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4-06 5-06 6-06 7-06 8-06 9-06 10-06 11-06 12-06 1-07 2/07 3-07 4-07 5-07 6-07 7-07 8-07 9-07 10-07 11-07 12-07 1-08 2-08 3-08 4-08 5-08 6-08 7-08 8-08 9-08 10-08 11-08 12-08 1-09 2-09 3-09 4-09 5-09 6-09 7-09 8-09 9-09 10-09 11-09 12-09 1-10 2-10 3-10 4-10 5-10 6-10 7-10 8-10 9-10 10-10 11-10 12-10 1-11 2-11 3-11 4-11 5-11 6-11 7-11 8-11 9-11 10-11 11-11 12-11 1-12 2-12 3-12 4-12 5-12 6-12 7-12 8-12 9-12 10-12 11-12 12-12 1-13 2-13 3-13 4-13 5-13 6-13 7-13 8-13 9-13 10-13 11-13 12-13 1-14 2-14 3-14 4-14 5-14 6-14 7-14 8-14 9-14 10-14


"I don't really follow politics." -Kat's daugher, Katherine.
"You will once they start fucking you ." -Kat

Wednesday, 11-26-14: Guy works a lot of hours
So far this week I've worked just over 11 hours each of the past two days at my new seasonal USPS job. I've gone in at 1700, and I haven't gotten out until 0430. (I get a 30-minute lunch break.) OMG! I'm over 22 hours already, and I'm on the schedule for the next three nights as well. At this pace I will have 55 hours by the end of the week. However, I'm guessing I won't work that much every day until week's end. Maybe not? I dunno. I told the boss I don't care when I get out, at least not this week. Maybe I'll sing a different tune if other stuff comes up.

So far I've been lucky and the bootleg apartment business has been on auto-pilot. I just finished up some paperwork and billing statements for Dec. rents, but other than that not too much is happening from a slumlord-administrative standpoint. I always do rent receipts and provide envelopes for those tenants of mine who pay rent with a check either in the mail or in my on-site drop-box. It doesn't take too long to do, maybe a half-hour or hour, but it's worth it because collecting rent checks is easier than going around and meeting up with people in person to exchange cash. About half my tenants pay in cash and half pay with a check.

My job at the USPS is in what they call "automation." It sounds like a pretty awesome corner of the warehouse, and it is neat to see how everything works. I'm in AUTOMATION working with the machines. It's the preliminary stage of the Skynet Terminator takeover, but fortunately the only weapons in the shop are the guns when I flex my biceps (delusion.) There are giant mail-sorting machines that eat up mail at a rate of up to 15 pieces per second, and each letter/flyer/postcard then gets sorted into a bin. One person feeds the machine (feeder), and another person works the bins as they fill up with mail (sweeper.) The mail that collects in the bins is then placed into trays. Everything is machine-sorted by address and zip-code.

^Generic Interweb Google photo of a DBCS machine. The random dude in the photo is feeding the mail into the beast.

^The machine reads the #4 barcode that contains the important address info. Even hand-written letters get this barcode on them before we receive them at our stations in the plant.

I take turns both feeding the beast and sweeping the mail from the bins. So far I don't really have a preference of sweeping vs. feeding; I'm too new to even know half of what's going on at that place. All I can say is we process A LOT of mail, and feeding sales flyers and smaller magazines (termed Fletters) can be a pain in the arse because they often jam the system. A jammed machine = what a bunch of crap! last night the machine ate up a few important-looking envelopes from the state unemployment office. Looked to me like they could have been unemployment checks, and they were wasted like Doc-J and 8-Ball from Full Metal Jacket. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, shredded pieces of a check can be taped back together. Right? Maybe that will give the recipients an extra incentive to GO GET A DAMN JOB.

Mail processing at the USPS is a lot less stressful than my old ghetto job at UPS. The more I think about UPS the more I realize what a fucking toilet that place was. Speaking of UPS, Kat hauled on that shit-job about 1.5 weeks ago. She said it was horrible and Skidwell was a dick so she just stopped showing up. They tried to call her, but she just let it go to voicemail. Skidwell even texted me to see where she was. HAHAHAHA! She lasted maybe 3 weeks there? So funny that Tommy, Kat, and I all hauled on that hole and we all agree that it was a bunch of crap. Fuck working at UPS! Normally hauling on a job by simply not calling and not showing up is a terrible thing to do, but I gave Kat a big hug and a kiss because if Skidwell was a dick to her then that's what he gets in return. The fuckin' DINK!

The USPS job isn't so easy that it's a walk in the park. I keep busy, and we have goals and deadlines to meet. It actually gets fairly warm in there, which is a lot different than when I worked at FedEx and UPS. At UPS those cheap pinko fucks kept it so cold that I had to wear a thick jacket and a stocking cap in winter. At USPS I went to work the last two nights in shorts and a wife-beater. I don't have sweat rolling off my body, but I'd guess it's at least 70 degrees around those DBCS machines. They definitely throw some heat.

