New toys

The most recent thing that occupies my time on the web

 

 

Vacation Day 1 or 2 or 3 or 4

Greetings and salutations and all that jazz.  Since I am on vacation, I really didn't plan to blog. That thought was compounded when my mother said that her home computer blew up, which could mean anything from it actually blowing up to something simple like it being unplugged.  That being said, I hardly felt like being Mr. Fix It while off, so whatever is wrong with it will be a problem that someone else will have to deal with.  Sans computer one may wonder how this blog came to be.  Well trudge on fearless reader, and learn the answers to this and many more probing questions.

Technically my vacation started on Friday, but it wasn't much of a day off.  Actually it wasn't a day off at all, but it ended up being more painful than it should have been.  Friday is the big delivery day at work, we get a Pepsi truck, a Coke truck and usually a grocery order as well.  This means that I am involved in catching the first two trucks and helping put them away, checking in the majority of the grocery order and helping to put that away as well.  Plus I have been handed new found responsibilities, as I am now in charge of inventorying the cigarettes three times a week and putting together a candy order also three times a week, both of which just happen to include Friday as one of those days.  So, under the most normal of circumstances Friday is a busy day for me.  To make this Friday even better, my crew (technically I am now in charge of the stock room people when I am on duty, woohoo more work) consisted of me and one other guy, Gray, who is actually pretty cool and I like working with him, but for reasons known to others higher up the pay scale, they pulled him out and sent him to another store on Friday, which meant all of the above stuff that was listed plus the simple things like, I don't know, making sure the shelves were stocked and we didn't run out of anything, fell solely on my shoulders for the entire day.  Needless to say, I ended up running my ass off.

After work I still had to come home, doing a load of laundry and pack for the trip home, all of which I managed to accomplish in less than three hours (go me and all that jazz) before my mom showed up to start my weekend adventure.

Through the course home I found out that my mom had the anti green thumb on all things technical, as she told me about the computer and apparently the satellite dish for the TV is on the fritz as well, so no TV while I am at home.  Not that a lack of TV is bad, I probably save a few brain cells in that transaction, but still it left me wondering just what I would do for mindless entertainment during my down times.

We stopped to eat on the way back through at a place called Dobros.  It isn't much too look at and even less food wise, It is okay and little more than that, but mom wanted to buy dinner, so I tagged along and at least covered the tip.  Next stop before we would make it back was a quick stop to say hi to my grandma, who was actually sleeping in her chair in the living room when we arrived, with the Tv still blaring on.  I would have been content to just let her sleep, but my mom nudged her awake, so we stayed and chatted for about 45 minutes, then it was back into the car for some late night grocery shopping for the coming weekend.  Two events were planned, one was a trip to DelGrosso park on Saturday and a family picnic/getogether on Sunday, both of which require food of some sort.  I asked what I should bring to the park and was told I didn't have to bring anything, but since it was a picnic type setting, I at least grabbed a few bags of chips to go with the sandwiches and what not that we were going to have.  For Sunday, I was planning on making spinach dip and a veggie tray (I should have just campus fooded it, FB users will get that joke), regardless, it meant I had to do some shopping for both. 

Finally, somewhere around 10;30pm we got in, and after a little chatting, mom and I called it a night.

Saturday was the day at DelGrosso park.  DelGrosso park is a small amusement park in Tipton, PA and was established by the DelGrosso family, whose major claim to fame is spaghetti sauces (www.delgrossosauce.com).  It is not the only park in PA to be named after food, the most famous of course being Hershey Park, but there have been others, such as Boyertown.  Anyway, the last Saturday in June, my uncle Bud offers to pay for anyone who wants to go to the park and it becomes a family outing of sorts.  This was my first trip, my mom opted to stay home so she could help with setting up the stuff for Sunday, so I ended up riding to the park with Bud, his wife Carrie and my cousin Melanie, who is back from Dallas Texas on a vacation.  All was good on the ride to the park until we found out that the cars brakes were dying.  A little geography lesson is in order here, as what cuts through this region of Pennsylvania is something known as the Appalachian Mountains.  Eastern PA is flat, and if you go west into Ohio is also levels out quite nicely, but in the central west portion of the state, it is very hilly to be polite.  And here we were, going up and down these rather large hills in a car that may or may not be able to stop.  We made it to the park in one piece, due in large part to not needing to make any sudden stops, as those would have been an impossibility had they occurred.

The park is unique in that you can get into the park for free, you only have to pay money if you are going to ride the rides.  They have a picnic area where you can set up so in theory you can go to the park and walk around all day and never spend a dime, but Bud does this as a family outing and offers to pay for everyone, we just have to show up and bring stuff to eat and make a day of it, parking and eating and eating and parking.  Mostly we watch the smaller kids ride the rides, though they do have some bigger rides that I partook of a little bit.  They also have some games and what not in the park, I won a couple of stuffed items, a banana and a guitar that I gave away, I think I have enough stuff in my apartment already.

