Ok, this has no relation to this blog what-so-ever but I thought I'd point out that this is the first drummer in the history of metal to kill an entire hardcore song (and possibly set?) wearing a blue Shrek t-shirt:
September 2009 Archives
As the title suggests, I am now a coupon clipper. I can't put my finger on why but using coupons was always slightly embarrassing for me in the past. Maybe it was those times when I was a child and I went shopping with my mother and we'd get stuck behind the lady with the bag full of coupons and it would take ages for the clerk to enter them in. All the while my mother was bitching because she couldn't wait to have another cigarette. Maybe it's because they seemed similar to food stamps and I was too proud.
Well, it's not 1986 anymore (now the clerk just scans them in in seconds) and I've got better things than pride to spend my money on (I need to eat). Also, you know that crappy colored four page newspaper you get in your mailbox from the local grocery stores every Tuesday (the one you immediately throw in the trash)? It lists all the deals for the end of that week and it has coupons! By shopping for the items on sale in that paper in addition to the coupons I've consecutively saved at least $30 on every shopping trip. I go shopping about once a week so that means I'm saving $120 a month! Holy crap! Why haven't I been doing this all along? $120 is a third of my car payment!
So, keep an eye out for that big piece of colored newspaper that shows up in your mailbox on Tuesday, pull the manufacturer coupons out of the Sunday paper and check your local grocer's website for printable coupons (they mostly suck but you never know).
We're in (or just coming out of) a recession people! I don't know about you but I could use the 30 bucks.
Nicole likes to take the car to work which leaves me with the scooter for all my unemployment errands. On Friday I had to do some grocery shopping and figured I'd see how much stuff I could get packed on to the scooter. Turns out I can carry quite a few groceries. I did get a few weird looks as I was bungeeing bags to the basket and filling the under-seat helmet storage with produce but I was able to accommodate every item on this list (it's worth noting that by coupon clipping and shopping the sales I saved $38.63, but more on that later):
And then some. I still had room for two more bags not to mention I could have worn a backpack! All that and 86 mpg. Scooters are awesome.
Rather than breathe the filtered air during my cardio workout today at the gym I decided to get some of that good 'ol LA smog deep into my lungs and run up the canyon.
It's a lot of fun and there are usually some spectacular views but today it was just too smoggy. Today was the first day I've been during the day on a weekday and the absence of lots of people and lots of dogs was nice. I was able to run without stopping for walkers holding up the road or an interested dog blocking my path. I'm waiting to see if the 2.95 mile run in the smog has any adverse effects on my lungs. It seems like the last time I ran like that outdoors my lungs hurt for a couple days but I was told there's an acclimation period here in LA that takes about a year. After that you're supposed to be able to breathe the smog problem free. I'll be the judge of that.
See below the route Nicole and I take up and down Runyon (we double back on a couple of the trails as they don't loop like you want them too). The point at which I turn around has a drinking fountain and it becomes the light at the end of my tunnel on the way up. Without it I would give up much sooner.
And a view of the lovely smog:
I haven't slept for more than a few hours in the last couple nights even though I've had copious amounts of exercise. In the past I would stay awake worrying about work related problems and dwell on how I was going to fix them. Now it seems that in the absence of that work I can find all kinds of new things to keep me awake at night. My college roommate (who is a notoriously bad sleeper) once told me that he stayed awake all night thinking about the quantity of paint it would take to cover an entire train (this amount including the undercarriage and insides of the wheels and what not). I laughed about it then but insomnia is no laughing matter.
My brain did often drift to potential problems with unemployment and even though it wasn't the majority of my sleepless thoughts I think it was the root. Another important event is that about a week ago when I had a little too much to drink I burst into tears over my situation. I normally don't cry like that and I'm not one for self pity but I think it wasn't until my rational, conscious mind was subdued by the alcohol that those feelings buried deep down were able to come out.
In conclusion; it sucks to lose your job. I feel for the hundreds of thousands of other people in the same situation.
If you've been reading this log since the beginning you'll remember my distaste for the California DMV. It's a place where everyone is required to go if you want to drive a vehicle and it's run by a bunch of minorities who know they can't get fired. They deal with shitty people day in and day out and it shows. Image that kind of clusterfuck only now rather than just the normal amount of people trying to get appointments (which the DMV is staffed for) there are hundreds of thousands! That's the California Employment Development Department.
When calling the EDD a machine picks up and tells you that they're receiving so many phone calls that there is absolutely no way they can answer. They instruct you to file for unemployment online or call the national unemployment assistance hotline.
