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It was a whirlwind Mother’s Day yesterday and that was just what had to be done. Not my day or even partially my own so what was done had to be. The back half of the day was spent with some people who we had never interacted with before and I found myself in a lot of strange conversations. One of which was with a guy who is related by a thread somehow but he felt the need to keep letting me know he was a doctor. I was aware of his status as a dentist because that’s how he was introduced to me and that should have taken care of the issue but he might have been worried that I was confusing him with some sort of mail order dentist. Even his stories mentioned the fact that he was  a doctor like “The guy said to me, Doctor [name redacted due to low self worth] you really should…” it went on like that for more than an hour. No matter the subject or participants there was some way to work in his title.

This was Mother’s Day and not my side of the family so I didn’t feel right blowing this guy the amount of crap he deserved. In my head every time he said Doctor I would immediately say Dentist. And every time he worked the title into a story I was thinking of a way to say something like “Then the guy said you know Drop-Out I was thinking…” I could have had a lot of fun with it under different circumstances but oh well. My middle child came and stood next to me for a while and when I turned she gave me a look that asked what in the fuck are you doing and when can we get the hell out of here. That made me smile.

It must be all the money spent on his degree or all that time in school and then whatever work happened afterwards or else he could just sense that I didn’t give a flying shite and maybe by repeating the word he could wear me down into being impressed. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve never worked that hard for anything in my life so I don’t know what it feels like but I come from the position that if you have to tell people how great you are, you’re not. I have a lawyer acquaintance like that constantly dropping the legal ease into conversations to remind everyone what he does. This dude will also let you know that he played college football whenever possible. I’s kind of sad but all I can think with him is that there is a mushroom cap in his pants and some compensating is at hand. Whatever it is I am glad that my own self worth relies little on the opinions of others.

I hope everyone endured Mother’s Day to the best of their ability and now I need to get back to work. I need to cram a weeks worth of appointments into two days and then off to teach in Vegas. Also missing the wife’s Birthday this Thursday so I’d better plan a little something there as well.

I bit off more than I could chew today. I made it home but everything is tired. I had my first caffeine on the ride back and it worked like a charm. I ended the class a little early with time off for good behavior and scrambled my ass out of Cleveland. I made it home but the cream of wheat in my skull at the moment is experiencing cognitive troubles. I found myself sitting in the office after unpacking just staring out the window at the darkness. Part of this is thanks to the 3:30am call from Liza about the water heater acting like it was going to blow up. The valve had popped and it was spweing water all over the laundry room. Like most things in this lovely house it waited until I was 400ish miles away to fail. The trouble after a call like that where no good news comes at that time in the morning is the adrenaline pumping through your veins doesn’t allow you to get back to sleep. I had a messed up dream about coming back home and the house cracking in half but then I realized we had insurance. Sadly I have to report no suck luck and if in fact the old unit had any hope of blowing up I would have told the family to evacuate to a hotel and I would get someone out first thing. Then I could have delayed until someone called me and told me the horrible news…

This wasn’t a surprise because it was on its tenth year of service and I’m not sure if I flushed it out in the last three or four. It started making that old time coffee percolator noise a couple months ago which is the first sign of failure. I had to keep checking in on breaks from class but we are now the prod owners of a brand new 50 gallon high recovery water heater which after you cut through the marketing BS has a burner that’s more than double the standard size so it heats faster and theoretically doesn’t run out. I could really give a crap as long as it lasts another ten years. The clock is ticking ready set go…

The training went well but my ass is officially kicked and there is a full day yet to go. When I am a one man band I hit a brick wall around three in the afternoon. It’s nine thirty and I’m just back from dinner. These are the people who pay to have me out so I have to remain awake and “on” but right now status equals mush. Some of these guys would stay out all night if I didn’t cry uncle. 6:00am is going to come early then eight hours of teaching followed by a six hour drive home. I believe I will be partaking in some caffein on the morrow to get home without incident. Sorry about the overall shitasticness of this post but it’s the best I’ve got right now.

I’m sitting here watching the local traffic like a mental patient waiting to depart on my road trip to the topside of Ohio. I have no desire to turn six hours into eight with the lovely vehicular congestion around here so I will sit it out in the comfort of home. I have gone through the pre-trip checklist more than enough so I figured I’d flip through the iPad to kill some time. I am cleaning out more than just junk as I try to read my way through all of the books I have piled up on the pad but I don’t want to start another one because I have a new Steven King in the chamber for the road trip. I just finished the third Game of Thrones book and I am reminded of my younger efforts with the Lord of the Rings. I have to flip back and forth to make sense of certain scenes and I almost feel like I should be taking notes. Both the books and the show are highly entertaining if for no other reason than they don’t care who they kill.

In other unrelated news I would love to give you an update on the used boat purchase but I ended my email last night with the words “small minded halfwit” so I’m pretty sure that negotiation is over. I am really not that hard to deal with I just have a problem with people who assume I’m dumb. I am cool if you come to that decision once you meet me and we interact for a while. But your scam of asking me for a deposit and me asking you to send me a human ear or finger before I send any money does not mean I am stupid, just trying to point out how unrealistic you are. After this travel extravaganza is over this month I’m just going to head over to the lake and look for real. No more long distance dickering. I’m allowing it to raise my blood pressure for no good reason. No one will die if we don’t get a boat this year. But I am also thinking about amending my earlier plan and possibly buying a really cheap old one that runs and a couple of jet skis. Oh the uncomplicated life of a thousandaire.

There was a spill near my man bag which caused immediate evacuation and emergency drying procedures to begin. After I unloaded my backpack i was looking at the anal retentive psychopathic way I laid everything out on the desk and decided it was time to answer a question from years ago regarding the contents of my Man Bag or Murse. First I should tell you that my backpack is a current point of sensitivity as I watched some supposed professionals on an advertising reality show that I am still not sure about carry their backpacks around. I had no idea what a douche nozzle I must look like at times when I’m wearing a suite carrying a school bag. I’m working on a more adult male satchel but that is not what were talking about here.

I would love o do an interactive thing where I tag various areas of the picture with a description of the item but I don’t have a clue how to get that done. So instead I’ll start top left corner and work my way across the threeish rows reading a book style.

Top Left is two annoying sets of in ear headphones and my beloved rest on my ear Motorolas. Next to those is the external charging battery case for my iPhone when no power is available. To the right is a dual wall car USB charger with a mini powerstrip touching that. The white things are my grid of Apple accessories and now we will move to the second row.

First up are some badges for work followed by my stack of travel and other rewards membership cards. Up next is half of a $7 Tylenol two pack that I cant bring myself to throw away. The next grid contains jump drives, spare batteries, mini USB cables, and various cords. Then there is my charging battery pack capable of granting full juice to my iPhone and iPad at the same time. After that comes my sleep mask… I’ll wait… all done? I use it for work and I dont have enough time to tell the story here. The Clik bag contains my good camera which is also becoming a point of contention. It turns out I am horrible at being the guy with the good camera but that is a post for another day. On to the last row.

Fake RayBans from China followed by a cleaning cloth, some pens, stylus, keys, the Bluetooth keyboard I write this crap on in its case and that about wraps it up. Missing from the shot are my laptop, power cord, and mouse as well as my beloved iPad. Oh, and the notebook I keep for work as my home moleskin now resides on the Pad. I hope that answers your question reader from a couple years ago who most likely doesn’t come here anymore.