day 59

Alright. I originally came online here on the blog to simply post an entry saying "No entry tonight, will post tomorrow." The reason for this was because, at midnight, I was dozing off on the couch, dead tired, etc. However, after waking up a little bit, I felt myself tense and stressing out over stuff, about a little bit of everything, and so here I am. I decided I needed to come on here and post officially after all. So, today was my 1 day off before I go another stretch of probably 6-8 days in a row. Did I enjoy my day off? Sure! I always enjoy my days off. Was it enough. Heck no! Usually when I work the 40 hour week like I originally would do when Randy was still with us, then I would get off on Saturday morning, and have 4 days off, coming back to work and working 30 hours the following week. So, I really enjoyed and looked forward to my 4 day weekend.

So, here's the scoop as of today. Randy no call no showed Saturday. I got off saturday, and instead of being off for 4 days, I worked his saturday, sunday, monday, and tuesday. Tuesday I received a call from my boss with securitas saying that what the plan was currently was I was going to train a flex guy Wednesday evening, and then he would work thursday night, and I would take the day off. Then I would come back friday and figure on working 6 or 7 days straight.

So last night I trained the guy. Considering that we only had one night to train before he would work by himself tonight, I did the best I could. I tried to be the best role model of a security officer that I could, and train him the best that I could. Basically, wanted to make sure he was as ready to fly solo. Considering the amount of time we had, when we were off duty at 6, I was pretty confident that he had all the knowledge he needed, and that he could do it.

So today I got off at 6, but didn't come home right away because I had a few errands to run. First I took Erin's car over and filled it up with gas. I grabbed the bi-weekly powerball $5.00 ticket. The guy behind the counter was like "somebody won it last night. It was over 200 million. Now it's only 20 million." I was like "Hey, I'd be perfectly happy with 20 million." He was like "I would too!" I was like "Hell! I would be perfectly happy to win 20,000!"

It's true, if I won 10,000 or 20,000 , I would be perfectly happy about that. Any extra money in our lives would be benefitial to us. We'd be able to turn around and pay off a lot of debt, if not all of it. I think the big reason why I would really love to win a really big amount like a million or so, would be to turn around, set up fully funded college funds for the girls, make an offer on buying the house. I don't know if we would buy different cars, right now I'd like to say that even if we had a million bucks, I think I would put the money needed into my truck and erin's escape to get them in perfect running condition, maybe even get the body work completed on the truck so it looks like it did in 93 without any rust. Then we would have 2 vehicles payed off and without any problems. Then why would we need new cars? Of course, yes I would like to eventually be driving a dodge ram quad cab, but I love my Ford F250, and so if I can fix it up completely and drive it for another 5 years, that would be great.

In closing, after I got home, my day had a few things that I did. First, while I had Sliders on the netflix streaming, I logged online on a website about a blood bank that was going on today at the hospital I work at. When Erin and I first met, we went to donate blood every few months, as often as we were allowed. In maryland we wanted to but never found one that was too close by. I've been on the lookout here for a while, and have seen that they have blood drives at the hospital pretty often, but I was sure you had to schedule. Plus, with me getting off at 6 am, I guess I never pulled the trigger. However, a thought crossed my mind recently. With my hours, I can't get to church, and we want to give more. Also, as far as giving goes, you don't have to give just money. Giving money is good, and can be very helpful. But time is just as valuable some times, or lending a listening ear to someone that needs to vent about something. Well today, when I walked with the guy I was training, showing him where the client boss's office was for us to turn in the original copy of our paperwork, I saw the blood drive flyer pinned up outside his office. It was scheduled for today from 7 am till 3:30.

I don't know what drove me, but without really thinking about it, I pulled the thumbtacks out of the board and folded the sheet up and stuck it in my pocket, telling myself that I was going to check into it when I got off. So while I was lounging in the recliner, I called the number on the sheet and left a message asking if it was possible to donate today, and what we had to do, if we had to schedule, etc. By 8:30 I got a voicemail from her saying that we were more than welcome to come in and that she scheduled us for 3:15 and 3:20.

