Twice each year my allergies return to plague me.

Once in the Fall, when everything is dying and vegetation starts to rot. Then again in the Spring, when I'm the one that's dying because the grasses and flowers return to life. It could be worse. When I was a kid that suffered year 'round and had to get three shots a week.

Spring, while being my favorite season, is also the time of year I'm my most miserable. I dope up of allergy drugs to try and push through while my body adjusts, but as I get older and older it's harder and harder for me to adapt. I used to have a runny nose, itchy eyes, and a sore throat for three days or so. Then it was a week. Then two weeks. Now it's at least three weeks. And my symptoms get worse every year as well.

On Saturday I woke up and could barely see. It felt like my eyes were swollen shot. And maybe they were. That made it real fun to crawl downstairs to feed my cats. Sunday was even worse, but I was prepared. I brought a can of cat food with me the night before so I could dish out breakfast without breaking my next.

I gave up on blogging over the weekend, and decided to try again on Monday. Then Tuesday. I was going to pass again tonight, but decided to just take a Benadryl early and see what happens. I don't know that it did a ton of good but I was able to see to type, which was good enough for me.

If you aren't old enough to remember what it was like to exist before smart phones, then you have no idea how utterly bizarre the world was back then. Comparatively speaking.

I, of course, am not only familiar with the world before smart phones, I'm familiar with a world before personal computers! Yes. I am that old. And the weird thing is that I do not think about The Before Times. Like at all. I never call up Google Maps or answer a text on my iPhone and think "Gee... remember what it was life before Steve Jobs blessed humanity with this thing? As far as I'm concerned, smart phones feel like they've always existed.

No, what got me to thinking about The Before Times was this video by Eddy Burback where he gave up his mobile phone. And even then, I didn't really think about it UNTIL he got to the part where he was watching old episodes of Sex and The City at the 15-minute mark. THEN I was like "Holy crap..."

I am not to the point where I want to give up my iPhone.

Not even a little bit.

That being said, I am very, very glad that I got to experience life without smart phones. It was a very different time. And not really in a bad way.

I am a bit more mixed when it comes to personal computers. On one hand, being there at the beginning of it all was a super-exciting time to be alive. But on the other hand, it would have been nice if personal computing was a bit further along when I was younger. Particularly in high school.

Though given the horrific state of cyber-bullying, maybe I should be glad it was still in its infancy.

I likely wouldn't have survived it.

You know how when the end of your vacation is pending and you try to enjoy those last precious moments of your time off... but can't help but think about all the stuff that's waiting for you back at the office? That's where I'm at now. And I can't drink myself into forgetting, because driving responsibly is more important than ever given how idiots on the road are looking at their phones all the time. OR READING A BOOK... WHICH, I SHIT YOU NOT... IS SOMETHING I SAW ON SUNDAY! I was a passenger, so I could see that a woman had a literal book on top of her steering wheel. And the reason I noticed WAS BECAUSE I SAW HER TURNING THE PAGE! Gotta be super-sober when assholes like that are on the road. Which is infuriating, because I'd argue somebody who's reading is more dangerous than somebody who's had a few drinks. I wonder if she knows about audiobooks?

Anyway...

Yesterday for my birthday we left the casino to eat at a bar. It was Monday, which is apparently "Crab Night" where you can blow through as much crab as you can eat for just $39.99... and, let me tell you, there were people eating serious amounts of crab.

Being vegetarian, that wasn't for me... but I did get a kick out of the sign for it...

I think poor SpongeBob's leg got accidentally erased while they were hanging the sign. But Patrick came through with all limbs attached...

Poor Mr. Krabs!

Though if you like eating that gross stuff, I'm sure he was delicious.

Suppose I should pack my suitcase.

WAAAAAAAAHHHH!

Today's my birthday!

Except I'm writing it two days later because I am (was) drunk in a casino for my birthday.

