As previously posted, I am in a CDL class. Our state test is on September 26th ... and the week leading up to that, I absolutely MUST focus on passing that test; I will be meeting up with my classmates outside of class from the 22nd through the 25th to cram for that test, and the 27th any of us who pass (hopefully me among them!) will be taking a bonus class day to learn to drive the full length trailers (Class A trailers can be up to 53 feet in length -- most you see on the highway are that full length -- but start at 28 feet; that's the minimum trailer length we can take the test in -- obviously shorter is easier, so we train in the short trailers, but since most trucking is done with full length trailers, the instructor will give us a day to practice in them assuming we all pass the state test).

Starting next week, I'll be taking a CDL class. I am both worried and hopeful. I struggle learning new things at work, and that makes me worried I might fail this class. At the same time, I really need this class ... I need an escape hatch. I am very stressed out at work ... every day I live in it, I hate the corporate culture even more, but I know its the same everywhere, and that is just leading to that very unpleasant persistent thought that there is no place for me anywhere. :/

If I can get a CDL, though ... I hope that will be something that can get my mind out of that trap. Yes I'll probably curse at the punk drivers who cut off truckers or hide out in their blind spots, but at least I won't be faced with a constant deluge right in front of my face of cherry picked "personal metrics" that ensures every ounce of variability in a production system gets blamed on individual workers and other constant "$#!t rolls downhill" I see heaped on the bottom rung guys.

Anyhoo ... if it goes well, I should have my CDL by the end of September.

If you pay money to have pelts flayed, please say so in your friggin profile.

One foreman axed
Another in progress

I'm debating what to do about the GM. I should really just go for it and call the ethics line.

I am David. Watch out, Goliath.

... I'm going to have to seriously cut out, or at least down on helping folk out financially for awhile. I'm in a very rocky spot with work, and I may need to move soon. Mostly thanks to that somewhat impulsive pay-off-the-last-$3k-of-student-loans spurge, but not helped by a recent surge in donating money to some artists I really like and know deserve a lot more than they get paid in commissions, my savings aren't where they should be.

I've avoided peeking at my credit rating for a very long time because I knew it'd be bad thanks to several years of not having been able to make a single payment on my student loans. I just found out paying them off entirely may actually not help (closing loans supposedly can actually lower your redit crating). Any home/apartment rental that does a credit check will likely not like my scores. :/

I don't need money back. I was a little overzealous, but I'm okay for the near future. I have been very careful to limit my donations via patreon, I have no need nor intention of reducing nor eliminating those.

I'm having trouble coping with the corporate-typical lies, double-talk, values-said-at-meeting-are-not-values-practiced-in-reality b.s. I'm frothingly mad that for all the talk to the contrary, speed trumps everything else and cutting corners is fine if it speeds something up. I'm starting to name names at work, and I plan to report what I suspect to be fraud committed by my warehouse's GM to the corporate ethics line ... I've been /ordered/ to omit defect reporting that I believe affects his bonus; to me, that is fraud and I dno't care that I'm bottom rung and he's head of the warehouse ... he's abusing his position to under-report defects to get paid more than he is due, I'm hopeful that corporate will not look kindly upon him if this proves true. Suffice it to say, though, most places may talk the talk on prohibiting retaliation, but there are easy ways to get someone fired anywhere and not make it look like retaliation, so my continued employment is less than certain. I know several others who share my dedication to safety and quality are similarly on the verge of quitting because they hate being told to stop caring about customers, quality or safety ... I'm hoping I can convince some of them to stick it out with me, and maybe we could collaborate on contacting corporate on this.

This is a lot more than I should say, I know. I certainly can't whisper this on my FB page. I don't know anyone whom has ever called their employer's ethics line to have any idea if I can expect any better than I did with my local HR (whom refused to take responsibility for bad information they gave me that wound up costing me half my bonus check :/).

My attempt to coin a phrase to describe the tools of art ... brushes, paint, etc.

REMEMBER YOU HEARD IT FROM ME FIRST.

Unless of course someone already started calling it that, which half the time I think of something, I come to find out later someone else came up with it earlier. <.<

First  TieWolf
now  Abyssa

I'm growing an army of art slaves, mwahaha!

