Update XIX: Melancholy and the Infinite Napping

[J-Mann]

The turkey wrap was delicious!  And, yes, I had the carrots and celery sticks.  I left off the ranch because, to me, that would negate some of the benefits of the veggies.

That's great! Keep it up ... you can start with changing your lunch habits and grow from there.

[J-Mann]

That too. Everything I missed I'll get paid for.

But seriously once you've passed a kidney stone you'll stop losing sympathy you ever had for Bushie's tummyaches.

From what I've heard, you lose sympathy for any sort of pain after a kidney stone. My dad can't adequately rate other pain (ie: "How bad are things on a scale of 1 to 10?") after having several throughout his life. His heart surgery was a 2 ...

[J-Mann]

Can we all celebrate a little victory here? Jeff packed a moderately-healthy lunch and ate it! I think that's worth continuing encouragement.

[J-Mann]

Can we all celebrate a little victory here? Jeff packed a moderately-healthy lunch and ate it! I think that's worth continuing encouragement.

Go Jeff! I'm glad you went to work today even with the lack of sleep, Bushie six months ago would've stayed home, and I'm glad you're getting better with work.

I know you're tired tonight, Jeff ... probably so tired that you didn't pack a lunch for tomorrow. Don't let that be your misstep! Get one packed in the morning, don't succumb to fast food tomorrow and try to keep this a part of a routine!

[J-Mann]

I fixed my wrap for today and I threw in something else - a banana.  Now, I've got a healthier wrap, vegetable (carrots) and a fruit (banana).  I'll post a pic at lunch if I can remember.

Nice work! That's progress, Jeff!

[J-Mann]

They're certainly steps in the right direction, and assuming you've got that wrap filled with turkey, lettuce and a few other things (maybe tomatoes and peppers?), it's a hell of a lot better than a ham sandwich!

Does anyone else have recommendations for Jeff -- simple lunches that aren't so dramatic a change from his normal diet but are far and away healthier? I think it's great that he's started integrating fruit and raw vegetables into his lunch, but turkey wraps day after day would get old for anyone (although he maintained the ham sandwich diet for some time!). I just don't want to see any relapses into fast food because of lack of options.

[J-Mann]

LOL, of course there is a soda.

My meals are usually pretty simple. For breakfast, I have a cup of special k with some sliced banana, and a cup and a half of grapes after. For a snack, I'll have some celery. Lunch is a black bean boca patty on a sandwich thin with some low fat cheddar, and carrots to go with it. Mid-day snack is either coco almonds, or some more grapes. Dinner tonight is an asian style fried rice with brown rice, with some egg whites, and FILLED with fresh veggies that I got from the store.

At no point today, did I drink any thing other than a cup of tea in the morning (no cream or sugar..not a diet thing, just hate them in my tea) and my water.

What's wrong with the pop?  You gloss over a healthy meal and focus on the pop, which has no calories on its own?  That's pretty arrogant.

What about your other meals and snacks?

For breakfast I generally have two scrambled eggs, a couple slices of bacon, and two slices of wheat toast and orange juice to drink.

For dinner tonight, I had two 3 oz. patties of chicken fried steak, green beans, and a baked potato and a Diet Dr Pepper.

I usually don't have snacks.

I've eaten worse than Jeff today ... way worse. All I had for breakfast was coffee. For lunch, I had a lamb burger with a huge plate of fries, and dinner was a lobster roll, a bit of Poki, a lobster tail, a crab cake, a few shrimp, mango cobbler and ice cream.

Given that his usual meals are fast food of some sort, I think this is great progress.

At some point, Jeff, you'll want to start cutting down on the pop (diet or not) and try to replace with water. I guarantee you'll start to feel better, more energetic and more hydrated over time if, instead of a pop for lunch, you're having 12 oz of water.

You're two days into better lunches. I'm not expecting miracles. Keep up with the changes you have made and incorporate new additions every week or two. Before you know it, healthier eating will just be a habit.

[J-Mann]

Change the title of this thread to "Melancholy and the Infinite Fapping."

[J-Mann]

2 would barely give me a taste.  I want to enjoy it just a bit before they're all gone.  I'm going to stick with 5.

With this being said, we can all stop giving any advise. Bushie doesn't want to diet it lose weight, and is content with dying in the next 2 years.

How can you say that when he's actually taken some steps in the right direction this week? He's eating fruits and vegetables at lunch, his main dish is healthier than Pop Tarts or fast food, and he seems to be open to substantive advice.

When we all pitch him a diet of mango rinds and kale mist, he rejects it. Given small but tangible direction, he seems to have done OK.

[J-Mann]

Good Thursday Evening!  I had another very productive day.  Probably my most productive day in a couple weeks.  I am currently working on a project consisting of 16 drawings.  At the end of the day yesterday, I had gotten about 4 or 5 of them done.  Going into a Friday, I have 5 left.  This means I got 6 or 7 done today.  I'm really starting to pick it up quite nicely, too.

