We're on the road to nowhere....

On the topic of my back.

As I mentioned last entry, my back's shot. Can't walk without the back starting to hurt, can't do anything strenuous without it REALLY hurting. Kind of Extremely limiting everything I can do. I'm not stupid. Not completely stupid, anyway. I'll grudgingly admit to being somewhat stupid, but it's not a total wash. Yet. I saw that there was a visit to the doctor ahead of me, and after visiting the back doctor last time to the tune of over $400 I was extremely hesitant to go that route. And don't even suggest chiropractors to me. Every time I go to those guys their repeated visits suck the bank account dry. Leaches. So, yeah. Needed an alternative.

Best alternative I could come up with was an inversion table. If you've seen the Teeter Hang-Ups commercials, you know what I mean. Or know the scene in one of the earlier Batman movies -- maybe the first Michael Keaton Batman -- where it shows him sleeping upside down, like a bat. That's inversion. Decrompresses the spine. That's what I needed, or so I thought. I found a couple of inversion tables on Amazon for less than $100 (or, less than a quarter of my last back doctor visit) and bought it. It arrived today.

After putting it together, my back was ruined. Lots of pain. I sat down in the recliner and made sure to read the precautions before I used the thing and was disheartened to see how many reasons I the manufacturer had given me to avoid the thing I had just put together. First, I weigh ten lbs more than the maximum allowed weight. Second, I'm extremely obese. (Yep, those are listed as two different reasons in the warnings section.) Third, I have an implant in a bone (my left shinbone). Fourth, I have a known back problem. (why else would I be using the thing to begin with?!) Fifth, I have high blood pressure. I put the damn book away and used it anyway. Caution be damned.

Here's what I learned extremely quickly after starting to recline: It wants to lean back, and it wants to lean back NOW. Had to hold on to the handlebars -- dunno if that's what they're called or not -- to keep from swinging around too quickly. Second, if you weigh 260 lbs, you're not meant to hang from your feet. Your feet just aren't built for that kind of punishment. Third, all the blood rushes to your head and face and you start to sweat IMMEDIATELY. Fourth, if you have a clogged up nose it's suddenly unclogged. Fifth, you can see the underside of that shelf, and it has a smileyface sticker on it.

After about ten seconds I had to flip back upright because my feet just couldn't take the weight. You're literally hanging from your feet -- the tops of your feet are holding you in place. It hurt. There wasn't enough padding to keep it from hurting too much to maintain. So I took off my shoes and tried it with socks. It was better, but not good enough. I figure I stayed upside down for a minute.

The upside -- after that minute, my back wasn't hurting. Proof that it works. Just need to pad the bars that hold my feet in.

Oh, also, it woke my ass up fiercly quick. I can see myself doing this for a few minutes in the morning as a quick wake-me-up. Better than caffeine.

I have a job interview tomorrow.

It's not the type of job I want. It's labor-intensive, but it's what I can get. Hopefully. I have three major concerns about a joblike this one. 1) Epilepsy. 2) I'm spectacularly out of shape. 3) Vision seems to be a problem recently. Haven't mentioned the last one because I might be jumping at ghosts -- my sister recently discovered she has problems with her vision, and I have similar symptoms. But it's worth checking out. If I'm not put to work directly after the interview, I have an appointment with an optometrist Monday afternoon. I expect I'll be in contacts soon afterwards.

The job's an order puller for a dental supply/veteranary supply/surgical supply company. Warehouse job. This will be my third warehouse job. If I get it. Pays $10/hr. Believe it or not, that's nearly as much as I've ever made. When I was working at Alabama Electronics, as co-owner of a mildly successful family business, I only made .50 more. Didn't pay myself a cent at Astrobrain. [LIES! I got lunch money out of the till and read comic books.] Point is, this will be the first time in years I'll have made a paycheck. I'm embarrassed about that. 35 (34?) yrs old and haven't made money in years. Prime of my life, wasted.

