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"Christmas is about hugging your mothers." -Damon (our 4-year old grandson.)

Tuesday, 12-30-25: Last update of 2025?
It's almost time to say farewell to 2025, and I don't know if this year was good or bad. It was better than the total skid-mark of my life that was 2024, no doubt about it, but holy Jesus I've been fuckin' busy. How many days off did I take this year? I dunno, but only a handful. What a bunch of crap! In fairness a lot of my days were spent working on this total fixer-upper house so they could have been days off. I can't friggin' believe how much carpentry I did this year. Wow! A record pace, and not even close to any other year. I'll start 2026 by doing a lot of carpentry but then I'll slow down or totally stop with it for a while for tax season and the big grand opening of Mad Kat 2.0 (MK 2.0 nickname.)

Unfortunately we will be opening the restaurant just as my tax business gets busy, but I'll just have to man up and do both for a while. We still haven't set a date to open, but we are still hoping for the end of next month in only about four weeks. Can we pull that off? Maybe. Hopefully! I actually put the odds of opening next month at a bit under 50%, and I am starting to lean towards February. We have a lot to do there still. A LOT. Here is how things look as of a couple days ago:

Remy absolutely killed it this weekend doing that plywood base for the bar, and it freed my loser-ass up to do more wainscotting and prep on the other end closer to the stage. We have some friends helping for free; how cool is that?! We also found another investor, and he came in yesterday to sweep and help clean up. He also helped shovel show from the front because the weather... I could write an entire bootleg update on that.

The weather this month was a fucking disaster. Here is my summary of the December, 2025 weather:

I saw on the news this morning Bangor has been 7 degrees below average for the month, and it got COLD this afternoon. We've had four plowable snow events, and when it did briefly get warm it came with a deluge of rain and a 25-hour power outage at our place after more 60 MPH winds. Cold continues for at least the next week, too. Highs in the teens lows often below zero and more snow New Year's morning. What a bunch of crap! Winter is really off to a brutal start.

The weather was really nasty yesterday with early snow that turned to rain, and we had at least 8 different leaks at the bar. Even the garage job had leaks from water getting in under the sliders. Noooooooooo! One of the sliders doesn't have full ice/water shield yet so that makes sense, but the rear one should be 100% waterproof so I failed there and fixing that will not be easy gods damn it. The worst thing we can get is snow to ice to rain before and after extreme cold because it's a total mess out there now. This might be the worst weather December I can ever recall. Back in 2007 we got over 50" of snow in December, but I don't think it was this cold.

^That SUCKED. I made a few bucks from that place, but not that much as compared to the work I put in. Oh well, I was younger, single, and had time. I also learned a lot from it and some of those skills are helping me today with all the work I've been doing.

I didn't lift weights at all in 2025. NONE. What a bunch of crap! I did jog more than I have in 5 years, I played a good amount of racquetball, I did a bunch of DDP Yoga, and of course the biggest form of exercise was all the carpentry. Some carpentry days are easy and don't take a lot of physical effort, but most of them require at least some. I am a slow runner and I walked a bunch, but at least I put in the effort.

We should NOT have gotten the birds in 2025, especially the ducks. We have three Peking ducks and one of them is wasted like DOc-J and 8-Ball from Full Metal Jacket. He has a bum leg and limps around and this morning Kat asked me to euthanize him. How in the hell am I supposed to do that?! She wanted me to kill off three roosters earlier in the year but I dodged that bullet when her ex-husband did it. Now things are a frozen wasteland and the grandkids are home most of the time so if I shoot the duck there will be blood all over the fresh snow and they will hear it. I don't have a cleaver and I'm not holding down a friggin' duck so I can try to snap its neck. What are my options here? We need a painless poison. The fuckin' birds were a HUGE mistake.

Oh, now the duck eggs seem to make me sick as well. I cooked some a couple weeks ago and after I ate them I felt nauseaous and off all morning. I ate less the next day in case it wasn't the eggs and I felt off again so I threw them all away. I tried some again this morning, only a little bit, and I felt shitty after so all I wanna know is why? Why do those eggs not agree with me anymore? I ate them and felt just fine for the entire fall. Do they freeze and change properties? I dunno but I just want the ducks GONE. The two hens can disappear, too. We can just buy eggs or not eat them at all! While we're at it I say let's 86 the dogs and most of the cats.

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Saturday, 12-27-25: Feeling guilty about time off?!
I can't fuckin' believe how much carpentry and work I've done this year. A day off is rare, and that is probably untenable for the rest of my life. Especially now that I'm officially old and AARP-eligible! I could have taken regular days off, but working on this house has been important so I've done a lot of that this year. A LOT. Earlier this year this was the kitchen/dining room:

^No ceiling, no insulation, middle of winter = what a bunch of crap! We did turn it into this by the spring, though:

^Our kitchen is awesome now because we put in the work to get it done. However, the kitchen was only one small part and we had to finish the living room, bedroom, downstairs, every-friggin-thing. Then we brought the restaurant back so now it's REALLY go-time. I only worked a few hours Christmas eve-day and none on Christmas itself and I felt a little guilty about it. What a bunch of crap!

