Singing The Blues.

[Please note that there is an almost 2 year span between this post and the one above it.]
 
Gloom, despair and agony on me! 

Deep dark depression, excessive misery! 

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.

Gloom, despair and agony on me!

It started out at the end of July. My mother's health has been slowly declining for four or five years. We all were expecting it, so it was no big surprise when she passed away. Thirty-six hours later I was in the hospital with a ruptured appendix. I missed my Mother's funeral. I'm too fat for laparoscopic surgery, so they had to split me open like a watermelon. I'm diabetic so we're looking at the wound to be fully healed by maybe Christmas. Since I can't work due to the surgery, I now don't qualify for the meager unemployment benefits I was receiving. We're down to our mutual retirement benefits, half of which are immediately sucked up by medical insurance.  The most recent blow was today, my son was fired by the same folks that fired me six months ago. They were accusing him of theft, so there's a possibility that might screw up any unemployment benefits he had coming.

Now I realize that things could be worse, but the last four weeks have been a steady stream of extremely bad karma. I'm ready for some good news...right now would be nice.

On the brighter side of life, my wife's heart cath went well last month. The doctor didn't find any major blockages. She has a psych exam scheduled for tomorrow. As we understand it, that's the last thing needed before they can proceed with plans for the bariatric surgery.

Stressed Out

The wife had a stress test about three weeks ago and hadn't heard from the doctor on the results yet, so she gave his office a call. He was on vacation and nobody in the office could read his writing on her chart. Finally she got a call back a couple of days ago. They think it says something about a heart cath, so they've scheduled her to see the doctor on Wednesday. Hopefully it won't be serious. She also has an appointment in Columbus on Tuesday (tomorrow) for the second followup on her vitrectomy. Hoping that the doctor will say it's okay to proceed with the cataract surgery.

The "new" car is doing great. I ran a check on the gas mileage and it looks like it's getting about seven or eight miles per gallon more than the truck did. Certainly a big savings. Now that I'm out of work, I'm driving less also, so it all amounts to a lot of money.

Speaking of vehicles, my oldest son's van broke down yesterday. Looks like Walmart may have messed up when they changed his oil and he ran it dry. He put more oil in it and nursed it home this evening, hoping it won't be serious. He's talking about trading it in.

My fan fiction is doing somewhat better, I've written seven chapters and have gained a small readership. I'm sort of suffering writer's block at the moment, not sure where to take the tale next and trying not to write myself into a corner. My wife finished her first tale and has started on a second, but is also stymied for where to go next after publishing only one chapter.

Rollin, rollin, rollin...

Well, it took two weeks, but we finally got the truck back from the shop. We're $500 poorer, but it doesn't squeek anymore.  We also traded in the Oldsmobile for a slightly newer Chevy Impala with only 78,000 miles on it. Drives like a dream compared to the truck.  We'll probably be using it as our main transportation.  The wife wants to call it "The Silver Pearl," but I'm more partial to "Vlad The Impala."

Had some problems with our bank account, went to pay the garage with a debit card and it was refused.  Had to use a different account.  We had paid for the new car on the same account and I assumed that the big check had flagged the account. Tried to buy some gas the next day, same thing, card refused.  Tried using an ATM, transaction cannot be processed.  Called the bank's customer service...computer required me to enter the card number and then hung up on me, saying the account was inactive and to contact my local branch.  Great...I was out of town. Had to wait until the next afternoon and make a special trip to the bank to get things straightened out.  It seems that I made an online purchase from Oklahoma a few days ago and the bank thought that looked suspicious, so they closed down my account. Everything seems to be back online now.

The wife has been writing some "fan fiction" over the last month or so and I've been doing her proofreading plus offering suggestions on livening up her dialogue a little bit.  She's been getting quite a few glowing reviews.  At her urging, I decided to try my own hand at some fan fiction and posted chapter one of a murder mystery (serious stuff, no fluff) this afternoon.  I was excited when I got an e-mail within about fifteen minutes of posting...until I realized it was from a sexual pervert. She's rolling on the floor laughing at me.  Sigh....

