Baltimore

Monday, November 13th, 2006

12:25pm - Called the Kissimmee SS office this morning. The chick I spoke with said I need to come into the office with someone I can trust, who will become the Payee on my account. The SS has determined that, due to my condition, I am not able to manage my own finances. Fine. Dad will be my Payee. We have an appointment tomorrow morning at 9am. I'm glad I decided to make my calls, rather than wait around for something to happen, as my lawyer said. I wish I had done it sooner, though. I have things I want to do.

For starters, I want to be able to buy the boys Christmas presents. I know Dad's okay with footing the bill, but I want to be able to do it myself. Secondly, I told the boys I would drive up during Christmas break to take them down to Baltimore for a few days. They like Baltimore, for some reason. The Baltimore Aquarium got a major face lift in '05, if I remember correctly. There's also the Science Center to visit. Mostly they enjoy staying in a hotel. Finally, I want to go to Denver in February to spend a few days hanging out with Bob and Andrew. There's a gaming convention in Denver in February and we thought it would be a good excuse to get together again.

Saw a commercial the other day saying that Golden Corral restaurants are serving free meals today to veterans, in observance of Veterans Day. From 5-9pm. Gonna see if Dad wants to go that late. It'll probably be crowded. I like eating there. The food is actually pretty good, and there's a lot to choose from. The steaks could be a little better, but no real complaint there.

Snowman

Friday, November 10th, 2006.

12:25pm - Just tried calling the local Social Security office. They have a recording on saying that today's a holiday, and to call back another time. Huh?? What holiday?? Maybe they went out to lunch and put ont he qrong recording. I'll try calling again in about an hour.

12:55pm - I've been meaning to put this one for a while, but can never seem to remember. Well, I remembered now, so here it goes.

This is a short story my son Dante wrote when he was 6. It's very cute ...

"Once on a very snowy day my snowman lamp jumped out the window. When I was up I found my lamp gone. I looked all over the 20 ft house. I did not know that the lamp was buried under the 8 ft snow. I thought he was in the snow but I did not want to shovel. At lunch I did not eat! I just kept on looking. I finally accidentally fell out of the top window to fall 12 ft!! I fell on the lamp. Then I (with my lamp) back to the window. Then I went to bed!"

Pretty darned cool!!

1:35pm - Well, don't I feel stupid. Today is Veterans Day. Thank you, brothers and sisters who were or have worn the uniform.

10:30pm - I've had much to drink tonight, and am feeling no pain.

Tomorrow

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

4:00pm - Helped Dad fix the pool pump. Note to self: NEVER own a pool!!

Called Social Security a little while ago to see if they could tell me anything about my claim. Spoke with a young lady who confirmed that my claim was approved, but could tell me nothing more. She refered me to the Kissimmee SS office. I tried calling them, but they close at 3:30pm. That's lame. So, I'll have to call them tomorrow.

11:15pm - Loged into the 9412 chat. Dave and Ana aren't DJing tonight. They've been having some serious familial issues lately. I just hope all is well with them. Randy Fender is the DJ tonight. Sat in there for a while, but dude never even acknowledge my existence. Lame.

Don't Worry

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

10:40pm - I did something yesterday which is way out of character for me. I gave the blog address to the people on the 9412 chat. Nothing inherently qrong with that, just not something I'm prone to do. It was okay when unkowns were reading the blog, but now these are people I have contact with. Oh, well.

10:45pm - Quiet in the chat tonight. Only Bijou and Tundra are talking. Well, Dave and Ana, and me, too.

10:50pm - Ghost just woke up. Bijou just signed off.

10:55pm - Met with my shrink this morning. Everything was going well until she told me they're changing one of my meds. I'm currently taking and extended release version, which I take once daily, but the VA says it's too expensive so they're going to switch me to the regular version, which I'll have to take twice daily. In theory, it should work the same, but she warned me that I could expect to feel a little different for about a week or two, while my body got adjusted. Just great. I have been stable for about three months now, with only one really bad episode. Now they're going to mess with my meds. Great. Just great.

The one bad episode occured back in September. I originally filed for Social Security Disability back in the Spring of '05. In August of '05 I got a letter stating that my claim had not been approved. Did you know that 60% of first-time applications for benefits are denied?? So, I got a lawyer to help with the appeal. We filed for the appeal in September of '05. Nothing else was heard for a few months. Whatever. I finally got a three page letter from the SS on Friday, September 22nd, of this year. The first paragraph of the letter sent me into a horrible funk, from which I almost didn't come out.

