December 2012 year end wrap

Hey kids, I keep being asked "when is the next 'cow post'?" Well here it is, for what it is worth.

Winter

This year started with a blow to my emotion and a punch to the junk that would have let most people scarred and devastated for life. Marianne convinced me that she was going to 'step 9' with a old boyfriend. I trusted her enough to honestly think she would be honest and actually step 9 with him.

For those who do not know Step 9 is "Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others"  (underlined for emphasis on my behalf)

Instead I received the "my dearest Art" letter. After ripping my heart out and dragging it behind the bus all the way to Calgary I was somewhat..... displaced. Needless to say the year started off poorly.

Before she ripped our little family apart. Her with the kids.

At the time I was working for Lakeshore School Division, (sorry Bruce but I am naming names and I do not give a shit about how you want to "edit" my blog any longer) as a driver. I LOVE driving school bus. It is laid back, gives me time alone to think and pray.

Out here however unless you have dirty knees, or like a sore cornhole, you have to be related to someone to get ahead. Hence the term, that I have become fond of to describe Manitobians "Inbred hillbilly hicks". Sorry Kids, If I just hurt your feeling too, But this is my blog so TOUGH! I am not related to ANYONE in this whole cold miserable wretched Province  so QUIT ASKING, and quit judging me on the actions of my now EX wife's parents, extended family!

Sorry Soap box got in the way there...  Ok coffee! C[_]  Ahhh.

Needless to say, Bruce Law of Lakeshore School Division who likes to tell me what I can and cannot say in my blog, was giving my private phone number to everyone in the entire school district. I had phone calls at 10 pm from parents telling me that their snot nosed little hellion would be absent tomorrow. My rule is The bus arrives a minute or two early. If your not there by one minute after the time to pick up then TOUGH. You missed the bus. In the real world if your not at the bus stop when the bus arrives you better be able to RUN faster than the bus can drive to the next stop. TRUST ME, I have done it many times! When I protested that I did not want my phone number available for public consumption he was upset.

When the phone company disconnected my phone because I was not Marianne, and would not pay because they changed my service without my consent, (the $300 /month hike in fees due to having long distance canceled without notice was a tad annoying) and would not fix the problem because I was not Marianne. Nor would the accept that she moved out and therefore was responsible for her own damm bill. Nor would they give me a new phone under my name because there was a outstanding balance oh her phone. Bruce started to tell the people at the schools to give me no further work.

As a spare driver, I am dependent on other drivers, or teachers for work as, apparently, Bruce is not able to competently manage the duties of DISPATCH. (why the hell is he the flippen MANAGER then?) So needless to say I had a bit of a falling out then.

Has some fun with a slightly out of control yard fire too.
Hard to call 911 when you have no working phone.

Although it is the ONLY time that I have really missed having one.

Spring..

Enter Mcmunn and Yates (my current job). Now I am back to working full time. My day has become a monotony of get up at 5 am. Have coffee, check Facebook, Fark, Google+, Gmail, weather network, and click mindlessly on my online game for fifteen minutes while I attempt to eat and motivate myself to drag my tired ass off to work again.  I spend all day working under the firm but equally incompetent hand of Brian Smith. An overbearing micro-manager of epic proportions. How that business stays open is a mystery to equal that of Atlantis.

In the first month there I wrote a Email to the only contact I could find for corporate head office. I detailed serious mismanagement issues, serious OH&S issues, serious liability issues. The Email was forwarded to none other than Brian, The cause of said issues. He looked down from his ivory tower and made some soothing noises. But hey I am comparing the will of Brian of Eriksdale Manitoba, with the common sense of the REST OF THE DAMM WORLD. Of course Brian's will prevails. Even when the annual managers meeting the rest of the McMunn managers tell him "the world does not work that way any more Brian."

Needless to say I am reaching a point where I will post a You tube video, coming soon, detailing all the bullshit I am constantly exposed to at work. Hopefully, someone will not die or be crippled for life before an action is taken. But I doubt it, as we have already had a couple of close calls. (no Workman's comp does not know, Because Brian said so). He made a mistake of hiring me, for one. A person who has an understanding of good safety practices. The second mistake he made was hiring a professional driver, just before winter. If I do not get the OH&S guys all over his butt the other guy will have the DOT crawling all over the vehicles for the countless safety infractions. (working horns and brakes, leaking engines, bad transmissions over weight loads, so on and so forth).  So in the new year I expect to be finding another job soon.

