so I could get no use out of it, and decided to try to see if it could be recharged in one of the laptop's USB ports. (I'd found out only several days ago that I actually could have brought the ''cigarette lighter'' adapter along with my after all, because such a port actually does exist on, or rather, ''in,'' my motorcycle, though it's questionable if the GPS could be utilized even then, as the port is inside the ''glove compartment'' of the motorcycle.) Despite this letdown, I still decided that I'd wanted to explore a bit further into the Downtown Tampa area and proceeded to venture down ''Kennedy Boulevard'' until I'd made the snap decision to continue on and turn off onto ''Interstate 275'' and follow it into ''Pinellas County / St. Petersburg,'' getting off at ''Exit 28'' for refueling.
I did not get to explore much of St.Pete, and the Downtown area was still a long ways off before I'd decided to make the return trip and deal with all of the maddening traffic again (a lot of it having to do with multiple roadway and roadside construction projects, so quite a number of detours and traffic stalemates were encountered, which only further complicated things with all of the wild, inconsistent, and indecipherable intersections, flow lanes & access points). The big shock of the excursion was that the trip out of Pinellas back onto ''Channelside Drive'' registered on my trip meter as ''FORTY MILES!'' (I had been under the WAY wrong impression that the entire trip from Downtown Tampa to Downtown St.Pete would consist of roughly ''thirty'' miles, more or less.)
What bothered me most however was not the long trip distances, or even the traffic backups so much, as it was that just the whole ''layout'' and disorientation of the place(s) do nothing for me in the sense that I might ever feel all that excited about ''exploring'' the area(s), and get the sense that I may never truly ever come to think of this place as my ''home'' in any genuine sense, but that I'll at best ''adapt'' to it and simply ''endure'' it.
23:45, Eastern Daylight Time
September 3, 2015 (Thursday)
With GPS working this time around, I found my way to the central licensing office after class had let out, and discovered that the direct route from the lodging location was a mere few blocks away heading in the direction toward ''Brandon'' and turning off onto ''US Highway 301.''
Back at the room, I'd discovered that the only ''cleaning'' that was done at all only involved emptying a trash bucket and MAYBE cleaning the toilet and wiping down the washroom sink counter and shower -- NO ''kitchen'' cleaning, no other wiping/dusting, and apparently never even touching any of the floor areas, dead cockroach carcasses still littering all over the places where I'd killed them!
22:20, Eastern Daylight Time
September 4, 2015 (Friday)
Finished the final day of instructional classes, then attempted to search for the public library in the area so I could run copies of my completed license application and other related documents I'd brought from Virginia, but somehow I'd passed by the library without noticing it, or perhaps I'd traveled in the incorrect direction, but since each of us were allowed to leave upon the completion of the last test, I was able to be released early enough to return to the lodging and head back out to find another library location and revisit the central licensing office to find out if they were even going to be open on Monday (Aug. 7) as I'd been instructed to come in for their services, after I'd learned that it would be ''Memorial Day'' on that date, and they refused to answer any of my calls when I tried to get reconfirmation.
When I returned to my room, the key card would not open the door, so I went to the front office to inquire about the reason, and thus began the incessant debate over who was in the right, for they were stating that I'd owed payment for another week, and I was trying to explain that my advanced reservation confirmed my check-out date was for Monday. After retrieving the confirmation email from my laptop and returning to the office to again state my case, I had to come to the difficult realization that the way the website registration process operates it gives the false impression that when you sign up for an extended stay that does not constitute a full week, the quoted fee/charge covers for the length of the reservation stay. My upset over the at-least partially deceptive confirmation & fee schedule, and taking into consideration the expense for the extra partial-week nights which are clearly not worth the expense on that level, and dealing with the uncertainty of how to handle this latest disruption of what had been up to that point a mostly relatively good week, I reassessed my situation and decided to use the disadvantage to make it work at least partially to my advantage by extending the stay to another full week in hopes of using that extra time (now that there are no longer any pressures being placed upon me to dedicate my time to any inflexible obligations) to further scout out the surrounding areas and get better informed about the housing situation & options, which was something I'd originally assumed I'd be doing by way of a return trip to the area sometime during the upcoming couple of months. It was also during this re-negotiation phase (for which they'd at least agreed to waive the $25 ''late fee'' for missing the 12-noon deadline) that I'd asked if this place had/used any ''extermination service'' for the cockroaches, and they said they'd have someone from ''Orkin,'' whom they claimed to have a rotating contract with, to make an outside-the-normal-schedule visit to come treat the room the following day (Sat., Sep. 5).
I again tried to find another public library, this time uncovering one closer to the lodging site, but was first upset that they charge 20-cents per single-sheet copy, which then became something of a moot point anyway as the automated bill receptacle decided to malfunction when I'd attempted to use it. I was then told that there was supposed to be a ''Kinko's'' further down, and a young lady from an establishment next door which charges 27-cents per copy gave me what sounded like perfectly clear & precise directions in order to find it, but again I'd somehow missed it, so I decided to return to the room once I'd regained my bearings. The trip was somewhat worth it however, as I'd gotten to enjoy some of Tampa's famous ''natural light shows'' (electrical strikes).
23:55, Eastern Daylight Time
September 6, 2015 (Sunday)
Remained in the room all day yesterday (Sat., Sep. 5), and received absolutely no visitation from anyone for pest extermination purposes, nor did any evidence for it exist when I returned from the photocopying run I'd endured heavy rains for this afternoon. I'd left when it was not evident that it would be raining in order to find the ''Staples'' office supply that was supposed to be in the Brandon ''West-whatever'' mall only to once again end up inexplicably overshooting the entire shopping center, but the bypass allowed me to take note of several other business establishments I'd been previously unaware, such as ''Aldi.''
By the time I was finally able to track down the ''Staples'' location, I was disappointed to learn that, contrary to the information I'd received from their website, individual copies were not 8-cents a piece, but 10-cents -- still a far cry from the 20-25 cents per copy I've been finding elsewhere, most recently at the copying station at ''Publix,'' which was where I'd chosen to stop after I'd first bypassed the office supply location. While inside the supermarket, I decided to try to do a little bit of grocery shopping, leaving with only 3/4 of a dozen frozen dinner entrees and a couple of bags of ''Ruffles.''
After I'd finished with everything I'd set out to do, both planned and spontaneous, I rode back out to the licensing site to both become reassured of being able to retrace its location but also to check to see if they had announced whether they'd be shut tomorrow for the ''Labor Day'' holiday, but just as with their automated call answering system, they'd offered nothing in the way of office hours or days of operation.
20:50, Eastern Daylight Time
September 7, 2015 (Monday)
Went out this morning (again, in the rain) to try to keep a supposed appointment with the licensing office only to discover, as suspected, that they were closed... and still no signage whatsoever alerting anyone of the fact.
When I returned to the room I called my scheduling manager's number and left a recorded message explaining that there would be a delay on my return to the state, and thus to the job, followed by a call to my father.
I had contemplated taking a trip over to St. Petersburg, dependent upon whether the rain would let up, but instead I'd decided I was too tired & weak and chose to remain inside.
22:20, Eastern Daylight Time
September 8, 2015 (Tuesday)
Went out to drop my documentation, went through the normal routine, had to call back to supply them with my mother's mailing address after I was informed that it was very likely that I might be receiving my actual official license card well after I'd vacated Virginia and that it would be sent back to Tallahasee and not forwarded to my new address, so rather than picking-up the pieces following that complication with expected ''modifications'' & ''fees,'' I opted to have the items mailed to my mother's P.O. Box instead and to have her forward it to me should it arrive after I've made my move.
Afterwards, I took my trip over to St. Petersburg, and if judging by the comparisons between their ''downtown'' areas alone, Tampa doesn't even stand a chance! Not only is Downtown St. Pete more comfortably navigable, but it is considerably more aesthetically pleasing and far less congested! Buuutttttt..... the ''Hood'' is exactly right next door!
I didn't have chance to explore much else in St. Pete, as I felt another migraine coming on; despite this, I'd decided to stop in one last time at ''New York New York'' for their pizza slices, which did not tastes as good this time around -- perhaps the time of day (15:45) may have accounted for that?
22:00, Eastern Daylight Time
September 9, 2015 (Wednesday)
The rectal bleeding I'd experienced all day yesterday (Tue., Sep. 8), which was worse than what I'd encountered the time I'd eaten ''Flamin' Hot Cheetos'' at work, had completely subsided by this morning, and were it not for the colonoscopy results last year, I'd have considered something worthy of concern, so it seems that something else (stomach related, perhaps?) is at fault, as the bleeding was exiting out of my rectum, thus not indicative of a torn hemorrhoid, unless it is an ''internal'' hemorrhoid. The migraine however continued to effect me, which had since been accompanied with a constantly running nose of clear stringy mucus with fits of sneezing attacks, nothing severe, but enough to keep pestering & interfering, resulting in my decision not to stray outside again for the entire day.
