Min wage rant.

When someone says go get a better job to you, you really feel angry at that person for not knowing that you've been spending days to weeks to months in search for that better job. The only ones that you can find are flipping burgers or making burritos for fast food places and not the job you trained for and you state you have student loans to pay off and you're barely making anything to survive on and you're in line to get food stamps to help put food on your table.
That is the day, when the minimum wage of $7.35 is no longer a good wage to have and that it needs to be 9.50 an hour as it will help put food on the table and for those people who has student loans, they are struggling to pay off as they have degrees for a high paying jobs are not there anymore. They are struggling to put food in their bellies, means they are not able to pay off their loans cause the pay they bring in is so little.
Seriously, when you can not live on $7.35 an hour, that is when the min wage needs to be higher or get another job to go with the job you already have.
People might have to get one or more jobs, in order, just to survive living on the min wages of $7.35 an hour. Just to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and gas for their vehicles and then add onto that student loans or a car loan which could zap a month's paycheck.
People are struggling to make a living and yet, the companies like McDonalds are claiming that if the min wage is raised to say $9.75 an hour will cause them to raise the price of the food are hoping that scare tactic will scare people off of demanding a higher min wage because it could raise the price of their product to keep them with a profit instead of making their employees have a better wage to work with. I see more unhappy smiles from employees of McDonalds than I do at other places. They want a higher wage but McDonalds is being hard headed about giving it to them and so is the rest of the US as they claim oh we'll have to raise the price of the food or the other finished products. But if you cannot live on $7.35 an hour, then how can you afford to not to demand a higher wage and not get it because the company is afraid to cut their own profit to make the lives of their employees better?
Do you think we should suffer having a low min wage while the CEOs' of all these companies are basically getting thousands of dollars in their pocket and we the employees are basically suffering to make enough to survive? Wouldn't the CEOs remember when they were once working at min wage jobs too before they made it to the top and now they're comfy and now saying that the min wage stays as it because it will take money from their bottom line, bottom line of what - their profit?
I don't think so, I think they're scared to give any of their profits to the employees.

My driving rules.

These are my driving rules and these are what I now seriously follow.

1. Don't speed. If the speed limit is 65mph, you stay at 65 or 60mph.
2. Don't assume a cop won't catch you speeding. (Thank you to BJ Blankenbeker)
3. Always keep your eyes on the road.
4. Keep your cell phone in your purse and not on your ear.
5. NO TEXTING while driving.
6. Keep distractions to a min.
7. Before you start driving, make sure that everything that you want on at the right temp is done before you begin to drive.
8. If you feel sleepy, go to a restaurant or a gas station and get something to eat and maybe just walk around to wake yourself up, don't continue to drive.
9. Don't road rage.
10. If you get into an accident, call for the police and don't admit anything as in I'm sorry, let the police deal with it.
11. Don't tailgate anyone, not even the semi's.
12. Don't cross bridges that are flooded.
13. When it rains, don't speed, slow down.
14. Don't chase after police vehicles.

Those are my driving rules that I follow. If you have any tips that I should add to my list, let me know.

Winter driving tips.

These are my tips for winter driving.
People may say that my tips are limited to one season as winter will bring different driving hazards each year. True, but the tips will work regardless of the winter season.
My winter driving tips are as follows.
1. Drive slower than you normally would. Normal speed would be 40mph on the highway. Normal gravel road speed would be 10 to 15 mph. Slow and steady speed will be good on icy roads or even snow covered roads.
2. If you start to skid, turn your wheel with the skid, not against it. If the skid is on the right, turn your wheel to the right as your tires will go in that direction and it will help get you out of the skid and it is the same on the left.
3. Good tires.
4. If you get stuck, don't panic and try to get out of the ditch yourself. Take a deep breath and call for a tow truck.
5. Let your family or friends know when to expect you at their place, so they know to start looking for you if you are late.
6. Do Not use your cell phone while you are driving on icy or snow covered roads, you need your full concentration on your driving and the roads.
7. Don't talk to your passengers while you are driving on icy or snow covered roads. Concentration is needed.
8. Always check the weather reports before you go driving as you might not want to drive while it is sleeting or snowing.
9. When driving in snow, low beams are needed to keep you from being in a white-out conditions.
10. When you come upon a snow plow, stay back 60 feet, don't tailgate them as they cannot see you riding their backends.
11. Drive safely, arrive alive.