So, yeah, I'm only slightly depressed that the quality of work I'm getting hasn't increased in years, but, then again, my abilities haven't grown either so I shouldn't expect much. There's a technical school a mile or two away from the place I'm interviewing at Monday. Figure I'll see what I can do about enrolling there after I've fixed myself up a bit. I'm in desperate need of a few dental visits. And a new bed, so my back doesn't hurt all the time.

But man, it'll just be nice to get out of the house.

Hi Livejournal. Been a while. I've been busy. Had my penis in my hand, beating it mercilessly. Y'know how that is.

Not really. Well. Not all the time. Been playing Skyrim. I think I'm about finished witht hat. I estimate I've been through the game four+ times. I'm gonna finish out the playthrough I'm on now (a Khajiit named Bill -- Bill the cat) and put it aside. First two playthroughs were laregely unfinished and were on ps3. They were unfinished BECAUSE they were on ps3. Skyrim and ps3 just did not get along. Exchanged the PS3 copy for a 360 copy that worked much better. Played it through once. My sister started playing near the end of that playthrough. I figured, "What the hell. I'm going to have to hold her hand while sheplays her game. Might as well do another." That's how Bill the Cat was born. Had I been planning a real playthrough he would have had a real name, like the first real 360 playthrough -- Magnus von Magnusson, a burly Nord I named after the legendary strongman. But Bill the Cat ended up being a much better character than Magnus von Magnusson, probably because I was competing with my sister to be a bigger badass at nothing. SHE wasn't competing. She was just trying to kill things and pick up as much worthless crap as she could. I was determined to show her how fucking badass you could make your dude. Think I succeeded. Bill the Cat should have an award for being the biggest badass in all of Skyrim. Hm. Think I'll make one for him. (In-game, of course. I'm too lazy to do such things in real life.)

Probably not unrelated, my health's been pretty rotten while I've been completely inactive. Less said about it the better, but I think the deterioration of health fed the desire to play the game and vice versa. Bad scene. Here's the fucked up thing. My sister's started playing the game and in doing so has taken on a lot of my habits. I don't think she realizes she's done so. But I can watch her deteriorate. It's scary. I don't mean to sound mean, but in the month she's played, her ass has gotten MUCH bigger. (This comes from a phenomenally fat guy, so I KNOW where it comes from.) I want to tell her to stop for her own good, but... honestly, she's enjoying this more than I've ever seen her enjoy anything else, and we finally have something to talk about. Point is, she's become a mirror, an example of what I already knew -- everything in moderation.

Had a rock and roll friend who completely disagreed with that notion. I adored his lifestyle and kinda wanted to be like him, but I hate hangovers too much.

Here's the rotten thing. Batman: Arkham City's going to land on my doorstep tomorrow and even though I WILL finish this playthrough of Skyrim, I figure I'll dive right into Arkham City and the same thing'll happen to me with it...

Please don't take what I said above to mean Skyrim is a bad game. It's so far from it. It's the best game I've ever played. And i'm not saying that lightly. It'll just get a grip on you.


In the meantime I've been devoting an hour or so every weekday to finding a job. No bites. That's been weighing on me. Had a dream a couple of nights ago. Possibly the most symbolic dream I've ever had. In it, I apparently worked at a large, rich financial firm with a lot of people I went to school with that I know became successful in their respective fields. All of these people also have significant personality disorders. The type of people you just don't want to be around. But there I was, in a bar/nightclub made of gold (See -- symbolism) with them, dressed nicely, they were happy and accepting of me. I was one of them. We were all obviously part of the new guard of this financial firm. The up-and-comers, having a drink after work. All TVs were tuned to CNBC and Fox Financial. Everyone had their ipads out looking at stocks.