23:25, Eastern Daylight Time
September 10, 2015 (Thursday)
Rode back out to St. Petersburg to scope out a couple of the post office locations in/near the Downtown area as well as the ''Kenwood'' neighborhood, which a couple of forum members on the ''City-Data'' website had suggested might satisfy my simple as well as economic requirements. Also learned while fueling in St. Pete before my return to Tampa that a particular local variety of ant had been attempting to establish a new nest home in my motorcycle's fuel tank compartment.
Before returning to the lodging, I stopped by the Asian market one last time to purchase several more bottles of sake (a ''lychee'' and a ''fuji apple'' flavored bottle apiece for myself and Martha), as well as a whole roast duck, only to acknowledge what I'd determined earlier, i.e. that it was a waste of $20. It was during this visit, when I had a bladder emergency and tried to find a secluded spot in the back of the building, that I'd finally encountered a swarm of mosquitoes -- up to that point, I'd almost convinced myself that they were practically a non-existent or relatively minor problem.
23:50, Eastern Daylight Time
September 11 - 13, 2015 (Friday-Sunday)
Woke up Friday morning (Sep. 11) an hour earlier than I'd set my alarm for, but still just early enough for me to finish packing everything and checking out of that sorry excuse for an ''extended stay'' lodging operation with only minutes to spare, video-documenting everything in the room as I'd left it as I was vacating the space for the final time. During the check-out process, the (''visiting'') manager on duty was explaining to another individual who was requesting a room that nothing was available, and mentioned that part of the reason was because they were closing some rooms down in order to facilitate some ''remodeling'' or ''renovating'' process they had going on (I'd forgotten exactly which of the two words he'd used), so now this latest news again produced a personal conflict regarding whether or not to launch that scathing review I'd planned to share on online ''service review'' sites... even after the fact that I'd still not had a visit from an insect pest exterminator nor a phony-ass ''cleaning'' visit as was supposed to have taken place the previous day (Thu., Sep. 10).
For about the first two hours of my ride back, until I'd made my first fueling stop, I'd been riding with my heavy backpack strapped to my body as the extra items I'd insisted on bringing along during the return trip were taking up all of the available space in the underseat compartment. Acknowledging just how stressful an extended trip would be under such circumstances, I'd decided to switch from that original plan and opted instead to strap the load to the back seat, but in so doing made the determination not to stop at any rest areas if it meant I'd be required to go through the tedious process of unstrapping/restrapping each time just to assure that no one would tamper with it as I was trying to catch a nap.
As I was about 110 miles or so into Georgia, I'd stopped into another fueling station, and while there decided to recheck my travel route ''cheat sheet,'' and it indicated that I had overshot an exit where I was supposed to have branched off onto ''Interstate 26" about 20 miles back; so while heading back to find that exit, I could not understand why there was practically nothing for 30 miles: there had been an exit with the number ahead of the one I was looking for, but no other exits show up on that route until I'd reached an ''Exit 79.'' I thought it odd that there would only be a single exit turn-off on just one side of an interstate highway, but because I'd found nothing on the opposite southbound side, that's what I'd believed until I realized that I was still seeing the same dark empty ''nothingness'' all around, and that's when it dawned upon me, by about ''mile marker #84'' or so, that the exit I was expected to veer off from was located in ''South Carolina,'' as each state border crossing resets the ''exit'' numbers to correspond with the Interstate off-ramps as encountered within their own respective states (''Duh...'').
As I was bypassing ''Charlotte, North Carolina,'' I'd again gotten hit with the urge to want to take a snapshot of their ''Uptown'' (as they refer to it), only this time it would be at night, but yet again I was uncomfortable with the idea of stopping on the side of the Interstate, so I decided to take on of the exits to see if I could scope out a more agreeable spot to do so, as well as get refueled, since I was running near empty. Charlotte's ''downtown/uptown'' area is stunningly beautiful, and made me wonder what exactly was their claim to fame: the illusion was rapidly shattered however when I'd discovered just how excruciatingly difficult it was to navigate out of the ''Uptown'' area, and by the time I'd crossed out of it and finally found a fueling station anywhere even near the area and saw what it had to offer in their ''Real World,'' let's just say that ''Charlotte'' is ''DPRK'' and ''Uptown'' is ''Pyongyang.''
Throughout most of North Carolina and Virginia, it was truly a struggle to maintain my alertness, as the hypnotic effects of nighttime riding, the chilly air, and my impending tiredness of having been on the road virtually non-stop for what would ultimately amount to 25 and 1/2 hours combined to try to wipe me out of the game altogether -- in other words, I'd allowed my stubborness to risk myself serious bodily injury or worse. So by the time I'd gotten back into town, I'd decided against making a preliminary stop at the post office and chose instead to come back into the house, drop everything off, down a quick glass of juice (the only thing in the way of eating or drinking anything that I'd done since leaving the lodging site in Tampa) and went straight to sleep.
It was also disturbing to find that when I'd left for Florida, it was burning hot; the entire time while I was in Florida (despite the overcast skies and frequent rain storms), it was burning hot; but as soon as I'd approached and entered Virginia, it was freezing cold. In a way, it was to be considered a ''good'' thing, as it is yet again a real and tangible reminder of why I'm leaving for the so-called ''Sunshine State'' in the first place.
Discovered Saturday night (Sep. 12), which continued to be an issue all into and throughout Sunday (Sep. 13), that somehow my using that ''Wi-Fi'' network while I was in Tampa had disrupted and entirely shut me out of my ability to connect-- either directly to the Internet or to my LAN --via ethernet cable, giving error message upon error message, despite any & every diagnostic and ''troubleshooting'' tweak laid against it, proclaiming that the ethernet cord is either unplugged or broken, all while proving time & again that NEITHER is the case!
Ventured out Sunday morning to do my Post Office run, then on the way back decided to stop into the two Asian grocery markets on Williamson Road (en route to ''Kroger'' to initially pick up some salad-making items) to grab extra stocks of my lotus tea (at the first location) and lychee black tea (at the second stop). I'd learned that the first store was now stocking soba and somen, but were being presented in large bulk packages; the second store has also begun stocking somen, but still no soba -- and still neither stocks katsu sauce or soba tsuyu.
I had just one final ''rectal bleeding'' episode just prior to leaving Tampa, but had not been so affected since.
''Weekend in Review''
September 14, 2015 (Thursday)
Nothing much going on today outside of enlisting my mother's employ to show me how she takes care of hardwood flooring by washing & waxing the floor in my room, and me trying to literally vacuum the tenacious fiber particles out of my camera lens (since I'm unable to detach/disassemble it on my own, and nobody online has bothered to offer any step-by-step guides on how to do so), only to discover that each and every time the process seemed to be working effectively the very same little monsters would reattach themselves back onto the inside lens as soon as I'd shut the camera down and restart it. I also finally took the time to begin assessing and posting what I'd wanted to rid myself of through the local ''FreeCycle'' forum, as well as scouting out the local offerings on ''Craigslist'' in an attempt to find scavengable computer parts in order to reconfigure something with my old ''HP/XP'' circuit board so that I could leave that unit here with Martha for her and Gracie's usage when I've left for Tampa/St.Pete. Still nothing doing re: getting Internet connectivity re-established on the throwaway laptop.
23:15, Eastern Daylight Time
September 16, 2015 (Wednesday)
Gracie came by the house unexpectedly this afternoon, talking about her new job she's training for at ''Kroger'' and how the scheduling manager at our current job has been getting into conflicts with her about it. After some time had passed, I'd made advances to let her know I was interested in eating her pussy; we eventually ended up engaging in a give-&-take oral and mutual masturbation session before leaving together to drop her off at her training center as she had asked me to do. After dropping her off, I'd decided to swing by the worksite on the way back to the house in order to review the current restructured schedule which was modified in response to both my temporary absence and Gracie's second job, as was explained to me by our scheduling manager the previous afternoon (Tue., Sep. 15): I'd ended up staying in the office chatting with the other co-worker on site until Gracie had arrived on site several hours later to assume what would then be her workshift in about a half-hour after her arrival.
23:45, Eastern Daylight Time
September 17, 2015 (Thursday)
Rode Gracie out to her O.T.J. training at the ''Kroger'' outside of Botetourt. Later in the evening I finally went online and ordered autosomal DNA test kits from a couple of the largest most reputable accredited providers.
21:25, Eastern Daylight Time
September 18 - 20, 2015 (Friday-Sunday)
Began working the new schedule Friday (Sep. 18) and found my job feeling a bit foreign to me as I tried to reacclimate to my normal duties after even so short an absence. During this time I'd reiterated to Gracie the same thing her uncle, my mother, and even our co-workers had been trying to impress upon her, namely that she should not have given notice to our current employer until she'd actually had schedule in hand from ''Kroger'' or any of the other stores she said were interviewing her and seemingly expressing interest, especially since it was known that Kroger would only be giving her ''part-time'' schedules, but she kept insisting that she had no other choice in the matter since our scheduling manager refused to yield in his persistence to have her scheduled on the weekends and would say things to discourage her from making a transition and embracing any new ''second'' job as her ''primary'' employer.