Lets back up. The internet is the first place I go for everything (information, dates, times, work, pleasure, a wife!) so of course I started there. It all seems pretty straight forward, make sure you have your drivers license and former employers address handy and fill out the online form. Well, right off I couldn't complete the first page of the form. The first question they ask is if you've been employed in CA for the last 18 months... Well, no, actually I haven't. So then I click the "next" button and it takes me to a page that says I must call the California EDD office (800-300-5626). I figure no big deal until I tried to call. The answering message says to call the national office. Well that's easy, they even supply you with the number. So I call the national office number and they give me back the California EDD number (800-300-5626) and say I have to call locally in order to be helped.
"But wait, their message just told me to call you and now you're telling me to call them?"
"Yes, that's what they system says."
"You can't help me with anything?"
"No sir. Thanks for calling." Click.
WTF!! The federal and local governments are just pointing their fingers at each other and I'm stuck in the middle!
God damn it. I picked up the phone and called the California EDD again. And again. And again. About every 15th call I could get a different recording that actually let me touch tone in some selections. I wrote these selections down (1, 2, 1, 2, 7). The recorded voice made it sound like I would be connected to someone and I would go through all the prompts only to be told at the end that there were already too many people on hold and it would hang up. Arrg!!
Considering my options (none) and the exorbitant amounts of time I now have (unemployed) I hit redial for about an hour. And then, something close to a miracle happened: A human being answered the phone!! I was so happy I almost cried. Through that human I was able to file for unemployment but the story isn't over yet. She told me that they would next contact me by mail and that I would have to fill out some forms. At least to me, it seems like that leaves a lot of room for error. No claim number, no phone number to call them at, just an envelope in the mail arriving at some unknown time.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Today is a rough day for a number of reasons. One, it's weird how much the terrorist attacks still upset me and two, it's my last day of work. I woke up at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep because I was thinking about all of this. At about 4am I realized that after today these things won't be bothering me anymore which was a comforting thought.
Now, to just use the abundance of time I'm going to have wisely (right after I fill out all the unemployment forms).
Greetings all!
I've been a bit preoccupied with this whole getting-laid-off business but I promise once all is said and done (this Friday at 6:00pm) I promise I will have a lot more time to post. In fact, I think it will become number one on my list of things-to-do. So, just hold out for a few more days and there will be some super posting glory to be read!
I love you all.
In the Los Angeles winter of 2008/2009 Nicole and I went the entire season without heat (ok, half, because we moved to West Hollywood). It's not that our Koreatown apartment didn't have a heater. There was a circa 1960 heater mounted to the wall in the middle of the main living space but no matter how much I tried I could not get it to start. After going down to the office to mention it to the leasing manager and then finding out that his latest hired help had been crushed to death while trying to service the elevator in the building across the street (which the management company also owned) I decided it wasn't really a problem worth mentioning. So, to cope with the cold Nicole and I just bundled up (thanks Dad, for teaching me the valuable lesson of layering clothing indoors).
Last night in our West Hollywood apartment I awoke at 2am to find myself covered in sweat. Determining this unusual I went to the thermostat and discovered that even though it was set to 74 degrees our apartment was a bee-hive-worthy 89 degrees. Cursing my luck I grabbed the spray bottle and gave myself a nice misting before returning to bed only to realize that I stick to the sheets annoyingly long before I fell back asleep.
After suffering an entire night without my beloved refirgerated air I called the apt management, Alex. He was nice about it and said he would call the repair man.
Here's the thing about this kind of climate in a heat wave: Air conditioning repair men are in high demand and believe it or not there are rolling blackouts (even if they last only a few seconds as I witnessed in Northridge). So now it's the night after my call for repair and even though the central system is still ary, the apt manager brought us a portable unit which we put in our "bedroom" and this is the point of my entire long winded post:
You get what you pay for.
In Koreatown our manager had squished people to deal with (not to mention evicting families with small children, single girls robbed of their rent money [why she carried it in cash is beside me] and gang shootouts on the same street where those potentially evicted children played). Here in West Hollywood, as long as there aren't homos doing it in the bushes out front or some laid off homo isn't kicking in the front door our apartment manager usually has time to deal with the little things that go wrong in each apt. I hate to be a gentrified asshole but I kind of like it. Aside from the gay guys puking in the gutter every Thursday and Friday this is a nice place to live. I'm lucky to be here. I still miss all those families in Koreatown and pray for them almost daily but I've got my own family to worry about.
Ok, that's enough past reflecting for now.
To those who I have never heard from until recently (yes, you recent new commenters): Thank you. Thank you for your support and kind words and I'm terribly sorry if I have been too selfish to thank you personally for every message. To know that even one person reads this silly blog is a huge inspiration. Perhaps when my real work finally does end (9/11 weird huh?) I can find some time to make a significant post about job loss.
Please keep checking back. I forsee a lot of time for posting in my future.
I love you all.
