Let's commiserate?

I'm in a pretty good mood all things considered, just really tired.

I started a new job this week that is 1hr 45min from home, haven't gotten an apartment yet. The job is great, I'm a machinist there. The commute is killing me and my car's water pump decided to seize up on I-95 today and broke the accessory belt. Luckily I had a ScanGauge and a suspicion that something was up. As soon as my battery light came on saying the alternator wasn't spinning I started pulling over, the ScanGauge briefly showed a high-ish water temp before I shut it down. So my car is 45 minutes North of home at a shop. My Dad is also helping me shop for apartments since I'm running out of spoons. It's only Wednesday!

Seems like the apartments I like are a little thin on the ground and ignore request forms and emails, and frankly I spend so much time on the road I don't have the time to call.

This is after a nightmarish couple of weeks to submit graduation papers, order new Rx safety glasses that I was trying to pick up today actually, drug screening, college testing, reference letters, rebuilt the front end of the car that blew, clear the decks in my home town to allow me to relocate.

Anyway, anybody else having a tiring day? I'm still kind of meh about all this, only choice is to take what comes one day at a time. Besides, somebody around here might get cheered up by not having my kind of day

Wow, you sound really talented and capable. It's been a long time since I rebuilt the front end of a car.

My wife is diabetic and does home hemo dialysis. I'm her dialysis partner and the center has been wanting us to learn how to use a new and very different machine. We've been in training for the last three weeks, starting at 8 in the morning and ending at 1. We're now on our own, and have been using the machine for the last 6 days at home. Last night/this morning was no different and I got her dialyzed and off the machine by 6:30.

We were giving our dining room furniture away because we have bought smaller, but better quality furniture to replace the large, old furniture. My wife had her right leg amputated in late September, so this makes more room for her wheelchair. Someone answered the add and came with his friend this morning to move it out. It was a case of dumb and dumber, so I had to help them figure out how to get it out the door and onto their pickup truck. That took maybe 2 hours.

I also was doing laundry all day as my wife can't do that. I also had trouble with the dialysis machine in making a batch of dialysis solution, so I was on the phone to the center about that. The day went along solving one problem after another as I had to work on my printer, print off some work related forms.

I got dinner ready, cleaned up from dinner and then went out to work as I had praise band rehearsal at church. When I got home, I had to do a dressing change on my wife's leg, flushed her dialysis catheter and changed the dressing on it. Tonight was an off night so we didn't have to dialyze, but we will have to tomorrow night, after I get home from big choir rehearsal. So that was my day, and I'm supposed to be retired.

ZombifiedKitty said:

I'm in a pretty good mood all things considered, just really tired.

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About exactly how I feel.

Been dealing with problems at work which have translated directly into long hours. Been thinking every day for the past few weeks "Today is the day that things will let up." Hasn't happened yet. Hopefully now that Tax season is over and quarterly reports are done things can go back to normal...

And I agree with dogboy, you do sound talented and capable. When I begin to have car trouble, I have to take it to my brother so he can work on it.

I used to be extremely busy like zombiefiedkitty. There just wasn't enough hours in the day for everything. I was working at an oil refinery about 80 miles from my house. Worked 7 days a week. And depending on how things went 15 - 20+ hour days. Working like that will little / no time to try to do the basic things (shop for food, pay bills, relax, find a new place, etc) can really wear you down both mentally & physically. Hang in there kitty.

ZombifiedKitty said:

I'm in a pretty good mood all things considered, just really tired.

I started a new job this week that is 1hr 45min from home, haven't gotten an apartment yet. The job is great, I'm a machinist there. The commute is killing me and my car's water pump decided to seize up on I-95 today and broke the accessory belt. Luckily I had a ScanGauge and a suspicion that something was up. As soon as my battery light came on saying the alternator wasn't spinning I started pulling over, the ScanGauge briefly showed a high-ish water temp before I shut it down. So my car is 45 minutes North of home at a shop. My Dad is also helping me shop for apartments since I'm running out of spoons. It's only Wednesday!

Seems like the apartments I like are a little thin on the ground and ignore request forms and emails, and frankly I spend so much time on the road I don't have the time to call.

