Alex's even longer post thread.

[Alex]

I've been trying to find a review for a book. I can find synopsises for it, I can buy the book but I just can't find a single review (The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves).

Not sure that this might help: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2877780 - brief reviews on Goodreads.  Not in-depth or authoritative - more opinions/experiences of readers.

Thank you. The title made me wonder what it was actually about.

[Alex]

I was just asked about my tattoos and if I saw a tattoo on someone else, is there anything I'd consider a red flag.

I can only think of the Chinese and Soviet ones though.

[Alex]

Another conversation from yesterday (and something I've said before):

Female Friend: 'If women ruled the world, we'd have no wars.'

Me: 'Our first female Prime Minister took steps to ensure a possible war happened just so she'd win the next election, and besides can you imagine if two female leaders met at the wrong time of the month, or turned up to a diplomatic meeting both wearing the same outfit? The big red button would be pressed before you could say "Oh s**t!"'

Female Friend: 'I... I... I can't actually argue against that one.'

Her reaction did give me an amused chuckle as I could see her face contorting and trying to come up with a counterargument.

Our new bed arrives today. I'd said I would build it all up, but Kristi insisted on paying for the delivery guys to do it. Fair enough, it means she needs to tidy her side of the bedroom.

Trying a bigger print job that I've attempted previously. Possibly too big? The timer says it will take 29 hours and 59 minutes, but it has displayed that timer for an hour now, so I am guessing that is just as high as it counts. If this job does work, I am going to attempt to print out the entire interior of the Nostromo.

[Alex]

Once more (and for the third or fourth consecutive week), I am going to have to head down to Ayrshire. Either I get the house transferred this week or with my holiday and then my new job I have no idea when I'll get time to get it sorted. I have to head down tomorrow, meet mum and Elizabeth in Saltcoats avoiding any contact with my mum since she has covid and I want to be able to go on my holiday next week, get the house signed over. Because of her illness I'll then be travelling back up to Glasgow to stay the night in a hotel before heading back to Lossiemouth as early as possible the next morning.

Well, ain't that just peachy?

[Alex]

Having won my several years-long argument with the local train company that Badmovies.org shouldn't be blacklisted as it doesn't feature sex, violence and all that jazz. Just occasional discussions of these things. All I need now is enough of a connection to access the site. 

Anyway, I am now taking advantage of said wi-fi. The train I jumped on to go to Inverness fortunately is the same train that will then be going on to Glasgow. This is handy as the train is running a few minutes late, bur I don't have to run and jump on another train. I can also cheekily stream movie on my phone.

Yeah, this is why I prefer the train to driving.

People get upset if you watch a movie while driving.

[Alex]

So I spent the day travelling down to Saltcoats. Got off the train and had a couple of hours to kill before the appointment. I had some food, then met up with mum and Elizabeth and then we went to the appointment.

My mum said "I've to ask when we can sell the house."

Fully aware of what the answer to that was going to be, and who had said she should ask that, I said fine. Go for it. I waited until the house was signed over, the paperwork all done and then asked the question and they were told "You will need to wait 6 months."

Oh really. The thing I've been telling you for months. The thing that I spoke to three separate legal experts about is right and you chose to go with what someone had spent 10 minutes googling instead. Well done there. The knock on effects of this are that the house is not going to be sold within a year of my aunts death. That means the grace period on the various taxes is not only going to expire, but they will have to pay back taxes they would have otherwise avoided, plus they will have to pay the assorted bills, house insurance (the previous policy expired the instant the house was transferred). Had they just let me sell the house, it would have been done months ago and avoided all this.

I had to insist that when my mum and sister came out to meet me that they both wore masks since my mum has covid. My sister seems fine, but could just be asymptomatic at the moment. With us going on holiday (and part of me is seriously hoping that I get refused entry at the border with all the issues that are going on right now. We'd have a damn good excuse for going elsewhere next holiday rather than spending all our time off going to see family). Time away from certain members of either sides of our family sounds like a great idea.

Well regardless of all that, Kristi does need to see her family. It has been five years. First she got pregnant which delayed us visiting, and then by the time Ash was old enough to travel Covid hit. Plus, well frankly she was ashamed of her country for voting in trump and didn't want to visit while he was in power. Considering some of who she'd told me she'd voted for before I was slightly surprised by that but in a very good way.

Spending some time in what is technically my home city, even if I haven't lived here for 46 years. It has at least always meant something to me and being here feels calming.

I could have contacted my brother and said well done on costing our sister hundreds or thousands of pounds, making everything more stressful and complicated than it needed to be. You've proven that you know f**k all about this but are very willing to mouth off about what you think you know. Truth is that I am too angry even to tell him that.

