The Faces of Lou

Car trouble...

My son, "Two", saved up his money and purchased a car back in October. It was a pretty good looking car, but shortly after he got it, we had to replace the transmission. After it was repaired, he paid for insurance, inspection, and PA registration. He spent hours with his mother, myself, and other family members practicing his driving. All of his hopes, money, practice and repair work went towards passing the driving test to get his license, which was scheduled yesterday. It was scheduled at 1:30PM, and I figured around 2:00PM, I would get a text message, a phone call, or I would otherwise hear the Earth move from his jubilation. When 4:30 came and went, I realized I hadn't heard anything, and I was surprised. I got out my cell phone and started typing out a message to him, and we had the following text message conversation:

Me: Where are you? Two: Here Me: Gee thanks. Where is 'here'? Two: Right where i'm sitting Me: Are you at my place or your mom's or some other location. Two: The second Me: How did the big test go? Two: She said I did great, except that I hit a cone while trying to parallel park Me: So is that a pass or not? Two: Not Me: Did you resched? Two: Yes Me: When is it scheduled? Two: Next Wednesday at three

He decided to skip his weekly scout meeting last night, and instead he went out driving with his aunt to practice parallel parking. When he was at the testing facility they told him he could practice on their course after hours. On his way back from his successful practice his car "died", and he couldn't get it started back up. By the time I got there the "Ex's" husband had arrived on the scene and had jumper cables hooked up to recharge his battery. We had a little gathering of people looking at his car: Two, his aunt, the Ex's husband, myself, the owner of the property were Two's car broke down, and the owner's 4 year old daughter. We decided that the problem seemed to be the alternator, and that when we got Two's battery charged up he would be able to drive it home. After a few minutes of battery charging, he turned the key and the engine started right up. A few minutes later, we are closing the hood of his Cavalier, and he leaves trying to get the car home before the battery dies again.

After he gets the car to his mother's house, he packs up his stuff, and slumps himself into my car, despondently. I tell him to not worry, and that replacing the alternator is a pretty easy task and we can do it ourselves without needing to take it to a mechanic. His spirits lift only slightly, and he tells me the day was one of his worst, but it wasn't all bad... He got a girl's phone number today.

My first thought was that he was kinda "pulling my leg" a little. I figured he must have gotten the number of the driving instructor on some result paper from his test... and he was just trying to lighten the mood with a joke. So I kinda dismissed him, and didn't really give him a chance to explain...

After a few minutes later, he then asked if I wanted to hear about this phone number he got. So I decided he needed to get the joke out, so I said to give me the story. To my surprise he wasn't joking, and to my relief it wasn't the driving test instructor. He had met a nice young lady from another school earlier in the day at a meeting.

Two is the "Rotary Club Student of the Month" for November at his high school, and he attends the weekly Rotary club meetings on Tuesdays during the day. This is where he met the "Student of the Month" at another local school, and they shared a "moment" making fun of the "old guys" at the Rotary club.

Two is growing up... He's almost driving on his own, and has enough courage to ask for a girl's number... I didn't learn how to do either until last week! (OK, Ok, I stretched the truth a little... I learned to drive much younger.)

Later Lou

100% Pittsburgh

A coworker of mine sent me a quiz to see how "Pittsburgh" I am. I have spent most of my life in the area (north west of da 'Burgh), so I am not surprised I got:

You are 100% Pittsburgh.

Great job! There's nooooo doubt about it. You're from Da Burgh. You deserve a reward, so go have an Ahrn City or two. And GO STILLERS! How Pittsburgh Are You See All Our Quizzes

Later Lou

Vacation is over...

My unplanned vacation is over, and I am back to work. When the "bad check" crisis hit last Monday, I took an unplanned vacation for the three days before Thanksgiving to resolve the issue. Well, it took practically the entire time to get it resolved. If you want to read a lengthy post about the details click HERE. My tenant's son said he was going to pay December's rent in advance so I "wouldn't have anything to worry about." He also said he would pay it this past Friday (11/23), but as you probably already guessed, I haven't seen the money yet. I am sure next month will be another battle. My tenant is now telling me she is going to move out after the "Holidays," which I took to mean in January. I don't know if it will happen or not, but at least I am getting a possible heads up. I received an unsolicited call this past weekend asking if the apartment was available for rent. When I mentioned it might be in January they said that was perfect... So if they do move out, I may have someone ready to move in right away. I got the marital home listed for sale. If you are interested in seeing the property, or are just curious you can click HERE. My realtor said she may have an interested party already, so I am hoping to hear some good news from her soon. Regrettably, I am back to work. My boss isn't here today, so it seems pretty quiet in the office. Even though my vacation was unplanned, and except for the money crisis, it was for the most part, very enjoyable. Now that I am back, I wish my vacation was longer! It snowed again here Thursday evening, and neighbor kids were making a snowman in the shared yard in front of Sweetie's place, but they didn't get to finish it... So there were a couple of large "snow balls" in the yard for the weekend. My family is planning a Holiday gathering and gift exchange, so I have to create a wish list. I am having a tough time coming up with a list of things I would like to have. Actually my real "wish list" is quite lengthy, but most of the items don't fit within the monetary limit set for the gift exchange! If you had to create a list of things you wanted under $50... What would you ask for? Later Lou

