Rendezvous with Chaos

Awesome

dartheyeball — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:32:10 +0000

Today was one of the best days I have had in so long. I didn’t win anything and the world didn’t change drastically. What happened was that I made a choice to finally ,pve forward with making some changes in my life. I will walk 5 miles each day, Mon-Sat. I got up @ 5AM and made the trek today. Wow. As with anything in life, no one is going to hand it to you; the only way to get it is to work for it.

Time to upgrade

dartheyeball — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:48:04 +0000

The time has come to get another car. I have reached my threshold of patience with the Saab. Don’t get me wrong, the Saab has been great when it really mattered the most. However I am tired of getting screwed with mechanics when it comes to repairs and having to jump through hoops in order to get parts. Now if I had a ton of money and more than one car, it wouldn’t be so bad. The whole driving across town to the ONE mechanic that actually knows what the hell he is doing has gotten tiresome. Not to mention the adventure to find parts. Holy crap. I could write forever on the many things I have to do to find specific parts.

All in all I don’t regret buying the Saab. I DO regret not investing in a good example to start with. That is my vice. The first Saab that I owned was awesome. Why? I spent more money on it initially and it helped me in the long run. On the two latter examples, I bought them cheap ($500/$1000) and I paid dearly for it with repairs.

I have decided that my next vehicle will be a truck. I have decided on either a Ford Ranger or a Mazda B2500. 4 cylinder and 5 speed are a must. I am after the space for hauling stuff. Kinda nice to get the best of both worlds..lol. A truck will also help with photography too. I can finally buy that large format printer I have been pining for..lololol! The larger issue is that I can FINALLY own something that has easily accessible parts! No more special ordering valve cover gaskets! No more weird parts locations. For the most part I can do some of the work on the truck myself. Going to look tomorrow! Hopefully the Mazda B2500 below will be mine tomorrow!

Danger Zone

dartheyeball — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:47:35 +0000

Started taking Hydroxycut today to assist in the weight loss. I know it is kinda dangerous to be on stuff like this, but it does speed up the process. I am also going to start exercising as well. I just don’t like accept myself in this poor state of health. I want to make positive changes and I don’t want to live like this anymore. Hopefully I won’t end up killing myself with all these changes..lol!

Finding myself

dartheyeball — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:46:04 +0000

I realize that I am a mess….lol. I am trying to “find myself”. The real me behind all the smoke and mirrors. I hate myself; how I look and how I feel. I realize that I am not like everyone else and honestly will never be. That’s fine. I want to discover who I truly am. I am on day 2 (soon to be day 3) of my fast. The goal is to complete a 30 day fast. Been reading the Bible and really taking time to think about my life and where it is I am supposed to be journeying to. I don’t want my life to be defined by depression or hardship. Sure I may never have a ton of money or the best job, but that shouldn’t determine my worth or the kind of person I am.

Living in the darkness

dartheyeball — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 11:29:20 +0000

I live in darkness. I live in darkness. I live in darkness. Step one to face an issue; is admitting you actually have an issue. I don’t know where I went wrong, how things turned out this way. My Christianity is borderline to say it best. My life as a whole is a total wreck. And it change doesn’t happen soon; it will remain this way. The best way to describe it is an alcoholic in denial. Part of me denies there is any issue and the other part realizes that there is something wrong. I know things have gotten bad when I have to turn to food to comfort me. I am a mess, a complete and utter mess. Yet as I sink deep I have no idea of whom to reach out to; what exactly to do. A doomed voyage on the Titanic. You want to do so much more but you can’t; you just feel helpless and unable to move. Prey caught in the web about to be consumed by the vicious spider. You look into the spider’s eyes knowing that it is going to kill you; paralysed and unable to break free you must wait for your eventual end.

Ebay….Wow

dartheyeball — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:04:07 +0000

I arrived home yesterday from my 2 week trip. I am so happy to be back in my own bed. TO make this trip I needed money, so I sold my Nikon D300 Dslr to get the funds that I desired. Then while on my trip, I sold some of my late father’s audio equipment that was destined to get donated to charity. Why you ask? Because there was no one to ask for money. Sure I needed it, but people get kinda sketchy when you start hitting them up for money despite the reason. Anyways I digress. So I sold my stuff on Ebay. Got more money than I would have just giving it away plus it helped finance this long trip. As you know, Ebay bought Paypal some years ago and looking back on all this, I came to see that Ebay gets you going in and going out.

First, they take a percentage of the value of whatever you sell with them. Secondly, they take a percentage of your shipping. Then if you are still there, via Paypal, they take a percentage of what the buyer pays you. Plus the listing fees AND a percentage of what you charge the buyer for shipping. Wow. I just took the time to look at all the fees and I was amazed. To add insult to injury, Paypal has instituted this new holding policy concerning your money. The old way, you got paid and then you could withdraw your money from your Paypal account immediately. Now things are different. They place a 21 day hold on your money. This happened to me before and I literally had to wait 3 weeks to get my money.

When they first started this money holding policy they would at least warn you through an email. It was rather random as well. Until you meet “certain numerical criteria”, your funds will be held from 3 to 21 days. They instituted this policy because they were tired of being on the hook for deadbeat sellers/buyers. Great for Paypal, bad for the rest of us. Because I needed my money ASAP, I had to overnight the Nikon D300 so I would have the funds to pay for my trip. I had to eat $140 in shipping costs to do so. It almost isn’t worth it at times. Granted I needed the money; I got the hassle as well. Ebay….wow. I remember the old days when you were innocent and friend of the user.

