Livin' the Life of Riley

Seems like life has been passing by insanely fast  for the last several months. Looking back, it feels like a blur of job searches, resume submissions, what-ifs, plans, contingency plans, dreams, and nightmares. I’m hanging on as tight as I can while hoping that I don’t get flung off the merry-go-round!

In May, James attended California Wind Tech’s Wind Technology Program in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Since then, he has been applying for job after job after job, and no doubt competing with unemployed electricians, mechanics, and engineers. Last week he finally received a phone call from a company, was interviewed, and received a job offer within a couple of hours of his interview. Whew! Talk about freaking out! This was after we decided that since neither of us were getting so much as an interview, maybe we should just give up on the job searches for now and bide our time until the economy improves. I was thinking that perhaps fate had other plans for us. And to be honest, all of the job searching we have been doing is emotionally and physically draining, in addition to being incredibly time-consuming. I am just tired of it.

So the job offer he received seems like a good one…the salary is higher than I currently make, the per diem is friggin’ awesome, plus mileage to boot. He is supposed to attend training in Chicago in a week or two, and then go off to his first job in New York, Iowa, Kansas, or Minnesota, or perhaps to Canada (doubt that will happen so soon).  Luck of the draw, I suppose.  The downside is it is a seasonal contract position; therefore there are no benefits. Thus, I remain stuck in my job so that we have health insurance. And stuck in my job = us being apart for significant periods of time.  Serious bummer. The upside to a seasonal position is just that ….it is seasonal. So he will have a significant period of time off in the winter, in addition to the week off with free round-trip airfare to and from home once every 6 weeks. And perhaps the company will need a traveling environmental scientist and hire me  .

James is really excited about it. I, on the other hand, am tottering on the fence. Yes, the money is awesome, and yes, it is a traveling position that will get his foot in the door with the larger companies such as Vestas, GE, and FLP. Those companies have itinerant positions throughout the western states, where we really want to be, plus they offer permanent positions with health insurance. To snag one of those jobs, you have to have experience.

On the down side, the month apart in May almost drove me insane. I don’t know how well this is going to go over, as I am going to miss James like crazy. I keep reminding myself that this is a means to an end…when he gets a permanent position with benefits, I can say sayonara to my job and focus on managing our rental properties and perhaps teach some online college courses from the road for entertainment (as if I will need additional entertainment) and a few extra bucks. Plus, I get tons of time off with my job right now, and can schedule my work weeks to have a four day weekend every other week. So if James is within a fairly close driving distance, Riley and I can make a roadtrip to see him. Means to an end, means to an end….this is fast becoming my mantra!

We have also been getting rid of our crap. One of our tenants trashed one of our rental units, and left us with a huge storage building crammed full of crap that she didn’t want, not to mention all of the stuff she left in the house (someone had a shopping addiction. I wonder where our rent went?). This prompted us to clean out closets, drawers, the barn, and storage buildings to lighten our load. We’ve held two yard sales, sold well over half of the crap, and got rid of furniture, clothes, and misc. items we don’t need. When we are finally ready to move, hopefully this will make it much easier on us.

We made over $600 at the yard sales. In addition, James sold his ‘63 pickup without even trying. Good thing, cause Bertha needs some TLC. James dropped her off Friday to have her transmission rebuilt. She’ll get some new shoes after that, and will be ready to drag the doghouse where ever James winds up.

This is certainly a big honking step in the right direction to get us both back on the road full time. I just wish life didn’t have to be so complicated. And I really wish that health insurance wasn’t our ball and chain to a job. I am really curious to see the policies offered as a result of Health Care Reform. I guess I am going to sit back, try not to stress out,  and enjoy this ride for a while while I chant to myself  ”means to an end, means to an end, means to an end.”

I have always loved the violin and I would love to learn to play. We stumbled upon David Garrett on Good Morning America this morning. I had to download his album “Rock Symphonies” and share this virtuoso with everyone I know! Look him up!  Hope you enjoy!

David Garrett, \”Smooth Criminal\”

Hazy, hot, and humid. These words don’t begin to describe the miserable heat we’ve been enduring in southeastern Tennessee for weeks now. We’ve had high  temperatures in the mid to upper 90s for weeks (16 days in the 90s so far in July and 20 days in the 90s in June), with the relative humidity hovering around 90% in the mornings and 60% in the afternoons. Heat indices have been over 100 due to the extreme humidity.