[Alex]

Feeling calmer today. Well as long as I don't dwell on things.

50% of the causes of the stress I was feeling is now gone. Kristi said her family have backed off on planning our holiday since my admittedly drunken rant about how much it was stressing Kristi to the point where she was talking about cancelling the entire holiday.

I sat last night alone in the hotel room and just let myself rage inside, my anger reflected by the storm outside. It might not have achieved anything materially, but spiritually I feel better.

It felt like I was in my teens and twenties where I ran on a pure anger that burned anyone who tried to get close to me and left little room for anything else but being angry.

I wonder what happened to that guy?

The truth is I know exactly the answer to that question. Despite everything, and no matter how much control I learned to have over it, that anger is still there. Sometimes it is buried deep down, sometimes it bubbles up near the surface, but it almost never escapes any more. I wish I could call on it at need but it just doesn't work that way and when it gets loose the the results are well, always dramatic. It took a lot of work to find my balance and this last year has been the most I've struggled to control it since then. 26 years of practising iron self control, 16 of them spent letting nothing and no one in emotionally because I didn't want to have to deal with the consequences of what would have happened when I inevitably lost control. It was a lot of work before I was willing and confident enough to engage with other people.

Even my worst year emotionally (2015-2016) doesn't come close to how I've been feeling this past year. I've been aware my balance is off, but I've just not had the capacity to take on restoring it alongside everything else I've been dealing with. Time to work on restoring it and being the best husband and father that I can be. I've done what I needed to do to deal with what had to be done.

We just passed through Perth. The train is packed, I can see no other empty seats save the one beside me. People are literally standing rather than sitting there. Maybe I am giving off stay the hell away from me vibes. Maybe they don't like my deodorant. Either way, I have my angry face on, but inside I am laughing my ass off. Me, I don't care about that stuff. If I see an empty seat, I'll sit there. If it is a busy train and someone has a bag on a seat, I'll target them and tell them to move it so I can sit there. It is rather noisy with everyone talking, so I have my headphones on and I am blasting music at full volume to drown the world out. Heavy on the industrial beats. Doubtless it is annoying my fellow passangers as it will be too loud for them not to hear to some degree. Then again, their chatter was annoying me and I don't see them shutting up. That will also be doubtless now helping with the seat situation.

Well, I got home. Called my mum's to let her know I'd gotten home safely (I always do that), and she started telling me something about the house. I interrupted her and said "I did my best to give you the right advice. At every turn you decided to listen to someone who I continually proved wrong and yet you still kept going with his advice and he was too arrogant to realise he was making mistake after mistake and learn from that. I have done my bit, the house is signed over and I don't want to hear anything else about it."

I could hear that she was some mix of hurt and offended, but I don't care. At every step they've went with the advice that made things harder for me to deal with everything, made it take longer to sort out. Now because of the path they chose to take, the thing is a mess and is going to cost them more money. They can sort out their own damn mess.

[chefzombie]

Decided to start the packing for our holiday. I have filled a large-sized travel suitcase with nothing but presents for people. I mean, you could maybe squeeze in some underwear or socks, but yeah. It looks like the day we land we'll need to go clothes shopping.

I never thought I'd be travelling intercontinental carrying a suitcase that is 30% full of Walkers Shortbread.

Around £70 worth of shortbread. Then we picked up stuff for other people and ordered a few things that will take slightly longer to arrive (but still be here before we leave... hopefully). Went to a nice little crepe place for breakfast, then ended up at Scribbles for lunch. Some stuff is going to have to go in another suitcase.

Yeah, I'll be buying clothes when we land.  All part of helping the economy. I am talking to Kristi about next year going somewhere that isn't a holiday to see either of our families. Kristi wants to go to EuroDisney or Disney Paris or whatever the hell they've called it. Maybe we can do that for Ash's birthday. Hopefully, it wouldn't quite be as busy then since it would be out of school holiday season.

Ever wondered if it would be possible to commit the perfect crime? I don't just mean getting away with it. It would need to be something that not only did you get away with, but everyone would have to know you'd did it, but couldn't do anything about it.

i did that at age 17. i superglued( we're talking automotive glue) all of the doors closed on the automotive section of my school as revenge for them being banned from graduation just because they flipped the auto body instructor's VW in his front yard.
   my class president confessed, got off because everyone knew i did it, and i got off because the adults thought little miss egghead couldn't POSSIBLY have done it. my da knew and thought it was hilarious!

