Category: Interesting

In this installment I will lay out a solution to our mental health crisis in the country. I again want to inform folks this part of my series is satirical in nature for one reason; none of these options are likely to ever become law.  In addition, some will likely think I am being overly mean in my commentary. My point of this series is not to attack those with actual mental illness, it’s the cheating scum who doctor shop so they too can ride the crazy train.

No weapons allowed: This applies to the entire household. Junior gets a diagnosis, it doesn’t matter who owns the guns, they must be turned over to authorities.  Any knife that isn’t a serrated blade as well. Too many crazies in the world right now. We have had enough shootings/killings.  Can’t take any more chances.  Nope you cannot keep it in a safe or at a relative’s house. If you’re on a pill or someone in your household is… it’s gone.  This will be made easier when the Sith Lord gets his way and the government maintains a national database for firearm ownership.

Mandatory mental health checkups: once every other week, by a trained, licensed professional.  Again, we cannot take chances here. We never know who the next person will be to open fire on a school/business/church etc.

TV viewing capped at one hour a day. Again, this is obvious. With the average person watching north of 8 hours a day, we cannot have you being brainwashed.  There is reality, and fantasy land, TV is mostly fantasy land.  The news makes people depressed and distressed. Depressed people are the ones who typically go on these rampages.

No more internet privacy: A copy of your browser history will be sent daily to your psychiatric caseworker for review.  Anything flagged will have you remanded to the psycho ward.  The dark web and other rabbit holes create a massive problem in this world. Remember, you are on a pill. You are not normal.  Internet time is also capped at 1 hour daily.  Again, like tv, too much brainwashing going on.

NO alcohol or drugs: legal or illegal. You will be wearing a monitor.  You are on a pill. We need to ensure that nothing interferes with the chemical balance of the body’s systems which the pill is trying to maintain.

Mandatory driving tests twice a year: Behind the wheel.  Unlike being innocent until proven guilty, here you need to prove you can drive safely twice a year.  Heck, have you seen the size/speed of some of these cars lately?  Yikes.

No voting: Again, if you are less of a citizen or crazy… no vote for you.

Mandatory inpatient care: Military style, one weekend a month, two weeks a year.  You are under evaluation, not simply going to a doctor and trying to get out of it.

Obviously the above will never be allowed to happen.  Truthfully, I do not even believe these would ever be voted in. The premise of this series is not to demean the folks who actually do have disabilities as they are actively seeking help.  I am going after the losers in the game of life you see from time-to-time that use the mental health card as a sympathy card.  My opinion is if you want the “benefits” of this condition, you must deal with the reality of our situation.  In the last few mass shootings in the US, it’s been done by a person with mental illness. In many cases, the FBI has been “right on the tail” of the shooter to no avail.  It was too late.  We can no longer take a chance.  This conservative has heard/seen enough of these. If you want to play the card, you must deal with the consequences.  No more shootings.

If these were to pass, watch the number of people with “mental health issues” plummet quickly.  The number of folks popping a “pill” will drop drastically.  Again, be healthy, be well. Put the tv remote down, stop scanning the internet, none of the news is good.  Touch some grass. No, not that kind! Go outside. Be barefoot. Enjoy the world that God made for us and quit being so self-focused and quit sheltering in place to avoid life.

The Chief

One disturbing trend occurring lately is the number of older people getting diagnosed with mental health issues.  I work with someone who squealed like a piglet to his urgent care… yes, urgent care doctor, and got put on a pill.  At first, he couldn’t be prouder of himself. He got what he wanted… unfortunately for him, he has no idea that if you mention mental health issues to your doctor he/she/they (for you CA republicans out there) is required to put you on something.  It’s a “cover your butt” for the physician in case you go postal.  I found out later that he told the doctor he picked out the knife to kill himself with. 

Welp, that’s one way to get on a pill. I think they should have held him for several days for a psych evaluation, but oh well.  He then found out he had to see a psychiatrist a handful of times, and obviously this angered him as his healthcare plan didn’t fully cover this.  My suspicions for this center around his likely sighting what he “saw on tv or read somewhere online” as his reasoning to be diagnosed.  If it sounds fishy to you, it likely sounded fishy to his provider, thus he was going to pay for part of it.  I overheard a couple phone calls regarding upcoming appointments and him trying to weasel his way out of them.  Again, he probably read about it or saw it on a fictional tv show but hey, it worked so why not try it right?

Like anything else that generation has become famous for, they want their cake, want to eat it too, then when the bill comes, claim there wasn’t enough frosting, and they shouldn’t have to pay.  It’s pathetic, but here we are.

