Absent and Broken

Times are hard all around so I just thought I would get my ass on here and bitch about my hard times. I know everyone is taking a huge bite of this shit sandwich, but I am here to describe what my mouthful taste like.
Like most people I have been spending on a borrowed dime. I cannot even call it the 'Wimpy Effect'. You know the old, "I will pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.' Yeah I am a little old school like that.
Well, we have been living like this and it has finally come down to this fact: We are working full time jobs just so that we can drown slowly. I am telling all this with sincere shame in my eyes. It is to the point that if we cannot get someone to co-sign a loan we will be moving back in with her parents.
And that isn't as bad as it seems but once you get a taste of having your own place it is hard to move back in with someone. Hell, I have had to do it......three times in my life! And it isn't because we have top of line cars or cloths, it comes down to the little things that have put us here. Our want to build credit and the lack of control to keep our spending under control. Ha, I feel like a government official except I don't have a scapegoat or a huge bail out.
But I think I have it all wrong, and in comparison to the rest of the world our debt is pennies. I mean last I checked the US owes soo much money I am not even sure where to put the commas in the number!
But yet that does not help me with the fact we are down to the last straw, and I don't want to file for bankruptcy again......yes I filed about 11 years ago. Its a long story filed with an ex wife, a lack of control and me not helping out with the finances in my world. And it sucks to know I am back in the same hole now just that this time I am not going through a divorce on top of it. I came here to clear my head and all I seem to be doing is making it worse.
I am in the last year of my college, which by the way sucks but whatever. I am trying to get this degree to help me get a job that pays more........so I can owe even more down the road. I mean if you are going to sin......sin big! No one cares if you owe tens of thousands of dollars. But get in over your head for a million and you could probably work out a talk show deal and maybe even a book. Getting into debt is easy but getting into a financial hole that would rival the problems in Greece, well that is a full time job!
I am to the point of even looking for a weekend job, which I really do not want to do. The weekend is the only thing I have let to keep me from losing my mind. It is my only time to let loose. I drink cheap beer and watch movies on Netflix. It is not much but its all I have the energy for. Once upon a time I worked out and I even try to start it up now and again, but I find I have noting pushing me for it. I have never been this tired and this stressed in my life. No where to go and no way to fix it. I know in time I will look back at this and shake my head, and I am soo looking forward to that day. Because the here and now is not where I want to be.

In closing I will say I just came here for some blogging therapy, I read the paper and see how bad other people have it. In the last big storm in Jersey, I got to read just how bad things can get. So I wont cry into my beer for myself, I will hold my head up and hope for a better tomorrow. For us all, for everyone that needs a hand because sometimes the things that we want are not the things that we need nor are they the things that we get. My life is stressful, its a whirl wind of unknowns, its uncertain, it brings me to tears when I know no one can see me but its my life. In a few years I will be able to stand a little taller knowing I made it through, and maybe with a little luck I will be little lighter too......because all this stress is killing my waist line!

I cannot end this with such a bummer. I will share with all a music video that has infected my brain and has helped me smile when I seemed to have lost my ability to smile. I must thank the members of the band LMFAO for this: I am Sexy and I Know it

Aftermath Irene in NJ

This post has been sitting in my edit box for way too long. Between school, work, life and my procrastination lifestyle it just has not been able to get out. As most people know NJ got slammered by a hurricane, that followed an earth quake, that was then followed by days and days of heavy rain.....man I hate to say it but 2012 here we come. Dont worry, be happy......because its almost over hahahaha.
But seriously Jersey was hit pretty hard. My general area, and I mean about a four block radius of my house, did not suffer too much. But the rest of the state did not do so well. In the town by my mom, Manville NJ, just about floated away. The town was hit hard, but that is what happens when a town is built up around a river, and then man builds canals all over the place. Just a side note here, look into the area you are planning on moving into. If they have had flooding problems in the past odds are they wont get better as time goes on. Example:

• Man buys house, hurricane comes and destroys his house, house is located in area nick named 'Hurricane Alley', why is man surprised a hurricane destroyed his house?

I am not trying to be mean or unsympathetic to people that lost so much in this past disaster, I just hope some people have learned from this. And that they had insurance, hell I live in an apartment and I learned my lesson about having insurance.......after I got robbed!

Here is a shot of one of the numerous side streets I passed in downtown Manville. Its hard to see because of that stupid car, but all the way down the street both sides are lined with people's belongings. Like I said before I sure hope they had insurance.

I tried to get a shot of the tree line as I went under an under-pass, but taking pictures while driving can be some what problematic. But you can see how high the water level had gotten. If I had been in this very spot 2 days prior to taking this, I would have been completely under water!



