To sleep....perchance to dream

I was really tired last night, went to bed at 10, my mother hen son Jonathan called at 10:15, to make sure that I had packed clean underwear and socks for my trip to Winnipeg this morning, and to say that I probably shouldn't try to wear my leatherman on the plane. I still went to sleep soon after, and then woke up at 4:30 and new instantly that there was no point in prolonging it, I may as well get up cause I was not going to get back to sleep. Made coffee, went to the post office and was going to spray a dry moxy lube into my lock because it is really stiff, but the sorter was there, and this stuff smells like rubbing alcohol, so I'm going to wait till another time. Went home, took the laundry out of the dryer and ONCE AGAIN MY T-SHIRTS ARE FLIPPED INSIDE OUT. Sometimes I have thought that someone is doing this to me on purpose, but there is only me here, even Roscoe is now at the kennel, so how come when I put in a t-shirt, dirty side out, it comes out of the dryer turned inside out. I know, its not that big a deal, but it bugs me to have to turn it around before hanging it up, or putting it in the drawer. I think I'll go upstairs, and clean up a little before I leave to go see Noah. The next time I come home Chris will be with me and she has been gone for a week, it would hardly do to let her see that I have reverted so far in only 7 days. I can see why some guys living alone are not able to attract a woman. Why would she want you, you look like the missing link and your place looks like a cave. Men were not meant to live alone. First we needed our mothers and now we need the influence of our wives. And I miss mine. I better go and dust out the cave.

Alone again....naturally

Well not naturally, but alone. Except for Roscoe and he doesn't say much. Chris is in Yorkton helping Becky with her two boys, which means I am alone. I hatess it. I am having pepsi and nacho chips, and thinking about adding a couple of hotdogs and calling it supper. Still better than plain fried hamburger meat, ketchup and toast Chris. I went to see my new grandson on the weekend and he is just as precious as Noah and Ben are. What great boys. I get to go to Winnipeg on the weekend and help Jonny, Melissa and Noah move back here. I am so glad that they are coming back and I get to see Noah a lot more often, and maybe babysit once in a while.
SGI got back to me today about my stolen and subsequent wrecked car. They want to give me a great big whopping $1400.00 for it. I told him we are not anywhere close on this, in fact we are formally at war. We are now going to arbitration. It had about 320 thousand miles on the car, but the tranny had about 64 thousand on it and the motor about 130. I have paid them over 7 thousand in insurance over the years for this car and now some punk stole it and destroyed it, and now SGI wants to steal it from me again. I guess that's how they made 36 million dollars profit last year.
I think I will try to file my tax returns tonight. Yea, procrastination lives with me as well.

Can Grandpa's gain arrows.

Psalm 127:3-5
"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."
I know this is speaking of the fathers, but sometimes I feel like I am the one who just got blessed by God. This grandpa stuff is heady stuff. Samuel ??? , Glen and Becky's second son came into the world at about 1;30 this pm, and eversince I have been busting out with a sense of pride in my growing family. Yes, I know that it is not my son, but I now have 3 grandchildren. God has trully blessed us. Becky and the baby are doing good. Keep checking your e-mails, and Beckys blog for upcoming photos. When I talked to Glen this afternoon, he seemed up there in the clouds and it might take a bit for him to come down where the rest of us live, and remember that we would like to see pics of this newest edition.
I truly live under the wing of a very benevolent God. First when I was walking away from Him, he loved me and died for me, then blessed me with 4 beautiful kids, and now I get the joys of being a Grandpa to the most handsome boys in the world. I have nothing but praise and thanks in my heart. Thank-you God.