I like the fact that I'm just a monkey, a grunt. My boss is a younger guy, but he's decent to me. He asked if I had any interest in pursuing management when I told him I was a supervisor at UPS, but I respectfully told him no fucking way. The boss has also told me that I'm doing a great job so far, and they plan to keep a few of us temps after Christmas. It's already been strongly implied that I'm at the top of their "keep" list. However, I'm about 98% sure that even if they do offer me a slot on the roster after Christmas I'll decline. The pay is great and the job isn't horrible, but I can't work full-time, year-round and still be a slumlord. Plus not being able to spend evenings with my sexy fiancee sucks. A lot. It's a bunch of crap! Plus it looks like both Kat and I could have opportunities to be tax preparers come January for the upcoming tax season...

I don't think I'll wear shorts to work tonight to work. We have a Winter Storm Warning in effect until 0900 tomorrow with 8-14 inches of snow in the forecast. It will be the third measurable snowfall this month. OMG! We got a foot of snow back on the 2nd, and a few slushy inches around mid-month. There seems to be little doubt about this storm at this point since the radar is all lit up.

^Gods damned snow! Bye bye $140 for plowing. Again.

It's actually just starting now. Radar shows rain, but it is all snow just to the south and that will be here ASAP as the temperature drops more. It was 61 degrees outside yesterday; I went for a 3-mile jog in shorts and a tank top. Now we're about to get a snowstorm. What a bunch of crap! The drive to work later should be fun. They definitely don't close for weather, at least that's what they told me. That place is 24/7, 365 days a year. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I work that night as well. No holiday pay either, but at $16.75 an hour night-pay plus 1.5 times that for overtime over 40 hours in a week I'm not complaining. At this rate my first take-home paycheck will be around $1000 (paid bi-weekly.) Oh Jesus, hell ya!

My greedy ass wants to make a lot of money between now and Christmas, but it will definitely take its toll on me. My sleep and meal schedule is all wacky, and I don't get to see Kat that much on days when I work. What a bunch of crap!

Sunday/Monday, 11-23/24-14: The new job.
Last week flew by. I pretty much have 1000 things to do and only enough time to do 100 of them. Fortunately, the other 900 things on the list aren't so urgent that they require my immediate attention. The new USPS job is gonna take up a lot of my precious... precious time over the next few weeks. I've only worked there for one week and I've already worked about 42 hours. OMG!

I'm actually writing the beginning of this bootleg update from my laptop PC at my house this afternoon (Sunday.) I got back from a 3-mile jog just a while ago, and I have Gold Rush on the TV in the background. I used to watch Gold Rush more, but now it's the 4th season and not as interesting anymore. Great background show, but something not really worth devoting all my attention to. The jog was good; it's 49 degrees so I didn't freeze. So far winter has come early because overall it's been a very cold month. What a bunch of crap!

^New job takes up copious amount of my precious... precious time.

The USPS job pays great, but the hours aren't so good. Next week I go in at 1700 each day, and if my last two days of work are any indication then I will work over 8 hours on most days. Overtime is about $25 an hour so fuck yeah to that, but I will have little free time for other adventures.

Okay, I'm back and now it's Monday afternoon. Now I'm in my office. I didn't have time to finish my bootleg update yesterday because other things came up such as hanging out with my lovely fiancee. Her and I accomplished much over the past 24 hours. First, we went down to the Waterville area to meet a wedding cake-lady. She was super-nice, her prices seem great, and as an added bonus she gave us a little box of complimentary chocolates. We decided to eat some of the chocolates last night for dessert before The Walking Dead came on AMC, and we all got a great laugh at a couple of the pieces in the box. Check out this bobbie-candy:

^AAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Epic piece of candy! Gotta love the attention to detail, too. Not only are there boobs but there are also nipples and even aerolas. HAHAHAHAHAHA! I told Kat I can't eat the boob candy because it's just wrong to do that in front of her. However, I did try a piece of the neck. Guess now I know what it feels like to be a vampire. Hehehehe.

That piece of boob-candy is all gone now, but there's another dark chocolate one in the box still at the house. Who is gonna eat that one? Maybe Tommy will want it if Kat decides it's not her flavor..

It's already 1406, I have to do some paperwork, and I have to use the gym before I shower, goto Kat's to help her hock her old Jeep, and then go to work at 1700. Time flies when you're having fun! Also yesterday when we were in Waterville we bought a nice kitchen table at Marden's for $550. I don't have a photo of that now, but hopefully soon I can get one and throw it onto this bootleg site. I just bought a table back in August at trash-Hole-Mart for $200 so now I gotta hock that one. That table was just too small so it has to go. It's a nice table that's still in mint condition so hopefully I can get $125-150 for it once we put it onto Craigslist.

We also met with a wedding photographer last night at my house (soon to be our house.) That took 1.5 hours! I guess for $1850 the photographer didn't want to just meet and disappear too fast. Gotta close that sale. Gods damned $1850 for a photographer. What a bunch of crap! How can we get a cake for $250 yet a photographer costs over seven times more? I could take some frigging wedding photos for people for a lot less than that. I need to devote an entire update to the perils of wedding planning...

I need to go do other things now. However, first I should write more about my new USPS job. So far they've trained me to run some mail-processing machine with an acronym that is something like ASBC. Or maybe SBCA. Nope, I think it starts with an A. I already stopped caring what it is called because I don't even care... if I care. The machine can sort over 30,000 letters and flyers an hour. AN HOUR. Wow! Two people run the thing, and so far it's not too difficult to do. I'll write more about the new job in a future update, but for now my precious... precious time is ticking away so I'm out of here. Goonies never say die!

