Not So Berry Challenge, Gen 1

Am I the only one that gets that reference?

Fun facts about buying a house in a dying small town an hour from civilization:

1) Furniture only gets delivered there every two weeks. I either move heaven and earth to get there Friday or wait until July because all the June slots are booked. I had been planning on keeping my IKEA furniture, but I have two pieces that are so old that they are not interested in moving AGAIN. Plus, they’re heavy-ish and at the end of the day, they’re at least 10 years old and I don’t feel like paying to move them to Maine as temporary furniture. So, because I decided to chuck everything and furnish the whole house with new things, I leave Wednesday, as soon as the movers do. 26 hour drive with 2 cats. Fun times.

2) UMaine Hockey has a waiting list. I just dropped $50 to put my name on a waiting list for hockey tickets. They had a really good season, so my timing totally sucks. Plus, it’s MAINE. They’ve always had a good team and I’m not surprised that they’re sold out, but damn.

3) New Englander’s have long memories. I signed up for internet and cable. When I gave the girl my address, she says, “Oh you’re in the new development.”

The. NEW. Development.

My house was built in 1962.

This doesn’t surprise me - I’m used to hearing directions like take the left at Yoken’s. Yoken’s went out of business in 2004 and the building had been torn down forever ago. The sign, however, lived at it’s spot for years after that. When the ex and I lived in New Hampshire, I once told him to turn left at Yoken’s. He looked at me like I was insane. The sign was no longer there and he had no idea what I was talking about. Also, in a different small town in Maine, my dad was getting directions to a church, and his aunt told him to take the right at the old [whatever the hell their name was] place. You know, the white house. Well, dad had no idea who the fuck they were talking about and the house was no longer white. It’s hard to get lost in a town with one traffic light, but we did.

The movers come Wednesday and I am this very strange mixture of nervous, scared, and feeling settled. I still have a few things to finish packing, so I’m going to do that as soon as I finish lunch. I’ll be living on take out until then because I want everything packed before the work week starts again.

Next I post, I’ll be out of here!!! Wooooo!!

I know I have roots there even if I don’t know where the trees are.

Hail! to the victors valiant / Hail! to the conqu’ring heroes / Hail! Hail! to Michigan / I forgot the words / GO BLUE!

A while back, I had this crazy plan to fly in and out of Boston - go see my friends’ band in Albany-adjacent cities and then catch a Bruins game. A nice, low-key, all-me, 50th birthday long weekend.

Yeah. That did not go as planned.

It became fly into Albany, see the two BMS shows, go to Boston and watch them lose to BUFFALO (BUFFALO! ACK!), drive to Maine and buy a house.

Dude, I bought a fucking house.

It’s the third one I’ve owned outright and the fifth house I’ve bought. Buying a house doesn’t get any less stressful the fifth time around, let me tell you.

But, let’s start in Albany. Future me is going to wish I wrote this somewhere, so why not here? I share everything else important here. (This may be a long one. Strap in! (Strap on? Whatever works!))

I get to Albany to find out they’re charging me a $200 one way rental fee for the car. Not only that, they’ve decided me to give me a Hyundai Elantra. The Elantras are REALLY low to the ground. Like, really, really, low. Hated that car since the moment he gave me the keys. Grrr. Glad I didn’t get a nicer car - that fucking $200 would have made the car way too expensive and I was already pushing my budget.

(I bet this is the most expensive vacation I’ll ever take in my entire life. Altogther, I spent roughly $203,000.)

I have always had good luck with Super 8s in Upstate NY. I am sad to say that the original hotel in Cobleskill fucking sucked. It seems minor, but the room had a broken safe. (I had a laptop. I didn’t want to bring it to a bar in an unknown neighbourhood.) They tried to put me in a different room. Broken safe. Third room? So moldy, I couldn’t even walk in the door. I walked out of the hotel in full Karen mode. (Well, they must have thought that. I thought I was being nice about almost dying.  Mold has become something I’m super allergic to. So, yeah, no thanks. You can poison someone else.)

So, I went ALL THE FUCK THE WAY BACK TO THE AIRPORT and stayed at the Tru by Hilton. That was ah-mazing. I’m only staying at Trus from this point forward.

Black Mountain Symphony killed it during that first show. I sat back and let the songs roll over me. It felt like the first time I could breathe in ages. All the stress. POOF! Gone. So nice to be home, surrounded by friends, and the best music ever. Oh, it was amazing.

I left the Tru to stay a little family run hotel closer to BMS’ second show of the weekend. It was a nice room. Nothing too fancy. (The BMS show was great, as expected, and I bonded with Bill’s mom a bit. Love her!) The absolute worst part of the night was when I was woken up by something. The bed was shaking. Literally shaking. Like someone was fucking with the mattress. And then, once the bed stopped moving, it felt like something got on the bed with me. (It could have been Guinness or the ex for the way the bed sunk.) The room got cold and I could feel someone in the room with me. This started at about 3AM and lasted until 3:30. I barely moved a muscle except to breathe and cracked my eye to look at the time.

Turns out there is a cemetery across the street from the hotel.

I guess someone just wanted to say hi.

