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"Japan is like in the middle of China." -Katherine on the subject of Asia

Thursday, 1-29-15: Snow, taxes, and donuts.
The blizzard from two days ago sure put the fucks to the northeast. Many places in southern Maine, NH, and eastern Mass. got 30 inches of snow. 2.5 feet. OMG! Thankfully here in Brewer we "only" got 18". It was a very powdery snow since we didn't cross above 10 degrees during the day Tuesday, but it was still a bitch to shovel. We shovelled the hell out of the driveway on Tuesday before lunch and then again before supper; however, it drifted over and snowed some more Tuesday night so the driveway was pwned again Wednesday morning. What a bunch of crap!

I left some for Tommy to shovel, but he didn't shovel jack shit yet. I plan to give him a hard time about that for sure. I actually don't know how he got his car into the driveway with the huge snowbank at the end choking the thing off. He needs to grab that shovel and get motivated! He was actually supposed to move out by Jan. 1st, but unforseen circumstances in his life caused him to stay longer. It's been hard for us since we can't finish moving the rest of Kat and Katherine's stuff over from her place in Bangor, but we make due. Now we're totally fucked because of all the snow and work hours at JH so I suppose the rest of the move will have to wait. I feel bad because I told her Tommy would move out, but then he didn't move out. Thankfully she hasn't hauled on me yet because of it.

I've eaten a lot of donuts this month. A lot. On Sunday I bought a "baker's dozen" donuts at Walmart after work for $3.98. Donuts rule! However, Kat also bought a baker's dozen so we ended up with 26 donuts in the house. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Great minds think alike they say. All I wanna know is why? Why does a baker's dozen have to be 13? Who invented that stupid shit? I am all for throwing a free donut into a 12-pack, but why not just call it a 13-pack? Does bad luck factor into that verbage? I could go on, but I already stopped caring. I don't even care... if I care. Also, why was the price $3.98? Why not call it $3.99 and they make an extra penny off that sale? might not seem like much, but it adds up. Beotches! I probably would have paid $5 so they could have made an extra buck off me. Hehehehe.

Last week I bought these donuts and shovelled them in pretty fast:

^WALMART BAKERY RULES! As an added bonus, I work inside WalMart so I have access to delicious bakery donuts. How do I still weigh 148 pounds? I haven't gotten a ton of exercise this month, but it has been enough.

Those 26 donuts are long gone. The last crusty one disappeared this morning. I probably ate half of those 26. Seriously. The last few were fairly crusty, but there was no mold on them yet so in the gom-hole they went! Crusty donuts aren't as good as fresh donuts, but 10 seconds in the microwave does help make them seem somewhat less stale.

I stopped at the grocery store this morning after I dropped Katherine off at school, and I didn't buy any more donuts. OMG. A rare thing has happened. I have achieved donut consumption satiation. I do not want to eat any more donuts today. Maybe I will want more tomorrow, but for now I am all set. It is VERY rare when I don't want to eat a donut. Sometimes I even wake up and an excited to go get breakfast when I know donuts await. This morning I was not excited to eat a donut, but throwing any donuts away was NOT an option so I shovelled one in. There actually was one final plain sugary crusty donut left that I broke in half and gave to the dogs. Donut abuse! I should not have admitted that. What a bunch of crap!

^Classic Simpson's episode (15 or so years ago when the show was actually good) where Homer goes to hell and never gets sick of eating donuts. Homer Simpson's love of donuts > my love of donuts.

I worked 12 hours doing taxes yesterday. BEAST MODE. I was scheduled to work 10 hours in Brewer, but it was epic busy. Kat was busy at the Bangor JH Kiosk as well. In fact, she sent a couple customers my way. I finished up 9 tax returns. Awesome! At the end of the day I was sick of looking at tax forms and w2s, but I'll be ready to drop the hammer again come Saturday. (I have today and tomorrow off.) I want to do at least 200 taxes this year so I hope it stays busy. I'm sure the end of next month and most of March will be a lot less busy so I want to do a LOT of taxes until it does slow down.

Tuesday, 1-27-15: Blizzard!
I was supposed to work today, but we're in the middle of an epic blizzard so work is cancelled. Bye bye money, hello snow shovel. This storm is BAD, too. Keith Carson and Jim Cantore are on the Weather Channel live in Boston where they have a ton of new snow. They are joking around about snow shoes. Show me the radar gods damn youz!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Jason forwarded that to me in a email, and Kat showed it to me on her Failbook page. Classic use of Photoshop right there.