Happy Thanksgiving

Give thanks for all things, and all times (good and bad), because they give us reasons to rely on each other and our Creator, and God gives us the strength to accept the help and in turn help those we love. I am thankful to have a wonderful family, a Sweetie and a God that love me and help me make it through each and every day. I am also thankful for my readers and the blogging buddies that I have just started to get to know. When you drop by, drop a line and say hi. I hope everyone has a great and memorable holiday. Later Lou P.S. I hope you have lots of turkey, before they get us!

Interesting day... or two.

When I went to bed Sunday night, I was expecting Monday to be a great day. I am not one of those people that wake up every day jump out of bed, excited to be awake... I have to pry my butt out of bed in the morning after hitting the snooze bar about a zillion times... But Monday, I got out of bed happy... I finally had something to be excited about: The son of my tenant had given me a check on Sunday to pay for his mother's back rent ($1,200). I couldn't wait to deposit it in my bank account and finally have enough money to pay some of my slightly overdue bills, and still have a few bucks to spend... So I didn't waste any time, I logged online and scheduled my bills to be paid. Unfortunately, the day didn't turn out to be a great day, as a matter of fact, it turned out to be be one of my bad days... Which recently has all I have been having. Enough of my whining... on to the story. I skipped out of work for a few minutes so I could deposit the check early. At the bank while I was waiting in line to deposit the check, I looked over and read the little sign explaining when deposited funds will be available, and my mood and smile broadened when I read that checks drawn this bank are available the same day. Woo Hoo, no fees because the check didn't clear fast enough!!! I walked up to the teller with the check, deposit slip and my toothy smile on my face. The smile faded within seconds as the teller returns the check to me and flatly says "We can't take this check." "WHAT?!!?" My jaw dropped, and I couldn't help but keep the attitude out of my voice. I thought they were pulling a joke on me at first, since all of the tellers know me well. She wasn't smiling and she explained that she wasn't "pulling my leg". There were no funds in the son's account and the check would "bounce" and cost me money if I were to deposit it. My good mood went from extreme glee to extreme gloom. I yanked out my cell phone and immediately dialed the tenant's son, and was rewarded with a message from Verizon saying the person I was attempting to call was unavailable... All I could think was "that jerk had given me a bad check and skipped town!!!" The mood shifted from gloom to doom! I wanted to strangle him right then and there! All I could think of was all of the scheduled electronic payments I had setup based on this check being deposited today, and all of the bank fees I was going to be charged without the funds in the account. It was going to cost me a small fortune! The tellers were felling bad, and the branch manager did a little research and without giving out too much private information said that I would "be trying to be get water from a stone," based on what she was seeing in his account history. I stormed out of the bank and immediately started calling everyone I could think of. I called his mother (my tenant), his sister, his employer, and his previous employer. Everyone I could think to call. Of the few people I was able to talk with told me that he has a history of being a little less than trustworthy. The mother only knew "he said he would take care of everything". His sister never called me back. His employer said he hadn't seen him in a month and a half, and that he had been "fired from his previous job too". His previous employer said he was trying to contact him also, because he had some equipment from the company that was never returned. The worst part was that no one seemed to know how to get a hold of him. I left work, and drove around my home town looking for him. I drove past his house, knocked on his door. I knocked on his mother's door. No one was home. I gave up driving around after an hour and went back to the phones. "Sweetie" recommended I call his mother (my tenant) at her work, and that idea worked (Thanks Sweetie!). She said she had heard my message I left on her voice mail, and that his cell phone's prepaid minutes had run out, and she had no way to get a hold of him. She said he would probably be around after she got home from work at 3:30 and would talk to him then. Some how word must of have finally reached him, and he called shortly after I talked with his mother. He apologized profusely (too much actually), saying he had mistakenly used the wrong checking account. He promised to be at my place within the hour to make it all better. After all of the things I had heard from his previous employers I didn't really hold my breath. After waiting about 5 hours, about 4:30 in the afternoon and multiple calls from him postponing and postponing, I had pretty much given up. At about 6PM he called to tell me his girlfriend was just in a car accident, and that he has to go to the hospital to be with her. He told me that she wasn't really hurt, but just getting checked out to be sure. He "promised" would be stopping at my house after she was released. He knocked on my door at midnight. Yeah you read that correctly 12:00AM. As soon as his foot crossed the threshold he once again started with the excessive apologies and a half hearted explanation. He handed me $800 in cash, $400 less than he owes me and made some meaningless promise about how by 10:30 the next day he would give me the remaining $400, plus an additional $600 for the rent due in December. If you are a betting person, you probably bet that 10:30 the next morning came and went without a phone call or a knock, and you would be right. However, his mother did stop over around 11:00 with $200 in cash, still $200 short. She said he would be over later in the afternoon with the rest. I did not get the remaining money until today (Wednesday) at 11AM. He gave me an extra $50 towards next month's rent, and of course made another promise about how he would have the rest of December's rent by Friday. I believe I will be lucky to see that amount before December's rent is due on the 3rd. Tuesday morning I made an appointment with my attorney and got the scoop on what I could do to evict my tenant and what my legal options were to press charges for the bad check. None of the options were a quick solution to my problem, but I am armed with a good deal of information to help minimize this from happening again in the future. After it was all said and done, the tenant is now current, they are planning to stay through December, but said the plan to move out at the first of the year. Personally I was happy with them moving out this month, but with the signed lease I am pretty much obligated to let them stay there as long as they pay the rent. I was really, really hoping I could put the eviction notice on the door, but now I get to save that privilege for Christmas eve! :-) Yeah, that's how nasty I feel right now! Later Lou