I'd say I'm one year closer to retirement, but it's looking doubtful that I'll ever be able to retire given the current plans for Social Security and the dire state of my 401K. So I guess I'll just be happy I'm one year closer to death? That sounds about right.

Happy belated birthday to me.

The thing about traveling over the mountains this time of year is that the weather is unpredictable. There have been years that late March is worse for winter storms than the dead of winter.

When I left this morning, my preferred mountain pass was "Snowing with Traction Tires Required" which was good enough for me because my winter tires are still on and I always have chains. But before I even got to the road that goes up to the pass, I was re-routed over an entirely different pass. This one ended up being "Bare and Wet with No Restrictions" which was even better (despite adding 15 minutes to my travel time).

And so I backtracked to the highway so I could be on my merry way.

The drive was far from incident-free due to heavy rains and fog.

At the base of the pass there was a bad accident in the opposite direction which had traffic backed-up for miles and miles and miles.

Then a couple miles from the top, an asshole driver was eating my bumper (even though there was nowhere for me to go), so I pulled over and let him grind on the person ahead of me. That wasn't good enough, so he cut in front of me (with very poor visibility on wet roads, I remind you) and went surging past the car that was in his way.

I didn't see the accident because I couldn't see more than a car-length ahead of me.

But I heard it.

Which meant traffic had to halt while the asshole (and the car he cut in front of that couldn't stop like I did) made their way off the road.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

The asshole was in such a massive hurry that he was driving recklessly in terrible conditions... instead of just leaving ten minutes early. So was it really worth it?

At least nobody ended up dead.

This time.

While I was taking a minute to scarf a mini pizza down for lunch, I received an unknown caller. Used to be I could just ignore them and have them leave a voicemail, but I can no longer do that because of my job. I have to answer every call because it could be something vitally important for my work.

When I answered the call, it was some piece of fucking shit scammer asking for my mother!

Absolutely nothing brings me quicker to anger than this bullshit, and that's saying a lot given how much there is to be mad about in this sick, sad world.

After screaming "SHE'S DEAD! DON'T CALL HERE AGAIN!" people usually hang up. But this woman? She asked who I was. I screamed "I'M HER SON, NOW FUCK OFF!" Though I think she hung up before I got to the good part.

Odds are it was some assholes wanting to sell her an extended warranty for her car or some such crap. Because preying on older people who don't know any better is what these repugnant grifters love to do. And, hey, there's absolutely no consequences... so can you really blame them?

It took me over an hour to bleed out my rage.

Between crap like this and weekly texts telling me "YOU HAVE UNPAID TOLLS!" from scammers, I am at my absolute limit. This story from CNBC has the headline "Why the toll road text scam is out of control across the U.S., and Apple, Android can’t do anything to stop it" is such a pile of stupid as to be laughable.

I have an iPhone and Apple offers nothing to help combat text spam. Apple could provide one-touch spam reporting & blocking across devices instead of burying it. Apple could allow keyword filtering across devices. Apple could do a lot of things to make dealing with this horrendous shit easier... but they won't. Because they're focused on AI that nobody wants for some stupid reason. And then news organizations like CNBC are letting Apple off the hook by telling everybody nothing can be done when it's just not true. Why is that?

Talk about "fake news." Jesus.

Maybe I've watched The Beekeeper too many times... but it's only a matter of time before somebody goes hunting for these spammers... no matter where they're from. Somebody is going to lose all their money or have a loved one lose all their money and make it their mission in life to hunt the people responsible. I cannot condone this violence, of course. But I would understand it...

Dang that was a good movie. No idea why I love it so much. I seriously need to watch it yet again.

This has been my second day of working 14 hour days. I used to do that all the time. Heck, back in 2019 I would put in 8-10 hours at the office, then go home and put in 3-5 hours doing work for the charity I volunteered with. But something has happened in the last five years that's making it a lot harder.

And, yeah, I know that part of the problem is that I'm getting older. But not really.