Tomorrow will also mark the completion of a 40 hour week.  It's the first such week since Week 1.  After work tomorrow, I will be making the 2 hour drive back up to Tulsa and check on my apartment.  Right now, I'm planning to move back to Tulsa once this employment contract finishes, which looks like may be around April 1.  If that happens, I will extend my apartment lease for another six months which would take me to November 30.  Now, if I get put on another contract at work, which is very possible, then I will get out of my lease in Tulsa and move into an apartment in Oklahoma City.

I checked on how to terminate the lease early and it's not easy to do.  I would still have to give 60-day's notice and be responsible for rent until someone moves in plus an extra month.  I've already paid December rent which only leaves me 5 payments left in this lease.  Even if I put in the notice this month, I would still be responsible for at least 3 payments, maybe 4.  That would still save money, but then you have to factor in hiring movers to bring all the stuff down to a storage barn in OKC which could be $1000-$1500, so it might actually cost us more to move than to extend the contract.  If I don't give a 60-day's notice by March 31, then I would automatically be responsible for at least a pro-rated rent for June.  If I extend the lease for six more months, my rent would go up $25 per month, or I could sign up for another year and keep my rent the same as what I'm paying now.

Needless to say, I've got a lot of decisions to make over the next 3 1/2 months.

Hire movers? I guess I just assumed you never had too much in the Tulsa apartment ... or in general. How much stuff would you have to move?

[J-Mann]

Jeff, I think the disgust comes from knowing that some organizations sacrifice focusing on the immediate and believe that entire cultures will just get better with the gospel. Not all organizations are like that ... but some certainly are. They believe that preaching at a poverty-stricken culture is the ONLY necessity in their evangelism and would just as soon bark religion at a starving child rather than feed him in the now.

Think of it this way: immediate needs versus eternal needs, and you're saying that eternal needs trump "trivial" matters. In much the same way, your colleagues here preached a long-lasting gospel to you: eat better and exercise. But when your back went out, you needed IMMEDIATE relief. It wasn't helpful to preach the healthy gospel to you while you were in pain. You just wanted a new chair.

In much the same way, the poor of the world could use IMMEDIATE relief before they get indoctrinated with a long-term message. Right?

[J-Mann]

Bushie, how many orphans living in Darkest Africa could you feed and house with the money that you're spending on rent and premium cable?

That ... is a tremendous point. Jeff, how do you justify that? Not accusatory ... just curious.

#firstworldproblems
#whitepeopleproblems

[J-Mann]

At least drop the cable package, Jeff. You've indicated that you're (or your family is) paying over $100 a month ... maybe more ... for cable that you're not there to watch (and going back solely to watch it is a double waste because of the money and time spent on driving). There is no disconnect fee for utilities or services like that, nor is there any time-bound commitment.

You surely agree that's a waste of money, right?

[J-Mann]

Alright, I've had enough, guys.  I'm done being treated like crap on this forum.

Today has seemed pretty mild, Jeff. Having cable and Internet in an apartment you barely visit (and wouldn't need to at all) IS wasteful and should be an easy decision for you at the family meeting tonight.

[J-Mann]

That thread is gold. And shows how repetitive this all is. Still, I was interested to see that Jeff was set to be banned or put on mod review if he didn't lose a certain amount of weight. It must have been a motivator:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=143929.msg3364295#msg3364295

[J-Mann]

That thread is gold. And shows how repetitive this all is. Still, I was interested to see that Jeff was set to be banned or put on mod review if he didn't lose a certain amount of weight. It must have been a motivator:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=143929.msg3364295#msg3364295

IIRC he admitted to completely lying about that round of weight loss.

He may have. My Update reading was off-and-on at that point.

[J-Mann]

Yeah, Bushie doesn't have a fraction of the drive needed to sustain a high level business career. The problem is that people keep telling him to shoot for these crazy, implausible dreams. He needs to pursue something he has at least a chance of acheiving. I stand by my repeated pizza delivery suggestions from last season. As long as you don't steal, it's super hard to get fired from pizza delivery.

As part of a live-action, Update-themed reality show, Jeff and I are going to switch lives for a month.

[J-Mann]

Yeah, Bushie doesn't have a fraction of the drive needed to sustain a high level business career. The problem is that people keep telling him to shoot for these crazy, implausible dreams. He needs to pursue something he has at least a chance of acheiving. I stand by my repeated pizza delivery suggestions from last season. As long as you don't steal, it's super hard to get fired from pizza delivery.

As part of a live-action, Update-themed reality show, Jeff and I are going to switch lives for a month.

