Leelanau Whippersnapper

Toys

OK, so I will be the first to admit that being single with a full time, well paying job has distinct advantages. I’ll also be the first to say that my bills could be MUCH lower than they are. I have (and likely always will) live well beyond my means. That said, I’ve come a long way in learning how to manage my cash flow. Granted, I still get nailed sometimes with expenses that I’ve not planed for but for the most part, I’ve finally arrived to that point where I’m not running to Mom and Dad every other week for a loan like I was years ago (but thank God they still have the willingness to bail me out once in a while). It’s amazing how much better you can feel about life when you actually have a few months of standard expenses in the bank as a buffer and you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. This is the only time of year I can enjoy that…I hope that since I am no longer required to share my “wealth” with anyone else, I can maintain that buffer for quite a while now.

That said, I am a tech geek in many ways. I always have to have the latest toys. Jirar told me the other day that he was planning on taking back his iPod. I have grown pretty fond of the little mp3 player since my entire music collection is now in digital form. I don’t have much use for a CD player any more. Well, it is his iPod and it would have been hard for me to just say no so I went out and decided to just buy my own. I looked at a few options and it was a toss up between the 80gig iPod classic which would have been large enough to hold my 20gig music collection as well as video and podcasts -OR- the 8gb iPod Touch which is the latest and greatest thing from Apple with an awesome touch screen, WiFi enabled so I can get on the internet anywhere there is an access point (important now that I’ll be moving into town) and LOTS of other toys that are just fun. The biggest drawback however was that it is 10 times smaller in capacity. There was really no significant price difference between the 2, only a HUGE size difference. The iPod Classic would hold 10 times the number of mp3’s that the iPod Touch would.

Well, I decided to go with the iPod Touch. At best, and at any given time, I only listen to around 2-3gb worth of my mp3 files (about 150 songs). My taste in music fluctuates and these things are accommodating enough that I can just rotate my music collection as my taste evolves and changes. And now I can sit in my living room and watch YouTube videos on my iPod.

This thing also comes as a phone but you have to have AT&T as your provider right now and I can not justify switching cell phone providers, especially after I just got a new cell phone too!

Anyhow, I think my recent spending spree is pretty much over now. The last thing I need to do is get Gavin updated on his shots at the vet but selling off my firewood to Uncle Lou will pay for that. The only other thing I have to invest in now is half the fee of a storage unit that Jirar and I will be sharing starting in July. Beyond that, I’m pretty well up to date for the year.

Writing should be picking up a little although I am going into a stretch now of 3 weeks in a row without a weekend off. My assistant is having surgery so in order to keep things going I’ve had to pick up some slack. Lucky for me, she will be paying me back later this summer by working several days for me so I can have a break (even though she doesn’t know it now). Cheers for now!

   Hacks, Music, Technology, work    Add a comment

The Cost of…

Take a look at this article. Thought some of the statistics were pretty interesting.

Bottom line, the production of 31.2 billion liters of water for the U.S. bottled water market took roughly 17.6 million barrels of oil.

The simple break down is 3.4 megajoules of energy to produce a water bottle, cap and packaging with a barrel of oil producing about 6 thousand megajoules. Taking those numbers into account you arrive at 17.6 million barrels of oil, enough oil to run 1.5 million cars on U.S. roadways for an entire year.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do like bottled water but I like it only for the convenience of the bottle, the water is certainly nothing special.  It does not taste that much different from what comes out of my tap.  That said, especially in the summer I tend to recycle my bottled water.  I’ll fill it with filtered tap water multiple times and usually keep the bottle until I loose the cap (which happens surprisingly often).  It’s not much but it helps.

This county is all about convenience.  The nature of my job and my entire income depends entirely on America’s thirst for convenience items.  It is therefore very difficult for me to harp on people for buying them or using them.  Plastic bags and bottled water are only a small part of the “convenience market” but we as a society have to start changing our consumption behavior.  I think my generation will start but I don’t think any serious efforts will take place for many years to come.  I hope that someday, recycling will be mandatory EVERYWHERE and that I won’t live in a township like Cleveland Township in Leelanau County that voted down a recycling program becuase they didn’t want to pay $25 a year to support the program.  CHEAP FUCKING BASTARDS!  Oh well, I do what I can.

   Activism, Green Living, Politics    1 Comment

Process

Well, this past week was, I guess, a process. I’ll be vague but actions speak much louder than words. I have a fair amount of work today and suffice to say I’ll be doing most of it by myself.

Tomorrow Uncle Lou is coming over to haul off the remaining fire wood I have in my garage. I’m going out there tonight to try and pick up the garage a little bit. It’s sort of an embarrassing mess right now. I don’t know what I’m going to do with half the shit in the garage. Jirar and I did determine that a storage unit was in order since neither of us has room for all of our shit. Over the week, we did negotiate agreements on who gets what in so far as our shared property is concerned. There were no real surprises.