Tuesday, 11-18-14: It's 0600 and I've already done things.
It's not even sunrise outsite, but Kat and I have been up since just after 0400 because she had to report to UPS at 0515 for her part-time, seasonal, shit-job. That place really is a toilet; I wouldn't blame her at all if she hauled on it before Christmas even comes. Her doctor told her that she shouldn't even be working there, but she's not a Sissy-Mary so she does it anyway. Plus, to make matters worse, she has been sick and she still went to work. OMG!

When people get sick I don't really know what to do. Am I supposed to pretend to be a doctor? I probably should talk my fiancee out of going to work when she's sick, but if I were in her shoes I'd do the same thing so that makes it tough. Last night I did get her some ice. Plus we had pizza. Does that earn me any points? Hopefully at least a couple. Tonight I should cook up some nice soup for her. However, I don't know how to cook soup so it would have to be Campbell's to the rescue. I'm pretty sure you don't cook soup. Right? Don't you just add milk and water and ingredients onto a pot on the stove and then wait for the magic to happen? I've never made anything but canned soup before. What a bunch of crap!

I just got my swell on in the gym, but I had to cut it short because I was out of gas. What a bunch of crap! I had to lighten the load on my last few sets, and I only made it a half-hour total before I was spent. I still have some weights set up so hopefully I can take a short respite to update this turd-heap and then I can go finish it up. However, I probably won't finish because I don't feel my energy magically returning to me.

I have to report to the USPS processing plant at 0800 this morning for my second day on the job. Yesterday was my first day, and we spent it in the classroom all day. I learned all kinds of "important" things like what to do if I ever deliver mail and a dog tries to eat my face. Seriously. A lot of what the dude taught to us doesn't apply to me at this point because I'll just be a warehouse worker at night. However, out of the dozen other people in the class some were going to be delivery drivers, counter-clerks, etc. so I suppose it matters to them a bit. People came to that class from as far away as Bingham (1.5 hrs southwest) and Perry (1.5 hours east.) Thankfully I didn't have to drive that far just to take a class, but at least those people get paid mileage. I don't get paid mileage to drive 3.5 miles one-way to the class, but I'll take the <10 minute drive as a tradeoff for that anytime.

Kat's Jeep is about to die, and it will cost a lot of money to fix it right so we've been shopping for a replacement. There are many SUV-type vehicles to choose from on Craigslist, but so far nothing looks perfect that is actually available. I called and emailed about a couple different ones, but I haven't gotten responses. What a bunch of crap! Tonight we will go to a local dealership and see what they have. It will probably be a whole lot of nothing (besides overpriced crap), but there's no harm is at least seeing, right? We will do when I get out of work.


^$2400 on Craigslist. "NICE WINTER RIDE! runs great! 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee 130k miles Automatic 4.0l Title in hand. Black leather interior in perfect condition. BRAND NEW TIRES. 4x4, has a rusty front fender $2,400 No trades." Sonds like a great deal until you call and get voicemail and you email and get no reply. What a bunch of crap!

A lot of vehicles on Craigslist look decent, but people sell them and then are too lazy to remove the ad. Or some are in frigging New Hampshire. Or some look good and then you read the details to find out things like "3rd and 4th gear don't work." or "I shanked a mofo in the passenger seat so there's a red stain." That last quote is a fabricated bunch of crap, but I would not be shocked if I did see a post like that on Craigslist. I like Craigslist, but you gotta be on guard when you shop on that site.

We will keep checking sites like Craigslist and Uncle Henry's, and maybe later in the week something perfect will appear that we can take a look at in person. I know I work 0800-1630 today and 1200-2030 tomorrow, but after that I have no idea what my USPS job schedule will look like. I should find out ASAP.

Okay turds, all two of youz, I gotta go try to lift a few more weights then go home to pack a lunch, take a shower, and head over for day TWO of my awesome USPS "career." (Seasonal work that should end around Xmas.) Goonies never say die!

Friday, 11-14-14: Free time disappears.
All my precious... precious free time is almost gone. What a bunch of crap! It seemed like I should have had a ton of free time this fall, but somehow The Nothing came and took most of it like it took the beautiful lake from the Rock Biters in The Neverending Story. Oh well, I have no one to blame but myself.

I could have had more free time if I didn't go deer hunting, but obviously deer hunting is pretty damn important. Now I only have one lousy weekend left before I start a new seasonal job at the USPS on Monday. I gotta report to their facility at 0800 for orientation. The dude said Monday and Tuesday are orientation days from about 0800-1630. After my two-days of indoctrination I start working in the warehouse. At night. I'll be some kind of mail-sorter, and I should make fairly decent money. I don't know if I'll work Wednesday or not. I have no idea. My work schedule beyond Monday and Tuesday of next week is a blank slate there. He did say my start time would be roughly between 1800 and 2100 and I'd get out anywhere from 0300-0600. Hopefully I don't have too much rental property stuff to deal with once I start this job because my free time will be at a premium.

^All my precious... precious free time is going to get usurped by these folks. However, the money will be great and definitely needed to buy important things that Kat and I need.

I wonder if I will get weekends off? I guess I don't care. I want money so I will be their little work bitch and try to get as many hours as they are willing to give. Overtime? Oh Jesus, hell ya! Especially at time and a half plus the night differential.