If you have never experienced heat and humidity like this, well, you are missing absolute misery. Just walking outside is like hitting a wall of extremely viscous, hot air that slows down every move you make, forces you to sweat buckets, makes evaporative cooling from sweating virtually impossible, and makes breathing only slightly less uncomfortable than inhaling water. Oh, and I forgot to mention the sheer exhaustion the heat and humidity causes because of the body’s dramatic increase in metabolism in a desperate attempt to maintain your body temperature somewhere below the temperature at which your brain will boil in your skull.

NASA is reporting that 2010 has exhibited the hottest January thru June  temperatures on record. I’m staying off my anthropogenic global warming  soap box, because frankly, I’m too exhaused to rant and rave about it very much.

 Tool’s Ænema is playing in my mind….. 

 ”Some say a comet will fall from the sky. Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves. Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still. Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits. Some say the end is near. Some say we’ll see armageddon soon. …………. One great big festering neon distraction, I’ve a suggestion to keep you all occupied. Learn to swim. Mom’s gonna fix it all soon. Mom’s comin’ round to put it back the way it ought to be. Learn to swim.”

Dawgs, we have been busy lately! Mom has been saying that we need to update my blog, but haven’t taken the time. Here’s why! We took a long road trip to Tellico Plains. While we were at the campground , we played in my favorite swimming hole in Citico Creek  , I helped Pop look for gold and cool rocks, I played steeeeek in the creek  , napped in the camper  , begged to go out and pway more more more , chewed on Papaw  , and hid between the chairs while mom cooked dinner (she says I have the dropsy cause I am afraid she will drop something on me when she clanks dishes) . I worked hard protecting the camper while we hung out in the campground  !  We drove up the mountain and stopped along the way to sniff out the views  .  We hiked a really long trail down to a creek to the Conasagua River Falls  , and I fretted over Pop when he climbed down the falls to take more pictures  . Mom made us be posers next to another river  above the Bald River Falls (why is it bald??).   After that long week, it started to storm and rain A LOT at home. The thunder scared me so bad that I decided the safest place to be was in Mom’s lap!  . Mom and Pop have been calling me the scaredy-chicken since that night! I was so tired after our camping trip that I kept falling asleep every time I was still for a couple of minutes  !  Once I got rested up from that trip, I had the energy to zoom thru the house again  !  Then mom and pop decided we were going on another camping trip to Papaw’s for a yard sale  . I don’t know why they said they were going to sell his yard and all of our junk in it, but Mom and Pop said I was a good dawg cause I didn’t bark very much at all those people who kept coming and buying all that stuff, even though I was tied to the camper!

Oh! Mom got pretty upset when this creepy dude tried to BUY MEEEEEE! Yeah. You read that right. He kept begging her to buy me, like I was a piece of all that junk lying around. Mom was nice to him at first, cause she wanted him to buy some of the stuff they were trying to get rid of. But then him and his wife were serious and begging her and Pop. I saw him pull out some money and try to get Mom to take it in exchange for me. Get this….she told him her and Pop would not take a million dollars for me. Then mom got MAD! She got really serious with them, and asked if they had kids. When they said they did, she asked them if they would sell her one of their kids since she doesn’t have one. I grinned when I saw them look a little like mom had smacked them or somethin’!! I heard the woman tell mom NO WAY. Mom told her POINT MADE – my child is not for sale either! And they left us alone after that!!! I really wanted to bite the man for being so obnoxious and for ticking mom off like that!

While we were staying at Papaw’s place, I snuck into the front seat of Mom’s car.  I wanted to drive, but she wouldn’t let me….something about not having opposable thumbs and a driver’s license, whatever that means! Oh! And I have been helping Pop in the yard and garden. Check out our sunflower field!  I keep getting in trouble because I like to chomp at the bees. Last year I had to go to the VET cause one stung the roof of my mouth and left a scary red spot that Mom totally freaked out over. I don’t know what the big deal was though. The VET gave me some pills and I got alllll better. Today, I saw a real-life sneaky-snake in our tree in the yard  . I am back to playing with Spanky-spider until our next road-trip  !