All I wanna know is why? Why did I feel a little guilty about taking Christmas eve and Christmas off? I think it's because after we did gifts Christmas morning we really didn't do much for the rest of the day. We watched a show on NetFlix called Absentia that was just barely passable. Not great, but good enough. I did enjoy the time off, and I almost went to work but I decided a day off was a better option and it really was. I needed a little break and so did my awesome wife. We're back at it now and I do feel more refreshed and less burned out so mission-accomplished by taking a little time off.

We had a nice family meal Christmas eve before we all did gifts Christmas morning. For some reason I can never explain my parents still send my loser-ass gifts and I wish they would knock that off because I don't get them anything anymore hahaha. I'm friggin' 50 years old I really don't need my parents getting me gifts anymore. I'm lucky they are both still alive because I know at my age a lot of people have lost at least one parent, if not both.

The gifts part of Christmas was sort-of a Chinese fire-drill. The kids were in a hurry and get this, Kat's ex was coming at 1000 so we REALLY had to hurry because for obvious reasons my awesome wife doesn't wanna be around when he's there. She doesn't HATE him to the point she can't be around him, but she prefers not to be there when he's around and how can you blame her for that? The guy has always been good to me and one day I should thank him for failing at marriage because if he got it right she'd still be married to him and I'd be playing Nintendo or something. I dunno where I'd be without my awesome wife, but I'm sure somewhere boring if I was even alive at all. My life is NEVER boring anymore hehe. I do want it to be more boring, but that's not how I roll anymore.

It's only 2200 but it's not taps, taps lights out just yet. I'll rip out a few more 80s tunes before I bivouac. We plan to work a full day tomorrow at the restaurant, and wainscotting is on my list for at least part of the day. I prepped a bunch today so I'm hoping to make some good progress on it. I would have done a bit more, but I wanted to play racquetball so I bailed around 1445 to pick up Gavin and go meet Deno for cutthroat. I lost, but games were fun and it was great exercise. We actually played three times this week wow! Sunday, Tuesday, and today. Other than that I didn't get much for exercise just one time doing DDP yoga and one short 1.5-mile jog on the treadmill. Oh well good enough and the carpentry keeps me moving, too.

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Wednesday, 12-24-25: Christmas eve day at the doc (scheduled visit for Kat.)
It's Christmas-eve day and as usual I have totally half-assed Christmas.  Actually saying half-ass gives my loser-ass too much credit as it's really closer to .05% effort.  I did get my awesome wife two gifts, but they are pretty small.  What a bunch of crap!  I need to get her a gift card because she asked for one, but I haven't done that yet and it's probably too late.  Epic failer.

^Awarded to myself for half-assing Christmas. Again. What a bunch of crap!

I'm in a nice waiting area at St. Joseph's as my awesome wife has a "Nuclear Stress Test" whatever that really means.  I wasn't allowed to go in with her and it takes a few hours so I did leave earlier and I worked at the bar for about an hour.  I wouldn't have left if the bar wasn't so close and I'm glad I went because I got a bunch of old drop ceiling pulled down.  After I write this bootleg update that almost no one will ever read I will do my final tax-training course.  I need 4 more credit-hours out of 18 total for AFSP certification from the IRS.  It's not required, but it's important to me and it does give me some more credibility and of course knowledge.  Lots of tax-law changes this year as part of Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill."  No tax on some OT, no tax on tips, Social Security taxation changed for the better, etc.

I worked at that garage job yesterday for a few hours and got most of this bookcase-unit and sheetrock above framed in:

I certainly won't finish that this year, not with a week left, but I'm hoping I only have a few days into early next month to get to a fair stopping-point.  Via has been a huge help with mudding, taping, and sanding and she's actually a good painter so that's a win.  She's been painting some at the restaurant so I know she can do it, and I plan to pay her ass to also do most if not all of the painting at that garage-job.  If she can handle that then I only have a few hours more of sheetrock work (a couple small final pieces to install and I will do a final sand on the walls with touch-up mud), the bookcase (she will stain it as well.  Maybe?  Hopefully!), the floor, some trim, and the big one will be stairs leading to the existing house.  That will take a full work-day because the attic will be open and it will be cold so I need to get it buttoned up fast so their room below doesn't get too cold.

We still have A LOT left to do at the restaurant.  We talked about a soft-open for friends and family around the 16th or 17th and opening to the public around the 21st next month, but I think we need to push that back a week.  We still need a bar-top, a new water heater, signage, the office set up, all kinds of stuff.  Oh, the beer cooler is a big one but thankfully the old rotten one is hauled-on.  I took a huge load Saturday to the dump and that only cost $20 because a lot of it is metal.  Sadly the Brewer Landfill-dump is only open the first and third Saturday each month so I didn't want to hang onto the rest of the crap.  Half the beer fridge went Saturday and the other half went Monday.  1500 lbs on the Monday trip including some other junk, bye bye $140, but that's okay we are still a few hundred bucks BELOW budget on the trash with not too much left to toss.  That dump-trailer paid off bigtime for the two trips with the old beer fridge.