:P

A BIG ONE
ON MY BACK

After a decade of it plaguing me, my student loan is now completely obliterated. My bank account is $3k lighter from this final payoff, but at long last it is GONE.

Check out the gallery of  sabotteur ... it boggles my mind that (as of this post) she has less than 500 watchers. If you like non-anthro art (as I imagine most of my friends share that affinity), and especially if you are fond of horse art, give her a watch!

Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité

Fuck the terrorists who did this. Fuck the assholes here in the U.S. who disrespected France for standing against the nation-I-was-born-into's bloodthirsty rampage in Iraq. Respects and gratitude for helping us not only survive but win our war for indendendence, respects and gratitude for the Statue of Liberty, and of course the world's eternally #1 undefeated bestselling sparkling wine since time immemorial.

Vive la france. I don't particularly worship all that France does, or has been done in the name of the blue, white and red, but from cuisine to champagne to art in general, France has earned a reputation for cherishing art in many forms ... and if anything in this world deserves cherishing, art certainly does. I may not speak a word of the French language, but as cultures go, I certainly think there are worse ones (the 'American' culture among them).

My heartfelt sympathies to the families of the slain, the surviving victims and everyone personally or even like myself, just emotionally connected to the terror. I am sick of the evils done under the guise of the 'war on terror,' but I am all for rooting out the real sources of terror to prevent future atrocities like this or 9/11. I hope my government puts its resources forth in any way it can to help France track down the roots of the cell that did this, and I hope -- however shaken everyone understandably is -- the cartoonists and other artisans of France and everyone in the world do not let the terrorists win by locking their craft away in fear.

I have a new story brewing in my brain. I know, my existing stories are badly rotting away, untouched for years and in some cases, over a decade. Anyhoo, I have had an idea brewing in my brain for awhile and while I have some notions of a couple characters, I thought why not put out a greater call for characters among my friends to include in the story?

Unlike all of my previous story attempts save for a couple barely-scratched-starts, this one will primarily feature physically anthropomorphic characters. I know, I know, its so not me, but ... anthropomorphic characters are the best fit. I will have to adjust traits to fit roles in the story, but I want to incorporate character notions, including as much of your character's personality, as I can -- but bear in mind there will be no room for "perfect characters" ... goody two-shoes will not survive. The main protagonist is probably the closest there would be to a goody two-shoes there is, but even he has complex issues ... and the simple fact is, he is a deadly warrior with a lot of blood on his paws anyway.

I have not yet settled on how species will work, but I will probably follow the usual trope of anthro species being roughly analagous to nations or kingdoms, in that there tends to be loyalty to their own, but of course there are exceptions and a member of one species might find himself either exiled or disenfranchised enough to go live among another species. The story will be medieval in era with archers (in fact, the main protagonist is the renowned best known archer in all the known lands), plate-armored knights, etc.

I aim to make "good versus evil" a lot more subjective and less simple, but suffice it to say, some characters will be outright evil -- murderous psychopaths finding war to be a fantastic outlet to sate their bloodlust. Many of the characters in the story will be soldiers with blood on their hands, though of course there will be civilians now and then.

So ... any takers? Anyone willing to throw a character into the mix? Again, if I use them, most likely I will have to make some modifications to fit the setting and story, but I will attempt to minimize these changes. There will be little or no magic beyond herbalism-healing. I don't plan to incorporate fantasy creatures such as dragons, though I will probably include minotaurs and centaurs. No unrealistic fur colors ... no neon-colored fur or somesuch (though there will probably be war paint). A description or ref art, and a personality description ... I may have to modify names to make them consistent, though I don't yet have specific schemes in mind, but generally given a particular species (say fox) will be nation/kingdom-esque (one or more fox kingdoms, for example), they will tend to have a language among themselves (doest though speaketh fox?) and, even if various species-kingdoms share a common tongue, will tend to have their own conventions for names ... but I will try to incorporate your character name as much as possible. I don't yet know the full roster ... most will be more or less cameo, not there for the full story, but I really only have two character concepts in mind to endure with the story while there do need to be more whom will have longer roles.

