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"I need to install a het pump for my mom this coming weekend." - Gavin
"Wait, you know how to install a heat pump?" - Me
"Yeah I watched a YouTube video on how to do it." - Gavin
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" - Me

Tuesday, 8-27-24: Finally committed to this decision. Fin.
I'm sad but relieved at the same time. We are going to sell the restaurant. It sounds easy, but it's really not going to be easy it's nothing like putting a used guitar for sale on Craigslist. We need a lot of things to happen in order to get it right, and I have a broker helping me along the way. He did our business valuation a couple months ago, I wanted to sell then, but it wasn't fair to Kat since she's not ready to sell.

So what changed since then? Two things. First, sales haven't been so good over the entire summer. They're not horrible, but they don't justify us staying in business. All we've managed to do this summer is lose money. What a bunch of crap! I'm all done losing money because there's almost nothing left to lose. Second, I am totally burned out and don't want to do it anymore. I spent a full work day there today sweeping, mopping, cleaning, washing dishes, scrubbing shitters, etc. Why am I doing that?! Because Tuesdays are ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five-pound bag so we can't afford janitorial on Tuesdays anymore. Gods damn it! I don't mind cleaning toilets, but it's not the optimal use of my precious... precious time. I actually barely got the cleaning done because I had some phone calls, some event-room stuff, and a tax client who stopped in for 20 minutes.

After all that this is our final sales for today:

If this was my tax business it would be fantastic, if it were my carpentry business that would be awesome as well, but it's a restaurant and bar that has operating expenses of about $700/day (rent, utilities, insurance, etc.) Labor today will be about $650 and product cost for the food and drink sold is around $275 so that all tallies up to an $800 LOSS for the day. OMG WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

We're not open Mondays so we make no money, and Tuesdays are almost always losers that compare to what I posted above so for 2 out of every 7 days we lose a lot of money. A LOT. We go into Wednesday with an average loss of close to $1500. Sometimes we make it up over a busy weekend, sometimes we don't, and lately we usually don't. What a bunch of crap!

The second thing that changed from a couple months ago is my rapidly deteriorating mental state. I am beyone checked out of my entire life here in this town. This house doesn't even feel like a home, it's just a place I live, and my wife feels like my roommate. We have too many fuckin' pets and Kat's kids (2 out of 3 anyway) are selfish and lazy so fuck the restaurant, fuck it all, I'm gonna ditch the place and find something else to do. Will I even stay in this area? I dunno, 50/50 right now, but once the restaurant is sold or closed I can make a better life-decision. Maybe? Hopefully!

The restaurant has great Google reviews and is quite popular with many people. Unfortunately we have a terrible landlord who seems even more mentally checked out than me so that will be a big hurdle in trying to sell. Will he even let us sell without getting greedy? I hope he does because if he tries to put this stamp on our plan he will have even worse problems:

I swear to the gods who do not really exist I'll stop paying rent and start scuttling the place if he won't let us sell. I called him again today, voicemail full again, and I sent him a text and got nothing back. I'm not going to pay rent anymore so we'll see if that gets his ass motivated or not. I will pay rent, but not until he lets us sell the place. We only have one year left on the lease and we're going to sell for less than half what we have into it.

Poor Kat, I feel badly for her because she wants the place to stay open and under her command. It's her dream, but it's my nightmare and I paid for it all so I'm finally doing what's right for me. For years I haven't done what's right for me and now I'm a mess and I have no one to blame but myself. What a bunch of crap!

So when we do sell or just close what happens to me next? Kat said earlier today we should sell the restaurant and the house and split everything 50/50 and part ways. She didn't really mean it, but that was my plan a couple months ago. We still do marriage counseling and today's session did not go very well at all. Our guy is fantastic and I try to be brutally honest in the sessions. He asked me today what I wanted and I told the truth. I want to spend more time with my biologial family, especially with Dad, and do more deer hunting. Maybe play some video games, have more "me" time. Our marriage is broken in the fact that I never get enough "me" time. Kat got all sad because my plans didn't include her, but I should be able to have both. Right?

I'd actually settle for nothing but me, myself, and I for a long time. Not saying I'm heading for a divorce, but losing the restaurant will be a huge blow and I'm not convinced at all our marriage will survive it. I've already tried to haul on Kat at least 3 times since we opened that fucking restaurant because it's turned my life into a pile of shit. Gods damn it!

There is a slim possibility we don't sell the place. Sales are probably going to increase into the fall, especially Oct-Dec this year. If no one wants to buy the business or if the landlord makes a sale impossible and sales increase it will be viable. However, I have to quit for my own sanity. I can't leave the restaurant and stay married to Kat if she keeps it open because I'll hear about it non-stop and I'll get sucked back into the hell-vortex. No thank you.

I really need to start getting serious about job searching. If we do sell the place for the number I have in mind we'll have enough precious... precious money to take some time off. What will happen with the tax business? Who knows, but most likely it's all done so good thing I didn't renew my software yet. I won't have an office so I'd have to lease one, and something really good and inexpensive would have to be available. I might not even live in this area by then anyway...