[Alex]

Well my decision not to mention anything up about the house transfer lasted as long as me seeing a memory on facebook from a year ago that said this:

Got to love it when people have been telling you what you need to do and when, and it turns out what they are telling you is either just wrong, misinformed or in the worst cases actually against the law.
While help is welcome, if you are not a qualified expert in dealing with wills, then feel free not to tell me what to do.

It hit me with all the crap I've put up for the past year, where things were said online to me that if it had been said face to face would have resulted in them having a lot less teeth, all the times I'd begged them to go get professional legal advice instead of thinking 5 minutes on google made them an expert on this area of the law. I might not trust lawyers, but I do respect their knowledge in their area of expertise. So I decided to share that memory and add the following, which doesn't really go into why I ended up feeling that way, but it was how I was feeling.

Shame people didn't learn from their mistakes and kept giving terrible advice. Also a shame that it was the advice that was listened to rather than the expert stuff I'd gotten from lawyers & solicitors. Well, I've had enough of not being listened to, washed my hands of it and other people can deal with the consequences of their actions. The house is transferred, I'll get the utility bills and sorted and switched on Monday then I will be happy never to hear anything else about it.

Their arrogance is going to cost my little sister a good chunk of her inheritance. If my younger brother wants to say anything to me, he is more than welcome to try, but the only reply he is going to get is "Unless you are here to tell me how you are going to repay all the money you cost Elizabeth I have absolutely no interest in anything else you have to say so f**k off."

Had Dawn, Cameron, Adam and little CC come visit today. Played two games of Magic (won one, lost one), then won a game of Block Mania. Fun was had though.

Right now I have a lot of restless energy right now that in past times would have been spent ripping into Stewart over his arrogance. He put me in a position where I had to make a decision that might not be entirely legal or having a long drawn-out legal fight that would have further drained the money Elizabeth is due. I am now considering to I go to my legal representative and say a vulnerable adult has been talked into making a decision that is not the best option for her financially, by someone who wants the house sold to their friend. The only thing that is stopping me is because I think the persuasion was done out of incompetence rather than any malicious intent. I will have to do some deep-thinking on it while I am on holiday.

[Alex]

Last night I decided, you know what? The one positive I guess I can take out of the whole situation is that I won and was proved right at every turn. I can't do anything about the 6 months they need to pay bills on the house for, I can tell Stewart that he should be repaying all the money his p**s poor advice has cost Elizabeth but I can't force him to. The only thing I can do is walk away saying I did my due diligence, did my best to do it all right and they f**ked it all up. So I am going to take the victory that I can and had a whiskey to celebrate while we watched wrestling.

No replies to me calling them out on FB and I don't expect there will be. I made a lot of mistakes sorting out this will, things that were I to have to sort out another I'd be able to do much better. I think that's been the difference though. I knew this was something I knew nothing about. I'd google things, read them and then go speak to a professional to check my understanding and quite often how I thought what something meant turned out to be completely different from what I thought it was. Other people just googled and interpreted what they read to mean what they wanted.

I doubt they'll learn anything from their mistakes though.

Oh well, time to stop ranting and go get Ash ready for school.

[Alex]

I was digging around some old sites I used in the past and found a film I'd mate, I dunno 12, 13 years ago something like that. When I saw it, part of me thought I should just delete it. The other part of me really wants to edit and clean it up.

I think I should just delete it though.

[chefzombie]

little brother, i understand. i won't say more, because i REALLY want you not to dwell on this sitch, okay? i love you and you're handling it  the way you need to right now. let it go for now, and enjoy your immediate future. take this strength into that sitch too, if you need it, you have it . remember that.

[Alex]

The holiday ends tomorrow and we head back to the UK. It has mostly been a fun trip with only some stresses caused by Kristi's mum not being happy about us not spending all of her time with her. On previous visits, we'd stayed at her house, but things have changed since then and in a few ways it was just no longer appropriate to stay with her (that she is living in what is basically a construction site and has been for the past 3 years at least, that the area she moved to is a high crime region, that they have a convicted felon on parole staying with them who has been in prison multiple times for stalking). I was just not willing to accept those kinds of risks with Kristi or Ash.

We've done a three-day trip to Yellowstone, went to a Mormon blessing (baptism) for my 8-year-old niece, got a new tattoo on my shoulder, and caught up with many old friends. There hasn't been a day we haven't had something on. Its made the trip feel a lot longer than it was. Part of me is desperate to get home, another wants to extend for another week.