On Sunday (Sep. 20), I spent some time at work plotting-out & prining-out what I was hoping would be my next trip back out to ''Jersey'' and ''NYC.''
Later that same night, when it was time for Gracie's workshift to end, I decided to swing back out to the jobsite to give her a ride back to her apartment. After dropping her off, I'd used my earlier coffee consumption as an excuse to use her washroom as the pretext for actually enabling me to observe the living conditions of her residence, hoping that with the other improvements she'd been seen making, as well as her newly sparked drive to work so many extra jobs in a desire to build-up her funds and ''join me'' in my next place of residence, she might have also shown improvements in the areas of ''cleanliness'': sadly, she has shown no improvement in this aspect of her life, and has appeared to have gotten worse, though again, as always, I made no comment. Before leaving, I'd asked her if she'd ever planned on keeping/watching any of the DVD movies I'd passed onto her during my first library cutback, then reclaimed them to add to the other batch I intend to offer on the local ''FreeCycle'' group after she'd expressed that she had no genuine interest in any of them: some time after I'd gotten them back to the house I realized that I'd somehow missed Gus van Sant's version of ''Psycho'' and the original ''Friday the 13th'' movie.
''Weekend in Review''
September 24, 2015 (Thursday)
Took a couple of ''non-retainer'' books from my personal library and dropped them off at a little outdoor ''Take-a-Book, Leave-a-Book'' community kiosk a couple of streets away before continuing on to the old hardware store near the Melrose/Orange Avenues mergers to have back-up keys made for the padlocks where I'd lost the extra keys. From there, I went to the post office, where one of the DNA kits I'd ordered had arrived, then proceeded to the endoscopy center to request copies of all of the consent forms I'd signed in order to prove my case that I'd not been given advance notice that I would be personally responsible for covering the anesthesia bill, only to discover that I had in actual fact signed such a form.
Although, on a ''technicality,'' I did accept responsibility for the expense, I'm still not too keen on the idea of being responsible for an expense that for all reasonable consideration I should not be expected to be under obligation, again based on the sole facts that when I'd explicitly asked if that aspect of the procedure was ''mandatory'' I was essentially coerced into accepting it even as the doctor performing the colonoscopy had mentioned that he'd had the procedure done upon himself without the use of anesthetic, nor did he use my questioning expressing doubts about it to inform/reiterate that the anesthetic portion of the visit might not be covered by medical insurance, which would have given me the ability to make a more informed decision regarding whether or not to accept the extra service & cost.
Gracie had decided to come by later during the day (after being expected the previous day but never showing up), using my ''sleeping'' session as her go-ahead to sexually accost me and to snuggle all comfortable in what was an obvious attempt to try to spend the night. After some time, I made like I really had somewhere to be, and used the mailing-off of my DNA kit as the convenient excuse, making like as though it were ''time sensitive.'' After dropping her off at her apartment and asking her to see if she could relocate the pair of missing DVDs I'd tried to reclaim, I surreptitiously attempted to video document the condition of her apartment using the feature on the cellphone, but with limited success.
23:00, Eastern Daylight Time
September 28 - October 1, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
I'd decided to wait until Tuesday (Sep. 29) to check my post office box, whereby I'd found my second DNA kit waiting on me, as I'd expected/anticipated, and remained on site until I'd collected and shipped off the sample.
I kept expecting Gracie to show up at the house later that evening, as she'd informed me of well in advance, but she never showed: she would confirm later that it was because she had agreed to work at our regular site as a ''cover,'' which I'd by that time suspected was the reason, given the fact that I'd also been called earlier the same day for the same purpose and for the same time frame, only to decline. She would however make-up for her missed visit the following night (Wed., Sep. 30) by arriving unannounced after what she said was a 21-hour workday, whereby her ''request'' (read: ''intention'') was to nap in my room for awhile, as I'd continued working on the piecemeal transferring of files from my broadband-busted laptop onto my main system. After a couple of hours, I'd informed her that she had better be getting along due to the lateness of the hour (22:30), adding that I'd soon be requiring the space on my lounge chair when she tried to negotiate for a ''midnight'' departure time.
Gracie had called my mother Wednesday night (Sep. 30) to ask for a ride home from her ''Kroger'' job, but was partially brushed off by my mother telling her that she was going to have to wait an additional hour just so that she could watch some TV show (''Empire''). I thought of that as a cheap shot, given the fact that she always insists that Gracie pay for such rides, so I suggested that I would go retrieve her, since the roads were dry enough, but that I'd do so in exchange for a tank of gasoline, but after about 20-minutes' worth of attempts we were unable to connect with her, whether by her phone or via store's phone line, so I retreated from the idea: Gracie would call back later to mention that she'd managed to find an alternative.
Received a call from our scheduling manager Thursday (Oct. 1) asking me if I could come in to work -- I accepted in part as a way to add a few extra banknotes to my account, and in part as a convenient excuse to circumvent any additional attempts by Gracie to sleaze her way into turning another of her ''visits'' into a ''sleepover'': I was informed by my mother that I needn't concern myself with the second issue, as Gracie had called to inform her that she'd agreed to go into work (Kroger) later the same day.
''Week in Review''
October 5 - 8, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
Received my official license to work in Florida Monday (Oct. 5), which arrived several weeks earlier than I'd anticipated (never mind that it had arrived at all).
Tuesday morning (Oct. 6) I'd gotten a call from our scheduling manager informing me that one of our regular crew was taken to the emergency room and would be going under the knife, thus further disrupting our normal work schedule for the next several weeks, and inquired if I would be able to work that same day, but I'd informed him that I would not be available until the following day. Later in the afternoon, ''Gracie'' decided to come by to lie down and flaunt her naked pussy in my face and was all over me again as I was trying to catch a nap myself between running diagnostics on my ''primary'' laptop: fortunately, she chose not to use this time as another of her attempts to try to spend the night, for which I'd run out of any reasonable or convenient excuses.
I'd also learned on Tuesday that the ''AVS'' half-ass video editor does not operate consistently across all of my devices, whereby they match for the most part between the two laptops, but the ''primary'' laptop appears to possess the most ''complete'' program -- in both its set of features and in expected functionality, as I would learn Wednesday (Oct. 7). After confirming that the issue in the primary (''tower'') system would/could not be circumvented, I'd decided to effect a complete uninstall/reinstallation of the program, waiting until antivirus and firewall programs re-engaged before conducting a test launch, only to be somewhat unsurprised that the major problem I'd been having had persisted. After trying to scout through all of the operational functions, it was discovered that the issue lied buried within the ''preference settings'' options category which required my direct ''approval.''
Also on Wednesday I'd again begun receiving a series of ''robo-calls,'' which had inexplicably been discontinued since something like two weeks prior to my first excursion into Florida. Upon conducting an online search, the call-center number came up as being registered to ''Chase.'' Wanting to ensure whether it was credit card related at all, I waited until I'd gone to work Thursday before calling the main customer service number, and the representative had assured me that there was nothing amiss with my account. While engaging in related conversation, regarding my accumulated ''rewards,'' we finally managed to correct the program disruption which resulted in my being unable to use my rewards points for ''Amazon.com'' purchases, as well as activating my quarterly ''bonus points'' incentive for this cycle which also happened to have ''Amazon'' as one of the participating retailers.
''Week in Review''
October 11 - 18, 2015 (Sunday-Sunday)
Took a major step Sunday (Oct. 11) in preparing for my next departure and subsequent transition by removing & storing away virtually all of my ''non-perishable'' food stocks in order to focus on and consume all of what was stored away as part of my frozen & refrigerated reserves. I'd also begun focusing more heavily on trying to find another extended lodging situation, hoping this time to find something in ''St. Petersburg'' City proper, or at least somewhere near by on the ''Pinellas County'' peninsula, as well as attempting to assess the ''apartment rentals'' situation, and finding both searches to be difficult... especially the ''extended stay'' lodgings, which had me giving real consideration to another ''InTown Suites'' facility in ''Fort Myers'' (as the ones in ''Tampa'' and on the Pinellas side in ''Clearwater'' were both shut down for renovations, the announcement of which during my previous stay being one of the main factors in my decision not to post a scathingly negative consumer review online).
On Monday (Oct. 12), I faxed my official resignation letter to the scheduling manager, explaining that the disruption brought about by one of our co-workers' sudden medical emergency which will require her to undergo invasive surgery had essentially forced my hand and was thus causing me to act in advance of what would've been a more ''gradual'' departure.
Throughout the week I continued to accumulate as much information about apartment rentals in (or relatively ''nearby'') the St. Petersburg area and to continue establishing/documenting which of the excess items I'd been planning on offering on the ''FreeCycle'' forum.
