Yeah, it came back up shortly after I wrote that. Apparently all I had to do was complain. Squeaky wheel gets the bandwidth.

What is pissing you off this time?
 

Popdigr's tv apparently took a shit last night. He was watching when the sound went out, it didn't come back, so he turned the tv off and went to bed. I got up this morning (afternoon) and the tv won't even turn on, w/the remote, nor the power button.

Now he has to decide whether to have it looked at, or just go get another tv. Could be a power supply issue, but, that wouldn't explain the sound going out, I mean, I guess it could, but, it doesn't gibe.

For about a hundred bucks over what it would cost to have looked at/get fixed, he could probably get as good or better a tv new.

My ex-wife. I know, no shock there. Well lets see ... Imma ramble a bit here, cuz I'm really PISSED.

After my son's accident, she sued me for custody while he was still in a friggin coma. This is because we were told he would never emancipate and if she regained custody, then I would pay her child support for the rest of his life! I fought and won. We settled so she would get Wednesday nights, every other weekend and a week in the summer.

To this day she has routinely not upheld her side of the deal even though I have been EXTREMELY flexible. That makes planning anything very difficult - just sayin'.

For the last 3 years, she has probably seen him once a month, if that. Heck, after stipulating that I couldn't move more than 50 miles away; she decided to divorce her 2nd husband and move to the beach (100+ miles away.) Now its come play at the beach. Every time she has him her Facebook page is littered with the "mother of the year" & I love my kids so much" pictures. Sickening really.

Anyway. So she is taking him this weekend. Daniel LIVES to go to his HS football games every Fri nite. She knows this. Big issue that she has to wait till 9 when the game is over - tough shit, IMO - err rather welcome to parenthood.

This weekend she wanted to take him to the beach for family time with her parents. No problem. Fri night when she shows up, her new BF is driving and they are all gong together. Daniel strongly dislikes the guy. And now the fun begins. Aside from the "mother of the year" posts on FB, she tells me they aren't going to be home when we agreed. She has decided that they are coming back later as she wants to watch the Eagles game with her dad (4:00 start time). This means that Dan won't be home till 10pm at best.

Since his accident, Daniel is EXTREMELY routine oriented and disrupting that makes things difficult for him and those around him. He has been texting me for the last two hours about wanting to come home earlier, but she won't let him. I'm pissed off on a number of fronts, not the least of which is that his bedtime routine takes almost an hour. He won't be asleep till probably 11 and then has to get up at 6:30 for his morning routine. He has to be at work at 8:30. This will throw his routine off for days. This whole week he'll be off. We've done this before and discussed it and assurances were made that "we" wouldn't do it again.

I suggested that Daniel explain/discuss coming home earlier with her. I'm trying to get him to be more independent and discuss what HE wants/needs with others. He says she refused to talk about it, they are staying for dinner and then watching the game with Pap, then going home afterward.
I then get an extremely long, immature expletive laced text directly from her concluding with "deal with it" & her infamous signoff - "Peace & Love"

How is it that someone who is almost 50 still doesn't get that its not about what she WANTS, but what Daniel NEEDS? WTF? Am I totally wrong for being pissed off or is it just me being the "controlling bastard" I'm always accused of being?

It's not you. It's her. Feel free to be pissed off. Peace & Love ;)

Tit for tat.

From the outside looking in on this fragment from your perspective, it seems the disparity is between what the two of you consider real needs versus perceived needs.

Is Dan capable of posting on his mother's FB page; or, having his own on which to post his perspective on what impact these decisions have during the days immediately following disruption of his routine?

Perhaps you are unaware that Dan is cognitively disabled.

What tit for tat???

To me, its always about her and whats she wants. She does the same shit with the other two kids. The issue here is that it is BAD for Daniel to be home later than 8:30pm. She knows this. This is her intentionally being a dick.
I'm not sure what you are talking about - please elaborate.

To elaborate, perhaps you can use what he can do (i.e. express his feelings in a recorded venue) in a venue your ex values, - FB. It doesn't have to be an analysis by Dan, it could just be examples of his feelings after disruption of his routine. They don't have to be posted by Dan himself; but, there has to be something by Dan (e.g. saved text messages) to back them up. Perhaps your ex won't find her reputation on FB as easy to blow off as she does you. Achilles' heel?:

Classic: you're the one who cares for Dan on a day to day basis. You understand his needs. You are not being unreasonable expecting her to put his needs before her own. She is being unreasonable.