I should probably have posted this a few days ago, but working at an Amazon warehouse, this time of year is the Witching hour, and my sleep and sanity suffer more than they normally do. I have gotten some pills and guidance from a GP that has really helped. My skin is not perfect, the damage already done will take time to heal, and I still need to get on with a specialist for actual diagnosis, but my range of motion that was severely crippled by my skin (as I mentioned, it feels very much like a bad sunburn all the time in terms of sharp stinging and deeper pain, and moving a joint causing muscle to flex and resultingly the skin over the muscle to change shape erupts a firestorm of pain much like a bad sunburn, effectively inhibiting range of motion on every joint and making it painful to sit down, or to get up from sitting down, or to squat or bend over to get an item from low, or to climb a stepladder, or even moving my legs just to walk, etc. -- which are all motions necessary for warehouse work).

The prescription I was given that seems to have worked is designed to alleviate an allergic reaction, so it seems clear something I am exposed to is causing an allergic screen reaction, but its probably going to be a lot of long-term trial and error to find out exactly what. The GP thought it was caused by consumption of any mammalian meat or by-product, so I cut out all dairy and pork (I've already been on a more-than-a-decade boycott of beef itself) and limited 'meat' to poultry (chicken, eggs, turkey) and seafood (but not clam chowder, since the broth contains dairy, which is a shame because I love clam chowder...) I abstained completely from these things for 3 months to no avail, so that wasn't it ... at least I can go back to eating that stuff now (pizza ...... with cheese ........... yesssss! ........ what a luxury!).

No, nothing as serious as cancer like a couple of my favorite artists are enduring, more frustrating but relatively minor issues adding to my frustrations over the uncertainty whether I'm gonna get fired ... I have an unknown skin condition that I had previously been told by a nurse was psoriasis but a recent GP said he didn't think it was psoriasis, but didn't know what it was but that he thought it was something related to consumption of beef, pork and related byproducts (including dairy from beef ... I haven't eaten beef in over a decade due to a political boycott, but plenty of dairy) so had me cut those out entirely from my diet for three months to see if my skin improved. It was only a couple of months ago, but my skin has taken a drastic turn for the worse as the weather has chilled (which I expected, as it does every year, but its already worse this year than last). Last year, it was just primarily my legs chapped, flaking heavily with the dried skin cracking badly and even bleeding a bit, leading to several staph infections since I first started noticing these skin problems around 2009.

This year, its affecting my hands ... the skin around and between my knuckles is cracking, splitting and bleeding :/ Its quite painful, though most of the pain is still in my legs, feeling much like a sunburn with intense stinging. I'm not able to walk at any great speed when this happens, and am very slow and am in intense pain when I have to squat to perform a safe lifting, as my thighs and calves swell normally from contraction causing my skin to change shape around the flexed leg muscles.

I don't know what's going on, I am forced to cut out of overtime days I'd rather work (because its motherfricking $200 per day on an overtime day) ... the day after turkey day, overtime days become mandatory for my department. I hope to heck I can get in to a dermatologist tomorrow or next friday to get something going, but I worry it may take too much time to get a diagnosis, much less a treatment before the holiday mandatory overtime hits on Black Friday (the Friday after next).

Many of my friends share my affinity for non-morphic and/or realism arts ..... its sad both that artists who do either (and especially both) are so uncommon, sadder still that there remain so many hidden gems yet to be discovered by more than a smattering of followers, so I hope my friends will take a sniff at  DinofelizC and share my awe at their realism work, especially this one of a tiger: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/11048308/

Yus, I call dibs on a commish, but I'm sure they could use a queue of business, or even if you're not in the market at the moment, give 'em a +watch!

This is pure, sheer emo. Don't read if emo pisses you off. Seriouslly. Don't read if emo pisses you off.






































Seriously. Don't read if emo pisses you off.
























So that's enough friggin warning. This will be political, it will be anti-capitalist, it will be woe is me, yes I am physically in tears and yes my mind has fallen to the 'the world would be better off without me.' No, however, this is not a 'goodbye world' post that I actually going to jump off a bridge, but for those very few people who have been around folk who go through suicidal phases, yes I am in that neighborhood again. I've been in this hood several times before, but in the end am too much of a coward to do it .... but still, its there. On with the emo dump/ramble and the ..... does 38 qualify for midlife crisis?

