New Chapter

One of the things that really defines an adult is home ownership. At least that is what we have always been taught. And for a while I was really fighting against that idea. Not just because I did not think we could ever afford it, the idea of dealing with a house just was not something I wanted. But as time has gone on I realized that we really did need a home. I was done with dealing with landlords, HOA's and the small apartment life. But the next big issue was the cost; here in the Bay area houses are insanely expensive. 

But we finally pulled the trigger and decided we had to, our family just did not fit into apartment life anymore. So we started looking, but we were not willing to paying a million plus for a shack....and I mean that literally! 

The true eye opener was when they finished updating the condos located right behind us and we went to the open house. They wanted 1.2 million! This is a 1,430 square foot apartment, one parking spot, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and nothing more than a paved patio backyard.

And let us not forget the neighborhood! This is not a million dollar area, let me just list the things I have seen in this lovely area:

• People drink beer on the corners just about every day
• Homeless people making camp in your front yard, and I mean this guy had a mattress, a pickle jar for a potty and a tent!
• People coming onto your property to dig through your recycling
• Gang activity, I am talking real gang shit: tags, drug deals and theft
• Loud parties every weekend, I am not talking about little parties I am talking about live music blasting to all hours of the night parties
• Questionable people at all times of the day and night walking up and down the street

And this is just a few of the things to look forward to! And not to mention this place has an HOA, I would rather pour gas down my pants and light it than ever deal with another HOA! I would also like to mention that while living in this wonderful million dollar area we had the Swat team come crashing into our place thanks to a wanted fugitive hiding out in our area, yep that sounds like a million dollar neighborhood to me!

So with this in mind we started looking....East ward. Starting in San Jose and finally ending in Modesto. I am not looking to give out my home address but in the end we found a home way way out in the land of farms and rodeos...Modesto Ca.

And not looking to brag but we got twice the amount of home for less than half the price of that million dollar neighborhood in San Jose. 5 bedrooms, three card garage, three full bathrooms and a god damn pool! Yeah, SJ you can eat a dick for your million dollar bullshit you are calling a home HA!

Yes it is one hell of a commute but it was worth it, for what we go in a home I will deal with the drive for work. And what is funny is the the distance for work got longer but not really the time. It would take me one to two hours to get home from work living in SJ (37 miles)and now living farther away (57 miles) the commute is about the same! Less stop and go traffic but still traffic, and honestly I do not mind the drive and it is a price I am willing to pay for what we got in return.

And the area we moved into is probably one of the best we could have hoped for: The high school is right down the street, we live a block away from a strip mall that has everything from Thai food, an axe throwing place to a food store! Our neighborhood is also a huge step up from our original, we have been here two years and we have had none of the issues we used to have!

This house needed work (which I am going to post about in the near future of all the work we have done so far). We had it inspected and found no deal breaking issues, it was build in the late 90's and was in need of some serious updating but other than that it was solid. So far we have updated two bathrooms, painted and fixed the exterior, changed one bedroom into an office, put in a new pool pump, cleaned out the dryer vent (this one was a huge socker) removed alllllll the upstairs carpeting that went all the way into the master bathroom.....yes there was carpeting in the bathroom! We have painted most of the interior but we have more painting to do, and we have many more plans in fixing our home. 

This is will be a never ending project and honestly I am cool with that, and these projects are part of why I have decided to start blogging again. I really wish I had bought a house in my younger stronger back days, but no day like the present to better oneself and the family. 

Our family story is a never ending, changing and moving entity. Welcome to my world 

(est; 2/2021)

Blogging From My Phone

Just another day at work because I did not win the lottery!

I downloaded the mobile app to use the blog from my phone to see if that would help me get back into the swing of things. Edit: It seems that if I want to blog from my phone I am going to have to pay money, maybe....we shall see....

I took down my website because I was spending money on something I was not putting any time into. Maybe someday I will go back and give that a whirl again, but for the time being I am just going to try and blog again.

The question of what do I want to do with my blog had been on my mind, everyone that has any form of social media presence has a purpose and a direction, where as with me…I am all over the place. And to be honest, that is how I like it. I do not want to be a product review blog, home improvement, a fitness guru or a travel blog. I am just going to try it all and see what happens. 

I am disappointed in myself for not keeping this up through the years and letting this place collect so much dust. 

