My Daily Journal

York Beach, Maine

2011-07-17T17:31:00.000-04:00

I'm still learning how this whole BlogSpot blog platform works......being a Wordpress user for years, I have only been on BlogSpot for less than a week and I'm still working out the kinks (mostly on my part) to use this more fluently. I'm trying different sizes and positions on pictures so just bare with me as I explore the BlogSpot options and features. :)

Last night my puppy and I stopped by a friends home for BBQ and social time......it's always nice to see friends.....always make time to see your friends......I can see the puppy was in Stealth mode last night.......OH, another thing, don't you love my new camera - it's soooo much better than my Blackberry camera....I love it!

Stealth Mode.....you can't see meeeeee.........

Here he is in his little pet hammock. Yes, they are made for small pets and you can
buy them at Camping World for about 20 something dollars (I forget exactly how much)

Today my Mother, Sister and I ventured over to York, Maine. My Mother is orginially from there so we are very familiar with the area since I've spent many, many summers there at my Grandmother's home in the York Village. Today we saw the beach was really busy......

Then we went and walk around the visitor's center at the Nubble Lighthouse.....

A lady was making a rug watching people walk by. We stopped to say Hi to her and she said that she had been working on that rug since November.....

Decided to try my new camera to up close to some flowers

Then we drove down to York Village downtown and ate lunch at the Goldenrod's restaurant which I haven't been to in years......so it was nice to go back again.....

Parking was scarce so we parked near the York's Wild Kindgom,
but didn't go in there today....

This is the Goldenrod's restuarant we had lunch at.....

The menu

The placemat

The the Goldenrod, they make their own taffy candy

This is the machine that blends the taffy together

Across the street there is a Bowling Alley and an Arcade
place at the end. The Surfside is a store to buy souvenirs

Alot of little stores surround the village area and is easy to walk to

Hmmmmm,should I buy a t-shirt?

On the way back home we stopped at a Blueberry side stand (we actually know the person that owns this place) and bought some blueberries. We didn't stay very long but checked it out (the person that owns this wasn't around at the time we stopped by) It's called Little Pond Farm and they only sell blueberries. They are at 53 Depot Road, Route 107, East Kingston, New Hampshire.

Well that was my day today. Tonight I've got dinner with a friend (I can't wait because it more social time and I love great company), so I won't be back on tonight. My active and social life just lifted with all my free time since I've become unemployed and I sure can't complain..... :) Have a nice night!

New Camera

2011-07-16T12:41:00.000-04:00

I have killed two FijiFilm cameras each in a one year span. With each FijiFilm I got, I took over 8,000 pictures in less than a year and at the end of the camera's lifespan, 4 out of 6 pictures were coming out black. Just black, no image, no shadow, just black. So since I love taking pictures (obviously), it was time to, once again, splurge on a new camera. But since my budget has become "inconveniently" limited now, I set a "camera allowance" of no more than $200. So I looked around last night online and decided on one, instead of making this an all year project. So I chose the Cannon PowerShot. Not the $300 or $800 one I really wanted, but this will do fine. I came home and snapped two or three pictures and the battery went dead on the camera....sigh....so I took the wall charger that was in the box and shoved the battery in it and it's plugged into the wall now charging. Here's two pictures that I got so far with my new camera. Trust me, I didn't buy this camera for nothing.....I will be using and abusing it will all the pictures I'm going to take on my time off :)

I'm going to try an x-large size of this picture and see how it comes out on the blog page.

And this is the "large" size picture.....BlogSpot makes it so convenient to re-size pictures on the whim! :)

And this is what my new camera looks like!! It's a Canon PowerShot ELPH 100HS (the link will take you to the Canon page to see details about it).......here are some pictures of it (done with my Blackberry camera of course) :)

OH, I have to tell you what else I did today! I went Blueberry picking this morning.....and since Blueberry picking was done before camera shopping, these following pictures were done with my Blackberry camera! :)

Well it's almost 1pm now and my Saturday isn't even half way done yet......so I'm going to check if my new camera battery is charged up yet and I'm not sure what we are doing the rest of the day yet, but I'll be sure to let ya know! :)

