Random Outlaw

Items For The New Year

Lots of things to cover, so I'll jump right in:

Santa

I caved like a cheap canvas tent on this one.  It was all Santa, all the time at our house until, like, yesterday, when I told the Moosh that Santa is now firmly esconced in his ice palace in the North Pole, and no, we can't visit.

Honestly he buys into Santa so deeply that even if I did tell him that I am Santa, I don't think he'd believe me, so I decided just to go with the flow.

New Year's Resolutions

I tried to make these attainable this year, because I usually fail miserably at them.  So, without further adieu:

• Extend the Moosh's school day to 7-7.5 hours, thereby allowing me to get more beauty rest.
• Treat school like school and not daycare... no more skipping even if I happen to be off that day.
• No more picking the Moosh up early on Fridays as a matter of course... I need downtime, and I am paying for it anyway.
• Try to get in a massage/hair cut/eyebrow wax/pedicure once a month (picking one, not all of them!).  If I go to the beauty school it is not at all expensive and I need to pay more attention to myself.
• More exercise! My T-Tapp schedule got thrown out last July and I need to at least do BWO+ 3x a week.  That's 45 minutes.  Surely I can come up with 45 minutes a week!

That's it, boring, I know.

Fucking Taxes

R didn't pay me last month causing me to swear loudly, and go on strike, so I was secretly hoping that he would continue not paying me so that I could blithely ignore the looming tax season.  But no.  There was a shiny, shiny check sitting on the desk for me this morning, so I need to prepare to send out W-2s and finish cooking the books balancing the accounts so that our accountant can file our tax return ASAP.  Even though I upped my withholdings considerably last year I am due a fairly sizeable return as long as the business didn't make any money (which, if it did, would only be about $500 - $1000 but it still screws things up because we have to pay mega taxes on that money).  I know for sure that one company lost money, not so sure about the other one.  So we'll see.

Hope nobody got too drunk over New Years.  I was at work, so no drinky for me.

Good News

Sorry for the long absence.  As I said in my last post, I had training all last week, then R had hernia surgery last Tuesday so things have been utterly crazy.  The best part of the surgery was that R insisted on going out that very day to buy a HD TV. So there we were, in Best Buy, 3 hours after he woke up from the anesthesia searching in vain for a TV that I found on the website (it said it was an open box item) to no avail.  R spent about 1.5 hours harassing the staff in the Best Buy TV department before he would let me flipping ask them where the stupid TV was.  It turned out that the TV was in some dark corner of the store room, and we never would have found it if we didn't ask.  So now, after all that angst, we are the proud new owners of a very fancy TV. 

Things have been going pretty well between R and me relationship wise.  That's not to say that we are madly in love, but we are making it through most weeks without dissolving into screaming matches.  This is a good thing.  As long as there are no screaming matches and I get paid every month I am good to go.

Part of this improvement is indubitably because we have both taken steps toward acceptance of how things are going to be with the business.  I have taken steps toward understanding that ending this has to be R's deal.  Nothing I can do will make him go any faster. For his part, R has realized that he can't continue to work at the business forever (at least not on a 8 AM - 10 PM, 7 day a week schedule) and is planning how to gracefully wrap things up by the end of the year.

Sunday morning on his way out the door R mentioned to me that he wanted me to write up a contract to turn over operations of the convenience store over to some people.  He didn't have time to elaborate, which left me kind of in the lurch for the rest of the day wondering what was going on.  That night I got the full story.

Apparently a local couple have approached him about taking over the convenience store.  They have just returned from India and are in need of work and have a lot of experience with running convenience stores.  Initially they wanted to wholly control the store and it's earnings, but didn't have enough money to pay the rent, so R offered to have them work for him with the goal of improving sales volumes.  He offered them a base monthly salary plus a bonus if they can improve sales over a certain amount. In exhange they will run the store for him 7 days a week, leaving him free to run the garage.

I think he fully expected me to flip out and get mad, but I think it is a brilliant idea.  At the very least it will be a stop gap measure to get him through the remainder of this year without killing himself, and in the best case it could turn the business around and allow him to keep it.  As long as he's able to make decent money and be home at a decent hour, I really don't care what he does with the business.

The best part is that if this works out, I could move to day shift and we could put the Moosh in school 3 days a week, and we would ALL be home in the evenings to spend time as a family.  R would have Sundays completely off.

I wrote up a simple contract, but as of yesterday R is still putting the final touches on the deal. 

I really hope it works out!!

The Big Talk

I had my last prospective lawyer interview today.  I think this guy will be our lawyer.  He's intelligent and responsive, and I have no doubt that he'll get us through this bankruptcy with our shirts on our backs, so to speak.

R is still working at the store.  I don't think he wants to sit at home all day with me here, but that's OK, because I don't really want him here either.  We are both monstrously stressed, and consequently any extended time we spend together usually ends in harsh words and hurt feelings.  We're still processing this whole change and it is crazy.

