I’m trying to think of something to write about but so far, as of late, I just can’t commit words to paper. Every time I try the only thing I can write about is not writing. Quite the aggravation.

I suppose I could say Jess lost her job a few weeks ago, after the restaurants’ managers talked her into giving Erin a place to stay (we live in a one bedroom apartment). Subsequent to Jess losing her job, Erin’s hours were cut back to two days a week. As much as I’d hate to say it, Buffalo Wild Wings managers railroaded Jess. Now I’m back to being the sole support of her and the roommate she was goaded into taking on.

We are getting married next month and were to have all of our families down; we have now been forced to postpone that part of the wedding until summer. There’s no feeling worse than having a family member come down to see you and you not being able to do anything with them because you don’t have money.
Jess has been putting out applications left and right, but, so far, no takers. She had a hit when Geico called, but after making it to the third phase of the hiring process, she was dropped as a candidate.

I was supposed to have transferred to Germanna for this half of the semester, but my financial aid didn’t transfer with me. I was dropped from my classes and am forced to sit out the rest of the year. All of this community college stuff has left an extremely sour taste in my mouth. That said, I think next year, instead of enrolling in a degree program, I’m going to go for job certificates such as Engineering Technology and Welding.

I light of all the bad news that has happened so far this year, there is a bright spot on the horizon; RailPlan is going to buy my contract from Visron. I had a talk with my boss yesterday and he said he’d make the phone calls.

Finally; a small bit of breathing room. Now if only the rest can start to fall into place.

 

My shift worked on Thursday until 12:00 pm, we were there maybe six hours. After that myself and Jess spent Turkey Day at her friends' house. It was really a good time. We are a bit far from any relatives to visit, as they are a marine family from Oregon. They became the impromptu Thanks Giving destination for those of us alone. And it was a blast. Met some great people, drank some greater beer, and ate even greater food
Just what the soul needed.
 

Went to bed last night at 8:00 pm; I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Needless to say, now it's 3:00 am and I'm wide awake. This is going to be a long day.
 

It's going on five in the morning; I'm still awake. Guess I'm waiting to watch the sun wake up.
 

It's raining over Virginia. It's kind of nice I think, sort of fits the mood. Personally, I like the rain. Days like this make me feel more energized. We had one wet night earlier in the week, though that didn't last long. It's been raining now since yesterday afternoon. It's supposed to last at least until tomorrow night with maybe a few thunderstorms around. That would just make my day (or night)

Supposed to be going over to a friend of Jess' for Thanks Giving; she's pretty cool, though I'm not sure about her husband as I don't know at all. I'm really not a fan of going over to people's houses of whom I'm unfamiliar. I tend to feel uncomfortable and on edge. But I guess I'll make the best of it, I always do.
At least on Friday we're going out with Tom and Erra, very good friends of the both of ours.

I just found out on Sunday that my boss has been erasing the overtime I've been working throughout the week. I had 42 hours for last period and he marked down 40. He also hasn't been sending in my time sheets to my company, the office person for his company has... for the last few months! Because of this it's a miracle I've even been getting paid. A breaking point is fast approaching and whether I have a job lined up or not, quitting is going to happen. McDonalds doesn't treat their employees as bad as this. In a word, appalling.

I've gone through every process operator, plant operator and technician job on indeed.com over the last two weeks, staying up sometimes a couple of days in a row just putting in applications. I've run out of jobs to apply for in my old industry that I feel qualified to apply for. I've gone to several company specific sites that I'm familiar with and put in applications there, maybe a dozen or so. I've applied to a few that I'm not sure I fit all the qualifications for but feel I can either learn them quickly or become certified quickly, though I'm pretty sure those are going to be a washout. I've got applications in from Virginia to Florida, Texas to North Dakota, Ohio to Washington State and everywhere in between. The only thing to do now is wait; wait for either a call from one of the companies or for more positions to apply to on indeed.com. I'm hoping for the former.

I won't be able to apply for any other prospects until I finish my 2 year degree which at this rate will take me 3 or 4 years to complete. I think if I'm still here next year I'm going to go more than part time but less than full time to speed things up a bit. If I'm not then I'll enroll in a community college where ever I happen to be living.

I'm tired to say the least.
 

For the last two weeks I've been spending most of my free time on indeed.com perusing the job board postings for a production operator, sending out at least a dozen resumes this week alone. I've received one positive response so far, though to be honest I'm not expecting too much in my endeavors. With the economy the way it is, it's more than likely that I'm going to be stuck in this horrid place for some time. This job doesn't offer benefits of any kind and I haven't received a raise in almost a year now. Taking this job was a big mistake. But I won't give up trying to get out.
 

With everything going on at work I've been looking to get back to the structural and integral soundness that comes with working for companies such as Dow Chemical or DuPont. I left my last job because of an incident that scared me silly, thinking working down here would be a better fit for me. How wrong I was. Every new day has me wishing more and more that I stayed in Connecticut working for Dow, later Styron.

