Random Ramblings

Staybrite wrote:

Wow, glad to hear you got the van back.

We kind of have it back.  The police towed the van to an impound yard.  We had to pay almost $300 to get it out.  Then, our mechanic we use will have to replace the starter switch as the crook used a screwdriver to force the vehicle to start.  It ruins the switch and makes the van inoperable once you shut the engine down.  No wonder they tried to sell the van for junk.

So the city made you pay $300 to get your stolen van back.  I guess I know who the real crooks are here...sheesh. 

Hi y'all. It's been a while since I posted here (or anywhere for that matter). I have had some health problems (nothing I couldn't manage) that required I take drugs that, as it ends up, messed with my mind a little. When I realized what was happening, I took myself off social media completely to spare everyone my crazed ramblings. SOOoooo, if any of you were targets for my weird and inappropriate in-your-faceness about two months ago, I apologize sincerely.

When I spoke to the doctor about my totally over the top raving, he said that I had gotten off quite lightly. A lot of people on the dose I had end up hallucinating! So I am blessed to have not seen Bugs Bunny together with Jesus and Elvis sitting at my table. THAT would have been weirder!   

Glad to hear you're doing better!

Staybrite wrote:

So the city made you pay $300 to get your stolen van back.  I guess I know who the real crooks are here...sheesh. 

On first glimpse, it would look that way.  But, we need to look at the overall picture.  Nashville's police force does not own their own wreckers.  They have to pay a private towing service to move the vehicle to a safe place.  In the case of a stolen vehicle, the impound lot is the safest as it has high fences and a couple of armed guards.  The towing service wants to get paid.  Being a 15 passenger van, they had to use the flat deck carrier as they didn't have a key and the towing company isn't allowed to open the locked doors.

Why can't they have you just come pick up your car where it was found?  Well, if the thief is still on the loose as ours is, then they could just sell the vehicle to someone else less reputable when the cops leave.  They could just torch it out of revenge.  Some homeless guy could bust into it for temporary shelter.  They really can't leave it there.

The beautiful thing is that the impound lot didn't get to start charging us the $40 per day storage fee.  As long as the vehicle isn't released by a detective, then they can't charge.  We had our personal mechanic pick up the van and take it to his shop.  He doesn't charge us towing or labor--parts only.  He will be replacing the ignition switch.

While it may look bad for a city to charge you for your stolen vehicle's return, it is actually a good thing that most of us just don't think about if it has never happened to you.  Seeing that you are getting the car back safely, they have done you a favor.  If the car is beyond repair when it is recovered by the police, you can sign over the vehicle to them for no charge.

Saw you haven't posted in a while Jen.
Glad you are doing better.

Jen glad you're doing better in time for Christmas. In my years of pharmacy I saw a lot of medications go out that were SUPPOSE to help different conditions, and ended up messing people up instead. 

alldatndensum wrote:

Staybrite wrote:

So the city made you pay $300 to get your stolen van back.  I guess I know who the real crooks are here...sheesh. 

On first glimpse, it would look that way.  But, we need to look at the overall picture.  Nashville's police force does not own their own wreckers.  They have to pay a private towing service to move the vehicle to a safe place.  In the case of a stolen vehicle, the impound lot is the safest as it has high fences and a couple of armed guards.  The towing service wants to get paid.  Being a 15 passenger van, they had to use the flat deck carrier as they didn't have a key and the towing company isn't allowed to open the locked doors.

Why can't they have you just come pick up your car where it was found?  Well, if the thief is still on the loose as ours is, then they could just sell the vehicle to someone else less reputable when the cops leave.  They could just torch it out of revenge.  Some homeless guy could bust into it for temporary shelter.  They really can't leave it there.

The beautiful thing is that the impound lot didn't get to start charging us the $40 per day storage fee.  As long as the vehicle isn't released by a detective, then they can't charge.  We had our personal mechanic pick up the van and take it to his shop.  He doesn't charge us towing or labor--parts only.  He will be replacing the ignition switch.

While it may look bad for a city to charge you for your stolen vehicle's return, it is actually a good thing that most of us just don't think about if it has never happened to you.  Seeing that you are getting the car back safely, they have done you a favor.  If the car is beyond repair when it is recovered by the police, you can sign over the vehicle to them for no charge.