Kat and I just went and shoveled some. I told her to come inside, but she is tough and stayed outside. It's ten degrees with about 40MPH winds so the air feels like way below zero. What a bunch of crap! We already have mountains of snow out there; when I woke up it was pouring down from the sky. Looked like fog. Can't wait for the plowing bill for this one...

They say we should end up with 15-20 total inches. We got a few inches last Saturday PM, and we're supposed to get more Friday night. Then it gets way cold again into next week with lows in the negative numbers. What a bunch of crap! These last two winters have been really nasty, and I'm sick of it. Time to find a warmer place to sneak off to for these worst winter months. Maybe I can get an RV and we can go cruising south. However, probably not because those things cost a lot. A LOT. Then when you drive in one you get about 8MPG, or so I've heard. I've never actually hung out in an RV so that's just my theory. What a bunch of crap!

Speaking of fuel, gas around here is all the way down to $2.09 a gallon. It's been that low for most of this month, and I'm hoping it stays that low for a long time to come. $40 took my truck from 1/4 up to 7/8 last week. Nice! Back when gas was $3.60 a gallon I would have gotten up to about 5/8 full from 1/4 full with $40. Extra money helps because all my other costs are higher than ever. The price of gas and oil has fallen, but natural gas sure as hell hasn't dropped and that's what I use to heat all my properties. What a bunch of price-gouging crap!

Business has picked way up at the JH Walmart Kiosks. I worked 10 hours yesterday, and I had several tax clients. I was scheduled to work 44 hours this week, but bye bye ten scheduled hours from today due to this monster blizzard. Next week will be the busiest week of the tax season, but my co-worker in Brewer will be back from a vacation so I think I won't get over 40 hours. However, I really have no clue and it doesn't matter. If I get 20 hours then great. If I get 50 then great, too. More hours at JH is better for the paycheck, but too many hours makes it hard to be a slumlord and do fun things with my Sweet Pea.

I took this picture of my gym side-project renovation:


It's just about ready for paint, and I plan to get it all painted on Thursday. Then if I feel motivated enough I can start the suspended ceiling, trim work, and I'm done.

I'm out of here, chumps (all two of youz who actually read this monkey crap.) I hate winter!

Friday, 1-23-15: Stupid FFI tenants.
All I wanna know is why? Why do my newest tenants have to be Giblet-Heads? Last week I wrote them a letter that said "Behave or gtfo." Here is an excerpt from it:

"Your neighbors have expressed concerns regarding noise levels in your apartment. Please be considerate at all times when having friends visit, when playing music and/or TV, or when vacuuming the floor (no midnight vacuuming.) Furthermore, smoking inside the apartment is never allowed."

Midnight vacuuming. HAHAHAHAHA! According to them it was only 2100. Their neighbors said it was midnight, I guess that really means 2230, and it's still too late at night to be upstairs and running a frigging vacuum.

Apparently they like to smoke the wacky tobbacy on occasion. The apartment is my 4BR so 4 college-aged roommates split the rent there. I doubt all four of them like to get baked, but someone sure as hell must be doing it because it stinks up the entire duplex, right down through the vents and into the first-floor apartment. What a bunch of crap! Even worse, these fuck-tards have only lived there for a few weeks at most. Gods damn it!

In addition to the letter that I left for them last Thursday I called two of them up and had a conversation about expectations, rules, and general neighborly-ness. (Not a real word? Eh, fuck it. If you don't like it you can ggggggggggeeeeeeeeettttttttttttt ooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttttttttt!) They said okay, no problems. I said no problems, only solutions! I'm obviously not qoting verbatim here, but you get the gist. Last night I got a text from the people who live below them. Smelled like pot again. Nice! So I did what any responsible slumlord would do at 2200 when it's bedtime. I snuggled with my hot fiancee and went to sleep. Mental note filed.

Today at 1530 I got another text. Smelled like pot again. What a bunch of crap! I was on my way to an ass-kicking at racquetball so I decided to handle it later. Now it's later! I just helped my sexy fiancee set up her gear down at Jester's, and I beat-feet it across the street to my bootleg office to handle some business as I rip out 80s tunes. Glass Tiger, Someday, extended mix. If you don't like that song then I hate you. I probably hate you anyway, but I'll hate you just a little more.

Kat looks really good all the time, but it's next-level hot when she's hosting karaoke or doing gigs as a DJ. She looks GOOD. Like, how did I get so lucky I maybe should belive in God okay just kidding there really is no God but damn I just cooked Hamburger Helper WITH DEER MEAT and she still loves me so that cannot be explained. Epic run-on sentence just happened.

^OMG I don't have to mastrubate anymore! Hehehe. Wedding April 19th. Be there or be square.

I need more money so I can afford a honeymoon.