Right now I'm thinking it's more like Jan 28th for a grand-opening to the public.  It's not as much a matter of motivation and time-management as it is waiting for things like the sign, the water heater, the bar rail, and soon table-tops.  Water heater is not coming until Jan 20 according to Lowe's, but I know often times those things come sooner than expected.  Yesterday the expected arrival date was Jan 15 and I tried to order it, but it was 2030 and I was getting tired of working so once the screen froze I quit.  Lowe's online was having some issues last night, probably due to Xmas?  What a bunch of crap!

It would be good to push the opening back a week even if it will cost us $2,000 or so in holding costs (rent, utilities, etc.)  I'd be more stressed about that if not for a potential investor and what we hope and expect will be an infusion of more precious... precious working capital very soon.  We really want to get it right this time and so far we are on the right track.

We also need employee shirts.  We used Emerson in the past and I gotta say the shirts we bought 5 years ago are fantastic.  I still have three of them that are in good shape and I've worn them quite a bit over the years.  We do have a cricket-thing that can do shirts, but we don't have time for that shit right now.  If we do other from Emerson again it will take a few weeks to get those shirts.  Christmas tends to slow everything down.

I was feeling burned out on Monday and a little yesterday, but I'm good now and I won't work too much the rest of today and Xmas.  I should take this afternoon off, but I likely won't.  I should get to that garage job for a while today; if I do take this PM off I probably will work tomorrow PM, Christmas day.  Monday was a long day, but we got a lot done and we sold the 10 round tables we used to have for the event-room.  We sold around 160 chairs, too.  Oh Jesus, hell ya!  That precious... precious extra money will help us do gifts for the people who have been helping us for free.  We have a great team in place and if not for them we wouldn't be opening until later Feb or March, and that would be awful since it's the middle of my tax season.  Five years ago we grand-opened March 17, middle of tax season, but my tax business was half what it is now.

Alright turds, all two of you who read this bootleg site, time to go do more tax training until Kat gets paroled from the place.  She texted me they just started one more test, the final one, and I don't really even know what the hell is happening but they better take good care of her.  A few years ago she had one of these and her heart spiked to over 200 BPM and they had to do an emergency shut-down of the test.  What a bunch of crap!

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Saturday, 12-20-25: No power again, but we made the most of it.
Yesterday we had another huge wind and rain storm blow through. Wind advisory, wind gusts up to 60MPH, power outages likely, and that is exactly what happened. By mid-afternoon the weather conditions were awful with sideways rain and bigtime pounding winds. The Mack’s sign started to blow off, but we were working in the rear part of the restaurant so we had no idea. It was banging off my truck hahaha. Thankfully the Paradis staff has Kat’s phone number so the manager called Kat and one of their staff even helped as we got soaked and had to finish ripping it down. That sucked. A lot.

Thankfully no damage to the truck and I don’t care that much about the look of the truck anyway haha. Get this, the Mack’s sign was held in place by DROP CEILING METAL EDGING. OMG WHO THE FUCK DECIDED TO DO THAT?! It works just fine in “normal” weather but no way that thing was going to survive a big wind.

I should have taken it to the dump today with this:

^Old beer cooler we started ripping out. Rot, mold, rust, you name it. What a bunch of crap! Thankfully Dillon came to help as did Joe and we needed the firepower since the top panels were fairly heavy. I had that dump trailer full of what I think was close to a ton of trash, and I made it to the dump before they closed. We plan to remove the rest of that fridge tomorrow. Maybe? Hopefully!
Amazingly enough the restaurant never lost power, but we lost it at the house around 1500. We were still in Brewer working, but Debbie was home next door and messaged my awesome wife to let her know. A tree fell on the lines on our street so we knew we were pwned. There were A LOT of outages around town. Two of our living room casement windows blew open and photos were blowing off the walls in the living room while a puddle formed near the couch when rain blew in. What a bunch of crap! It probably looked like that bedroom scene from Poltergeist.

^All I wanna know is why? Why did I have to watch this terrifying movie when I was just a kid? Thanks Mom no wonder I have issues. Volumes of issues hehe.

I did have to come home to help button up the living room, check on the birds and dogs, and grab some fresh clothes. Kat stayed at the bar with Via, and when I got back we just went to Cap’s and had a good time there. We finally bivouacked around 0100 with no power, no fan, no heat, but good spirits so that counts for something, right? Maybe. Hopefully!