Work is picking up right now. Like I said in a previous post, people are coming out of the wood work and they are NOT showering and then heading out to spend money on home improvements. I’ve dealt so far with at least 3 people who have had product failure on driveway sealer over the winter. This is a harsh climate for that product but WHY THE FUCK CAN’T PEOPLE READ DIRECTIONS???????????? I will acknowledge that I am a member of the gender with the biggest problem when it comes to that and I don’t read directions all the time either but I DO NOT blame the people who sold me something if I install it wrong and it fails! It’s my OWN FUCKING FAULT if I choose not to read the directions. I guess it’s just one more example of this pathetic I’M A FUCKING VICTIM society we seem to live in. Why can’t people take responsibility for their own lives?

Exciting news in late June! An old friend from High School is coming up with her partner to visit me! She was the first person I came out to as gay in High School and I considered her one of my best friends way back when. She and her partner are adventuring around Lake Michigan and have included me on their journey. I’m looking forward to seeing her, it’s been nearly 10 years since we had last spoken.

OK, well I’m off for now. My posting should pick up again here soon. I’ve been in sort of a funk due to my situation and having to try and figure my life out. Nothing to worry about, I just have very little to write about other than that and I’ve agreed not to say much about it on this blog so I have to find other things to write about. I do keep coming across pictures to post so here is another!

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You Left it Up to Me

So today was spent going through shit in the house trying to prepare for a move this fall. Jirar is only likely to be home a few more times in the next several months so it’s pretty important that we go trhough shit while he is here. One of my own goals before I move is to convert my entire CD collection over to MP3’s so I don’t have to lug my CD’s around with me anymore. It’s been years since I’ve purchased a CD (I get all my music in digital form now…and yes, I do pay for it). I was going through them and came accross Sarah’s premier CD titled “The Folk Songs”. I figured my sister would not mind a little publicity, so sit back and enjoy this great piece by Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls:

You Left it Up To Me

So I’m off now back to rip more CD’s. The Roommate has returned home and will now occupy the remaining 3 1/2 days of Jirar’s trip home so I won’t see him again. Oh well, I guess I will get to do everything myself.

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Human Crisis

So I was at work today and I heard this come on over the loud speaker.  Click on it and then continue reading while you listen.  Maybe it was just the combination of the music and the man I had just waited on with no teeth who clearly had not showered in months but I just about died.  In EVERY other setting, that song is hardly wroth hearing, in this one however, it fits the customers I see every day to a tee!  The weather is getting nicer up here and the means the really strange ones come out of hiding and start going shopping.  We were SLAMMED at work today finally!  I’ve been waiting for a weekend like this one for months and finally we had a nice day with no rain and no wind.  People have finally realized that everything is pretty late this year  so they better get their shit going.  It will be full on summer in a few weeks now….we don’t get spring up here, just winter and summer.  Well, it won’t be that drastic but the season is very short up here, you’ve got to take full advantage of it when you have it.

Jirar comes home this next week, its unlikely I’ll have another entry on this blog until after he has gone again.  I spent my evening tonight outside raking leaves.  I got the entire back yard picked up and it looks amazing right now.  I have a big problem with gophers though or something.  There are lots of holes in the yard where the dirt has been pushed up.  I was a fool and left all the leaves from fall on the lawn all winter so it has taken me the better part of a week now to get them off the lawn now that it’s spring.  I pretty much have a lawn of dirt now.  I hope to God the grass grows.  I need to get out there now with the fertilizer and grass seed and see if I can push it along.  Once I get that done, I need to fumigate the yard.  I have huge problems with bugs at this property.  I can control them if I keep the grass very short and I spray killer all over the the yard.  Hard to do though becuase I have to get stuff that is pet safe and it’s not very effective.

OK, I need to get off to bed now.  I’ll write again in a week.

   Gardening, housing, work    Add a comment

Priorities

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Sugarloaf Dies Again

The saga of Sugarloaf continues here in Leelanau. God it just never ends. The web keeps getting thicker. The individual who signed an option to purchase has backed out at least for the time being. There was a 90 day rule which he rightfully stated was not enough time to complete due diligence. How anyone could possibly untangle the mess that is Sugarloaf in 90 days is beyond me. Anyhow, that potential buyer is still interested in the resort but so much more research has to be done to see if it’s even worth his time. He was pretty smart to back out. Sugarloaf needs someone with a HUGE amount of capitol to invest OR they just need to rip the shit down and turn it into a park.

I’ve just given up on Sugarloaf and I think many other people in this county have too. It’s not that we don’t want to see it come back to life, it’s that so many people have tried and failed miserably. It’s clear that the county could give a shit and the township just doesn’t have the capitol or the resources to help. So, like so many other things in Leelanau, the resort will continue to rot away becuase nobody really wants to make a 110% effort to do something about it. I guess I wouldn’t care as much if I didn’t live right across the street.

