I tried this with my son this morning. I emptied the Windex container, rinsed, filled it full of blue Gatorade and then walked up to him, sipping it and say: 'hey this doesn't taste bad'.

Love parenting today!

 

Nice April Fools trick, will have to try that one day.

Jim

 

Thats a good one! Sure is nice to be back on an active forum. Been gone way too long. I frequent a couple other forums, for motorcycles, but none are as active as FTE. It's good to be back. Hope I'm not annoying everyone in the F250 area with all my questions!

 

If they get annoyed Brian, post 'em here and we'll take a stab at answers!


Making progress at the Los Angeles Entertainment center.

 

Good morning California...enjoy your Sunday.

 

GOOD MORNIN' SOOOCAAALLLLL! ! ! ! !
Yes I am up .....how about you,
looks like another lazy day today, but I earned it after spendin my free time yesterday a mowin' an edgin' an weedin' an a warshin' the truck an a shoppin' fer necessities....
so until this here layer of that froggy stuff rolls off, I think I will enjoy a hot cup of coffee , sit here and annoy FTE....

 

Good morning back at ya. Coffee is delicious this morning. I'm trying to get motivated to do something. Been cleaning the garage, going through stuff, fixing quads, fixing truck, yard work and so on. All that my shoulder will let me anyway.

 

Hello all,

Happy Sunday. Hope everyone has a blessed day.

Well I got some bad news today. Just found out from the Social Security website, that my monthly checks will only be $948 instead of $1,082. This on top of the fact that the VA has stopped sending me the $133.17 a month benefit check last month, and this month. So my income has dropped 24% (and my portion of the rent has gone up $21 starting last month) in the last 45 days. They (SSI) state they are taking $134 out of the $1,082 for medical insurance as of March 2017. Since when do Social Security people pay for insurance? I cannot call or go in until tomorrow, but it sounds more like the VA attaching my check than medical insurance. Besides, the VA just sent me a letter confirming I do not need medical insurance, since they fulfill the requirement. So it has to be that stupid education benefit bill they claim I owe.

It took the VA two weeks last month to tell me they checks stopped because I owed the local VA hospital $2,030. However, when I went to the hospital billing office, they told me that I owe them nothing as I am exempt due to the service connected disability. So I contact the VA in Minnesota again, and this time they tell me it is an education bill from 1999. I told them that is impossible since I didn't use my VA education benefits in 1999. So they are putting a tracer on it, but say it will be 3-4 weeks for an answer. So I sent a letter to Senator Kamala D. Harris this past Wednesday asking for her help. Now this. I will be sending her another letter telling her about this. If I thought it would do any good, I would go to the SSI office tomorrow and stand in line for an hour or so and talk to someone. However, I seriously doubt anything will change just because I complain to them.

Besides, money is so tight right now, I don't have bus fare, and I need to conserve what little gas I have left in the tank as my next check does not get here until the 12th. If the VA had not stopped my checks, I would have been paid on Friday. It didn't help that on top of all this, my car registration, and my drivers license were all due in April, so I paid them out of last month's $1,082 check. However, since no check Friday, and another 10 days to go for my reduced SSDI check, I will just retreat into my man cave, and live like a hermit for a bit. main concern is food to last until then, but I am sure my church will help in that department. So I just need to wait it out. I don't know how fast the senator can get this taken care of, but I will pray it happens quickly.

Sorry just needed to get this off my chest, otherwise my high blood pressure will get even higher, and send me to the hospital.

Jim

 

I'm working in Idaho today. Little town called Payette. Weather sucks. It's either cold, raining, windy, or all three. I'll be glad to get back to sunny warm Socal tomorrow!

 

Yes, Payette is a small town, between Weiser, ID and Ontario, OR, but the over-all quality of life there is FAR superior to that of SoCal! Agriculturally-based economy, primarily onions.

The whole area is really nice in Spring through Fall. They had a particularly-bad winter this year. Record snowfalls.

Pop

 

Jim, sorry to hear your troubles. Trump may be able to help with his 2016 campaign promise!

"I will create a private White House hotline – that is answered by a real person 24 hours a day – to make sure that no valid complaint about the VA ever falls through the cracks. I will instruct my staff that if a valid complaint is not acted upon, then the issue be brought directly to me, and I will pick up the phone and fix it myself, if need be."

 

I've been to Payette many times: famous for onion and carrot seeds. We even tried canola and fennel there!

 

You absolutely nailed it! There are buildings all over the city and county that are caved in because of the snowfall. The snow literally collapsed the buildings. Lots of barns in the outskirts and a couple of normal buildings in town have collapsed. A local hardware store owner told me that over 300 buildings in Payette county alone collapsed or were a total loss of some kind because of the snow.

There isn't a proper (read: nice) hotel in Payette so the company put us up just over the border in Ontario, OR and our local PA is from Weiser.
Pop why have you been here?

There are onions a plenty, literal truck loads rolling through town with onions rolling off and bouncing down the road! And trucks of onion left overs driving through town spewing onion juice all over the roads making your eyes water. The river is swollen 12 feet above normal. It is absolutely bursting at the seams and a mere foot from overflowing the banks.

It seems like a nice place to have a vacation home where you can escape the craziness of the socal life-style.

Sean what were you here for?

Can't believe two of you have been here!

 

I've been casually shopping for retirement homes. On Zillow. Idaho is a state that interests me, but that kind of weather sounds pretty gnarly for a So Cal homeboy.


Interesting that it doesn't look like that 'on paper'.
Climate Payette - Idaho and Weather averages Payette

 

I'll be back there in August for the eclipse, though in Weiser, which is closer to the centerline of totality than is Payette.

Too bad you're coming home tomorrow, or I'd point you up US-95 about 25 miles to a fun place called Mann Creek Store. It's no longer a store, but a local hang-out that's a fun evening.

The "store" is also about 200 yards south of the centerline of totality, and I HAD planned to be there for the eclipse, but the planned celebration activity there is getting to be beyond what I want to handle, so I'll be sitting on a deck in the north end of Weiser with some other FTE people from Arizona, having Bloody Marys.

The eclipse is in the late morning, so we want to be civilized about our celebrating, hence the lime and tomato juice.

Pardon me, do you have any Worcestershire?

Pop