So I won't finish everything on my "to do" list thanks in part to the shit weather/early winter and thanks in part to my working too many part-time days on these things. We got another 3.5" of snow this morning. OMG! I would have loved to go deer hunting and track down deer in the snow, but I already had a deer hanging up in the garage that needed to be butchered. I spent the entire morning working on that and even an hour into the afternoon. My bullet was a perfect hit upon entry but then things got weird. Normally there will be an entrance would and a larger exit hole, but on this deer there is only and entrance and no exit. WTF?! A lot of the shoulder and neck meat was damaged and bloodshot so I think the 30.06 round fragmented inside her chest cavity and did major damage. It led to a faster death, but it cost me meat. Gods damn it!

So far I have 9 packages of steaks (3 loin steaks and 6 rump steaks) and enough scrap meat to make probably a dozen packages of burger. I still have to grind up all that burger and package/vacuum seal it so that will take a couple more hours. It takes me a regular 8-hour work shift to butcher a deer. What a bunch of crap! I could do it faster, but I pick off fat and junk so I end up with a higher quality product. At least that's what I tell myself because I gotta justify all that work somehow.

If I end up with 21 packages of meat I'll guess I have 25 pounds total since each package probably has a bit more than a pound of meat in it. However, I'm just making a barely educated guess at this point so I will have to wait until the burger is done to know more definitively. I'm not even sure I just spelled definitively right. What a bunch of crap!

I'll try to hang out with Kat as much as possible this weekend since I won't see her as much beginning next week. We will have to watch some movies and TV shows, etc. Maybe go out to eat... it will suck sleeping in the day and working at night, but I can think of a worse fate and once the paychecks start rolling in I will be happy. I hope!

I'm out of here. Goonies never say die!

Thursday, 11-13-14: Damage, fence, deer.
I've been gone for the past two days because I was on a quest for the elusive whitetail deer down at the ol' homestead. I haven't really finished everything on my "to do" list up here yet, but peak time for deer hunting only comes once a year and that time is now. Everything left on my list up here isn't too urgent so it can wait. Before I left on Tuesday morning to go down to the midcoast I made sure I had important things taken care of like mostly cleaning up this mess:

^What a bunch of crap! A chunk of the house came off, too.

One of those wires wrapped in the fallen tree was a live electrical line so there was no way I was screwing around with that. The foot of heavy wet snow that we got on Sunday, November 2nd made a HUGE mess. The woods are still a war zone with fallen limbs, bushes, branches, and even entire giant trees. Around here in town things are mostly cleaned up and power has been restored, but it wasn't until Wednesday Nov. 5th when the power company got there to put the live wire back up in the air. Fortunately no one got electrocuted.

So I had one of my tenants (red car in the photo) totally stuck in the driveway, and he works in Ellsworth so bumming a ride from a freind or family was not an option for him. He was totally grounded. Of course he understood there were two things both he and I could do about it: nothing and like it. However, I still didn't give up looking for other options and on Tuesday evening I got permission from the back neighbor to remove a few maple saplings and small trees, to take out a section of my bootleg rotting fence back there, and to create an emergency exit for the trapped vehicles.

I arrived Wednesday morning with my chainsaw and related tools and within about 45 minutes I had it about ready for a vehicle to pass through. Then the power company showed up. They descended upon the place! There were four utility trucks, and the line was up in no time. So I pretty much wasted my precious... precious time opening up that back section. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, the old fence was rotting away to nothing so it needed to be replaced anyway. Plus I had a bunch of spare lumber and pickets from the fence that I just built at my own house so the cost of replacement only ended up being about another $60. Not bad! It didn't take me too long to replace the fence because it was a straight 28-foot length and I had the old posts to use as reference points. Here is the final product:

The fence to the right is on the back neighbor's property. They have 21 feet of bootleg fence that I was NOT about to replace for free. However, I did tell them I would install it for free as long as they paid for the materials. Unfortunately, they are too broke to afford the $150 in materials so nevermind for now. Maybe in the spring... It would be nice to have the entire section be brand new, but in my world "it's just a rental" and I don't really care that much. Fuck it! I have lots of other things I can be doing anyway.

I still have some tree limbs to chainsaw up, and I have part of a messy dirt pile over at my Chamberlain duplex to get rid of, but for now things are ok. That fucking dirt! Bob Gods Damned Dunn III was supposed to remove it all for me when he did the foundation repairs back in July, but he's a fucking useless pile of civilian shit who deserves to die a slow death in the Sarlacc Pit on Tattooine. That mother fucker. I'll write more about him another time..

^Perfect home for local foundation "contractor" Bob Dunn III. Both Gavin and I would heave his useless ass right on in so he could be slowly digested over the course of 1000 years.

I didn't see any deer on Tuesday when we hunted, but yesterday things got good. Jason and I hunted down behind Art's old blueberry land yesterday morning, and after I sat a while I still-hunted for 2.5 hours along the bottom edge of the pond brook hoping to either see a deer or kick one over to Jason. There's a huge buck in there that Jason nicknamed "Freak Nasty", but I don't give a huge crispy crap about shooting him. If I saw him then Oh Jesus, hell ya! However, I'm happy enough just seeing ANY deer when I hunt. Neither of us saw deer that morning, but I got lucky during the evening hunt. All I got for my efforts yesterday morning was some exercise and ticks all over me. Fucking ticks. What a bunch of crap those things are.