I should take another look at the job listings now as I rip out awesome 80s tunes. Earlier in the bootleg gym today was Queensryche and now it's a mix of ABC, The Cars, Tina Turner (Thunderdome!), and Pet Shop Boys.

Today is like my Friday night. I don't have to get up early tomorrow for work. Oh Jesus, hell ya! Kat racked out so I can stay up and drink and play Nintendo after this bootleg update that no one will ever read hehe.* I was awake at 0700 today and that was great, but I had to scoot on down to work to receive the truck. I am beyond sick of that bullshit. Truck comes Tues and Fri and lately it's fairly early. I should quit so I don't have to do it. Oh wait, I already put in my notice yet I haven't quit yet. No one else can do it since Kat can't do it yet and her kids don't give a shit.

Let's see what's out there for state jobs, maybe something in the tax division? I almost applied for a job in Augusta 2-3 years ago, but I opted to stay here instead. Did I make the right decision? Probably not. We'll see... there is a "Tax Assessor 1" job in Augusta listing starting pay around $65,000. 13 paid holidays over the course of a year and 12 personal days off. Sounds pretty good to me! I'm not quite ready for that, though. No guarantees they'd even hire my dumb ass. I dunno, I'll keep looking and take things one day at a time and hope like hell someone wants to buy the restaurant ASAP.

*I'm not staying up to play Nintendo and to drink more I'm going to friggin' bed.

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Sunday, 8-25-24: NFL preseason and my life ten years ago.
I worked some today, but not too much. I had to close the dish-pit and I was out of there by 2105. Not bad since we close at 2100 on Sundays hahaha. I put on the Patriots preseason game vs. Washington, but I just turned it off because I don't even care... whether or not I care. The big QB signing in the off-season is Drake May and he wasn't playing anymore and neither were any of the starters. Their regular season starts on Sunday September 8th in a couple weeks.

I was thinking about my bootleg dog-shit current life and how it compares to my life from ten years ago, and it's a skid-stain of epic proportions trying to compare the two. Ten years ago things were going great and my August 27th update from 2014 had a lot to do with blueberry raking. I raked for both Cliff and John and Suzette a decade ago this month. Kat actually went with me down to Franklin to rake for John and Suzette, and this is part of an update from ten years ago:

"Kat is officially the most badass woman I've ever known. Last Thursday we brought her daughter, he son's girlfriend, and her dog (Oloff) down to the field. Unfortunately, before Kat could even rake one single rake-full of blueberries Oloff got a little jumpy, he pulled hard and fast on his leader, and the cord wrapped around Kat's right pinkie and broke it. What a bunch of crap! However, since Kat is tougher than rebar she raked all day. Then she raked Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with me. With a broken hand. Oh, she also got sunburned, blisters, the works."

I had only been with Kat a couple months at that point. I still wrote about working on the apartment buildings and not needing a second job for a while thanks to blueberry raking. I did go on later that year to work for the post office from mid-November until Christmas so who knows, ten years later I might end up back at the USPS processing plant. I've been keeping an eye on the job listings and might be applying soon...

I have countless GREAT memories from that summer of 2014, but none compare to the epic one when Tommy and I had an after-party in June and I really started to get to know the "Hot karaoke chick." My August 20 update from 2014 is great, too. Tommy gave a "Stone Cold Stunner" to one of Kat's annoying friends and this is what I wrote about that one:

"We got back to the house to mow down on some dollar cheeseburgers and then it was time to send Giblette packing. Kat suggested that Tommy walk Giblette out to her car, and I watched from the door because I knew something funny would happen. Tommy knows Giblette has about 7 other men on her speed-dial so by then he was openly calling her out for pertty much being a slut. He said "Gee that would be too bad if another man was in your car." in the most sarcastic "fuck this" voice I've ever head from him, I lost it laughing, and then she tried to kick him in the balls. Fortunately, he caught her leg, spun around, and gave her a Stone Cold Stunner right there at the edge of my lawn before her kick could connect. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

^STONE COLD STUNNER!

OMG TOMMY GAVE A CHICK A WRESTLING MOVE LATE-NIGHT BECAUSE SHE TRIED TO KICK HIM IN THE BALLS. AAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THIS IS THE STUFF OF LEGEND, AND I SWEAR TO THE GODS WHO DO NOT REALLY EXIST THAT IT IS 100% TRUE! She wasn't hurt too much from the stunner, but he did take her down with it. She got up, got in her car, drove off, and now she thinks Kat should haul on me and Tommy is not her type anymore. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Tommy wins the night and he had me cracking up many times.

Summer, 2014 = AWESOME."

Okay I should stop reading my August, 2014 update because it really makes me sad. I've fallen so far since then. What a bunch of crap! Am I going to get old and reflect upon my life that was better when I was younger? I think I might, 50/50 chance, so I need to get it turned around before it's too late.

Oh, Slobba the Slut got posted more than a few times on this bootleg site ten years ago hehehe:

^I did not sleep with any fat chicks back then, but that image was entertaining my loser-ass.

I fired up YouTube and put on Tina Turner's Thunderdome. If you don't like this song I hate you. I probably hate you anyway, but I'll hate you a little more. GREAT SONG FROM A GREAT MOVIE. Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome is my favorite in the series by far. "WHO RUNS BARTERTOWN?!"