I have tried the reboot and failed, tried the website and failed so this time I am just going to pick up where I am and move on.

So, where am I? I am 9 years at my current job, two years in a new home, 22 years married, one cat, one dog, bowling in a beer league (9 pins counts as a strike) and as of recent I am on meds for gout. 

I am over weight and in the process of trying to get healthier. I have reached a point where I am no longer comfortable and I need to hold myself accountable!

But do I want this to be my weight loss journal….no…it will just be a part of the whole chaotic experience.

I have so much I can put into this place, and because I am all over the place I am just going to start posting. I will have to add some time lines within the post but just a warning…it won’t be in order! 

I am not sure how far back I want to go but let’s just start and see where it goes, I will get the ball rolling later this week. This is just my dusting of my place looking for a good spot to place my laptop. 

More to come, welcome to the chaos. 

Old picture….2020 

FaceBook Wants Pay to Play

 I play with my blog and my site just for shits and giggles. I have no dreams of grandeur with this, hell even if I could wish for it I would not. I would lose followers due to my crappy writing and my in ability to be consistent. I do not care if anyone reads my page, I am here for me and me alone. It would be cool to interact with others who share this flair of blogging but in the end this is for my entertainment.

Now, Facebook (FB) has this thing where it likes to harass people into paying for views. Normally I do not send anything to my JournaledTimes FB page unless it is about a direct post from here. Last week I did a little spicy food challenge ( I will make a full post about that later) and I posted it to my Instagram (IG) account. But for some reason IG changed my posting settings to post to my JournaledTimes page. Not sure to why or how, so I was looking for my post but I could not find it because it was on my JournaledTimes page.

No big deal really, I just left it and moved on. Then I started getting harassed by FB to boost my post…..but I had to pay for it! Now I am not looking to put anymore money into this hobby than I already do, I pay a yearly fee to WordPress to keep my hobby on a legit page .

At first it was just a simple post that popped up and I left it alone. But then it kept coming up over and over again. So I went to see what this was about, all these post about boosting!

Well, as it turns out I have to pay if I want to get more views from FB. And honestly that seems a bit fucked up, I will only get more views if I pay them money…..as I am not going to do that but I am curious as to how that works?

What are they going to do to boost my post that was not happening already? I pay them money and they do what with it? How are other people that are not currently in my circle of friends going to see a video I posted on my page? I am interested in what they mean by boosting…..but not enough to pay money.

FB, a multi billion dollar company, wants my pennies to boost my shitty little video….yeah no thanks. I am not hard up to artificially add views to my site. Reminds me of those fucktart influencers on IG that pay for their followers. You like my shit or you don't, makes no difference to me.

Come and follow or fuck off, I am not about to pump my money into a system that has no real proof it even works. I mean when was the last time you heard anyone thanking FB for their fame through boosting?

Kids New Bed

For sometime we have wanted to get the kids room in order. New beds, reorganized and CLEANED. Today we finally accomplished that very task. We bought them new loft beds with storage, a mini man cave area and drawers for their clothes.
It was an all day under taking that was well worth it! My feet are killing me, the wife is complaining about her back but we are DONE.
We will tackle our room in the next two weeks. It is in need of some serious over hauling as well, de-cluttered life is what we have been striving for and we are about to have it!
I love a weekend that ends with an accomplishment!

For the hundredth time.......I reboot

I blogged originally in 4/2005.......holy shit 11 years of my bullshit. Erratic bullshit, very inconsistent and always full of run on sentences. I had this notion that I wanted to do a recap of all the things that have happened in my world since I put a real post down.

But then I figured that was way too much of an undertaking so I am just going to randomly post shit that I have filled my life with. Vacations, pictures....lots of pictures, family, friends and all the things in between.

I have had this blog in my brain but life gets in the way and I have found that if I do not set goals for myself things like this just keep slipping by. Hell, it has been almost one year to date since my last POST!

So where to restart this love affair.....? I guess lets start with last weekend where we went to the Marin Highlands, right across the Golden Gate bridge:

We have been to this location numerous times and each time we find something new. This is the radar site at the top of one of the hills. Damn good view and great location to shot down Russians spies lol

So here is slow beginnings, one fast post and time to go to bed. I started blogging at work back in the day, but my current job is just to demanding to even think about trying blogging at this place. I am going to try and post regularly but I have said that once before......fingers closed.