To say I'm stuck now is an understatement. There is nothing in what I've spent seven years working. Looking at Dow, they now require at least nine college classes related to chemical production processes even though I've worked for them the past seven years. The same can be said with many other operator positions at other companies. In my area there aren't even any production facilities around- I'd have to move again either to Delaware or Richmond to find my past type of employment (or for that matter to another state such as Texas which has a large manufacturing base, but which I have little money to do so).

Moving to Virginia has revealed itself to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
 

I've decided that Northern Virginia Community College is not working well for me in regard to the money I'm spending between going from home to school, school to work, and work to home. Having the extra two to three hours a day of driving is getting old.

I found that the distance learning program isn't for me and will be taking all of my classes in class next semester and beyond. This means that from then on it's going to be even more time spent on the roads. So, while I like NOVA, I simply won't be able to sustain it. I'm dropping out of NOVA and and am going to try transferring to Germanna Community College instead.

I'm also going to try to change my degree program from Business Management to Science.

I sent the Admissions person an email this morning, now I wait to here back about what options I may have.
 

Of all the excitement about being back in school after dropping out twelve years ago I've been thrown a set back. I was forced to drop my College Success Skills and History classes half way through the semester. So for a nearly $5,000 loan for fall, the only class I am now taking English Honors. I have found that the distance learning program was too much. I love my English class because I'm actually there in class. I get to interact with people and the teacher when I need it. ELI seemed so impersonal to me, like it wasn't really there, just some website I was surfing.

Now the first thought that pops into my mind is, "Well, fuck it. Whats the point of keeping going? One class for $5,000 isn't worth it so why continue"?

As with high school, there's a few things that's going against me being in school, only the situations have change from back then to now. Chief among them:

1. The commute is the biggest hang-up. From my house to English class is about an hour. From school to work is about an hour and a half on a good day. I've had days where it took me over two hours to get from Manassas to Fredericksburg. Then from work back home is another hour.

In a week this transforms into massive gas consumption for my Equinox to the tune of about $400.00. Needless to say, I haven't been buying a whole lot of other things.

2. My mind works like this,"I failed at school again. I've proven I can't take it so why even bother"? This is one of the reasons why I dropped out of high school. Towards my junior year I started getting F's in my classes and, instead of going to summer school to make it up, I quit. Dropped out.

I've already proven I can be a quitter; I've been good at that throughout my life so far. I don't want to have to reprove something I already know to be true. I still have English class and I don't want to quit that. I still have next semester and hope to be in the next level English Honors program. Next semester I also have a mirror loan and plan on using it differently. Come spring I'm taking all of my classes in class. And while I think it goes against my better judgment to do so at this point, I am going to pick up math to go along with english.

I'm horrible at math, with less than a high school competency to show. But, I'm hoping that being in class, as with english, will make the difference. I'm determined not to fail this time around, though it is often more so the case that my stubbornness causes me the most trouble.
 

I like the new Guiness Black Lager beer they just came out with. Very tastey.
 

I play poker on Facebook probably more than I should. I like the game and the fact that I'm not losing real money when I play. I spend most of my time playing the Shoot Out Tournament. One thing that I've noticed is that more than a few of the players that I've recently seen have different names but the same picture or different variations of the same picture. I find that rather interesting...
 

Fresh home from work and it's time for a cold one. I came up Old Fredericksburg Road heading into Culpeper when I saw a young woman standing just off the side of the road, about in line with the driver's side of the cars parked in the street. She was easy to spot: white with a blue-tint over-sized hooded sweater, light blue jeans and a bag across her shoulder that looked as though it was going to pull her over at any minute.

As I started to pass her she was waving for me to stop with one hand, a phone to her ear in the other.

This is a good time to note that it is now 2:20 in the morning. That part of Culpeper isn't the most suburban, nor the area in which I live. Drugs and gangs are known around here. I had talked to a police officer shortly after arriving in this part of Virginia and was well informed about certain parts of Culpeper where trouble sometimes occurs. Needless to say, stopping was not on my agenda. I went around her and as I did she asserted a few choice words at the top of her lungs.

This isn't the first time an incident like this, on that very same street and in the same spot, has happened.

About a month after moving here I was coming home from work and took Old Fredericksburg Road. The first few feet of this road doesn't have street lights, is heavily crowded with bushes and junior trees, so very hard to see anything on the side of the road. When I passed the last patch of trees a man jumped into the middle of the road. He was wearing a white sleeveless under shirt, black jean pants, and baseball cap.

I had to swerve into the left lane to avoid hitting him with my truck. He also was trying to flag me down as I passed. But, I as I made it by him he hit the back of my truck with his hand and started screaming at me as drove on. That really made me want to pull over to see what he wanted (insert sarcasm here).