''Gracie'' had also continued to pester me Friday and Saturday (Oct. 16-17) with her determined attempts to try to spend the night, which resulted in my having to come up with a number of methods and excuses to coax her into departing the scene and avoid being the distracting annoyance I'd have had to endure. Yet it was not until I went to work on Friday that I realized that she had never again attempted to disturb me at work by calling the office number since she'd left this job to work elsewhere.
I'd also called my father on Friday to try to schedule a visit with them for the first week in November, but again he insisted on putting on an act like he had no clue who of his wife's family would be coming by to visit or that no one ever calls in advance of a visit that they could work around and prepare for, so I had to end up speaking to his wife about confirming a visit (...as much as the old dude always complains about her people always coming over to stay for extended lengths of time, you'd think he'd jump at each rare opportunity to balance it out just a tad with a visit from one of his own).
Since Gracie had informed me before she departed the house on Saturday that she would not be working the next day (Sun., Oct. 18), which of course was to be used as part of her next attempt to lay-up with me, I'd instead suggested that I use that as our opportunity to ride out to the ''Booker T. Washington,'' as I'd promised we could do together before she decided to leave our former mutual workplace.
Also on Saturday, right after Gracie left the house, I returned my attentions back to my online search attempts (as I had been trying to do before this latest visit of hers interrupted me) in hopes of locating an alternative to the ''Fort Myers'' lodging situation for something hopefully in roughly the same price range but a lot closer to the St.Pete/Tampa areas: after some scouring, I'd finally managed to uncover and reserve lodgings at someplace comparable in both price and features through ''Priceline.com'' via one of several ''price comparison'' services I'd managed to pull up, with only a spare few dollars' difference from what the Ft. Myers facility had quoted me, but actually in Pinellas County, significantly closer to St. Petersburg City, and about a third yet still a considerable distance away at ''Tarpon Springs'' (not to mention being granted the opportunity to circumvent virtually being held captive to the ''Sunshine Skyway Bridge'' toll bridge portion of Interstate 275.
When Sunday morning rolled around however, I was so tired and it was so cold outside (close to, if at, the frost point) that I'd instead decided to sleep in. Later, I continued to try to determine why Gracie's ''HELL'' laptop was experiencing its most recent spate of malfunctioning, which began the previous night after a system update attempt was disrupted as a result of the power disconnecting when the cord connection was disrupted because of the slight nudge which caused it to break contact due to its loose-fitting housing. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to repair the problem, including trying to reinstall system software that was either not found (on the system) or not compatible (on my restoration discs), I took one last shot at trying to correct the issue by taking a chance stab at restoring the entire system boot ''start-up'' configuration back to all of its default settings, and this seemed to clear up the problem. Remarkably, during this entire trying phase of addressing this latest issue, the ''system boot'' process itself-- which was always the hugest headache --had decided to behave considerably less tempermentally than is common for it.
And of course, it would come back to bite me in the ass that as soon as I'd become aware that I'd not been receiving any phone calls at work from Gracie since her departure that Sunday would be the day she would decide to break that comfortable stress-free streak, essentially to acknowledge that she understood my reasoning for bowing-out of our museum trip.
''Full Week in Review''
October 23 - 25, 2015 (Friday-Sunday)
This weekend started off all wrong. The first thing I learned Friday Morning (Oct. 23) was that the results of my first DNA submission came back and proceeded to shatter my whole world: they revealed that not only was I not comprised of even a single speck of ''Native American'' lineage (after being convinced that it had composed anywhere from 20% to a quarter of my genealogical history and genetic make-up), but my ''European'' admixture was nearly double of what I'd been led to believe, essentially informing me that I am only ''Afro'' and ''Euro'' at a proportion of ''60%/40%'' respectively... which only served to leave me wondering how or if the results of the second would produce any different results.
I also posted my offer of my watch repair kit on the ''FreeCycle'' website Friday, expecting to have it ready for pick-up/delivery the following day, after I'd used it to remove the battery in my ''Casio'' wristwatch which I did not trust I could sell but also would not have felt at all right about just giving away to any random gimme-grubby stranger online either. I'd left the house with barely enough time to get to ''Radio Shack'' in order to purchase the replacement battery I needed with the intention of returning to the house in time enough to pull my ''lunch'' out of the oven and depart for work. However, by the time I’d turned off onto 11th Street (undershooting the intended ''10th Street'') was when I came to the realization that my drained battery had fallen someplace unknown from inside one of my riding gloves where I'd convinced myself it would be in a safe and secure place that would make it impossible for me to lose or misplace. Searching for the battery back at the house and in the garage & driveway proved fruitless, so I located the owner’s manual in hopes that it would mention which specific battery was required for installation, but even here there was nothing to aid me, as it did not mention which battery to use, so I rode back out bringing the whole watch in hopes of figuring something out on-site in store (for I did not have enough time to try to check out any specs that might've been posted online). It was only after all of this that I was dismayed to discover that with what I'd thought were just minutes to spare before the store's ''closing time''-- as I'd been assured during an earlier online search of the local stores' business hours --that the ''Towers'' store location had for some time been abandoned.
Then at work, I was alerted to the fact that I'd inadvertently jacked myself out of some extra ''bonus minutes'' on my ''TracFone'' -- I'd intended to use a ''1-year service@400-minutes'' card expecting to get ''60 bonus minutes'' with a promotional code, only to receive a message telling me to call the ''Customer Care'' line to ''complete the transaction''... it was then, while reviewing the various promo codes that I discovered that I could have entered a code specifically for a ''1-year'' card and received a bonus ''240'' minutes! When I called the next morning (Sat., Oct. 24) I explained what had occurred (about the bonus minutes not being credited) then recited the 1-year bonus code to the representative, and after a few minutes not only did I receive the bonus minutes for that particular promotion, but going this route with it also gave me an extra minute and an additional day of service!
Early that same morning I'd determined whom I felt would be most appreciative of the watch repair kit (a man who claimed his wife does some watch repair tinkering but who lacks [m]any of the appropriate tools) and informed him that he could retrieve it from my jobsite where I told him I'd be leaving it, but it would turn out that he did not carefully read the email sent to him and he showed up on location later that same evening, rather than waiting until the next morning as instructed.
After continuing what was a week’s worth of searching & scouring as many websites as I could possibly scrounge up on through Sunday (Oct. 25), I finally decided that I'd had enough of trying to find a ''car/truck rental'' option which offered absolutely NOTHING of anything in my ''size range''-- ESPECIALLLY for ''long distance'' excursions --because every vehicle rental company’s seeming intended goal was to shove people into renting any of their fleet of unnecessarily oversized gas-guzzling fuel hogs at expensive ''base rates'' often with tacked-on ''per mile'' charges so that the only way to get a hitch-trailer or a ''cargo van'' would be if the intent was to use it only for ''in-town'' runs and/or with the insistence on returning such rentals to their original ''home base'' where rented from. Because of this far from appreciated nose-thumbing horse$#!T, I'd made the determination to bypass these phaggitz altogether and again resort to sending packages ahead of my final move and perhaps still be able to enlist the use of my mother's cousin's pick-up truck for a few of the larger items I'd like to bring along.
I'd also asked to be taken to work Sunday so that I could reclaim the microwaye and mini-fridge from the office, as well as a few packing boxes I'd dug out and held in reserve: upon retrieving the items I saw that a considerable amount of space could indeed be made available to hold quite a number of items so that if we are unable to enlist the use of her cousin's pick-up truck we could still manage to transport of few of the extra items which I would not be able to ship normally through the postal service.
Also, before going in to work, I sent a short text to ''Cherry'' to inform her of my expected visitation period and to get her thoughts about the idea of going out on a motorcycle excursion with me during our get-together.
''Weekend in Review''
October 30 - November 1, 2015 (Friday-Saturday)
Got around Friday (Oct. 30) to finally canceling my lodging reservation in Fort Myers.
Saturday my mother had retrieved a huge tin of caramelized popcorn from her post office station which had been sent to her by my sister, but my mother had decided that she did not want it, claiming that the product was ''too sweet'' (which is laughable coming from ''The Queen of Sucrose''), so she said she would take it to the ''Senior Citizens'' function she regularly attends. I told her I desired to keep the tin container itself, envisioning using it as a ''rat barrier'' for grains, flours, and other items contained within susceptible forms of packaging, so I'd scooped out most of the contents and transferred it to several of the ''Sunflower Crackers'' containers that I'd kept on hand.