Speaking of Mad Max, Kat and I watched Furiosa: A Mad Max story last week and it was great! The two new Mad Max movies have really kicked ass. Mad Max: Fury Road from a few years ago was really good and this one was a very worthy prequel to Fury Road.

Another great 1980s song plays on YouTube now: IceHouse Electric Blue.

Reading my bootleg site updates from ten years ago is a really bad idea. I was 38 years old, I had money and no worries, and I was in better overall health. Tommy lived in the house with me and we had a lot of really fun times. Now Tommy is in AZ and I really hope we get to visit again before the world ends.

Hey, what is this song?! Another Icehouse this one called Crazy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzGhRBWUCcg

Wow this song is AWESOME! "You gotta be crazy to want a guy like me..." yup I should say that to Kat and I probably already have.

Alright turds, all two of you who read this bootleg site of mine, I'm gonna go bivouac now. I had a couple drinks and ate some edible brownie so I'm hoping to rack out pretty well. Goonies never say die and I miss 2014 because my life now is a skid-mark!

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Saturday, 8-24-24: A little precious... precious free time before work.
It's a beautiful late-summer day with a high temp around 80, low humidity, and a nice breeze. Plenty of sun as well, and I probably got a little tan being outside not long ago first for a 2.5-mile jog and second to mow the lawn. My jog time was 21:24 because I'm not fast, but who cares at least I made it the entire way without having to stop and walk any of it. First time all year for that oh Jesus, hell ya! I had been going only 2 miles for most of this month and most of July, but I've added a little extra for the past two times. I even lifted some weights in my bootleg cellar gym earlier.

I do have to work today at 1600 so I still have 40 minutes of parole. There are no events in the banquet room today so I got a rare Saturday where I could roll my worthless ass out of the rack at 1015 and just stay home with Kat. (She's napping a little now.) Usually I have to go to work during the day for something so it was nice not having to go. I'll work 1600-1845, give or take, and I plan to come home for an hour and then go back for what I hope will be a busy Saturday night. Kat plans to go for a bit as well if she's physically able. The place is doing okay without her, but it's just not the same vibe and a lot of little things are not quite right without her there.

My awesome wife has had nothing but shit luck with her health ever since her knee replacement a month ago. Her back is in all kinds of pain still from a failed epidural and it's sad because her knee is doing really well. She can't come back to work full-time for quite some time with all the back pain. She has a slightly herniated disc between L4-L5 and most likely a pinched nerve in her spine and that makes her foot go numb and causes tremendous pain. She can't sleep more than a couple hours at a time, a few hours or less a day. What a bunch of crap!

We are not wanting to sue anyone and we're not sure we even can, but the hospital royally fucked up on her epidural and now she can't go to work for more than a little at a time and we have medial co-pays coming in from all the doc and hospital visits since that knee surgery. It's really not fair. Here I am lifting weights and going for a jog and she can barely move. Gods damn it!

I have to close in dish tonight since last week we had a dishwasher quit. He had gotten way too comfortable calling out, leaving early, and coming in late so I got him in the office last Saturday, I asked him if he liked working with us, he said he loved the job and wanted to keep it. I told him he was on the verge of getting fired due to all his missed time so he shook my hand and said he'd do better.

I was there Sunday working when he called my cellphone at 1317. His shift started at 1500 and he said "Don't worry I'm not calling out I just want to go with my mom to take my kid to the airport at 5 and I can come in after that." I said "No way you can't come in over 2 hours after your scheduled start time. You can take a half hour lunch break and say goodbye as quickly as possible, maybe have him stop by the restaurant before he leaves." That was the last conversation I had with him because he no-showed and has been a ghost ever since.

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

So now I close dish for the final 45 minutes or hour after 0100 when dishwasher Mike leaves. We did hire a new guy so if he doesn't totally suck we will put him on Friday and Saturday nights as a secondary helper in dish. Maybe? Hopefully! I don't mind washing dishes, but it eats up precious... precious time when I could be doing some other work there. Plus I'm sick of having to be there all the way until eveything is done and we're locking up at 0200. I like going to bed before 0300...

Speaking of work there, I am still trying to quit come mid-fall. I might be doing a roof in a month or so and if I do that it'll take a couple weeks and that will pay our personal bills for a month. The event calendar is really booked for Oct-Dec so I'd love to get that roof done before it gets cold then focus on running the restaurant events until tax season. Of course that all depends on whether or not the place can increase in sales as we get to next month. Sales were decent last week, enough to justify staying open, and so far this week they aren't horrible. If we lose money this month we're all done, but I think we will come out slightly in the black or near break-even. Breaking even sucks, but it's okay during the summer when we're not as busy. Last year things got busier as we got into October so I'm expecting the same this year. September last year was close to August in terms of total sales.

Alright turds, all two of you who read this bootleg site, I gotta get ready to go work for most of the night. My life still sucks ass, but at least today hasn't been too bad. There's still plenty of the day left for thing to go to shit, though...