I may seem pretty pretentious by not stopping to help the woman, but after my first experience on that road it's a firm belief that at two in the morning, in a place that has low visibility and you need help, you'd do well to call the cops. Trying to flag someone down (especially me) probably isn't going to work all that well. Then hitting their car and shouting obscenities at them takes "probably" to "not".
 

I don't like essay two. I'm not happy with it. I don't know if it's the puncuation or structure, but something about it doesn't feel right. Should I break up the quotes into their own paragraphs or leave them as they are? Either way, guess I'll find out today.
 

I went to 7/11 this morning for coffee and cigarettes before Jess went to work. When I got out of my truck I glanced in the Dodge Ram that I was parked next to and saw three rifles on a gun rack and one laying muzzle down in between the passenger seat and drivers seat. If that doesn't say country, I don't know what does. That is something I have never seen in Connecticut. It kind of makes me wish I had one. I've priced them out, notably the Ithica model 37, 20 gauge shot gun, and wow, they are expensive.
 

It got cold this morning. Temperatures hit a low of about 40 degrees; the familiar smell and feel of the atmosphere before the first flakes start falling permeated the air.

I moved to Virginia at the end of February this year, and, when I got here, the temperature was in the mid 70's. Needless to say there wasn't a whole lot of snow on the ground. The only place you could find any of the white stuff were little berms and road-side mounds up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It's going to be interesting to see how Virginia handles that kind of snow, if they even ever get that much here. Unlike Connecticut, I have heard that Virginia, at the slightest mention of the word snow, will completely shut the state down. I witnessed that action my first day here.

We were staying in a Holiday Inn in Warrenton. I went downstairs for breakfast but first made a quick stop outside for a quick smoke. The air was warm. It felt like the end of spring. When I went in to the breakfast area there were a couple of mothers with their children in tow. The women were making small talk with each other to which I wasn't really paying attention until one of them asked if they had opened the schools yet. This grabbed my attention.

"Not yet", the other said, "but four days with the young ones and I'm ready for them to go back".

Apparently the school system had been closed on Monday due to an impending dusting that was supposed to sweep the area. That dusting never came. It was now Tuesday; they didn't open the schools until Wednesday. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Conversely, back in Connecticut, when I left there was just over four feet. It was one of the worst winters on record, easily beating the winter of '78, and more snow was on the way as I said good bye to the place I called home for almost twenty years. The snow packs were building by a foot to two feet every other day. The state never shut its doors, only requiring nonessential workers to stay home. The highways stayed open, businesses continued to operate (at least for those employees fortunate enough to get to work), and the schools at that point had only closed a couple of days sporadically throughout the winter.

Moving from Connecticut to Virginia, as far as the weather goes, was in itself a total culture shock.


 

Looks like I'll be watching the sun come up this morning.

I got home from work at 03:30 and can't seem to wind down. So here I sit, computer in front of me, a cold beer down the gullet. Now it's almost 05:00. Might as well keep going; I'm off tomorrow anyway...
 

It was a good day at school today; we had a revision workshop based on our first draft of the second essay on This Boy's Life. We sit in groups of three and read each other's essays aloud to the group and give our input. In this case it was just on the structure of the essay. No grammar, punctuation, spelling, but how the paragraphs are laid out, sentence structure, whether more input is needed on a point and so on.

While I generally have a hard time talking to people I don't know, I thought it was fun. I'm looking forward to the next workshop on the second draft due Monday.

Then I went to work and, as usual, all hell broke loose. I am really starting to think the time for a mental health day is coming soon. I've been working straight since February without a break and I'm getting tired. Too bad this is the paycheck that rent gets paid.
 

Just the way I'm feeling at the moment; three thirty in the morning and it's pouring down rain across the Piedmont. This fits perfectly with my state of mind. Ronnie Milsap said it best, "I love a rainy night."

I have wondered since moving to Virginia why all the roofs here happen to be metal, like the kind you find in Maine or Vermont to help the snow shed before the weight collapses them. Connecticut has far more snow than here and they don't all have these roofs. Not that I'm complaining at all; I like the sound of the water striking ours with the solid pings that resound through the room while the cool night breeze drifts in and out of the open window.

I have Mozart on the radio which is adding to the emphasis of the mood. I'm liable to stay up for a while, even though I should be heading to bed. This is simply one of those nights that I finally feel content and don't want to pass it by. I would much rather sit here typing nonsense totally complacent to the troubles of the world than let the feeling go.

This kind of perfect doesn't happen very often. I think I'll bask in its freedom for a tiny bit longer.
 

Off to English class then to work afterwards. I really should call out. I'm still seeing red after last night.
 

I wonder if the people manipulating oil markets based on headlines rather than fundamentals realize that when they cause oil to hit $4.00 again, the economy goes bust?! Do they even realize what it’s doing to us out there?

As George Santayana so adequately put it, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

You want to make millions on trades and bets that’s fine, this is America. It’s the American dream. If you’ve made it good for you, but for crying out loud don’t kill me doing it.