Hitchin' A Ride ♫

Well, haven't heard back from the garage yet, so I don't know how much the ball joint repair is going to set me back.  Doing without a vehicle is very frustrating. We have another vehicle, but it overheats.  It's okay for short trips, but you have to stop and let it cool down if you have to drive more than 10 miles or so...and carry several jugs of water or antifreeze with you to replenish the coolant. I had it looked at a couple of years ago and was told it had a leaky head gasket. Don't really think that's the problem. I've had it worked on several times, by the neighbor, but it still overheats. I tried starting it yesterday afternoon; the battery is dead. And it's parked a lonnnnnng way from an electrical outlet to plug it into a charger. I may tackle that dilemma this afternoon; I think I might have enough extension cords to plug together that might reach it. In the meantime I've been borrowing vehicles from friends and relatives or asking them to drive me various places.

Big Bang Theory

Well, nearly a month has passed us by since my last post. I guess it's time for an update on how things are going.  I'm still unemployed, only one response to my resumes so far...they weren't hiring.  If nothing turns up by November, I'm probably going to apply for early Social Security benefits and say goodbye to the rat race. After working my arse off for 46 years, I deserve a little retirement. 

The website has been on hold for a couple of weeks, the wife has discovered Fan Fiction and is in the process of spinning a tale about Sherlock Holmes (ala Benedict Cumberbatch). She's finished 5 chapters (about 2 chapters a week) and has gotten several very good reviews from her readers.  I've been proofreading for her and suggesting changes to her text to liven things up a bit. Things like adding a few descriptive adjectives, pointing out continuity problems, etc.. I'm impressed with her story, she's really a good writer. I guess 30 years of teaching reading to third graders might have helped somehow.

As I mentioned earlier, the wife had a major blowout of a blood vessel in her left eye just a couple of days before she was scheduled to have cataract surgery.  It didn't get any better after a couple of weeks so she had to have a vitrectomy done (sucking the vitreous out of her eye along with the blood and debris, replacing it with saline solution).  The cataract surgery is now on hold until that clears up.  Might be two or three months before it's back on the table.

As for her bariatric surgery, there has been some good news in that corner. Her insurance company has changed it's waiting time policy from six months to three months.  She's already been in the program three months now, so the doctor's office is preparing the paperwork to request authorization. It'll take a few weeks to get that all together, then a few more weeks for the insurance company to go over it all before approving. Hopefully sometime in July or thereabouts she'll be getting that done.

I got my foot tangled in the seat belt of my pickup truck about two weeks ago and fell over on my back onto a concrete parking lot.  Messed my back up quite a bit, making it hard to walk without extreme pain.  Have visited the chiropractor several times and am starting to feel better.

I barely avoided a catastrophe today. I had both front wheel assemblies on the pickup replaced by a "big brand" service center in Columbus last summer.  Ever since that, the front end has had a rubbing/squeeking/creaking sound in it. Hard to describe, best I can come up with would be like a large rusty hinge. I had it looked at a couple of times, but nobody could see anything wrong.  I noticed today that the sound was getting louder and thought to myself, "I should have that looked at."  I drove to the supermarket and picked up a few groceries and as I started to back out of the parking space, there was a loud BANG! and the driver's side front end shook a little bit. I braked immediately and got out to look at the front wheel. Didn't see anything, so I thought "the service station is less than a mile away, I need to take it down there now and get it looked at ASAP!"  I jumped back in and started to back out again, moved just a little bit and there was even louder BANG! This time the whole front driver's side shook and dropped several inches.  I got out and this time there was something obviously wrong.  The tire was tilted out at about a 30 degree angle and something attached to the frame was sitting on the ground.  As I have since been told, a ball joint failed. While it's a disaster and is certainly going to mess with my already tight budget to get this thing fixed, thank the Lord I wasn't tooling down the road at 55 MPH when the thing failed!