It's snowing!!!

Ok, that "!!!" in the title isn't a exhaltation, it's a exclaimation!

This is what I saw when I went outside this morning:

BTW: When I was snapping this picture, Scrappers, my second cat, decided to investigate the going's on outside, and was fascinated with the falling white flakes.

I mean, I thought we were experiencing global warming, and the ice caps were melting... why in heck is it snowing in Western PA in mid November!?! Ok enough of my complaining, for now. Later Lou

Vacation Day...

Another Scout leader training session was completed on Sunday, and we trained 8 more people. This brings the total to 26 newly trained cub scout leaders. The final two sessions are planned this week on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.

Sweetie and I took a "vacation" day on Friday. Actually I took a vacation day, and she called off. The fact that I wasn't at work probably explains why I didn't create a new 'rambling along' post. It seems as if the only times I can find an opportunity to create a post is when I am at work. I wonder if that means; I am not doing enough work? or I don't care as much about work to actually do it? or If there just isn't any work to do? Hmmmm... that's a good set of questions.

We took the day off with a plan in mind: To clean the second apartment in my duplex. It was expected that the tenant was going to be moved out on Thursday. I say "was expected" because Thursday night they had not yet moved out. I came home Thursday night after our team got creamed in bowling, to find a note on my door that said:

Lou, I won't be out till next wend. "My son" gets a big check from work next week you'll get a lot of it. "Your Tenant" The names were changed to protect the innocent. (me)

The note means I have to wait another week to get into the apartment and clean it, and get it listed to re-rent. Hopefully, it also means that I could see some money this week, and that would be a nice change of pace.

You know I just realized that my tenant could be reading this blog... It's not like I am hiding myself very well. I mean, my profile does list my real name and the real town I live in (or at least it appears that way right?)... Oh well...

Anyway, Sweetie and I ended up cleaning MY apartment instead, and after two hours she stated we "still weren't done..." (sigh)... Apparently I am not a very clean bachelor. I guess I could use a good life partner, a good child or two, or a good maid to help me keep it clean.

This past Saturday afternoon, we also went and visited the old marital home, and checked on the roof construction happening there. I don't recall if I mentioned it or not, but I did manage to scrounge up enough money credit to replace leaky roof, and I hired a Realtor recommended contractor to do the work. The contractor told me the work would be done in one week, and that he would start on Saturday (11/3/2007). When we stopped in this Saturday exactly one week after construction was started, it didn't appear like the job was done. As a matter of fact it didn't look like it would be done by Sunday. True to our expectations, when we drove by late last night (Sunday) and it still appeared as if there was work to do, and there was a lot of clean up yet to do. So it's taken so far, 1 week and 2 days. I wonder if I will get a credit since the job wasn't completed within the contracted time? Or do you think I will get charged more because the job took longer than expected? In either case, I am sure the project time will be blamed on the weather - It did rain, and there were a few snow flakes this past week.

