Same Old, Same Old.
Monday, 29 September 2014


Has it come down to this, that I am in a rut? I wake up and read, eat, and take my meds. Then I usually head to the Library, stopping at my PO box first.

Monday-Thursday, at the Library until after 2000, then I mosey back to the Get-Go to hang out and read.

As I am cash strapped and unable to buy product regularly while there, I have been spending more and more time in other venues reading. Denny's favorite bench by the Home Depot @ Southgate is nice, and now that they have added new lights to the overhang of the sidewalk, I have lights to read after dark. However, as it is getting dark sooner, the lights do not come on until 30 or more minutes after it is too dark to read.

I have traveled about, and found other venues that have promise. The Meadowbrook II Shopping center where the Target, Woodcraft, and Topps used to be, has lights, benches and even canned music, even though the complex is entirely abandoned!

Except for the Applebee's, IHOP and the US Bank branch on the periphery, there is nothing left of this shopping center. The last few holdouts, Cleveland Jewelry and Game Stop, both moved across Northfield to the new out lot extension by Walmart.

Denny had been hassled by the security staff for utilizing a bench in the complex to sit and watch the world go by, but the regular officer that patrols both Meadowbrook II and the Walmart (Meadowbrook I, where the old Spartan-Atlantic Department Store had been located, along with Forest City lumber, back in the 1960's, and later by Gold Circle, Hill's, and Atlantic Gun and Tackle the sporting goods department of the old Spartan-Atlantic) only asked me if I was OK after he had passed me by 4 times during the course of the afternoon one day. I said I was fine and just reading, and he said I was OK to stay.

Except for the bench getting too hard on my butt after a few hours, it is a nice open area with a good breeze and overhead protection from the sun and rain. It might even be a good sanctuary from snow and ice if the need arises.

I am still finishing 3-5 books a week, exhausting the Clive Cussler selections at the South East Branch of the CCPL in Bedford. I have a few paperbacks I bought @ the dollar store (imagine that, not sure about my income and sources of food, but I still am buying books to read!), having finished Combat Swimmer, Memoir of a Navy Seal, by Capt. Robert Gormly, USN (Ret'd) on Sunday.

I am now 2 chapters in to The Treasure of Khan, a Dirk Pitt Novel, by Clive Cussler. There are more Cussler titles out there (and I had a good dozen I owned, that I hadn't yet read), and will eventually get to all of them.

I am finding that even though I thought I was emulating Robert Heinlein, my favorite author, with my sci-fi stories, I am finding that it is actually Cussler's style that I am channeling. My characters are similar to the regulars in Cussler's novels, but with a futuristic science fiction twist with space travel.

I must find a way to let Mr. Cussler know this, so that I am never accused of stealing his plots or plagiarism. Also, to be sure he understands that it is solely a case on "Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery", as I have found that except for some highly technical faux pas' that he has committed that most people won't catch, he writing is exciting, his facts and research very correct and accurate, and the stories compelling!


I know now that I must get a copy of Raise the Titanic, as I have seen the movie several dozen times and have already read Sea Hunters I & II, and would like to see how he developed the story with Dirk Pitt, his main character that later leads the fictional NUMA that Cussler actually heads (National Underwater & Marine Agency).

This man can actually back up his stories with authority, as he has over 60 famous shipwreck discoveries to his credit, and his famous collection of antique classic cars and boats, all show in his technical accuracy (most of the time).

I can't do the same in all of my stories, but I can call on personal experience and people I know that have experienced what I am writing! The zero gravity activities are based on NASA research and some conjecture on my part! (The low gravity club, for one! ;) )


I really should get down to the nitty-gritty of trying to sell some of my short stories, and completing the books I have in the works. I have one novel complete, Friend or Foe, a short story that grew into a full fledged book for Crystal Urban, the teenage daughter of one my friends, Mike Urban.

She is the heroine of a futuristic war with an alien species from another galaxy, when her class from the combined Naval and Space Academy goes on their summer cruise in space. Sadly, the flash drive I keep it on, since I started the story a year ago April, is broken and my friend Matt now has it to try and recover the completed book and the other document and pictures it contains.

My other books are on another drive I am currently using. I hope to not have the same problem, by occasionally copying them to other drives and / or emailing the files so that there is a file in cyberspace to back up my external drives!

As to other matters, there is no change in any of my status, except that I get a raise on my EBT card of $5/month that I will see in my October reload on the card. My SSD/I Appeal is in the works, and my former boss (and now senior executive VP) Chris Lopez, PE and department manager Wes Mekhael, PE were kind enough to forward a letter describing my duties as a civil engineering technician/inspector @ PSI for 17 years.

Chris was also kind enough to include some Master Card gift Cards that I put to very good use! it is nice to know that all of those years at PSI and the BS I had to endure and overcome to accomplish my tasks were not unnoticed or unappreciated! The letter written, was exactly what the SSA needs to learn about my job description, and why I cannot just go back top work as an Inspector on jobsites!


I did have a great bunch of people to work with and for. Chris was the first boss I ever had that had no problem giving out "Attaboys" when they were deserved, and he surely didn't hold back on the discipline when rules or policy were violated and problems encountered.