I hate my job. I fucking hate it. I fucking totally fucking hate fucking my fucking job. Those who know me know I'm not one to drown everything I say with the f-word, so hopefully this emphasizes how emo I am right now. That said, I am dependent on it for income .... and I've gotten fore-warning there is a real chance that when I come to work tonight, I may be terminated for failing to meet metrics.

It isn't so much the work itself I hate thought its certainly not something I am particularly passionate about, as it is the corporate culture I loathe. What's particularly bad about the corporate culture that makes it so much worse than every other corporation I've worked at? Absolutely nothing ......... and that's the problem .......... because just like every other corporation in the entire damned country, they rely on the popularity makes right fallacy (otherwise known as a 'two wrongs make a right' or 'bandwagon' fallacies) -- that because many other employers do a thing, that automatically makes it fair, just and reasonable for themselves to do that thing. This fallacy was coined under the term "bandwagoning" in the mid 19th to early 20th centuries, particularly in American politics, but is also known as the 'two wrongs make a right' fallacy in which one justifies an action/decision/behavior/etc. because others are doing it (could also be boiled down to a 'popularity makes right' fallacy). If this were actually a valid argument, and not a fallacy, then for the period of time when most people believed the earth to be flat, the world would actually have been made flat by that popular notion. So many reasons of why a company does this that or the other is 'because that's what most other companies do.' In point of fact, my employer -- and yes I've named them before and will here again -- Amazon proudly proclaims it pays wages based on the /average/ of what its found other employers pay.

Many of my good, close friends have dire and stark contrasts with me in philosophy, particularly in establishing a person's worth. Most seem to argue from the basis that a person's worth is what an employer will actually pay them, and people who lack the requisite skills or education for a senior-level technical position do not have the worth that position pays, and even a living wage that affords a comfortable living (not luxurious, but something more than a closet in a houseload of random roommates) is too much to expect a poor employer to pay for entry-level, tedious or otherwise undesirable 'beneath me' kinda work. I definitely disagree with this.

And I find this religious of metrics to be rife with mis-use and abuse to the point of corrupting data and networks (and no, not the data network but the actual network of people and logistics within a company), and relying on this corrupted internal amalgamation of data/people/processes/management/expenditures/etc. is risky. Amazon played this game better than anyone else and for longer in the online retail market, but that's no guarantee for tomorrow. Organizations that operate in ignorance of reason and logic, I would argue, do not stand the test of time. I would not attempt to argue that every organization that has endured longer is perfectly logical or reasonable, but I think operating on fallacy was a crucial point of failure for many high-profile-but-short-lived organizations.