Strictly speaking--and I'm not necessarily advocating this, I'm just saying--if the custody order has her returning him at a certain time, and she doesn't, you can call the cops on her and they will absolutely show up. Most likely just give her a talking-to, not charge her with kidnapping or anything, but it might get through to her. And if you have documentation of repeated offenses involving police officers, you could potentially file for sole custody with no visitation in the future, assuming you feel she's that detrimental to him.

Of course it will obviously lead to retaliation, and thus no more Friday football games for Dan, at a minimum. You'd have to ask him how he feels about that, getting his routine vs. a football game once a month.

No time specified, unfortunately. We just, as adults, agreed after the last time she did this and Dan was "off" for days. Its a power trip for her. She's showing off in front of her new BF and her parents. This is all about her - EVERYTHING always is. Just like the drugs, drinking and infidelity. Whatever she wants, whatever makes her feel good in the moment is what she justifies in her twisted mind.

This has been discussed. It will create a shitstorm. I have always operated for all my kids from the position that she is, and always will be their mother. I am beginning to not care anymore. She's an asshat.

Great ... I just got a text from Dan ... They haven't even left yet... its 2+ hour ride here. Whats the female version of a DICK, cuz that's what she is being right now.
Typically he is starting he routine in 10 minutes.

Oh no no no, those are part of his routine. He lives for that. He can adjust on the Sat. There is no work for him on the weekends. Thats just where she picked him up.

I think Jim knows the word you need. ;)

This sucks, I'm so sorry. Here's my 2c.... does Dan look forward to seeing her? Does he want to go? Does he come home happy or stressed? I know it's hard to make decisions about his welfare that you wish he were able to make for himself, but it doesn't sound to me like this is doing him one ounce of good. I'm kind of wondering if you should "suggest" that equity requires her to keep him withi 50 miles of your home and see how that goes down. Sure the beach is fun, but isn't this about them seeing each other rather than external entertainment?

I'm waffling, but when I was younger and the thing that scarred me most (I think) were the power games they played. And yes, it was mostly my mom too, especially when I went to live with my dad. :(

Yeh, I'm sure he does.

Depends. Sometimes he misses who she was. He likes her for short periods of time - Like when they go have dinner & hang out for a couple hours. Or when they go to the beach, he likes to see his grandparents.
Sometimes. He likes to go when his sister, brother or other family is there. Frankly, he wants to see the other people more than his mom. I'd even go so far as to say she is a means to that end.
Usually he is happy to be home. This is his safe place. I guess relieved is a good descriptor. They aren't around him a lot. They think they can do all this fun stuff all day. He doesn't have the stamina for that. He gets exhausted easily.
In addition to wanting him to make them, I would like his friggin mother to have some intelligent input. Heck just an idea or a thought on a therapy or a vitamin, supplement or activity. Set up something for him to socialize with other people his age. Call/do SOMETHING ... ANYTHING. Show some forethought or concern for the future. A plan, an idea, a solution .. With her its always about her and what she wants. It's a lot to be the only one deciding EVERYTHING all the time. Its different than with a regular kid. Its a lot. My GF is good to share and all, but she is not his mom. They have a great relationship but she's not his mother.
Yeh, thats a thought. She has no place nor money to see him and I'd be the controlling bastard keeping his maternal grandparents from seeing him etc etc etc. Everything gets twisted with these people.

yebbut at least there's a precedent.... Do you really care what they think? And more importantly, how much will the spin they put on it register with and affect Dan?

Damn. When you see her ask her why she couldn't have done this NEXT Sunday when Daylight Savings Time ends and clocks get set back an hour which would minimize the impact. Shortsighted dingbat.

And we have a winner!

Dan finished his routine and went to bed about 15 mins ago.
He hated the weekend. Too long, Mom was more interested in seeing BF than being with him and on and on. I've got some serious decisions to make.

So sorry things turned out shitty for Dan, and the rest of you by association. What a shame his mother is not more sensible. :(

Sorry man.

She sounds like a fucking nightmare to deal with. *hugs* sorry you're having to deal with this shit on top of everything else.

Maybe after a cooling off period you could revisit the agreement you have and get 8:30 and any other issues on paper.

Thats part of my plan. Shes not capable of dealing with him for an extended period of time. Heck, she can't keep herself straight for one either.

