I’m a mostly single guy !  Having children is a major distraction.  And right now I have a house full of children.  The furbabies, who are quite demanding. Especially the one that is NOT mine has latched on to me like a 3 year old holds on to her mothers skirt ! Every where I go she is there, every time I turn around, I nearly trip over her, and whenever I am sitting at my desk she is behind me whining.  I really did not need another dog !  No this OTHER dog belongs to my niece Melissa who is currently boarding with me,  who loves this dog to death, or more accurately,  to extremes to the point the dogs wants to run away.  And Melissa is a 27 year old “millennial” in the truest form of the word. She sleeps until 1 or 2pm, stays up until 2-3am,  does nothing to help with any house chores, can only eat a very few things (unless they are free and easy when she is hungry). Never says please or thank you,  She believes that things left in the sink covered with cooked egg “Are being washed”, and that nothing can be consumed from anything that did not come directly from the dishwasher. She is constantly asking for a new dishwasher, and new washer and dryer, a new bathroom, and a better parking spot…. and she isn’t going to be living here after June (if I’m very lucky).   She also has her millennial friends.  Her boyfriend is a rather nice guy, but not to sharp. Though I believe she thinks he will be a computer genius and she will be able to live her life as the princess she knows she is, I’m not so sure.  When he comes to visit (every 3rd week) he is less help than she is.  Its definitely a different generation.  His route to our house is a direct one down Interstate 40 from Raleigh to Statesville.   Twice he has ended up in some far away destination way off the main route and for no reason at all.  I will never allow either one of them to drive my body anywhere.   When they are together here, they never come out of her room. They spend all their time watching movies and eating on the bed, playing computer games and talking on the speaker phone to friends.  I tend to go on with my my business, but their activities just grab my mind to find out if I’m missing something or are they really just that boring.  So far, they are just that boring.  But back to the beginning of this tale, The DOG,  is always asking me to play, take it out, or harassing the boys. Who have their own demands and needs. So all these children are a major distraction… mentally tiring !

We did just accomplish what I consider my last BIG house chore.  The replacement windows I had installed required painting on the outside of the window sashes.  And the installer added this big ugly piece of 3/4 square molding at the top of the window that was raw pine.  So we had to prime and then paint all the sashes and that head piece.  I attempted to do it with the windows in place, but tilted in as they are supposed to do.  And that worked pretty well for my bedroom and the living room windows, but the guest bedroom windows had a bit of a crash and we damaged the window parts.  We currently have them under clamping pressure with lots of glue and hope we can get them back together and working before tomorrow.   They are Jeld-Wen windows and in theory they are very nice.  However I think the guy who sold them to me did not do a good job of measuring them and the guy who installed them definitely did a bad job installing them. So between the two screw-ups, they aren’t as good as they should be.   mostly it is just cosmetic.  And I’m not sure if I can get them up to snuff with a lot of paint, or if I am going to have to complain about them to Lowe’s.  It was a Lowe’s install and it has a pretty good warrantee, but there was a lot of damage done getting the old windows out and breaking through the paint over the trim.  So the damage and “misfit”  may be just the risk of having replacement windows.  But for right now, they are painted and closed and they will be like that until the fall I expect.  A couple of curtain hangings and the big interior house work with be complete !

Outside is a factor of the weather more than anything.  We have spread seed in all the bare spots, and quite a remarkable amount is coming up.  The boys need to be “redirected” to a different path or it won’t last, but that won’t be much of anything to do.  the weather is crazy, the end of march today and it snowed last night. Temperatures are in the 30’s. What is going on NC?  I am trying to negotiate with my favorite landscape guy, but I’m not sure he will give me the breaks I want.  In this area they do year round landscaping and mowing and it runs about $2000 a year.  I like to putter and so there is some stuff I don’t want to pay for, but I may have to cave in and cough up the $175 a month for his services.  He is a damn hard worker and really knows his stuff.  He did my driveway and did super job trimming my tree, dropped a lot of crushed rock in the back to help drain the water and stop the mud bath Bonnie enjoyed rolling in.  And it is growing grass just like the best soil !!  So the truth is I will probably give him whatever he asks for to keep him working on my house and yard(I hope he doesn’t read this).

For anyone interested in my new job, I almost got fired.  Since the day I started, there has been a mad rush to get a 18month old corporate audit all cleared up and corrected.  The Plant Manager was not quite fully informed about how much needed to be done and how far behind the plant was.  There were many “Individual silos” that were not talking and so it was a major push to get things straightened around.  And so, when the “deadline” for the plant manager to confirm that everything was as it should be, we could not say that and he was furious with me.  I was furious with him that he expected me to take care of something I had no idea what it even was or what resources the company could build draw on.  I think my new company very , very rarely hires anyone from outside the company. I may be the first in about 10 years.  Every one I talk to has been with the company for 10-20 years moving through the ranks and doing different jobs and getting groomed and directed by someone.  I on the other hand am a straight out of the blue, most recently paper industry pro.  Not very expert about truck or automotive manufacturing.  So we had some pretty loud and emotional words with the HR manager as a witness.  A few days later we were all best friends and happy buddies with the great confidence in each other and its all good, but for one night, I think my blood pressure must have been sky high.  As a result though, I now have a list of 27 tasks or projects that the I have assigned to the upper management staff to follow up on and complete in a limited amount of time and it is my responsibility to hammer at them and make sure they get them done !  So in June we will have to revisit the Audit findings and certify that all items of concern have been corrected.  Hopefully by then, I will have the control and consistency over people and resources that the programs need.

So that is most of the current happenings.  Quite a few videos since my last blog.  All I can say is visit the channel and check out all the new videos in February and March.  I can’t go back and spoon feed them to you this time.  I’ve got too much to do !!  🙂

Stay safe, Stay Happy !

Rick, Caesar, Dakota