Today, I am eating pretzels. Don't know why, just am. I found bags of them at the fruit and vegetable store and they were cheap so I bought some. Now, you know you cannot just eat one or two. Once you start, you just keep eating them until they are all gone. I think it might be the salt or something but I had a whole container of them about two hours ago and now they are gone. I think someone came in here and ate them but since I have been sitting here beside them the whole time, they would have had to be real tricky to get to the container of pretzels without me seeing them. So I did the obvious thing and set up my phone to record the container in order to catch whomever is stealing my pretzels. And now I am tired of typing the word pretzel so I will move on to other thoughts or musings.
Work stuff. Skip until it says no more work stuff if you do not want to read about it. Too late, you already started so now you are obligated to finish. Besides, I finished all the pretzels and now you have nothing else to do.
We have been living in the same house for a couple of weeks now. It has not been bad but it has not really been good either. Not a lot of problems but as we each have our own way of doing things, we get in each others way. Since it is where I have lived, things are in certain places and done at certain times and ways that are how I am used to doing it. Juanita has never had problems with changing what other people are doing. She does it her way or not at all. She has done it the whole time I have known her and not just to me but to everyone. She moves things. She doesn't know how to use appliances or where anything is or where it should be, so she just puts things where they fit or where there is a hole and doesn't really think about the fact that they might have been there for a reason or that is where I expect them to be and if they are not there, I assume I need another one or something.
But, it is unfair for me to blame her as I do things she is not happy with. Can't think of anything offhand but I am sure there is something.
Let's take a small example. She decided to do the dishes by putting them in the dishwasher. Really helpful and a kind thing for her to do since I am at work and usually only do dishes for myself about once or twice a week. First issue was, she was not washing them because she did not know it was a two cycle dishwasher. What that means is when you turn it on, it only gets the dishes wet. This is its soaking mode. I had the same problem when I first moved in so it is understandable that she did not know this. Easily fixed, you just have to either bypass soaking mode or turn it on again once that mode is finished. What it means is we had dirty dishes that she would then take out and put into the cupboards thinking they had been cleaned since the machine had stopped running. Again, not a big deal and it only happened twice before I explained how the machine worked. Didn't make her happy as she said I was blaming her for the problem when I was just trying to let her know how the machine worked but I can live with that.
The real problem is, she put my good knives in the dishwasher. My good knives. That I have had for about 8 or 9 years now. For those of you who do not understand my concern, she put my good knives in the dishwasher. I suppose repeating that does not really explain my concern, but I will try again. She put my good knives in the dishwasher.
Now part of the problem is me. She bought me another good knife a few years ago. Not sure why but I do like good knives so it was a good gift. The problem is, I do not have a holder for it. I have one for all my knives but not for the new one. Since I rarely use the new one, I put it in the slot for the knife I use the most. My chefs knife which I use everyday. That left my chef's knife with no place to sit. My plan has always been to leave it out since I use it all the time. I have a large cutting board, another gift from years past that I leave on the counter all the time. I put my chef''s knife on that when I am not using it. It sits on the counter, all the time. She does not like things left on the counter so she moved my cutting board and then put my knife in the dishwasher. I am not sure what she was planning to do with it after that but I suspect it would have been thrown in the drawer with all the other kitchen utensils. You know the drawer I mean. Everyone has one. It is the drawer where all the gadgets, utensils, and spare things get put so you are constantly digging through it to find what you need. You can only imagine the kind of hell I would have raised if that had happened, but it didn't as I caught it in time.
I know, what an asshole I am . I thought about what other word I could use in place of that one but nothing I came up with really described what I am in enough detail. That one word seems to say it all so I left it. I apologize for offending whatever crowd of people I have offended that might be reading this blog.
I mean, it's such a little thing. So the knife went though the dishwasher. What's the big deal. I cannot explain it. People who know what a big deal it is will synthesize. People who do not cannot be convinced otherwise. It just is and should not happen. I didn't think I complained about it too much bet apparently, I was wrong. I could forgive it happening by accident or lack of knowledge but I know she knows I do not want them in the dishwasher and I can only assume she did it to try to make me upset. I don't know. It is over, for now. I just use it as an example of the kind of things we have to get used to with us starting to live together again. There are other examples, on both sides, but we are both trying and we will work it out. We have to.
On to other things.
I took a break at this point. Probably too much entertainment for one sitting anyway. I think I had some train of thought when I started but now I am tired and don't really know. I suppose I can talk about work. I think I mentioned that I would be doing that earlier but I never got around to it so ignore anything you have read so far and just jump in. I'd say the water was fine but I never get in the water so I don't know how it is. And this is Tasmania, so expect lots of ice and snow.
