I have NO idea how I ever missed this post!
Let's see.....IF I don't count medical professionals I lose maybe $15-$20,000.00 (estimate) so I won't count them.....
Immediate family being soon to be ex, sons, Mom & Dad, in-Laws, brother = $800
CLOSE, personal friends "conservatively" $2400
Two weekends ago, I attended one of the annual parties my youngest son & his many friends have been throwing since I allowed them to drink beer since they were 18.......(I had all keys securely locked and this was up the private lakes my parents live on, MILES from nowhere) This began as a once a year party and now has evolved into a "summerfest" "Kirktoberfest" (no bullshit there! THEY named it) and a "winterfest" that has been lacking in excitment the past several years as there has been no ice on the lakes nor snow on the ground.
Regardless, there's ALWAYS a MASSIVE bonfire as two of my sons friends and I will take the one friend's dad's "wood truck" (not inspected as there's more screwed on Sheetmetal and fiberglass on this than there is original body steel and the back of the frame is literally starting to crumble but it never leaves their few hundred acres of property EXCEPT to make wood runs the 4 miles down the road to the community center between the two lakes that we rent out for the winter party and we'll make 8-10 trips with a couple of tons of cut up logs in the back of the truck. We only take the "shit" wood that they don't burn as it burns too fast or pine as you can't burn pine in your household fireplace as there's too much pitch in it which will eventually cause a devastating (potentially at least) chimney fire. We also never cut live trees UNLESS they're "shit" trees like birch, ash (though most of the Ash trees are dead/dying due to some beetle infestation and you don't want to even think of cutting one of them if it is dead as they're notorious for having a 10-20' "chunk" break off way up the tree and fall down like a fucking torpedo! A man in this area died a couple of years back as he was trying to knock a few over on his property and one 16" diameter "log" just over 8' long snapped off 40' up the tree and crashed through the roof of his backhoe, killing him instantly. Those you allow to fall all on their own! The bonfire is piled up as high as we can make it with logs cut from as short as 10" (really thick ones) to as long as 5 footers (skinny logs or REALLY big "sticks" so this begins as an 8-10' PILE of wood. We'll start that fire as soon as it gets dark and the party goes until we run out of wood which is usually between midnight-2AM. The music gets turned OFF at 9 PM even though there are no houses within 200'.These lakes are surrounded by hills and when there's no leaves on the trees the sound literally reverberates off of the mountain sides and can wind up sounding almost as loud as it is at the speaker 1/4 of a mile away on calm nights. We also invite ANYONE up the lake to stop by to have a beer, hot dog/burger etc. plus we have our annual chili cookoff.
This has turned into a MINIMUM of the same 14 "kids" and the "Kirktoberfest" party 2 weeks ago had 23 of us staying at one of the original's house he just bought 30-ish miles SW of Pittsburgh. I HATED the 4.5 hour drive too and from but the party KICKED ASS and I enjoyed torturing the dozen or so who had WICKED hangovers Sat & a few diehards again on Sunday morning, waking them up to some good, HARD rock on LOUD LOL! I drank a case of Sam Adams Oktoberfest myself but that was 4 or 5 on Friday as we didn't get there until 8:30 and the rest on Saturday but that was from 10:00 AM until I went to bed around 2:00 AM. the weather was AWESOME (mid 70s/sunny) and a good time was had by all but each and every one of these guys also knows as most have known me (both as a coach and their friend's father) since they were 5 years old. ONE started on diaper jokes but fate intervened and he pissed himself (as well as yakked) in his sleep Friday night so we had to keep watch on him for a couple hours and yes, we stripped him down and he woke up in a Megamax! We told him we have dozens of pictures but even we're not that fucking mean!
So add in another $2k. I've known every single one of these kids for a minimum of 4+ years now (roughly half are friends made in college) and though I do NOT advertise that I wear diapers to anyone, it's fairly obvious when staying with a group of people for even a weekend especially when the main goal is to have a great time and party! I know I never actually drank the entire case as I saw some of the guys sneaking a Sam Adams Oktoberfest here and there, so I figure I had maybe 16-18 beers total, which is more than I've drank in at least a year. When we have the parties "here" (my parents live 9 miles away) I buy a half of Sam Adams Summer Ale for the July party and Winter Lager for the Winterfest party but only once have I bought a half of Sam Adams Oktoberfest as you HAVE TO order that way in advance in order to get your hands on a keg of that. Unfortunately, Sam Adams doesn't come in 1/4 kegs (or I've never had the option to buy a 1/4 of Sam) but with a bunch of 21-24 year old guys, a half will be kicked with EASE! Hell, they even got me to do a "Keg Stand" in July of '22 and I wound up lasting 14 seconds, good enough for 2nd place. I was feeling very little pain, that's for certain! Still, I stop drinking once I get a buzz as I DESPISE being "drunk"!
That makes my total pretty much $5500, NOT counting the minimum of 100 Dr's, nurses, anesthesiologists (though I don't know if they know of my IC issues as you always go into surgery pretty much bare ass naked), radiologists, people who work the CT machines, MRI machines, pharmacists (VA) & secretaries who forward my VA secure messages to my Dr's as that would EASILY add $10-$15k to the list.
So yeah....loads of people are at the bare minimum aware I wear (pun not intended) and know why. Never been an issue, save for the can't wait to be EX wife LOL. To this day she will argue with my Dr's about how I am faking EVERYTHING to which my world class Rheumatologist tried to explain to her that I'd have to be the only man on Earth who could make his lab work look like a drunk guy shooting darts as my labs have varied, sometimes wildly, from one day to the next when doing REALLY bad. My Neurosurgeon tried showing her the MRIs, CT scans & X-Rays of the spinal/Coccyx destruction and results of a LOT of different nerve tests I've had done over the years and again, in her very narrow & slammed shut mind, I'm STILL somehow "faking" everything. She's never been able to answer one question I've asked her though which is WHY would I?
Have a great day! I'm back to working on my kids Honda and I can FINALLY see the light at the end of the tunnel on it! I'm *ALMOST* done! THANK GOD though I must admit, I've very much enjoyed working on it. First time I've done extensive body work in a LONG time! I'm S L O W doing this kind of work as I can't leave close enough alone and I'll redo the same frigging spot 50x if that's what it takes for me to make it as "perfect" as possible. WHY I do this on an almost 20 year old car with a 1/4 million miles on it I can't understand, but I've ALWAYS been ULTRA ANAL when it comes to the quality of work I do on virtually everything! Shame I can't remotely force myself to do the same with keeping my garage clean and organized, my house spotless etc.....I try but never have been able to continue to clean/organize anything but give me a challenging job to do and I'll spend an eternity doing it.
CptKirk........knocking on 54 hours with maybe 6 hours of sleep for an hour here, half hour there and a whopping 75 minutes since yesterday! I'll likely be asleep for at least 20 hours when my body FINALLY allows me to sleep. I can easily crash now but then I'll lose what is likely the last dry day for the next 3 or more and then not be able to get this car as close to finished as possible today. LATER!