When the lawyer found out that R was still working at the store, he flipped out.  He asked me if we had any ability to pay the loan next month and I told him that we didn't - that 2 or 3 days that R took off work has sunk us, essentially.  The lawyer then told me that if that was the case, then R is simply working for the bank, because if we are going to default on the loan all of the money in the safe and in the corporate bank accounts essentially belongs to the bank.  He (lawyer) feels that R's time would be better spent finding another job and wrapping things up at the business.

We have to file by the end of February 2007, before my bonuses come in.  If we file after the bonuses come in, we'll have even more money to get rid of before we file.  Lawyer feels that it would be best to just rip the band-aid off and do it quickly, rather than wating around and potentially losing a bunch of cash to the courts.

It's just so mind boggling.  R and I have always been careful with our savings, and now we are being required to be as close to penniless as possible.  It's a weird feeling - I feel kind of giddy about the fact that I might have a nice car for once in my life - but my happiness is concomitantly soiled by that fact that getting R to part with that money is going to be like pulling teeth.  He's going to want to nickel and dime everything, but this is the one case where we need to spend, and spend freely.

Tonight I will present my plan for filing bankruptcy to R.  The plan is as follows:

• Shut down the business as soon as possible (December 15 is a likely date)
• Surrender business and business property to the bank.
• Buy a new car.
• Sell off four older cars.
• Repair air conditioner in house.
• Install new garage door.
• Replace flooring in house.
• Replace major appliances (if there's enough left over after other projects).
• Install sprinkler system.
• R finds new job.
• We continue to expend our money in living expenses every month.
• We file in February.

In my dreams, I envision putting forth this plan to R, while gently guiding him through the inevitable course of losing all his money.  Finally he comes to the realization that I am right, and we move forward with the plan.

What is more likely to happen is that when faced with spending all the money, he flips out and starts yelling that everyone is stealing from him.  Then I will get mad because he is being so unrealistic and wants to keep his head in the clouds all the time (hence not coming to even ONE lawyer meeting).  He will then inform me that I just want to spend money and that he will die alone and penniless, because who will take care of him in his old age?  Then I will get mad and huff off while he mutters to himself about how crazy and irresponsible I am, while I mutter about how crazy and irresponsible HE is.

I am SO looking forward to this talk!

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming

I saw R's wound last night.  It looks so very painful.  He still can't really sit down, and yet he goes to the store every day and tries to make a little money.  The business is, quite literally falling apart.

The printer that is connected to the cash register is broken.  We can't seem to get it fixed, and that's how he calculates his income for the store.  No printouts = no books.  We ordered a similar printer that we thought would work, but didn't. So we ordered an identical printer and R says that one doesn't work either.  I'm going to try and fix it but the cash register is a proprietary system so I can't load drivers or anything.  Our next step will be to call someone to service it, but that's expensive (minimum $200).

We are slowly coming to the realization that bankruptcy might be a feasible option.  Actually, I have now become a rah-rah cheerleader for bankruptcy.  It's so funny how these things happen... if you'd asked me 3 weeks ago about bankruptcy I would probably have fainted at the possibility.  Now that I've researched it a little, it may be our best option.   We would most likely get to keep the house and cars, as well as our personal belongings and my bonuses for next year.  We'd also get to discharge the substantial consumer credit debt I accumulated over the last couple of years.

We would, of course, lose our substantial cash investment in the business.  Someone asked me about that today... but the thing is, we don't have it now.  We haven't had access to that money for 2 years, and even before that it was tucked away in a "don't touch" savings account.   Our credit would likely go to shit, but credit can be rebuilt.

Before the shooting, the business was sucking us dry.  Now it's sucking us dry and threatening R's life.  In my opinion, we would be better off without it.  Money isn't everything.

R is on the fence.  He feels that I'm pushing him to make a decision.  He's right, I am pushing him to make the decision because I don't want to have to tell the Moosh that his Baba is gone forever.  I don't want to have to make the phone call to R's mom and have to tell her that her baby is dead.   This goes way beyond money. 

In any case, R doesn't want to stay in the store after dark, and the hours of operations for the business have been severely reduced. We are not going to be able to make payments on the business loans for much longer at this rate.

I never thought I would say the words "Yay! Bankruptcy!" but here I am.  It would give us the chance to start over with a clean slate, and room to work on our relationship. 

It's what I think we should do.

A Shot In The Ass

R got shot yesterday.  Yes, shot, as in guns, bullets, etc.  It happened during a robbery.  The guy was demanding that R open the safe and R was pretending that he couldn't.  Suddenly the guy started shooting and then ran away.

He's fine.  The wound was a through-and-through to the left butt cheek.  He's in pain, but he's at home, and he's acting like a complete asshole.  I was going to stay home with him today, but by 12:30 he was being so rude I told him I would take the Moosh to my parents' house and I would go to work because it was quite clear that he did not want us at home.

It looks like we are going to have to shut down the business.  They didn't catch the perpetrator, and this is the fourth robbery in the last two months.  All the other robberies have been after hours, but this time there was a man with a gun who nearly killed R.  That man has not been caught, and the police don't anticipate catching him anytime soon, so you never know if he's going to come back, but considering all the other robberies, it's clear that it's not safe for him to be there any more.