There is too much complacency in Leelanau. One of my political rants for Leelanau is the overly apparent lack of vision this county has for it’s future. It is primarily a county of retired, seasonal residents, many of whom have quite a bit of money. Those of us that live here year around and are younger, don’t have the capitol to have an influence where you have to pay in order matter. Elitism is OVERLY EVIDENT in Leelanau. When township boards have bare quorum meetings during the winter becuase the majority of the people sitting on those boards are at their other homes out of state, it means there is a huge problem with the way things are being run. Why bother even having a body such as that if you are only having productive meetings 3 or 4 times a year????

Tangents. This county suffers from a serious lack of young people who actually give a shit about what things will be like in 20 years. Many of the counties resident’s won’t be alive in 20 years so why would they bother caring about what things will be like in 20 years? This is NOT a slam by the way, it is simply a statement of fact. I’m not concerned that you older folks don’t care, I’m concerned that you older folks won’t give up your seats on the county boards to younger people who actually DO give a shit and want to push changes. I’m concerned that EVERY time someone suggests a positive step in the right direction, someone gets in the way and fucks it all up becuase change is too difficult or too expensive. This county has a HUGE fucking tax base, rather than embezzling it why not put that tax base to good use and do something productive?

This county needs to start considering what it is and what it isn’t. Figure it out already and quit DOING NOTHING!

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No Title Needed

Just watch it.  Nothing compares!

   Funny, Video    1 Comment

Spring

has Sprung!  It was 74 here today and sunny all day long.  Windy as hell though.  I got outside this afternoon and did some yard work.  There is just so much to be done and I don’t have much motivation to do any of it…not like I used to.  I need to get it cleaned up though, I can’t leave this house at the end of the summer in any worse shape than I found it.  That means a little work has to be done.

Don’t have much else to say right now, I’ve provoked outrage from certain people regarding some blog posts I’ve made here.  I will admit that it’s not really fair for me to make comments about people who are not given the opportunity to defend themselves outright.  At the same time, my life, my choices.  I am only obligated to respect one person right now and that is me.  I will however choose to back down for a while.

I Get Along

I’m on a Pet Shop Boys kick lately.  I have always liked them.  I can remember sitting on the tour bus at the boychoir school listening to them with headphones on.  A sure sign of a gay boy, nobody else would listen to them.  Oh well, I like my taste in music.  It keeps my life interesting.

This picture just killed me, I had to post it.  No prudes here.  For those of you who don’t know:

OMG = OH MY GOD

WTF = WHAT THE FUCK!

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Back to the Grind

Well it was back to work today after a pretty decent weekend off.  I didn’t get much done around the house but that’s OK for now.  As it gets nicer, it will be easier to get motivated to clean shit out and get rid of it.  I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.  I will be moving to a smaller place without a spouce, shit needs to get thinned down and cleaned out.  I’ve already managed to dump about 10 bags of stuff at Goodwill in the past month, I can only imagine how much more I’ll end up just donating.  I wish I could sell it and make some money but I just don’t have the time.

I am really pretty disappointed with work right now.  Not really with my co-workers or even the jack ass customers that come in, I’m disappointed that here we are in the middle of April and business is STILL not getting any stronger.  I am STILL having to send my people home early.  This time last year, we were hopping and things were very brisk.  The mood this year is pretty somber.  It’s going to be a tough summer for a lot of businesses around here and everywhere else in the state.  I’ll know when Memorial Day weekend gets here how things are going to be.  As it stands that’s only 6 weeks away.  It’s all downhill after that weekend so I’ve got 6 weeks here to make some serious sales.

Things are quiet lately in the house and I like it like that.  I can’t wait to be in my own place.  If there is one thing Jirar taught me it was to give a shit about your own environment.  I simply can not live in a shit hole.  When the house is clean, I am more productive, I am nicer, I can find things, my allergies don’t bother me….yada yada.  When the house is dirty, so is my life and I don’t like that feeling.  I do not have 100% control over my personal environment when a roommate is present and since I no longer have to share my life with anyone, I want that control back 100%.  Soon enough.

So I found this on the internet the other day and had to post it.  I’ve not written much about politics here lately and I don’t really intend to start but there were recently some issues with China’s treatment of Tibet as well as with the Olympic torch passing that apparently pissed off a few people.  I’m not a big fan of China but I’m also not a big fan of hypocrites.  It’s pretty interesting up here, in red-neck land you get a lot of people who are constantly screaming YEH FOR AMERICA — FUCK THE COMMIE BASTARDS! But these people have no idea that a huge portion of that “American” car they are driving have parts made in China.  Many have no idea that the T-Shirt they are wearing that says JEFF FOXWORTHY in big Red White and Blue letters was made in China.  Many have no idea that the flag they have draped across the gun rack in their pick-up truck was made in China.  The fact of the matter is that China is responsible for a huge portion of our imports in this country.  We are a huge contributor to their success as a developing nation.  The politics will change in China, that is certain.  There are no developed countries left in the world who can reasonably push communism without social revolt.  Economic freedom will always bring political freedom with it.  I personally think China will become a major Superpower in the next century and we need to work with them not against them.  Anyhow, don’t be a hypocrite.  If you want to be anti-anything, don’t do a half ass job at it like the dip shit in the picture below.

   Activism, Politics, work    Add a comment