I hope you like my winter driving tips and if you have your own to add, feel free to add them.

Last day of Winter vacation.

I spent a lovely two weeks from work, working on several of my stories, not one of my other websites got worked on during this time frame. During that time, I ended up getting sick, which I am still struggling with at the moment. I'm not sure how long I'll be working tomorrow.

I'm recording some of my VCR tapes to DVD for a friend who wants a set of some of the cartoons that I have recorded back when I only had a VCR recorder. This is going to be a late Christmas present to my friend as he likes the cartoon series that I video taped back in 1997-1998.

I know this will go beyond my bedtime of 10:30pm, but I don't mind not going to bed at my normal time of 10:30pm as this is a good thing that I'm doing for my friend as he'll love it.

Well, gotta go and make sure that I don't need to repeat an episode.

So I get to enjoy my last evening of winter vacation by watching TV.

Long time in posting anything here.

Seriously, I totally forgot about this place.

Well, several things have happened since I had posted.

In April 8th, I started a new job. It doesn't pay much but it is a stepping stone of sorts for me to get into a better paying job.
On September 5th, I got Employee of The Month and the thing was I was totally not expecting to get such an honor from them so soon after joining their employment.
In September, my 2002 Toyota Rav4 that I had named CJ, started her death spiral and by the 18th of September, she was dying and towed to the Toyota dealership in Columbia who I had hoped would fix her completely and get her back to me. But the transmission had died on her and it would have cost me over four thousand dollars to fix her up fully. But the thing is, she cost about five thousand dollars. So my dad put in a call to the dealership to see about trading her in for a newer but used Toyota Rav4. Guess what happened? NOTHING! They never called my dad to work with us in getting me a used but new Rav4 which would be in my name and my payments that I would be paying. They didn't seem to want to work with us, at all, so I had to, very sadly, give that dealership my three finger salute and look elsewhere for a vehicle.
The good thing that came out of this was the other dealership that had originally did the deal, which I think was why the other dealership really didn't want to work with my dad because it was not their deal originally. Joe Machens Toyota in Columbia, Missouri got the three fingered salute from both my dad and me for being very cold to a possible buyer of their vehicles and guess what? In my family, we are very loyal to the dealership that we deal with in getting vehicles. Well, on September 25, 2013, I became the owner of a 2002 Black ML320 Mercedes Benz, with car payments. Yes, I now own a Mercedes Benz in my name, not my father's or my mother's name but my name. Guess what will happen in 2017, when I pay the last payment to my CJ, I will trade it in for a newer vehicle. Not a Rav4, but another Mercedes Benz, as much as I love the Rav4s', Toyota's treatment of my dad and me basically soured my taste to the Rav4s'. I have become a Mercedes Benz girl now, instead of a Toyota girl.
I named her CJ, like my first vehicle, but that was under my dad's name, this vehicle is mine in name and everything else.
During a visit to my uncle in late October, we spoke about family and Herb made mention that his own son had defriended him on Facebook. His son had defriended his own father from his Facebook account. I went to my Facebook account to see if my cousin was still my friend, only to find out that he had done the same bloody thing to me! He deleted us both as friends and a mutual friend of ours was deleted as friends. I think I know why he removed us. It was because he got a new role in the high school football team - runningback coach or because he finally got his face slapped by the facts that his own father for the last several years had finally been vindicated as Henry needed supports on his feet to help him play better. Henry finally got the support and BANG, his game improved twenty-fold to where he's an awesome football player. You would think that would prompt his son to get in contact with his dad and invite him over to the house to apologize for second guessing him. But he did a stupid thing instead, he removed members of his own blood family from his Facebook page in lue of his in-laws. Well, lets just leave it at that as he missed out on a lot of things in the Brownell side of the family. He did come to the memorial for his grandfather but that was before he decided to cut ties to the Brownell clan who were on Facebook. Oh well, that's his loss. If he wants to be friends with us again, we will hold no hard feelings as blood is thicker than water to us but if he doesn't want to be friends with his blood kin, it is no skin off our noses, he made his bed and now he must sleep in it.
I've decided to remove chapters of my original stories from the internet, as I have decided to work on getting them published either by self publishing or going the traditional route through agents and publishers. I might try to get them finished during my winter vacation from work as I usually spend my evenings working on them, if I work on them during the daytime and the evenings, I might be able to get them done to where I can send them to a beta-reader to work on editing them before I start writing the one to two page synopsis of my latest work called Warrior Princess. I also have been doing chapter readings at a local coffee cafe in Lebanon, Missouri called Simplicity Coffee, Tea, and More each Friday evening, unless there is really bad weather to where they cancel it and it is usually held around 6pm or 6:30pm as I allow a small group of singers called Walenia to play before I read a chapter of my story Warrior Princess, then I sit down and do some writing on my story if the muse decided to start singing while I am there.
I also might have asthma as this past December 10th, I went to the ER with breathing problems and I mean I was gasping for air and my chest hurt from breathing. It turned out to be bronicospasms. In other words, the tubes leading to my lungs were spasming so hard it made it hard for me to even really speak.
Well, this is a very long post, something that I hope is not going to be a regular thing. I need to head for bed since tomorrow morning is the one of two days of work for me since I start my winter vacation on December 18th to December 30th.
I will do another post soon.
Possible topics - winter driving tips or what my driving rules are.
I might do them both since both are important.