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Wednesday, 8-14-24: Back to the ER, more fails from the restaurant staff.
I took Kat to a follow-up appointment at 1430 today with her knee-replacement surgeon. The knee is healing up nicely and that part seemed to have gone well. Unfortunately the epidural into her spine before the surgery did not go so well so they were worried and sent us off to the ER, this time Northern Light (formrely EMMC) for an energency MRI on her back/pelvis area. What a bunch of crap! Kat said she didn't want to go, I agreed because the ER is a shit-show, but the doc said there was a slight chance not going could lead to permanent damage if something really was seriously wrong.

How busy could the ER be at 1545 on a Wednesday? Turns out pretty busy and the entrance/check-in area for the place is totally bootleg. I don't even understand how it's functional. I know they don't want people comfortable there because if you're not comfortable you won't want to go, but I don't know what the hell they do when a lot of people show up in bad weather because only about 2-3 people can wait inside and the rest of the line is outside. What a bunch of crap! Thankfully for us it was 75 degrees and not raining. Thunder rumbled, but it never rained on us.

So we get inside and this homeless-looking chick is in a wheelchair all tweaking out from drugs. Maybe it wasn't drugs, but come on of course it was. She looked so fuckin' stupid and it was obnoxious and a bunch of crap all rolled up into one. We sat away from her but then some staff-person rolled her ass near us. Gods damn it! Oh, get this, the staff guy had a name tag that said "Concingiere." OMG WTF IS THAT SHIT?! HOSPITALS DO NOT HAVE CONCINGEIRES THOSE ARE FOR FANCY HOTELS AND WHEN WE GO TO OUR TIMESHARE IN MEXIO WE GET ONE OF THOSE AND THEN WE GET THE USUAL SALES PITCH FOR BUYING MORE TIMESHARE SHIT IN EXCHANCE FOR A ZIP-LINE TOUR* AND FREE BREAKFAST WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

^Epic fuckin' fail.

They did get Kat into some other holding area pretty quickly because they knew she was coming for the MRI. Meanwhile a cook from the restaurant is texting Katherine (who isn't even on the schedule to work today) about how he can't come to work because of family shit. Around that same time a dishwasher is messaging their stupid Failbook group chat that he's in the ER so he's out. One cook down, no dishwasher, what a bunch of crap! Kat worked her magic and got it covered, but the guy who covered it left at 2200 despite the fact I told him if he worked the shift it didn't end until 2300.

WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

Thankfully the MRI didn't show huge damage. There are issues in her back for sure, but nothing that requires surgery at this time. Nevertheless we were there for hours and hours. I did scoot over to work to print the needed tivia questions when she went for the MRI, but my office computer was doing updates so it took forever. The end of today was a fuckin' dumpster-fire.

Oh, sales at the restaurant sucked today as well. They weren't all-time bad, but they were below what I had hoped for. Then because we were down a cook and patching together a dish shift they closed the kitchen early so who knows how many customers didn't get food between 2030-2130? Probably a few. Gods damn it!

Oh, the closing manager from last night left the front heat pump air conditioner on all night because she forgot to turn it off so it ran for 12 hours when no one was there bye bye probably another $30 in electricity. The place is done, and tomorrow I am going to get it listed for sale. We can't list it immediately like you'd sell a used car in Uncle Henry's, but I'll get the ball rolling. This is fuckin' BULLSHIT.

Today was another wasted turd-stain of a day. I did get some things done and replacing the leaking flapper in our toilet only took 20 minutes, but it's a constant time-suck and I am totally over it. I want a simpler life where I have time to watch more Red Sox, play Nintendo and AOEII, read books, and not have to worry about running a business that needs to do $1.1 million in sales a year just to break even.

Might just sell the house as well. One thing at a time. First ditch the restaurant, take a huge loss, maybe get at least something for our troubles, then see what life has to offer after that...

^MY ENTIRE LIFE AND THIS ENTIRE AREA. Bangor is pwned now. Homeless people all over the place, lots of drugs, tweaking-out people in the ER. I'm done. Fin. The end. We don't actually live in Bangor, but we're only a mile away and I can see Bangor from the front lawn as I look west across the river. Fuck Bangor and fuck this entire area. I'm out.

I think I'll go check the state jobs listing again. Nornally they have tax-related positions in the Augusta area listed on their careers site. I almost applied for one a couple years ago before I decided to stick it out and give my life up here a chance. Turns out that was a terrible decision at the time. Oh well, at least racquetball is still fun...

*I don't want a zip line tour that seems dumb. I'll take the free meal!

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Sunday, 8-11-24: The new "Road House" movie and the end gets closer.
We watched the new Road House movie today, and it was a bunch of crap. I didn't think it would be good, but it filled some time when we didn't want to get into anything requiring full viewer attention. It was a bootleg remake of the original with Jake Gyllenhall as the new bouncer for a bar in the Florida Keys.

The original is a bad movie, but it's in my all-time top 25 and possibly even just sneaking into my top ten. It's a great movie for me, but it's bad in the sense of being ridiculous and unbelievable. Patrick Swayze was perfect in the role and the supporting cast did a great job, too. In the new Road House the dude is still called Dalton so that sucks. A lot. He's not bad as the bouncer, but everything else is just overall terrible. There are some likeable face characters, but the heels (bad guys) are way too much for this movie.