I'm drafting a new letter to these Giblet-Head tenants, and I swear to the Gods who do not really exist that I am going to bang on their door in a few minutes and have a chat with whomever is home. I just gotta stop checking out my gorgeous fiancee (I learned it's only spelled with one E at the end, but I don't even care... if I care. Adding the extra E at the end of fiance means I love her extra. Hehehehe.) I hav a FIANCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This new letter says:

"Smoking inside the apartment, or near enough to the apartment so odors spread throughout the interior of the building, is NEVER permitted. Page four of your lease, #21 reads “Smoking inside the apartment is not allowed at any time.” I am a very accommodating property manager, but this is a definite deal-breaker. I have discussed this issue with you already, and I do not anticipate having any further conversations about the matter. The next time anyone smokes inside the apartment none of you will be welcome to stay at this complex anymore. Please take this notice seriously; it is a FINAL warning."

If that doesn't get the message across then I will begin the eviction process. Damn bunch of FFIs living there. What a bunch of crap! (FFI = Failure to follow instruction.)

In other news, I've been pretty damn busy so I don't update this bootleg site anymore. I had a couple kinda-boring days at JH in the Brewer WalMart because not too many customers came my way. However, a lot more people have their w2s and crap now so I know it will get BUSY. I covered the kiosk in Bangor for a couple hours yesterday AM and did two back to back. So far I've finished 8, and I need 192 more to reach goal. It's a high goal that I might not reach, but I sure hope I do!

Okay, I'm off to go drop the hammer on Giblet-heads now. I'll be back to write about it!

Wow, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I just went over there, knocked on the door, and I saw through the front door window two people sitting on the couch smoking pot. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! The dudes who were smoking don't even live there either. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Nothing like getting caught red-handed, eh? It doesn't even piss me off; I actually think it's funny and I'm in a good mood because I am being PROACTIVE and creating solutions. No problems, only solutions! If I let my emotions get the better of me then I have failed and I shouldn't be a slumlord anymore.

The even funnier part is two of the tenants are a guy and a girl, boyfriend and girlfriend couple. I talked to the guy about the smoking last week and I told him to let everyone know. His girlfriend wasn't there at the time. This time it was his girlfriend who answered the door, I told her you've been busted, I handed her the letter, and I told her they're off the boat if it happens one more time. Gods damned Giblet-Heads. I never want to bring up the word "eviction", but sometimes in this business is needs to be said.

All I wanna know is why? Why didn't the boyfriend bother to tell his chick over dinner or at least over pillow-talk before bed "Oh, by the way, the scumlord called earlier, dropped off a letter, and told me we can't be too loud or smoke in here." The boyfriend wasn't there tonight, but I just called him and had a nice chat with him. I asked him why he didn't tell his chick, who was there now getting baked with her basketball team friends, and he had no good comeback. However, he did say he doesn't want to get evicted so he'd make sure it never happens again. I hope he's right because if not they can all GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT OOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

Alright turds, all two of youz, I gotta get my arse over to Jester's so I can drink a couple beers and listen to my best friend sing cool songs. Not only is she a great karaoke host, but she is also a great singer. She might sing some Pat Benatar later. I win!

Thursday, 1-15-15: A look back at 2014.
I just finished up in the gym, and before I got my swell on I was electrocuting myself when I was moving light switches (only 110v, no big deal. Hehehehe.) I have today and tomorrow off from JH so today I worked on the gym expansion for a few hours. I finished framing everything; now it's ready for sheetrock. I started that project back in March of last year. Taking 10 months to still not have it finished = what a bunch of crap! Hanging out with my awesome fiancee > finishing the gym expansion that I don't desperately need. It sure will be nice to finally finish, but at my current pace that won't be until the spring.

^Project began March, 2014. It's finally well past the halfway mark towards completion.

I failed to meet my exercise goal last year. What a bunch of crap! It's the first year I've failed to reach goal since 2010. The goal is to average 30 minutes a day so 182.5 hours a year (Leap year 183) would equal the goal. I made it to 172.5 last year. How do I keep track you ask? Well I'm ridiculous and have a spreadsheet for everything. Literally, everything. Thanks, Micosoft Excel! I keep track of how much I exercise, and I split it up into two main categories: lifting and cardio. I strive for an average of two hours a week weightlifting and the rest cardio, but that never works out because when I go blueberry raking I don't lift weights. Plus I take time off for Goonie adventures, too much work, illness, etc. at varying times during the year. Normally I get the most exercise in the spring, summer, and early fall. This time of year is hard because everything outside is a frozen wasteland. What a bunch of crap!