Floating Post Office

2011-07-15T18:41:00.003-04:00

Today was a beautiful weather day. We couldn't waste it away so we went on the Mount Washington's U/S Mail Boat, Sophie C, on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire. This is an floating post office as they can process mail and sell stamps right on board the boat. I took a ton of pictures so bare with me as they load onto the web page. It was a tour cruise that went to five islands where the Sophie Mail Boat unloaded mail onto each island (didn't take long, maybe 3 or 4 minutes per island). The tour started at 2pm and was done in exactly 2 hours. The cost was $24 dollars per person and the dog could ride the boat for free........I'll upload pictures now...... :)

Here's the schedule

Well, that was really fun and well worth it. It wasn't one of those recorded tour guides, the captain actually talked us thru the whole trip and pointed out islands and told us alot of history about the boat and the area.

Well, I'm in the transition of switching from socks and sneakers/work boots to bare foot and sandals which feels really great. It's just one more thing that puts everything about my employment termination in perspective even more. It's the little things. You would have to be in my position to understand but I thought it was important to me worth mentioning......See, no more work boots!! :)

Other than that.....this is how I finished my day......

Market Days and Summer Music Festival

2011-07-14T20:45:00.001-04:00

This evening I went to the Market Days and Summer Music Festival in Concord, NH. We walked around and visited some of the vendors and "people watched". There was alot there to do for kids and plenty of food. I snapped some pictures......

Thursday July 14, 2011

2011-07-14T16:31:00.005-04:00

Okay, still on my mission to max out my health benefits from my company. I went to the dentist today and I got 5 x-rays and a cleaning. After the cleaning from the dental technician, the doctor came in and (I don't hide anything I told everyone there that my insurance was to expire on the last day of the month) the doctor came in and check things out with my teeth and told me that I needed two restorations (deep cavities) and two wisdom teeth pulled out. Ugh. Okay, okay. So I made an appointment for Monday at 11am for this "major surgery". I asked the doctor if he thought I needed any more follow ups after Monday's appointment and he said, "Once we get that done, you are good to go for a long time". I was happy about that, but Monday isn't here, and I just dread going to the dentist, but I'll survive.

I cleaned out my car today. 8 years of company crap built up inside my car. Old log books, training material, employee handbook, more rule books, sweatshirts, t-shirts, baseball caps all my the company name on them. All went into a trash bag today. Actually I tried to stuff it all into one trash bag, but didn't succeed, so two trash bags it was. I just accumulated so much stuff.

I didn't really do much after that. Mom and I went out for lunch this afternoon and taking advantage of lunch specials at restaurants are alot of fun :) I think I have to curb my spending just a tad, but I haven't been that bad about spending money; today's lunch for two came to $17.17, and that's all the money I leisurely spent. The dentist cost me $100 today due to a deductible, and I was told for everything that will be done on Monday the bill shouldn't be higher than $150. I can't complain about that.

Tonight I'm having corn on the cob at home and watching TV. I'm trying to be a little productive everyday this week with the more serious stuff (medical, dental, employment securities claim, etc.), next week I'm bound to have some fun. Have a nice night.

Day Three Of Being Unemployed

2011-07-13T22:22:00.000-04:00

You know......It hit me today and I realized that I had alot of time on my hands with going from a sporadic time demanding job to all the free time in the world now. I see I have too much time floating around and these days are getting long if I don't find a new hobby to at least pass my time by being more productive. That can really get to me to; is the fact that if I don't feel somewhat productive, I'll go nuts just knowing my days are wasting away to nothing.

I was thinking today that maybe I don't want to be in the same trade I have been in for the last 10 years. I might just want to try something else out all together......I don't know what, but it was one of the thoughts that crossed my mind today, because new found freedom comes with an unlimited imagination.