Writing and stuff.

My writing is going on a good pace. I'm actually working on a story that deals with a kid who is being bullied in school. I was going to have it with the bully being the star of the story to see why the kid was being a bully, but my writing critique group thought it should be focusing more on the kid who was being bullied, not the bully himself. I'm putting into this story all of my experiences as a victim of bullies(even in my adult age I am a victim of a bully who conned me into believing that she was in the right and basically after about two years' I broke free after learning that this person was nothing more than a lying bully herself, when she told me her greatest and largest lie of all that my two new friends were spreading lies and rumors about my then dying mother but when I confronted both women, I learned the cold hard truth about my so called best friend who I had considered to be a sister from another family, was in fact a liar and a rumormongering bitch. I atoned my sins with the two people that this bully went after conning me into believing she was in the right, when she was behaving like a bloody effin bully and she still claims that she is not a bully when she is one.), the only thing that she did that I am thankful for was getting me angry enough to where I video taped my mom, now I have a lasting memory of my mother on video, something that she cannot take from me. That is the only good thing that she did during the last months of my mother's life without stating why don't you go video your mom, she had to bloody lie to me to get me to do something like that and when I found out that she lied to me, I basically kicked her out of my circle of friends for being a big flat out liar and a con and I kicked her out of all of my groups, removed all of her stuff from my groups and banned her from returning.

On August 13th, I finally passed my driver's test and got my license. In the year that I lost my mom, I gained my freedom to drive without a licensed passenger and a permit sticker on my vehicle anymore.

Then, on October 13th, on my Grandmother's birthday, we get news that my Grandfather who has been staying at a nursing home that he was not doing good and was being transported to the hospital. I asked dad if I should go to the hospital and sit with Grandpa but he said he should be fine when we get there at 8am, so I went back to bed since it was 2am. By 6:30am, we get the call stating that Grandpa had died. We had him cremated and formed into cannonballs to be shot out of a cannon on his memorial service. We had a real good time on that day.

We still have not dealt with my mom's ashes and we're trying to figure out what do we do with her remains. I'm thinking that we should take her ashes and that of her mother's to Hawaii and pour their ashes into the waters near Kona where my mom was the most happiest at and since my grandmother never been to Hawaii alive, this way, she'll experience Hawaii in death. I think we might do that if we get enough money together to go there but the economy here in America bloody sucks right now. But we're hoping to get some funds together to make a trip like that and give my mom a proper send-off will take time to figure out where her real resting place is. We might put half of her in Hawaii and keep the rest with us.

Losing my mom last year still hurts and I know it will hurt me for a long, long time to come. Losing my younger brother was hard but this is really, really hard.

Attack at Toadega Bay.

This is by far the most researched story that I ever really did. I've spent two years researching this subject and now I'm finally putting it down in words. Yes, I did write this story before but what I had up is not good anymore so I've ripped it up and started anew with this story.

Chapter One.