This is after a nightmarish couple of weeks to submit graduation papers, order new Rx safety glasses that I was trying to pick up today actually, drug screening, college testing, reference letters, rebuilt the front end of the car that blew, clear the decks in my home town to allow me to relocate.

Anyway, anybody else having a tiring day? I'm still kind of meh about all this, only choice is to take what comes one day at a time. Besides, somebody around here might get cheered up by not having my kind of day

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And I thought my days were tough, All joking aside, I have had a tough day, of Couse I did get some stuff done but still I'm here waiting for my grandmother, who did an errand for a friend, and as for the apartment thing, don't give up, because you will get through this.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”― Wendy Mass

I'm glad you guys decided to share some of the crazy stuff you have to go through. Keep it up. And no critic is more harsh than yourself. I kind of forgot over the last couple years of being unemployed and stuck in college what I could really do.

I finally feel unwound from all the activity today and if this was a weekday this would also be my bedtime pretty much, 9pm. Was doing some manual machining on a clapped out "knee mill" as it's called. The digital readout (DRO) kept malfunctioning on Thursday which is a HUGE problem, it tells you where everything is in the Cartesian coordinate system, but was losing count. Since this machine came with the DRO option, the factory left the metric dials on the X and Y axis and only changed the Z axis to an inch dial *head desk*. Math is by no means hard for me to convert it, but when you have to drill 200 holes sideways, you want to make life as easy as possible. Metric dials have TONS of tiny lines on them for 0.01mm. Eventually I got the readout to function properly but I keep second guessing it and checking it with a ruler to be sure. So all in all, the job is still good - just sore from cranking that machine.

I pick my car up in the morning, was quoted $500 which is high for a water pump - got told $900 on the final bill. So I'm gonna give them a good talking to and pull some strings to have the official work hour chart quoted for me from a dealer's book.

Next week should shape up a lot better. Off the stupid stuff at work and they'll give me the new Mazak Integrex 200-III ST they bought used, since I'm the only person with former experience on that brand. Once I have a machine to call my own work life will be so much better. (Google that machine or the Link: 200-IV version, thing is crazy, robots man, robots!)

I also think I have temp housing covered between a couple friends who are both 45-50 minutes away. So I can stop burning candles at both ends.

Have the last couple of days been better for you, ZombifiedKitty?

Hahaha. No.

The weekend was good but short with all the travel. Today I drove 1hr 50min home to finally get my new glasses as a walk-in. Was able to have dinner and see a friend before driving 1hr back to a buddy's house half way to work where I picked up a screw in my tire 2 minutes from the house. Silver lining I guess is my buddy will get my tire patched and have his trailer tire valve replaced at the same time, and it didn't need to wait until morning for me to find it. So I'm driving to work on the donut, slowly.

I have only some experience with the new machine at work but the Chinese programmer is pushing my knowledge of Engrish to the max. Half my family is Thai but they can at least speak up when I ask them something.

But it won't be too much longer until I get to cuddle with one of my best friends, so that should keep me from having a melt down. Until then I'm just going to grin and bear it, try to find the humor in the ridiculous. Mostly just tons of little things stacking up, straw that breaks the camel's back and all.

To expand the topic, what is the longest streak of seemingly bad luck you guys have had? And is it 50/50 like mine or lop sided?

- - - Updated - - -

Oh yeah, and the replacement lock on my Kennedy tool box popped off and the cam and latch bars fell and locked all my tool drawers. Had to break into my own box with needle nose pliers and a pen light through a finger sized hole. Finally had it open and got a better clip to install the lock to make sure it won't happen again.

Then the guy that loaned me the pliers had to tell a short story of breaking into his girlfriend's box...:laugh:

I would have to say my bad luck has continued for about 6 months now. And it is about 50/50. Had an employee no call/no show on Monday. Then,spent 4 days tracking down a piece of equipment in spec for a project, used it perfectly fine yesterday, somehow it is a half inch too short today. :wallbash:

Anyway, hang in there, it always gets better eventually:biggrin:.
Or, It could always be worse:laugh:.