From there, it was Boston. Battery Wharf Hotel. Eh. It was hard to find and they had valet parking. (I hate valet parking!) The restaurant didn’t serve me the first morning and I had waited for over fifteen minutes, made contact with three different people and was not acknowledged once. Grrrr. It was just… eh. It poured all day Monday so I didn’t leave the room except to go to the Bruins game. It was so weird being back in the Garden. Everything changed from how you get into the arena vs where the trains are. Bruins stank it up, but UConn and BU had boys on Buffalo. It didn’t help that Sweeney traded Marchy and Coyle right at the fucking trade deadline. Bastard.

From Boston, I headed to Maine.

Fell in love with a house in Dover-Foxcroft. $230K, 1.25 acres, river front, a she shed that was livable. I also fell through the floorboards. Too much work for that sort of money.

Ate at Bob’s Clam Shack, spent a good hour staring at the Nubble Lighthouse, and spent the night in a hotel at Long Sands Beach. Nice to reconnect with my memories of my father, even if I didn’t make it to Ogunquit.

Made my home base in Bangor. Millinocket’s about an hour north, but I had some rewards points to use and I didn’t see any Hiltons up there. Spent the next two days looking at houses. FIFTEEN HOUSES.

It was toss up between the emotional choice and the smart choice. The emotional choice had a beautiful view of Mt. Kathadin, but needed a lot of work. They were asking almost $200K for it, and I really doubted it would appraise at $150K. I offered a fair amount and they countered at basically what they were asking. Yeah, that’s a no. The view is BEAUTIFUL and well worth $200K, but a house with dated appliances and asbestos shingles is not.

I ended up going with the smart choice. A little three bedroom ranch, in move in condition, with a garage and a basement I can finish.

We close on May 9th. Movers come May 21st.

Had Chinese for lunch and my fortune was perfect: Trust in the journey of self-discovery; you are evolving.

Did my dad quote CONFUCIUS?!? Dude…

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it?

During my reread of Walden, I came across this:
All change is a miracle to contemplate but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

As Chuck was fond of saying, “I don’t know what I don’t know until I know I don’t know it.”

Similar? Way off the mark?

OK. So… let’s get to the point of this entry.

I gave my ‘notice’ today.

I say ‘notice’ because the plan is to consider working remotely. In 5 months, 2 weeks, 4 hours, 7 minutes, my lease expires and I’ll be long gone. Somewhere anywhere between Stephen King and Canada. I’m not fussy - it’s wherever I can find what I want in my price range.

The owner took it relatively well.

I want to post the details, I want to scream them into the universe, but it’s probably not the right thing to do… EVERYBODY SHOULD WORK FOR A GUY LIKE THIS.

Speaking of owners and work…

My little side hustle is live! If you’re interested in hiring a remote bookkeeper, shoot me an email at wendell gee 1985 at g mail dot com and I’ll point you in the right direction. If you’re friends with me on the book of faces, it’s a pinned post. Thanks!

OH!

I found a house I really love on Zillow, and it’s been on the market for a while. Fingies crossed that it’s still on the market when I get up to Maine. I would really be surprised if it is, but hey! It’s near Stephen King, so that means… UMAINE ICE HOCKEY!!!

I’m so excited to be moving back to New England that I can barely stand it.

Life is good.

I find it wholesome to be alone in the greater part of the time. - Thoreau

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. - also Thoreau

Hmmm… I haven’t read Walden and Civil Disobedience in forever. The fact that he’s top of mind today might mean it’s time for a reread. I mean, I still have my copy from high school. I’m surprised it’s held together this long.

 

The blue book in the background was an Xmas gift from the X, (Ha!) but I haven’t read it yet.

(Also, running around my head is R.E.M.‘s Finest Worksong, where we throw Thoreau and rearrange. Whatever that means. Michael, if you’re reading this, please explain yourself.)

Wow. THAT was the tangent to end all tangents. (Today at least.)

And now I’ve forgotten what…

Nope, I remember.

Can I just say what a bitch it is to start a company? Especially when you’re into tech and have a creative / marketing background? I spent a ton on software templates and social media posts in an effort to cut corners. The social media stuff may be well worth it and the two software tutorials / templates seem to be worth their money as well.

I spent last night branding the social media posts and building out the recommended schedule for them. I launch January 1st, so it’s coming up quick.

I just had a five day vacay from the day job and didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to on the side hustle… but I also relaxed a lot. Burnout has been my constant companion for months and dealing with seasonal depression and obsessing about my move to Maine isn’t helping matters.

I have to work on day job stuff today because I don’t want to close November in January, but that’s a choice I’m making. Not the best one, but it’s a choice.

In the meantime, I’ll throw up a crappy home page with a link to my Calendly, Facebook, and Instagram pages. It’s at least something while I work on the back end.

Is it bad I’m buying shit from Amazon instead of leaving the house and going to Target just because I want the boxes? Yeah, it’s probably pretty bad…

In other news, I gave into the hype and saw Wicked. I broke much sooner than I did with Hamilton, and I’m just as disappointed. Hamilton’s soundtrack won me over, but I can’t say the same for Wicked’s. I don’t know why I can’t see these and obsess over them like my friends do. I want to love them that much, but they’re just… bleh.