"I'll be glad to get back home to see my girls,"
"Indeed, being in a submarine for four months and barely seeing the surface is not what I had in mind for being a Navy sailor, even if I did volunteered as a member of a sub,"
"Oh sure, have fun in the Navy, see the sights, enjoy having women on your arms, but nothing about where you have four months at sea and being about three miles deep under the surface of the water with about hundred and forty-nine other men," Another sailor replied, as they walked towards the bridge to relieve the three sailors whose roles they took over.
"But I'll say this, we sure do look good in dress uniform and that gets the chicks," the other replied with a chuckle.
The sub's Admiral looked at the three men as they gave him a nod before relieving the sonar, radio and the navigator of their posts. The Admiral Harrison Paddy was a forty year old Navy and it was his last time serving as Admiral to the US Harrison ballistic submarine before he retired from service. "We're about seventy miles away from our home base in San Diego. The end of this sub's time in these waters will be coming to an end very soon. I am proud to have commanded you and hope that you will take on another volunteer job on another sub."
Pederson who had the sonar noticed something odd about the shape that was approaching their area. It was silent and by the sound of the echos it was a very large sub or possibly a whale but he knew what the whales sounded like. He turned his equipment over to the band where he had listened to the whales sing their haunted songs on to find that the ocean marine life was very silent. He swung around to the Admiral. "Admiral, we have problems, sir!"
Admiral Harrison went to his side. "What problems, Pederson?"
"I noticed a large shape coming our way and figured it might be a whale but when I switched over the frequency to the whales, I heard absolutely nothing as in their songs. This is either another sub or something else," Pederson replied.
"Collins, open a channel to the unknown sub! We need to find out who or what they're doing in our patrol area," Admiral barked off. "Flood torpedo room one and ready to launch if they don't reply."
Collins started to open a channel when the alarms went off as everyone started to silence the alarms as Pederson yelled out, "They're going to ram us!"
"Brace for impact everyone! Collins, send out a distress call! State unknown sub attacking USS Harrison, now!" Admiral Harrison barked off as everyone started to brace for the impact.
But the impact never happened as Admiral looked at Pederson. "Why didn't we get hit?"
"The attacking sub dove down. I think it is a whale . . . " Pederson spoke, as he looked at the screen but then he saw the blip show up but below them. "Oh shit, its under us sir and its rising up fast!"
"Full speed ahead!"
The next thing they felt was a hard slam and the sub felt like it was being pushed upwards fast as everyone felt the pressure on their persons. It was not long for it felt like another impact happened as the sub rolled several times.
"Damage report!" Yelled Harrison over the alarms.
"Engine room is offline sir, we have leaks in several compartments!" Yelled Bank. The emergency lights shone red as the sparks from the damaged consoles shone in the darkness.
"Injuries!" Yelled Harrison, his hand was to his head as he knew he struck his head on the ceiling before being slammed back down.
"Some spinal and head injuries, Admiral." Spoke Banks as he hurried to his side and placed some gauze on his forehead. "We need to get away from here."
"We need to get the engine back online!" Yelled the sonar.
Just as he yelled that comment out, the command center went bright with lights as everything started to come to life.
The cry of 'Thank God' were heard through out the center, as everyone turned to look at the Admiral.
"Lets get this bird moving. Banks, send radio waves stating we have sustained massive damage and serious injuries, we're coming to port in Toadega Bay, its the only place I can think of where the sub can be checked out safely. I cannot risk having a leak happen on the way to San Diego." Admiral Harrison replied. He knew that the port in Toadega Bay was deep enough for the sub to dock at and be pulled from the bay itself. He turned to look at the medic who was tending to his bleeding head, he looked at the navigator. "How long till we get there?"
"About four days at this speed, sir, any faster and we will be dead in the water." The navigator replied.
The Admiral slammed his fist down hard. He knew his crew was seriously injured but if he pushed the sub any faster, his crew would either die or suffer more. He knew his medics on board were good, he just prayed that they make it to Toadega Bay before a member of his crew died.
The medic came and told him that he needed to rest. Even though he didn't want to, he did follow the medic's order as he retired to his berth. As he laid on it the last thing that did remain on his mind was what attacked them.

Yes, I know, what attacked the sub and would we find out what attacked it.
It will be learned later on what attacked it as one of the sailors will have a connection to one of my main characters that I have in my story.