Fun! Fun! Fun!

I have not been in the mood to write lately, as I’m having a terrible week. First of all, last week I was unloading some stuff from my car, so I had the doors unlocked in my driveway. I was making a couple of trips, so it was probably unlocked and open for 8 minutes tops. Within that period, some punk ran off with $500 worth of electronics. The two biggest items were my GPS unit (which my company owns) and my video iPod (which is all me). I put the car in the garage, locked it up, and didn’t discover the theft until the next morning.

This was a capper for a continuously growing dissatisfaction with my neighborhood. When we moved in, this place was supposed to be some great, fabulous neighborhood that was well managed and should be a place you wanted to be. (I guess that’s why I pay more in annual homeowner’s dues than my monthly mortgage at my last house.) Since we’ve moved in, however, I’ve discovered that “fancy neighborhood” rhetoric was worthless. We’ve got trashy neighbors all over the place, and turns out that at least three (3) of the houses are rental properties on just my one block of street.

Now, I don’t mind living in a rental neighborhood. That’s where I lived back in Louisiana, and I had zero problems with it. I shouldn’t, however, be paying an exorbitant amount for the honor of living in that rental neighborhood. Cap that off with the fact that even though the homeowner’s association has TWO MILLION DOLLARS in the bank (above and beyond their capital and operating expenses, which is another $5 million), and it’s a bit much. It gets even better, though … last week, I also got a bill for another $120 homeowner’s fee, which is apparently a one-time fee for all new home purchasers.

I’m also fully aware that there’s no reason to think that someone from the rental houses stole my stuff. All I know is, this is EXACTLY the kind of think I was afraid would happen when I found out about this situation.

And I won’t even get into the crap I’ve had to deal with from their “enforcement” people as I’ve tried to fix up my yard. (I’ll tell that story some other time.) I’ve never lived in a place with a mandatory homeowners group, but I’ll certainly pay a whole lot more attention to it from here on in. I just can’t wait until the wife gets out of school so we can afford to move!

The people with the car insurance won’t cover anything, but they did suggest I file a police report. I didn’t bother originally, because they’ll never track that stuff down - we all know that. Anyway, I call the police this morning, and they send a pair of cops over. One of them was pretty much a prick to me the whole time. He asked me to repeat the story multiple times just to look for inconsistencies. He quite gruffly instructed me to take my hands out of my pockets while talking to him. He pretty much ragged on me for not reporting it sooner, and then after we’re done, he tells me I should report something like that immediately after it happens next time. Of course! Why wouldn’t I want to deal with a condescending, unpleasant SOB again and again?

But that little bit of pleasantness isn’t all of my joy. We moved into our little suburb essentially so I could be close to work. Now I’m being told that we might move our office into Dallas proper, even though we’ve only been in our current location SEVEN MONTHS. So, instead of being 15 minutes from work, I’ll get to spend 2 hours on the road each day getting back and forth to work. I understand moving offices, but moving offices three cities away?

My college football team is not just awful – they may be historically awful. And this was a team that lost a game 77 – 0 within the past 5 years, so that’s saying a lot! Also, my Cowboys apparently forgot that you’re allowed to run the football in the NFL, and completely laid an egg against the ‘Skins.

Want to talk about frustrating? I went ahead and signed up for Weight Watchers online, and have been sticking to it religiously for 1 month. In that time, I’ve managed to gain 1.5 pounds. That’s money well spent, isn’t it?

My wife’s stressed out about school. I’m stressed out because we’re lucky to break even financially each month, but that’s only because we’re borrowing a ton of money for her student loans. And neither one of us handles stress well.

I’m fully aware there are about 4 billion people who have things far worse than me. In the final analysis, I’m complaining about the minor details of my relatively cushy life. Regardless of that reality, though, there’s only so much discussion about TV shows and comic books one wants to have during a week like that. And since I could total up all my readers on 1 hand (even if I was missing a thumb), there wasn’t a whole lot of motivation to put out a post.

But, fear not gentle reader! I plan to hit it hard this week. I’m going to try 3 posts a week this week ... maybe more! Truly, I shall be the Phoenix, rising up from the dookie! (or something like that)

Until next time,
The Jim