The weather yesterday was relatively warm, mid-50s, and very foggy and damp. It wasn't the ideal conditions to deer hunt in, but at least we didn't freeze and we didn't have to worry about getting wet thanks to Pop's new hunting blind out back. The blind is totally badass! Jason and I helped him set it up last spring; I brought down some spare old RR ties to use as its base. I might have a photo of it kicking around on this bootleg site. Lemme look real fast...

^If it was bigger you could live in it!

Both Jason and I decided to hop into the blind for the evening hunt. Since I had a doe tag it made sense that any antlerless deer would be all mine. Jason doesn't have a doe tag so any bucks would be all his. Perfect! I've actually never hunted in a blind like that before in my life so it was pretty neat. All my life I've either been sitting on a pad (or just on the ground) leaned up against a tree, sitting in my stool or on old milk crates on the ground, or up in a treestand during a hunt. Sometimes I've even just stood behind something and waited for my prey to hopefully appear. Last night was like luxury hunting by comparison.

For the first half-hour nothing happened at all and we both struggled to stay awake. Then I saw movement off to the left, but it was just some hen turkey strolling through. The turkey didn't linger for long before she flew off into a tree and then maybe 20 minutes after that Jason saw a deer. I was on the left side, he was on the right, so the deer appeared in my blind spot first. Once he realized there were no antlers it was time for me to get ready to shoot. The deer was walking along in the woods, and it looked tiny. What a bunch of crap! I told Jason that I wasn't going to shoot because it was too small, but a second deer trailed that looked slightly bigger. I put that one in the scope, told Jason to plug his ears, and then I decided to go for it. I shot the deer as it was quartering towards us about 40 yards away. I worked the bolt like a boss as the deer ran off to the left, I got the rifle from the front widow to the left window, and I had the deer in the scope as fast as I could. Fortunately, I didn't have to shoot again because it dropped and was dead pretty quickly.

I was happy that I got my deer, but I was a little disappointed with myself because I honestly thought that I shot some little dinky skipper. Jason and I both thought I dropped a deer that weighed at most 60 pounds. However, I realized that I had a very limited amount of time to rifle hunt this season because I start the job at the USPS next Monday and there will go most of my precious... precious time. That made the decision easier to bear.

I shot my deer at 1615, only a couple minutes past sunset. Since we still had another 25 minutes of legal hunting time we waited in case a buck strolled by for Jason to shoot. The other deer ran off to the right when I shot, but it didn't go far so we watched as it wandered around in front of the blind. We figured I had shot its brother or sister because it was a very small deer. Finally the hunt ended, no other deer showed up, and it was time to go recvover my "trophy" deer. My shot was a perfect hit, which was refreshing to know considering the day prior I dropped my rifle right out of Pop's truck. When your rifle falls out of the truck and lands on the ground so dirt gets in the muzzle all you can do is say "What a bunch of crap!" Both Jason and I laughed, but Pop was not impressed. It wasn't really funny at all and I'd never drop my piece on purpose, but after it happened really what else was there to do but laugh at my ignorance? Thankfully the drop didn't set my scope out of zero and cause me to miss.

My deer was actually bigger than both Jason and I expected. Oh Jesus, hell ya! Instead of bagging some little half-year old Bambi I had shot a mid-sized doe that weighed about 90-100 pounds (no official weight on a scale, just our educated guesses.) Not bad! She will give us a good 30-35 pounds of meat. A month's worth of deer meat if Kat, Katherine, and I ate it every night for supper for a month. (We WON'T be eating deer meat daily for a consecutive month. F that!)

Getting the deer out of the woods was easy because Jason just hooked her onto Pop's 4-wheeler and dragged her up to my truck at the house. Pop came down to watch and to be a part of the action. His ground blind out there has been badass so far. Pop shot his deer from it (that unfortunately the coyotes found before he did), I shot my deer from it, and Pop also shot two turkeys from it in the spring. Nice! Pop has a nice little green food plot down by the pond now so that helps draw in the deer. Plus deer just pass through there anyway because it's a nice piece of woods. Mom and Pop live in a great spot, and they've been there for over 31 years. OMG! I have tons of great memories from my childhood growing up there at that house and playing in those woods.

My parents 40-year anniversary is Saturday. 40 YEARS! OMG!

Here's my doe after I hung her up in the garage this AM. I need to buy a game gambrel because hanging her up without one was a pain in the arse. It was a bunch of crap!

I got some blood on my precious... precious garage floor. However, most of the mess is on that old scrap wood. Some water washed most of the blood off the floor... I hope! Don't want my garage looking like a scene from a horror movie forever.

Thankfully a strong front came through last night so the temp dropped from the 50s down to 27 by first light. My garage is like a fridge now so I don't need to buy ice. Pop wanted to split the deer with me and take it over to McLaughlin's down there to have it butchered, but F that. I will gladly give him half the deer since he lost ALL of his deer meat to gods damned mooching coyotes, but I can cut her up myself. I would have taken her over to the butcher down there, but I would have had to stay down there another night and F that. I wanted to get my ass home so I could see my sweet pea. Spending the night with my sexy fiancee >>>>> sleeping in my dead Grammy's old bed at my parents' house.

