The Daily Grind

Cute photo.....how many people looking at my blog just hate going to work? I use to be that way till I got rid of my old boss then I realized I acutally kind of like my job. There are always people in your life that (when you wake up) you will dread seeing on a daily basis....So my thought for the day is dont wish your life away. Get a hobby and try and think of something fun each day. I know for me it's going home to my family and giving my dog a hard time. Or when I'm driving around I'm looking for the next photo I want to capture.

How many of you have pets? I think I have mentioned this but my dog is totally lazy. And if he had to work he would starve to death. I get up at 5:00 a.m. every day so I can feed my family and yes my "dog"...Its simply amazing to me that they do nothing and we can love them so much. They do indeed become a part of the family. Mine has to sit on the floor with the kids if we play a board game. He has to be there right with us. My wife gets mad at me because I give my dog a hard time. But you know when I get home he barks at me all the time and wants to play. He's looking for me to give him a hard time and if I dont he feels bad....

Pets are the coolest thing in the world. Regardless if your job sucks and your life sucks they are always your friend.

The Black Widow

This thing is huge

While on my travels I came across a farmer who is builing a new barn "see above".....Its totally cool when you look at it and then I think ....Holy cow.....He's going from 1500 cows to 3000 cows....

When I grew up on a farm my dad milked 33 cows on average all year round. That was a lot of work to take care of that many cows. So I can't imagine how many hours a day this guy is going to be working.

At any rate its amazing to see the size of this building when you see it close up. As I said Im totally into Construction stuff....

The Black Widow

" I AM " THE BLACK WIDOW

This weekend my kids and I were shopping with mom and we got bored. So we always go the sunglasses Isle and try on sunglasses (does not matter what store we are in). My kids (twins / one boy / one girl/ both seven) love to pick exotic eye wear and try them on and show me how they look. I love all the ones Like Elvis use to wear and far out ones. We get a kick out of it and we get "the look" from my wife.

If there is one thing I'm going to en Grain in my kids and that is "MY SINCE OF HUMOR". When I went bankrupt I had at least 50 threatening phone calls a week. I kept that all to myself because I knew my wife had enough to endure. Every day she would ask me how are we going to get through this? And every time she would ask I would say "I'm going to get up/ go to work/ and we will figure it out". Life is too short. Take my advice and try and think some positive thoughts. There is an old saying "something to do/ someone to love/ and something to look forward to). Right now there are many people who cannot find a job. I have been there and my advice is this. Take a dishwashing job and if you can't find that volunteer (I have done this). Why? Because you need to have a feeling that you are worth something.....and you are. It is not your fault that you can't find a job if you really try. There is an issue right now of insufficient jobs....It's like going bankrupt...the banks have everything in their favor and in the end they will always get their money. So even if you lose your house (which I have done).......don't lose your self esteem. You can always buy back your house or get an apartment. You are not a loser if you lose your house and don't worry about people judging you.

See I think and I guess have always thought that money is just a number. The only thing that really scared me about losing my house was where to put my kids. But if you get up every day and focus on what you are doing things will come around. It's been 4 years now in march and I have my credit rating back to where it should be. Yes I'm working two jobs but now I'm much more organized and bring in more than is going out. I'm not trying to be a rocket scientist when I should be a maintenance guy and a buyer/quality manager. That is something else I want to pass off to my kids...."KNOW YOUR LIMITS". There is another old saying and that is "The world needs ditch diggers too".....The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was thinking I had to be something more than I really AM.

But the most important thing there is is "LIVING WITHIN YOUR MEANS"........Can anyone tell me what Overhead is? That is the cost of your employees your building to operate etc. When I finally figured out my business was going under (a long story why) my overhead was 4 times the amount I was bringing in. I spent so much time raising money for my company to get off the ground I was not thinking about how I was going to pay to operate and maintain it. Now 4 years later I'm bringing in twice the amount I'm spending.That is a huge thing...Cash Flow and living within your means.

And finally when your day is complete Shit and you feel like your getting beat up even by your Dog....remember you don't or I hope you don't have Cancer. Money is just a number. Think of what people with Cancer or Heart issues have to deal with on a daily basis. For those people and you know who you are I pray for you.................


The Black WidowHunting Made Fun

Replacing and Old Light/ I'ts Not Rocket Science "But"......

This morning at about 5:30 I was at one of my older buildings and replacing a bathroom light. Take a good look at this thing it looks ancient. The funny thing about it is I have a thing (kind of like a stick) that checks to make sure there are not power to the wires. What that means is if there are power to black and white wires you don't want to be playing with them.

There was no power and I replaced the light no problem (keep in mind on this one I was able to find the fuse box inside the bathroom for the bathroom lights). The issue I have though was initially I went to the building to replace a hallway light that was not working. When I got there it was on so I thought that someone else maybe had fixed it. After replacing the light above I was back in the hallway and I noticed that light was now off.

So I went to hallway light with my stick and it told me that there is no power to the light...Um hello the dam thing was on when I got to the building so there has to be power somewhere.. So that means I could have checked this thing with my stick and then maybe later the power would have come back on??????.

I told my management they will have to come out and have the fuse box redone.....Its old and you cannot tell what apartments you are shutting off by the way the signs read. Or for that matter it also does not tell you what the hallway lights are from what fuse either.

####1 rule when you are playing with electricity is make sure that you shut off the fuse box.....

My number 2 rule......Never trust electricity.......