So last year I made it close, but no cigar to the goal. It' not an exact science at all. For example, when I play racquetball for an hour I don't count the entire hour because we take a break for water, sometimes I suck and don't get a good workout, etc. When I blueberry rake for 6 hours I don't count it at 6 hours of exercise, etc. I actually got a lot of exercise last year and I feel like I did great. I feel great. Working those 6 weeks at the USPS the last two months burned a lot of calories, and I didn't count any of that towards my goal. I won't burn jack shit for calories when I sit at my tax kiosk these next three months!

Today is the 15th, and I'm at 7.5 hours total. Right on track! Unfortunately, the metaphorical train is heading off the tracks ASAP because I will start working more hours at JH soon. Then after tax season I will get married and hopefully have awesome Goonie adventures with my hot wife. That doesn't leave enough time for exercise so I will have to make up for it later in the year.

Last year was quite a ride. I started it off living in Bradley, working at UPS, and planning to buy this 3-unit building:

However, I realized that I wanted to just get my own spread and disappear from Kelly's house so I found a sweet little ranch and made it my own on April 23. It took a lot to get the house. A LOT. Local banks told me to hit the road, but I found Cross Country mortgage in Ohio and they were fantastic. If not for them I'd be renting a 1br somewhere right now and probably still stuck in a lease.

I busted my ass renovating my house to better suite my needs, and most of the renovations got done just before Doug flew back for a visit at the end of May. Those three or so weeks of renovations were busy; sometimes I'd mud/tape/sand at 0330 before going into work at UPS an hour later. The renovation cost a few grand, but it opened up the floor plan and expanded the bathroom so I think it was money and labor well spent. Doug hit the road in early June to drive back to Arizona, and in late June my life really took an unexpected and fantastic turn when Kat agreed to come back to the house for a late-night fire. Her and I hit it off immediately, and we've been inseparable since.

Within days of seeing Kat I knew her and I had something special. Also at that time I was down to my final straw at UPS. Tommy got a job at UPS as well, he thought it was a piece of shit, so he and I quit on the same day. I actually tried to give my two-week notice, but my boss just issued me parole that same day. Works for me! In a funny coincidence, Kat actually worked at UPS briefly as well in November. She hauled on that shit-job pretty fast, too. UPS SUCKS!

I had the summer of my life hanging out with Kat. When it was time to work hard, we worked hard (blueberry raking, apartment painting and related, her gigs as a DJ/KJ, etc.) However, we made sure that we had plenty of time to enjoy the brief Maine summer. We did lots of camping and hiking, and we made many evening strolls down to Jimmy's Ice Cream.

In the fall Kat and I took a week-long road trip/vacation all the way to Michigan and back. Along the way we had many more Goonie adveutnres like exploring caves, seeing Niagra Falls, and watching an IMPACT WRESTLING taping. It was a great time, and it solidified the fact that we were 100% compatable. Hours and hours stuck in the same car, checking into the most bootleg hotel ever, and getting lost didn't wear us down at all.

^MY GF IS HOT. That poster actually made it onto TV, too. Oh Jesus, hell ya!

On September 28 last year I asked Kat to marry me, she said yes, and now we have a wedding coming up in just over three months. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be able to find my perfect match and actually get her to say yes to her spending the rest of her live with me. Awesome! After I hit the road from Kelly's the last thing I was thinking of was being in another relationship. I was planning to drink a lot of beer (which I did in the spring last year), play a lot of video games, and just hang out until something happened or until I decided to die. I didn't even care... if I cared. Then I met Kat and I pretty much fixed my shit thanks to her. Awesome! Now I don't drink half as much, I don't think about freezing myself to death (good thing because there have been plenty of opportunities lately thanks to a frigid January), and I'm happy. I guess before I met Kat I wasn't a total shit-show, but I was just kinda existing in some weird emotional and life void.

Kat and I decided to live together at the house in Brewer so in October we started building a fence in the backyard for the dogs. The fence was actually quite a time-consuming project since it was 192 feet in total length. We finished the fence in early November, I had time to go deer hunting and shoot a mid-sized doe, and then it was time to start the USPS job, train for the JH job, and start moving Kat and her daughter, Katherine, over to Brewer. The move is still incomplete, but we're all living together as a happy family now. All the essentials are at the house here in Brewer. Before the move Kat spent most of her time with me in Brewer over the summer, I spent most of my time with her at her place in Bangor in the fall, and now we are officially living together for real here in Brewer. Awesome!

^Home, sweet home for Kat, Katherine, and I. Tommy is actually still staying with us, but he plans to get his own spread in the very near future.