The town put up a sign to try and deal with anyone thinking of looting or garbage picking.....the town of Manville will prosecute you if you are caught touching anything that doesn't belong to you. Now if this was down south it might have read: "Touch my shit I will shot you, survivors will be shot again!"

Yeah that means you!

The water level here had to be almost 8 feet high! A river side restaurant sounds nice.....until a hurricane comes through!

The bushes show where the water level was at, I am going to in the area again soon and will take some 'after' shots.

Clean up was well under way, the whole town was in clean up mode when I was driving through. And again look at the bushes, I would not have wanted to be where I was standing 2 days ago!

But on the way out it was reassuring to see that the sticker car made it out. I see this car almost every time I drive through here. The owner is just a crazy looking and decorated as their car.



This last picture was taken at an under pass by my house. This area floods when it drizzles, so just imagine what happened when Irene came down! Well you dont have to imagine, I have a picture of it right here. This car remained here for almost a week before some removed it. Is it me or did this seem like a bad idea from the start?

We did get a little water in our basement but nothing in comparison to what others got. My job was without power for a week after the storm. There was a back up generator but the powers that maybe wanted to be cheap and did not hook up our office area to it. Yes it was in the original plan but the company I work for is all about band-aide solutions and stepping over a dollar to get a quarter. So they saved some money up front but lost in the end when disaster hit. Oh well, its not my problem I still got paid. Got paid to sit in the dark and sleep, I cannt complain it was a nice break before school started up haha.

Vacation is over and now its back to work

What an awful title to a blog post! But sometimes the truth hurts lol. I am starting my first real week of my last YEAR IN COLLEGE! It is going to one hell of a year, but I know it will be over before I know it. So lets GET IT ON! Its on like Donkey Kong!

But Lets not talk about those nasty tid bits of life, even though some of the up coming bits of life do suck. But lets start with the good parts and talk about our weekend camping get away with the kids:

We packed up the kids and gear and headed off to Stokes State Forrest out in Branchville, NJ. It has always been the place to go when the camping bug bites us. It was the one of the first places I took my girlfriend, now wife, on vacation. It isn't really roughing it but it is enough for us lol.

Who wants something to eat from Dale's? Dale's market is always our last stop before we venture into the land of bugs, ticks and bears!



Here is our site, the only real problem with Stokes is that it is soooo damn rocky. You cannot really stake down a tent right, there isn't any dirt!



The whole trip consisted of us telling the kids to stop running, because we knew what was going to happen. And sure enough Lucas was the first to get first aid because of fall. It only stopped him for a few minutes though lol



This year we went with a lean-to instead of a tent. Note to self: Bring more padding for sleeping on and some industrial wasp/bug/spider spray! I did love the stove they had in there, its the same type I would love to have in my house someday.



This year we went with our neighbors, we were supposed to have lean-tos right next to each other but that one had some problems with hornets. Don't you just hate it when mother nature gets in the way?



The best part about camping? The FIRE! I don't know what it is about chopping wood and burning it, but god damn it I love doing it!



My mom gave us some farm fresh pork chops and sausage to take with us. And I must say that stuff was 100 time better than any meat I have ever bought at the supper market!



And the next best part: Smores and camp fire stories. I don't know where they got the idea from but they wanted scary stories by the campfire. They must have been watching the same show or something. So we all took turns trying to scare them, I told a pretty good one. But while the wife was telling hers I 'went out to pee' and crept up behind them and scared the bah-jesus out of them. Memories that will last a life time hahahaha



I do love camping but I sure did love the shower I took when I got home. But I must say this time around we did not over pack. I am bad at that, I always prepair for every possible thing. So I end up with soooo much damn crap that I spend more time packing and un packing than anything else. I did forget a few items but nothing major.




Things to remember for next trip:

Spatula, I had to use my butcher knife this time.

A big bucket, luck for us our neighbors remembered one

My tackle box, again lucky we went with other people

No rinse camp soap

Hornet spray

And make sure the first aid kit is well stocked with bandages, we used them all up this time around :-D

Semi Product and day at the park

The wife bought these Topsy-Turvey planters, I know I spelled that wrong but most people know what I am talking about. She got the strawberry, the jalapenos one and the tomato planters. Well after much watering and care I will say not to bother with them. Planting them the old fashion way works better. The strawberries were an absolute failure, the peppers were so so at best, and as of now no tomatoes. We have some possible flowers that might become food but as of now we have not had anything worth bothering with. So if you ask me, dont bother with these things, you want to grow some food? Dont be lazy and go dig up a garden lol

Day at the park:
Took the kids to the Phil Rizzuto park in Elizabeth, NJ right on Morris ave, across the street from my nemeses....Kean University. It is odd that they have a park named after a baseball legend but there isnt a base field on it. Just a grassy area that has become mud because of the soccer games played there. They have tried keeping the grass but its just about impossible to keep people off the grass long enough for it to grow. It is a large field and the only one around that is perfect for playing soccer on, so I cannt really blame them.