The romance with the doctor/nurse is there, but it's poorly done and it the end he just leaves town. The romance pales in comparison to the first movie love interest story, too. No Sam Elliott type buddy for Dalton in this one. I give it a 3/10. What a bunch of crap! Another shit remake sort-of like the Total Recall and Robocop remakes.

The restaurant had its second-worst week of sales for the year this past week that ended today. What a bunch of crap! That brings the end of the place substantially closer; we lost a lot of money this work-week (Mon-Sun) so we won't have precious... precious money to keep the place open beyond September at this pace. I do think things will pick up, but it stresses me out way too much and I really don't want that in my life anymore. If we do have another bad week this month I think we will either be forced to try to sell the place (if we can find a buyer) or just close.

Even though I don't want to work at the place anymore I don't want it to just close. I'm hoping Kat can keep it going with the crew we have there now and I can help a little here and there. I want to go off to do more taxes, maybe some carpentry, and I might even go work a little for Jason next year since he has a guy retiring. If I did that it wouldn't be full-time, and there's no guarantee it will happen at all. Who knows, I might just land a year-round full-time job with benefits...

I won't have clarity on any of that this month, but by next month we should know if we can keep the restaurant or if we have to close or sell. Kat will be better by next month, not 100% better but at least able to get around, and when she goes back to work that will also help with our decisions. Right now a seasonal gig at the post office seems like an opportunity I could pursue for Nov/Dec work. If they offered me to stay after the season gig ended I would have some serious options. Ten years ago I did that seasonal job and they wanted me to stay on full-time, year-round. That wasn't the right fit for me at the time so I turned it down.

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Saturday, 8-10-24: Bye bye to another dumpster-fire epic fail of a week.
This fuckin' week. All I wanna know is why? Why do all of them suck lately? This has been the worst summer of my life. What a bunch of crap!

^SUMMER, 2024.

I know it's kinda an unwritten rule to state the bad then the good, but the good is quick so I'll bang that out right now. I got decent exercise this week including fun raquetball games against Gavin today. I lost as usual, but it was a good workout. Oh, I didn't have to work too much this week including tonight when I'm almost always at work for what's a busy Saturday night. That leads to the bad...

Sales for today, a Saturday and almost always the best day of the week for sales, were under $2000 when karaoke started at 2030. That's FUCKIN' TERRIBLE for a Saturday after being open since 0900. It's embarassing and untenable so the place will lose money again today. The place is busy now at 2300, but Katherine came home before karaoke even started because it was so slow and then when it got busy it seemed she didn't really want to go back. We told her it was getting busy, she texted Kat asking why I didn't go, and HER FUCKIN ASS WAS ALREADY ON THE SCHEDULE AND SHE WAS ALREADY AT WORK AND SHE SHOULD KNOW THAT, AFTER 3+ YEARS OF WORKING THERE THAT IT SOMETIMES IS SLOW BEFORE KARAOKE AND THEN IT GETS PACKED FULL. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I'm sick of working there for no money and I did that already enough for the week. If the place was truly packed I would have gone, but now I don't need to go they can handle the rest of the night. It won't stay this busy until the end because some people will tap out and go home before last call for alccohol at 0030.

Sales for the week will be ten pounds of shit stuffed into a five-pound bag, but that's not even the worst of the week. Poor Kat had to spend four of the seven days at least in-part in the hospital. She was there Saturday midday through Tuesday early PM and then back again Thursday PM for several hours. I spent hours in waiting areas wondering how pwned she was, and now I think, I hope, she's on the path to recovery. Everything has been a shit-show and I am ready to end up here:

Can I please just play Nintendo and read books? I'm not even good at Nintendo anymore, but I can drink when I play and then come here and complain about how I can't beat Super Mario World for the SNES Classic hehehe.

I blame fuckin' COVID. Seriously. That ruined my shitty life. It didn't kill me, but it made my bootleg body take a slight downturn. I think my breathing has been the most-affected and I really notice it when I jog. Sometimes here and there for other things, too. I shouldn't complain too much becaose a lot of people did die from it so thank you China or Russia or sick bats or whatever/whomever unleashed that virus all over Earth.

Other than the negative health effects I believe I still suffer from to this day it ruined my path. The path ended, it changed directions, and at first that direction was awesome but now it's my living nightmare. I had a pretty good thing going being a landlord, doing some carpentry, doing taxes, blueberry raking, etc. Now all but doing the taxes remains and that makes me sad. Blueberry raking was not going to happen this year no matter what, but when it has happened the past few times it hasn't been the same. Why?

BECAUSE I CO-OWN A STUPID FUCKIN' RESTAURANT. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

One good thing about having the restaurant with the event room is we hosted people for a huge charity bake sale today and I bought some sweet junk food. Whoopie Pies for the win!

I'll be glad when my edible fully kicks in and I can rack out. Somehow it's now midnight so I sorta lost track of time, but I did have to stop for a bit to re-ice Kat's flow-cooler-thing. I don't know what it's really called, but it keeps cold water pumping across her new knee. I feel badly for her and that's why this week sucked. I was really worried about her for half the damn time.

