This system blows!

So I had my child support hearing today.  First, they took us into a side room with a legal assistant to get our general information and to plug our numbers into the state guidelines sheet.  It came back stating that she owed me $-2.27 so the state suggestion is that she doesn’t owe me anything.  Seriously.  Basically the guideline sheet takes my income, combines her income and then says I’m responsible as the responsible parent for the first 72% and her the last 28%.  Sure sounds right, I’m the custodial so I end up paying most of it.  I see that.  But it doesn’t take into account anything extra.  Like school fees (lunch money & book fees), doesn’t take into account that I pay close to $60 a week for insurance.  Doesn’t take into account that I paid for Girls Scouts and little league.  Doesn’t really take anything into account.  I have them 5 days, she has them 2.  But our share is equal because I make more money and actually keep my job.  Even though I pay so much for insurance, I’m still responsible for the first $600 out of pocket.  Seriously?  And after the first $600 she’s still only responsible for 50% of it.  How the hell is that fair?

We all know if the shoe was on the other foot and she had custody, I’d be paying out the ass on top of still paying the insurance.  I wouldn’t take home enough money for my family to survive.  So even though I beat the odds and as a father, I have custody.  The odds are still stacked against you, as long as your not the mother.

In front of the judge, I pleaded my case and was awarded a little bit of support, just over enough to pay the kids lunch money each week.  Yeah, that’s it.  What’s worse, we all know that eventually even that will stop because she can’t keep a job longer than a few months.

This system blows!

Prison life for 40 hrs a week

So today, at work, because we have elementary aged workers who write on the bathroom stalls, the company decided to take the doors off the stalls.  Not the walls, just the doors.  So explain to me how that prevents people from writing on the stalls.  All you did was stop them from writing on the doors.  Oh, and by the way, thanks for punishing the rest of us.  I guess since I'm being punished then I should go ahead and write on the walls so I actually do something worthy of punishment.

"The people" decided that was ok and just started locking the restroom door.  Well, until "the man" found out and instructed maintenance to pull the lock off the door.  So now I'm just waiting so see what the next retaliation is going to be.  To be honest, I'm afraid to go into the restroom tomorrow morning after 2nd and 3rd shift find out about it.

So, basically, work has become prison.  And like prison, even the innocent get hurt.  What can you do?  Other than keep your cheeks together and hope you can hold it till you get home.  Stupid kids.  I seriously hope I wasn't that stupid at their age.  I probably was, but I hope I wasn't.

Do you know what those 2 lines are for?

Is it really that hard to park a car between 2 lines?  Apparently it is because it seems many people can't do it.  I understand sometimes you just didn't get the right angle to make the spot, but that doesn't mean you just leave your car like that. There's this thing called "reverse," all cars have it.  Put your car in reverse, back out and straighten out.  Wow! Can it really be that easy, you ask?  Yes, it can be and you only lost 1 minute of your precious time.  The people at my apartment complex are just dicks.  Between parking horribly and parking in the handicap spots, it's just ridiculous.  The lack of concern for anybody but yourself will always piss me off and it's only getting worse.

While in Ann Arbor last weekend, we were all standing in a line that ran through the parking lot.  First, this guy parks his truck between the lines, "Hooray" then procedes to take out a table and take up a 2nd spot to set up his lunch with his family.  Asshole.  Then a little later a guy pulls in and takes 2 spots, gets out and just stands there with his vehicle.  Doesn't have a care in the world.  Stands there with this smug "I'm better than the rest of you" look.  Asshole.

Is it truly that hard to think about someone else other than yourself? In case you hadn't noticed, your not the only person alive.

Should be, should be, I'm not

I'm caught up at work and normally at this time, I'd be reading.  But I'm at that stage between books where I haven't started the new book because I'm not all that excited about my next book.  It sounds like a good book and I want to read it, but I just can't get it started.  How long have I been in this stage? A couple of weeks.  If I could just make myself start reading then I would be fine.  I'll most likely get into the story and I'll start picking it up every chance I get.  It's the getting started that gets me.

I'm the same way with kids movies like Disney or Pixar put out.  I know I'll like it, it's just getting me to throw it in the DVD player and watch it.  I usually tell my wife, "this is a movie you'll have to make me watch."

Now I'm out of stuff to blog about.  Maybe I'll start reading now. Maybe!

Trip to the Cove

 

Samantha had a girl scouts night out at Coveleski Stadium last night. I decided that

Trevor and I would go and watch the game. We invited grandma and grandpa to go with us too. We met the troupe before the game and Samantha was off. Their plan was a parade around the field pregame and then after the game, they were going to camp out on the outfield and watch a movie on the scoreboard screen.

When I got the kids back from their mom’s, Trevor looked like he was going to crash. He was exhausted, and it showed. He slept all the way there in the van. And then, after we ate, he fell asleep again for about 3 innings. After the game, we watched the fireworks and headed home.