So yeah, about that move.

I am constantly pissed off that I’m spending as much on a 700 sq ft apartment as I did on a 2K+ sq ft house. I can’t afford this on my salary, but none of the less expensive ones were as nice and after all their add ons (especially the cat charges), they were just as expensive. Florida real estate is stupid.

I can get decent houses in Maine for $100K - $200K. With a nice deposit, my mortgage will be more than reasonable. AND if I’m spending $2K a month on a place to live, I’d rather create equity than line some landlord’s pockets.

I’m moving in May / June and I will be working remotely with some support in Florida. At least that’s the plan. The boss already knows that I’m moving so it’s been discussed; he just doesn’t know the timeline. I’m saving that for after the holidays.

We’ll see.

Alright, I should stop stalling. The sooner I get the day job shit done, the sooner I can get back to doing nothing.

 

Reflections on retirement and the ADA

I’m in that picture and I don’t like it.

My way cool, super sexy Logitech keyboard has a loose key and it is driving me nuts. Like seriously. It’s the comma key. Used for… commas and playing the Sims. Do you know how much I write?!? To have a comma key that bounces all over the place makes me want to hulk smash the damn thing.

Logitech also doesn’t sell spare parts (supposedly. I haven’t looked too hard), so if I can’t find what I need, I’m buying a new keyboard… this pisses me off so badly, you have no idea. I have a much, much, much older Logitech keyboard that I absolutely love. Love it so much that I had one purchased for me at the day job. This new one felt more Mac-like and since I live in two worlds - I go both ways - this was a perfect bridge. That bridge is falling down.

Let’s see… what else is new?

My buttermilk pancakes are AMAZING. I used to buy pints of buttermilk, but I wasn’t using it up before it went bad. (And do you know hard it is to find a pint of buttermilk? Cooking for one sucks!) I ended up searching the web and ended up buying some buttermilk powder that was recommended by America’s Test Kitchen.

OK. Enough stalling.

We have an employee who is disabled per the ADA guidelines. This employee is replacing one that is retiring (retired now). We were planning on terminating their employment because they were doing so poorly during training, but their disability made itself known at work and we weren’t sure what to do. It’s not a potion where we could work around any attendance issues caused by this disability - it’s a department of one and usually very busy. The company I work for is deadline driven, so if there isn’t someone at that position, everyone else has to chip in to cover and it leads to a host of problems.

Lucky for them, I am both HR and an expert on the ADA. That’s what happens when you get fired in direct response for asking for a reasonable accommodation. And it was reasonable. The fact that they then decided to throw all kinds of performance issues at me - without a single discussion - and send me to their shrink… yeah. I had a very good case against them and still decided it wasn’t worth trying to sue.

Anyhoo. We’re not big enough to have to abide by the ADA, FL is an at-will state, and we have documented meetings where we actually have pointed out the performance issues and the continued absences. So termination it was, but we gave them two more weeks to prove themselves. They spent one of those weeks in the hospital, as a no-call, no show so we had another justifiable reason to term.

When they got back from the hospital, the owner pulled them in and had a chat. Then I got pulled in for the update… somehow during that discussion, I talked about the Cats and how I got fired. How I job hop because I either get fired for being bipolar or I quit when I can’t keep it under control. (I also find really shitty jobs and / or bosses which help trigger a manic cycle…) He point blank told me that he thought for sure I was going to tell him I was leaving when I told him about the divorce.

My dumb ass said yes, I am moving, but I don’t have a timeline yet. (Liar, liar, pants on fire…)

Dude, the look on his face - we’ve had someone retire, we’re probably going to fire their replacement, and someone else wants to go to part-time. There’s a rumor that someone is moving to Puerto Rico to live near family because they don’t feel safe in the States anymore. We’re twelve people - that’s a lot of loss in two months. For a place that never had any turnover. Of course, people age out and nobody really thought that Trump would win a second term…

I told him I wanted to stay on, remotely, and he looked so relieved. He offered to hire someone that could support me if I needed someone in Florida. I then continued to blab on and on about how he’s the best boss I’ve ever had and how hard it is to want to move home when I just found my forever job… but I need to move home. I can’t continue to live in FL.

So, then we had the retirement party.

Jesus motherfucking crispy Christ on a fucking cracker.

All my emotions came pouring out - we really are such a tightly knit family and it really sucks to leave that behind (even if I work remotely, I won’t be physically based in FL). I know I don’t belong here, but I belong there. Some of my friends think that I should leave now and not look back and the other half think that because I’m agonizing over this decision that I’m not ready to move home. That second half is wrong. SO. VERY. WRONG. I just can’t figure out the timing yet. I just can’t walk away from the best boss I’ve ever had.

I’m spending today working on the layout of my business website. I’ve been looking at some books I bought on WordPress, and the more I read the more I hate the idea of using it. I just can’t wrap my head around how it works. ExpressionEngine is so much easier and now that it’s on version 7, a little better on the back end, too.

OK… I should probably get going. That code’s not going to write itself. *sigh*