2014 was really a crazy year for me. I had five jobs! First, as always, is the slumlording. Second was UPS, a total piece of shit job that I don't regret hauling on. In August came an epic blueberry raking season that lasted for most of the month because I raked for Cliff and then John and Susette down in Franklin. I even taught Kat how to blueberry rake and we had many Goonie adventures in the blueberry fields down there. She was good at raking, too! After raking I took it easy for a bit before finding a job at the USPS working nights before the busy Christmas season. Also in the early fall I submitted an inquiry to Jackson Hewitt that led to a conversation with a local manager, an invitation to try their online training course, and a job. Kat got a job at JH, too. How cool is that?!

In conclusion, 2014 was a roller-coaster ride of a year for me. It started off not so great, it got better when I got my house, then it was just okay, and then I met Kat and it got FUCKING AWESOME. I'm hoping this year will be FUCKING AWESOME, too. So far it's way too early to tell because January is a giant, depsressing turd of a month. I think it will be a great year, though. I'm getting married this year. April 19th, beotches! Mark it on your calendars, all two of youz who actually read this bootleg blog of mine.

Goonies never say die!

Monday, 1-12-15: A new generation of communication Giblet-heads.
I've noticed a disturbing trend over the past several years. More and more people don't answer their frigging phones, especially the younger generation. It just happened again. I called and left a voicemail for a former tenant (security deposit refund. Needed current address), and then within a minute after I left the voicemail my phone was receiving a text message from that person. OMG!

HEY ALL YOU GIBLET-HEADS, HOW ABOUT YOU ANSWER YOUR FRIGGING PHONE INSTEAD OF LETTING IT GO TO VOICEMAIL, HEARING THE VOICEMAIL, AND THEN IMMEDIATELY BEGINNING A TEXT MESSAGE CONVERSATION WITH ME. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! It's like people would rather just text back and forth instead of picking up the phone and calling. A text is great for some small things, but an actual conversation should not occur over text. If your phone rings and you don't wanna answer it then fine, but don't refuse to answer and then decide to immediately text instead of calling back. Gods damn it! I guess this new generation is forgetting how to communicate verbally. Everyone lives off phone texts, instant messaging, and Failbook posts. I'll admit that I text quite a bit, but when I get a call I don't let it go to voicemail and then almost immediately send the caller a text message. Especially if it's a business-related call.

I suppose social media is allowing for the slow demise of actual conversations. People don't need to say "I'm going to the gym." when they can just post a sentence announcing it to the world on Failbook. When I had my fake Rambo Failbook account a couple years back I used to hate seeing those useless brief posts that no one really cares about. Don't tell the world you are heading off to the gym, don't tell the world you are eating crackers, don't tell the world you have to go get supper, just SHUT THE FUCK UP BECAUSE NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. I don't even own a Failbook account anymore (Fuck that gods damned thing!), but Kat has one so on occasion I can see her page when we sit together and use our laptop computers. 99% of what I see on that page makes me hate the world. It's all a bunch of crap!

In other news, I did my first real tax return at the JH WalMart kiosk on Saturday. That was a borderline shit-show, not because I don't know how to do taxes but because I haven't been properly trained on how to use their software. What a bunch of crap! Things were good until I got near the end and had to actually finish it up. My manager never set my PTIN up in the system so I wan't authorized yet. I didn't know how to activate one their JH cards (prepaid Visa), and I didn't even know how to get to the screen where clients e-sign a bunch of documents. Gods damn it!

Yesterday both Kat and I worked from noon to five at JH, and neither of us had any taxes to do all day. She was in Bangor, and I was in Brewer so we got to use their Lync program to chat back and forth. I spent time chatting with babes online when I was at work. Awesome! Both her and I actually used the chat feature for work-related things, but a lot of the time we were talking about other things like what pizza to get for supper. If corporate saved that chat and reads it then we might get in trouble. Not so sure "I love you Sweet Pea." is something they want us using their Lync chat thing for. Hehehehe.

On Saturday the Greatriots beat the Ravens to advance to the AFC championship game next week. Oh Jesus, hell ya! The Pats were losing for most of the game, but then they took a late lead because God Brady led the team down the field for a touchdown. They will play the Colts in Foxboro next Sunday, and if all goes as planned I will actually be able to watch the game because it's an evening kickoff. (I missed most of Saturday's game because I was at work. What a bunch of crap!)

^GOD BRADY WINS. A LOT. Brady is still in the playoffs, the Mannings are not. Awesome!