The old guard came into the bar and were greeted warmly. They were happy to see us, we were happy to see them, I felt out of place and scared. The old guys were actors from television shows. The type of character actors who you'd know their faces but you'd never be able to remember their names. One of them was John Spencer from The West Wing. (Had to look it up on IMDB.) One looked like an older, better groomed Brian Posehn. But none of the old guard were happy. They were all miserable. Their lives were wrecks. The stress of their profession had ruined them.

A few hours after I woke up, I realized I'd watched an episode of Mad Men in my head. Didn't take away from the symbolic power of the dream a bit. I don't want to be anyone else's version of successful if it means an unacceptable level of stress and having to deal with people I dislike. I'd rather find something that I can live with and pays enough to get me by. That will be my version of success.

Also notable -- I've passed the tenth anniversary of the first Mixola without doing a new one in over a year, or even starting one. To this I say: Fuck it.

Think I just had the most depressing conversation ever.

An aside -- Almost posted this to Twitter, but people actually look at Twitter. Almost posted it to Facebook, but ditto Twitter. So it falls back to LJ.

I normally use LJ to talk about things at length. But I don't really want to talk about this at length, as it is the most depressing thing ever. But the need to express to someone - anyone -- even if it's no one -- that I just had the most depressing conversation ever was overbearing. Had to find an outlet for it. The fact that I chose LJ because I figure two people - three, at most - will read this says something bad about LJ. Makes me sad.

I poured my heart out on LJ for a few years. Lost a lot of that when LJ deleted my old journal, but that's my fault for switching journals unneccesarily. Don't think I would want to read anything from that time period anyway. It was both the happiest and most painful time of my life. I think about it a lot, no matter how hard I try not to.
It was a badly needed education. Cheers to Mofo and Kento for pushing me down that road.

Yeah. I don't want to write about that conversation. Wrote about it and deleted it. Bad.

Just found out The Cars have a new album out. That makes me happy. Fills me with a joy that's hard to convey. I'm even happier that I don't have to pirate it thanks to Spotify. What a wonderful service. Now, THAT I would pay for, if it wasn't already free. As it is, I can deal with the ads. I deal with 'em while I'm watching television, I can put up with 'em here. (Radio doesn't apply 'cause I don't listen to the radio.) Anyway, two songs in and I'm happy with it. Not like I have a whole lot invested in it to get upset about. Nor was I ever a giant Cars fan, but a new album by this band scratches an itch I didn't know I had.

Something I'm noticing about this new Cars album -- for being a "new wave" album, and for being a band that's fronted by a prolific rock producer, it's extremely organic sounding. Most new music I hear nowadays have the background noise the instruments make removed. Not this one. You can clearly hear fingers moving up and down guitar strings. I like that. Rock music shouldn't be cleaned up.


I'm a season and a half into Mad Men via Netflix. Again, using a service that's free or cheap because I'm cheap. Mad Men's one of the many shows I've wanted to check out for a while based solely on its hype. I wasn't expecting anything but a good show, so I wasn't let down. It IS a good show. It puts so much focus on characterization that early into the run of the show I became aware of how greatly it overshowed other shows characters. By that I mean this -- while watching other shows you're aware you're watching characters on a screen and you've had to condition yourself to think of them AS a character -- not as a person, but as a one-dimensional character on a screen. Mad Men goes beyond that. You MUST think of these characters as people to appreciate them.

I have a feeling I've been missing that in a lot of the high-quality television shows I've skipped out on over the last decade. Those shows that get the hype. I never watched The Wire, The Sopranos, or any of those because I either didn't have HBO and didn't want to pay $70 for a fucking DVD or missed the first handful of episodes. Trying to fix that with a few of those that I know are worthwhile. Desperate to get my hands on the full run of Breaking Bad.


Still trying to get a job. I've changed the way I'm going about it. I'm not trying to get ANY old job anymore, 'cause that obviously wasn't working. My dad had a sign he kept hanging above his workbench for years. Didn't matter much until I really thought about it a month or so back, but it certainly applies. "There's No Use Running If You're On The Wrong Road." Good advice, Dad. Or bad advice. Depends on how you wanna take it. I take it as a hint that I should focus my efforts. Try to get a job that I either want or will be good at, instead of anything at all. And seeing as how I have a talent with small electronics repair and production, that's what I'm aiming for. Won't be anything special, but it'll do.


