I usually don't blog about politics, but this is an historic event. Former President Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony charges.

I usually don't blog about politics, but this is an historic event. Former President Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony charges. He is a 100% felon times 34. So do you think his illegal tax accounting practices is the real reason why that he didn't want to publish his tax return for the public to see? 

Did you know that all U.S. presidents have voluntarily published their personal tax filings since Nixon in the 1970's?

I feel sorry for his wife and youngest child. To hear that his father paid for sex in a courtroom outside of his marriage to his mother must be hard to come to terms with when he was trying to hide the payment. He can say it's a lie, but Stormy Daniel's testimony is now a part of the court record. Silk pajamas and all.

Can I ... rewire my patio landscaping lights?

My dad used to do the wiring for me at my home when he was still alive. He was great at it. He re-wired all of the necessary GFI outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms before we moved in. Thank you, dad. Then he wired up my patio lights at one point, but detached them when we had a tree removed, or rather ground down the stump because the lighting was in the way.

I want my lights on the patio back. I want to plug in my fountain I bought for $50 on Craigslist.

I bought new covers and outlets.

I think I can do it according to http://waterheatertimer.org/Basic-house-wiring.html

Two outlets wired in parallel:

Remember:

brass = black / Hot

silver = white / Neutral

green = ground

Thank you Gene Hayes for the instruction! I think I got it now!!

[ Remember to post a photo of the lighting on the patio once the job is done.]

Can ... I write a musical?

 I think I have the workings of a musical stuck in my head.

I think it's going to be about the life of office workers who work on the "65th Floor".

This scene reflects the dysfunction of the recruiting department with a manager who is looking for new people to hire to fill a position.

The interviewee sings:

I am but a person that came to you to get a job.

Now that I have interviewed, I'm glad I get to walk away strong. I hope I don't have to wait long.

The interviewer/manager sings:

I am but a manager who needs to fill this position. 

With the hope that they would bring all of the knowledge and expertise a

seasoned professional has, but the reality is we subtitled this role with entry-level

to see who it would attract. Hoping for that desperate worker with all of the skills who is willing to take less pay and work more and work harder than ever before to prove they have something this company needs and then after giving them a raise, we lay them off and start the cycle over again.

Don't forget - we promote from within. It never happens. And the worker starts again.

High turnover is a red flag. Remember that. It's a sign of poor management and internal strife.

Your Permanent Record

 

What is your Permanent Record?

 An accumulation of individual records that represent certain events over a lifetime.

1. Birth & Death

2. Education

3. Employment

4. Financial (Credit, Real Estate & Taxes)

5. Marital Status (Marriage & Divorce)

6. Medical

7. Judicial and/or Criminal Records, if any.

8. Personal achievements outside of 1-7.

Rootstech 2024

Today at RootsTech, I was at home while participating in a Notables Project Q and A for Wikitree live on their YouTube channel.

There's a first time for everything.

Thanksgiving 2023

It's the weekend before the holiday and I'm running a bit late this year so it's time to make plans for Thanksgiving 2023!

The Menu:

Roasted turkey legs

Stuffing

Roasted carrots in extra virgin olive oil and rosemary

Garlic mashed potatoes

Cranberry jelly

Turkey gravy

I'm making, for the second year in a row, this dairy-free pumpkin pie recipe for dessert --> https://myredrecipebook.blogspot.com/2022/11/dairy-free-pumpkin-pie-2022-version.html 

My son picked up turkey legs on sale at Aldi earlier in the week and put them in the freezer. I think turkey legs are the way to go for two people and especially because we like turkey, but we don't need a whole turkey to be able to enjoy it. I had to make a special trip to my local Ralph's Fresh Faire today to buy Country Crock Plant Creme to make the pie.

As of whenever I got back from shopping today, all of the ingredients have been gathered, so now I have to figure out the timing for the cooking. We usually eat Thanksgiving for lunch. And the only things that need to go into the oven are the turkey legs, the carrots and the pumpkin pie. I'll cook the potatoes in the instant pot and the stuffing on top of the stove.