I do not really get it. When I was young, you didn’t want to be labeled as being mentally unstable, but now it is like a badge of honor or some weird sympathy card.  It’s the latter. They want to play that card when things do not go their way.  It’s wild watching him play the card whenever there is trauma in his life, or he feels like avoiding something, but when things are well, he never mentions it.  The number of people in general claiming to have mental health issues is staggering. As I mentioned in part 1, its literally the go to… like a get out of trouble-free card. 

My favorite part in the saga was when he magically declared himself totally fine and healed and was going to go to this urgent care doctor and get off the pill.  I keep labeling the doctor because, in my humble opinion, the urgent care doctor seems to be a “take this and call your primary care physician if this continues” doctor, not someone who should be prescribing things.  Especially not prescribing/diagnosing mental health issues.  So, I feel this whole thing was an act to begin with.  He went there armed with plenty of internet articles and knowledge gained from various tv series episodes.  His plan likely would have worked, except for the detail about how he had planned on killing himself.  They don’t speak about this in fantasy TV land… no doctor will let you stop taking the pills when you admit that.  Risk is too high in this litigious society we live in.  Imagine the look on his face upon hearing that.  I have a feeling he went doctor shopping after that looking for a yes, but unlike on the latest tv episode, he found no one willing to play ball.

In closing this part, I will say this, how the mighty have fallen!  The same generation that called mine; crockpot kids, dumb, stupid, addicted to their phones, social media whores etc. is now going to be known for trying to get on mental health pills.  It’s bad.  I didn’t think they would go out like this but here we are. The generation that was all about self-individualism, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, make something out of nothing, is now trying to get free government pills.  What the heck happened?

The Chief

Disclaimer: This blog is targeting people who “doctor shop” to get diagnosed with a mental health issue, not the good people who actually have a mental health issue.  If you have a real issue, I hope you are able to find affordable help or services for your condition.  I wish only the best for you… to the folks who shopped around for a diagnosis, you are the worst type of people.

I remember as a child growing up, there would be maybe one student/child at school with a learning (mental health) disability.  Again, one whole child at the entire school!  I was always enrolled in private school, which tends to attract more special needs kids because class sizes are smaller, and they usually have a program specifically for them to tailor to their needs. 

As I grew older (High School & College years), suddenly more and more students were taking a pill.  It was typically Adderall which is prescribed to people who have a hard time focusing.  While this could be true, I always thought it was tied to being declared a “mental health issue.”  See, in High School and College, if you had any type of learning disability/mental health issue, you got added benefits other students didn’t enjoy.  Typically, the rules didn’t apply to you anymore. If you were late for class, acted out, etc., you were excused because you were considered a special needs student.  You also got unlimited time on tests/quizzes and got extended deadlines on reports.  It birthed the idea of an IEP (individual learning plan) and lowered an already low bar for education even lower.  Now having a special need is not seen as a liability, it’s seen as having benefits.  The number of “special needs” kids at my high school went from a couple to classrooms full when it came to final exam time.  At first, I thought it was just my generation trying to work the system… boy was I REALLY WRONG!

In my years since graduating, the special needs fraud has gotten far worse.  If you are accused of a crime, it’s now a priority to be declared special needs. Not only does it guarantee leniency, but it also likely results in dropped or dismissed charges.  If you want a medical marijuana card?  Just go doctor shopping, hell my sister got a doctor 3 counties over to issue her a diagnosis for a medical marijuana prescription for her monthly visitor.  NO one in this county or the surrounding ones would issue it, but head to Modesto, swipe your insurance information, and viola here you are.  Smoke and toke like Cheech and Chong, you’re good to go.

Lastly, in the last 10 years, I have no idea what happened.  The people old enough to be my parents started getting in on this.  They see it as the new “race card” that needs to be played when they are cornered.  Suddenly people in their 60s are claiming mental health or “brain fog.”  They shop for a doctor and get put on a pill.

In the next installment I’ll speak about the older generation and “mental health.”

Part 1/ 3.

In an effort to reduce the amount of physical stuff we have in our house; my winter project is to scan the photos that we have accumulated. As I see it, my job at this point is not to cut or cull stuff just reproduce it digitally.

Folks, this is a daunting task. I started in January with two boxes of my stuff which were mostly photo albums. The rest of it belongs to my wife. She has boxes from both her grandmothers plus her mom plus her stuff. I started with 8 boxes. There are more boxes that may have stuff in them but you gotta start somewhere.

During January, I finished going through about two and a half boxes. Thus far I have the following to report: 13,447 individual files and 159 gigabytes of storage space. There’s actually more but you get the idea. The age of the photos is about a 100-year span from the 1890’s to 1990’s. In addition, there are newspaper clippings, recipes, diaries, and other stuff.