I upgraded my phone recently. I held out as long as I could, hoping Verizon and Apple would mesh and produce bouncing baby Verizon iPhones. Well, that hasn’t happened, and to be honest, I have serious doubts that it ever will, with the 3G v 4G network issues that I don’t completely understand, the repair issues at Apple v Verizon stores that, according to the saleswoman at Verizon, would supposedly leave owners without their phones for several weeks while the phones are repaired by Apple, and other contractural issues…blah blah blah.

Since I really needed another phone, I upgraded, trying to appease myself with the thoughts that a Verizon iPhone will come alone the day after to-never. I went from a Razor to a Chocolate. Then I had to return the first Chocolate because every time I typed a letter, the phone randomly selected another letter for me that I didn’t want. My second chocolate had issues of its own…namely it randomly changed my ring tone to whatever it felt like playing when the phone rang, and the light came on and stayed on until the battery went dead. To be perfectly honest, I really hated that phone. I kept the second one for two days, and returned it for a refund.

James had already upgraded his to a Droid Incredible, which is on back order until around the middle of June. I did some reading on the Incredible, and decided that I might as well try it also. I hated to spring for the data package along with our MiFi, but it is becoming terribly inconvenient to tote around the MiFi, my cell phone, and my iPod. Plus, if I took the MiFi, James didn’t have internet access.

Impatient soul that I am, I searched the internet yesterday morning to locate a store within driving distance that actually had an Incredible in stock, because I really didn’t want to wait several weeks for one. I lucked up…Best Buy in Knoxville had TWO in stock. And the mobile phone guy, Tracy, was even nice enough to hold it for me until we could get there. My only disappointment was that they would not give James the other one, even with his paid receipt, because he had actually ordered it through Verizon. Bummer for him…yeah for me

So after a few initial difficulties with my Incredible not being able to access the 3g network, which was finally resolved by Tech Support removing and adding back the data package, reprogramming my phone, and doing a hard reset, I was in business.

I really didn’t expect the Android-based Incredible to be THAT Incredible…more like, I expected much ado about nothing. Well, I was WRONG WRONG WRONG!

My Droid Incredible is blazingly fast, which is impressive, considering we live in the middle of nowhere, are terrain-challenged in that we live in a hollow, completely surrounded by hills, with a terrible cell phone signal that is worsened by the double-pane, argon-filled windows James installed in our house a couple of years ago.

My Incredible is faster than our MiFi/laptop,iPod combinations. I am facing a serious learning curve, considering that this is my first smartphone. But I have to say that considering the variety of apps it will run, along with other nifty features I am still discovering, plus the screen responsiveness, and overall quality of the phone, well, let’s just say that once the honeymoon period is over, if my Incredible is still, well, Incredible, I will kiss my dreams of an iPhone goodbye! I really didn’t wanna’ to love or even like this phone, and I looked for reasons not to get it. I sure hope that it continues to impress me!

Dawgs…we have been busy the last few weeks, and I haven’t been able to hog-dog the ‘puter to tell you ’bout my ventures. But here’s the latest! Last weekend Mom and Pop drove us to a big city called Atlanta in Georgia. Mom said I was born just south of there, but I don’t remember being there. Anyway, we stayed at a NICE hotel that was really friendly to us 4-legged souls. Get this…I was allowed to go in the lobby, through the hallways, and even up the elevator! And the best part?? Mom and Pop let me sleep in the bed with them!!!  I sometimes sneak onto the bed in the camper and get fussed at.  I can’t get into the bed at home cause it is way too high, and I am too scared to jump all the way up there.  But I think I might have to learn to jump that high ’cause this was toooo cool! I did my best to sleep on top of mom alllll night…she kept telling me I am too big! And I think maybe I made her legs sore cause she couldn’t move ‘em much thru the night. At least I kept her warm!

I can’t quite figure out the whole elevator thing. I really scared me, cause I felt like I was falling when it moved. I thought that slinking my belly low to the floor would help, but then my feet went in different directions on the slickery floor. And what is up with packing a bunch of people in the vader anyway? Jeeze…at one point there were 7 humans on that thing, plus me! I tried not to sniff anybody’s butt, but they were right in my face! What do they expect?

So now, I can’t wait to get our camper back…(Mom and Pop took it back to the dealer for some repairs). I’m gonna try sneaking into the bed with mom and pop in the middle of the night. Maybe they’ll let me stay???