The Timing:

• pie 325* for one hour
• the turkey legs will cook for an hour at 350* ( Oh, no! The turkey legs that we placed in the freezer when bought them did not thaw in 24 hours after being placed in the refrigerator, so now we have to extend the cooking time to make sure they thaw & cook thoroughly.) So probably 2 hours cooking time. These were cooked in a foil pocket until 30 minutes before the end time, then unsealed to brown. Delicious!
• the roasted carrots will be 30-35 minutes
• the potatoes in the instant pot will cook for 30 minutes we want to make sure those potatoes are good and done. The vegan butter will be placed in a saucepan, heated, and we'll toast the garlic before adding it to the cooked potatoes.
• We heated the rolls on the same sheet that was used for the pie.

I saw Joe Lynn Turner perform once

 https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/joe-lynn-turner-years-fronting-160000218.html

I was reading the above link and the man said, "My wife is too young to have even seen a Rainbow concert."

This reminded me that I was 16 when they played Madison Square Garden on their "Straight Between the Eyes" tour. Just a kid with zero money and no means to go anywhere when I saw the ad for the concert in one of the rock music magazines I bought religiously or at least every chance I got through high school.

And then one day, I found he was playing at a local supper club called The Coach House and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get tickets. He sang all of the hits and some of his new songs, too. 

Goodbye Amerihome, Hello New Opportunity

 Today I was a part of RIF #4 at Amerihome Mortgage's Retail office location in Irvine. They said it was due to the uptick in interest rates. 

On Fridays, most operations personnel are allowed to work from home and I was the only OPS person in the office today (because I'm, err was the post closing specialist that prepares, logs, and ships collateral every day, among other compliance tasks and occasional government insuring duties) besides the CD manager and she walked me out after getting laid off on a conference call with my personal belongings. Everyone else laid off today is having their stuff handed to them in a box at the front door once they surrender their electronic keys and computer hardware on Monday.

I am thankful that I got some great experience working at Amerihome to complement my post-closing, trailing docs experience, and MERS SME role working at Kinecta FCU for 5 years. I also ran the credit dispute desk there for a short time, updating their SOPS and bringing their administrative processes into compliance. As you can tell, I love the back-office jobs.

When the world bites back.

OK, I think it was Wednesday when I got that bug bite on my right index finder. On the middle digit, it was red and only itched slightly.

Then Thursday morning comes along and we were looking at an entirely different ballgame. The itchiness of my finger was super intense and swelled up on the second and first digit almost to the knuckle. I drenched it under cold water after feeding my old cat and then I took my normal hot morning shower and it exploded with itchiness and pain. I gave myself what amounts to a Indian burn, gripping that right index finder and twisting it with my left hand back and forth until the itchiness subsided. Went to work, ran it under some cold water in the women's restroom longer than it would normally take for me to wash my hands for the times I had to go relieve myself and got through the way without too much distress. Came home and found mt Cortizone 10 cream and found it was not expired (yeah) slathered that right index finger with the cream and kind of babied it for the rest of the night.

Friday morning, I had swelling from the nailbed into the knuckle of the right index finger. The mid joint was so swollen front and back, I could not bend the finder without a considerable amount of pain. I decided this bug bite issue was getting worse, not better, so I better go to a walk-in clinic to see if they can help this situation along so we can IP it in the bud and to have it progress into something much worse. I read on the internet trying to look for answers that it could become infected, turn into sepsis/death. From a bug bite. I'm not having that.