What did I do today? Nothing too exciting......I wish I had spent time at the gym today, but I didn't. I used today for cashing my last paycheck that my company had mailed to me. I went to the park with my dog. I have more time to spend with my dog now, so we are bonding and having fun at the park. I went out to lunch (a total of $6.50), and I splurged today bought myself a pair of shorts. I wasn't able to wear shorts to work, but now I can wear shorts and sandals all day long. Today did go by fast.....but I'm running out of stuff (errands) to get done. I don't have any more important things to do, so that's when I thought, maybe a new hobby would fit in nicely with my open schedule.

I have changed the name of this blog four times since I have started it so that is why my last two posts have the same dates cause I just copied and pasted the posting from the other new blog to this one.

Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment since I'm trying like heck to max out the insurance benefits that are left on this calendar month. I'm setting up appointments like crazy. I have no clue how much a Cobra Plan will cost me and I'm not sure of any other health insurance options I can take advantage of.

OH, one more thing before I call it a night......Employment Securities contacted me today and wanted to know if my company that has terminated me had 1) ever given me a written warning letter for the offenses I got terminated over, 2) every executed disciplinary action towards offenses I was terminated over, and 3) if my company had every informed me that my job was in jeopardy prior to termination. I answered their questions honestly and completely with answers to each questions a "No" with a little bit more explanation on my part. I'm happy I had the chance to state my side of the case. We shall see if my company comes back and challenges my answers (which I can't see how they have a leg to stand on), but weirder things have happened. Have a great night. :)

Unemployment

2011-07-13T21:47:00.000-04:00

Today, I went to my local Security Employment Building (Unemployment Office) and opened my claim to start collecting unemployment. I showed them my termination letter and they said it was a sign of my company down sizing and I shouldn't take it personally. My unemployment compensation should go thru just fine and that took away half my stress. The other half of my stress is to obtain my own health insurance......other than that, I have no other problems. I do have an appointment in two weeks with a career counselor at the unemployment office.....I'm sure it's just a matter of going thru the routine of continuing to collect my compensation pay, no biggie, I'll show up and see what it's all about.

I visited my doctor today to max out the rest of my health insurance that I have till the end of the month. I kind of freaked out on the doctor and told him that I wasn't sleeping and having anxiety attacks with the sudden change of being unemployed. He said it was humanly nature to have this reaction and wrote me out a Xanax prescription. That was nice and too easy. I took two today and it didn't do anything to easy my mind but just made me drowsy......in other words, it was useless, but I'll take two more tomorrow night and see what happens. I'm wide awake right now and that is annoying enough by itself.

I called in about my 401K and the finance company that is taking care of it, gave me some options if I wanted to move it to a bank or IRA, but I don't think I'll do anything with it. The lady on the phone said if I just don't touch it, it will be perfectly fine......so I'll just chalk it up to one less thing I have to deal with.

So, that was my productive day. I can't complain with everything I accomplished today and tomorrow I'll just give myself a break and hit the treadmill at the gym and relax. Thanks for checking in on me. Stay turned, this should be a wild ride.... :)

Introduction

2011-07-13T21:46:00.001-04:00

Hi! I've never been in a position where I've been terminated from my job. I've been layoff with a security return date to work for a seasonal job, but never terminated. I've been working for the past 21 years and hope to gain insight from this unemployment period. I'm a truck driver. This past Sunday I saw I was schedule for a meeting with my supervisor before my job routine started. I got to the meeting on time and my supervisor and some hr lady presented me with a termination letter and page full of reasons (that all happened (the previous Friday) on safety violations that I had done that day (two days ago). Now, dummy me, I thought I would get a written warning or penalized with some days off, but no, they were bound to get rid of me after I've been there 8 years. I took the severance with grace and left the company property. You know, it wasn't the loss of job or loss of income that I was upset about, I took "the news" more of a personal insult. So now it's Tuesday and Monday went by smoothly as I endure long days ahead of me. I do plan on stopping by the unemployment office this to see my options. But Monday, I took in stride; I went to the gym, brought the dog out for a walk, simple things, enjoying my new found freedom from the rat race. How long can I stay surfing on this freedom, I'm not sure, but that is one of those things that are yet to be determined. So I plan on updating this page periodically about how I'm doing and what I'm up to and we shall see where I land at the end :)