My youngest son's adoption plans are now on hold due to other financial obligations, mainly medical bills. About a year's worth of work has gone into the adoption process, he assures me that it's just on "hold" for a year or so and they won't loose any of the money they've already poured into it.

Why do I even try?

I've now been unemployed for a little over two months. Resumes and cover letters have been flowing out of my printer and sent off like little pigeons. Unfortunately they don't seem to be homing pigeons, because nothing has been coming back so far.

I had to attend a mandatory meeting about looking for work and the opportunities that are out there. It was pretty depressing to hear that, although the average unemployment rate in Ohio is 7%, for our county it's 11%.  Didn't sound very good to me. One of the presenters was from the local vocational school, talking about adult training classes that were available.  Coincidentally, I used to teach classes there myself.  Anyway, he passed out a brochure that listed the various things available. A major drawback to any of the classes is the school location...on the other side of the county. It would be a 70 mile drive to attend classes which means spending $70 to $100 a week in gas. Not very likely.

So, I noticed that one of their classes was offered online and it sounded like something I could handle. Hot dog! I asked the presenter about it, and he said "Yeah, the whole course is offered online," so I checked the box on the form we had to turn in at the end of the session that I was interested in training classes.

The following Monday I called the school to inquire about when classes would be offered.  Surprise #1, not until September. Five months from now. Bummer. Okay, how about the online component of the class? Surprise #2, we don't offer that anymore...the brochure is out of date.

Come on, people. If you're giving out information on what's available, at least you could make sure it's current!  I mean, the brochures were obviously printed with a color laser printer hooked to your computer...is it too much trouble to go in and edit your document?

In other news, my wife's cataract surgery has been put on hold due to an unexpected rupture of a blood vessel in the eye. A trip to her retina specialist was unproductive last week, too much blood occluding the retina. He couldn't see anything, much less do any laser work on it.  We're going back in a couple of weeks for him to take another look, hopefully the blood will have settled and he can work on the eye then. If not, she may be in for some more serious surgery to do the repair.

Her gastric bypass is still on track, no setbacks on that front. She's been very serious on her diet and has lost at least 7 pounds so far. I'm very proud of how well she's doing.

Tech Guru In Training

I've been helping my wife set up a new website she's wanting to run. If you know her, you know she's a somewhat technology impaired, but enthusiastic nonetheless. She wants to learn but gets frustrated very easily when things don't work the way she thinks they should. She also gets VERY impatient if I can't fix the problem like snapping my fingers. Hopefully I can get things up and running for her in a few weeks, we're shooting for May 1, 2012 to put it online.

No major changes for the two of us otherwise.  As for the family, my youngest son and his wife just moved from a medium sized house into a 2nd floor apartment for two reasons. First, it puts both of them several miles closer to work. Second, they are in the process of adopting a child and felt that the new apartment would help them in regards to some of the qualification requirements. The old house had some problems in the basement that would have been really expensive to get up to the standards of the adoption agency.  They've also started an adoption blog, so we can keep up to date on how things are progressing.

I'm Still Here

No posts for a couple of weeks, been kind of busy. Unfortunately that doesn't mean I have a job yet.

I gave up waiting on the AARP insurance papers and called them on the phone and gave them my vitals...sorry Charlie, AARP only takes the healthiest people. After some more searching, I determined that nobody except my school retirement folks would even offer me health insurance.  So I had to go with the high-priced plan.  All of my retirement income plus somewhere around $600 of my wife's will be going to pay for it.  Still haven't gotten the first billing...sort of nervous about that.

My plan went into effect April 1st and I renewed all of my prescriptions for about $100 co-pay.  I sat down with the bills and added up the actual cost before the insurance and the price would have been about $150 less than what my premiums amount to...so I guess I'm sort of breaking even.  Why do I still feel it's WAY too much money?

