Happy, yet Stressful, Holidays

Come the holiday season I tend to think about a lot of the things that has happened in my life, good or bad. Recently I have been thinking about how stressed I am all the time, yet I still have it better than most and better than I have had in the past. Maybe my stress comes from buying people gifts and spending extra money, that I have earned, on other people instead of myself. I know what sounds selfish but there are many things I want and don't have, yet I am buying for others. I know its the holidays and material possessions, whether for me or for others, shouldn't matter. I guess I should just relax and enjoy the fact that others will get joy from what I have bought them. Plus, I get to help my nephews play with all the toys I've bought them.

Happy Holidays....and sad wallets.

I love Christmas. It's the one time of the year I get to try and make my house flashier than my neighbors. That also brings me to my point of this post. Christmas has gotten overrated. We spend our whole holiday season trying to impress people with flashy lights, exspensive presents and good food. This time of year has become more about the appearance of holiday spirit, than actual holiday spirit. There doesn't appear to be a lot of the true holiday left. I myself have become victim to this as well. Hoping and wondering what people are going to buy me, instead of just appreciating the fact I get to be with my friends and family. As I've gotten older and things have changed in life, those of you who read my blogs will know what those are, I have come to appreciate spending time with friends and family and not really caring about what gifts I get. We all know that we are gonna just return them for something else anyway. All Christmas has become to most people is a chance to mooch nice merchandise of family. Now don't get me wrong, as a kid I loved getting good gifts. I didn't need any of them, but was still nice. I guess my point is, this holiday season don't just think about what you are getting from someone else or what you are getting for someone else, but what you can do for someone else. We all have material possessions we want, me included, but there are people out there that need not want. Maybe instead of buying expensive gifts for loved ones we can help out those less fortunate and make a dark holiday bright, not a loved ones bright holiday brighter.

The United States of.....Socialism

Socialism....Are you ready for it? Now who knows, maybe it won't be as bad as I think. All I know is that it will be different from what we have now and there is big potential in that. I am just afraid that if Obama goes through with his plans then the poor won't be so poor and the rest of us, that much closer to them. {If you go to a restaurant and pass a homeless man as you enter, order, eat, and pay for bill; not leaving a tip. Then as you walk outside hand the homeless man $10. Now who earned that tip, was it the homeless man. No it wasn't. Now do you think the waiter is happy as well.} Now I'm not rich, but I am also not poor. So what does this mean to me and my financial standing. It means that yes I won't see much of a tax increase, but it still means that my money is still going to help pay for someone to mooch of the government. I am willing to give his ideas a shot if he is willing to look into welfare reform, among other things. I don't mind the idea of the trickle down effect as long as its not trickling down to a dead beat that won't work because he can make more off the government. Thankfully I believe Obama will be so busy cleaning up Bush's mess that he won't have time to get anything of his own done. For now we will wait and see. I don't think we can get much worse, different may still be bad, but I doubt it can be much worse. Here's to the next four years. Thankfully for now, it's just four years.

Election Day

As you may know, today is election day. That day every four years were we pretend to make a difference. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Regardless of how you feel about the voting process and who you are going to vote for, please vote. Now of course I have my opinions on who you should vote for but I wont get into that here. My only pieces of advice are 1. Don't just look at the big party candidates, and 2. make sure you have done your research. Don't just vote for someone because you were told too, and don't take everything a candidate says at face value. With the internet you are able to do mounds of research on everything a particular candidates plans to do in office and you can see if it fits your way of life. Also though, make sure it fits any potential ways of life you may change too, whether you may become richer or poorer. I believe right now that all of the candidates have their +s and -s, as with every election. I don't believe 1 candidate is extremely a better choice than another. I also feel that we are all adults and whether I agree or disagree with your choice, as long as you have made that choice by doing your homework and believe in it for all the rights reasons I wont argue with it. Point is do your homework, make an educated decision on who you are voting for and then, most important of all, show up and VOTE!