The paragraph in question goes as follows" "You asked us to take another look at your Social Security disability case. Someone who did not make the first decision reviwed your case, including any new facts we received. After reviewing all of the information carefully, we found that our first decision was correct. We have enclosed a page that gives you more details about the decision on your case." So, basically, I got turned down again.

It was late on Friday afternoon so I couldn't call my lawyer to talk about the letter. It was also too late to call my shrink. I was so angry about this letter. I managed to stay in control until the following Saturday evening. I finally couldn't take it anymore. I was tired of being a vegetable, of mooching off of my folks. I was just tired. I lined up a bunch of my Seroquels and decided to just start taking them until I ran out of pills. Seroquel is one of my best meds. Without it, I cannot sleep, period. I figured if I take enough of these, I just wouldn't wake up again.

I sat at the edge of my bed staring at all these little pills on my dresser. And going through all of the bad things that were going to come out of my od-ing. This went for hours, me staring at these pills. I finally lay down on my belly facing the dresser and continued staring at the pills and beating myself up. Thankfully, I fell asleep. Truth.

Woke up Sunday morning, feeling real stupid for having fallen asleep, but grateful, too. I did some straight thinking on Sunday, finally convincing myself to wait until Monday, when I could speak with my lawyer. Monday came, so off the lawyer's office we went. I keep saying "lawyer," but I only ever spoke with a para-legal. She's a nice lady, and was very helpful.

So, I meet with the para-legal. She is surprised by my reaction to the letter. She points me to the third page where it reads: "blah, blah, blah ... We agree that you are disabled. blah, blah, blah ... Considering the severity of you condition, and our medical experience with your type of condition, we are establishing 8/31/04 as the beginning date of your disability." So, I have been disabled since August of '04. Cool. Great!! They approved it!! The para-legal went on to explain that I probably wouldn't hear anything else back from the SS for a couple of months. She said that this was normal and not to worry.

9412.com

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

I recently found an online Classic Rock station. 9412.com. It's pretty cool. Thankfully, the DJs are easily accessible via chat, IMs or e-mail. You can make requests, which are played pretty rapidly. I generally login to the chat bewteen 11pm and 1am. The DJs are DaveAlan and his wife Anastasia. They make a pretty good team. It's nice to talk music with folk who know what you're talking about. I've heard some good music I hadn't heard in decades, and made some funky requests which were played.

The chat is a really nice idea for a radio station. You can have instant contact with the listeners, or vice versa. Not many people go to the chat, which is kinda good. There are some regulars. GHOST, Bijou, qwerty (lives in Oz), augie, me. There's a lot of dead-air time in the chat with so few of us. Good thing about it is that our requests are played almost immediately.

I just got to hear a Triumph song I'd only heard back in '81 when they were on the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Wow. How cool is that??

Got a couple of new people in the chat tonight. Blue and JLuv. They're not saying much.

The DJs, Dave and Ana, live in Lower Arkansas. I can't remember exactly where. A couple of weeks ago Dave was surprised by a big ol' possum in their kitchen!! That was a funny story.

I guess I should probably talk about Jean. He's this guy my Dad knows. He lives just up the road. Dad was visiting him one day and called me to come over ' cause Jean needed help with his computer. So, I go over. Dad leaves. This guy is an alchoholic. He drinks non-stop. And he smokes like a chimney.

The dude has a Mac that he doesn't know how to use. He is barely able to check his own e-mail. So, I spent over four hours going over some basics with him. A couple of days later he calls me again. So, I'm a nice guy, I go over. The dude's trying to use Yahoo Personals. So, I spent four hours helping this guy set up his account, and writing his description and stuff. So, this is been going on for weeks. Next, he wants to list two busses he owns on eBay. He's a tour bus driver for a living. He hasn't had any work in months. I dunno how he survives. Anyway, we've listed these buses on eBay about five times now, and they're still not selling. This is like $50 a listing!! For each bus!! Whatever. It's what he wants to do.

So, now he's either looking for a roommate, or looking for a place to rent. But, he's using the apartment site as a dating service. He's just wasiting his time and money. Again, whatever. It's his money.

Ya know, Jean's really annoying, to tell the truth. He doesn't get the stuff I try to teach him, or he's just too lazy. So, I keep going over and helping him. And getting annoyed. I was thinking tonight, after leaving his house, that maybe I could be a little friendlier. Nah.

Austin

Wednesday, November 1st, 2006

I survived the Gaming Weekend in Austin. It was a great deal of fun. We got to play some new games. I got to spend time with Andrew and Bob. I really had a good time. My allergies got the best of me on Sunday, though, so that was not very much fun.

I still haven't heard anything more from the Social Security folk. All I know is that I was approved. My lawyer said that it would take a couple of months from the initial notification before I heard anything else. This waiting sucks.