I actually kinda enjoy butchering my own deer. It takes me an entire day's worth of work to do, but I like the feeling of knowing that I did it all myself. My shot was a direct hit that killed the deer quickly, and as an added bonus the heart wasn't damaged by the 30.06 round so this was my lunch today:


^Mmmmmmm.... deer heart. I ate it raw and then did 1000 one-armed pushups as I dumbbell curled 100 pounds and made love to my fiancee... all at the same time. Beast mode! That last sentence was an epic bunch of fabricated crap, but I did really eat the heart. I cooked it like a normal civilized human frigging being. I may joke around about being rough on the edges, but I'm no damn barbarian and cooked meat >>>>> raw meat.

^Cooked in the skillet with butter. Tastes pretty unique, very good for you with almost no fat at all. I even have leftovers!

Kat came over for lunch, and she wanted no part of this deer heart feast at all. She said since she loves me she would try a piece so I had her douse it in barbeque sauce and pepper, she chewed it for a second or two, and then she decided it should go to Oloff (one of her three dogs.) Even Oloff didn't eat it right away. What a bunch of crap! Oh well, more for ME. Now I even have a few leftover pieces for tomorrow. Score!

I haven't even started to butcher Bambi's mom yet today because I've had other things to do, but I plan to work on her some later today or else most of tomorrow. It's gonna stay cold, damn cold, so I'm not in a huge rush. I'd like to have her all packed away by the end of Saturday so I can relax some on Sunday before I start work next Monday. My garage should stay as cold as a fridge the entire time since 1-3" more of snow is coming tonight.

Even though my rifle hunting season is over I can still bowhunt. I'd go tonight, but if I get one then having two deer in my garage might be a bit much. Maybe tomorrow if there is fresh snow I will go play tracker with my bow. Two deer might seem greedy, but I won't let any of the meat go to waste.

I'm gonna make $40k this year (Pretax. The govt gets a major piece of that pie) and I'm justifying my deer hunting by saying it's free meat. However, I'm far from wealthy because I blew most of my money and deer meat > cow meat at the grocery store. The only thing I don't use deer meat for is burgers. You need either cow or turkey for a good cheeseburger! Even if I was a millionaire I would still prefer to eat deer meat, and I'd want to go out into the woods and get my own deer. I might pay a butcher to cut it up for me if I was financially set for life, though. That last sentence is definitely theory because my checking account is a seive and I can't save any money lately.

Frigging $2000 for a wedding photographer. What a bunch of crap!

Tuesday, 11-11-14: Fast update, no time, gotta go.
I'm out of here in 10 minutes you dinks (all two of youz.) I have hardly any time to update this trash-heap until later in the week because it's time to deer hunt. The rut is firing up so my ass needs to be in the woods as much as possible. I went out this morning with my bow at the "Mosh Pit" blind, but all I saw was birds and squirrels. What a bunch of crap! However, I did see deer there Saturday evening. Unfortunately, they were too far away to shoot at.

I'm leaving in 8 minutes to go rifle hunt down in the midcoast with Jason. He's seen a bunch of deer already, but not the big buck that he's after. He doesn't have a doe tag and I do have one so my philosophy is much different than his. I plan to shoot pretty much any deer that I see (maybe not a tiny little Bambi-looking skipper...) whereas he needs to be more choosy. Time isn't on my side since I only have a few days left of relative freedom before I start the seasonal job at the USPS as a mail-processing dude in the warehouse at night.

I only have 6 minutes left, turds. Over the past week when I haven't been deer hunting I've been cleaning up fallen tree debris at my bootleg rental properties, replacing a 28-foot fence (hopefully a photo will come next update.), and hanging out with my awesome and sexy fiancee. I also crushed Gav at racquetball on Sunday. Normally he beats me handily when we play, but he was kinda bummed out because his chick hauled on him. What a bunch of crap!

Okay, I'm just about out of time. Hopefully I get a deer before I start the post office job. Goonies never say die!

Tuesday, 11-4-14: Election day!
Get out and vote today you dinks (all two of youz who actually read this bootleg site.) If you don't vote then I hate you. I probably hate you anyway, but I'll hate you just a little bit more. The political campaigns on TV have been atrocious this year. They've been the worst I can ever recall seeing, especially for the senate and governer's seats. Most of the ads are a negative, trash-talking bunch of crap. "Bruce Poliquin hangs out on Wall Street and doesn't pay enough taxes...." then it shows the silhouette of some random dude in a high-rise building in the city. "Lepage once called Social Security welfare and said if you don't like public schools too bad." All kinds of crap that may or may not be true, but that makes me hate everyone and want to just write it funny stuff like "Rambo" and "Commando." so no one gets my vote.

A vote for Lepage is really the only way to go. He definitely is no "smooth-talking politician" and his campaign even uses that slogan, but it's true. Lepage has managed to piss all kinds of people off during his first term as the gov, but I think he's the best governor this state has ever seen. He rocks! He tried so hard to reform welfare and to combat moochers of the system, but his efforts hit many roadblocks thanks to the Santa Claus democrats. Gods damned Democrats! I know they're not all bad people, but I do think they're confused about the world. I've never voted for a Democrat and I don't intend to buck that trend today. It's Republican or bust for this proprietor of a bootleg site who calls himself Rambo!