I've started collecting my unemployment benefits from ODJFS, that's a little consolation also.  Just got notified yesterday that I have to attend a mandatory four hour meeting on job hunting next week. Oh joy.  I've also been sending out resumes to potential employers, no responses yet.

My wife is still pursuing the cataract surgery and surgical weight loss and has at least one doctor's appointment scheduled every week for the next month and a half, some weeks two or three appointments.  All of them involve a drive of between 50 and 200 miles, depending on the doctor.  At 14 mpg, my old truck is sucking up a good portion of our income also.

Ah, such is life. Sooner or later I'll get over it.

On The Toilet

Getting old and infirm definitely has it's disadvantages.  One of the major problems is just getting up and down.  Forget about trying to get up off the floor after you're down, let alone getting down there in the first place without falling.

My inability to get up and down forced me to call on someone else for help the other day.  Our toilet tank had been leaking on and off for at least a month.  I understand the mechanics of how the toilet flush thing works, I just can't get down on the floor and root around under the toilet to fix it. After multiple urgings from my wife, I finally contacted a fellow from church who knows a bunch of folks who can do odd jobs on the spur of the moment. One of the church elders dropped by the same day and installed a new flapper valve which seemed to fix the problem...until about 4 a.m. the next morning, when it started leaking continuously.  I was able to get the water shut off after about fifteen minutes of crawling around on the floor. Wow, that hurts the knees getting back up! So now I'm getting ready to go down to the hardware store and buy a complete new flush assembly mechanism. Hopefully our elder can stop by again and install it for us.

My youngest son and his wife have been visiting with us for a few days, he got a phone call yesterday evening to let him know that the store he manages had been broken into by thieves. So they left early this morning to return home and assess the damages.

My daughter is due in later today for a visit between school terms. I enjoy when the kids come home to visit.

Still haven't gotten anything from the AARP insurance people. The website says 7 to 10 days, yesterday was 10 days. I think I'm going to give them a call if I don't see something in today's mail.

I'm Doing Fine

Got my first check from ODJFS last Saturday.  It's a comfort to know that I'll have a steady income while I seek new employment.  The only thing still bothering me is the lack of health insurance.  Still haven't heard from the AARP insurance folks.  The website says to allow 7 to 10 days for the information packet to arrive.  Don't recall how long ago it was I requested it, but I think it's getting close to 10 days.  I need to look back at my earlier posts to see.

One little thing bothers me about the insurance...I know it's silly, but when I requested the info packet, the website said they would send me their "Insurance For Dummies" kit.  I'm a bit insulted by their insinuation that I'm a dummy. I consider myself fairly intelligent and am rather offended by their insensitive comment.

I felt a sore spot on my forehead this afternoon and when I looked in the mirror I discovered a tiny liquid-filled blister. WTF? I finally realized it had been caused by the CPAP mask I wear when I sleep. Guess I need to loosen the strap a little.

One of my sons and his wife are visiting with me for the next couple of days and my daughter is coming in later in the week. I always enjoy it when the kids drop in for a few days. We don't do a whole lot, mostly just sit around and watch TV or play games, but just having them around is a nice feeling.

I ordered a new wedding band online for my wife today, she had to have her old one cut off when she hurt her hand a while back and had to have it cut off when her fingers started swelling.  I also got hold of her original diamond wedding band that she hasn't worn in several years. The diamond fell out of it, so she stopped wearing it. I'm planning to take it to the jeweler's and see if I can get a new stone put in it for her.

Assorted Stuff

Several things have happened yesterday and today so I thought I'd pop in to update the blog.

Just after I finished my last post, an e-mail from ODJFS arrived to let me know that I'm eligible for unemployment benefits!  Not a big check, but after you consider the gas I was burning going back and forth to work at 14 mpg, it's pretty close to what I was making before I got fired, not counting the health benefits.  I think the thing that made me feel the best about it was that they determined I had been discharged "without just cause."  In my mind that sort of justifies my opinion that my former boss was pretty much a douchebag who just wanted to get rid of me.