It was a great evening, I had a good time with Trevor, I need to get out with the kids more often. I wish I could afford to do that kind of stuff all the time. I’ll have to figure out some more things to do that doesn’t cost much. We’ll be going to Michigan stadium on Sunday and I’m looking forward to that as well.

I picked up Samantha this morning and she said, after they got all the camping stuff up, they headed up to the concourse and got pop and popcorn. Then went down to the field to watch the movie but due to technical difficulties, they weren’t able to watch it and they gave them a fifteen minute warning before they shut the lights out. The leader said that sucked because here they had popcorn and pop and next thing they know, they are all supposed to go to bed. Samantha said she had fun though so that’s what counts.

Update - Some pics from the troop leader.

Work blows, breakfast good

I have decided that I'm going to use this blog as kind of a tumblr account where they post odds and ends whenever they come across something. Or if your more familiar with, like a twitter account without be limited to 140 characters. I figured I won't get any complaints, considering I get very little traffic.

Work sucks. I know, everybody says it but it's my blog so I get to complain. Where I work, the worse the employee you are, the less you have to do. If your a good employee, means you get to do your work and the bad employees work. Some people get away with everything, some people get away with nothing. Don't even get me started on what happens when your sleeping with a foreman. They tell some people "I'm sorry, we don't hire family anymore" then they hire somebody else's family member. It's ridiculous. I just do my job to the best of my ability and try (sometimes not very well) to keep my mouth shut.

Today though, we got a surprise from one of our customer. They supplied breakfast.

DONUTS!!!!

I love donuts.  I could eat lots and lots of donuts.  They brought in a crap load of donuts and I mean a crap load.  I’d guess 8-10 dozen per shift.  Usually when this is done, on the rare occasion it does, nobody tells us up on the line and by the time we get downstairs and realize they are there, they are almost gone.  But our line leader happen to be in the break room when they brought them in, so he grabbed a box and brought it upstairs before everybody else got their hands on them.  So I had a whole box sitting in front of me.  The box looked to be about 2 dozen.  And these are the only 2 I ate.  It was a fight not to go back and grab more but I heard Cheri in my head saying “your going to feel miserable.”  And I knew she' was right.  So all I had were these 2.  And when I went to break, I decided to eat part of what I brought for breakfast to counter the donuts.

Orange Juice in the green sippy cup and peaches in the blue one.  Yes, I said sippy cup.  Don’t judge me!  They don’t leak in my lunch box and they store my OJ and fruit without making a mess.  But it’s healthy stuff, that counter’s the bad stuff, doesn’t it?  It does in my mind and that’s all that counts.  How many guys do you know drink OJ every morning and has fruit a few days a week with his oatmeal?  I’m allowed a donut once in awhile, damn it!  Is it really going to hurt my girlish figure.  No, it won’t.  I’ll still be fat with or without the donuts.

Back to work related, they cancelled Saturday so I’m done for the week.  I got 51 hours in, I started out great (35 hours in the first 3 days) but only 16 in the last 2.  I have 12 vacation days left and I lose them and get more on October 10th.  So I’m thinking about taking 12 Fridays off and working 10 hour days Monday-Thursday so my checks will still be the same.  Just a thought, can’t decide if I want to do it or not.

This week :’(

I know I haven’t posted much.  But considering I don’t really have any readers, nobody is there to notice anyways.  It’s hard to type out something deep and meaningful when nobody is really going to read it.

Cheri had her tonsils out and her uvula shortened last Thursday.  She did great in the surgery, I knew she would.  She came home and has been healing rather quickly.  She was eating pancakes and eggs later that day.  She hasn’t had much pain at all so I’m really happy for that.  She was really worried about the pain.  She’s pretty tough, so I figured she’d get through that anyways.  What we weren’t counting on was her lack of sleep.  She hasn’t been able to sleep hardly at all.  I’m not sure she’s slept over 2 hours since the surgery.  I hate to see her so tired and drained.  I would love for her to be able to sleep one solid night.  Just so I can see the happy, cheery Cheri that I love.  At least once before all the kids come home and everything gets busy again.

I started working more hours again this week.  I hate doing that because it means less time with Cheri.  This time will be worse because before I was going in early last time, which meant I was just taking sleep time away from our time.  But this time, I’m staying over after work so it’ll take away our time.  But we need the money, especially since I got lazy last week and took too many days off.  So there won’t me much “us” time this week.  And I’ve got plans away from Cheri on Friday night and Sunday.  Friday night I’m taking my son to the local minor league team’s game where it is Girl Scout’s Night where my daughter will get to walk around the diamond in a parade before the game.  Cheri may decide to come, we’ll see how she’s feeling.  Then on Sunday, the kids and I are going to Ann Arbor for Michigan’s Fan Appreciation day.  It’ll be the kids first trip to Michigan stadium.  I’m excited to be there and for the kids to see it.