The weekend was otherwise a great one, because I got to spend it with Sweetie, even though we ended up doing a lot of chores together all weekend.

Later Lou

Training

Our first two training sessions are done. We have trained 18 new leaders so far, and still have 3 more training sessions to go.

The first night was a little rough, and I was pretty nervious since I hadn't done training for awhile, and I kept thinking I would mess up... Guess what I didn't do? If you think I didn't make a mistake, you would be mistaken... What I actually didn't do was... Yep, you guessed it... I didn't do it perfectly... Surprise! no actually not really... But I did re-learn that you don't have to be perfect to teach, but you do have to recognize your mistakes and correct them.

Tonight was much better. I was much more comfortable, and not nervious at all. And guess what? I made more mistakes than last night, but I had more fun, and corrected them better.

Yesterday most of my mistakes were not so much informational mistakes, but a lack of cofidence, stuttering, and not following my notes. Today my notes were used, my confidence was stronger, no stuttering, but my information needed a little tweeking... Fortunately, I had my mentor there to keep me in line! ;-) Maybe this Sunday's session will be somewhere in between!

The next training sessions are on this Sunday, Tuesday, and the last one a week from today. Then I go back to Scouting retirement, and back to the non-uniformed civilian.

Later Lou

P.S... I saw snow flakes yesterday!!!

Back to Scouts...

For many years I was a major Cub Scout Leader for our local Cub Scout Pack 481 in my home town. I started as a leader for the oldest boys, 4th and 5th graders, called the Webelos (WE'll BE LOyal Scouts). Shortly after I took that position the CubMaster and Committee Chairperson moved into Boy Scouts, and that left a few openings.

I was the enthusiastic new leader, and I was excited to be involved. So I moved into the CubMaster role, I helped to find a Committee Chairperson and helped with the planning and organization of the pack. The other parents weren't as enthusiastic as I was, and since I wanted to help the Pack grow bigger and more fun than it was, I started doing more and more. Eventually I was doing practically everything; planning our pack's functions, running the functions, attending training, attending district meetings, taking the boys on outings, and etc. I even got myself involved with running the district's summer day camp.

Well, as you can imagine, my enthusiasm waned, because I didn't get the help I needed. No one else wanted to help, probably because they thought I could do it all. I struggled for the last couple of years trying to keep things going, but I could see that it was falling apart. The parents seemed to only want a place where they could drop of their kids for an hour or two each week, and leave and do their own chores or go home and watch TV uninterrupted. I think they thought B.S.A. stood for Baby Sitters of America istead of Boy Scouts of America.

So couple of years ago my Cub Scout pack shut down. The Boy Scout troop continued for boys from 11 through 18, and so I became "just" a parent of a boy scout and attended the occassional Parent's (Committee) meeting. I stopped doing all of the training, the district events, the day camps, and everything else. Even though I gotten myself too involved, and I burnt out quickly, I find myself, even today, missing it. It was very rewarding teaching and working with the kids.

Recently a good friend of mine in Scouting asked me if I would help give some training sessions to new Cub Scout leaders. Training other leaders was something that I truly enjoyed doing when I was involved in Scouting in the past. I really do enjoy teaching, and I sometimes think I took a wrong turn on the career path... I would have also liked to be a writer, journalist, or even a photographer as well... but I digress...

Tonight is the first of 5 training classes we are offering over the next 2 weeks. We are teaching Tiger Cub Den Leaders tonight, which are volunteers (parents) who will work with the youngest kids in the pack, the 1st graders. Tomorrow night we teach the Wolf and Bear Den Leaders, which are the volunteers who work with the 2nd and 3rd graders.

I am looking foward to getting slightly involved in Scouting again, and hopefully the distraction will not only keep my mind off of my current financial situation, but to give me some sense of positive action in my life, since everthing else seems to be going negatively.

Later Lou

Back to work...

The weekend is over. My nephew came over Friday night, and stayed until late Saturday night. I took him to his Flag Football game, and his Indoor Soccer game. He had a great time at both, but unfortunately neither of his teams got a win. He had the most fun with his new PlayStation 2 game: "LEGO: Star Wars" that his Dad picked up for him earlier in the day before he came to my place. It is a two player game, and he convinced me, and "Two" to play the game with him most of weekend, that is when he wasn't doing Football or Soccer.

