Just a quick note as life has been insane. Still alive, still kicking and still in Maine, so that's all good. Been unemployed since July, which is a HUGE downer . . . But we JUST got our 2nd floor living space renovated and rented, so there's some income to go along with the income from renting our 3rd floor 'in-law' apartment out to my nephew.

On the employment front, however, I start sometime this week at a new job, Helpdesk 2 - 3 for one of the major utilities here in Maine (CMP for those of you who are local and give a hoot). The pay is decent and with the rentals, we're looking to be getting our heads above water soon.

I'm still rebuilding my mental abilities back up . . . I didn't realize exactly how hard the pain meds I was on during my sciatica really WERE until I stopped taking them. Tramadol, an opiate, REALLY messed me up. I was detoxing for two weeks, and it was during that time that I really realised how 'stupid' the damn things were making me. It's frustrating as HELL to have a full sentence in your head disappear as you are speaking it, or to lose simple words for hours at a time. Seriously, I still have to explain the concept of simple words to my wife from time to time and my surgury and detox was in August.

Needless to say, that my interview with the new company went as well as it did, and that they decided to hire for full time permanent (after the initial 90 day contract to hire phase is done, per their bylaws) has blown my worn out mind.

I'm going to TRY to be more active, but I refuse to make any promises until things even out around here.

d

Good to have you back in any capacity, bubba...

I concur with GPN, good to have you back when you have time.

I remember when you first came here, we had some huge ass flamewar you just stopped by to offer your .02 and were going to leave and we made you stay

Great to have you Back

For as irregular as I will be for the foreseeable future, it is good to be back. Thanks for the welcomes.

J - Yah, I remember that. That douche committing PayPal fraud . . . It's been a long strange trip, with even more insanity ahead, that's for sure.

Sitting here waiting to wake our youngest for his midnight feeding and change, at midnight, knowing I have to be awake at 6:30 am to start the new job. I friggin' HATE shifting my sleep schedule around . . . I ALWAYS end up shifting back to a night schedule when I'm not working and I NEVER am able to easily get back.

On the home front, we've got 2 of our first 3 cord of wood into the basement . . . Now, just to get the wood stove hooked up. I'm definitely not knowledgeable about oil furnaces or I'd have gotten the work done myself.

We have an oil fired forced air unit that we can hook the new wood stove up to so the blower draws off it instead of the oil burner . . . But I have no idea how to disable the oil burner safely. We'd leave the oil burner set up, but we don't really have the money to double sleeve the chimney to have both hooked up at once, so we're just going to switch the chimney pipes . . . And then in the spring, when we have the money, we'll do the double job up properly.

The frustrating news is that the company who has handled our Propane (installing a new line for our new kitchen stove and servicing the rest of the system to ensure it was all working fine) had also done an estimate for us to do the setup, but the guy who did that estimate lost the papers. We're waiting for them to decide what's up . . .

In the meantime, however, there was a guy who came out today to pick up a bunch of our scrapwood left over from the renovations who is friends with one of that company's techs who said he'd rattle some cages to see if he can get the ball rolling for us, with the posability of getting his friend to do it off hours as a personal project. As long as it gets done before the brunt of winter hits so we can get some GOOD heat flowing through this old house (It's true what they say . . . old houses have old bones that take FOREVER to warm up).

Anyway, I gotta get to feeding my boy so he can go back to sleep and I can get back to starting tomorrow.

d