On the fun side, I did get a new canoe. Reposting this video of the maiden voyage.

Summer

This summer I got only two of my countless projects finished. I tore down one of the dilapidated buildings and built a new shed. I did have fun with the new lawnmower, and drowned myself in yardwork, when I was not too flippen exhausted from Brian's Bullcrap Inc.

Still my favorite You tube video so far.

Needless to say "semi retired life" is not in the cards any more.



Autumn

Yea the year went by that fast. Work, and work at home means little or no fun time for me.

Enter Janet.

Janet is one of the few people who, like me, is not from Manitoba. Meaning she is not related to half the province. Meaning, also like me, if she needs a hand, no one, NOT ONE LAZY, INBRED, HILLBILLY, HICK, ASS-MUNCHER will help her in any way unless she pays through the nose. I have helped her out a few times with some handiman work as the majority of ass-munchers out here are incompetent, or lazy or want three times what the job is worth. She is also seventy something so take your perverted thoughts of motive and stick them away too.

She had asked me to help her fix some shelving last year. Every time I had time she was unavailable, every time she was available I was working. One of those things. Anyhow we finally managed to get together at the same time, I got over there and did the whole 5 minute job. Yep that was it 5 minutes. (for effect do that five minute, minute rice commercial thing here. You know the one with Madge from the Brady bunch. Wait Google doesn't have one?! Now I feel old.)

Anyhow she wanted to pay me. I said ok cost... 1 cuppa coffee. C[_] She knows me well enough to quit arguing at that point, because I do not do stuff because I want something. We got talking and she told me that she had flipped the car. Almost killed her. Some time suspended, upside down in the ditch, she came to when the tow truck guy was hauling her car out of the ditch. (what was that about "Friendly Manitoba"?)

Anyhow, she got talking about how this guy, Dave Morris of Hilbrie, had "offered" to tow her trailer, and a shed from the flood area (see flood of 2011) for cost of gas. Gas to tow a travel trailer with a flat tire, and a 10 X 8 foot tinfoil shed from the campground at the lake to his farm less than 10 miles away (about 15 KM) get ready for this $300.  Now I can fill the truck from work drive about 300 KM for under $200 so I cannot figure out where he gets his math.

Anyone who knows me knows I despise injustice, so this sounds like a shitty thing to do to someone who lives on government handouts. (read Canadian pension plan and disability) She had scrimped and saved for almost 8 months to save the required $300. But once again no one would help her get the trailer and the shed home. "She's not Kin ya know."  

I borrowed the work truck and made the attempt to get the shed and trailer back. The shed went on in no time, but the trailer would not load as it was stuck in the mud. Yea this dipshit planted a travel trailer in the mud on his farm after dragging it home with flat tires, one of which is shredded beyond use. Since then every attempt I have made to resolve this issue has met with bullshit excuses from everyone.

Ya know people excuses are like assholes, everyone has one! But it take a pair of knakers to actually do something. So please take your excuse and shove it up where it resembles. If someone needs a hand, for crying out loud, help them! Do not do it because they are related, or because your getting something, or because you are going to be paid or because you expect something in return at a later date. Do it BECAUSE YOU CAN! They are called GOOD DEEDS. I know everyone appears to have shoved their head up where the sun does not shine and forgot that good deeds have better benefits than doing something for a price.

My coworker, for example, Lives in Hilbrie, has a big truck. Drives every day to work right past were Janet lives. I asked him if he could help out....

Well he is friends with Dave, and would not think that Dave would do something like this and that Dave is a great guy and that is must be his son who is an asshole and would do something like this and he works at OTR and they will get it done for her if she calls but that he does not want his name involved because they would think it was sour grapes from him because this son of Dave was partly responsible for him leaving the job at OTR. But if I want to pay him $60 he will think about towing the trailer from Hilbrie to Ashern as long as he can prove that it was all on the level and that Janet was being honest unless it was Dave who would not do something like this but it sounds like the son of Dave who is an asshole in which case he does not want to be involved because then the son of Dave the asshole would be thinking that he was out to cause issues and the son of Dave the asshole has definitely moved the trailer to his house in Hilbrie because I see it everyday when I drive past and that son of Dave's the asshole is trying to sell it for $3000 but I will ask around.

(she is not Kin ya know)

(Gasp) even thinking this in one thought made me short of breath. (oh Grammar natzies, I left out the punctuation intentionally, To get the desired effect you have to read the whole excuse as one sentence, just as it is written, without pause, or thought.)