It'd be wrong if I didn't say that the last couple of weeks didn't make me hate my government a little bit. For the first time since 1999 I felt absolute disgust for the federal government. That's a normal reaction for most Republicans. It's new for the rest. I've been pretty naive. Given the people I support almost blind faith. That has changed.


Kyuss, the band that defined my taste in music for the last sixteen years kinda reformed, minus their guitarist. So it's 3/4 of Kyuss. They're playing a show in Atlanta pretty neat my birthday. I've been thinking about going to see it, seeing as how these guys are pretty much the basis of the music I've been listening to since I graduated high school. But then I thought -- the singer, John Garcia, has seen better days. Time was, I thought he had the best voice in rock. And I was serious about that statement, and would argue about it. His voice on Kyuss' three later albums, the Slo-Burn album, and the two Unida albums, can't be denied. But I've heard stuff after that... and it's hard to listen to. Particularly the live recordings. The bass player's a notoriously stoned/drunk fool of a man. The drummer, Brant Bjork, is a master of all he surveys, but what he's doing now is so different than what Kyuss was. Brant's solo stuff is more... punk rock chill. In other words... time changes people. These are different people than the guys that made Kyuss so great. I'm kind of afraid to go see them, for fear that my first time seeing them will be a bad experience.

But then, I've always thought that even if something new comes along and is bad, it shouldn't ruin what's come before. Take the Star Wars prequels, for example. Dropped from George Lucas's ass. Oldschool Star Wars fans rightly hate them. But they'd be foolish to let that hate tarnish their love for the originals. And, incidentally, from what I can tell, younger kids like the prequels more than the originals, so... it's a generational thing. Either that or the younger generation has no fucking taste.

Point is, I might be in the wrong to give up on going to see my heroes. Who knows. Not like I have the money for it anyway.

Speaking of Brother Brant... here's Automatic Fantastic. Enjoy. Relax.

Yeah, that's another thing I've found recently. Grooveshark. Very handy. Doubt anyone's clicking my links, but that's okay. It's the idea of sharing. Wish their iphone app worked without jailbreaking.

Okay. I'm on a fairly regular schedule. Let's keep it that way.

I'm not a cat person. But I was working in the yard late this afternoon and I heard a meowing. Searched for it. Coming from my neighbor's yard. The neighbor that I dislike. Black cat, obviously unhappy by the tone of its meows. Don't have to be a cat person to understand happy meow from unhappy meow. I approached cautiously. Knelt. Stretched hand out. It approached slowly. The cat was underfed. I'm not going to say starving -- had obviously been fed in the month since the tornado, but not too much. The most telling thing for me was it was not only starved for food, but starved for attention. It clung to me like *I* was food.

Mom brought out a large can of dog food and a bowl, and we watched the cat eat the whole thing. Before the cat could finish, we went inside. It was understood that with two large doggy-dogs and one very annoying bird inside the house, there was no place for a cat, no matter how cute or needy it may be. It was also understood that this cat will NOT be going hungry, because if you feed an animal once, it will be around again. And next time we'll have cat food ready for it.


So. Sunday on Memorial Day weekend. I've been raising hell all week about a lack of television, phones, and internet. Called AT&T a lot. Let them know my frustrations.

Today I realized -- remembered -- how much of a tool I am.

I'm kind of living in a bubble, here. The chances I get to play on my sister's computer are the few opportunities I have to see what's going on with the outside world. I don't see much, then. When I go anywhere, it's straight to the destination and back home -- nothing else. I don't really travel around Pleasant Grove because it's so wrecked, and because the traffic's a nightmare. I'm kinda lucky. I can get on the road out of PG relatively easy. 2 turns. Point is, I don't hear much, and I don't see much, except for what's around my house. Living in a bubble.