Of course that still meant we had to manage the ride back from the park, and while we did get some more break fluid, the leak in the break line got progressively worse, so bad that the breaks were all but gone by the time we made it back to Bud and Carrie's.  We put the car up on jacks and I pressed the break pedal while Bud looked under the car to see the damage and brake fluid just poured out.    We called my mom, who came out to pick me up rather than try to make it back to her place with the car in that condition.    So I did a little visiting instead and after my mom showed up and we bs-ed even more I headed home, making it back around 11pm.  Of course I still had my spinach dip to throw together for the family outing the next day.

I should note that I took some time off in putting this entry together, and some things that I thought were happening were actually different.  In the attempt to maintain timeline continuity however, I will try to keep them in line as much as possible.  Right now I am technically home from vacation having made it back to Pittsburgh a couple of hours ago.  As for how I was able to blog from home earlier while the computer was on the fritz, my laptop actually managed to garner a really good signal from someplace, a far better signal than I can steal in my apartment, so I was piggybacking on somebody's internet, but I have no idea who's it was.  Okay, back to the story.

We got home Saturday night and I started the spinach dip.  It is really easy to make, just a matter of mixing the ingredients.  Chopping the veggies was more work than the actual dip, and carving the pumpernickel loaf, but the dip itself was pretty easy.  My mom told me about her day while making potato salad, as she didn't go to the park but went to help my aunt Mary set up at her house for the family getogether on Sunday, and she called the satellite TV people to see if they could fix the dish.  That didn't go so well, it still didn't work but since we had stuff to do it wasn't like a lack of TV was a bad thing, plus it probably saved a few brain cells.  After finishing up in the kitchen I headed off to bed for the night.

Sunday morning I was up fairly early, which really wasn't called for, we weren't to see the family until 1pm or so.  I grabbed me some coffee, bagels and cigarettes to greet the day.  On a hunch I happened to turn on the TV, I figured I would see what was tried with the satellite people the day before and after breezing through a couple of menus and resetting the receiver I made the TV functional again.  Go me, I am that good.  Mom left for a bit to run some errands and get a Sunday paper, I just sat around and played on my laptop, getting into a discussion on a friends Facebook page regarding whether or not it was appropriate to talk about the allegations of pedophilia with Michael Jackson in lieu of his death, I was a yes guy, many of the others were a no vote, which hogged up a good portion of my morning, enough so that I didn't realize how long my mom was gone, which would have been a clue as to what was in store.

Anyway, she made it back and we watched part of an episode of that show that is on all the cable channels, Law and Order and we packed the car and headed out to the picnic.  We arrived what I would call fashionably late, around 15 minutes or so afterward and proceeded to unload the car and helped set up the tables so people could grab stuff to eat.  We had loads of food, burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, taco salad, chips, veggies, dip (including my veggie dip), grape salad, cookies, just all kinds of wholesome goodness, plus beverages galore, though I gravitated to the run with pineapple juice like the proverbial moth to a flame.

Then the surprise came.  as well as being a family picnic this was also a surprise birthday party for me.  To say I was floored would be a mild understatement.  That was why my mom didn't make it to the park the day before, and why she ran errands that morning, she was picking up the birthday cake.  I literally had no clue.  Mind you, I didn't get any cards around my birthday, but I chalked that up to two factors, 1) by and large I never really had a huge birthday party previously and 2) I am now 40 years old, after a while you just don't make a big deal out of it.  yet here it was and i had absolutely no idea it was coming.  Yet it happened.  And we have visual evidence....

 

 

 

My mom was upset, I guess the balloons were supposed to be colored, but marble cake with vanilla icing and black lettering and balloons was cool with me.  Like I said, I expected nothing, so it was awesome as far as I knew.  Add that to all of the funny cards I received and it may have been the bestest day I ever had.  We stayed until around 9 or so, just eating and swimming and playing games and having a good time, which I tend to do when spending time with family,  Still, I am in awe of how everyone was ab;le to keep everything quiet, not that I am the most attentive of people, but usually someone slips up somewhere, yet I caught nary a peep that this would happen. 

We made it back home and after a little TV, two days of non stop running and I wa out like a light.

Finally we come to today, which was the easiest to talk about as I got up, had my coffee and started gathering my things for the long trip back.  We ran out and put gas in the car, then made a stop at Ponderosa  for lunch and made the journey back to Pittsburgh, where I am currently.  I will admit, after this weekend, it would have been very easy to just stay at home, but I guess it is time to return to the daily grind and so I shall, it just won't be easy.