Let’s use an example so you can see the fees.

You sell an item for $400.00

Ebay takes $36.00 for final value fees. (9%)

You charge $40.00 for shipping

Ebay takes $3.60 for shipping final value fees. (another 9%)

Seller pays you $440 through Paypal

Paypal takes $13.33 for it’s fees (3%)

You got paid $440, Ebay/Paypal takes $52.93 (not incl. listing fees), and you spend $40 to ship out the item.

You net $347.07.

Oh and if shipping costs more, you get to eat that additional cost as well. And if Paypal IS holding your money, then you’d better hope your buyer doesn’t file a dispute or you really could be waiting for 3 to 4 weeks…lol.

The Journey

dartheyeball — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 07:13:23 +0000

Well at least I made it North Carolina. I drove the drive straight through. The last 2 hours were the hardest..lol. I am hoping everything gets resolved while I am here. I don’t have it in me for any more traveling. Monday I’ll be in South Carolina. I’ll visit the house I grew up in for the last time. This for me is not only a journey in name; it is the end of an era in my life. There is no stability at the moment. I never want to forget this feeling because I never want my children to experience it in the future. Rather as all this unfolds I am walking away with a new outlook on life. In any case it’s late and I don’t want to stay up too late….lol.

Season of Sadness

dartheyeball — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:29:42 +0000

I guess I should be used to this by now. I am not trying to feel sorry for myself. It’s just sad. Really sad. The situation with my grandmother has degenerated into a complete and utter mess. Family fighting amongst themselves and now the funeral home is involved. All while my grandmother is still not laid to rest. The bank has foreclosed on my mother’s home. There is an outside chance that she may be able to sell it before the bank finalizes everything but either way she is losing her home. This has been emotionally draining. And there isn’t anyone to really share the pain with. Heading back out again to South Carolina today to make my last visit to the place my family once called home. Onward trusty Saab we have one more journey to make.

Saga Continues

dartheyeball — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:29:37 +0000

Here I am, thinking that in life, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. In normal families; hell in normal life, a person dies and then the family comes together and celebrates that individual’s life and then they are laid to rest. However that isn’t the case here at least in my family. My last post regarding my grandmother’s funeral; I detailed the issues I had with how she was treated with her final arrangements. I was told that she was cremated which was against her last wishes. Well as the world turns, so does the situation. Apparently my aunt botched up the funeral arrangements as I said before. Of course another aunt disputed said arrangements and to make a long story short, my grandmother has not been cremated at all. The final arrangements have been held up and my grandmother’s body has been held as collateral until the funeral home gets their money. Like I said, couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted. Hopefully this week my grandmother can be laid to rest which means I’ll be back on the road to NC.

It could happen to you….

dartheyeball — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 07:55:25 +0000

I just attended the my grandmother’s funeral. Wow. It left a last impact on my life. First off before I go off on my tangent, realize that life isn’t a popularity contest. We are not placed here to gain the admiration of others. We are here to impact the lives of those around us; to leave a mark. To get to the service, I had to borrow money from a loan shark. And I got royally screwed with 287% interest. Then to add to the fun, I had drive the trip straight through which meant 19 hours non-stop (17 hours to get there and then another 2 to back track) so I could make it in time for the service.

To start, the wake was held at 10am with the service following at 11am. I arrived at the funeral home at 9:30am. Aside from my Aunt, I was the first family member to arrive. Aside from 2 other people that arrived after me, no one else came to the wake. Attending a wake that has a ton of people is awkward; with just 3 people it made it almost unbearable. That’s when I knew it was going to be a very long day. My mother and her pastor friend arrived right before the service was supposed to start.

11am comes and still no one has arrived. By this point I am blown away. Never seen anyone late for a funeral ever. What struck me was the lack of respect shown to my late grandmother. One of my aunts didn’t even come to service despite the fact that she was in town. There were other family members who lived much much closer than I who DIDN’T bother to come to the service. Despite what things happen in life; whether we are wronged or whatever, when a person dies you come together to honor their life.

It was so sad. To see my late grandmother sent off like this. The eulogy was given by a person who barely even knew my grandmother. Family you would think would come together in a time of crisis. Yet mine seems to be the opposite. I am watching the person who treated my grandmother the worst when she was alive, crying the worst when the service was over. The shocking thing was this could be me someday. This could be the edict on the scope of my life. Sitting in a funeral home in a box while my friends and family blow me off if they see fit with some stranger who barely knew me talking about the 4 seasons of my life. It truly breaks my heart to see my grandmother treated like this.

This was the second trip I made within the last 3 weeks. I drove out here the first time when I discovered that grandmother was in declining health. And now this trip as well. I don’t have a lot of money for all of this. I have to borrow it to make trips like this happen. My grandmother was far from a saint. When someone asked me a fond memory of my grandmother the first thing that came to mind was how her and my mother often didn’t see eye to eye. Hell my fondest memory of my mother is our many disagreements. That being said, my parents raised us to honor our elders. I made the trip to honor my grandmother. To show that I was thankful for the gift of her life; the honor of being in her company. You aren’t judged on what other people do to you, you are judged on how you react. Today I am heartbroken at what I saw.

It could happen to you……