Speaking of Rambo, Kat and I watched First Blood on Saturday evening and then First Blood part II on Sunday. Oh Jesus, hell ya! Gotta love it when AMC does a RAMBO marathon. As an added bonus and reason #632,098 why she is going to be a perfect wife, watching the movies was HER IDEA. OMG AWESOME! She still has Rambo III on the DVR, too. Life win? Of course!

Another controversial issue on this year's ballot is the issue of bear baiting. Question 1 asks this: "Do you want to ban the use of bait, dogs or traps in bear hunting except to protect property, public safety, or for research?" There have been ads on TV that show bears caught up in traps and being shot at near point-blank range. I know those ads do sensationalize the issue and make people feel bad for the bears, but it actually kinda worked on me. I've decided to vote YES on question 1 because fuck that shit. There is no sport in trapping a bear so you can go shoot it in the head. I love hunting as a sport, but there is no way I can justify trapping bears over piles of old donuts and other food waste. That's not hunting at all. Hunting is being sneaky and seeing if you can outsmart your prey. Then you EAT what you kill. I don't hunt for animals that I won't eat.

I don't have an issue with baiting of game. However, the trapping and use of dogs is ridiculous. Trapping a fucking bear?! Seriously?! In 2014?! I would totally get it if there is a bear that decides he or she likes the taste of people. Or if it was 1858 still and people needed the meat in order to prevent starvation. However, I can't get it in today's world, especially if bears aren't bothering people. If rogue bears do decide to attack or threaten people then the law would still have the clause "except to protect property, public safety..." Plus there will still be a bear hunting season.

Pop will NOT be impressed with me when I tell him I voted YES on question 1. When I was having lunch down at the ol' homestead last month I asked Pop about it and he seemed shocked that I was even considering voting to ban the practice. he thought it woulde open the door for other anti-hunting laws, but I don't believe that.

^Black bear on my trail cam in the woods where Gav and I hunt. Look at the date and time. I went hunting there at that same spot the very same morning, and I arrived at about 0630. OMG I almost got to see a bear in person in the woods. Cool! I've never seen a bear before when I've been hunting. I have a bunch of other photos of the bear, too. Never had a bear on the cam before.

Speaking of Pop, he shot a spikehorn out behind the house last Friday evening with his crossbow from his fortified ground blind, but he wasn't 100% sure about the hit so he decided to wait until the following morning to go try to find the deer. Pop is partially colorblind as well so following a blood trail for him is very difficult, especially at night. It was a tough decision for him, those decisions always are, because of the chance that coyotes or other carnovores could find the deer first. However, we've sometimes had bad luck in the past looking for a deer that was still alive. When you start to follow a blood trail too soon and you jump the deer then the end result can be all bad. This I know all too well from pesonal experience. A deer can run pretty far pretty fast, too. Even one that's injured and/or dying. So Pop decided to wait, but he slept like shit that night because he was nervous about possible outcomes. This again is a feeling I know from my own past hunting experiences.

Jason came over to the house to help Dad go find his deer the next morning. It didn't take long for them to pick up the blood trail and to soon thereafter find the deer. Jason sent me photos, but I will NOT post them on here because they are brutal. The poor deer was literally torn to pieces by coyotes, and all of the meat had already been comsumed. All that remained mostly intact was the head; the body looked like something from a horror movie. Pop was quite upset about it (according to Mom) and I would be, too. So Pop's deer hunting season is now over and he has no deer meat to show for it. [sigh]

I went into the woods yesterday afternoon for a hunt, and that was a shit-show. The storm that we got on Sunday trashed the woods. A lot. Trees were down in many places, and huge branches were also strewn about. Walking through a FOOT of heavy, crusty snow was no fun either. It didn't take long to work up a sweat and then I got all wet because of all the melting snow dripping off the trees above. I didn't see any deer either. What a bunch of crap! Most of our ground blinds are fucked now and need to be rebuilt and/or relocated. The wet snow did MAJOR damage everywhere. Around here many places still have no electricity, and I have to go cut apart more downed trees today and the rest of the week at my properties. One of my properties still has a totally blocked driveway because of a downed tree that's wrapped up in live electrical wires. Gods damn it! I plan to go over there again today, to take pictures, and to see if I can find any kind of solution as we wait for the power company to show up. There are tens of thousands of people still with no power and shelters are open. Thes storm even made the national news!

This relatively quiet northeastern corner of the USA doesn't make the national news too often, but we've made it twice now in the span of mere days. The other polarizing national story has been the nurse who came back from helping sick people in Africa. She doesn't have Ebola, but a couple other people have returned from Africa and brought the deadly disease into the States so now most people are all worried there could be an Ebola outbreak in America. It can take up to 3 weeks for Ebola symptoms to appear so she was ordered to be quarantined in her own home, but she said "Fuck off" and went out anyway. HAHAHAHAHAHA! She's all the way up in Fort Kent so it's essentially the boonies, and she only went for a bike ride away from other people, but it still caused a wicked stir. I personally don't give a fuck what she does, but it has a lot of people riled up. If I get Ebola then the virus will know why my fake Interweb name is RAMBO. It would get ejected from my precious... precious body with extreme prejudice, it would wither up, and it would die in 2 seconds.*

^EBOLA!

*Obviously that is a giant lie. I'd probably die because Ebola can be a nasty killer. However, I am a Goonie and Goonies never say die!