"Watch as J-Mann's credit rating plummets from a 719 to a 346!"

Even worse ... it was 806 the last time I checked. So much further to fall :-(

[J-Mann]

Perhaps there is a strong inverse corelation between how well one knows Jeff and whether or not one is allowed to be his facebook friend. Maybe all of the encouragers on fb are just the random people from high school whom we all have on our faces, for no particular reason. They encourage not out of foolishness but out of ignorance.

There's some pure foolishness on there, to be sure. I have to laugh (so as not to cry) at some of Jeff's old lady friends who blindly encourage or discourage the dumbest of things:

JEFF'S STATUS:             "I'm going to start eating healthier."
OLD LADY COMMENT:    "BOOOO no don't let them take away yer fun!"

JEFF'S STATUS:             "I'm moving for the eighth time this year."
OLD LADY COMMENT:    "GOOD LUCK praying for you yaaayyy change!"

JEFF'S STATUS:             "Just got fired."
OLD LADY COMMENT:    "They'll sure be sorry when ur running applesoft one of these days!"

[J-Mann]

Dare I ask how much your computer was?  Did you at least get no interest?

18 months no interest.  I'm not going to say the actual amount.

Oh you dont have to tell me, you got the deluxe model with all the bells and whistles because you have to run all dem high powered CADD programs, that you don't use anyway.

It wasn't the top of the line.  I didn't put THAT much on my card.  It should only take me 6-7 months to pay off.

How does one in your financial situation get credit to begin with?

[J-Mann]

I think looking for a permanent job is a great idea. Why would you think that you need to quit your contract job in order to do it?

I'm not going to quit my job to look for another one.  The only way I'm leaving this job is when the contract ends or I find a permanent job.

Why the f*** would you need to quit your current job to look for another one??  You can look for jobs while you are still employed you know...

Don't you think it would be a good idea to get the search started now, so you aren't unemployed when the contract runs out??

Did you even read my post?  I already answered your question.

What I got out of your replies was that you'd decided not to look for another job while you still have your current one.

I think what's frustrating everyone is, 1) you seem to think that, in order to look for another job, you'd have to quit the one you have, and 2) your replies indicate that you won't be spending any time looking for another job, even though the current one is temporary.

The logical response they're looking for is, "I'm going to keep an eye out for other, more-permanent jobs while still working hard to get all I can out of the current one." Your replies make it seem like you can only do one or the other -- work and ignore your future, or not work at all so you can find a future.

[J-Mann]

One question, though, how am I supposed to honor face to face interviews without taking any time off work and I work 8-5?

You make these things way too difficult. Smash summed it up pretty well -- let them know you're currently employed with little flexibility on your time off, and they'll probably be willing to schedule time either before or after-hours. Otherwise, you have a lunch-hour, right? Skip a meal and meet at noon.

You can always let your employer know that you have a personal appointment and may need a little flexibility, as well. Maybe I've worked in nothing but lax environments, but I've never asked for doctor's notes or anything "official" if someone needs to knock off an hour or two early.

[J-Mann]

My earlier idea of Update XX: Fat Paychecks, Thin Excuses is no longer valid, as the fat paychecks are now gone into thin air.

[J-Mann]

I've never done temp work so maybe somebody (other than Bushie) who has can fill me in. What is the point of having a "contract" if the employer can dismiss an employee who hasn't committed a serious offense with no notice? That's not what the word contract means. That's working as a day laborer.

I believe the "contract" bit refers the agreement the sub-contractor has with the prime, and anyone who is brought on for that purpose is truly just temporary help. The employees have no contract with anyone.

[J-Mann]

I've never done temp work so maybe somebody (other than Bushie) who has can fill me in. What is the point of having a "contract" if the employer can dismiss an employee who hasn't committed a serious offense with no notice? That's not what the word contract means. That's working as a day laborer.

I believe the "contract" bit refers the agreement the sub-contractor has with the prime, and anyone who is brought on for that purpose is truly just temporary help. The employees have no contract with anyone.

If you can please define the words "subcontractor" and "prime" in this context, we will be all squared away. Thanks for your help.

Just guessing ... but Jeff liked to say that he worked for General Dynamics. He did not. He worked for one of dozens of smaller firms that are built to offload crappy work from larger companies. General Dynamics is a "prime," and in the world of contract work, they may well have won a contract to do something for a government agency, etc. They are the prime contractor (like CGI for building the healthcare website).

But since doing things like doodling in CADD to draw up pieces and parts for whatever their main contract is for is something that a prime doesn't really want to mess with, they issue that work out to a sub-contractor (like the sub-contractors that actually built the healthcare website). The sub-contractor may see fits and starts of work based on when prime contractors are winning contracts and hire temporary workers to complete their part of the contract.

So, contract work refers the the temporary nature of fulfilling a primary contract.