My laptop is not here and I can’t type well on my phone, so today enjoy my favorite photos from my wordpress image library.
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I Want to Be a Billionaire Take 2
A couple of years ago when lottery fever was high, I wrote a post about what I would do with the money if I won. Today, I revisit the list below.
- Sign the ticket – still a good first step.
- Hire my accountant/wife as my financial advisor(although she is sometimes surprisingly bad at math) – I guess I would still use her, but I would also find a good lawyer as well.
- Claim the money quick because I would be afraid I would lose the ticket. – Same. I wouldn’t want to wait to long because who knows what could happen.
- Remain anonymous – I’m pretty sure this is still an option in Maryland. If so, I would still remain anonymous. I don’t need everyone to know I’m wealthy.
- Quit my job – I would do this, but not right away so people wouldn’t realize I won. I would work for a little while longer and then find a time when it was particularly annoying and quit in a spectacular fashion.
- Set up trust funds for the kids – Same, but would make it so they didn’t get it until they graduated college
- Pay off the debts of my family members – I guess I would still be nice to my family
- Buy my mom a house – Unfortunately, no longer an option.
- Buy a better car, but not an extravagant car – I like the car I have now, but I would probably still upgrade.
- Remodel my basement to make it nicer for social events/man cave – Now that the kids are away at college, I would probably lobby for a new house away from the suburbs. Maybe move in to the Obama’s neighborhood in DC.
- Enjoy life – As much as a grumpy old man can.
- Travel a lot and in first class – Same. I love to travel and the money would make it easier and more comfortable.
- Splurge responsibly – Maybe not so responsibly.
I don’t know why I didn’t add charities to that list. I would give money to my church and other worthy charities. I was very greedy when I wrote this list. I also mentioned at the end the possibility of hiring a driver. That is still on the table. I hate to drive.
Monday Morning Blues
It’s Monday. It’s Monday and it’s dreary and rainy. It’s Monday after my alone weekend with no obligations. It’s Monday and I’m working 1-9 instead of my normal 9-5 so I have more time to dread rejoining the real world. It also gives me more time to decide to write about some personal struggles of late.
The real world has not been great lately. It’s been a tough couple of years. Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of my mom’s death. A month after my mom’s death I accepted a transfer to a new job and left the place I had worked for 15 years. Changing jobs that soon after was probably not a great idea. I wonder if my mental health would be better if I had done my mourning in the more comfortable confines of my old job and with my friends there. The good thing about the change was and is the shorter commute. The shorter commute gave me more time with my daughter before she left for college. Now, less than two years after the other major life changes, my youngest kid has gone to college and we are empty nesters.
So, in two years – death of a loved one, job change and our youngest kid moved away. A lot of sadness and stress coupled with more time home alone. Unfortunately, more time home aloe means more time to dwell on the stress and the sadness. I have trouble leaving the stress of work at work. So, I end up at home alone for two hours with the stress of work added to the loneliness of having no one at home to talk to. I should probably find reasons to leave the house and occupy my brain to distract myself from the stress, but it’s easier to sit on the couch and watch TV.
So, what do I do? Leave the house when I get home, even if it is just to take the dog for a walk. Figure out a way to leave work at work. Decide if the stress is enough to consider another change. If so, be willing to do what it takes to make that change happen. Consider taking the step of finding a therapist to talk through my issues. Win the lottery so I never have to go to work again.
What’s Good in Tater Town 10/13/18
If you guessed that I once again did not write stuff down throughout the week to make this easier you would be correct. I don’t think that will ever happen. I hope at some point to have a week where it is easy to remember the good. Right now, I’m consistently having weeks that stem from boring and mundane to irritating and stressful. The good is not jumping out at me these days and I do not foresee that changing any time soon. So, let’s see if I can get to ten things this week.
- I upgraded to the new IOS and discovered that Waze now works with Apple Car Play. I can now use the good navigation app and see the map on my dashboard, It’s a little thing, but it made me happy.
- It was a holiday week and I had an all day training on Thursday so I had two days this week out of the branch with limited contact with other people.
- A friend bought a doughnut for me on the way to the training because she knew I was having a bad week.
- I filled in showing the teen movie at work on Friday, so for two hours I got paid to eat popcorn and watch Love, Simon.
- A cold front kept the hurricane from making it north enough to give us excessive rain.
- The cold front finally broke the spell of summer like weather and it is nice and cool outside.
- I was able to see where my son is working now when I volunteered at an event yesterday. I also saw him. I guess that is good. I’m not sure how he felt about it.