That makes sense, the city shouldn't have to pay an independent company to tow the vehicle, and the private company shouldn't have to do it for free.  It was very nice of them not to charge you for the storage fee.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

Jen glad you're doing better in time for Christmas. In my years of pharmacy I saw a lot of medications go out that were SUPPOSE to help different conditions, and ended up messing people up instead. 

Thanks Yvonne. Thanks Jim. Thankfully, it definitely helped my condition. I lost my hearing in one ear (immune system attacked the auditory nerve) and the drugs gave it back, while making me a nutter in the process of course -- lol -- but I know what you mean, there are some nasties out there for sure.

Wow, that doesn't sound like fun at all, but very glad to see you are back Jen and that you are feeling better.

Jen5 wrote:

So I am blessed to have not seen Bugs Bunny together with Jesus and Elvis sitting at my table. THAT would have been weirder!   

Don't know what's so weird about that.  I'm visited by Otto von Biscmarck, Huey and Dewey Duck regularly.  They say Hi.

I had to throw out Louie Duck when he started going off on his duck-filled rage again . . . man, you thought Donald was bad 

Yesterday was perhaps the slowest and least chaotic Christmas I have ever had in all my adult years. It was great!!!

Through The Dark Radio wrote:

Jen5 wrote:

So I am blessed to have not seen Bugs Bunny together with Jesus and Elvis sitting at my table. THAT would have been weirder!   

Don't know what's so weird about that.  I'm visited by Otto von Biscmarck, Huey and Dewey Duck regularly.  They say Hi.

I had to throw out Louie Duck when he started going off on his duck-filled rage again . . . man, you thought Donald was bad 

  Oh, you poor man! I'd be afraid that the Ducks would gang up on poor stately Otto for first dibs on that caterpillar that parks regularly over his upper lip. Every hosts nightmare I tell ya!

alldatndensum wrote:

Yesterday was perhaps the slowest and least chaotic Christmas I have ever had in all my adult years. It was great!!!

That's great Chris. Sounds idyllic.

Jen5 wrote:

alldatndensum wrote:

Yesterday was perhaps the slowest and least chaotic Christmas I have ever had in all my adult years. It was great!!!

That's great Chris. Sounds idyllic.

Even better than those "perfect" Hallmark movie Christmases that everyone dreams of but they never happen for anyone except the new star-crossed lovers in the movie.

It was slow 'cause we're getting old.

Black Rider wrote:

It was slow 'cause we're getting old.

For me, it was slow because we got together with my family on the 23rd.  I used to get up early on Christmas and spend some hours with my people.  Then, we'd race home to spend time with Holly's people.  Lastly, we'd come home exhausted to finally sit down and open our own gifts.  It was a lot.

With not going to my family on Christmas day, we got up early out of habit, went back to bed, opened our own gifts, and then drove around the block to Holly's mom's.  There were just 5 people there counting us.  We stayed a few hours and then came home to watch tv.  It was SO nice!

Had dinner with some friends last night.  It was good to see them and their beautiful home.

I have to say that 2018 was quite a challanging year. Good riddance to 2018! In March our youngest daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Then we took a direct hit from Hurricane Michael in Oct (and STILL recovering from that but a lot of progress has been made at least at my house).

So we wanted to make this the best Christmas ever for the kids. They had a good one and were excited to wake us up Christmas morning "Let's see what Santa brought!". We let them open their gifts then we opened up ours before lunch. I didn't ask for anything this year nor did my wife (and we are both hard to shop for). My wife bought me a pellet smoker grill and I have to say it is one of my favorite gifts! Pretty amazing that you can cook anything on it. Since we had a ton of food for the holidays I didn't want to cook any meat with a ham and all kinds of stuff in the fridge. I saw a video of a guy using a pellet smoker to bake bread so I thought i would try that! I baked a loaf of banana bread on the smoker and it turned out great! I could taste a slight hint of smoke but my wife and daughters said they could taste none. Yesterday I slow cooked hamburgers. Normally when you grill burgers you cook them fast. I tried them slow for 45 minutes and they turned out great having a good smoky flavor.