We're not sure what we're going to do with the business, but the odds of it ruining our credit for several years is great.  I just don't know how this is all going to work out.  The reason R was being such a dick to me is because I told him that I had a fairly large debt as well, then he just lost it on me and starting flipping out.  That's when I left with the Moosh.

I am not looking forward to the next couple of months.

Geek Girl

R has tagged me to refurbish a computer so that he can have one at the store.  Before I had the Moosh, I was a certified Geek Girl.  I can build computers, fix computers, and speak computer-ease with the Geek Boys. R is so lucky.

He originally wanted me to refurbish one of the two computers he won in a contest at the milling company we used to work for.  That was five years ago.  The computers were at least three years old when we got them.  So, refurbish eight year old computers? I laugh at his ignorance.  They have 500 MB and 1G hard drives respectively.  OMG.  I told him to buy a Dell and get over it.  He refused and is keeping his books in a ledger.  A LEDGER.  In 2005.  I hurt.

About three years ago I built a computer for my family.  Unfortunately the motherboard shorted out about six months after they'd started using it.  By that time, I was about 2 months pregnant and had morning sickness so bad that all I did in my free time was sleep, puke, and try to eat.  When the computer broke, my dad called me to see if I would fix it, but after listening to me moan into the phone for about 5 minutes, he decided he would take it into the shop.  The resident shop Geek told him that the motherboard had shorted out, and that they would have to pay megabucks for them to fix it.  Dad declined, and bought a cheapo Dell to replace it.  It has been sitting at their house ever since.

R was incensed when I built that computer.  I did it as a Christmas present, and they were perfectly happy with it.  I did not buy any of them anything else for Christmas.  I probably spent about $700 on the thing, and 6 people were using it.  I didn't see any problem.

When he found out it had broken, he was even more mad.  He told me that I had wasted my money and built the thing wrong.  It ran for a long time after I built it, so I don't think that the breakdown was due to anything I did, but you can't speak of the ocean to a well frog, so I let it go.

Fast forward to now.  He needs a computer.  I have one, even though it has been slightly cannibalized for different parts over the years, all it really needs is a new motherboard.  Note that this is the same computer he never wanted me to build in the first place.  The wheel has come full circle, it has.

Therefore, I am donning my Geek t-shirt and I will fix him a damn computer.  And maybe an Excel spreadsheet or two.  When I'm finished, I will require him to wear this at least one day a week as an homage to his Geek Girl.

My Mom Calls It the Underworld

My mom calls hell "the underworld" because she thinks that hell is a bad word. She's an English teacher so I usually employ the "parts of speech" defense for hell. You see, if you use "hell" as a noun, e.g. "Go to hell," it's not a bad word because it's the name of a place. However, if you use "hell" as an adjective, e.g. "Oh, the hell with it!" that's a swear. Mom doesn't buy it, but it makes perfect sense to me.

That was my roundabout introduction into yesterday, the day from hell. (NOT a swear. See above.) I had to send out the registration forms for the gas tanks at the store. These forms should have gone out a month ago, but the contractor neglected to give them to us until last week. Timecrunch much?

I finally finished entering the data on these forms (they were the fillable Adobe Acrobat PDF forms) and tried to print them. It printed the main parts of the form, but not the answers that it took me two hours to find. Instead of text, it just printed little boxes. So I printed it again. And again. No luck. I called my husband and told him that I was buying a new printer because the one we have is a piece of shit. About that time my mom came over to spend time with me and the baby, so we all went out and I dropped about $100 on a new printer. By the time we got home, it was getting late, and I was running out of time to get the form done and sent out before I had to go to work. My mom took the baby for a drive to get him down for his nap and I set up the printer. All went well until I had to install the software for the printer, which stated that it would take 35 minutes. Oops. I had to go to work before the thing would finish installing.

I realized that I could just get my sister to print and send the form after the printer finished setting up. As soon as she got to the house, I asked her if she would be willing to do this for me, and she agreed. I was relieved because I'd promised my husband that I'd get the form out that day. I went to work.

Apparently when I left my house and drove to work I descended from the 7th level of hell, where computer equipment torments you forever, to the 6th level of hell, where your loving co-workers decide to stick you on California when it's raining for all eternity. From the time I sat down at my terminal I was inundated with phone calls for 4 hours straight. Tip: it should NEVER rain in southern California. When it does, all telephone service ceases. I took one personal call during that four hours: when my sister called to tell me that she'd had to reboot the computer, thereby losing all of the information on the form. There was no way that form was going out that day.

When I got home from work, I typed up the form again tried to print it on the new printer. I still got the damn boxes instead of text. At that point, I realized that it was more likely a problem with my computer than my printer. After spending $100. I tried to fix the computer, but it was late and I was tired.

The upshot of all of this is that I didn't get the form sent out. Of course I told my husband that it went out. What else could I do? I just spent $100.

Argh.