I feel like I slept like dog-shit, but it’s 2200 now and I can’t sleep even though I went to bed an hour ago and tried. What a bunch of crap! I didn’t eat an edible tonight because I thought I’d be so tired I wouldn’t need it, but my bootleg body fooled my loser-ass on that one so about a half hour ago I did eat one. Soon I’ll be racked out.

So the power outage at our house yesterday sort-of forced us to work late. We got a lot done yesterday, and we got even more done today with a small crew of helpers there with us. Jake showed up to do electrical, and we had a great meeting with someone who plans to help us along the way in other areas. Power came back on at the house today just before we got home. We might lose a little food from the fridge since it was out 25 hours, but Dillon did share some generator power with us from his portable genny. Sadly our badass Generac systems are NOT live yet since winter came so early so that sucks for us. I knew when I failed to expedite that process we would pay for it later, and that is exactly what happened.
It was 56 degrees at the height of the storm so nothing was in danger of freezing. Last night/early AM did drop down to 25 or so, but we had sun today and around 30 so that was good enough for the house. The bedroom actually wasn’t too cold last night and we threw on extra blankets. The only part that sucked was no fan.

Tomorrow we will finish ripping out the rest of the beer cooler before I work in other areas a bit and play racquetball. I wanted to play yesterday, but the storm was so bad we decided against it. Plus without power I couldn’t take a shower and F that. I don’t mind skipping a day if I’m not soaked in sweat so yesterday was ok. A hot shower felt great a while ago today. Tomorrow night the Pats play the Ravens so that will be a good game and I hope I can watch it. Hard to say since right now Internet and TV are still out. What a bunch of crap! No worries, though. Just having heat and lights is a win at this point.

The Patriots lost to the Bills last week so they’re now 11-3 and still in first place by a game. The Bills are probably a better team, but the season is ending in a hurry so all the Pats have to do it win their final 3 to guarantee at least one playoff home game. I haven’t followed them too closely lately because I’m so busy working.

Alright turds all two of you who frequent this shit-show of a site, I’m gonna try to sleep now. Goonies never say die!

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Tuesday, 12-16-25: It's alright. It's rotten!
The Pet Shop Boys sing It's Alright as I start this bootleg update that no one will ever read.  I wrote about this video not long ago, a weird one where they pass babies around.  Great song and I really don't watch the videos much anyway.  I do hope the music plays forever as long as it's not the same song on loop hehe. Is it alright in 2025? I'm not sure if things are alright we got flooding out west, frozen tundra here, a batshit-crazy president who rules over the insanity with more of the same.  Sadly I voted for the guy, a bad option for sure, but the alternative would have been even worse.  What a bunch of crap!

Speaking of a bunch of crap, I took up the bathroom floor in the handicap bathroom at the restaurant a couple days ago and found this:

^What a rotting bunch of crap!  I don't know if wood should go below tile, but I thought not if the wood is on top of a concrete floor IN A BATHROOM!  Shouldn't the tile have been installed onto a cement-board?  I dunno because I've never done tile and I don't want to start.  I know five years ago it wasn't like that, or mabye it was and I didn't notice because I was not doing well back when I was remodeling that bathroom in early 2021.  We were at odds with our business partners, I was trying to divorce my wife, we were blowing through money, and we weren't even open yet.  What a bunch of crap!  Needless to say that was a REALLY bad time in my life, as it was for my wife.

I put in a long day yesterday, close to 12 total work-hours, but it was worth it because we got a lot done.  Jason came up to do a walkthrough with us and give us some advice on the audio/video side of things.  When it comes to the A/V he's a wizard.  We also received a bunch of chairs, all on pallets, all wrapped tightly and no fun to unwrap and bring in on what was a frigid day.  Just like Friday, really cold and VERY windy.  What a bunch of crap!

We had a badass water heater installed 4.5 years ago, it still looks pretty new, but it stopped working yesterday.  I looked under it and saw water.  NOOOOOOOOOO!  Then I saw a slow drip from the tank itself, or somewhere all-bad.  All I wanna know is why?  Why did the water heater only last 4.5 years when it cost $2000?!  It's supposed to have a 6-year warranty so that should be a fun phone call tomorrow.  I should have called today, but I was busy all day.  We got more chairs delivered (not sure why the order was split?), but it wasn't as brutally cold.  We actually have a little warmup incoming with temps around 40 the next two days and 50 Friday.  Alas on Friday that 50 comes with heavy rain and winds over 50MPH.  I fully expect a 3-day power outage since I couldn't get the generators fully installed before real winter took over.  What a bunch of crap!

^I DO HAVE A PROBLEM SO COME AND FIX IT GODS DAMN YOUZ!

It was really cool of my brother to come up yesterday to scope things out for us. He had a couple fantastic ideas and suggestions, too. Funny side-story, when one of our friends and soon-to-be staff came in she saw Jason and I talking shit to each other and didn't have a clue what was going on. Jason and I were just joking around like siblings do, but she had no idea until after Jason left then she had a good laugh about it.