So today, I thought, Sunday on memorial day weekend. Cleanup crews will be taking a day off. People will be at church. Maybe I can take a drive around the ol' town. See how it's progressed over the course of a month.

It's not pretty.

Really. Not pretty. I'd forgotten how much I hate seeing this.

Good news -- they've almost cleaned off entire blocks of the city. Bad news -- they've almost cleaned off entire blocks of the city. They've done a lot of work that needed to be done, but it just showed exactly how much was ruined. You hear people say "It's like a bomb went off!!!11111" and you say, bullshit. How the fuck do YOU know what a bomb going off looks like? To me, the aftermath of the cleanup crews, leaving clean slab after clean slab -- THAT looks like a bomb has gone off. A really big fucking bomb.

But that's not the point I was trying to make here. Point I was trying to make here is I'm a dickhead. Again.
I spent a week bitching about not having tv, phones, and internet. Then I looked outside my cute little air conditioned bubble and recalled that there are lots of people that are missing a lot more than that.

Perspective. Gotta learn to keep it.

I'm fully aware that I'm probably coming off as a dick with this journal recently. That's probably not going to stop any time soon. I'm used to having things to keep my mind occupied. With the absence of television, telepphone, and internet, I'm at a loss for things that do that, and as a result things want to spill out of my brain when everyone is asleep. I'm usually watching something on Netflix around this time every night. But no internet means no Netflix.

Question arises, how am I able to post this if I have no internet. My sister has an aircard on her laptop, so I snatch the laptop away from her after she's in bed and use it for a while. She never, ever logs out of facebook. I'm tempted to start posting on her fb page. I want to post that she has a bad case of vagina dentata. But then... she's letting me use this computer. Be kinda a dick move to do that.

I'm about finished with the yardwork that I can do. Lots of stuff that needs to be done that I can't do that insurance will take care of, but they're busy helping people that need it more than we do. I'm okay with that.

Playing a lot of video games. Finished Fallout New Vegas in record time. by no means have I done everything there is to do, nor will I, ever. The Hardcore mode is for masochists. This is coming from someone who suffered through the bugs and many, MANY, MANY stalls and software failures that came with Fallout 3 to earn the Platinum trophy. Thankfully, New Vegas got a patch that solves that problem for it.

Also got Dragon Age 2. Bad player reviews chased me away from it for a while, but the fact that, with trade-ins and Reward Zone bucks, I could get it for less than $10 at Best Buy, it was hard to ignore. I've barely scratched the surface, having just got it today. But it looks okay. I've gotten used to the massive open worlds of the Fallout games, but I think I'll be able to cope with the more compressed environments in DA2.

About time to start applying for jobs again. Yeah, I took a break with applying for a while. Shouldn't have, but it was wearing me out. I don't enjoy being rejected.

Still haven't seen thor, and probably won't. I realy want to, but the lack of funds, due to a lack of job, is keeping me from doing a lot of things I'd really like to do. But 've made that complaint before, and really shouldn't make it again so soon after admitting that I haven't even been applying for jobs.

Watched Black Swan. Exactly as fucked up as I thought it would be. So far every one of Aranofsky's movies haven't disappointed with the fucked-upedness. My sister really wanted to see it because of the commercial where Natalie Portman's in the black swan costume with the scary eyes and looks into the camera. When that happened in the movie my sis exclaimed a little squee of happiness. Like it was her favorite part of the movie, ever, of all time, because she saw it on a commercial. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that behavior.

Watched the first 20 minutes of Green Hornet. and turned it off. Excess for excess's sake doesn't make a good movie. I dig on what Gondry was trying to do there... just doesn't do much for me. Still, the Mythbusters tie-ins were pretty neat.

That's it. Done.