Like every employer I've had before it that has relied on voodoo metrics to assert an employee's relative value to the company, Amazon terminates people who fail to measure up to one or two particular data points, with no regard at all given to barriers beyond the employee's efforts. Further, its worsened by the fact that true process discipline, following every step of supposed 'standard work' to ensure quality and safety is /punished/ whenever there is little or no actual enforcement of particular steps, because following every step logically takes more time than cheating by skipping steps that aren't regularly checked. Specific to processes at Amazon, part of standard work is supposed to be 'Read Your Screen' (check what you are doing or working on versus what your station screen says; watch out for wrong items, wrong tote or identification sticker, 'master packs' [item supposed to be sold singly virtually but is physically getting processed as a pack of multiple items], 'broken sets' [pretty much a reverse master pack -- item is supposed to be sold as a set of multiple items but physically is just a single item] and the like) and 'Six Sided Check' (check all six sides of an item -- right, front, left, back, top, bottom -- for damage). For the processes of Receive (unboxing and scanning products loaded into the warehouse from a vendor), Stow (stocking the received items into Amazon's inventory bins), Pick (picking items from the bins for specific customer orders), Sort (manually de-grouping picked items to an automatic re-grouping sortation systems to organize into specific customer orders for multi-item customer orders; single item orders skip this and go straight from pick to ...) and Pack, the only metric regularly checked is 'UPH' -- units per hour, how many actual units leave a person's station per hour. Many things impact UPH ... adequate levels and easy reach of commonly needed materials such as transport totes or carts for receive, those very totes or carts loaded with merchandise for stow, empty totes for pickers to pick into, work for sorters from pick, and both work and boxes for packers to pack into, as well as malfunctions or design flaws that affect certain stations; at my warehouse, for instance, there are notoriously malfunctioning 'blue light sensors' that in theory detect buffer overflows on conveyors and prevent too many totes being routed to an area which might cause jams, but tend to malfunction to the opposite extreme of not allowing enough work into an area for everyone assigned in that area to be able to work continuously; invariably, one person in that particular area would have to go and clear the one tote stuck blocking and triggering the blue light sensor so everyone can get work. That one person's UPH will be inherently lower because they must leave their station, walk to the blue light sensor, physically clear the lone unmoving tote blocking the blue light sensor and return back to their station ... other workers enjoy the UPH fruits when this results in more totes diverting into the area while the worker who did the extra work to restore everyone else's UPH got the hit, and the system really doesn't account for this. Yup, I was /that/ guy more often than not when I was working in that area ..... also, if we were just plum out of work (even accounting for the blue light problem), I would be the one to trek a quarter mile, up and down flights of stairs to find a manager (yes, they're supposed to be supervising but many days are hard to find) to alert them to the fact we are running low on work. That absolutely kills UPH -- it can take a couple minutes while everyone else on the team is still working on the scraps of the remaining stock to work but me being the guy to alert a manager to the area running out of work, which they can then adjust the system controls to bring more work to the area, restoring the team's total throughput per hour (referred to as TPH).

I got verbal thanks and praise for being 'the guy' to report barriers and problems if not outright clearing them like this, as well as for handing the 'uglies' -- in the area in which individual customer orders included multiple items, the ultimate sort items into one container place prior to getting boxed together was referred to as 'The Wall,' hundreds of 'chutes' or bins for individual items which are gathered from sort (and pick previous to that) until the system knows every item in an order is in the wall and indicates with lights on the chutes that the order is ready to pack. While it very much resembles a series of wall, calling it 'a wall' is a misnomer -- individual 'walls' actually have three pieces: the main 'wall' behind the packer, and two 'side canyon' walls which you cannot directly see from a pack station and involve a bit of a walk even to peek at to see if anything's there. Officially we get trained to check the side canyons once in awhile, and during 'peak' last year due to our large-sized inventory bins being overstuffed (and stowers being unable to find any room to stow more), we were asked to prioritize packing out orders from the large bins first (including the side canyons). I was told I was pretty much the only person to do this ... this kills rate, because the bins for large items are not in the 'power zone' within direct, easy reach directly behind a packer but require a walk, and this rate lowering is worsened by the fact it inherently takes more time to pack a large item than a small one (and at the time, at least, the UPH quotas did not consider this reality). I got verbal praise ... but formally written up in my employee record for doing what I was told because no one else did; those who didn't had inherently better rates (not to mention for skipping six-sided checks or reading their screens, which inherently means they missed item damage or incorrect items going into orders).

And add to this the mis-information I would get when I would ask a specific question ... Amazon has an odd time off program, and pays monthly bonuses to everyone that was recently changed so that the more of a certain type of time off you took, the lower this bonus would be (not just because the bonus was a % of your pay, and of course taking unpaid days off means you pay was lower and thus your bonus too -- but the overall % would get reduced to as much as half, drastically increasing the cost of taking unpaid days off). I knew I needed to schedule surgery, which would require some recovery time using pain pills and I could only have done on a weekday, so I asked if there was some kind of medical leave I could take if I brought in a doctor's note as a result of having surgery and being on a prescription painkiller during recovery. I was very specific in the question I asked, and that it would only need to be for a day, and I was told by HR yes, they can do that and a doctor's note would be fine. I acted based on this, had the surgery done, then brought in the doctor's note, then the very same HR rep gave me a blank expression and asked why I had brought in the doctor's note. I reminded them of the previous convo (which had taken place a month before the surgery), and they said I had misunderstood them, medical leave only applies for associates who have been with the company over a year and only for medically approved absences for two weeks or longer. Bull effing shiznit, I was very specific about the one-day need and the affirmative answer they had given. I was told I would have to take the time off category that would hit my VCP and when I commented I considered that unfair, they rebutted Amazon 'is a business.' 'Is a business' means its okay to give someone mis-information and dock their pay when they act on the mis-information you gave them!?