- The volunteer work involved walking in the woods for an hour and a half. It was nice to be outside and away from the boring suburbs for a while.
- I still had money on my Grilled Cheese & Co. gift card he gave me for Father’s Day so I had a good lunch after I was done.
- No work and no one else at home yesterday meant that after lunch I was able to nap on the couch while watching football.
My Week in Books, TV and Movies 10/12/18
It’s been an off week for me. I worked Sunday, off on Monday for the holiday, had an all day training at a different branch yesterday, I’m now the only person home and today I work with a very short staff and then I can finally relax. It was a short week, but not a great week. I need this weekend. I keep pretending like I’m going to go to a movie or actually leave the house, but I know I will spend all of my time on the couch reading or watching TV. OK, enough rambling – on to the review
Books – I read Rabbit & Robot by Andrew Smith. Smith is one of my favorite YA authors. If you haven’t read his books, go get Grasshopper Jungle or Winger now. Rabbit is more along the lines of Grasshopper. It’s weird(humans on a spaceship full of malfunctioning robots), but funny. I wasn’t sure about it at first and thought it might be one of his first ones that disappointed me, but after the first couple of chapters I really liked it.
TV – First some TV news – New Amsterdam and FBI have both received full season orders, so that is a good sign as far as renewals go. I don’t think anything has been canceled yet. I think the only new show I watched this week was All American, a CW drama about a football player from Crenshaw who moves to Beverly Hills to play for Beverly Hills High. It will be my new “high school drama” show now that Riverdale has lost me.
Movies – We watched Deadpool 2. If you liked the first one, you will like this one. If you didn’t like the first one, don’t bother. I hope they do make an X Force movie next. That would be fun. I still wish Deadpool would make an Avengers appearance.
On Deck – I started Lethal White, the next book in the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith(JK Rowling) but I’ve always listened to them, so I might stop and wait for the audio. I don’t think I will watch a movie this week and TV will be catching up on DVR’ed shows. There are a couple of new sitcoms I might try next week.
My Top Viewed Posts Over The Past 365 Days
Today should have been the day I was able to write a decent post. I work 1-9. I had all morning. I was not in the right head space to write this morning. I got out of the house and got coffee and read my book for a while, but it didn’t help. So, instead, here are the five posts that have been viewed the most over the past 365 days.
Photos from my trip to Philadelphia for the Public Library Association Conference. Likely the most viewed because I shared it in the conference’s Facebook group. There is a video in there of me at the ax throwing fundraiser.
My Life As a Jailbrarian: Library Fight Club
A series I guess I have discontinued since I haven’t written one in a while in which I talked about my life working in a jail library. This one is about the fights in the library.
Please Read Before You Comment
In which I complain about people commenting on posts without reading the post first.
One of my posts in response to a now dead photo challenge.
In which I complain about people complaining about books because they have words they don’t like in them.
Tater Takes on Power Seeking Christians
I meant to write today’s post last night when the thoughts were fresh in my head and I had more time to work on it. Instead, I watched the Braves lose and then watched two shows we had recorded and went to bed early. Now, I am having trouble getting started with the post. I don’t know that it would have been better had I written it last night, but I can say that this morning’s version is not great.
I was thinking last night about the people who are willing to overlook any issue with the latest Supreme Court nominee as long as they think he will side with them on Roe v Wade. If you want to read a full post on my thoughts on pro-life you can click here. Today’s post is a more general post about the “Christian” people who have stopped caring about anything besides political power. Those represented by Jerry Falwell, Jr who is on record saying he thinks Christians should stop electing nice guys and elect more “street fighters” like Trump. A large number of people who supposedly follow a God who’s two greatest commandments are about love(love God, love people) now only care about power and getting what they want. They say they care about people and that is why they are all about overturning Roe v Wade, but they only care about people until they are born and then they be come the “I don’t care” Christians.
Kids are being put in cages – we don’t care
Families are being ripped apart – we don’t care
Students are being murdered in school – we don’t care(thoughts and prayers)
Unarmed black men are being shot by the police – we don’t care
Women report sexual assault – we don’t care
The president is brags about sexual assault – we don’t care
The same president’s Supreme Court nominee is accused of sexual assault – we don’t care
What do they care about? Political power. Willing to overlook all of that in order to have politicians who will vote their way on the issues. Willing to be OK with guilty until proven innocent in the case of a black man shot by the police, but all about the “American way” of innocent until proven guilty when a rich white Republican is accused of sexual assault.
I am in no way a perfect Christian. I am far from that. I do know that we should not be sacrificing the commands of God’s kingdom in order to gain power in our earthly kingdom.