Except for a couple of well documented personages, all of my PSI managers/VPs were good people to work for and understood what we as technicians experienced in the field.

I learned most of my job from Chris, who had been hired as a technician right out of engineering school. He worked for a while as a technician before becoming the department manager for Construction Services, and then getting his PE. He was the manager who hired me in August of 1995 on the recommendation of his brother-in-law Jim McCue, the NDE Manager I worked with at Boat-US, while I was still struggling to run my own business, Triangle Associates.

I brought with me a career in Law Enforcement and a military education while studying civil engineering. Including an entire adult life of public service and interaction with people, which made it easy to work with the building contractors and their subs, many of whom haven't an honest bone in their body, I was able to solve problems that other technicians encountered and couldn't handle.

After a short period with PSI, Chris was sending me on problem jobs, knowing I would not get physical with clients or contractors as other technicians had. By my first spring, I was replacing a senior tech running the AAA/OMA new HQ located @ I-77 and I-480, where the client rep running the job as the project manager was creating hurdles and fired the Higley Construction Manager, the Architect from Van Dyke and Assoc., and our PSI inspector. All because the weenie in charge was bullied as a high school and college student and now he was in a position to bully people in return! "What a Piece of Work" as Jim McCue used to say in describing that person!


I cut my teeth on that project, learning how to work with idiots who didn't know their own jobs (the weenie), and contractors who are very used to getting their own way. I also learned that honesty is indeed respected by those who are usually dishonest. I then established my reputation in the NE Ohio Market of construction!

And I could not have established that without the mentorship of Chris Lopez (and even Vijay Khosla, the senior Exec VP East of the Mississippi), who patiently explained answers to my questions and giving me plenty of preparatory information prior to sending me on a new project.


I worked for many different companies in a single profession and in the Cinema Market, and had a variety of supervisors and managers for bosses, most who had never made any effort to give "Attaboys", nor gave me merit raises as a rule, and only leaned on me to do more for them, rather than say what I had done well for them in the first place.

Chris was also quick to make payroll changes in my salary as per the old corporate policy of merit raises. I became one of the better paid technicians, rising fast through the pay scale, and earning many benefits. Until corporate changed the merit policy and limited annual raises to a cost of living given at the change of the fiscal year, I almost doubled my hourly wage the first 7 years or so I was there! I got 2 surprise raises that were given outside of my annual anniversary review, that absolutely blew my mind!


When I was removed from PSI payroll in September of 2012, I was earning 4 weeks of paid vacation annually, had a 401(k) that had $76,000 ($74,000 vested), full medical, optical, and dental coverage, and was earning $18.94/hour. I was certified as a level 1 ACI field inspector; a level II ASCET Soil Technician; 40 Hour OSHA Environmental Safety Technician; Level II ODOT Asphalt Laboratory Technician; Level I Fire Stopping Technician; plus PSI certified for Nuclear Soils and Concrete Inspection, as well as the 17 years of experience in the field and dealing with idiots!


I started @ PSI making only $7.72/hour with 1 week paid vacation, and had no certs!


Well, I am totally reminiscing about a great career and professional accomplishment, and the fact that I was running many high profile, high dollar, projects, several of which PSI got because the clients knew I was going to be the lead technician and looking out for their interests! (On the flipside, we lost some accounts because I was unavailable!)


But, I like the fact that I have had such a successful career, and so many accolades for my professionalism, honesty, and diligence. And having Chris and Wes acknowledge this, means true Kudos that I earned the last 3 decades. And gives me deep satisfaction that I have maintained a good work ethic as my dad insisted that I maintain! (And he was famous for both not finishing projects and pissing off people he worked for because he did things his own way, no matter what his job description ever was! And I learned much later in life, that he had been fired from many of his so called professional projects he had over the years!)


But as I learned both with my dad, and most Liberal Democrats in general, that you should do as they say, not as they do, because most don't practice what they preach! My dad was famous for using people and not practicing what he preached at all. But he did instill me with the desire to finish whatever I started, and to do the best job I possibly could (the book by Jimmy Carter I read while I was a cadet at The Citadel, Why Not the Best?, is another great example, because if Jimmy Carter can say that his job as president was his best effort, than he is even more pitiful than his reputation shows!)


My dad though, always had something to as to how I performed in school and on the job, even though he failed in most of his jobs, in spite of his insisting that he had succeeded in them when they were shut down!


But I did take most of his advice to heart, and used what I thought to be wise advice, while discarding the BS I discerned in it!


And I believe that it paid off! I like to think that developed my own brand of work ethic with his input, rather than having just adopted his dysfunctional ethic that got him fired from so many jobs!

I guess Chris and Wes would be the best judges of that!


I can only hope that my SS Appeal is fruitful, and that I will eventually have a means of support again, including a roof over my head, a bed of my own, and a kitchen and bathroom! Then, I can build a new repertoire of stories to hopefully sell for fun and profit!

So look out Mr. Cussler, you may not be the only dominant author on the NYT bestseller list! (Yeah, right!)


:)