I should do other things now. I have today off from JH, but as always there is apartment work to attend to. Last Thursday I worked all day on the bootleg rentals because I had frozen pipes, bills to pay, more frozen pipes, etc. I didn't even have time to use the gym that day like I had planned to do. What a bunch of crap! So far today hasn't been too bad. I did have to go turn up the thermostat at one of my duplexes earlier. The first-floor thermostat controls the heat for both apartments in the building. I keep a lock-box on the thermostat at that building, but it had fallen off so the guys who live there decided to help me out and turn the heat down to 60 before they went back home for the holidays. Unfortunately, it also turned down the heat for their upstairs neighbors, the upstairs tenants didn't wanna bother me so they just tolerated the cold, but finally they let me know after about 3 weeks. HAHAHAHAHAHA!

I have awesome tenants in that building. The tenants in that upstairs apartment even said they wouldn't mind if I raised the rent to give them extra heat. HAHAHAHAHA! That's a definite first for me in over 10 years doing the slumlord thing, having a tenant tell me it's ok to raise rent. The guys who live in the first-floor apartment are two brothers, both in college, from up beyond The Forks a couple hours away. I really appreciated the fact that they turned the heat down when they knew they wouldn't be there, but it sucks they froze out their other neighbors. I'll save money on the heating bill since it's been turned down for about three weeks, maybe even more. Oh Jesus, hell ya!

Thursday, 1-08-15: Gods damn this weather.
It's been below zero for a few consecutive mornings. What a bunch of crap! This morning was down to -13 with a wind chill of -32. When it's this cold I don't even want to do anything, and I start to feel depressed. I don't think I can live in this state when I'm an old man. It sucks barely being able to go outside without getting chilled to the bone. Maybe if I was a giant fat fuck I wouldn't care, but at 147 pounds I definitely notice it. My office was 36 degrees. HAHAHAHA! It's never been below freezing in this bootleg office, but damn close. The extended forecast ain't too pretty, either.

The heating system in my house sucks. A lot. Thankfully we have electric space heaters and the fireplace. This summer or early fall I will definitely need to spend some money to get it installed properly. It's supposed to be radiant flooring heat, but it's a bunch of crap that was installed wrong. Like, way wrong. This morning it was down to 58 before I got the fire going. No problems, only sulutions!

I've been pretty stressed out lately; this time of year makes me a tad miserable anyway, but then I gotta add on my roommate staying extra, us not being able to finish the move (the rest of Kat's stuff from her place in Bangor over to our house in Brewer), training for the new JH job, trying to keep things squared away with the bootleg apartments, planning a wedding, etc, and it's just a lot. Thankfully her and I are as cool as the other side of the pillow (RIP Stuart Scott) so we will be okay in the end. No problems, only solutions!

I worked my first "live" day for JH in the Brewer WalMart Tuesday. I did a little training on Monday in Palmyra, but Tuesday was my big day of flying solo. Thankfully there weren't any real customers. I spent the day getting set up, doing training, etc. Yesterday I did have more potential customers stop in to ask questions and I did have live clients who thought they were ready to start their tax returns. However, they weren't really ready so after I spent some time with them I had to send them packing so they could go get the rest of the papers that we need. A lot of people haven't even gotten their w2s yet so obviously they have to wait.

Today and tomorrow are my days off from JH, but they're not really my days off because I have a lot of things to take care of. There's a leak at the building next door in the downstairs apartment (from the shower above) that I already started working on. I have bills to pay, I have a new tenant kit to prepare, I have to go to the bank, I have a couple more rents to collect, and maybe I will work on this for a bit:

That's the area of the gym I am trying to expand. I bought a used elliptical for that area, and I've used that elliptical a couple times already. (I like it.) Notice the broken mold-resistand sheetrock. I was heaving a couple sheets of the stuff onto my cart at Lowe's last week, and I heaved too hard. I let the sheet drop a couple feet onto the cart and it snapped. What a bunch of crap! I'm a giant Giblet-head for doing that. Now I have to use more mud and tape for the finish work. I could have bought another sheet, but screw that it's $13.25 so I will make what I have now work. I hope. No problems, only solution!

What's the solution to dealing with this cold weather? Move to a warmer climate? Now that's a solution I can get behind! When Kat and I get older I do plan to have a warm place for us to run off to for the winter. Just gotta pay off some mortgages first. Being a "snowbird" is looking better and better with each passing year. No problems, only solutions!

I guess I should get this paperwork ready for the new tenants and pay these bills now. I can't wait for next month's heating bills to come in [sarcasm.] Goddamn -13 degrees. My hands and feet are still cold despite the fact that I have an electric heater 15" away from my body. What a bunch of crap!

*Edit: it's already after 1600, and I have had no time to work on that gym expansion. I haven't even had a chance to use the gym yet like I had planned to do. I had two frozen-pipe calls and other stuff to deal with so it's been a full day of work as a slumlord today. What a bunch of crap!