Jason was saying sorry for making more work for me because his biggest and brightest idea was to up-size the new DJ booth and make it stand out more as a focal-point and wow-factor. He knows I'm the builder, but he has nothing to be sorry about because doing that stuff is better than ripping up a rotten bathroom floor!

I did go to Nadia's 15th birthday party Saturday PM/evening, and I'm glad I went because soon my niece won't give a crispy shit what adults come to her party. She didn't give a shit whether I was there or not either because we're not that close, but she's a good kid and I'm happy to see her do well. I put $100 in her birthday card so I guess she was happy I showed up after all hahaha! I got to see Aunt Susie as well, I think for the first time in a couple years, and I hooked up some new phones for Mom and Dad. A quick trip, but a good visit and most likely the last time I go to Warren until 2026. I usually don't go down that way much in winter anyway because I get busy working with tax season and everything else.

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Saturday, 12-13-25: Why do I love this impossible game so much?
I was ripping out tunes when the classic NES video game music came on for the 1988 under-the-radar game called Legacy of the Wizard. That fuckin' game... I love it, I adore it, and it represents everything to love and hate about Nintendo games from the late 80s and early 90s. The game is nearly impossible to beat without cheat-codes, and I've never done it. What a bunch of crap! However, I love the game and every time I see clips of it, think about it, or listen to its music I feel happier.

There is a totally epic video online that is called a love-letter to Legacy of the Wizard, and it's all acoustic guitar. I generally think acoustic music FUCKING SUCKS ASS, but this one is a total win. The best music has electric guitar riffs, but I'll take this all day any day.

The dungeon theme of Legacy of the Wizard is the best video-game song of all-time, and it's not even in question. That music is just awesome. It was my ring-tone on my Alcatel One-Touch cellphone from 10+ years ago. I don't even know how I figured out how to do that by the way because I am technology-inept. Maybe I had a friend help? Or I was the blind squirrel that found the nut hehe. I did have more free time back then so maybe I played around with it until I made it work.

The game itself, though. Maddening at times! Especially as a kid in the late 80s with no cheats available, maybe only a blurb in Nintendo Power magazine if we were lucky. Got lost a lot. Died a lot. Kept at it a lot because it was the 80s and everything was better back then except for maybe porn and weather forecasting. Hell, even most computers were better back then because they were too stupid to become self-aware. Now we are probably only a few decades or less from becoming citizens in either The Terminator world or The Matrix world. AI does evertthing and soon it will be past the point of no return. Sounds like a fantastic classic rock song that I should go listen to.

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Friday, 12-12-25: How will things be different this time? Today SUCKED!
All I wanna know is why?  Why am I getting back into the restaurant business?  Did my parents have any children that lived?  Hehehe.  Doug and I are questionable but hey Jason seemed to get it right with a son, a daughter, a boat, a nice house, only thing missing is a white picket fence hehe.  I am really proud of him and in another life that might have been my loser-ass right there with him.  I am first-born of three boys, but I am definitely NOT #1 on the list.  I might be in last place now what a bunch of crap!  How much do I care?  Where's Morla the Ancient One from The Neverending Story?

I DON'T EVEN CARE... WHETHER OR NOT I CARE. I should watch that movie again soon because it's great.

Funny story that is 100% true. About 12-13 years ago the chick I was with at the time was having a night out with her friends or something like that so I had the house to myself. What did I do? I ate deer steak and watched The Neverending Story and it was fucking awesome! Like, one of the best nights of my life at the time awesome. No wonder that relationship failed. Now Kat would think that is a great night, except for the deer steak part because how many women really enjoy eating venison? None I've ever met! (I put deer steak in a different category than deer burger for the palatability of it.)

Man, today absolutely sucked. This state's goodwill in my book decreased, and I thought about how nice it would be to hang out on a sunny beach at about 80 degrees, sunny, low humidity.  Florida?  Sadly we got blasted by wind and the actual air temp was 15-20.  Who cares if you're indoors?  Unfortunately a shit-storm of epic failer happened late morning and into midday.  I was as the restaurant with my awesome wife waiting for what I thought would be an easy delivery.  My bad there.  A HUGE fridge arrived and the driver left it on the pallet and all wrapped up in cardboard and cheapo luan wood.  I don't blame the driver for just leaving it because he did his job, but I do blame the people who packeged it.  DID YOU REALLY NEED ALL THAT PACKAGING?!  It was literally below zero with the wind chill, especially considering that on a NW or SE wind that plaza exterior becomes a horrible wind-tunnel.  It was BRUTALLY COLD.  What a bunch of crap!