Monday, 11-3-14: One of the worst storms I've ever seen.
Holy fuckin' Jebus, we got the hose with no lube yesterday from Mother Nature. It was only November 2nd, but we ended up with snow all day and a heavy, wet 12" at that. OMG! They said on the news that the previous record high/early amount of snow was 7.8" on November 15th so we beat that by damn near two weeks. (Hehehe... twoooo weeeekkkkkkssss... [Total Recall]) We got absolutely crushed by this storm, and to make matters worse the wind was strong for most of the day, too. The heavy snow and high winds combined to put the screws to us. A lot. Trees ended up down all over the place, and power went out for most. My problems began after I played racquetball when I collected rent and then the tenants told me about this:

^WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!

Then my phone was quiet for a couple hours before the "waaaaa... where's the plow guy? waaaaa...." phone calls began. I usually get at least one of those in a big storm. Then, not long after that, I got a call from one of my other tenants because a tree fell down across their driveway and took down power lines with it. What a bunch of crap! Their driveway is blocked bad, too. Plus, as an added bonus, the wires literally ripped off the house including taking out some of the siding and clapboards underneath. It's a total shit-show over there now and there are two things I can do about it: nothing and like it. Kat and I already went to Lowe's so I could but a couple more chains and bar oil for the chainsaw (plus some pellets for her stove), I already sharpened my current saw chain, but I can do nothing yet until the damn power company gets their asses over there and removes the LIVE WIRES from the jumbled mess. Epic fail!

Meanwhile, the tenants who live there can't get out. There is no passing through that driveway. I don't have a photo of that mess yet, but hopefully I can take one later for my next update. I'm all ready to go start cleaning up the mess but getting electrocuted is not a good option so I will want for Emera (formerly Bangor Hydro) to get over there. Unfortunately, some roads around here and still closed and Emera had 55,000 outages this AM (over 130,000 outages statewide. And the storm DIDN'T EVEN HIT WESTERN MAINE AT ALL. WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP!) I doubt that driveway is too high on their list at the moment. I couldn't even call those fuckin' dinks yesterday because it was a busy signal every time. I finally got through to them at 0415 today after Kat had gone to UPS as I was shovelling snow and assessing all the damage. I have branches down and/or damage at 4 of the 7 rental properties that I take care of. Gods damn it!

The good news about this mess is I don't think major damage occurred anywhere. I might have to pay an electrician to fix wires that attach to the house where parts were literally ripped down, but structurally things appear ok. No smashed-in roofs, broken windows, destroyed vehicles, etc. Driving around town today was eerie because damage is so widespread. We saw a tree that landed on a car in Bangor, and there are tons of trees still down. I'm actually surprised Lowe's wasn't sold out of chainsaw blades when we went earlier. I bet by later today they will be.

I should get off this bootleg thing and see how Mom and Pop are doing before I start cutting branches down. They lost power yesterday and still didn't have it as of this AM when Mom called. She called 4 hours ago, but I have had other shit going on so I didn't call back yet. Plus she will probably find a way to jab at me verbally again like she usually does so fuck it. I'll call her when I get around to it and on my terms.

Gav said the midcoast was a total mess; he was down there this weekend as well. He actually got stranded at his Mom's place because so many trees came down. He said a couple big trees fell in the night and shook the entire house. Fortunately, none landed on the house itself. That would have been a bunch of crap.

Kat's house didn't lose power until about 2130 last night so that meant we got to watch God Brady and the Greatriots crush Peyton Manning's Broncos in the late afternoon game. The Pats have been DOMINANT lately so that was a fun game to watch. Thankfully she has DVR so we could keep pausing it to answer phone calls regarding the storm, shovel, etc. DVR rules!

We didn't sleep too well last night because her power was out all night. I think I'm tired? I don't even know because I'm on high alert with all these issues. I should go into the woods to deer hunt later since we have tons of snow, but maybe I will skip it. A couple inches is great this time of year for tracking deer, but a foot of snow sucks because it's hard to walk through. What a bunch of crap! I had considered going down to the midcoast to deer hunt with Jason midweek, but this storm cancelled that idea pretty fast. I have a lot of messes to clean up now. Plus his chick won't even let my niece be the flower girl at the wedding so I don't want to hang out with them. Fuckers! She doesn't even have a good reason to say no either. Well, besides the fact that she's probably pissed off that Jason has been with her 7.5 years and doesn't have the balls to ask her to marry him yet Kat and I have been together 4 months and we already have a wedding date and venue all set up. Goddamn family drama that I don't need.

HEY FAMILY BE A LITTLE MORE SUPPORTIVE YOU FUCKS. IT TOOK ME 39 FUCKING YEARS TO FIND MY WIFE BECAUSE I WAS PICKY AND NOW I DON'T NEED ANY CRITICISM ABOUT ANYTHING SO STFU AND FALL IN LINE OR GET PUNCHED IN THE HEAD. WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY 4-YEAR OLD NIECE WALKING DOWN THE AISLE IN A CUTE DRESS AND HAULING SOME FAKE FLOWER PETALS ONTO THE FLOOR? IT WOULD TAKE HER ABOUT 2 MINUTES AND SHE WOULD HAVE A GREAT TIME GODS DAMN YOUZ AND WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAP ALL ROLLED UP INTO ONE.

Fuck it, we don't need a flower girl at our wedding. We can be happy without one.