Blog Name

I really should have named my blog better, simply because I am running out of things to truly gripe about. Sure, I could gripe about the economy, election stuff, the government, etc; but its all been done before and my griping isn't about to change any of it. My normal gripes are becoming few and far between; money things are better, wife and I are getting along great, and I have griped about all the common stuff here at work. I shouldn't complain, not having much to gripe about is a good thing, is a relaxed and stress free thing. Now my life isn't perfect, am not rich, am sure even today a customer will piss me off, am still married so there is always potential gripes there, but for now I will just enjoy the peace and see whats happens.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

I have recently had my life put into perspective. As must of you know, things are not going great for my wife. Her and I had a good talk about things last night and we are both on the same playing field and are ready to deal with her issues head on, whatever may happen. Last night we got a call from my sister-in-law who is in Arizona with her fiance visiting his parents. She called not only to check in, but to inform us that his dad is in ICU after having a heart attack and is not doing well. He may not make it. I feel really bad for them and hope things turn out ok, but in that same instance I looked at my wife and realized that things could be worse. Much worse. Someday they will get worse, but for now things are pretty good and I should just sit back and enjoy the time I have with her. Life's way too short to worry all the time about what might happen. She is still here, still able to be mildly active, and still able to have a life. That is all that matters and I am going to appreciate every moment I get.

Personal Responsibility

Is it that hard for people to accept that their problem might be their fault and not someone else's. This gentleman calls in with a win 98 fe pc. Was told by a rep 2 days ago that his pc, ie specifically, is the issue. He calls back today and I give him the same answer. Now I understand him not wanting to get in too deep with an old pc, but if we say it is a pc issue, then there is nothing we can do about it. He is either going to have to accept it and fix the pc, or bite the bullet and buy a new one. He can go to Walmart and get one of those underpowered pieces of crap I have ranted about in the past. Point is, we see this everyday with pc issues, router issues, ect. If it is man-made it can break or stop working. People need to accept the fact that as much as it could be a service issue, it could be a personal equipment issue as well. You cannot blame everything in life on soneone else, at some point we must stand up and say that "my problems could be my own fault."

Why So Young?

I started blogging to vent about work and the people we talked to everyday. Turns out that I have found it a great place to vent about things I can't vent about anywhere else. As some of you may know, my wife Tracy is 30 yo(31 on 12/9) and has heart and kidney issues. On Monday morning my wife went in to have her blood work done as she does every couple of months. Now to no surprise, her kidney function has dropped slightly from 12% to about 10%. Something that we expect everytime she goes in. This time was different though, things we have been watching are her protein and potassium levels. Her protein went down which is great, her potassium - not so much. Her potassium is about twice what it should be for a normal adult. That means many things, all bad. If she doesn't get it down immediately she at the very least will start to experience cramps, soreness and stiffness of her muscles(Which she already has). Worse case, and this is where we stand currently with where her levels are at, is heart murmurs and/or cardiac arrest. Now add this to her heart issues and this scares the shit out of me. Worst of all I don't want to let her know that it does, she has enough to stress over. If she were to over do it, or to get too excited, or consume outside stimulants such as caffeine or sugar(in normal quantities); it could kill her. Now I know I say alot at work on how she doesn't do much around the house and such, but I love her and am not ready to live with out her. I am sure everything will be fine as it always is, but you never know and I am just preparing for the worst.

Drinking: The Good, The Bad, The Expensive

Lately my wife has found new freedom and a connection to her youth by hanging out with all the 21 yo she works with. Now dont get me wrong, they are nice people and fun to hang around. Thing is though, they just want to go out drinking. Now in the first place, Tracy is 30 yo with health issues, so she shouldnt really be drinking that much. Then there's dealing with her hung over, and finally there is the expense. Now I dont want to tell her she cant go out and have fun with her friends, but I dont want to spend every penny we have on drinking either. We are not rich folk and we have our share of debt like anyone else. She tells me she wants to take vacations and such, but it seems as though we end up spending our extra money on things like this. Now just this morning I reworked our budget and according to it we should have plenty of money left over each month, yet we always seem broke. Now not to rag too much on my wife, this is something that has only been going on a couple of weeks, so I may just let her get it out of her system and things should go back to normal soon.