After wasting most of the week away with frequent bouts of sleep and working on computer files at all odd hours of the days & nights, I'd started making preparations for my trip to Jersey and NYC on Sunday (Nov.1), expecting to depart around or just after Midnight Monday morning. In order to confirm the visit, I'd called the house phone of my father and his wife, hoping she would be the one to answer, instead having him pick up, which I did not want to happen, as I was still recalling his nonchalant pretense from several weeks ago and made me want to side-step him altogether in this follow-up call. Immediately, he could not restrain himself from yet again dredging up the issue of his refusal to accept or even acknowledge my name... and after all of these years of trying my dambest to restrain my indignation and offer him every bit of uneasy respect, I'd finally decided that I had had enough of his infantile bullheadedness and eventually called his bullshit directly and unapologetically, eventually backing him into the corner to force him to confront his emotionalism and his ego by demanding that he let me know once and for all if my wearing a particular ''label'' (which I also had to check him on by reiterating to him, after his sorry attempt at trying to guilt-trip me, that children are not in my future, so ''NOBODY'S NAME'' was getting passed down anyway) was more important than having a living, breathing, son: after repeated refusals to answer this question directly and continually falling back into embittered circular arguments, he’d finally slipped up and said something that essentially stated what he kept trying to avoid saying directly, so at that, I informed him that since he'd made it clearly evident where he stood and refused to yield on this emotional over-reaction, I would make it so that we would never again have to butt heads over the issue and bid him ''Farewell'' and hung-up on him.
Unfortunately, this threw a disruption into my plan to visit ''Cherry'' again, especially after we had just a few hours earlier exchanged texts attempting to establish a visit-&-ride date, so I called her immediately after my blow-up with my father to explain the situation and to apologize, even though she had stated in one of her texts that she would try to make time, but was somewhat hesitant because her mother would be undergoing surgery earlier that same week -- she said she understood, and we stayed on the phone with each other for just over two hours.
''Weekend in Review''
November 3, 2015 (Tuesday)
Spent the pre-dawn hours finally getting around to preparing the box of brownie mix I'd gotten for free some months back, making the wise choice of mixing in my own nut fragments as I'd already pre-planned anyway, simply because the packaged mix barely contained about three (literally) that I could actually confirm through squeezing around in the package.
I returned a call to my former scheduling manager, who had attempted to speak with me the previous day (Mon., Nov. 2), to arrange for returning work accessories -- we'd agreed to meet at the company office the following morning, explaining to him that I'm one who is never comfortable of leaving sensitive items in the presence & influence of other people who could/might do God-knows-what with them and that I'd much rather be in total control and fully responsible with anything in my charge.
Later, I'd enlisted my mother's aid to conduct an ''empty box collection run'' on a couple of the nearby liquor stores, then hop into ''Kroger'' and back out quick, mainly to take advantage of the $2.00 store-coupon savings on a pre-paid phone time card, which along with the promotional ''60 bonus minutes'' helped make-up for the just over a solid half-hour of horseshit I'd subjected myself to and endured two days ago from my father.
20:20, Eastern Standard Time
November 4, 2015 (Wednesday)
Returned my work accessories to my former scheduling manager late this morning, just shy of Noon, then headed to the post office to retrieve an ''Amazon'' order which the site had assured me had already arrived, but for which was no indication of its being delivered, so I'd asked the clerk to check and she came back stating that she could not locate the package.
Later in the afternoon I began breaking down select components of my electronics station and gathering most of the accessories & components as part of a preliminary packing process.
19:40, Eastern Standard Time
November 5, 2015 (Thursday)
Took a break from packing to accompany my mother on a visit to visit her sister Kitty and their mother who were in town to help their other sister, Veronica, move out her apartment which she was being evicted from as a result of her grandchildren taking undue advantage of her niceness: the hope is that because of the complications wrought as a result of this trespass on her good nature Veronica will finally come to a place where she will no longer allow unappreciative people to just walk all over her with absolute impunity. Prior to the visit we stopped by the post office so I could present them with the tracking information regarding the package that was supposed to have been delivered, but as it turned out they had since placed the locker key in my box, so there was no longer any need to inquire about the delivery.
* Update - (23:35):
22:20, Eastern Standard Time
Discovered about a half-hour ago that the results of my second DNA test kit submission had been delivered, and upon review the ''main'' results were still largely the same, although the second one allows for a greater percentage of ''British/Irish'' ancestry (14% vs. the dubious 1% as reported by the first test results). Another somewhat significant difference between these new results and those of the first was that this second test did claim to detect not only a minute trace of ''Native American'' ancestry (a mere fifth of a percent, with a wider possibility of two-fifths of a percent) but also determined that I'm composed of ''one and a tenth percent'' (or potentially 1.3%) of ''Southeast Asian'' ancestry. And they'd even tossed in one-tenth of a percent ''Ashkenazi'' for good measure.
November 9 - 12, 2015 (Monday-Thursday)
Finally was able to ditch my withdrawn/unwanted DVDs on Tuesday (Nov. 10) to the person I'd chosen from among all of the ''FreeCycle'' responses, which was only a day after I'd received my ''Inside Out'' DVD/Blu-ray ''combo pack,'' of which I'd withdrawn the Blu-ray disc to place it up on the forum for consideration.
Wednesday (Nov. 11) I spent some time re-tracing the route I'd planned to take to Tarpon Springs, making a couple of minor re-routing adjustments, taking screen snapshots of the altered courses on my cellphone in answer to the fact of no longer having access to the office printer at my former jobsite.
Thursday (Nov. 12) I'd asked to be taken out to ''Staples'' in order to purchase a roll of bubble wrap, followed by a trip to the main post office in order to weigh my (at the present time) heaviest box of items so I could get a sense of how to gauge what would be within the Postal Service's ''70-lbs. limit'' for shipping packages, but the scale at the ''self-service'' kiosk would not operate for this purpose, and standing in line would've likely kept me hanging on for probably a good 20-minutes, so I'd opted for the facility where my mother keeps her P.O. Box and had the attendant there weigh the test package, and discovered to my pleasant satisfaction that it did not even exceed the ''40-lbs.'' mark.
Later that same night, in testing to see if the boxes could be effectively reconfigured ''inside-out'' so that no ''assumptions'' about any of the package contents could be made by any Postal Service staff (since the vast majority of them are labeled as either ''alcoholic beverages'' or ''industrial cleaning fluids''), I'd wound up slicing a deep paper cut gash into the base of my right ring finger.
Also during this week I tried to initiate a few contacts on the two ''free'' dating sites I'm registered at (''OKCupid'' and ''Plenty of Fish''), having one say she wouldn't mind meeting me for ''coffee'' sometime during my upcoming visit (even though I'd specifically said I wasn't interested in a ''coffee'' date and had instead suggested ''Slushie''... unless she was being sarcastic). Apart from all of the standard ''Holy God-Lovin'' middle-aged tatted & spent ''single mothers'' who either were still putting on the pretense that they still had considerable ''stock value'' left to themselves or were chasing off potential suitors by empirically announcing up-front that their crotch brats ''always come first,'' the newest trend in the dating game now appears to be Black Women responding to all of the rejection they've been experiencing in these online dating sites by deluding themselves into believing that they can deceptively re-classify their ethnicity and honestly expect to dupe men into gushingly accepting, without sneering & smirking, their misappropriation of the term, ''Mixed Race,'' or ''Multi-Racial'' (clearly hoping to adopt & deploy the same sort of desperate ''redefinition'' tactics they employed when they highjacked the term ''thick'' to describe their fat waddling massive asses) -- even the woman who agreed to meet with me executed this same ploy (along with piled-on mounds of ''God-&-Jesus''), yet I'd deliberately chosen to overlook the farce (as well as the ''holy-holy'' banter) because everything else she'd expressed in her profile was the most intriguing of any I'd ever come across to-date.
''Week in Review''
November 13 - 15, 2015 (Friday-Sunday)
After a long delay, I finally began focusing more serious attention on re-configuring & packing some of the collection of boxes on Friday (Nov. 12), using what appeared to be heavy duty fibre-woven ''duct tape,'' expecting it to hold fast & strong, but after being allowed to sit overnight (Sat., Nov. 13), I found tape peeling away from various places on a number of boxes, which forced me to do research online for the type of packaging tape that matched the quality of that used in Post Offices. I found some costly stuff called ''Gorilla Tape'' that was being sold at ''Home Depot'' which I'd intended to purchase after reading all of the glowing online reviews, especially in regard to its less-waste ''wider width'' and the ''feed roller'' on the dispenser, but due to the time I'd wasted before leaving the house, I'd decided to delay that activity until I'd handed-off the ''Inside Out'' ''Pixar'' Blu-ray disc I'd offered on ''FreeCycle,'' which I could not avoid buying due to the fact that this was another case unavoidably having to purchase a ''Blu-ray/DVD combo pack'' just to be able to acquire the DVD version: the first time this happened was with my purchase of ''Tank Girl.''