There's another reason for all of the volunteers I hadn't considered: Large organization pushing them for into it. In this case, it'd be the Southern Baptist association. I'm not going to lump this in with an individual's spiritual drive to do better for mankind. It's not. It's a group that one belongs to giving the order for its members to focus its efforts in a location. Mobilize. And, again, I can't emphasise this enough, I am extremely thankful for the help the volunteers gave us, but I would like it even more if I could be certain that it was coming from people that were just out to help instead of people that are being told to do something bya giant pseudo-political/religious organization. Makes me feel a bit dirty.

That said, I am going to make an enormous sign and hang it on the side of the house thanking those volunteers for their efforts. It makes a difference to people who have been hit. I mean, we're almost finished with the repairs that WE can do. There are other repairs that are going to have to be done by professionals (new roof, new fence, new steps to deck, new pavement, etc etc) but damn... I feel safe walking in the yard in bare feet. Heh. No glass, no roofing nails, no pinecones. Awesome.

The back yard that I loved so much was a work in progress before the tornado. There were bare patches of grass, and there were weeds all over the place, and because I don't have a weedeater grass grows around the edges of things. But it was a good back yard. We had a swing that I liked to sit in at dusk and play with the dogs. Simple stuff. Good times. Back yard is pretty much ruined. Lotta work needs to be done to restore it to what it was. The swing I sat in is broken. Bummed about that.

There was a muskedine vine on a small arbor in my back yard that was leftover from the previous occupants. Tornado uprooted it, so it's gone now. Sad about that. it was unique. Smelled good.

Need to get out of the house for a while. Now that I'm almost finished with the work I can do, I'm ready to get out for a while. Need to get out of state. I have no money for that. But I do need to get out of this house. Right now.

Hi kids.

So. yeah. I live in Pleasant Grove Alabama. Appearantly my little town has been making quite a news story recently. I wouldn't know. We're kinda cut off from the rest of the wrold right now.

Here's my story. Only gonna tell it once, and it''s going to be a piss-poor storytelling job 'cause it's 1:30 in the morning and I need to be asleep but I can't sleep 'cause I've got all this stuff running through my noggin that needs to be let out.

We knew the bastard was coming. We had early warning. Massive early warning. I woke up that morning knowing that there was going to be some kickass weather later in the day. I follow James Spann's tweets (for those of you who live in Kentucky or somewhere who doesn't know who James Spann is, he's the best local weatherguy. Ever) and the moment I woke up I looked at my phone and my phone was telling me that James Spann was telling me that the storm was on path for Tuscaloosa alabama. Fucking nailed it, Jimmie Spann.

So, yeah. Wasn't like we weren't prepared. My sis even took off work early so she'd be here to be in a sake place. hahaha. should've stayed at work. Her work was safer than this place.

So 5:00ish rolls around. We've had an early dinner, cause, like I said, we knew it was coming. And we're watching Jimmie Spann. And there the motherfucker is, in Tuscaloosa, barrelling through the city on live television for everyone to see. And that was scary. Really scary. Cause I knew I was watching people die.

Fifteen to twenty minutes later we got word it was in Hueytown. And I thought I might have time to get the chicken in the microwave so it wouldn't spoil. Thought I might have some time. We had the big curtains in the living room open to see outside. It got real dark real quick. I got downstairs real quick. My sister and I are looking out the two windows in the basement. And that dark cloud starts to move. I don't recall the sound. People talk about the sound of a train. I don't recall that. I just recall watching the dark cloud start to move, and then see stuff fly by the window. Just little bits of trash at first. Just enough for me to think there was some wind. Something you might see on a windy day. But the speed at which it the wind increased was breathtaking. One minute I was able to see the house across the street, the next second I wasn't. And that was when I piled into the closet I had prepared for tornadoes. Probably a bit late, but it was very fascinating. That's my excuse.

If I had had my iphone, I would had recorded video of the whole thing. I'm pretty sure of it. instead I told my sister to record it, and she took a video that accurately depicts the terror of the event. not a good video of the tornado. A very good video of the terror that acompanies it. I still don't have it, by the way.