One of the unique things in and amongst all this stuff are scrapbooks that seem to have their origin with people of limited means. One type of scrapbook from some distant relative was created from an existing book and that was covered on every page with clippings from various newspapers. Not only do you get deaths and births but entries into social pages, news articles, and a host of other things that seemed important to the person that created the book. Some are scrapbooks with five or six columns of articles on each page: front and back. The box I’m working in now has a few of these in the bottom. They look to be very labor intensive to scan. In fact, I may have to buy a book scanner to do them. I won’t really know until I start on them, probably next week.

To do this project, I’m using an Epson photo scanner (Model FF-680W). It works great but needs constant cleaning. This scanner does both front and back of photos. In addition, it also tries to auto-correct color. I am also using a multifunction HP printer/scanner (Officejet Pro 7740). Most photos have been done at 1,200 dpi and other things have mostly been 600 dpi. I am using both the Photo app in Windows 11 and ACDsee photo software. The software is mostly for cropping and touching up the things that I scan.

An example of what I’m scanning is Grandma’s scrapbook for the 1946 road trip to Glacier National Park, Canada, Utah, and other parts of the West. She has 109 pages for this road trip with receipts, postcards, personal photos, handwritten narrative of each day and so forth.

Not only is it an insight into my wife’s family but also a glimpse at post-war America. An additional ten pages in the scrapbook were for a much shorter trip in 1947. This scrapbook yielded 660 files.

I know I won’t complete this project before spring, but I hope to make a dent in the pile.

Next, I will need to tag people in the photos and try to sort them by year. Part of this will allow the first cutting of unknown people out of the pile. This is afterall a genealogy project, at least in part. Of course, if the children don’t get going with grandchildren, then this project will lose much of its importance.

I must say that I have a greater appreciation for the resilience and determination of past generations as a result of this project. I have so little information about my own family that to see another that did try to give to the next generation evokes many emotions in me.

Yep. Many government leaders make claims that you can pick your own gender, but have you ever tried filling out government forms for these guys? Fact is they still wanna know your gender and only give you two choices male and female.  (OK, your pets get to choose spayed or neutered when you sign them up for their license.)

Anyway, if you check the wrong box, guess what? Your application gets stopped until it is resolved. I got to experience this firsthand about a week ago.

I’m about to turn 62 and decided to apply for Social Security. I figured I should apply once I get within 90 days of my birthday. Well sure enough there was a problem. I found out after ignoring a phone call with a 301-area code. Of course, I ignored the call since I have no idea where 301 is and don’t have the number in my address book. A voice mail was left from someone claiming to be from the Social Security Administration. I called the number and extension that I was given and left messages on three separate occasions over the space of about 10 days. Of course, nobody has called me again. Oh, the number left on my voicemail did not match the one on my caller ID.

Finally, I got a letter from SSA which stated that there was a problem with my application. In typical government fashion, the letter never said what the issue was that was causing all the fuss. They asked me to complete a form SS-5 (it was an application for a duplicate Social Security Card). FYI you can only apply for a duplicate Card in person and the local Social Security office will not let you make an appointment to do this. (It took more than an hour of persistent dialing to my local SSA office to learn about the no appointments thing.)

In an attempt to learn more, I called the generic 800 number on the Social Security Administration website. Amazingly, I was able to speak with a real human. After extensive grilling to try to verify my identity, I was finally able to ask someone what the dire problem was with my application. Back in 1980, when I applied for a duplicate copy of my Social Security Card; allegedly, I accidently checked the box for female. Whether this is true or not I can’t say because I have never been offered a copy of this errant form. Ironically, this was the same time that I was registering for Selective Service—a  male only requirement—and two years before I went in the military to serve in a male only occupation. At the time, this error never bothered anyone. However, it is a big issue now.

I find the Federal government making an issue out of checking the wrong gender box on a form 43 years ago laughable. I thought under the enlightened leadership of Joe Biden that nobody cared about gender. I thought nowadays that gender could change on a whim; like maybe which restroom had the shortest line when you need to pee.

Anyway, I dug through my box of important documents and prepared to go to the nearest SSA office the next day.

The next morning, I got out of bed, got dressed, and then drove the hour and a half to the nearest SSA office. I arrived about 8 AM and was proudly the first in line. When they opened at 9 AM, I was admitted into the office and took a number. A few minutes later I was called to one of the four windows serving customers. I showed my letter from SSA and my documents. The lady was satisfied that I was in fact male without resorting to a package check. I was assured that the information would be forwarded to the SSA case worker that was holding up my application. Oh, and I will also get a new SSA card in the mail in a few weeks.

Please note that this was supposedly resolved over a week ago, but as of today, per the SSA website, my application is still on hold pending further review.

My wife is glad this happened because she was able to laugh at my predicament and then load me down with a list of chores to do when I went to the big city. As a result, we now have a barn door on the downstairs bathroom. What took three minutes in a YouTube video actually took two days to accomplish but that is a story for another day.

With my manhood secure and my pride recovering, I just wanted to share my story to let you know what I’m doing in my spare time.