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Wednesday, 8-07-24: I can't clear off my fuckin' desk! This sucks. All of it.
All I wanna know is why? Why can't I get all the paperwork and other shit cleared off my desk at work? It's been a shit-show lately and it pisses me off. It doesn't look horrible in a photo, but trust me there is a lot of unfinished business in this space:

I just can't get caught up. What a bunch of crap! It eats at my soul, and that's assuming I even have a soul. I spent hours at work today, but progress was minimal thanks to all the things going on all the time. The event room bookings have really ramped up lately so that's great, but man it chews up precious... precious time. Today I had two showings, I booked a baby shower and most likely a kids' birthday party. Also had to email back and forth about a possible and likely "Sweet 16" party in a few months.

Oh, I also checked SPAM folder last night and found this gem:

Good afternoon! I’m looking into getting an estimate for a wedding.

OMG IS THAT ALL?! I almost left it unread in SPAM, but I have gotten better at separating the wheat from the chaff so I responded and it looks like it might lead to a good wedding for us to host in a couple months. Who sends such a basic, shitty email and expects a reply? We're probably the only venue in town who gave a reply hahaha. How about letting us know who you are, a date and timeframe you have in mind?! I can't quote a frigging wedding based on that basic, bootleg sentence that offers no information. What a bunch of crap!

I still haven't even mailed our business rent check, but I do have it written and ready. I need to include a letter to the landlord letting him know we are not impressed because our sign still looks like this:

^THAT WAS 9 FUCKIN' MONTHS AGO OMG EPIC FAILER!

Also, our main parking lot light is out again. I have reset the breaker in the past, but last time I tried it made a sketchy buzzing noise (50% chance my loser-ass was getting zapped by 220+), the light struggled, nothing happened, and the breaker went on strike again. Gods damn it!

It's incredibly ridiculous not having a properly illuminated parking lot for our fledgling business. So I'm not paying the CAM (common area maintenance) part of rent until it's fixed. He might get pissed and tell us to gggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeettttttttttttt ooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttttttttttttt but oh well I don't really even want to own a restaurant anymore and pretty soon my ass is applying for another job because my life FUCKIN' SUCKS.

Oh, if I'm not busy enough trying to help my wife who just got home yesterday from surgery, her oldest son and my step-son bought a house less than two months ago and their turds won't go down their sewer drain. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! I had to go over there yesterday on what little free time I do have to schedule servicing including a camera down the line. The camera showed nothing, but I put my head on the kitchen floor and found the drain and it's too long of a story to condense onto this bootleg site that almost no one will ever read, but this shit is work and it pisses me off for them. Tree roots in the line? Check. Tomorrow I have to go over there with my chainsaw and shovel and try to get things moving along and *hopefully* find at least part of the cast-iron 4" pipe that runs through this shit-show before getting to the driveway:

There's a big-ass willow tree that I can't cut down because big trees weigh TONS and if it's done wrong things are destroyed and people die. I don't give a fuck if I die, but I don't want to fail at cutting down a tree and kill others in the process. It would be fun if I was drunk (the cutting, not the possible murder), but not sober. Plus there's a greater chance I'd destroy their house, their car, their garage, or all of the above. There is no safe direction to even fell that tree so a prefessional will have to deal with it.

I can make most or all of the smaller stuff disappear, though. The rhotodendran along the house closer to the corner also has to go. The line is under there somewhere, and who knows it might not be too deep. If it is really deep then it's beyond my capacity. We'll see.

It really eats at me that I can't get caught up. Katherine had a cold or some shit so I had to work some tonight. I don't mind helping with trivia it can be sorta fun, but not when I have 100 other things to do. Thankfully Kat is home, but she's all banged up and it will be quite some time before she can get back to work. Maybe months, and I don't think we can keep that place open without her for months. No one can do what she can do there and I don't even want to. I'm ready for another job, but I'm stuck and it's my own dumbass fault so I have to lie in my own bed of shit every day and hate my bootleg failed life. If I quit the restaurant now it fails and we're out a ton of money that we will never earn back plus it screws over a lot of good employees.

At least I can still rip out 80s tunes, we're not totally bankrupt just yet, and I can sometimes sleep. My life is such a piece of shit. What a bunch of crap!

Alright you turds, all two of you who read this bootleg depressing site of mine, I am going to listen to the first song I heard today and then try to rack out. On my very short drive to work this morning Pet Shop Boys What Have I Done (To Deserve This?) was playing on Big 104.7 and it a FANTASTIC song. I know what I did to deserve this. I made the wrong decisions at the wrong time gods damn it. I like Big 104.7, but they kinda failed when they started playing a lot of newer music. I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO MUSIC MADE AFTER 1993 GODS DAMN YOUZ.* WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

*I do like about 1 out of 100 songs made after 1993, but most of them suck because I am now old and set in my ways and I am not even sorry for that because if you don't like it you can ggggggggggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttttttttttt oooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!