This fridge is HUGE.  It does have wheels, but the wheels are useless when they are 100% encased in luan and plywood.  I had to bust out the sawzall, we froze, and even worse I was supposed to be at that garage job at 1100 with my helper so start a stucco-style ceiling.  Delivery arrived around 1040 so I was pwned.  Then more deliveries kept coming and I think we got $20k worth of stuff in the span of about two hours.  Sadly I couldn't be there for all of it and I got PISSED OFF.  Like, really upset and about as miserable as I was for the entirety of December, 2024.  That is a path I CANNOT go down ever again if I plan to live.  We all know how little I care about my life, I really am ok with death, but I don't want to check out and let people down yet.  If I die at 50 it's a trajedy, but if I die at 70 that's more acceptable.  Maybe?  Hopefully!

The Pet Shop Boys song called It's Alright is really good. The video is funny it's Neil and Chris (the Pet Shop Boys) randomly hanging out with babies.  They threw in a black baby hahaha.  Gotta love the 80s.  This video might be inappropriate in today's pussy-ass world since he pets the kids' head like you'd pet a dog in one scene.  They put close to a dozen babies in this video HAHAHAHAHA! This song is really great and stuff like this keeps me alive.

All I wanna know is why?  Why over the past year when I drink alone do I want to listen to The Pet Shop Boys?  I do listen to other awesome 80s music, but mostly it's the Pet Shop Boys.  Where's my psychologist?  If you don't like the Pet Shop Boys then I hate you.  I probably hate you anyway, but I'll hate you a little more.  I once heard that if you drink alone that is a red flag of sorts, but I LOVE drinking alone.  Am I really alone when I am ripping out awesome 80s tunes and writing my useless thoughts to my one follower?  Who is that follower?  ME! Drinking alone is fucking awesome and I should do it more, but I don't want to become a drunk-ass loser at age 50. Regular loser I am fine with. Drunk loser is just a bridge too far.

I read some of the archives from last year and it was really sad so I don't want to do that again for a while.  I was in REALLY bad shape last year.  I can't let that happen again.  I know I'm already stressed out because Kat says I toss and turn all the time at night.  Sometimes it wakes her up, and she barely sleeps as-is.  She was up at 0330 this morning and it's been 0430 most mornings this week.  OMG! That's great if she bivouacs at 1900 the night before and sleeps soundly, but she definitely does not. I got up at 0709 yesterday morning and felt like a piece of shit for sleeping in so I told Kat DON'T LET ME SLEEP PAST 0630! I could set my alarm, but I fear if I do that and my awesome wife is still sleeping it will bother her.

I go to bed pretty early most nights, but even with the edible I don't sleep so great. What a bunch of crap! I never thought I was an insomniac and I still don't think I am one, but I flirt with it at times, especially without the aide of a pot cookie hehe.

It's a Friday night at 2109 and I am sure I'll be racked out before official taps, taps, lights out at 2200.  Funny that made me think back to my life 30 years ago when I was still stationed aboard the USS Carl Vinson.  If I only knew half then of what I know now... I WOULD HAVE LISTENED TO MORE PET SHOP BOYS HAHAHAHA.

Favorite Pet Shop Boys songs:
-What Have I Done (To Deserve This?)
-Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
-It's a Sin
-Suburbia
-He Dreamed of Machines
-West End Girls
-Love Comes Quickly
-Always on my Mind

I could list more because there are a lot, but I also listen to other great 80s tunes like Tina Turner's We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome.)  I've written it before, but I can't possibly write it enough.  GREAT SONG AND GREAT MOVIE.  If you don't like it you can ggggggggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeettttttttttttttttttt ooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!

I was VERY stressed out earlier and most of today sucked ass for me.  It was the definition of ten pounds of crap stuffed into a five-pound bag.  The severe cold, the deliveries happening right when I had to leave, and my feeling like I can't keep up just doomed the entire day.  I felt so badly leaving my wife when all those deliveries were coming, but I have another job that I need to do gods damn it.  I actually have three jobs again.  WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

I wonder we are ever gonna change.  Living under the fear 'til nothing else remains.  We don't need another hero.  We don't need to find another way home.  All we need is life beyond The Thunderdome.  What do I need?  Do I need a life beyond the Mad Kat?  I am excited for the restaurant, but I worry I am going to do the same stupid shit I did the first time and that will lead to failure.  If I stay on top of it we won't fail, but if I fall apart we are pwned.  My awesome wife can shoulder a lot of the load, much more than I can, but certainly not all of it.

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Thursday, 12-11-25: Shopping failer and Celtics game on TV.
How much Christmas shopping have I done so far? If you said NONE then you know how I roll hehe. Oh, my 15-year old niece has her birthday party this Saturday and what have I done about that? NOTHING. What a bunch of crap! I don't even know if I went to her 14th birthday party last year. I probably didn't because my life was a total dumpster. Checking the archives of this bootleg turd-heap now...

Nothing about whether I went to her birthday or not, but I'm guessing not. I did find this gem of an opening to my 12-19-2024 update:

We have no excuses today. Sales were ten pounds of crap stuffed into a five-pound bag, and that is a bunch of crap. I'm so done with that stupid fuckin' restaurant that has ruined my shitty life and made me depressed and at times a little suicidal. I don't fuckin' care if I live. If a giant asteroid comes to pulverize this planet oh well at least I had a good run before it all ended. Fuck that Mad Kat restaurant.