I had a very similar situation with a manager. Nice, friendly guy ....... but absolutely should not be a manager. This leads to a side topic: leadership. Its treated like some trophy, a high score in a game, something to acquire as a right of passage and that everyone can do. IT IS NOT! In my view, its a serious role with serious responsibilities and demands some very rare talents and characteristics. It should not be automatic for anyone who applies, it needs a filter because a bad manager can ruin a department's productivity. Among these traits and responsibilities should be impeccable discipline, fair-minded and logical, someone who avoids placing either personal or corporate pride ahead of having problems fixed, someone who can get people with clashing personalities to work together harmoniously (and have a thick skin to criticism of themselves) with strong verbal communication, not someone whom problems get reported to only to commonly follow the 'in one ear, out the other' cliche. I fall far short on just about all these ...... but I know I am not suitable for any sort of leadership role. Unfortunately, so do most persons given manager roles. Many of them are nice people, but terrible managers because they are simply not suited to leadership roles. One such manager with one specific incident was fairly similar to the HR incident ... I have heat sensitivity greater than most, and was starting to really feel the effects. I was having to take more frequent water breaks as a result, and asked for rate leniency from this particular manager because I knew that would be detrimental to my UPH. This manager said YES, that was okay. Three weeks later, for that particular week, I received a rate write-up from a different manager. Yes, I pointed it out, was told they'd check on it, back and forth, in the end they said they couldn't accomodate rate leniency me unless i had a legally recognizable disability. WTF, I'd have to get a lawyer to get Amazon to fulfill its promise?

EDIT: Update 11/6 - somehow or another got by with just another warning. Not fired for the moment. Dunno why not, procedurally I was supposed to have been.

There are a lot of artists I really like on FurAffinity, among them  TieWolf whom is unfortunately battling a horrible monster: cancer. She could really use some help to get through the day to day, and made some t-shirts to sell to help her with this. Several of the pieces in my gallery are from her, including the recent 'tonguelol' ... please consider helping try to relaunch her 'Take A Bite Out Of Cancer' t-shirt relaunch on http://teespring.com/takeabiteoutofcancer

Sometimes I'm too tired or lazy to think up a commission idea, or I just don't have the $ to spare to fully buy what I feel a commission idea (or an artist is just so popufur that they already have a months-long queue) would be worth .... but sometimes I have a little money to spare and like to sprinkle $20 or so here and there to artists whose work I enjoy, and I'd like to give them a little bit now and then in appreciation for the work they draw and upload for everyone to enjoy.

Put a 'Tip Jar' on your user page (some paypal or amazon payments or other similar option to send money) and it'll at least be an option.

EPIC FAIL!

http://www.itv.com/news/2014-10-03/.....or-four-years/

Oh, wish I couldshift ... ;)

I work at an Amazon.com "fulfillment center" (fancy name for a warehouse). Ours is particular for, essentially, prototyping and testing new technology and processes for fulfilling customer orders. On Monday during day shift (I work nights), they want to conduct a "stress test" to see how much the system can handle. To accomplish this, they are pulling in stupid idiots ... err, volunteers from two other shifts (my night shift and the 'back half' [end-of-the-week shift]). Yup, I'm one of the idiots who volunteered. I know its going to be miserable, I don't seem to be able to change my sleeping schedule as readily as I could when I was younger ... but I'm curious to see how day shift operates. They seem a lot less UPH-focused (UPH = Units Per Hour .... one of those fucked up metrics that, in practice, my shift focuses on to the detriment of quality and safety :/). No, I won't have a double-shift -- my next shift after the 'stress test' Monday day shift will be Tuesday evening. It does cut my 'weekend' short (my Friday night shift runs 'til 5 a.m. Saturday ... normally I won't work again until 6:30 p.m. Monday night, but instead my Monday shift will start at 7:30 a.m., giving me a 50 1/2 hour-long weekend instead of the normal 60 1/2. At least I'll have 24 1/2 hours between the end of Monday's day shift and the start of the Tuesday evening shift, and that'll be followed by a 'baby weekend' on Wednsday (night shift is a 'donut' shift -- Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri, though starting the week of the end of Rainfurrest, that will at long last change to four consecutive days, Mon-Thu, giving us 3-day weekends ...... if only that happened a week earlier, I could have swung RF this year :/).