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Sunday, 8-04-24: Back at the hospital. 500 mg caffeine through an IV. Seriously?!
What a fuckin' terrible weekend. Nothing has gone right. My poor wife had to go to the hospital yesterday just before noon IN A GODS DAMN AMBULANCE. Paramedics had to come get her, and it was all-bad. She's alive and in the hospital now, but she's still not okay. What the hell happened? Oh, and why do fire trucks come with the ambulance?

Her knee replacement seemed to go well enough on Wednesday four days ago. We were trying our best to keep that knee on ice, but it's been so fucking hot (FUCK OFF SUMMER I THINK I LIKE WINTER MORE NOW) that keeping the knee cold was a struggle at time, especially at night when we'd try to sleep. I thought things were going well enough, but on Friday things started to get worse when she had a massive migrane headache and shooting pains in her back. It got worse and by Saturday morning she wasn't even able to get out of bed. I couldn't just pick her up because of her knee. Even separate than that how in the hell was I going to carry her to the bathroom so she could pee? It was definitely not an option so the ER for her. It took HOURS Saturday and we thought they might have a solution, but that failed so she had to stay. What a bunch of crap!

Today wasn't much better, but at least she has her own room and I could visit for many hours. I did work some, but just a little. Now it's close to bedtime and I thought she'd be sleeping but she can text me so that's encouraging and better than yesterday. She's finally and slowly getting her appetite back so that's another positive sign.

So what the hell went wrong? The speculation now is the epidural into her spine before her knee surgery didn't work and it caused spinal fuild to leak. You need spinal fluid so you can move around and not have a massive headace and nausea. Tomorrow they might do something called a "Blood patch" and that sounds terrible so I hope they don't have to do it. I just want her home where she can be more comfortable, but it has to happen when she physically can be home and at least get to the bathroom. Right now that's still not an option. What a bunch of crap!

It seems like the docs and/or medical people messed it up Wednesday trying to get her prepped for the surgery, but in our medical world when they make mistakes and you end up in the ER a bill still must be paid so that sucks. A lot. Is that the only business where, if you blow it and make things worse, you still get to charge money to fix it? Kat does have insurance, but there are co-pays and that's the last friggin' thing we need right now in the middle of our restaurant slow-season. I think sales will increase as summer wanes away because they have the last 3 years, but if they don't then we're done by September and will be closing or selling. What a bunch of crap!

^Dedicated to the medical people who fucked it up Wednesday. EPIC FAIL YOU SUCK!

Hey this is a pretty good song that I'm not really familiar with. It's Not Over (Til It's Over) by Starship, 1987. Man, some of their songs are great! Channel 1928 comes through again. On Friday when I turned on the satellite XM (or Sirius?) radio at the bar Starship's Find Your Way Back was on so Deven and I were rockin' out to that for a minute while I waited for customers to roll in for an event-room meeting. He was playing air-guitar with the vacuum cleaner hahaha! That guy, man we hire the strangest people. He used to live with us when he was dating Katherine, but she hauled on his ass because he didn't pack the gear to serve in her beloved 'corps, or something like that. It was a failed work-romance, but they still co-exist at work at least as far as I can tell.

In conclusion life still sucks, everything sucks a bag of ass, and I'm still living on the edge of what I can handle every single day. My wife is really unwell, our restaurant doesn't make money, and pretty soon it's time to go apply for a job that actually pays. I'm thinking post office again like I did ten years ago, but we'll see. Normally they hire seasonal help before Christmas so if I did that I'd start at some point in November and that's when Kat's knee should (in theory) be better. Maybe? Hopefully!

If the restaurant would actually start making money I could just stay on and focus solely on the payroll, bookkeeping, and event room as I geared up for tax season. I dunno what will happen because right now all that matters is getting Kat better and getting her the hell out of that gods damned hospital. After that almost everything in my life is a giant question-mark.

???????????

^MY LIFE FROM NOVEMBER AND BEYOND RIGHT NOW. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I was gonna log off this bootleg site that almost no one ever reads, but another great 80s song came on that I didn't know called All I Ever Wanted by Kansas. A cool song I don't think I've heard before!

Also, Kat texted me she's wide awake still and, get this, they gave her 500MG of caffeine around 1900. OMG ALL I WANNA KNOW IS WHY? WHY THE FUCK DID THAT HAVE TO HAPPEN?!

It was administered through an IV bag, and I asked wtf because I was there. Normally when Kat has even a tiny bit of caffeine her heart starts racing so I had serious doubts about that seemingly bootleg plan. They said it might help her spine and headache so, since I'm a medical retard (Like, I'm dumb with medicine my general plan is to just die when my body starts to fail), I rolled with it and asked them to keep a close eye on her. I was there the whole time as well. How much caffeine is in a cup of coffee? I thught it was 80-90... guy looks it up:

Okay an 8oz cup of coffee has 95 mg of caffeine according to Google. How much is in a Red Bull? Oh wow less than I thought "only" 77 mg for the 8.4-oz Red Bull like what we have at the restaurant. Google says this:

"A healthy adult can consume around 400 milligrams of caffeine daily, which means you can safely have about four cups of coffee in a day unless otherwise advised by your doctor."