I'm having thoughts of:
1- Going for full custody.
2- Getting full guardianship. (control over financial, legal & medical decisions.

The money is an issue - It will cost thousands, take a heavy emotional toll & wreak havoc amongst the rest of us.
Playing the ostrich just isn't working for him, nor me anymore. I had to help him to bed last night. I haven't done that in over 3 years.
On top of that his attitude & demeanor have sucked all day today as expected.
He was even shitty to my mom who gave him a ride to work and tried to surprise him for lunch.

Good luck getting it done bro.

tx

I‘ve never been much of a fan of the Direct Debit system of paying recurring bills as it seems, despite guarantees, to be open season on one’s bank account. Consequently I always paid my ISP monthly bill by credit card.

The company was taken over a few years ago and a £1.99/month surcharge immediately imposed on anyone paying by card, so my bill increased from £15.31 to £17.30 per month.
At the time I did consider going over to Direct Debit but the ISP was an outfit notorious for bungling customer billing and were never out of the complaint columns in the financial pages of the national press.

Fast forward to last month. In an effort to get some sort of return on my money, I opened a Current (checking) Account that paid interest.
Among the conditions were a minimum of two Direct Debits and a fee of £2.00 per month. It sounded a reasonable deal so I took the bull by the horns and converted my ISP bill to a DD.
£2.00 fee minus £1.99 surcharge = net cost of £0.01 per month.

This morning an Email arrived from the ISP saying that my bill would be increased by £5.00 from December. As near as damn it by 33%!

And the moral of the story? You can’t win. You’re bloody fortunate if you break even.

So the ISP will be 22.30 GPB or about 36 USD. That's just internet? Wireless, wire(cable), or over phone lines? Is it fast or a lot of latency?

The ISP bill will be £20.31 ie £15.31 + £5.00 increase, the credit card surcharge no longer applying as I've gone over to Direct Debit..

It's just for internet access although, to be fair, I could get a better deal if we placed all the telecoms business with them.
I keep getting Emails offering all sorts of inducements to change to a bundle of services but I'm happy with things as they are.
As Dad has the phone line on contract from another outfit, it would probably be more trouble than it's worth to change.

I've just done a speed check and it comes in at 16.51mb/s over the phone line. I have to say that it's pretty reliable and outages are rare although it does slow down at peak times.

A fibre optic line passes the gate so I could take advantage of that but I suspect that it would be a bit pricey although blisteringly fast..

Sounds like they are at least wearing a condom, rather than the roughing up they do here. ;)

God damn, I fucking hate glitter.

Also, lost another Uncledigr. Took cancer to kill this one. He was a Marine the day he was born, and he was still a Marine the day he died.

Fuck cancer.

:blackr::f207:

Ha ha ha, On my Christmas card this year I threatened anyone sending me a card with glitter, that I would hate them with body and soul, for at least 22 months. :haha:

Damnit Digr, don't slip in dead/dying friends or relatives while I'm posting. Sorry.

Well, it pissed me off.

Also, I'm sneaky like that.

Sorry Digr.

Sorry to hear that, grav.

I was writing a post with chuckles about glitter in it too ... then saw your second post. Stop being sneaky already!

Ditto on the glitshitter.

Sorry to hear bout your Uncle.

Yes. Bruce. I have the same policy. I got your Christmas card the other day. Thanks! You can count on me to never send you glitter. If you want glitter, get it off a stripper.

I imagine that warning would go double for this Glitter.

Bell's Palsy. :neutral:

Ah dang!

Is it bad?

That sucks. Sorry Bruce. I hope it clears up soon.

Lyme related? What causes it?

My uncle suffered from that. I hope it's manageable. :(

Annoying but more embarrassing than debilitating, so far.
Doing a 10 day regimen of steroids and see what happens.

They don't know, but I hadn't seen Lyme mentioned as a possibility. The best thinking is something is fucking with the nerve bundle on one side of the face or the other. This bundle controls a lot of shit including facial muscles, eye blinking and taste. Usually it goes away as the body takes care of the injury or infection causing pressure on the bundle. Sometimes it doesn't.

@Clod, was it a recurring thing with your uncle, or continuing?

It was pretty bad for awhile, then it went away for several years. I don't know what they did to fix it, if anything. Recently it seems to be coming back a little, but that's alongside some other pretty severe health problems, including multiple heart attacks and feet that have been numb for over two years, so I feel confident that it's not being addressed in any way now.