The Black Widow

The Weight Loss & Gas Cut Diet (take a cost savings for yourself)

So this coming Friday I have to dish out $2500.00 for my first set of property taxes. After everything I have gone through last year to keep my kids in a house I'm happy to be paying them since I own the house again. I have been on a new kick now other than cutting up my credit card I'm losing weight even if I have to take 6 months to do it. I started a couple of weeks ago when I weighed 236# and today now two weeks later I'm down to 208#. Not a huge deal but funny how my new diet is working with my bod. Lets see I take my usual lunch but all I have done is cut out my morning Doughnut (Dam I miss them) and started taking my own coffee on the way to work. I have completely cut out my Mountain Dew which to me was like Crack.....Now all I am doing during the day is drinking coffee want water. But the biggest thing that was a wait gainer for me was juice at night. My wife makes that for my twins and I love juice...Come to think about it my body loves sugar.

So now other than cutting down my Credit Card bill (which is next after Taxes) I'm trying to keep off my weight. I figure right now between the eating out and my crack (Mountain Dew) and my Saturday breakfast/ I'm saving at least $15.00 a week. I'm also losing weight but I'm still working two jobs which is hard.

The coolest thing I did last year was tell my cable company to go screw themselves. I now have two public libraries which I'm writing to you on that because of that I cut out my Internet bill of $45.00 per month. So right now I only have my house payment, cars, insurance and a TV...Oh and an electric bill.

My forecast for this year is $70K with my two jobs and my wife's income. Even though I do make some money I'm not sure I will take back my Internet bill or not. There is something soothing about coming to a library and relaxing I think.......I have a Dish but to be honest with you I would rather buy a new TV (that is digital) and take the 7 channels that the public stations offer in my area. But of course my wife wants to keep Sponge bob for the kids.

Oh one final thing. I have been giving myself $60.00 a week for both cars. That's one car for my wife to drive the kids back and forth to work and me and my vibe driving to both jobs. I use to put extra money on my credit card but I have now taken a new approach to this. I totally cut out extra trips. Like If I'm going to the bank hit it on my way home. Instead of making an extra trip at lunch. And working my apartments if I'm running low on cash and I have a project that can wait till next week I will do that also. I don't really want to call my self a conservative but sometimes I wonder if the word is "fanatic".....Funny thing in Wisconsin weather as I travel around at my second job taking care of apartments I carry two shovels. Now think about this I want a truck and I love them. But I drive a vibe.....who the hell could think one could survive a Wisconsin Winter in a Vibe....Um yea that cost me $11,000.00 and the 4 wheel drive trucks cost $45,000.00 plus all the extra gas.....Do the math I think I'm making out pretty good.

If you can I urge you to cut your credit card debt this year. If there is one thing those companies will do......It's jack your interest rates and payments....

Oh: Ps... I am also learning that my photography bug has come out. I am taking lots of photos of trees and buildings ...I love old barns and buildings. Those photos will be coming in the next few months of blogging. The tree above I took on the way home one day...I'ts funny but some trees are just like...."hey take my photo"....
Good Luck....

The Black Widow

YOUR ROOTS

Today I was thinking about where I came from. A while back my aunt did some research on our family background and turns out some of my ancestors came over on the Mayflower. Go figure, from the sounds of it we were a bunch of crooks....

The point of this story though is I'm totally fascinated with the settling of this country. First off there are Indians and not much food but also had to travel thousands of miles in a boat. Think about taking a camping trip and your stuck in a 20' camper for like 3 months. Um yea I would think that you could get a little sick?

When they came here there was probably not much food and I'm sure they had to do tons of hunting. I get sick of taking a lunch every day but at least I dont have to go out and shoot it first. Also if I want a mountain dew I can go drop some cash and get it ...I dont have to search hundreds of miles for water.

I think people forget about where we came from. I know times are tough today but think about what these people had to go through...>no banks? No Mcdonalds? no convenient stores....no automobiles? How about having no car and you have to walk everywhere you go...>NO thank you....

I will take today over the past any day....

The Black Widow

THE COST OF WAR

Don't get me wrong I'm a firm believer for an eye for an eye...However recently I have been asking myself questions....Why? Why are we in Iraq.....Why are we in Afghanistan.????Why???? I get the point that maybe if we don't kill people over there that yes they will come over here and kill us. However I sit and look at the cost of moving people to other countries and I have to tell you this is getting CRAZY....

First off as you know I have two jobs and I drive a vibe. I put on a couple hundred miles each week and go through about $60.00 a week in gas.. Now lets see that's me (um yea one person ) and x 4 weeks that's $240 dollars. Now how many miles to the gallon do you think a tank gets? How many tanks do we have over seas? How many people do we have to feed in a day? Is it free to feed our people? How much does it cost someone to fly over seas to war...Is that free? Do we get a return on investment on this stuff?

Here is my question. So we have all these places that terrorists can fly into and yes now they are starting to blow up planes which I'm sure they will never stop doing. However what about beefing up security at airports/borders? How about throwing money into new ideas on how to fight terrorism at a border....Why cant we come up with some new ideas besides just going to war....

I don't want to get blown up...I don't want anyone to get blown up. But I am now afraid we have lost track of what we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and to me it's opportunity cost.

We are throwing a lot of money in ....And there will be no money coming back out... It's like every time I put on the news I see my kids "Standard Of Living"....Just going by the wayside...

The Black Widow.