OKAY DOCTOR WHY THE HELL DID SHE GET 500 MG?! WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I wonder how much I consume each day? I'm guessing it's pretty low, around 100. Guy looks at his Mio bottle... 90 mg and 12 servings in a small container of the stuff. One container lasts me a few days, give or take, so I guess I do 200 a day. Wow I should do less! Of course that's not all at once. A little in the AM, some midday (on occasion), some in the PM. Usually some before I use the gym and/or get exercise. Sometimes when I'm feeling beat to shit, it varies.

Either way 500 is fuckin' STUPID for someone who never uses caffeine like my wife. This better work gods damn it!

Also, how in the hell did I ever live to be in my 30s before I started using caffeine? Man I really missed out for a lot of years! I can't even imagine a life without some kind of legal drugs like sugar, booze, pot-cookies, and of course caffeine. Sometimes all four in the same day hehehe.

Society is doomed and I'm a willing participant. What a bunch of crap!

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Friday, 8-02-24: Will this month suck? Probably since most other months also suck lately.
Two days out of the 31 days in August are already mostly gone, and they've totally sucked so far. What a bunch of crap! Disclaimer: I knew well in advance this would most likely be a turd month and relatively speaking I have it on easy street. Poor Kat had her roughest day yet just barely over two days removed from an arduous right knee total replacement surgery. That surgery took longer than expected when the spinal-tap-thing they do to numb her legs up didn't work. She woke up in agony, I had to wait extra to see her while some crazy weird (homeless?) chick in the waiting area talked to random people about fast food and groery stores. Now poor Kat has had a pounding headache plus the expected pain in her knee. Gods damn it!

Oh, on top of that we're in another totally bootleg tropical pattern so at night we're lucky to cool off below 70. Fortunately earlier in the week the daytime high temp didn't reach 80 a couple times so we didn't 100% roast, but the past couple days have been really hot. 90+ today with high humidity and a low temp tonight expeted to be around 70. What a bunch of crap! I told Kat earlier this is the last summer I want to go with no A/C, at least in the bedroom. This has actually been one of the hottest summers we've had and the trend seems to be hotter and hotter each year.

We have an ice-machine-thing to pump cold water into a sleeve that goes around Kat's right leg/knee. Keeping that thing cold is a real challenge since the ice tends to melt so quickly.. What a bunch of crap! I haven't been sleeping well at all so I just get what I can when I can. It's 2200 and taps, taps lights out all hands maintain silence about the decks in a former sailor life, but for my loser-epic life failer-ass, it's back to work in a few minutes. It's not too busy down there for a Friday night due to the heat, the time of year, and the fair still being in town. However, the place is running a skeleton crew as far as servers and the bar so I'd like to help them some now that Kat is asleep. Plus a dance in the event room ends around 2300 so I need to pack up some tables and do some cleaning in that room to prep for people who will be arriving around 0830 tomorrow for an exercise class.

If all goes well my ass will be out of there around midnight. Maybe? Hopefully! I don't want to leave my wife home alone for too long, at least not yet. I worked a couple hours yesterday and a couple hours this morning. I did also work a couple hours earlier this evening to book a September event and help out here and there as needed.

Kat's knee couple take a few months or more to heal; hopefully by the end of this month she's able to move around on crutches well enough to be at work at least some of the time. I don't expect her to DJ and do the more arduous stuff, but if she can't come back at all for a full 3 months there is no way we can keep that place going. It will be impossible. I don't really want to do it anymore. Katherine seems to have all but given up; she applied for a different job yesterday with our blessing (If you aren't happy in your job the best thing to do is make a change.) Daniel just got his house less than two months ago and that turned into a shit-show a few days ago, quite literally, when they had a sewer backup. Kat called me asking if I could go over to their house and help, but I was in the middle of finishing Jason's taxes and visiting with him since he drove up here Monday. I did call Dan, he described what was happening, and I knew immediately they had serious problems.

They got a plumbing company to come attempt to flush the main sewer line from their house to the street, but that didn't work. Apparemtly their attempt to get a camera down the drain didn't work out so well either so they have a trashed cast iron sewer line and can barely use their water. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! Dan is distracted because of that, and I would be as well if I were him, but to his credit he has still been at work and helping.

I feel so badly for Dan and his chick because they just got that house in early June and it's probably gonna cost A LOT to fix that drain. Earth work is necessary and who knows how long that will take? I'm anticipating it costing them over $10k so no one in the family has that kind of money. I used to have it until I opened a stupid fuckin' restaurant.

^When I looked at the house before I bought it I noticed the jungle that was their front yard, but I never even thought about how roots from any bushes/trees may have impacted the sewer line. The house was vacant for quite some time before they bought it. I'm just always overwhelmed with 100 things to do so I couldn't focus on it like I wish I could have because I actually enjoy that type of thing a lot more than I enjoy working at our stupid fuckin' restaurant. What a bunch of crap!

I have no easy solution for them. I can't go dig with a spade looking for the line. I do plan to try to get another plumbing company over there, one with a camera, and I want to be there to see what they see. We spent $8000 or so replacing our sewer line 2-3 years ago and that was a deal as compared to the quote for $15k that we got from another company. What a bunch of crap!