OMG WHAT A BUNNH OF CRAP! I'm not sorry I wrote that, though. Most of the fall and early winter last year that was a recurring theme. This time the restaurant will be different, though. Maybe? Hopefully!

The Celtics are in Milwakee playing the Bucks tonight. Boston is up 71-63 early in the 3rd, and the Celtics are 10-2 in their last dozen games and are in 3rd place now after a lackluster start to their season. They showed a video of Tatum practicing and he looked good so that's also encouraging. Tatum blew out his achillies in May last year during a playoff game and after he went down so the the team and they washed out of the playoffs. What a bunch of crap!

I don't really watch too much for sports lately because I'm so friggin' busy again. My awesome wife crushed it today when she got sales reps in that place, made phone calls, and just generally owed that CEO role. She needs to do that more when we're open, too. I helped her quite a bit at the restaurant today, but I did have to spend a little over 3 total hours today for that garage job. Part of that was a supply-run, part was a little recessed light shopping online, and most of it was starting this:

Hoomeowner wants a badass bookshelf-cabinet-thing so I started that. It helps this will be the third one I've built. My goal is to get his stuff done this month so in January I can focus on the restaurant and the tax business. Still hoping to open the restaurant mid-January, but we can't set a date yet because there is still too much to do there.

I worked on this wall today at the restaurant:

^Wainscotting will be painted and of course I'll install a transition between that and the sheetrock above.

A new bar-top needs to happen. On Sunday Remy and I went beast-mode to get the top off the bar, and that was NOT easy. Epoxy seeped down into the joints and seams and acted like a glue so it was a battle, but we won:

I don't know what the new bar-top will look like; I just hope we don't screw up the epoxy like we did when we made the bar-top five years ago. Thankfully for now the place heats well so that will help the epoxy cure.

The Celtics had a big lead early in this game and now they're losing, 78-75. What a bunch of crap! The Bucks aren't very good this season, but they have been good in many previous years.

I should bivouac soon. Game will probably be over in 45 minutes, but I'm getting tired. I have two days to get Nadia a birthday gift (I'll just put some cash in a birthday card and call it good) and 12 days to get my awesome wife a Christmas present. Can I make that happen? Maybe? Hopefully!

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Saturday, 12-06-25: Snow, cold, and trying to do a remodel. Seems like 2020 but a lot better than 2020.
Sometimes when I'm working at our soon-to-be Mad Kat Restaurant I have Deja Vu. It's almost mind-blowing that we have the space back and are doing another remodel. The first remodel from late 2020 and early 2021 took a lot out of us. A LOT. This one will take a lot out of us as well, but this time around we have much more support, there isn't a pandemic lockdown, and we mostly know what we're doing. Will that translate into much success? I dunno but I am way more confident about it now than I've ever been. Meanwhile I'm still working at that huge garage job trying to finish what I can before I get too busy with tax season. I would say I want to stop working at that garage when real winter sets in, but that happened this past week:

^Photo taken Tuesday PM, and ever since then it's a tundra here. I was barely able to get the ceiling of that garage mostly insulated as the snow fell, and I took that photo from the truck while the homeowner fired up his huge RV to park it in there for the winter. It does fit, but barely. I don't think I can finish the exterior front until the spring due to the totally fucked weather.

Having real winter arrive a month early = what a bunch of crap! Seriosuly, bummer. It's expensive when it's cold because there has to be heat so we don't die. This cold is all-bad for the heat bill for the restaurant, especially with the ceiling half-gone, but there are two things we can do about it: nothing and like it. The cold has no end in sight either. Zero degrees first thing yesterday morning = HARD PASS THAT SUCKS.

I only worked 17 hours on that garage this week. What a bunch of crap! I'm aiming for closer to 20 hours a week there, but the homeowner owes me some money so I don't feel horrible when I'm not there. He usually owes me money and I sorta like that because it gives me a reason to NOT be there all the time. I enjoy the work, but I'm insanely busy and I've been insanely busy for the past five years. What a bunch of crap! My work-life balance is totally pwned and it's my own damn fault.

My awesome Mad Kat wife and I took all kinds of crap to the dump this morning before baby Dylan's 1st birthday party. She's way too young to know who she is but watching her eat cake was entertaining. She just grabbed it with her tiny little fists and heeled it into her pie-hole. Then she went into a food-coma and slept for two hours while Kat and I went back to work at the bar. Kat ate too much cake and almost went into a food-coma as well hahahaha!

