In Review

I'll review my last 2 weeks since I've blogged. I've been to Vegas, paid off the last of our personal debt, bought plates for 4 trucks, played very little pool, and fixed my jeep again. I'll start with the enjoyable part of time away which would be Vegas. It was a nice time away from work and a nice little vacation. It was like most vacations to Sin City, get up at 11 in the morning, start drinking at noon, and go to bed at 4 in the morning. Rinse, lather, repeat. Broke even for the trip which allowed us to use that money to pay off the last of Lori's student loan, and in turn, the last of our personal debt. This was EXTREMELY satisfying, we've worked hard to save money and I worked 3 jobs for a while to expedite this process. It took around 2 years to complete our debt free mission. The only significant amount of money we spent was the down payment on our house and going to Vegas two weeks ago.

Now the rest of my time away is frustrating to think about but here goes. I knew I would have to buy plates for 2 trucks but it turned out 2 other guys didn't put a penny away so I was left with 2 choices. Don't buy them and they stop work and, henceforth, stop working for me or buy them. I had a mental breakdown when I found out this was the position I was in, and that's not exaggerating. I contemplated, for a moment, getting rid of everyone but my 2 trucks and get a regular job. It was never something I was going to do as I would have felt like a quitter and a failure but it showed my HIGH frustration level with these 2 gentlemen who didn't do their job to save money for plates. So I had to write a check for $8200 instead of the $4100 I had planned on. Then there is the fucking loser who I was having take care of all my "safety" matters. He screwed up the paperwork on the plates the first time, failed to tell me I needed to pass an emission test to get the plates, and waited until the last day to complete my IFTA paperwork causing me to have to drive to Pueblo and pick it up so I could have it postmarked by that day. Needless to say he will not be working for me anymore. I must take responsibility for this loser though. In his case, and some other cases in my business matters, I've not been as involved as I should have been. My thinking was that I've hired him to do a job and he's knows what he's doing and I don't need to worry about those matters. It's my job and responsibility to ensure that everything is done properly.

I got back from Vegas on Monday afternoon and had pool league on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I played pretty poorly all 3 nights which tells me my pre-shot routine isn't quite my routine yet. I need to practice so that it becomes the norm and I don't have to remember to do it. I haven't practiced since I've been back which is a week now and need some quality practice before I can expect to play quality pool. I'm not including league as practice because it's not, it's "playing" and there is a big difference. Practice is doing drills, different shots, speed control, etc., not hitting the balls around. This is an important lesson for people who aspire to get better, don't throw the balls on the table and whack them around and think you're practicing. Proper practice will advance your game, but it is hard to do because it can get boring and tedious. I try to work in some "fun" things to keep me attentive and motivated to finish my practice time.

And lastly is my damn jeep. The P.O.S. was leaking transmission fluid like a sieve. It turned out only to be a hose that had a hole in it so the cost was minimal compared to an actual problem with the transmission itself. We've had many problems with it this past year and spent quite a bit of money fixing them. For now we're keeping it, but hopefully later this year we'll be getting a "new" ride. I also noticed yesterday that some worthless bastard hit my pickup. Put a dent in the driver side rear quarter panel. It looks like someone had to run into it with a pickup or high setting vehicle to do the damage it did. In an unrelated story my neighbors across the street have 2 pickups. I don't know if I should say something to them. I doubt they're going to come clean if I confront them so it's seems useless in that sense, but at least I would let them know that if they fuck with me I'll call them out. Confronting them seems like I'm looking for trouble in a situation that cannot be resolved so what's the point? I also have no proof that they did this other that my undoubtedly magnificent investigative work.