The problem is that the stress of everyday living has ramped up to 11, and it's been wearing me down. I spend so much energy dealing with the horrors of This American Existence that I've got precious little left to get me past a regular 8-hour work day. And believe me... I know that it's a lot worse for a lot of people, but still...

And then there's the very real possibility that Social Security is going to be gutted, which means this will never, ever end. I've been paying a huge amount of money into the system for the vast majority of my life. It's my money for my retirement. And yet I might not see a penny of it because I'm being told that it's not my money after all. It's government waste, and I'm better off working myself to death.

So great. So great.

Which is to say that even once I've got everything caught up at work, I'll likely end up working 16 hour days eventually anyway because I'll need two jobs just to get by.

I find it categorically disgusting that credit reporting companies have such absolute and total control over your ability to EXIST in this world, but have absolutely zero accountability for this power they hold over you.

Take for example, Experian. I have to create an online account with them. I fill out all the information they require, but it says they can't verify me. I try THREE TIMES, making extra careful that I was accurate in the information I provided. Won't verify. So I call the number they give you.

No person answers of course. You get some awful automated system that asks you what you want. I tell them I need to verify my account online. It doesn't understand. I try again. THE SYSTEM HANGS UP ON ME.

I go through this crap TWO MORE TIMES, trying to rephrase it in different ways. Not even saying "REPRESENTATIVE" works. So I have to Google for a different number. I call it, get connected with customer service, who proceeds to ask me numerous questions. I answer each question accurately... even looking up specific amounts online to make sure I'm correct. Doesn't matter. I'm told that I answered one of the questions wrong. EXCEPT I DIDN'T. I VERIFIED EVERY DANG ANSWER IN REAL TIME.

So what now? NOTHING! THAT'S WHAT! The rep was going to escalate my to somebody, but their manager refused to talk with me because I answered a question wrong? Again, I didn't. BUT ISN'T THAT WHY YOU TALK TO A MANAGER IN THE FIRST PLACE?!? So what now? Wait 72 hours and try again. I'm not even joking.

I've wasted 40 minutes dealing with Experian, got nowhere, and have to call back... at which point they'll likely find a way to deny verification AGAIN.

How is this legal? If this company has this kind of power over me, they shouldn't get to blow me off when I need help. When a company has this kind of power over me, they should be REQUIRED to resolve stuff like this BY LAW.

Then again, a company shouldn't have this kind of power over me in the first place.

   
I am so tired that I think my brain is turning to mush.

I decided to buy a freezer to stick in my garage.

Being single is incredibly expensive food-wise. It seems like absolutely everything that's affordable at the grocery store is made affordable by being sold in a huge quantities or forcing you to buy multiple packages of the same thing. But I can't do that because I don't have much freezer space. If I purchase some kind of "buy two get one free" deal for "Family Size" anything, then that's all I'm eating until it's gone so I can make room for something else in my refrigerator's freezer.

Small "garage-ready" freezers are actually fairly affordable. Unless you've just paid $1700 for plumbing work, like I have... but still... not terrible. A couple hundred bucks.

If you are happy to manually defrost it a couple times of year.

If you don't want to manually defrost the thing, then you're paying a lot more, even on sale. I bit the bullet and bought the frost-free version because I know for a fact that I won't bother to defrost anything until there's so much ice that I can't fit food into it any more.

So... a freezer will be here next week!

Which means I have to find a spot for it in my garage.

Given that my garage is full of woodworking tools that have been piled up until Spring arrives and I can start building things again (assuming I can afford to buy the wood), making space is easier said than done. I've been throwing out stuff I don't need and donating stuff I won't use in anticipation of buying a freezer since January 1st. But that's only gotten me so far. So tonight I started completely rearranging everything. Which has been quite a chore. But I think I've finally played garage Jenga enough to figure it out. I'm 85% there.

This weekend I'll take another pass and shore up that remaining 15%.

Either that or I won't, which means I'll be parking outside for a while. Which is not great because we've had some seriously cold weather here, and I don't relish the idea of scraping frost off my windows in the morning. That's the kind of freezing I don't want.