The car crash I've mentioned elsewhere was on Labor Day. We were going to an old second-hand bookstore owned by one of Kristi's friends that her nephew Cayden had never been to. We headed off in two cars, me and Kristi got in Cayden's car to show him where to go, while Ash demanded he get to travel with his aunt Hali, uncle Marc and their daughters. It was a rainy day (unusual enough in Utah in my experience), but nothing super heavy. We were going along the freeway and Cayden went to change lanes for the exit when the back end of the car kept on going around. We started spinning towards the inside wall as Cayden said "Oh ooh". I figured we are doing 70mph, side slam into a concrete wall, then bounce back into traffic. That isn't going to go well. Cayden managed to steer the car away from the wall and still spinning around, we then headed across 3 or 4 lanes of traffic to the opposite wall. The outer lanes had lorries travelling along them, and the centre one had a pickup truck. We were slowing down and I felt a little more confident that if we made it across the road, hit the barrier on the opposite side that we might survive, but with a high potential of life-changing injuries.

I have no idea what part of my brain was deciding what speed we were doing and what the likely injuries from each different type of impact, and I certainly don't recall studying any such information, but it seemed determined to keep feeding me the info regardless of wither it was accurate or not. Anyway, as we neared the opposite wall, Cayden once again got us spinning back across the road. I can't recall if we stopped on that skid or if we went to the inside wall and back out again, but we ended up stopping side on in the middle land of the road. I remember thinking during the whole thing "Well, Ash is with good people. They will take care of him". No one panicked. Possibly because there was too much going on to allow it to set in. Anyway, the pickup slammed into the passenger side of the car where Kristi was sitting. I remember thinking "Shame Susie and Ken don't work for the fire service here any more, it would have been nice to be rescued by people we know".  The side airbags deployed, but almost as quickly were burst as the glass from the window went through them. We were stuck in the middle of the freeway, traffic going by on either side, so we couldn't safely get out the car and we were expecting a pile-up. A truck stopped and blocked the traffic long enough for the car to get pushed to the side, although Kristi couldn't get her door open. Cayden was shaking, and we could see shock was setting in. Both me and Kristi kept him talking and engaged though. He steered the car to the wrong side of the freeway, but I was just happy to get the car out of the main flow of traffic.

I have no idea how long it took the emergency services to arrive, but it wasn't long. In the meantime the other car phoned us. Marc had been just in front of us and had seen the car go into its spin, but had gone around a corner just as we were hit and hadn't seen how bad the impact had been. They'd called 911, then phoned us (we'd tried calling them from Cayden's phone but it was hooked up to his car on Bluetooth which somehow prevented it from working). Marc wanted to stop his car to come back and check on us, but luckily his wife persuaded him that the chances are all that would do would be to cause another accident. They asked if we wanted them to come back and pick us up, but Kristi said she was covered in blood and didn't want Ash to see her that way. From where she was sitting I hadn't seen any injuries on Kristi, but when he lifted her right arm I could see the blood running down her forearm. I could also tell the bleeding wasn't life-threatening or anything. Our first aid training always tells us to check quiet people first. If someone is screaming then they are alive and conscious enough to know they are in pain, so you prioritise people who are quiet because you need to find out how badly they are injured. Shock can be a killer). The police turned up first (the crash was on the opposite side of the freeway from the station pretty much, mile marker 323, near the Lagoon amusement park for anyone familiar with the area). They stopped traffic and we were able to get the car over to the opposite side of the freeway finally. The pickup didn't seem damaged by the collision as far as I could see (not exactly giving it a close examination though and the driver seemed fine). Cayden initially tried to turn down medical attention, but we talked him into getting checked out. By this time Calvin's parents had turned up as well as Lori (Kristi's mum) and her husband. The police took our statements, told Calvin the Utah had a blame must be assigned law, and gave him the choice of a tire violation or a speeding ticket. Since the tire on was less money and didn't involve points on his license he went with that option.

Seemed stupid to me. If anyone was to blame it was whoever decided to make the road out of concrete, but oh well.

Looking forward to getting back to my bad movie collection tomorrow.

EDIT. Oh, we finished the journey to the bookstore after the crash, including Cayden. There was an old book he really wanted, but was out of his budget so I bought it for him. $110 seems a lot for book from 100 years ago on Montana state laws, but the guy collects them. *shrug*

[ER]

That's a horrifically terrifying account of an awful moment in your lives. As described I don't see how any of you made it but I'm glad you did. I found myself wincing reading that. Cars are really very frightening things.

[Paquita]

I hope you made it home alright!  Glad to hear you're all OK and so glad Ash was spared the experience!  I hope it doesn't sour your feelings about the US and you come back again some day!