But it has a nice park for the kids to play, a water sprinkler for the kids to run through and this nice soft rubber matting that if you fall on it, you get one hell of a nasty rug burn!

But that never seems to stop them for more than 2 seconds. And add water to a slide and what do you have? Even faster kids flying off the slide! Here we have Lucas coming down the slide:


And here we have him heading back to the top of it, like I said there is no slowing them down!


And then we have Seth the monkey. I swear he will be the first of my children in a cast!


I had to ask Lucas to stop for a second to take his picture.....yeah this lasted about a second!

Wild monkey man on the climbing thingie!

I am set to go on vacation in one week, no real big plans just day trips here and there. I just want some time off to do just about NOTHING. Ever notice that most vacations are more exhausting that going to work?

Product Evaluation #1

I am a huge sucker for new products, especially weight-loss gimmicks. I have been meaning to do some post on the numerous items I have tried, own and even use on a regular basis. So here is my first product evaluation, and its on this new food additive Sensa:

I saw the ad on a Facebook side bar ad, it had all the usual get skinny fast notions. It even had the 'order now and get your first three months free' catch phrase. Keep that line in your mind as you read what I have to say about this snake oil.
So, I order it and pay for the shipping and handling, no biggie. I get the product and read JUST about all the papers that fall out of the box. About how it works, why it works, how to use it and so forth. Like a kid at Christmas I open my new weight-loss weapon and hit the ground running. But as the days wear on I find one big flaw in the product, you have to carry it with you at all times. I am not always at home when I eat, like most normal working stiffs. So this means I have to remember to carry this item around with me at all times, so you know how that went. Hell I cannt even remember to take my vitamins....crap I forgot to take it again this morning, crap!
So, after about two weeks of half ass-ing it with Sensa I put it aside, I just could not remember to keep it with me whenever I ate. I tried I really did, and hell the product targeted my main problem with food....I just dont know when to stop! And this product claimed it could help with that, it was not a lack of wanting to use the product it was more of a lack of being able to keep it on me.
After I finally said, screw it my wife reminded me to make sure they did not put me on an automatic billing cycle. Ummmm what.....WTF is that? At first I was all like, 'Whatever' But then I was like, 'Ok, let me look into this'.
And sure enough, after going back and looking through ALL of the paper work that came with the shipment there was this one sheet of paper that had all those little nasty details.
Detail One:
You are put on an automatic shipment of this product every three months. And this shit isn't cheap! So, after following the direction on the paper I cancelled the automatic shipping. Which by the way was not an easy feat by any means.
Detail Two:
The 'Free Trail' is not free. I know shame on me, even the ad said, 'If you are not totally satisfied with the product just send us back the product and you pay nothing but the shipping.' What this means is that you have to call Sensa, talk to one of their reps that tries every way under the sun from keeping you from returning it, and get the return address.
Detail Three:
You have to get this charge back number from the Sensa that has to be put on the box you are returning it in. The first person I spoke to never said anything about this. I learned this after reading some more on what I need to return the product without paying the full $90 some smackers for this 'food additive'. So, I called again and asked for this number. I was a little less polite about my answers this time about why I was returning it. The phone drones they have there, work off a script and I had to cut this one off in mid sales pitch. I am an ass, sorry phone guy I heard the same pitch from the last guy whom seemed to have forgotten I needed this number for my shipping needs.
With all my ducks in a row I was able to return it and pay nothing but the shipping. To sum up the product itself I cannot say it worked or not, I could not remember to keep it in my pocket when I went out to eat.
They have a great gimmick that preys on the same notions that almost all the weight loss products use; Get them to take the bait of the 'Free Trial', keep the automatic billing cycle in plain sight but on page 15 of the 15th page of you product information and make returning the product so annoying that most people will not take the time to do it right. Because you miss one step and they got you for the full amount of the product.
In all I would avoid this product and their Tricky-Dickie billing department. Well, unless you are one of the few people that never forgets things and does not mind sitting in a restaurant and adding something to your food that you took out of your pocket........which by the way did make me feel a little creepy. I felt like some addict trying to hide the fact he was an addict lol,