"Panic attack" is such a lackluster phrase, in that I think it tends to inspire a great deal of doubt and uncertainty as to whether it is a 'real thing.' I have experienced panic attacks with such physical manifestations as my vision going black yet remaining conscious, sudden onset of dizziness, nausea and even vomiting (again suddenly onset). I have had these from time to time, and though it has been quite a few years since the last one, I did again while the process of a dental surgery was starting, but this time there was a rather odd element in the equation: I was hooked up to a heart monitor due to my electing to have sedative dental surgery, and could see my blood pressure radically drop by more than half from around 75 bpm to around 30, and even though I had partially recovered by the time my next b/p was taken (had an arm band that automatically took it once every few minutes) a couple minutes after the onset of the panic attack, my b/p dropped from around 130/90 to around 90/40, so low that it started beeping alarms.

Its been officially announced that in October, we will switch from our current 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, 2 off (Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri) schedule to four consecutive days. Given the graveyard shift, the current schedule has left weekend socializing rather awkward given the shift starting Friday nights runs 'til 5 a.m. Saturdays, and then there's the whole need to sleep thing, and I wake up too few hours before friends go to bed especially given its a couple hours' drive each way to my friends' homes.

... must sadly disappear from my plate. As most of my friends know that I visit in real life, I've abstained entirely from beef for over a decade now ... that wasn't hard to give up, but I do love dairy, especially cheese and ice cream, as well as bacon, ham and sausage from the pork group.

I have dental surgery scheduled for the 29th and am going for sedation because I still have nightmares about my last couple of extractions. The dentist wanted me to get a physical first to ensure I would be okay medically for sedation, so today I went in (after a couple false starts due to insurance paperwork snafus). The doc who did the physical noted my skin rashes, but thinks it might not be psoriasis, but possibly some allergy or disease to pork and beef (and beef byproducts including dairy), so he wants me to cut out all pork, beef and dairy for three months to see if my skin clears up. Beef is easy, as I've been boycotting beef already for over a decade ... pork not so much, as I love making myself homemade Egg McMuffins with ham and hot dogs. Dairy will be the hardest ..... no cheese or ice cream!?

My blood pressure is a bit high but not terrible. I know I can knock it down if I discipline myself a bit more on sodium ...... and really I should harp down on my cholesterol, too. I have other issues I want to have looked at, but I'm financially strapped between the dental surgery which will be several thousand dollars and my car needs radiator service, as its been overheating even after getting the thermostat replaced a couple of weeks ago. I had to close out my savings account today to have money on hand to handle both ... the dental I can get a payment plan for, but probably not the auto service.

Tooth aches suck in a bad way, mmmkay?

Cost for dental surgery not much more pleasant. :/ I just got the bad news, for the work I need, it will cost $4500. My remaining savings after having recently bought a car won't fully cover this, so its going to get split in half, half this year and half next (after my dental coverage limit refreshes and I have had time to regain savings). I am not in dire financial straits, this isn't a 'please gimme 'mergency monies' but it is going to completely wipe out everything I have saved up thus far and will gobble up a huge chunk of my future income for awhile. :/

Rainfurrest is definitely out for me this year, I just can't take the time off work and even if I could, I wouldn't be able to spend hardly anything at all. And trying to find a new place to live is also out. I am going to go with a payment plan with the dentist even for just the first half, so I can maintain a basic emergency fund in case my new car goes out (I actually need to get a new battery and a few new tires for it) or something else blows up, but its rather shocking this pile of money I have managed to accumulate over the past year is utterly gone. :/