Sorry Bruce. I think three folks on my Dad's side of the family had Bell's. It was never a permanent condition, but I don't know about treatment.

Our neighbor had it for a couple of months. It got better, but he had to wear an eye patch for a while because his eye wouldn't close.

I hope yours doesn't get that bad.

I can't close my left eye by itself, but I can close both, as well as the right by itself.

So I've got that going for me, which is nice. :haha:

Well you just have to remember not to try and wink with your left eye. ;)

Yeah, I've lost 50% of my ability to recover from a social faux pas. ;)

The-Female-Formerly-Known-As-Baby went through a bout of this several years ago, IIRC, it lasted about a month.

That's almost a Bell's Palsy emoticon. Just needs a slight tweak:

Attachment 49853

Yeah, I'd noticed that. So is :neutral:

A (dropped) AAA goalie joining the school hockey team mid season, taking my boy's number and forcing him to share a number and a spot so he won't even dress for half the games.

and I imagine is unlikely to play the 4 games required to letter.

Yeah I posted this in the hockey mom thread. yeah, i'm REALLY REALY FUCKING PISSED

I don't blame you, how's thor taking it?

hector is pissed. thor doesn't know 'cause it's not him and he was in bed when we got home ;)

hec heard the rumors and was already upset, and we were all "well they can't do that (add another goalie) , there are rules about tryouts and not attending them....." :rolleyes: but we had no inkling that it would be this bad. how in the fuck can you take a player's number? It's printed in the fricking color glossy program that is the same every game ffs and they have to share a spot? FUCK THE HELL OUT OF HERE. I hope he gets a hernia in both nuts and has to have them amputated.

Sorry, your tribe is so busy I got confused about which be doing which.
So Hector has learned a valuable life lesson, the rules don't apply to coaches, cops and politicians. :(

I have a cake to put out tomorrow, and I'm in the middle of trying to bake it now and I've managed to totally fuck it up. First it's overflowed, and then I took one tier out and it's not cooked. I hope the other two still in there are going to turn out a bit better. :/ Sometimes I really feel like I just can't be fucked with anything cause everything I touch lately is turning to shit.

ok, so one out of three cakes is ok so far. We will see about the next one. I will rebake the first one in the morning.

This morning, although the boiler ignited, the radiators showed a marked reluctance to start radiating. Aged dad decided to call the plumber (ON A SUNDAY?) to see what could be done.

Now, dad is deaf and having managed to establish something resembling two-way communication, he handed the phone to me. Said plumber asked me to have a look at the pump which is in the loft, so I did.

I'm fairly agile, but I'm quite tall so have to crouch down as I make my way along the roof space. Given that it was a Sunday morning, I wanted to be as quick as possible so that the plumber suffered the least inconvenience.

Unfortunately, despite adopting a gait reminiscent of Charles Laughton in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I managed to walk straight into a beam with such force that it knocked me over.

I've got a cut across my forehead but, as far as can be determined, haven't suffered any other damage.

End result, a bump on the head and no heating. One is doubly pissed off. :eyebrow:



PS Plumber calling in tomorrow AM.

Now I know I'm truly Americanized. You're paying the damn plumber aren't you? Sorry about your forehead. I presume you didn't want to inconvenience the medical profession by getting it checked out, so I hope you iced it and cleaned it out thoroughly -don't want to get any fibres from the insulation in there :(

True, the plumber will be well paid, but I'm still conscious (in every way :)) that it's a Sunday so didn't want to disturb him any more than necessary.

No doubt he would have come out immediately for a burst pipe or similar, but that would have resulted in a huge bill.

There are firms that will turn out at any hour of the day or night but they are hideously expensive.

Our chap has two or three bods working for him and he's worth keeping on side, so to speak.

Yes, the bump on the bonce seems OK, but I didn't want to go to A&E if it could be avoided.

I was compos mentis enough to work out that I didn't have double vision so was probably not concussed.

I made sure that I didn't go to sleep after lunch as I'm not sure if dad would have noticed if I had become unconscious in the medical sense.

Anyway, as far as I can divine, I'm still reasonably coherent, jibber... jabber... wibble...

Concussion often doesn't truly show until the next day. Be concerned if you have trouble sleeping or any headache other than pain from the bruise. And if you have any difficulty concentrating (unless you're reading a gravdigr late-night post ;) )