I'm still doing this same job. The PC Refresh project. Can't say this one is being run any better than the one before but as I seem to be the sole owner of this project, I can say it's going great. Or it would be in they had ordered enough equipment to do the job. It would seem they only ordered half, or less than half, of what they needed. Not sure of the reasons for that other than maybe they could not get it all in one go. Don't know. But the impact is I did most of the building I am in and then ran out of machines to deploy. I still need about ten more laptops before I can call this building finished. What irks me about it is I was asked the other day about when I will start doing the other buildings. I had to explain that since I have no more machines available, I cannot plan on when and where I will be deploying next. This seemed to come as a surprise to them and they asked me why I had run out of machines. I had to explain that they did not order enough and it was my understanding that there were two orders and the second one had not yet arrived. This, of course, caused a lot of running around and high level meetings to find out why the project was stopped and who was going to get the blame.
It would seem that they forgot to order the second order. And, even if they had, they had forgotten to order several specific machines that were needed by certain people, like people in the Road Services department that need mobile devices with LTE so they can connect via phone while out on the job. Now none of this would be my fault but somehow, they managed to put some of the blame on me because I had not told anyone I was out of equipment. Like that was my job in the first place. I had to explain that the person they put in charge of the project went on maternity leave and the person that put him in charge was seconded to another department. So it left me as defacto project manager even though I did not have access to the orders, the software, the documents or anything else that would have allowed me to run this project. I have basically been working on my own trying to make things fit and waiting for someone, somewhere to decide what it is they wanted to do and when they wanted it done. I personally think getting this entire building done with no help in three weeks time was a major accomplishment but hey, who am I to argue with the government.
Anyway, it wasn't really that bad. The boss who was seconded to another department got most of the blame because he had not told anyone what they were supposed to be doing and had not replaced the project manager with anyone even though he knew that guy would not be here to run the project. Plus, the guy who does the ordering claimed that he had never received the second order so he had never placed it. But again, it's government where no one really knows what anyone else is doing at any given time.
That little tirade lasted longer than I wanted it to. Let's have some kids news.
Maeghan has one month left at her school, then she graduates 11th grade. I think her classmates are planning a going away party for her but since it is a secret I am not supposed to know anything. Which is convenient since I do not know anything. Juanita mentioned the possibility the other day but that is all she said so I don't know if it is true or when and where it might be happening.
Maeghan was sick for a week or so and she missed some important classes where she had an assignment to do and she did not get it done. I am told she has to do it or she will not pass that class but I don't know where she is in the project at the moment. I know she said one of her friends was going to help her but I don't know if that happened or not. Since she only had a month left, I don't know what is going on.
William does not get out of school until close to Christmas time. I really have no idea how he is doing in school. I do know that he has a lot more friends now but I am not sure they are good friends or friends I would approve of. I have never met or heard of them but he walks to the bus stop and back each day and he hangs out with them along the way. It is only a couple of blocks but from that bus stop, it is the main one where they fill the bus. The old bus stop by his house was one of the first ones so there was really no one there waiting besides him each day. Now, about 50 kids are waiting for the bus by my house so they try to get into as much trouble as they can before and after school. Or I assume that is what they do as I have no idea. Just a bunch or rotten kids waiting for buses. What else would they be up to.
William does enjoy the freedom though. He seems to be going out a lot on his own lately. No idea whether he is meeting anyone or not but he is always asking if he can walk to to the store for us and get things. The store is only about a block away so I have no idea why he would want to be doing that but he asks everyday if he can. But William has always been helpful like that. Willing to do anything to help as long as he can be a part whatever is going on. He gets in the way most of the time but he is certainly enthusiastic about it.
This delayed school schedule is another problem. Juanita is looking at houses to rent right now. On a good note, the one she was looking at that was near Angie fell through, probably because the operator of that place seemed a bit shady to me, but it means she is now looking elsewhere. Like up north where I wanted to go. That is north of Brisbane where I think the neighborhoods are better. She has found a lady who is going to look for a place for her so that will help a lot. But about the delay in getting out of school. I think, and I am pretty sure it will happen, that as soon as they find a place and Maeghan gets out of school, Juanita and Maeghan are going to leave and go to setup house. It's not really a bad idea but it means William and I will be left here to get rid of, pack and do whatever is left to do on our own, and I will be working full time during that so I will not have a lot of opportunities to get things done. She says we can get it all done before they go but I don't know how that will work as we will still be living here and we will need to have somethings to sit on, sleep on, and eat on while we do that. And I am not sure I will be able to load everything by myself when the time comes for us to leave. It seems like a lot of stuff to leave for one person to do. I guess I have done it all on my own before so I will have to do it again. So much for us living as one family.
And on that depressing note, I will have to go. I am sure I am just the complainer that everyone says I am. I think of it as being practical, but not a lot of people see it my way. It's a living I suppose. I am going to get ready to go home now. Been working too long on this and not on what I should be doing. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I have to go to another site tomorrow so I can waste some time in travelling while I do. It is always better if I am going offsite.
I just typed some words and they did not appear on the page where I was typing. So if there are parts of this that do not make sense, it is because of that and has nothing to do with my incoherence and lack of the ability to type.
So it's good bye from me and good bye from the empty bag of pretzels.
Until next time
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