I still haven't heard from the AARP health insurance folks, gonna give them a call Monday and see if I can get some info on how to get a policy in effect.

My wife is looking at two life changing surgeries in the near future.  First of which is cataract repair.  She has diabetes and has been slowly going blind over the last couple of years.  The surgery will brighten up her world and improve her eyesight, but there's already been damage to her retinas, so she is still probably going to need glasses. I took her to the doctor today and they scheduled the surgeries.
Second, she's entered a surgical weight loss program and is looking at stomach bypass surgery in about six months if all goes well. Hopefully that will stop or at least dramatically improve her diabetic problems.  She's very upbeat about all of this, I'm proud of her.

Forever Waiting

No word from ODJFS on the status of my claim yet, but hopefully it won't be long. I gave them a call and they said my employer had until last Tuesday to reply to their request for information. After that they would review my case and I should hear something by the first part of next week.

I'm not sure my employer's failure to respond promptly is a good thing or not. I'm a little nervous about the whole thing.

I just found out last night that Google AdSense has banned my son from their service for some reason. I'm guessing that he was getting too many clicks per ad versus the number of visitors to his blog. They're pretty anal about that. In his defense, it was a good blog and he had a lot of followers.

My wife and I have stumbled into the middle of a feud between two local factions. One of those "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situations. Perhaps I'll elaborate in a future post, it looks like we're not going to get our foot out of the bear trap any time soon.

Hurry up and wait

Still no word from ODJFS on my unemployment status.  Even so, I need to go online and file a claim for last week. I just hope it's not a waste of time.

A little hope on the horizon, my Google AdSense account is starting to bring in a trickle of loose change. I just received an email from them today to let me know my earnings have topped $10 and I can start receiving checks from them.  That's with just 17 followers and less than one ad click per day. I plan to work on cultivating some additional followers today.

I've also started scheduling the posts on my humor blog, my posts are currently going live every morning at 7:00 a.m. but I'm considering moving it up a couple of hours for people who possibly check my blog before going to work in the morning.

Doing okay for now

I just verified that our income tax refund was direct deposited to our bank account this morning. We have a few outstanding bills that need to be paid and a couple of purchases we would like to make, but hopefully a good portion of it can go towards getting cataract surgery for my wife.

I looked around online for better deals on health insurance and found a couple of policies available through AARP that look promising. Monthly premiums are significantly less than what the School Employees Retirement System is asking. Benefits aren't quite as good, but I don't think I can afford the gold standard at this time. I requested an information packet and will be looking into this deeper.

I weeded out a gob of old paper on my desk yesterday...and a gob more came in the mail.  Mostly bills that need to be paid. Nothing from ODJFS as of right now, hoping to get some sort of determination on my status some time today.

Everyday I'm Shufflin'

I'll admit it. I'm a paper hoarder. I don't throw away stuff like most folks. In particular, I don't throw away junk mail...or any mail for that matter. I intend to throw it away, I just don't seem to be able to get around to doing it. Consequently the paper stacks up on my desk to the point that I can't find anything very quickly and end up shuffling through it all the time looking for things. Eventually I get to the point that everything I'm going through is several months old and I end up sticking it in a box to go through and weed out...but it never gets done. So not only do I have stacks and stacks of stuff on my desk, I have boxes and boxes of stuff that needs to probably be thrown out. I'm hoping to do some paper disposal today. A lot depends on whether I get any more missives from ODJFS or not.

I mentioned in my last post that Google AdSense had finally approved my other website for ads. In the last 5 days I've generated more income than I had in three months using PocketSense. Amazing.  It's not a flood of money, actually less than a dollar so far, but I'm encouraged nonetheless.

