Dear Karma, it's awful crazy out there!

I'm not going to get dragged into it all I have a party, well a picnic this weekend to get ready for. This and maintenance, landscaping repairs and the future repairs and modifications needed to the house are quietly but quickly overwhelming me with my 3 hours of commuting everyday. Little time to contemplate such matters as shooting massacres and Mitt Romney's Veep choice, foreign policy or any other such thing.

Last weekend the dryer died, it would heat up but not spin so it had become a large clothes toaster. I should have filled the brownie tray with waffle batter and jammed it in there to see how long it took to make a giant waffle brownie. I could put ice cream on it - after I heaped on bacon and melted chocolate or nutella or chocolate syrup. Yes it would have been epic. I had thought about putting the busted dryer/toaster in the garage just for this purpose but out of mercy for my wife I allowed the Lowe's guys to take it away. Her disbelief and shock at my ridiculous culinary plan might have forced her face into a contortion she might never recover from and that would be a shame since I was lucky enough to marry a very beautiful woman.

The washing machine didn't die, nor could I quickly hatch a plot to invent some Dr. Franken-purpose for the thing so it too was removed, like tail-lights I figured the two machines of matching vintage would fail at near the same time. Of course this kind of decision is rather expensive so I'm out a cool grand. I can't even tell you how much I've poured into the pool which, as we approach the final month of the pool season, isn't yet working quite right. The filter has some warping and cracking and the warranty company and their contractor have yet to admit it's time to just put in a new one.

The first repair man last year had told them as much and they fired him for it. They switched to this other contractor who told them what they wanted to hear and so we're stuck with him attempting multiple incremental fixes while neglecting the big picture. Now, the cost of multiple trips across state lines to effect many repairs which in hopes of avoiding an inevitable replacement of the whole means the cost to the warranty company is near double original estimates.

I wonder if the contractor and the warranty company "decider" worked in government?

Has anyone seen Bush 43 lately?

I didn't want to lose two weekends to Lowe's trips.  I bit the bullet and bought the total system replacement, you don't want to be in a home with three preschoolers and no functioning laundry machines, but the government it seems and so many others seem to favor short term, myopic solutions afraid to see the bigger problem looming just beyond their attention spans. I might have gotten upset about this in the past, now I just shrug my shoulders. I was going to spend the money on another project anyway so I just postpone that project and move on. I was happy to be able to plunk down the coin when so many go without the means to do so.

I see poverty is on the rise, to highest levels since the 50s or something, and true inflation somewhere in the 5-6% range means the economy has been in a negative growth (a decline) since 2005ish and some other stuff over at shadowstats which is a neat site for folks who like numbers and charts...I don't so no link here.

I avoid charts like the plague. I put one in a recent presentation I did as a decoy slide for people to have a laugh and to focus their attention on what I am saying and what the handout says not the screen in front of them. I hate powerpoint. I had contemplated just putting up vacation photos and pictures of my kids set to auto play while I lectured.

That will be a good way to do my final presentation once I'm able to give notice here at DOC. Seems they might be looking for more staff reductions soon anyway and with the very reduced threat of real terrorism I'm becoming less important and harder to justify I suspect.

So even though I had the cash to spend it stung a little. I told myself - self, shut up. The new machines will last long enough that you should only have to do this one more time your whole life. That helped. Still it stung and with inflation and my commute devouring my buying power I'm starting to worry.

And I know the kids expenses are about to explode as the middle child (Panda) gets ready for preschool/day care and what that costs. Still I wasn't that worried, not yet - I got a royalty check, then another for the kindle edition. I was thrilled to see they (amazon/createspace)  had lowered the threshold required before they'd pay out since it wasn't much. I didn't want the money so for the sake of Karma I donated both checks to the local soup kitchen with 200% matching funds out of my own pocket. If Karma wants to know what to get me for Christmas - I'd like my foundation to not shift anymore because my doors are all getting tight and if it shifts anymore I might not be able to get in or out of the house anymore. Anyway I hope it helps someone who might be having problems worse than mine.