Tuesday, 1-06-15: Who leaves behind this stuff?
One of my bootleg apartments is a circus, but it's actually kinda funny and it doesn't annoy me that much. It's a revolving door of college-aged tenants. Some come, some go, but I haven't needed to advertise the place for close to three years because at least one person stays and recruits more roommates. I know I wrote about this apartment a month or two ago, but I have more to add.

There were four chicks living there, but one of them hit the road in November. The other three replaced the one who left, and then the other three left so the one new chick who remanied replaced them all with friends of her own. No prob! Thankfully I've been kept in the loop on most of these changes and no one has tried to stiff me out of rent so I can make it work. It is a slight pain in the arse dealing with it all, but that's my job so I won't let it keep my up at night. It definitely makes for good Crap site fodder!

So the three chicks who left were supposed to be all done by the end of Dec, but I got a call from Mike (one of the new guys) on Jan 1st. Apparently there was still a lot of crap left behind that wasn't theirs. Plus the apartment was left a mess. What a bunch of crap! Check out this bullshit:


^OMG WHAT A LITERAL BUNCH OF CRAP! Nice job taking out the trash you fuckin' DINKETTES.

In addition to the trash they failed to remove they also left a box spring, mattress, and other personal belongings IN THE STAIRWAY THAT LEADS TO THE FRONT EXIT OF THE APARTMENT. This is a second and third-floor apartment so totally blocking the second egress is totally unsafe and unacceptable. Good thing there wasn't a fire that caused serious harm or even death because there was no way out. What a bunch of crap!

The trash and the personal belongings aren't the worst of it, though. Check this out:

It's a fish tank WITH THE FISHIES STILL IN IT. OMG THIS IS RETARDED. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP! The new tenants all went home and stuff for the holidays, they got back, and they were wondering wtf. Thankfully the fishies didn't die and the new people gave them some food. I talked to two of the three chicks who just moved out and of course they said none of it was theirs. The third chick is off the grid so I guess she can take the majority of the fall. Her phone is turned off and I told the other two chicks to have her contact me but so far nothing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

The funny thing is each of these Giblet-Head chicks has a $277.50 security deposit with me so you'd think they would actually want some money back. They actually will get some back because it's not $1100 worth of crap to deal with, but they are going to lose a big chunk because of their failures.

I really don't have to invest a whole lot of time dealing with any of the crap they left behind or the cleaning because I'm just crediting the new people $200 towards their deposit for dealing with it. The can stick the belongings in the basement and do all the cleaning. Not my problem! However, the fishies are a bit of an issue. I can't stick them in the cellar because they will die. The new people want the fishies gone ASAP, but they still have to pay me deposit and rent money so I'll take care of that once I get PAID. (Not due til the 7th as they well know.)

I think I might have fish in my house for a while until I find them a home. I'll Craigslist those little assholes, or I will feed them to the cats. Or flush them down the shitter. Goddamn Giblet-Head tenants leaving fish behind. What a bunch of crap!

Monday, 1-05-15: Back to work.
I start my first day as a live tax preparer for Jackson Hewitt in about two hours. Today I actually have to drive down to Palmyra (on the Newport line), 30 miles away, to report to the Wal-Mart. Jackson Hewitt has kiosks at all the Wal-Marts around here so I will be hanging out in various supercenters over the next 3.5 months. Fun times!

Normally I'm told I will be working in the Bangor/Brewer Wal-Marts (mostly Brewer), but today I'm driving the 35 minutes down I-95 so I can spend time with an experienced preparer. Their original schedule had me working in Brewer today all by myself. I was literally supposed to walk in to the empty kiosk, log in, pray to the gods who do not really exist that everything worked, and be live with potential customers walking all around. I would have been fine with that, but I'm sure some things would have totally been fucked away so it will be nice to work with someone who knows what the hell is going on today.

I've been spending quite a bit of time studying up for the season. This will be my 5th year as a tax preparer. However, I only did a few taxes last year because Liberty Tax hauled on me in a desperate attempt to salvage their sinking ship (it finally sank in August last summer.) I used TaxAct last season to do my own taxes and I think four others. In the three years prior I was at Liberty Tax.

^My old Liberty Tax office in Old Town. I mostly enjoyed working at Liberty, but I was a rat on a sinking ship while I was there. Hopefully this tax year is epic!

Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time studying the ACA (Affordable Care Act.) The ACA is also knows as Obamacare, and I've let it be known on this bootleg site in the past how much I fucking hate Obama and his lame healthcare law that should be illegal in all 50 states. the ACA = what a bunch of crap! However, it's confusing so hopefully it leads to more people needing professional tax preparers this season. I'm hoping that lots of people who normally use TurboTax or some similar program to do their own taxes at home will get scared when it comes to the ACA and decide to pay someone like me to help them figure it all out.