So I was released from work two hours early on Friday due to the Labor Day Holiday weekend and I drove my sorry ass to the UCI Health Center where Dr Nguyen is (who takes Aetna-my health ins), but some to find out UCI Health does not so going to be seen there is considered "Out of Network" which made me mad, but at that point I just wanted to be seen. Which I was by a nurse practitioner. This place since it opened has been my go-to for care. They asked a lot of questions including ones about my mental health at which I'm still kind of creeped out about, but that's what they have to do these days. And then here's the new info that I really never thought of before. I has described what the bug bite looked like and progressed to and she examined what it looked like at the office, and she told me to take pictures of the affected area to ensure that it's getting better and not worse. She tried to prescribed predisone and I was oh no no, that makes me psychotic, I had it before when I has my last surgery for illitius and I had to stop using it because of the side effects, please something else. So she then prescribed keflex and a couple of different antihistamines and topical cortisone 2.5 cream ( my son called it "the good stuff" ) and I was sent on my way.

I went home, took a nap, and by that time after I had to reset my password for the CVS app, I found out that the prescriptions were ready for me to pick-up. No text. Grr. And I needed gas in my car, so I went to the new gas pumps at the little Costso in Tustin and they were busy busy busy on the Friday night before the big three-day holiday weekend. That fucking exit after you pump is an accident waiting to happen. They need to change that. And then made my way out of the Tustin Marketplace and drove on the 5 Freeway because going south was not stop and go mess like the northbound 5 was and got off two exits later at Jeffery. My preferred CVS is at Jeffery x Alton in Irvine.

I had to push the customer service button in order to buy non-drowsey claritin which was suggested by the doctor to help stop the histamine reaction in my body that's irritating the bug bite site. So I bought a 24 pack of that and found a bottle of my vitamins and bought those too and then I headed to the pharmacy counter to get my three prescriptions... the creme, the keflex and the other antihistimine that is so strong I was told it's going to make me drowsey and that I cannot drive using it which make me think I should maybe just take that one at night time.

So here we are. It's Saturday morning. I have taken my second dose of Keflex and just burnt my right thumb a little putting foil over the potatoes I just took out of the oven and I swear all of this jibber jabber was leading up to the photo of what my bug bitten index finger looks like this morning, 09/03/2022 at about 8AM. The skin is still red, the knuckle is swollen to the point where I cannot make a fist, but overall it's not as swollen and irritated as it was yesterday when I went to the doctor.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rBChhXTTrMCATpAM6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rBChhXTTrMCATpAM6 

It's Covid time! My experiences with a disease that can kill, but I survived.

So for two years while the world was shut down and other people were working from home, I was laid off of work for 6 months and then working in the office and never got sick!

I've been vaccinated (J&J) and boosted (Moderna). This is a brief journal of what it was like for me when I got COVID. I know it could have been a lot worse, but it went down like a bad case of the flu.

7/09 -  I had to take my cat to the vet and I was forced to wait for treatment. I know I got my case of Covid 19 from the vet's office. I sat in their waiting room for 8 hours. (Note to self: the emergency vet is a vector because everyone and anyone goes there. Like the hospital or the store.)

7/10 - felt nothing different. I have Crohn's disease and typically am a low-energy person.

7/11 - Monday as I was walking to the car, I had pains in my joints (hips and legs) and I thought that was odd. Later at work, I felt like I had a dry cough coming on and general malaise, so I left work early. Was there 6-1030AM.

7/12 - Tuesday was the worst day. It was the day of fever and chills and I couldn't rest and couldn't get comfortable. I went from the bed to the couch to the bed again. No matter what I drank, I urinated twice as much.

7/13 - Wednesday I'm not hungry or tired. I can't breathe, so I took pseudoephamephine (tiny red pills you sign for at the pharmacy) all day. I'm breathing, but I'm numb.

7/14 - I woke up at 2AM. I ate a bowl of noodles for dinner. I wanted peach jello, but all I had was cherry. My son was amused (because I do not like cherry flavor and he knows the story why), but compassionate.

7/15 - Woke up at 3AM. He came home from work with 3 boxes of peach jello for me. I made a little chicken and veggies soup in the instapot with lots of knoor chix bullion so I could taste it. Because who wants to eat if you can't taste it. My taste buds are not fully functioning yet. I have not needed to take the decongestant pills today. Once I ate a little, I napped on the couch twice, although I did not feel tired, I knew I needed some extra sleep.