The musings of a madman...

       They say the dog never has a plan for when it actually catches the car... As I've mentioned before, some wild hiccups that ended in the ER back in December and the fallout wound up setting fire to my PTO at the full time gig clear through April setting things right. Once I was back into the rhythm of accruing my time like I've become accustomed to over the last 18 years, we were more than halfway through the year and I was in full panic mode over how to take days so as to not lose them. I know it sounds weird to be thinking like this and it is still only August, but bear in mind that I am in a  very small department of only six specialists so a maximum of two can be off at a given time, with the exception of extreme emergencies and after the fall and winter I had, I've had enough of those!      So anyway, time off... A few weeks ago I looked at the team PTO schedule, counted up the time I got left and the time I will need or have alre...

       I knew this day would come... I have used the Moe Phillips name quite loosely and without thought of consequences because, frankly, I was clearly sure that there were none. For the most part, that has proven mostly true, save for a couple of little embarrassing happenings here and there.      But this? This could almost be skewed as karma paying my dumb ass a visit... As ever, I'm chilling in the house, scrolling YouTube on the clock between tasks at the ol full-time. In the corner of my eye, I see the screen light up on the Moe Phillips burner phone. It's the Gmail icon. Defying my better senses, I picked it up and read it...      "Moe, What I come to you today with is kind of embarrassing... I own, or I should say I used to own a diner in town. One day last year, I was approached by someone named Maurice who arranged to buy out all of our food for the day if we agreed to feed the community without charging. The day was a hug...

       How goes that saying about old dogs and new tricks? Well this will be the first salvo in a new approach around here.      As those of you who know me personally know, I have expanded my lawn work to a page I created last year on YouTube as well. I feel like I'm finding my footing when it comes to capturing and editing video and I'm only getting better. Considering how very little I knew when I started, I'm quite proud of my progress.      Alongside the yard work, another thing I'm comfortable in my ability of is writing. I've always preferred dead-tree reading and have learned a shift to online reading as I have taken a shine to online writing, but I have never quite been able to get behind the concept of e-books. One thing I have noticed is that a great many others swear by being able to listen to what was written, be it in the car or the office or even just milling about their daily errands. A decision was made... ...

(that ol Charlie is a good boy)      Funniest thing has been happening here for the last few months... Well, I'd say it's not "funny" so much as it is "peculiar."      As we've documented here at length, I prefer my friends and family text me instead of calling on the phone, it forces the conversation to whatever point needs to be made more efficiently. I say that to say *they* as the people who actually know me and my habits are not the problem, but people -- or more specifically, companies -- who do not respect this layer of my relationship with my phone are. It's loan offers after loan offers, sometimes voicemails suggesting some kind of urgency. It's people offering to buy a house I sold four years ago. It's spectrum and whoever else trying to sell me on their services. A couple of them are just random toll free numbers with just dead air!     A s a general rule, I'll send a call to voicemail once and if they really want somethi...

       Not to let you in on more than you need to know about me, but my full-time job has existed under the constant possibility of a random drug test...      I could, at any moment, receive an email and teams message from my manager telling me that I have 30 minutes to report to a draw station and present a sample to be tested for illegal drugs. 18 years and 8 months had successfully transpired without me EVER having received any such a thing, not even after that one time I randomly passed the fxck out at my desk. ... until now...      Last week, I got that message on Teams and the email. When she noticed my light was amber because I was on break, outside cutting the front yard, she sent me a text asking if I got them. I ran inside and checked, responded "on it" to her text, changed shoes and hopped in the truck to go to the center for the test.      13 minutes later, I walked into the center and signed in on the kiosk...

       As you may or not recall, I apparently have a son... I mean that as in only "technically," because legally, I only have a two daughters -- we don't use "step" in this house except in matters of extreme necessity. Rather than drag this tale through an infuriating side quest, I will send you [ here ] and ask that you return when you're ready to proceed. ... welcome back...      So yeah, son... We approached the period since he came to my house as more of a friendship than family, as our blood relation is honestly nothing more than a previously-veiled matter of inconvenient consanguinity. I say that to say we exchange text messages at random times of day, I send and receive memes and answer queries for advice -- again, as I might any of my friends. He has commendably and thankfully avoided employing terms that would have him refer to me as his father, even if he is growing to see me as a father figure. ... until I got a phone call after work... M...

(so we back on this?)      I tend to have to worry when things get a little too quiet. I've reached a moment where my routine is a little too... easy. So it's an otherwise mundane-ass Wednesday morning, 10am. I'm, naturally, spending my 15-minute break in my front yard leaving some pretty stripes. As a habit, to preclude people from talking to me, I usually have on my big headphones while I work in yards. This has been changed recently, as I think my wife misplaced my big headphones and I have finally taken to the habit of wearing a hat so I have updated to a pair of noise cancelling buds.      Why am I talking about trying to stay ahead of people distracting me? Naturally, of course, it is because someone decided to fucking talk to me. An unmarked-but-still-obvious police vehicle stops in front of my mailbox, but as a non-criminal (ha!), I continued what the fuck I was doing without approaching the car, I have 15 minutes to cut this front yard at le...

       I'm so into my shenanigous adventures that I often forget shit I've done soon after I've done it sometimes. As someone who so frequently goes outside JUST to do stupid shit I REALLY need to work on that, as I am often the member of my household chosen to go out and do the things; gas and grocery runs and such. Why am I telling you this?      Well this past weekend, I went on some errand runs with my wife. This naturally placed me in at least three retail establishments among the public. We're heading toward the registers when we -- well, I -- heard from behind us "aye, ain't you the n**ga man? When I say I *heard* him, I must explain that I heard it as background noise not terribly unlike what one would normally encounter in a Walmart. It was not until he approached and tapped me on the shoulder that I became aware that it was me that he was asking. Him: "Aye, bro, ain't you the n**ga man?" Wife Person™: "EXCUSE ME?!!?" Him: ...

       Y'know, sometimes it is hard for me to conceptualize people continuing to exist when I am done with them, or as it were when they're done with me...      In the summertime, work-work is slower and USUALLY lawn care is too because it doesn't normally rain in June like it just did. That said, I was "normal" at the bill-paying job and running ragged on the side hustle staying caught up in between storms.      On a particularly rainy day last week, my phone kept ringing. I should say that I've gotten an exorbitant number of spam and out-of-state calls from areas I have no business, usually shilling some kind of high interest loan I have no desire for. That said, I am adept at quickly dismissing them without interrupting whatever I'm doing on YouTube at a given moment.      On this day, though, I kept getting a particularly persistent call from a High Point number. The only person I have any business with who has a H...

       For the sake of moving this along... The weeks between December 17rd and February 7st was one of the most trying periods of my life and involved not one but THREE visits to the hospital, once through the ER. The months since have been a minefield of minding how I live and follow-up visits. If you know, you know... If you don't, well you get it.      The way my off time goes at my full time job, I am allotted 248 hours a year of off time in one bank for use for both vacation and sick time. I am allowed to roll over up to 40 hours at the end of the year, and that is a wise thing to have banked on some just-in-case shit. 18 years with the company, I've always had at least 25-30 hours to roll as a cushion until my allotment begins to build back up. This time, however, that late-year hospital stay set fire to nearly ALL of my leave time and I approached January with only like two hours. Because of this, I've spent the first half of this year S...