We had some snow yesterday, enough to close the schools, but not enough to last until the end of the day. Everything had melted off by late afternoon.  My wife has a policy that states "If schools are closed, I don't work either."  So I took her lead and didn't do anything in regards to my unemployment situation yesterday.  Instead I watched TV most of the day.  I did get around to setting up her computer station so she doesn't have to wait on me to finish working here.

One last thing, I did verify that the wife of my former boss is now doing my old job. Supposedly it's only "temporary" until they can find someone else. Yeah, right...I can certainly believe that story.

Thank You, AdSense!

It doesn't take a whole lot to make me happy. For example...

About eight years ago I started a blog and put some advertisements on it courtesy of Google AdSense.  The blog never made much of a splash and I eventually let it go dormant for a long time. I don't think I ever made any money on it.

Recently my son started a blog with some Google AdSense banners on it and I was amazed at the size of some of the checks he was receiving after only a few months.  So I decided to give it another try.

I changed my e-mail address since I started the old blog and there were some problems with restarting AdSense there...so I totally deleted the old blog and started a new one.  Google still wanted to look at the old blog URL and nothing I did seemed to work.  I've been struggling for 4 months to get AdSense banners to show up on the new blog and had pretty much given up on it.  Suddenly this afternoon AdSense banners started popping up on my site.

I am happy.  Like I said, it doesn't take much.

More of the same

More questions to answer for ODJFS this morning. It was hard to answer some of them since my employer wouldn't discuss my discharge other than to say it was for "job performance."  I'm beginning to suspect they might determine I'm ineligible for unemployment benefits. That would be the pits.

Getting ready to go out and buy stuff to build a desk for my wife to work at. Since my unemployment, I've been monopolizing the computer. We're going to resurrect a netbook that's been gathering dust, put a monitor and keyboard on it and create a workstation for her.  We've been kicking around the idea of some sort of online marketing that might bring in some extra money but haven't really hit on any super fantastic concepts yet.

Well, she's ready to leave, so I guess I need to cut this short.

How Much Is My Health Worth?

Suddenly becoming unemployed means several things. One of the more important things that is happening is an end to health care benefits through my employer.  Since I'm dealing with multiple health problems and taking about 12 different medications to keep stuff under control, I am of the opinion that health care coverage is rather important. 

I'm currently receiving retirement benefits from two different past employers, neither one is very large. Definitely not enough to live on even when combined...which is one of two reasons I was still working up until last Thursday.  The other reason was that health care coverage was available through my employer. They offered a piss-poor major medical plan ($25,000 deductible!?!), but it did include prescriptions at a reasonable discount.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had contacted one of my retirement benefit providers about health care coverage and expected the cost to be more than what I was receiving from them.  Imagine my dismay when I discovered that my coverage will cost everything I receive under BOTH retirement plans...plus an additional $700 per month!

Granted, it's a good plan ($1500 deductible versus $25,000) and comparable prescription discounts...but the cost is totally outrageous.  I'm pretty sure my prescription costs and regular doctor visits would be much less than the cost of the coverage. My main worry would be if I were to get really sick or injured and require hospitalization or some sort of surgery.  In addition, if I wait too long to seek new coverage, I loose "pre-existing condition" coverage.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point, I think a lot will depend on what the folks at ODJFS determine in the way of unemployment benefits.

Rainy Wednesday

Looks there's like a long rainy day ahead of me today. At least that's what the weatherman on TV said and he's rarely too far off the mark.

I'm getting ready to go pay my last respects to a friend from church who passed away over the weekend. Funerals in the rain can elicit some really depressing thoughts. I don't think I want to go that direction today though.

I got my paperwork sent in to ODJFS yesterday afternoon and checked with the IRS this morning, my refund won't be in for about another two weeks for some reason. I thought this e-filing thing was supposed to be a lot quicker than that. I haven't gotten any important e-mails this morning, so unless I get something later on I'm planning to start updating my resume this afternoon.