Dawgs, am I a spoiled pup! See, mom thinks that most of the processed, bagged kibble is not good for pups. She says that some kinds have rendered dead, diseased, dying, and disabled animals in them. I don’t know what some of that means, but I do know that from the look on her face when she talked about that, I don’t think I wanna eat it. And she says she worried about my belly getting all bloaty from eating the kibble anyway. So she cooks me YUMMY food. Plus, alot of times I eat what her and pop are eating. My favorite is steak and eggs! Too bad I don’t get that very often.

Anyway, last week pop went to my aunt’s farm, and brought home a freezer-full of beef.  Dawgs…I am talking HUGE freezer chock-a-block full of yummy stuff. I even spied some bones and trachea in the mix! Mom says that it is good stuff, with no antibiotics or other nasty stuff. And Aunt Maria’s cows are happy cows, just like on the California happy cow commercials (How you doin’?) , with lots and lots of green pastures to hang out in.

Yesterday, pop cut up a roast for mom to cook for supper, and gave me the bone!  Mom calls it my BARF. I’m confused about that, ’cause it doesn’t look like any barf I’ve ever made. She says it stands for biologically appropriate raw food, or bones and raw food. All I know is that it was a raw bone with some yummy raw meat on it. I don’t get raw food often…mostly cooked cause the raw stuff grosses mom out too much. But I sure do love the boners!! Here I am, chowing on barf!

Pop has been calling me cow breath!

Bow wow wow!  Today is my birfday! I am officially TWO years old. Mom says I should be considered an adult pup now, but that since I don’t act my age, and am still grounded from eating the ‘puter cord and box thingy last week, that I am STILL a rebellious teen-pup to her. That’s okay though….I guess I’ll always be young at heart.

Mom and Pop don’t make big deals out of birfdays, so no pawty for me. But I bet that Mom will come home with another toy for me one day soon. I’m hoping for another big stuffed animal to toss around and zoom through the house with!

Check this out…this was me in the car with Aunt Lola on the day Mom brought me home. I was 9 weeks old then. I don’t remember it, but Mom says I was really scared until I got out of the car at home. Dawg, I grew huh?

I don’t know why I keep being surprised by the overt denial of the existence of global warming and climate change, but, well, I just am for some silly, naive reason. I find it incredibly sad and downright scary that instead of reading the research and forming their own educated opinions, people instead form their opinions on controversial or complicated subjects based on nothing more than conversations overheard on certain news channels, talk radio, or by their favorite political or religious commentators. Heck, I know one guy who insists that climate change is a fraud because Obama believes otherwise. Someone else I know insists that I was not educated, but instead was brainwashed in college by those liberals running it, his own description, not mine. I won’t say more on that subject other than to rebuff that with a great quote:

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think – rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.–Bill Beattie.

Twice just this week I have had interesting conversations with folks who have attempted to make casual conversation by making comments about how “global warmin’ ain’t hapnin’ cause” it has been so cold this winter. I can’t help but step up on my soapbox when I hear such statements. Why? Because I (probably ignorantly) hope that perhaps by educating one person, that it will be paid forward. Why does it matter, when I probably won’t be around to see the horrible effects still to come? Because I love nature, and I can’t imagine being stuck on this planet without being surrounded by the awe-inspiring beauty of it and variety of life on it.

Whilst on my soapbox a couple of days ago, actually having an intelligent conversation with a fellow who seemed relatively open-minded to the new-to-him climate change theories, I realized the overwhelming ignorance of the vast majority of people out there. And I don’t mean ignorant as in stupid, but ignorant as in just don’t know, never learned.  I hope that much of the ignorance will be offset, as I would like to believe that climate change is standard scientific curriculum in elementary, middle, and high schools now. But meanwhile, decisions affecting us individually and the country as a whole are being made daily by those who just don’t know, don’t understand, or are dead set against learning the facts because they are supposed to believe the opposite of the other political party. Why can’t the science just speak for itself?

So here is my science lesson for the day. What do I want? For anyone who may stumble upon my blog who doesn’t understand climate change to take some time, look it up (reputable source please), read the facts, understand, and form opinions based on the facts, and not someone elses financially or politically-motivated opinion.