I have been off work for 2 weeks so it was time to do some things around the house. We had some water stains on the ceiling from the hurricane but the sheetrock was not damaged, only stained (I even went in the attic to check from above and it was all dry and I hate going in the attic because it is basically a crawl space). I bought some Kilz stainblocker oil-based paint and covered the ugly brown on the ceiling. Yesterday we repainted the whole living room ceiling. It was a flat ceiling so we bought a bucket of "mud" and after the brown stains we covered we made a "stiple" ceiling and it turned out good. I also repainted the bathroom ceiling with a sealer and laundry room while I was off (it is an outdoor laundry room). I am happy to report that all of the inside work is complete. All the remains is my roofer showing up to start on the roof. I took pictures of everything I completed inside and sent to the insurance company as they requested. Not sure why they want pictures but I guess it is to make sure the work is complete. I hope it isn't so they can take back money they gave me, my main reason for doing it myself was to save money and I will be the first to admit I am NO handy-man. On the outside of the house we had some stucco damage. Insurance gave me $500 to repair (which was a big time low-ball). So I looked in my shed and I still had a bucket of stucco and repaired it myself for free. It's not the greatest job but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb with a chunk missing from the side of the house.

My older daughter's car has been repaired and we had it back in a week but they have had my wife's car for over a month now and our rental ran out Dec 24. No idea when it will be ready but we are anxous to get her car back asap.

This was also the first year I didn't get any music. There just wasn't anything I wanted musically that I don't already have.

As for diabetes we are managing the best we can. We have not had a complete night of sleep since March but that is part of it - we will wake up every night for the rest of our lives to check on her. She has an insulin pump and a continuous blood monitor and those have been blessings. When her sugar gets low at night an alarm goes off and we get up and give her half a cup of chocolate milk. If she gets high a different alarm will go off for that and we give her insulin without even waking her up via the Bluetooth pump. We were also concerned about her hainvg sugar in the middle of the night and it rotting her teeth. The dentist gave us some special toothpaste for diabetics to use at night so that has been wonderful as well.

But as I said, goodbye 2018. May it RIP.

Great update Mike.  You and your family have had more than your share of trouble and turmoil in 2018.  Praying that 2019 will be much less "eventful" for you.

Lots of crappy stuff for 2018 Mike, sorry to hear bro. I do hope and pray '19 is your year though. 
This sentence = 

Quote :

Good riddance to 2018!

I can relate to fo sho ! The sordid details have been shared in the "prayer requests" section over the last 12 months   . But hey, thanks to those prayers from all of my family here, 2018 ended on an INCREDIBLE note !  It'll take a couple months for my pay to begin arriving, and a little longer for my 2+ years of back-pay they owe me... but I cannot and will not complain. God saw to it that Lisa and I did not want for anything during the 3+ years since the Dr put me on permanent disability.  We cut our expenses down a TON, dropped a lot of luxuries and I occasionally sold music and stuff around the house and garage to help pay bills. God is so good, I will never deserve an ounce of His Grace.
He also saw me through 2 wrist surgeries that were 100% successful and have changed my life. 

So, although I can also say LOTS of events in 2018 sucked, the very end of it was God's way of saying that "those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength". It was the longest 3 years and 4 months of our lives. We have grown stronger and have learned a lot about ourselves and us as a couple. While we still have some differences as far as the kids and grandkids go, we weathered the wait for my disability to arrive like champions  .  I am super excited to see what God has in store for us for 2019 and beyond. I realize my condition is degenerative and has been, and will continue, on a swift decline until I'm in a wheelchair and probably a pain-pump... but at least the burden of providing financially has been lifted. Again, God is great !

I can definitely say that this Christmas was better than last year 

Through The Dark Radio wrote:

I can definitely say that this Christmas was better than last year 

It's always better when you can avoid getting run down by a vehicle. 

Through The Dark Radio wrote:

I can definitely say that this Christmas was better than last year 

Hopefully, not only the physical scars have healed, but also the scars that cause you flashbacks from such a horrific event. Your humor helps I'm sure 

2018 was both a good and bad year.

BAD side:


Watching my youth group and church dwindle while I amassed more and more rejection letters from other churches.

Watching your church select a different pastor when you believe you are the right one for the position.

Having a van stolen from the new church.

Going on meds for A.D.D. as it is embarrassing to admit that you need help.


GOOD Side:


Celebrated 30th anniversary with my wifey.

Getting my first pastorate.

Finishing my 2nd blues rock album.

Going on meds for A.D.D. because you NEEDED the help.