So, anyone who wants to help out someone who needs help. Dave lives in Hilbrie, Janet lives in Ashern. Dave stole Janet's stuff. The trailer, at this time is still parked at Dave's place. The cops are useless, and do not want to help. I would help IF, I can find a vehicle which I can tow the trailer with. I even have a spare tire that I can take from MY trailer to use on the one that he shredded because he is too stupid to do something like .... Use the spare that is mounted on the trailer?

When can I start shooting stupid people?

Ok Coffee time BRB C[_]

Other fun and games

On my last post I shared how I was waiting for the re-imagining re-release of the classic X-Com Enemy Unknown. Sorry guys, Not good enough. My fears from back in the 80s when the internet was starting to become popular are becoming founded. Before the Internet, you would get a game it was COMPLETE, you would sometimes see a extra diskette for added content or patches but they were uncommon. Then came the internet. Games could be patched on the fly.  Now when you publish a game it only has to work sort of. Shooting through solid walls, having units that are exceptionally large fit through a small doorway. Come on a twenty foot high mechanized unit stuffed into a broom closet  no damage to surrounding walls, Able to fire ballistic shots from inside said building... Not acceptable for a "complete game". Do not worry they say, you can get patches. So dumbassed me I sign up for Xbox get the paraphernalia and expect to be able to use said game. ummm nope sorry no patches for x box, thanks for your money, here pay for some downloadable bonus content, but nothing really usable. Sorry Fraxis/2K but next time get your game playable before publishing it to the masses. Although if you overlook the game cheating and the somewhat impossible acts that it does it is still a fun game.

My present to myself, Xbox chatpad, Xcom, Xbox online gold.

Nothing like a XXX rated birthday! 

That said I did endure a 14 hour download and update to my Xbox OS when I set it up on the network. I also found a demo for Tropico 2 which I found is now also Tropico 3, Also two of my other favorite games have come out with new stuff... So gaming has taking up much of the nasty winter days.  

Now about the new big screen High def TV I need for Xbox....

Hence my life: Work all day and game at night between annoyances and catfights. Come home so sore that I cannot feel my fingers. Wake up in the morning so sore that I cannot move my arms.

Finally Up to date.

Lastly this winter. About a month ago (give or take a few days) Kyle's horses got out again. I spotted them on the roadway and attempted to get them into the pen next to my place. I almost got a hoof to the head from Big Zeek for my efforts. He took off down the roadway and by the time Kyle was notified, and decided to do something about it Zeek was shot and killed, by the farmer down the road. What kind of friendly Manitobian would shoot a guys horse and then tell them to go get the animal before he goes and shoots it, a few weeks before Christmas?

I have the other two penned in the corral beside my house and have been attempting to get enough food to them to keep them going. Kyle was able to get a couple of bales of hay so we stuck one in the pen with them. I am working on setting up a shelter in my back yard along with a pen for them. So far no one has taken offence that we are using the crown land beside my house. But I cannot stand to see them outside in this crappy Manitoba winter without a shelter or something.

Again you say, They are Kyle's horses why doesn't he do something about them. The truth is I do not think he gives a rats ass about them, and his mom is too damm busy to have time for anything. I am able to do something. Not setup to do something, but I am able, so I will. Because it is who I am.

Blaze Is shy but at least lets me pet her.

Tiny, (AKA Patches)
Shy, and do not even think of getting close enough to pet, brush or anything!

Looking ahead.

I am hoping to finally get this dump on a basement this summer (third year in a row I have wanted to try that). Hopefully this year I will manage to get that done.

 I still want to open my own restaurant  coffee shop, truck shop, and open market in the next couple of years. But because I am not related, it could be fun. It is nice to be able to dream again. Now If I do not get screwed over too many more times I may be able to make them a reality.

See You next year.

Mitza doesn't like her picture taken  but here is Hope and Bear lookin' at you.

Cheers C[_]

Oh, one last thing. If I hurt your feelings with my comments; Well tough. It is called the TRUTH. At least from my perspective. If you do not like it then I suggest that you change your presentation so that others can perceive you differently. I never said I like people. I am in fact an asshole get over it.

 Thanks see u next year.


Jan 10 2012: EDIT

The next blog post will be on the 13th of February. It is set to post automatically. That is when it all goes down.  The one which follows that automatic post will have the gory details.