I'm gonna have to pay a tax penalty this year because I don't have health insurance. What a bunch of crap! The penalty is $95 or 1% of income this year; next year the penalty goes up by a lot. I did have health insurance when I worked at UPS so maybe that will reduce my penalty since I was covered for most of 7 months. Plus I can "find" some extra rental property expenses so I really won't pay this bogus, unconstitutional, un-American bullshit citizen fee.

I guess I should get health insurance so I don't have to pay huge penalties in the future. Since Kat and I will be married in 3.5 months she will need insurance so I suppose we can figure something out as the wedding gets closer. I'd rather not have health insurance and just die if something horrible happens to me, but I don't think I can convince the wife that my plan B is acceptable in any way, shape, or form. Now that I have her in my life I'm happier and I don't want to die just yet. Before I met Kat I really didn't even care... if I cared.

Tomorrow I work in Brewer all by myself at the JH tax kiosk so stop on by and say hello! I'm not expecting much in the way of customers since most people don't have their w-2s yet. Therefore, I'll be trolling around the store trying to drum up business. The more taxes that I do the more money I make so I'm hoping to do a lot this year.

I'm out of here. Time to watch some football highlights (Patriots had a bye this weekend so I didn't watch too much of the playoff games) then get ready for work. Goonies never say die!

Friday, 1-02-15: 2015!
Happy New Year ya fuckin' DINKS, all two of youz who actually read this piece of shit bootleg site. I've been on "vacation" for a little over a week, ever since the seasonal USPS job came to an end just after midnight on Christmas eve/Christmas day itself. I put the term vacation in quotations because I haven't been on a real vacation; I have had some rental property work and tax training to do. However, that hasn't taken too much of my precious... precious time.

The biggest item on the "to do" list has been trying to finish up the move. Kat and her daughter, Katherine, have been living over here at the house in Brewer since early last month, but we still have things from her Bangor house that need to get moved into here. Plus a lot of the things we do have here at the house are still in totes and boxes. We gotta wait for Tommy to get his own apartment before we can totally finish up the move. Hopefully he can find a place that he likes ASAP so we can finish up the move before we start doing taxes.

Both Kat and I officially got hired to work for Jackson Hewitt (JH) at the very end of November. That job resulted from my submitting an inquiry through their website in September. I didn't think too much of the inquiry, but I got a nice email back in late October from Jim (regional manager), we chatted on the phone, and I got enrolled in their online training system. Kat was also able to get enrolled in November so both her and I could work on the Interweb training modules. We did well enough on the training to get hired.

We're supposed to be starting the job sometime next week; hopefully we can talk to our manager today to get the scoop. One of us will work in Brewer and one of us will work in Bangor. We will get a base hourly rate and then a bonus at the end of the tax season based upon how many dollars of revenue that we generate. That pay structure is similar to what I got when I worked for Liberty Tax; however, the base hourly pay from JH is better than Liberty Tax base pay was. The commission will ikely be less than it was at Liberty (unless I do a TON of taxes), but in the end I think the difference in base pay will make up for that difference and I will be better off at JH than I was at Liberty.

Speaking of Liberty Tax, I thought they went totally out of business, but I guess someone else bought the franchise. I'm still not exactly certain, but a couple weeks ago I got a voicemail from some lady from Liberty Tax who wanted to thank me for my past service with the company and find out if I wanted a job this year. HAHAHAHAHA! She sounded like she was reading from a corporate script. Needless to say I didn't bother to call her back.

In other news, the price of oil and gas has taken quite a tumble. Gas at the local Gulf (formerly Texaco, formerly Mobil) station is all the way down to $2.24 a gallon. Oh Jesus, hell ya! Gas had been around $3.60 a gallon, give or take a bit, for the past few years. Global supply has increased thanks to fracking and more drilling so hopefully the prices stay low for a long time. Oil at $55 a barrel is great! Now I kinda wish I still had oil heat for the bootleg apartments. The price of natural gas dropped as well, but we get fucked here in the northeast because of price gouging in the industry. What a bunch of crap!

The Patriots (aka Greatriots) finished up their season at 12-4 and earned a first-round bye in the playoffs as well as the top playoff seed. That gives them home field advantage, and if they win two playoff games then they will be the AFC champs and appear in the Superbowl in about a month. The Greatriots truly have been great ever since Tom-God-Brady took over as QB back in 2003. Or was it 2001? Damn, I forgot. I could look it up, but screw that I have other things to do.

I'm out of here. Hopefully 2015 is great. Goonies never say die!