My car

I went to see my car today for the first time since it was stolen on the 8th. Had to meet the guy from SGI in Rosthern to look at it. It is definitely written off. One back window was broken, the motor wouldn't turn over, front passenger corner had some damage, couple of other spots that had body damage. He must have banged it into something a few times. When they found it the car was sitting in water up to about 8 inches above the bottom of the door. The water was deep enough so that the seats were wet, and it smells kinda bad in the car. Now I have to buy a new car. Harv, from Harvs Autobody had about 20 vehicles in his yard today and he pointed out 6 or7 to me that were all stolen. He said he usually had that many stolen vehicles in his lot all the time. Now my vehicle is a stat among many, that is going to cost each and every one of us who pays insurance more money. And the slimeball who took it is going to continue to take my tax dollars to live, and the government and all the agencies who protect people like that, will continue to deny that we all need to be accountable for our actions. Some of them have grown up in horrible homes, but to continue to blame everybody and everything else for their actions will not change anything, it will only perpetuate that same lifestyle in their childrens children; and the problems continue. My tax dollars will continue to support study after study, and also support the criminal, the few they catch, while he languishes in jail for a few short months for the thousands he has cost all of us. But we can not blame him, we must protect him, for it is society that has made him what he is. Never mind about free will and accountability. I am so frustrated. I am going to go to town and maybe start shopping for a car. Any ideas?

Letter to my MLA

I just went for a walk to Susan and Marv's. On the way back I walked passed the arena and through the park that is just to the south of my place. This park has 3 ball diamonds, 1 full size soccer pitch, and 2 smaller pitches where the little kids come and play soccer all summer long. When they come they bring along their whole family's and the ones not on the pitch run all over the park playing. And every year it is the same thing. Broken beer bottles all along the path that runs alongside the smaller pitches.
Now I'm not saying that all beer drinkers are stupid people, but I am saying that once most of them have had a few, they become stupid. Oh there are still a few brain cells that they haven't killed off valiantly fighting the good fight and trying to control that stumbling body, but its useless. Sooner or later, this now stupid drunk will take his empty beer bottle and smash it on some piece of public property. Then he will raise his arm in victory as if he has just scored the winning touchdown in the Grey Cup, and sealed the victory for his team, not even caring if he has just wasted 4 cents. That's right folks, for everyone of these broken bottles, that stupid drunk has just thrown away a grand total of 4 pennies. One dozen of these is a whole 48 cents, what a terrible waste of money. I have never known anyone who could drink a dozen of these and then be able to even hit the ground with an empty. The deposit was 10 cents even when I used to buy them way back when. They might be worth more some places but at Sarcan you will only get 4 cents apiece when you bring them back.
So I think I will start a letter writing campaign to raise the price of the deposit to $1.00/bottle. Even if that stupid person still breaks them when he is totally drunk, sooner or later he will run out of money and won't be able to buy more. At least early in the mission to kill off another couple of thousand brain cells he will remember that he paid a lot for these bottles and won't at least break them all. If it becomes to expensive maybe they will switch to cans and then when they throw them away I can pick them up and make 10 cents. Some have also said that beer out of a can doesn't taste as good as out of a bottle. Believe me when I say, if your a beer drinker your no connoisseur, champagne or a good wine out of a can, yes, but not beer.
So I am going to start by writing a letter to my MLA, and see where it goes from there. Wish me luck or not, depending on where your feelings lie. I don't really care though, I'm still doing it.