Asshat - I would say only in America but that would be a disservice to 49 states

Yes gather ye rosebuds while ye may, it is Asshat time.  Sometimes  hunting down the Asshat can be a troubling proposition.  The bar to be Asshat is really an arbitrary ruling on my part, and some weeks it can be easily achieved, while others the feats have to be of the extraordinary variety.  So I delved into the web to see what I could muster this week and ran across this monstrosity.  Apparently Los Angeles County is proposing to pay parents to care for their kids.  Forget the fact that if you have kids ideally you should care for them anyway, LAC wants to go one better and reward you for doing your parental duty.  Yes, this week, that is Asshat worthy.   For more info....

 

L.A. County officials offer a novel idea to save millions

Supervisors suggest putting unemployed parents to work caring for their own children as part of proposed changes to CalWorks and other state government aid programs.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

June 17, 2009

With steep state budget cuts under debate in Sacramento, Los Angeles County supervisors voted Tuesday to push for changes to CalWorks and other government aid programs they said would save nearly $270 million.

Included in their suggestions is a novel proposal: Put unemployed parents to work caring for their own children.

"What we're saying is do not cut Welfare to Work outright: Target the cuts to the people who are the most expensive," said Miguel Santana, a deputy to the county's chief executive.

Parents now receiving assistance must attend job training and search for work. While they fulfill those requirements, they are eligible for subsidized child care, which typically costs the state about $500 a month per child in L.A. County.

The parents of children under age 1 may stay home and still receive benefits. Now, county officials propose expanding that to parents who have one child under age 2 or two children under age 6. Monthly job training and child-care costs for such parents often exceed their welfare check, Santana said.

In Los Angeles County, 8,000 households with more than one child under age 6 receive CalWorks-subsidized child care, according to the county's department of social services. If adopted, county officials estimate the proposal -- intended to counter Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's threat to eliminate CalWorks -- could save the state $140 million this fiscal year.

Some parents who would be affected by the change had mixed feelings.

After Antoinette Levenson's husband was laid off by a boat dealership two years ago, the mother of two applied for cash assistance and joined the state's Welfare to Work program.

Now Levenson, 27, is about six months from earning her associate degree in culinary arts and has a job lined up at Ralphs. She receives about $750 a month in assistance. The state also pays about $1,000 a month for her sons, Jaden, 4, and Gavyn, 2, to attend Canyon Vista Children's Learning Center in Chatsworth while she finishes school.

"If I had it my way, I'd stay home all day with my kids," Levenson said as she dropped the boys off Tuesday. "Then again, I love day care. My kids have learned so much."

Although Levenson said she is not sure she could replace her eldest son's preschool teachers, she is willing to try.

"There's times I just drive by and watch the kids," she said. "You'll never be able to get the kids' little years back."

But Priscilla Murillo of Canoga Park, a single mother with three children under age 5, said she wants to finish school and find a job as soon as possible. With her youngest child just a month old, Murillo, 27, could stay home now and still receive benefits. But she said the Welfare to Work program motivated her to continue pursuing her associate degree.

Murillo worries that if the state pays fellow single mothers to stay home, they will become dependent on welfare.

"I think it's good to push people," she said. "It helps them and it helps the economy."

Child-care providers also said they are concerned about looming cuts.

Michael Olenick, who heads the nonprofit Child Care Resource Center in Chatsworth, said 12,000 child-care staff members and parents in northern L.A. County alone rely on CalWorks.

"For many of them, it's the only source of revenue that they have," Olenick said of the CalWorks subsidies. "If they lose the revenue, then they end up on cash aid as well."

On Tuesday, a legislative budget committee in Sacramento rejected the governor's plan to eliminate CalWorks, proposing instead to cut it by $270 million. Those cuts include $175 million in reductions to child-care and employment services.

That would allow the county to move forward with its proposal, said Philip K. Browning, director of the county Department of Public Social Services.

"But it's still not a done deal -- the governor hasn't signed off on it yet," Browning said.

A spokeswoman for the governor said he will continue to push for the elimination of CalWorks but remains open to other options as he tries to close the $24.3-billion budget shortfall.

County supervisors -- who plan to pursue a waiver to get federal welfare funds even if CalWorks is eliminated -- also proposed Tuesday that the state cap and overhaul general relief for single people, as well as reduce payments to adoptive parents, disabled foster children and some child-care providers.

The proposal to allow more parents to stay home troubled some of the county supervisors, including Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who voted against exempting parents of children under age 2 from Welfare to Work.

"They should be seeking employment. In the long term it benefits everyone in the county," Antonovich said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina grudgingly voted yes.

"It doesn't fit with the spirit of Welfare to Work, but we're in a different situation," Molina said. "What we're doing is trying to say to them don't eliminate Welfare to Work -- here are some savings."

molly.hennessy-fiske @latimes.com