So after I left that message, when it hit 8:00 AM, I started my application to the University of Phoenix online. Let me go into that a little bit.

I think I wrote about the issues with American Military University. I re-enrolled with them 2 months ago. I previously attended college with them online when I was in the air force. I completed 9 credits. It was a pretty good experience, so I figured it was safe to re-enroll and complete my degree with them. Wrong. I swear I had so many problems. I registered for classes, supposed to start June 7th. Well I faxed and scanned and emailed EVERY SINGLE document to them for the financial aid. In order for me to 1) start class, and 2) receive my books for my classes, my financial aid had to be fully processed and ready. 3 weeks ago approximately, suddenly I stopped being able to get ahold of anyone at the school as far as financial aid. I was trying to find out what else they needed, because I knew my start date was coming up and I wanted everything to be ready to go.

Well, I emailed and tried to call and left multiple messages daily for 2 weeks, never hearing back. I didn't know what to think, or what to do. I started to think that maybe I needed to look into different schools because I did not know what the hell was going on. So I did. I looked into Kaplan university, re-initiating email with the female rep that had called me not that long ago before I started here at Clinton. Then I got online and checked out University of Phoenix. I found that they had my degree I wanted, only it was either a bachelors in business with focus in hospitality management. I decided that I was going to talk to someone at both schools and try to make a decision on where I wanted to go. I exchanged emails with kaplan, explaining my frustration with amu, and then when I got off from work, after 8 am, I called university of phoenix and got hooked up with an admissions rep there. I think he's actually a supervisor, because the first guy I talked to transfered me to him saying he could better assist me.

So I talked to him for like an hour, and got a lot of info from him. I actually was really leaning towards phoenix. I told him that later after I got up, I would get online and we would talk about it and probably get things rolling. When I woke up though, I FINALLY had an email back from the financial department at AMU. They appologized and said they were out because of emergency oral surgery. So I thought "I'll try to see if things will work out." They seemed to be keeping regular contact with me again and so I thought maybe, just maybe, there was a chance. I sent them the remaining documents they asked for. By this point, I had faxed soem of the documents 3 or 4 times because they would say they got it, then say they still needed it, etc. UGH! SO FRUSTRATING!

The thing that tipped the scale was after about a week, here I was, still bookless, stil wondering what was going to happen with me starting classes, etc. I was told "as soon as your financial aid is cleared, you will be able to start, and you will receive your books." Then I got an email from the financial aid at AMU saying that my financial aid application is complete and processed and to log on to my financial aid office with AMU and of course, it still said "We need such and such documents from you." I was like "WHAT THE HELL!"

So the next day I emailed a few times asking what was going on, and then the next day, which was yesterday I decided to call them. The lady was like "Sir, we have your state taxes but not your federal. We still need your federal." I was like "Ma'am, that doesn't make sense. We filed through HR block and our 1040 has BOTH our federal taxes and our state taxes listed!" She was like "Well sir, if you could make copies and fax those over to us we can get them going." I said "But ma'am, what i'm trying to tell you is, 1) i have faxed these to you THREE TIME! 2!) like I said! I did not just fax you the state taxes! I faxed you BOTH! I will see what I can do." And hung up.

When I went to sleep just after that, I decided that was it. I was done. So this morning I called and got back ahold of the admissions rep with university of phoenix and within an hour, between he and i on the phone, I literally got everything done that I had tried getting finished and processed with AMU in two months. The only thing he needed was me to fax my veteran GI bill certification of elegibility letter, which was fine, but otherwise everything else was turned in. I told him "Damn man, I'm already feeling so much better about this decision, when can I start." He was like "on the right hand side of the screen you should see your start date." I looked and saw that I am scheduled to start classes on June 21st. I said "Sweet, that works!"

So this afternoon I woke up at 2:30, picked lex up from school early, and then Erin and I went and donated blood. Today since it was a day off, I looked at the red-box and there were several new releases, so tonight we watched The Tooth Faerie with the Rock, Legion, and Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp. All 3 were good. So I have in a written sence talked your ear off, so I will let that be it. Thanks for being here!