As it would turn out, ''The Home Depot,'' despite what they were strongly implying on their website, was not stocking ''Gorilla'' packaging tape, but seemed to be blatantly giving ''Scotch'' monopolistic display exposure exposure inside their physical store location(s) and making ''Gorilla'' available only via online. orders. So I left there to check at ''Lowe's'' instead, then to get my gas tank filled before leaving, which I'd decided not to do while I was at the Kroger gas station at ''Towers Shopping Center,'' where the Blu-ray hand-off was to take place. I found the ''dispenser'' type of tape, but they did not stock the ''three-pack'' replacement rolls, stocking only the ''twin-pack'' variety, so I'd decided to hold off on purchasing any of the refills, considering ordering them online at ''Amazon.com,'' if I could find them and if they were at a ''reasonable'' price -- it would turn out, ''Yes,'' to the first part; ''No,'' to the second, which precipitated my eventual return to the store. It was during the return trip that I'd finally gotten gassed-up, as during my initial venture I'd forgotten that my mother had offered me her ''Kroger Card'' in order to get the ''ten cents off per gallon'' bonus by using her current fuel points.
My initial experience with the ''roller'' feature on the tape dispenser was the same as nearly everyone else's... but it was almost as quickly that I'd learned that the design was a serious hazard as I'd wound-up getting ''wounded-up,'' having the cutting blade scratch and slice into my fingers (one of them quite viciously) at least a good four and maybe as many as five times before I was almost ready to declare ''Game Over'' and return the dispenser and the unused portion to the store for a refund: instead, the next morning (Sun., Nov. 15) I'd finally decided that I'd had enough of trying (''with extreme care & caution'') to work with/against the cursed thing and resorted to ripping out the ''roller'' mechanism altogether, and as a result, hadn't had a single problem (of any kind) with it since.
I'd finally gotten as far as getting all of my ''bound books'' packed & set aside, after becoming clear on what items legitimately qualify for being sent via ''Media Mail'' -- my music & movies have pretty much been gathered together to where they can be reasonably addressed in a timely fashion after my bounce-back from Pinellas/St.P., and all of my ''electronic'' gidgets & gazmos will require some special attention but should still be relatively manageable, but it's all of the remaining junk & incidentals which will be requiring more creative handling.
Prior to packing my clothes, I'd decided to do a pre-trip ''weather check'' and in so doing considered yet another alternate route which would appear to be shaving off a few extra bits of time & distance off of my previously adjusted route. My initial concern in wanting to check the weather was to determine whether I would be encountering any rain along the way, just in case I found it necessary to strap the backpack onto the rear seat again, compensating for the fact that during this excursion I'd planned on bringing a significant amount of food along with me.
Nearing completion of packing, I'd decided to ride out to ''Cave Spring Corners'' shopping center with my mother who would be giving Gracie a ride home from her job, both as a means to wedge-in a brief pre-trip ''nap-ish'' and to say good-bye in person. Because of this, I was not finally able to leave until roughly shy of 21:30.
''Weekend in Review''
November 16 - 20, 2015 (Monday-Friday)
The nearly 1,000 mile virtually uninterrupted highway ride to Florida was fraught with all sorts of problems which even went beyond the high-speed chill factor I had to endure due to my not being as adequately dressed for the cold weather as I'd assumed I was prior to Sunday Night's (Nov. 15) departure. The thing that really irritated me was the fact that it appeared as though ''Goo-Goo Maps'' had again misdirected me when I thought I'd plotted out an alternate course that would take me along Interstate routes ''85'' and ''285'' connecting from Interstate 81, but not only did I not spot any such branch-off en route, but neither could I find such routes listed on the road maps provided by the Tennessee visitor center & rest area which I stopped into after doubling back about 20 miles in that return direction once I'd come to the realization that Interstate 40, which I'd suddenly found myself on, did not share a ''doubled route'' with ''I-81,'' but rather that ''81'' came to a complete end and immediately transitioned over unbroken into what would then be considered ''I-40.'' That break though would however force me to be confronted with just how seriously the chilly weather was taxing my system, as riding exposed in such weather for such an extended period of time resulted in my feeling so weak that my legs were literally trying to buckle from underneath me, causing me to considerable difficulty in trying to walk without staggering & stumbling around like a drunk.
And again, just like the last time, one of the biggest challenges was trying to stay alert and in control, which I thought would be less of an concern once I'd faced daylight and warmer weather, but it was actually during this time that I'd had my scariest ''close call'' where I'd come just mere inches away from nearly swiping into a car that was traveling in the ''passing lane'' but which had most fortunately passed by leaving me with barely enough room sufficient enough to accommodate my momentary loss of consciousness, so it was at that point I'd decided that I wasn't going to try to play ''Superman of the Highway'' anymore and pulled into the next rest stop (somewhere about halfway through Georgia, at some point roughly around or prior to Noon) to grab myself about a 10-15 minute ''power nap,'' then trying not to fall sick/nauseous, likely due to having remained bundled in the same heavy clothing I'd left in and trying to nap on the motorcycle with the sun baring down on me.
After leaving the rest area, it became evident to me that I was never going to make it in ''Tarpon'' in time enough for me to get the earliest check-in time (15:00), but I put on a rush anyway (following everyone else's example... especially on the Georgia side), trading off my coveted fuel efficiency in the process. After a final misdirection, overshooting a turn-off, resulting in another doubling back (this time of about 12 miles), I'd finally arrived at my lodging location four and a half hours late!
My impression of the facilities was, to say the least, extremely disappointing, so much so that it would take up too much time and space to detail all of the problems. Besides, after all I'd just gotten finished putting myself through out on the road, my primary concern at that point was to jump into a quick shower then jump into a bed (the room they provided me came with two of them). About the only ''positive'' thing I could say about the place was that unlike ''InTown Suites'' in Tampa, this place didn't appear to have a roach infestation problem.
The next morning (Tue., Nov. 17) I asked about why I was unable to get Internet access on my laptop -- it would connect to their Wi-Fi, but access to the Web was being blocked for some inexplicable reason, despite the numerous ''troubleshooting'' methods both I and the operator attempted: as a solution (though very inconvenient), he was able to determine that I had the ability to connect to the Wi-Fi that was dedicated the reception office, but it would mean that I would have to be sitting directly outside of the office door in order to get a reasonable signal... but it would also mean that it would require frequent battery recharging as there were no nearby outlets and the battery which I'd brought along (which I'd almost convinced myself not to bring on the trip) barely hold a charge for not much longer than an hour. Regrettably, it was partly because of these Internet connectivity complications that I'd chosen to ''sit out'' my first day on site, only taking a brief late-afternoon foot tour of the downtown area.
I did not manage to get out to do much of anything until later in the day Wednesday (Nov. 18), after wasting the entire morning struggling with the haphazard Wi-Fi connections that would occasionally get established by setting up the laptop in the bathroom, stubbornly engaging in an endless losing battle against local ''Craigslist'' moderators who kept stripping down any and every attempt I kept making to post ''Pussy Licking'' requests, which in frustration forced me to create an account on ''Plenty of Fish'' for that purpose, only for that service to refuse to deliver any messages I'd sent to individual users if they contained even so much as a hint of the ''P'' word! When I finally did get out, all I was able to accomplish was to verify my identity at the Downtown St. Petersburg post office and claim the keys to my assigned P.O. Box.
On the ride back to Tarpon Springs, I took a diversion to explore all of St. Pete's ''Historic Kenwood'' neighborhood to see if anyone had put out any signs along the streets to indicate whether they may have had any ''garage apartments'' available for rent, but finding only ''full houses'' being offered, either for rent or for straight-up sale.
Thursday (Nov. 19) found me again wasting valuable time, not accomplishing much beyond plotting out the routes for locating the advertised apartment I'd found online & printed out while I was still working at my former jobsite, and informing my bank in Hawaii to update the mailing address they have as part of my records.
After nearly three full days of believing that the rancid smell was coming in from somewhere outside, I finally discovered that the horrid & overpowering odor which reeked of an old dog seeped in its own piss that had not ever been given a bath in its entire life actually was emanating from the upholstered chair which came with the room! To attempt to address the issue, I rode out to ''Dollar Tree'' to bring back a couple of cans of ''carpet'' and ''air'' fresheners, emptying the former can, and gagging on the overuse of the second... all to no avail, as the humidity reactivates the deep-seated stench and so the assault continues. I used the rain as my final excuse not to do anything else for the remainder of the day.
Friday (Nov. 20) I finally went to work calling the various apartment complexes I'd had among my printouts, only to immediately begin learning that the unit prices quoted on them were nowhere near what any of them were actually being rented out for! -- even learning that some of the sites were posting availability ads without authorization from the property managers.
In response to all of this, I literally tossed aside everything I'd ever printed out about local apartment availability while I was working, and resorted to checking online for specific local property management companies, which brought with it its own set of unnerving complications. For instance, as if everything I'd been going through up to this point wasn't bad & panic-inducing enough, other issues would come into play, such as this one unit right smack in the heart of Downtown St. Pete-- just a few blocks away from my Post Office Box --which I was expressing interest in, even though it was right at the ''brick-wall limit'' of how high I was willing to pay in monthly rent, only to be told by the representative on the other end of the line that her company required renters to earn ''Three Times'' the rent amount as their monthly income!!! -- which I found completely out of some topsy-turvy ''Twilight Zone'' episode, as this particular property management company had (according to online reviews) practically been likened to ''Slum Lords.''