My Saturday

I got up about 6 on Sat. And decided I better clean up all the little deposits that Roscoe left in my yard this winter, and that I was either to lazy to pick up when they fell or I wasn't there when it happened. There was a lot, took me an hour.
Cleaned up and had breakfast after that and Chris decided we should go to town and get some paint to fix the basement stair area. Got home and started to do wall repairs before painting and realized that I had left my drywall mud, that says "keep from freezing" in the garage all winter. It was hard and kinda dry. I'm still having a good day, cause the sun is shining and it is mild out. I went to Steve's hardware to get more mud, and when I turned to leave, I looked out the door and there went my car, just turning out of the lot onto the street. I yelled at Steve, "someone's stealing my car" and went outside. I had the thought that someone who knew me was pranking me and would turn into the lot at the grocery store. I mostly leave my keys in the car in Martensville, and I would like to say I won't do it again, but those who know me would call me on it right away, so I won't go there. Anyways when my car passed the store and kept going, I realized that maybe some slimeball was actually taking my car. If I would not have let a woman in front of me in the Hardware store, I would have stepped out of the store at the time the guy was getting into my car, and I could have hit him with my pail of mud. Steve told me to take his truck and follow him, but by the time I got his keys, yelled the license plate number at him, and took off the guy was just at the outskirts of town. Now because it was such a nice day everyone in Martensville was out driving and there was a really slow person in front of me, so when I finally reached the corner where you turn to either highway 12 or highway 11, the idiot in my car was out of sight and I didn't know which way to turn. I turned around dejectedly and went back to town. When I got to Steves he was still on the phone to the police so I gave them a description of the vehicle and as I hung up the phone the cop went flying by with lights in hot pursuit, as they say, but he called me back in about an hour with news that he had missed him. The cop came to my house and took a statement, and told me it was probably someone hitching on the highway, got tired of walking and decided to come into town to see if he could find some wheels. He also told me not to expect a positive end to this saga, because if they even found the car, it would probably end up on some reserve, parked in a bush, completely destroyed. He also told me it might be a good idea to change all my locks as all my keys were on the same key chain. So as I'm kicking myself for being so trusting and polite (letting the woman pay before me) I put all my painting stuff away and take all my locks off the house and garage to get them rekeyed. Thankfully I didn't have to buy new locks. I still have to reprogram my garage door opener, for now I just unplugged it.

Now the somewhat good news.

About 4 hours after the scumbag stole my car, the cops phone to tell me they found it. It was in the ditch, completely waterlogged and stuck, on a country road about 40 or 50 kilometers north of town. It was facing south so the cops don't know what he was doing. I don't know how much damage was done to the car, it was sitting in water, but only up to the bottom of the door. The keys were gone, so I am glad I changed my locks, side note to my kids, throw away all the keys you have to my house, you can't get in anymore. The cop said he would call me tomorrow with the location of my car. They want to keep it for a day or two so they can check for fingerprints. Side note to justice system. If this guy is caught, after the all the great work by the police, why don't you do something with the power you have been given instead of asking him politely not to do it again, and then turning him lose on the people who pay your salary you useless bunch of judges. Thanks Oscar. I won't know for a few days what my car is like. The cops say, by the tracks in the ditch, the guy purposely drove in there and kept going till the engine got that wet or the car got stuck. I am going to talk to SGI on Monday and find out my options, there could be something wrong with my car that won't show up for a month or year and then I am out that repair bill as well. The year before I put a new tranny in it and last year a motor, and now I could be left with a car that will again need major repairs. I am just so chocked.
If they do catch this guy they ought to take his welfare check from him and put it away to pay for any future repair bills on my car. But nothing will happen. He will get a slap on the hand and I will be left with a possible huge repair bill. Is there any wonder there is insurance fraud.
Anyways, that was my Saturday, how was yours?

My weekend at Ben's

Somewhere in one of my familys blogs this comment was made. "you bunch of jackals." Somehow that seems to fit a couple of my family members. My car engine wasn't even cold from the trip to Yorkton and Carol, Margaret and Mitz are all at me like a jackal at something dead. Mitz so graciously wants to call a truce to the correction thing and at the end threatens everyone if they don't behave. Idle threat of course, you little pipsqueak. Who could you hurt?
Ahh, that's why I like being in the family I am. Couldn't think of a better place to be.
A good chunk of my weekend with Ben was spent in the basement working. If I had not forgot some of my tools, if I was a better handyman, if I was faster handyman, if I didn't get distracted so easy by Ben, if, if, if, if, if. All in all it was a good weekend. We got quite a bit done. Angie painted like crazy. Becky mudded. Chris babysat Ben *whine*. And I did some carpentry, and played with Ben. I taught him the ryhme, No more monkeys jumping on the bed, of course this has to happen as you are jumping on the bed. Poor little guy tried it all by himself and fell off the bed. We were to busy to go playing in the puddles, but next time we definitly will. Have to go to town and get ready for our missions conference tonight so see you all later you bunch of Jackals.