Saturday was full of driving. I got up early to take "Two" to work, then took my nephew to his games, with a stop back at home in between to change, and then picked up "Two" from work late afternoon. After "Two" got home, we had decided to go to see the 'Bee Movie'. After about two minutes of the movie, I wanted to put in ear plugs. Jerry Seinfield's whiny voice was in every scene. I liked the TV show "Seinfeld", but this movie wasn't "Seinfeld." To be honest, the movie is very cute, but it's very, very, very much designed to appeal to a very, very young audience. I had a hard time tolerating the movie. The youngest two of the group, "Four" and my nephew loved it. Everyone else thought it was lame, and stupid. This was definitely not a movie I will be adding to the DVD library. Sunday was not as full, it was kind of a "lazy day". I did have to get up and take "Two" to work early, and pick him up late afternoon, but other than that, the day was pretty quiet. "Three" and "Four" went back to "Ex's" place when I picked up "Two" from work. So most of the evening was just him and I. As I left to go pickup "Two" from work, and I was going to the car, my tennant was going into her apartment. I stopped her and said "Hi", and asked how she was doing. She said she was ok, but that she needed to talk with me. I hoped it was in regards to her paying her rent from October, and now November. I was right, but not in the way I had hoped. She told me that they were moving out, and they would be out by this Thursday. As a matter of fact, her daughter had already found another apartment and had left, and she would be gone already if she could be. She felt unsafe in the apartment because apparently someone left her door unlocked and someonelse came into the house and took some pills and some money, and they did it all within 5 minutes. Now, I have lived in my duplex for over 3½ years now, and I have never had a single problem. I am not dismissing her, or suggesting that she didn't lose the money and pills... I am only wondering two things: 1) How did they know they could get into the house and out within 5 minutes, that there was money and pills, and exactly where they were (house wasn't trashed) 2) Why didn't the thief take anything else worth more money? I told her that I was sorry to hear about her problems, and I expressed my displeasure at not being informed, as I could have done something to help her be more secure by installing a security system or something. The real kicker to the whole conversation wasn't that she was moving out, as that will probably be a good thing... The kicker was that she said she will have to pay her back rent in "payments". My mortgages and utilities don't accept payments... oh wait... they already ARE payments! :-) I am betting that since she plans on being out by this Thursday, Nov 8th, that she will feel she doesn't owe November's rent... (sigh) I am really beginning to not like being a landlord. So to solve the immediate needs I have to advertise the apartment again, and as soon as she moves out completly, I need to clean it and get it rented out again! Hopefully it doesn't need any major repairs, because I haven't the foggiest idea where I would get the cash for that! Tonight I am going over to "Sweetie's" for dinner, and we are going to discuss a "plan of attack" for the duplex. She is already talking about skipping work on Friday and going to clean out the apartment. Got to love the practical side in her, but if I am skipping work with her, I would rather not be "working". Later Lou

Bowling update / Weekend plans

Retalix Strikers, my bowling team, didn't bowl so well this week, or last. "Sweetie" stopped in to the bowling alley tonight with her son, "Other Two" and watched our team lose two of our three games. Last week, we only won one of three games as well, so the team has moved from first place last week, to probably 4th or 5th after tonight. Our team captain is out for a few weeks with a sore elbow on his bowling arm, so we are a player short... However, that doesn't account for our recent losses, that is due to our less than stellar athletic performance. The good news is that it is still early in the season and if we can just bowl our average or better, we can easily regain our position in first place.

This weekend my brother's wife is going out of town, and because he has to work, and his oldest son wants to play in his football and soccer games on Saturday, they are staying at home. My brother will be working at Heinz Field during the Pitt and Steelers games on Saturday and Sunday, so I get to spend time with my nephew again.

My nephew is coming over Friday night after I get done with work and is going to spend the night with me, and my kids;"Two" and "Four." I think my daughter, "Three", will be coming down as well, so I will have a full house. We may go catch up on the current movie releases at the theater, rent a movie or two, or just sit in front of the wide screen TV and play video games on the PlayStation. Saturday we get to take him to his flag football and indoor soccer games. He really enjoys soccer, but football doesn't yet seem to get his enthusiasm going.

I am really looking forward to a non-work, fun filled weekend with the nephew and the kids.

Later Lou