Panic-stricken, I ran to ''Craigslist'' as my undesirable absolute ''last resort'' -- this time, to try to look at ''housing'' offers, dreading and hoping that I would not have to hit such a desperate point as to consider any sort of ''shared housing'' arrangements! I'd pulled up so many names, called so many numbers, left so many voicemails, and only once out of the entire day did anybody even bother to call me back (it was while I was on the phone with the aforementioned ''earn 3x more than your rent'' waste of time), and when I did call back, nobody could tell me who had called me and expected me to be able to decipher the whos/whats/wheres out of the sea of different contacts I'd been trying to make throughout the entire day.
At my wits end, I'd decided to launch a ''recent postings'' search on Craigslist to see what would come up, regardless of rent rate, and I came across a unit what had seemed ''nearly perfect'' in practically all (of what was immediately noticable) aspects, although the greatest concern (assuming that ''everything else'' was ''right'' with the place) was that the unit was located in ''New Port Richey,'' in the next county above (Pasco), making it a distance of about 40 miles and likely over an hour's worth of driving time from my P.O.Box in St. Pete. The phone call with the representative went nicely, she explained many things, including about the ''application fee,'' which absolutely everybody in this area seems to insist upon, but since it was too late in the day to make it to the property management office, she informed me that I could fax my photo ID and request the key code to access & inspect the apartment and could fill out the application online.
I'd asked the hotel manager if he might be able to send a fax for me, but he claimed that he was waiting to receive a fax of his own and would be tied up for about a half-hour. While waiting, I began working on the online application until it required some information I did not have available at the moment, and as I was leaving the office to retrieve it, he informed me that ''Staples'' would be able to fax what I needed, but by the time I'd reached the store I'd missed the deadline, as the rental representative explained in no uncertainty that their office would close at exactly 16:00.
At the end of the week, I find myself still doing desperate battle with the mosquitoes which have been sneakily tearing me up around my elbows an all along my forearms: I suppose this, along with the disgusting room smells, sicky floors, and crappy Internet service, is the trade-off that must be endured in exchange for not having to encounter & do battle with cockroaches running around the room.
I would also learn on either Thursday or Friday (cannot recall exactly which) that stinking ''WHO?Tube'' had made nearly the entire collection of my ''lighthearted-&-entertaining' video projects UNPLAYABLE in the U.S. all because of some phukkin' bogus ''copyright'' bull shark all because of the snippet of a ''J-POP'' song (and an ''karaoke insrumental'' version at that) I'd used as the closing theme for each of my video projects I'd produced for that specific category! Fudge-Dick Eating Ass-Wipes!
''Week in Review''
November 21 - 22, 2015 (Saturday-Sunday)
Was totally out of it Saturday (Nov. 21), tired & lethargic and did not feel like doing much of anything, outside or inside, and could barely remain alert or awake: the dark gloomy rainy day only intensified the experience. I did spend some of that time managing to re-plot the route to Interstates 85/485 via I-81, and learned that I was supposed to have had made the turn-off onto Interstates 77.
Received a call just shy of 15:00 from the woman who had posted the apartment ad on Craigslist about the ''attic apartment'' being offered in locally in Tarpon Springs, and we arranged to schedule a viewing of the apartment for the following day (Sun., Nov. 22) at Noon. When I took a look at the apartment, which was within easy walking distance from the hotel, I was very impressed with it and the neighborhood, but felt somewhat ill that there was a decent back yard with a pool which would be off limits. But my gut was still wanting me to hold out on making any immediate decisions until I'd had a chance to view the apartment in what local Floridians refer to as ''NPR'' (''New Port Richey''), so I made certain to ask loaded questions relating to my lack of ''rental history'' and current state of unemployment, which I knew would trigger their hesitancy response, as it's done with everyone else thus far, but she said she'd be willing to consider accepting ''advance rental payments'' as a nerve-relaxing incentive, but I told her that I'd be contacting her immediately after I'd learned about the status of the ''NPR'' unit. After returning to the hotel room, I'd decided to disregard the gloomy and slightly chilly weather to take a quick trip to NPR to at least take a passing look at the house where the studio is located and to learn the route and to get a sense of the area -- unfortunately, the surrounding areas (business districts and local neighborhoods), as well as the house itself, did nothing but score ''negatives'' with me, destroying any good feelings I'd up to that time had about the interior set-up of the apartment, as judged based on the photos the property management company had posted online: so now the decision would come down to a nice but terribly small studio on the side of a single-level ranch in a depressing, unnerving, empty & ugly area where I'd have all basic utilities covered as part of the $495/mo. rent but would have to establish my own Internet access vs. a very nicely spaced (though a bit ''big'' for my tastes) ''1-bedroom'' apartment ''upstairs'' in a quiet semi-secluded neighborhood where rent would be $500/mo. plus pay for my own electricity but be allowed access (free?) to their home Wi-Fi network! So after my examination of the NPR location (which to my surprise was barely five miles away from the hotel), and after grabbing a few snacks at an ''Aldi'' I'd passed along the way back (having to pay cash, since they do not accept credit cards, and forgetting that any bags had to either be brought in or purchased, so I forwent any bags), I tried contacting the owner of the house in Tarpon to express primary interest in her apartment offer ahead of the unit in NPR, but I had to leave a recorded message, and in so doing I worried that I may have given them the impression that I'd decided against their apartment, but I chose not to make any follow-up call to clarify what I'd meant, in case there was indeed any confusion.
I'd also gotten to a clearer understanding of what was most likely the source of the revolting smell emanating from the upholstered chair int the hotel room: old stale beer and/or some other alcoholic gut-rot, smelling like an unbathed wino who had pissed his pants and let himself bake under the sun on a hot humid day.
''Weekend in Review''
November 23 - 25, 2015 (Monday-Wednesday)
On Monday morning (Nov. 23) I received the keysafe code in order to access & view the interior of studio/efficiency apartment being offered in New Port Richey, so I followed through with the viewing anyway, even though I'd already determined that I did not like the area. Prior to and during inspection I made it an issue to video-document everything about the apartment-- both inside and out --in order to record the condition of, and issues with, the unit. I was disturbed at how small and cramped it was & felt, even though the complete set of photographs that the property management company had posted online made it very clear that it was for a certainty going to be a ''tight fit.'' My main issues with the unit however involved a couple of relatively minor incompletions, such as a missing shower head in the ''bath'' room and the then unavailability of a ''deadbolt'' key, but also a couple of inexcusable major issues such as the electric stove not receiving power from the outlet, and the provision of a barely waist-high ''mini-fridge'' which was precisely that, as it did not feature a ''freezer'' compartment of any kind!
Even though I genuinely disliked the apartment and the neighborhood, and was all-but prepared to take a huge gamble and risk losing out on apartments at the same time by intending to hold out hope that I just might have a chance of succeeding at acquiring the ''attic apartment'' I'd looked at in Tarpon Springs, I still decided to continue on to the property management company's location in order to go over how best to clean-up & complete the application for their apartment that I'd filed online. As it would turn out, I managed to get ''lost'' by knowing that I was on the correct road, but somehow either overshot it or never reached it before I'd decided to turn back and wait for a response from the family in Tarpon. After calling the Tarpon family on three different occasions (the first time being immediately after viewing the ''NPR'' apartment even as I was still on location), the wife finally called me back to inform me that my gamble did not pay-off and that they had already rented the unit out to another person.
Having shot my own d!c# off like I had, I immediately called the NPR property managers the next morning (Tue., Nov. 24) and explained to them that I'd indeed tried to visit them at their office location and managed to get lost along the way (which was all true), but that I was still very interested in the studio/efficiency I'd just looked at the day prior (which was not entirely the truth, but this was desperation talking at this time). Sure enough, by doubling-down I'd lost the whole pot, as I was informed that the unit I'd just gotten finished looking at had likewise been snatched-up by someone else. During this conversation, when discussing if they might have had anything else ''comparable'' in size & price that I might be interested in, they informed me that they did have a couple of apartments that they were ''soon expecting'' to be made available which were not yet ''ready'' but, when asked, had assured me that these would definitely be up & ready for occupancy in about ''a couple of weeks.'' At this news, I'd asked them to consider me for tenancy, especially since it was not projected to be ready until right around the time I'd be returning to the area anyway. They'd agreed to let me take a look at it-- at least its location and exterior, as they were not yet allowing any potential occupants interior access while maintenance work was still being done on it --and would show me interior photographs of a similar apartment in the same complex when I came in to the office afterwards: they told me that the unit was in the same ''New Port Richey'' municipal district, but just a bit further in by about a couple of extra miles from where the previous unit I was looking at was located.