When it had passed, we took check of ourselves. Made note that we were physically okay. Mentally a bit shaken. It had blown the basement door open, but the chain latch had held, so the dogs weren't running free. I looked outside the basement door and saw there was a tree laying in front of it. That's good to know.

Went upstairs, opened the front door, there was chaos in the streets. Houses were damaged and destroyed very close to us. Very, very close to us. I estimate 150 paces from our front door, there is a house that has been shredded. All other houses around ours had significant roof damage at the very least.

Our damage: Three shutters were torn off the windows, one is missing. Two gutters were torn down. Some shingles were torn from the roof, but no major roof damage. No holes in the roof -- no leaks when it rains. Four of our trees were blown down, with several more of our neighbor's trees in our yard - none hit the house or cars. Fence is ruined. Two of our neighbor's storage buildings blew into our yard. Our storage building has several dime-sized holes in it that can easily be patched. Cars were banged up but are drivable.

We are extremely lucky. We were without power for five days, with blackouts throughout the days since we've had power, and we still don't have internet or television or phones, but considering what happened less than a mile away, I am not complaining.

Less than an hour after we stepped outside after the tornado, panicked people ran down my street asking for medical assistance. Someone was bleeding to death. On my street. We later learned the guy had died. That put things into perspective for me and I haven't complained about too much since.

Next day my sis and I took a walk around the old neighborhood. We took pictures of the craziness. Well, she did. It got to the point where I felt like a tourist taking mementos of other people's suffering, and I put my camera away. Seemed like a really tacky thing to do.

That was the day I started seeing the endless drove of people helping other people. It didn't stop. It was awesome and fantastic. I couldn't walk outside my house for 30 seconds without someone offering me something to eat or drink. I never accepted, cause 1) I try to be highly independent, and 2) we didn't need it and others certainly did. But it doesn't make it any less awesome that people organized themselves so quickly and got the support systems up so quickly and efficiently.

I have a lot to say about that, but now isn't the time. Last time I was hit by a tornado -- 1998 -- I was struck by the same thing. The willingness of people to help when other people are down. Mainly church groups that do that. I've kicked that idea around in my head ever since, and now I'm seeing it again, and even more feverishly this time. Like I said... I have a LOT to say about this, but now isn't the time.

But, yeah. lot on my mind. Hard to sleep the last week. Just thought about it for a second and I think Ive lost a LOT of sleep. The only way I can sleep is with a sleep aid and that doesnt seem to work too well. it's not that I'm mentally effected by the tornado or anything. Dont take it like that. I just think about everything that needs to be done and I start to wig out. get the jitters.

There is beer in the refigerator. We still have a deck. (the steps to it have been raised about a foot off the ground from the rootball of the tree that landed in front of the basement door. but we still have a deck.) I think I'll have a beer and let my mind relax on the cold, cold deck, looking out at the northbound destruction. Relax the mind. Then take a nap.

Googlemap: 1007 11th ave, pleasant grove, al 35127
According to rescue workers, everything north of me is gone to the big black slag pit on the side of the mountain. Think on that.

So I said I had set aside my standards while looking for a job. That doesn't apply for fast food. Will not work fast food. Actually, won't work ANY food.
Seems that it applies to something else.

So, this commercial's been on. A lot. Can't get away from it. Can't escape it. Can't change the channel fast enough to outrun it. Once you hear it, it's in your head. Don't watch it! It's evil and horrible. And I think it's for this part of the country only, because I don't think anyone in any other part of the country would want to hear it. Hell, I don't think this part of the country wants to hear it. It's forced on us by this horrible company.



So I was looking for jobs, and this company has a LOT of openings. and the first thing that came to mind was that commercial. And I thought, "Self, do you want to be associated with a company that produces something like that?" And the answer was no. I do not.

See? I do have standards.