Ignorance of America towards Tech

Todays rant has to do with a common issue that goes on here in the office. So many people knock Windows Vista as being the horrible operating sytem, I'll admit I used to as well. The more and more I talk to our customers I find that it is not Vista that is usually the problem. Its that they went to Walmart and bought the cheapest machine they could find and the hardware just doesn't support Vista properly. As tech types would know, Vista needs 2 gb of ram and a 2 ghz processor to run properly. Unfortuantely for those that aren't tech types, they assume that if it comes on the pc then it must work fine. Most of these pc's have maybe 1 gb of ram, usually 512 mb, and 1 - 1.5 ghz processors. Just because it comes with Vista doesn't mean it was built for Vista. It was built to be cheap so that people will buy it. Then when they get it home, set it up, and try to use it, they don't go any faster with the new pc than they did with the old one. So before you buy your next pc, know what you want it to do, and then ask someone at the store to help you find the pc with the features you need. I love Walmart and other department stores for many things, but unless you know your tech, they may not be the best place to buy your pc. If you insist on buying a pc there because of the price, do your research. Whether it is through an educated friend or through the internet. Just don't call me telling me your internet is slow when it is really your cheap ass pc.

A Good Day

Not much to say today really. Am feeling a lot better about things financially and am not near as stressed as I was. I was able to get a couple of things taken care of that have been hanging over me for awhile. I also have been sick the last few days and am starting to feel much better, so very tired though. So if you work with me and see me at my desk with my eyes closed, leave me alone. Just kidding. Am feeling better physically and emotionally, weather looks nice, call queue is low, and the day is close to over. Is a good day, something I haven't had in a long time. Now if I could just learn to sleep at night......

Things at Home.

I thought for my second post that I would comment on things within my household. I have been with my wife for 12 years. We have lived together for 9 and been married for 5. I love my wife dearly and wouldn't want to be with anyone else. About 5 years ago she was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy and Kidney Disease. Things have been getting worse for her lately and I just don't know what to do to make it better. I worry that things may progress faster that thought and we will end up in a uncontrollable situation the she may not come out of. On top of that things have been getting worse for us financially. Between her health and our money I am stressed to the max. All of these things add up to things not being perfect at home. Most of the time she doesn't feel good, and when she does we are to broke to go do much. Resulting in us sitting at home watching a lot of TV and creating a lot of boredom induced frustration. The situation has also caused things to just not seem the same between us, it seems as though we just go through the motions some days. I know she still loves me as much as I do her, but it just seems as though we are so wrapped up in everyday life that we forget about each other. The biggest issue that I can control, to a point, in our home is money. It just seems that I can never make enough. I try and work overtime and then they stop overtime. Tracy works overtime most weeks but it just isnt enough, plus it is hard on her and she doesn't need to do it. I could use a second job, but don't know where I would find the time or energy to do it. I try not to let her in on everything that goes on because she doesn't need the extra stress. Part of why I am blogging is because I need an outlet and I don't want her to worry about things. Hopefully things will come around here soon because I personally don't think I can handle much more. Am sure things will work out in the end, they always do, but am tired of taking one step forward only to have to take two steps back. Apologize if this "vent" doesn't make since, but it's what's on my mind.

My First Web Rant.

I don't normally step out to the internet to voice my opinions or rant about things I see wrong with the world, but sometimes enough is enough. Lately it seems as if the world is getting extremely dumb. I like to think that we as a society are not dumb or stupid, but just ignorant. We know what we know and we don't need to learn anymore. I highly disagree, unless you can prove you know everything, then there is more to learn. I don't know everything and try to learn something new everyday. I don't expect anyone to know everything, but I do expect people to at least try. By learning new things you may very well improve your position in life without even knowing it. Plus it can make you more independent, something we as a society lack. We rely on everyone else to know things so that we don't have to. If we continue to do this then no one will know anything. As we have all seen with the economy lately, increaing ignorance and lack of personal responsibilty has put us in a serious postion that if continues, will crush our country to a point we may not be able to recover from.