So what scares me the most about climate change? Abrupt climate change as a result of the sudden slowing or stopping of the ocean conveyor (aka thermohaline circulation). Here’s an oversimplified description:  As the surface ocean water gets warmed in our warmer regions at the equator, the water moves toward higher latitudes, carrying warmth with it. The water releases that warmth, cools, and sinks as it becomes denser. The warm waters are carried by the gulf stream northward along the northern Atlantic coast.  By the time the water gets up around Iceland, it is very cold due to the heat loss, and the circulation continues. Plus, ocean salinity results in the sinking of the salty water. But, with global warming, and the increased influx of fresh water from melting glaciers and excess rain events, there is less sinking of the water because fresh water is less dense and thus hovers near the surface, resulting in less circulation, and less atmospheric heating from the circulation. So what happens? The conveyor slows, and the climate over the eastern US and western Europe could cool off to temperatures seen during the last ice age…no exaggeration. Think brutally cold, long, snowy winters, shorter growing seasons, inability to grow crops, massive extinction of species, lack of suitable infrastructure…massive population die off, the next ice age. Right now….CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gases have caused warming of the atmosphere to such an extent that there is freshening of the water in the northern Atlantic. Right now….

It’s me, Riley Pup. Oh boy, did I get in trouble! Mom and Pop usually leave me free in the house when they go somewhere, cause they said I earned my freedom being a good pup. When I was little, I only chewed up one remote control, munched on the carpet in the bedroom, and ate half of one of mom’s books (but I left her the chapters she hadn’t read yet). And I NEVER counter surf, or get in the trash, or poop or pee in the house …that’s just gross (well, ‘cept that one time that I was really sick and mom didn’t know I was at the door, but she didn’t get mad at me, so that doesn’t count).

So the other day, after I was stuck in this house for three days after it rained and rained and snowed and rained forever, I just lost it in my stir-craziness! After pop left me home alone, I chewed up one of pop’s seed catalogs and left bits and pieces over the office. I figured the kitties would get blamed, cause they are usually the ones that tear up paper around here. Then I got to thinking. Since mom’s been having problems with the cord and funny box to her lap top ‘puter, I decided that I would try and fix it for her. You know, to make up for leaving the paper everywhere in her office, ’cause I did feel a little guilty.

So I drug the cord and box thingy out from under table in between the couches. I figured that since she usually bounces the box around trying to get it to work, I would try a little remodeling work to see if I could chew it into submission. I chomped and gnawed on the box for a while. Then that got boring, cause there wasn’t enough chewy pleasure in that hard ole box. So I chewed the cord off of one end, bit the plug off, and then munched down some of the electric cord. I hear copper is a necessary mineral anyway. That meant fewer vitamins I would have to take, no?

Pop came home later and found what I had done. He only fussed at me a little, cause he said I knew what I had done was bad, and besides, it was his and mom’s fault for not exorcising my demons during all that rain, snow, and cold weather. Then he left again, and locked me back up in the bedroom in solitary confinement. Sure, the kitties come and go, but it’s just not the same. So when mom came home later and found me locked up behind baby gates in the bedroom with what she calls my guilty face (I don’t know what that means), I think she knew I was in some sort of serious trouble. Pop had left the ‘puter cord on the bar in the kitchen. So I got another fussing at from mom when she discovered what I had done. And you know what? She even threatened to take me to the VET to get my picture taken. Fortunately she wasn’t too mad. She said I was getting a good exorcism later. I REALLY like exorcisms, cause they involve lots of frisbee catching, ball chasing, and running across the field out behind the house. So I got an exorcism after I recovered from barfing up the pieces of the electric cord. Note to self….electric cord is really disgusting coming back out. Oh, and mom said she was really glad that the cord wasn’t plugged in, cause it could have fried me…whatever that means.

So the next day, I think cause she felt guilty that she got mad at me even though I was just trying to help fix that box thingy on the ‘puter cord, mom brought me a new bone. This one is really rubbery, kinda like the cord I so enjoyed chewing up. I overheard her tell pop that she hoped it gave me as much chewy pleasure as that old computer cord. I’m trying not to hurt her feelings, but I just don’t like it as much. So yeah, I got a new bone. But now I am grounded, stuck in solitary confinement in the bedroom when mom and pop aren’t home and I don’t get to go with them. Lockup really sucks!