We took the trash to the Brewer Landfill where they don't put you on a scale so I dunno how much trash we tossed, but we spent $80 total for two trips using the bigass dump trailer so I'd estimate we tossed over one ton of debris. That dump trailer is awesome! If we didn't have that I would have just gotten a dumpster delivered, and that would have cost ten times more. We did get approved for a loan and we have precious... precious money in the bank, but we don't want to blow it all before we open. If we went to the other dump it would have cost between $200-$300. I like the other dump, they treat me well there and give veteran pricing, but nothing can top the Brewer Landfill. One day that place will be too full and it will close, but I'm hoping that doesn't happen for a long time then it won't be my problem anymore hehehe.

Wow, it's only 2120 and I've been up for a while hanging out with me, myself, and I. I have one dog at my feet and I see two cats. We have too many friggin' pets and the dogs just piss me off most of the time. Tiger Lily loves eating dog shit, especially when it's frozen, so that sucks. A lot. I go scoop it but then they make more and I'm not scooping it up three times a day gods damn it. My awesome wife racked out really early because she doesn't sleep well anymore and that makes me sad. I've been sleeping well lately, but I eat edibles and without those I'd be pwned.

AC/DC Dean (cool nickname) came to my birthday party last Saturday and brought me some of his edibles. I usually get them from Andrea, my sister-in-law, but Dean make them the best. Andreas taste better, but Dean's are POTENT. If you eat too much of Dean's edibles you wake up feeling hungover. What a bunch of crap! I ate some of Dean's edible an hour ago so my time being functionally awake is now very limited. Plus I've had a couple drinks so that really means game over soon! I won't wake up hungover, though. I'm not hitting it hard because that's just dumb. We do plan to work a full day tomorrow then I might play racquetball later PM. We still have A LOT to do at that restaurant. Today was good, productive, and I hope the same for tomorrow...

Alright turds, all two of you who read this bootleg site, I'm gonna listen to a couple more Pet Shop Boys songs before I rack out with my crack out. If I go to bed now I'll be up at 0500 so I will surf the web a little then shut it down. Goonies never say die!

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Saturday, 12-06-25: Restaurant, garage, winter, flat tire.
Man it got cold.  We got about 4-5 inches of snow Tuesday PM/night and we woke up to zero degrees this morning.  ZERO!  Our high temp for today was only 16.  What a bunch of crap!  Apparently the cold air caused my rear passenger truck tire to quit, or so it seems.  Check this out:

NOOOOOO!  I left without even seeing it, but I barely got past the end of the driveway before I realized there was a serious problem.  I was able to back into the driveway and back to the house, I looked for a compressor, but there wasn't one since I had jsut taken my second one to the restaurant literally the day prior.  What a bunch of crap!  I thought maybe I ran over a nail or screw at that garage job, but I don't think so.  I can't access my spare tire, that is impossible due to 15 years of rust and wear, so I called AAA and had to wait at home for 1.5 hours before the truck came to deal with it.  Thankfully the tire holds air... enough.  I need to refill it twice a day and doing that in this weather 100% sucks ass. I'm bringing it to the shop Monday at 1500 so they better fix this bullshit for me.  I'm getting sick of putting air in my tires every couple weeks gods damn it.  I really just need a newer truck.

We closed on the business loan yesterday and spend close to $35,000 in one hour alone hahahaha!  Last night my awesome wife ordered a bunch of stuff from Webstaurant and Amazon.  She pretty much had the shopping list done and once the funds were in the account it was just a matter of the spending.  Blowing that much precious... precious money at once sucks, but it's needed.  A new beer fridge was atop the list, but we need all kinds of other stuff. We still don't have a clue when we will be ready to open, but mid-late next month still seems most likely.  Could it push into February?  I really hope not, but it sure is possible.  We don't have unlimited funds so we need to get open before we blow through the available funds.  Heat won't be cheap either with January conditions already here a month early and with a lot of the ceiling down.  I'm working here:

I decided to raise the insulation above the ceiling tiles so dealing with the tiles is easier and by a lot.  A LOT.  However, that does add time and it's a bit of a pain in the arse so I'm not sure I can pull it off.  Maybe?  Hopefully!  Having the insulation higher up will really make things great when it's time to replace a tile or two and for wire-management.

I'm still putting in time at that huge garage job, but only 17 hours this week due to the restaurant and the truly garbage weather.  Here is the larger of the two upstairs rooms:

Not fully sheetrocked yet, but close.  The second room needs much more work, but I can finish that in the spring if I get totally jammed up.  I do want both upstairs rooms done by next month, but I don't think I can pull that off and do the restaurant at the same time.  Plus I have to get ready for tax season and I was just doing some tax training a few minutes ago.  I still have to set up the tax office, but that shouldn't take too long maybe only half a day total.  The office is going back to where it was for a few years at the restaurant so I've already done it once in the past hahaha.

^The second lower-priority room at that garage job. Can I finish that room this year as well as the office room? Seems unlikely considering how busy we expect to be this month. It can wait until the spring, but getting it done this year or very early next month would be great so that's less I have to deal with in the spring when the restaurant is fully operational and other things will surely come up between now and then.