Got the outdoor kennel pallet fence taken down after supper. Unfortunately, that’s about all I was able to accomplish in the time I had. I’m hoping that the weather cooperates tomorrow, and the next day, and so on, to where I will be able to nickel and dime away at my construction process this week. I really want to get that stupid thing finished.

Violet had asked me after supper if we could have time to talk. I sent her a message a little bit ago and she hasn’t responded. I’m guessing she fell asleep. Looks like I get to do the dishes again. I’m growing very tired of this laziness or whatever it is.

I’m kind of struggling with what else I think is worthy of writing down.

I got the chance to play around outside at work today. That was an awesome change of pace. Ivan usually grabs Will to head outside, but today, I got to be the lucky one.

I ran into Zach before I left work. He told me part of some fun they’re likely to be facing overnight. Ashlee told me a little more. The combined stories are that Sarah–who’s been playing overnight coach–is being sent to the front-end, and the recently hired team lead is on her way out the door. As for the team lead, apparently the girl has worked two–maybe three–nights and called in for the rest of her scheduled nights. As for Sarah, Josh apparently gave an ultimatum of either take an orange coaching for performance or go back to the front; she chose wisely. Honestly, I believe things will start running smoother on the front again with Sarah back up there.

I don’t know; I really can’t think of much more to say right now. That, of course, doesn’t mean that I won’t write anything else. I don’t know. I might be back later with some other stupid thought. Guess I’ll wash dishes, in the meantime.

I don’t have much on my mind this morning. About the only thing that is bugging me are the thoughts surrounding my desire to finish that damned fence.

Why do people have to find ways to interfere with other people’s lives? Yeah, sure, I guess that bitchy woman could say something similar in respect to me; it was my noisy, obnoxious dog that was bothering her–keeping her from being able to listen to her precious television. Nevermind the fact that we all live right beside a railroad, multiple other neighbors have loud dogs, and that the cattle in the neighboring field like to bellow at night. Seriously, though, I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of her being one of those stupid “dogs are people, too” weirdos. Dogs are dogs. God put them on the planet with the notion that they would be able to fend for themselves, be able to survive harsh weather, and so on. It’s only our interference that creates the need to baby them–and to what extent depends upon the degree in which we interfere. The absolute minimum that we need to provide is food, water and shelter–and guess what–I was providing all three, and going just slightly above and beyond in comparison to others.

I gave the dog a 12’x12′ kennel space inside the barn, and a 10’x20′ space outside the barn. Ideal? Not necessarily, but twice as much as space as several give theirs–hell, twice as much space as many give two or three dogs! The outdoor space gave Sophie exposure to sun, fresh air, and grass under her paws; the barn gave her shelter from wind, rain and offered a slightly warmer environment when temps dropped–not to mention the bed of straw I laid on the floor. And it’s not like I constantly left the dog out there; for weeks I brought the dog inside the house–something I hate–when temps dipped below 32°F. My kitchen still stinks of dog.

Am I the greatest pet owner? No. Am I trying to argue that I am? Not really. Am I being responsible? Yes; but whether or not it’s to your liking is a you problem, not a me problem. So, respectfully, stay out of my fucking life.

[Diarium] Sunday, May 3, 2026

🗓️ Sunday, May 3, 2026 07:10
🌖 Waning gibbous

Half a million thoughts running around in my head, and I don’t like a single one of them.

That number is an exaggeration, of course, and I’m sure there’s got to be a thought or two that I don’t mind, and others I could put a spin on and have turn out right. But right now, there’s a couple that are bothering me in a negative way. The first being that I didn’t sleep well. Very stupid; very simple. Ashlee went to bed clothed, and I never got a chance to feel her naked body against mine. Stupid. Very stupid. But I guess I desperately needed to feel that closeness.

My other big negative thought is my dealing with neighbors. One of them came bitching about our stupid dog and her barking. So, I built a fence across the backyard. I wasn’t prepared to build a fence; I’d had a certain styling and materials in mind, which would’ve required a nice chunk of money and time that we don’t have. So, I erected a fence that I really don’t like. Having given the dog more freedom, she’s slightly quieter, but she’s still going to be a nuisance. So, now I’ve spent money I don’t have and ruined the aesthetics of my yard in order to appease a neighbor that can’t hear their TV over the barking of my dog.