After viewing what I could, I called the property managers from the location and told them that I was satisfied with the location and that I actually liked area and was genuinely interested (again, all of which was true, as this time the unit & actual ''apartment complex'' was literally located just on the backside street of ''Downtown'' New Port Richey) and that I'd soon be in their office to discussed details, situations, terms & options. After viewing the ''comparative'' photos and offering my assurances along with reiterating my willingness to be ''flexible'' in order to secure the unit, I paid the $30 ''application fee'' (first time I ever had to do that in my life!) and was told that I would likely hear back from them either later in day or early the following morning.
After returning to the hotel, I called ''Bank of Hawaii'' to inform them that the ''St. Petersburg'' address I'd given them would no longer be valid, and I'd requested that they revert back to the ''Virginia'' address until I could establish and confirm the ''official'' address update at a later date when that information could confidently be verified. I then traveled to St. Petersburg to close the P.O. Box I'd established there, after nearly a half-hour of being twisted, turned, spun, and jerked about by the ''customer service'' reps on the USPS information call center, when all I was trying to ask of them was if it would be possible to ''swap'' post office boxes to establish a unit in a different city than the one I'd already acquired in the online application process, since I'd already paid for everything online upfront: the final [''simple''] answer was that I'd have to be required to ''close'' the originally established box and ''reopen'' a new box at the new location. I was not able to receive the full amount of my Box rental, regardless of the fact that it had only been opened literally four (4) days earlier and had yet to be used, and despite the fact that when I'd applied online I'd supposedly been given, as an incentive to rent the box for a ''full year,'' a bonus ''free'' month -- I'd wound up recouping only $61.50 for a Box I'd been charged $80.00 for... I took the hit and chalked it up to ''paying for my learning'' for being so cocky confident that I just knew without any doubt that I was going to be finding myself established in St. Petersburg ''proper'' (which, after getting re-accustomed to the area after having becoming acquainted with places like ''Tarpon'' and ''[Downtown] New Port Richey,'' I was quite happy to have been ''priced out'' of).
It also turned out that at the very instant I had pulled in to park the motorcycle just prior to entering the St.Pete Downtown Post Office, I'd received a text from the property management company saying that they would accept my tenancy in the Downtown NPR unit if I'd agreed to submit over two-and-a-half times the standard ''deposit'' amount on top of the first month's rent.
The next step with regard to the housing situation, would be to get electricity hook-up followed by ''Internet'' service -- the latter of which I'd tried to get as much advance information on as I could. I began by contacting ''Verizon''
via their ''chat'' feature, because I'd already known what hair-pulling B.S. to expect from a ''phone representative,'' especially when all I was wanting to inquire about was obtaining *ONLY* Internet service without getting ''bundle'' pitches shoved down my throat, especially since their website insists on putting on this pretense that they can't offer anything BUT ''bundled'' packages! But the chat rep was no better, launching into the same ''bundle'' tactics, trying to entice a ''Name & Address'' out of me as if any of that is truly necessary, even after I'd informed him several times that I'd already checked the address and confirmed that their services are available at that location. I'd finally managed to weasel out of him a page link to ''DSL'' (which was impossible to find via their standard website), but it still insists that ''phone service'' be attached to it. At that, I'd ended the conversation and decided to look at the ''Bright House Networks'' page, and found them to be even WORSE!
I'd also spent a considerable amount of time trying to research New Port Richey's ''flood hazard'' tendencies, and kept running into situations where nobody seems to know nothing! The one sure source I thought I had was through links provided on NPR's official webpage, which were supposedly links to pages mapping out the flood zones, but of course these links FAILED to work!
I woke up later than expected on Wednesday (Nov. 25), so before I left to visit again with the property managers I tried calling them several times and not receiving an answer. During my fourth attempt, just as their office number was ringing, I'd received a call on my cell phone: but since I did not recognize the number, I made the assumption that it might have been another of the numbers I'd called throughout my search for housing, and based on that assumption I was about to let the call go unanswered... however, at the last second, I'd decided to answer the call anyway, and it turned out to be the very property management company I'd been trying to contact. I was informed that the office would be closing early for the day at Noon (in preparation for the extended ''holiday weekend''), and it was determined that there wouldn't be enough time for me to make it out there before they shut-up shop, so I proposed the plan of stopping by their office en route to my trip back to Virginia after checking out of my hotel room on Monday.
Even though I would not arrive in time to catch the property management representatives before they left for the day/weekend, I still traveled to NPR to establish a replacement Post Office Box in town: I postponed purchasing a money order for my rent & deposit, pending Monday's decision on whether or not I might be allowed to voluntarily pay several extra months of rent in advance. I also chose to pay for the replacement Box with the credit card again, choosing to retain the money order I'd received as my refund from the St. Pete office to exchange for some carry-around cash. But the thing that disturbed me was the fact that for what I'd gotten back in refund from the St. Pete Post Office was almost the exact amount needed to rent a Box in NPR... FOR A BOX OF THE SAME EXACT SIZE!
I came back to a still untouched hotel room after I'd asked the hotel manager/owner the previous night if I could have someone come in to simply sweep & mop the floor and exchange the bath towels & washcloths... no surprise at all, since he'd still not done anything about that stinky chair I'd placed outside of the room the day I'd told him about it and he had assured me that he would retrieve it and get rid of it.
After eating a carryout order from ''Pizza Hut'' (which eventually wound up giving me a bad case of heartburn), I'd decided to take a brief stroll through & in the general vicinity of Tarpon's ''downtown'' areas, and finally decided to take a quick peek inside the retro game room on the main strip which I'd passed by on a few occasions but never worked up the curiosity to venture inside: it predominantly catered to ''pinball'' machines, and what captured my attention as I was passing by on this occasion, which was what finally sparked my curiosity enough to want to scope the place out, were the ''newer'' machines which were evidence of the fact that pinball machines are actually still being manufactured! The storekeeper on site explained the set-up, I talked to him about how I used to be involved with these devices ''back in the day,'' and informed him that I might stop in and spend some time there during this upcoming weekend.
And speaking of weekends, for some bizarro unexplained reason, the ''front office'' Wi-Fi connection, which I'm still required to access in order to get online, has been connecting decently enough from inside my room at the modified ''workstation'' I'd set up inside the bathroom since the weekend ended... it's still slow & spotty at times, but the connection has remained constant and virtually unbroken since Monday!
''Truncated Week in Review''
November 28, 2015 (Saturday)
Had decided to shorten the previous ''review week,'' expecting to incorporate Thursday (Nov. 26) into the extended ''holiday weekend,'' only to find any activities beyond bouts of depression and lethargy reserved exclusively for Saturday, which was to have involved my promise to spend some time and money at the pinball game room downtown (called, ''Replay,'' which was set-up to allow limitless game play for a single ''cover charge'' of $14) -- the only real ''exception'' to this rule being that I'd placed my first ''Amazon.com'' orders for my new address on Thursday, but designating the items as ''gifts'' once I'd learned that Florida had joined the ever-expanding number of states where they were expanding distribution centers and thus charging local sales taxes... in this instance, ''6%'' vs. Virginia's ''4.5%'' or so (included in the order were a couple of actual ''gift'' purchases, which involved a couple of books I'd also purchased for myself to be sent directly to my mother).
En route to the game room I'd observed that the main Downtown strip was closed off to traffic and set-up with merchant tents for what appeared to be an ''art festival'' sort of a deal. I stopped by one of the tents and engaged in conversation with a retired Navy man and his wife (who had also been stationed in Hawaii for three years), the former of whom produced clocks and other analog meters embedded in his own handcrafted wood encasings. I'd taken particular interest in a collection of ''coin safes'' he had customized which incorporated auctioned-off classic ''combination lock'' style ''post office boxes'' -- I'd negotiated a $5 price discount off of the $40 asking price, and learned that this was an annual event in Tarpon Springs around this same time of the year, and I said I'd keep him in mind for gift-giving ideas next year.
I'd also stopped into a shop where the focus was ''knitted'' items, and I'd asked if I could take a few photographs of some of her work, explaining that one of my mother's retired friends does similar type work for a ''hobby'' and a ''challenge,'' but had never given any consideration to selling any of her items until my mother essentially elected herself to act as the ''go-between'' to peddle some of her friend's merchandise to other friends & acquaintances, and I thought that some of the design ideas the tent lady had on display might offer my mother's friend some more challenging ideas. In further conversation, she said that she was originally from Jamaica and currently living in West Palm Beach. When it was revealed in conversation that she'd also attended shows where she'd presented her items in Roanoke and was familiar with the area, she told me about how impressed she was with the Cuban restaurant on Williamson Road, which I took as a ringing endorsement from someone with a certain degree of expertise in the matter, given her cultural & geographical background and experiences.
(entered ''post-weekend'' - Monday, November 30)
November 30, 2015 (Monday)
*[Refer to ''Week in Review'' November 30 - December 3, 2015 (Monday-Thursday) beginning the Winter 2015 quarterly page.]
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