Working on my resume is always an exercise for my brain. Wording and rewording and shifting paragraphs here and there to make it look as professional and complimentary to myself as possible.  Telling the truth while trying to give the impression that I'm younger than I really am and not a grumpy old coot who could kick the bucket before they get him trained for the job.

Busy, busy, busy.

I woke up again at 5 a.m. today, but this time I rolled over and went back to sleep for a while. I did get up at 7 a.m. and got ready for the day. Don't want to let myself fall into a rut of laying around in bed or living in my pajamas.

I had planned to work on my resume this morning but other things pushed that plan to the side for a while.

Since my employer only said "job performance" and wouldn't discuss exactly why I was discharged and there wasn't a category like that, I put "undisclosed reason" on my application for unemployment benefits. That tripped a flag and ODJFS emailed me that they needed clarification via an online form.

The form said to "briefly describe" why I thought I was discharged. No indication of how much "briefly" was, so I gave them a couple of paragraphs...and crashed the javascript application. Okay, they were LONG paragraphs. Really long. I pared down my description a little and resubmitted it. This time it didn't crash, but it did tell me there was a 1500 character limit. So I had to use a machete and cut the crap out of my beautifully worded document. In the end it was a mere shadow of it's glorious beginning. Hopefully it conveyed at least a hint of the anguish I feel at being so coldly terminated.

Add to that they want a quarterly breakdown of my wage earning information for a 16 month period. Yeah, like I keep that handy. Took me all day to come up with all of this stuff. Getting ready right now to run down to the post office and get it in the mail to them.

I should also be getting some paperwork to fill out regarding medical insurance. Wonderful! I just LOVE having to track down all of this information.

Work, work, work...

Today was the first Monday that I didn't absolutely HAVE TO get up at 5 a.m. to get ready for work. I got up anyway. It didn't FEEL right sleeping in.

So, I've been busy today getting started on this new adventure.

I logged into ODJFS and started a new claim for unemployment benefits. I'm a little nervous since I now receive a small retirement income from two previous employers. The total amount is far less than the "official" poverty level, so hopefully it won't impact my benefits to severely.

My employer didn't specify exactly what the "Job Performance" issue was that precipitated my departure and "Job Performance" wasn't an option on the application...so I just said "Undisclosed." I'm praying that won't be an issue. One of my previous employers tried to get my unemployment benefits denied by lying about the reason for my departure many years ago. That's a nightmare I don't want to relive if possible.

I also contacted one of my retirement providers about starting health insurance with them. It's better than the policy that I had with my former employer, but also more expensive. The cost of the policy will probably eat up most (if not all) of my retirement benefits, so we'll be living on my wife's retirement check. Not having health insurance isn't an option since I have multiple health-issues and my medical expenses are pretty significant.

I still need to get a few more things nailed down, who knew being out of work could be so much work?

A New Post At Last

After a long time ignoring this blog, I appear to have more time to devote to it now, seeing as how I am suddenly unemployed.

After four and a half years doing the same job, I was summoned to the office and dismissed for "job performance." I suspect it was office politics. A new department manager with a wife who needs a full-time job.

They had planned to get rid of me last August but circumstances made it impractical for them to do so. This time they got their ducks in a row and bid me goodbye. It was very cut and dried. "Hi, we're dismissing you, sign here, clean out your desk, give us your keys, don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Tomorrow is the first Monday in a long time that I don't have to get up at 5 a.m. to go to work. It's probably going to feel a little strange.

I'm understandably a little depressed but I think I'll get over it eventually. And, of course, it will be quicker if I find a steady source of income.

Monday comes with a lot of stuff to adjust to, phone calls to make, things in my life are changing and I guess I'll have to adapt.

I think perhaps the most annoying thing about all this is when I'm in that half-awake/half-asleep mode, sort of daydreaming and I think of something I need to do at work...and then I realize...No, I don't need to do that at work because I no longer have a job.