I was planning on spending time mowing the yard, fixing Ashlee’s car, and then finding something to do as a family yesterday. Instead I spent my time throwing together a fence, watching/hearing Ashlee suffer getting started on her car, and then I switched over to finishing up her car once I got to a good enough stopping point on the fence.

And, of course, now there’s more on my plate, because I need to finish up the fence and try to make it something I like, and give it some better functionality. I need to add a few more posts, dress it with planks at the posts (because t-posts are ugly), add a top rail (because, aesthetics), hang a walk through gate and finally build & hang a drive through gate.

And I want to try and figure out how to accomplish all this before the coming weekend, and mow the yard.

I fucking hate people.

So, I was going to write some more nonsense this morning, but it seems like the “server” is having issues, and I really don’t want to go upstairs and restart the damned thing. Instead, I guess I’ll just draft and email and then do a copy paste later this evening, if I remember. Sure, there’s a million other ways that I could do this, but for some reason just doing a simple gmail draft seemed the easiest and laziest way to go about it at the time.

So, there’s been a nice uptick in my writing lately. Yay? I mean, I like that I’m finally making myself sit down and do this. I guess part of me still wishes that it could have just slightly different motivation. But, I dunno, regardless, it’s working. An annoyance will probably end up being that I am using a couple different programs/apps/whatever to do so, and then I will be merging it all back into my self-hosted WP installation.
And a random thought–I still think about how I’d kinda like to really take things back to the ways I used to do things, with an LJ installation. I’m pretty sure I had read somewhere that there is either a LiveJournal clone or the original source that can be run self-hosted. I kinda miss the way livejournal operated.
The little quick random bits that I’ve been writing in DIarium are somewhat helpful. Well, that’s not quite what I was thinking–those words are totally out of order and the written thought is not formed right. Try again. Diarium has been somewhat helpful in allowing me to capture random, quick thoughts. There, that’s better. Anyway, I’ve been using Diarium a decent amount, and have to say that I wish I had the ability to take full advantage of it. Like, it would be nice if I had a chromebook or a windows machine that could run the app. My preferred notebook/laptop is currently a linux machine and doesn’t have the storage to allow me to run an android emulator or anything. Funnily, this notebook used to be a chromebook. I just decided that with the limitations it had I would be better off converting it to linux rather than running the chromeOS linux container–I had tried to do that and it wasn’t working out so well for the stupid use cases I wanted.
Well, now the time has come for me to try and figure out what quick random bits to jot down, as I noticed the clock is laughing and screaming at me that I only have thirty minutes left to spend on wasting time before work. *sigh* And that’s something that still bothers me–I could be using this time for other things, rather than opening my mind, heart and soul up.
I pulled the Sebring out and put my Durango in the barn yesterday. Neither one of those cars were too happy about it. I think I might actually go ahead with trying to fix the Sebring, rather than talking Ashlee into getting rid of it. There’s a stupid little sentimental attachment that we have to it. It would be awesome to keep the thing around and drive it again. I think the big thing it’s suffering from are damaged/worn rod bearings. From what I think I’ve gathered, I should be able to replace the bearings with the engine still mostly intact and mounted; I just need to first get some plastigage and find out what my tolerances are–see if there’s been enough wear to warrant larger bearings, or if we can still run on the original stock size. It just kind of sucks because that’s one of those “take something apart and wait before you continue” sorts of repairs, and I hate those. But, if it’s the bearings and only the bearings, we’re talking $100 or less to get our best gas saver back on the road. So, I guess it’d be worth it.
I still haven’t quite figured out the Durango’s issues. I think my next plan of attack is pulling the solenoid pack out of the transmission and seeing if it just needs a good cleaning. Honestly, I’m worried that there’s more than that going on. I’m afraid of burned clutches and the like, because she just doesn’t smell that great when I’ve gotten her to engage. I really like that truck–It has everything I want and need–but I think I might have to let it go. And, oddly enough, I think I’d prefer to kiss it goodbye if there was a choice that had to be made between it and the Sebring.
I really wish that I didn’t have to go to work today. But, I would only want that if I could still have tomorrow off, too. And it’s not laziness that is making me not want to go to work–it’s me thinking about all the things that I want or need to do here at home.
Well, it looks like the clock is once again telling me that I’ve run out of time.