Saturday, the wife and I were on our way to eat lunch at Good Grief. Per their t-shirt, Good Grief claims a population of three people, two dogs, and one grumpy guy. The restaurant at Good Grief is about 45 minutes from our house.

We got about a mile down the road when we ran upon an accident on Highway 95. On a steep downhill grade, a guy pulling a load of hay spilled bails over all four lanes of the road. (Truck in photo above is not subject of this story.) Traffic stopped and then folks got out of their cars and started moving the hay out of the way. In less than five minutes, the road was open in both directions. Below are several pictures that my wife took while I was helping with the others.

Only one guy tried to get thru the mess. He was on a motorcycle. Everyone one else waited and/or helped.

At one point a person said, “I’d like to see this happen in New York City.”

My response was, “They’d just call 9-1-1 and wait for help.” 

Yep, I can picture some guy trying to help in New York and finding that his vehicle was stolen while they were helping.

It was spontaneous and just what you’d expect in this part of the country.

Photo above is Rusty Rex and our storage shed.

Yep, the wife and I have been busy finishing our house in North Idaho. (Don’t say “Northern” just “North”.) Right now, it’s mostly livable, except the stove is not operational yet. The glass for the shower will be here in early September. The cabinet guys will be here whenever they feel like it. So, yes, there are a few loose ends out of my control but mostly the downstairs is about done. Upstairs is functional … to a point. We still need to install flooring and cover the ceiling joists.

The California house is now sold. We have cut ties to the once “Golden State”. Sadly, Johnnie Does and the rest of the gang are still in Elk Grove. I do miss them and a few of the local restaurants. Gone are the editorial board lunch meetings at the local salsa bars. However, I have gained much by leaving. I have my Second Amendment rights restored. I can now open carry a sidearm with no permit. I can cast a line into the local river without leaving my property. I plan to register as a Republican again as the Party here actually stands for something other than “democrat lite”. Oh, I have found that the John Birch Society is alive and well here too. Deer are abundant on our property. We enjoy watching three young bucks as their antlers continue to grow. They come daily to eat apples from the lone apple tree on the property.

It seems like half the folks in our county are formerly from the Left Coast state that is rarely named here. Many have been here for decades and are not necessarily refugees of the horrible governance of Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown. All these folks have one thing in common and that is that they will not allow Idaho to become like the place that they left. It is my observation that most folks in California claiming to be conservative are really liberals and they don’t fit in with folks that are actually conservative. Most California “conservatives” love big government and can’t comprehend a world where “The State” doesn’t dictate their every move.

For example, my dad is totally appalled at the lack of permits and government oversight that we are under while building our home here. We didn’t need an architect or engineer to stamp drawings to get a building permit. We didn’t need T-24 calculations. We don’t need a Certificate of Occupancy to move into our house. I can go on, but I think you get the point. Also, we didn’t have to pay north of $100,000 in taxes and fees to get a building permit like you must do in Elk Grove. Our building permit was less than $1,600. I hand drew several pages of the permit package and used a computer for the rest. Any additional questions were answered verbally over the cell phone. There were fees to connect to the power grid and city sewer but compared to where we came from, the cost was minimal. Had we lived outside the city limits, these costs would be even less. The only big expense was putting in a well since city water was not readily available.

The thing I do miss the most is that my son is not here to share the wonder of Idaho with us. He is attending college in Arizona. Nothing against Arizona but his poor life choices are proof to me that he is ungrateful and immature. I am praying that God will kick him in the butt and get him back on the straight and narrow. Sadly, all my wife’s offspring are insistent on doing things the hard way.

The people here are nice but not in much of a hurry. This is frustrating for many, and I just have to roll with it. There is more work here than workers. Working with contractors on our house has been a juggling act. Two contractors really have been a joy to work with and a third has been a good one overall.

The church we are attending is small (less than 100 people). The pastor went to college with our dear friend George Fincke. George ended up in the Reformed Episcopal Church while Leonard (the pastor here) stayed in the Bible Presbyterian Church. Bob Jones produced a couple of great pastors in these men. George died almost 8 years ago. Leonard is very involved in the community here.

I will start blogging more frequently in the weeks to come. I still have to get a few projects done before I can devote more time to writing.

I know that I haven’t posted much lately but life has been hectic. The wife and I have been packing up the house and parting with lots of accumulated stuff. Chief beneficiaries of this process have been the cancer society store, Goodwill, and the Kiefer landfill. We are going from about 2,100 square feet to 880.

The amount of photos, genealogy stuff, old yearbooks, and the like is ridiculous. In one room we packed six large boxes that weighed 30 to 40 pounds each. We still have to tackle one closet of photos plus the stuff currently hanging on the walls. For the sake of space, most picture frames are being discarded. Eastman Kodak had no idea what a mess they would be creating for my family.

Officially, we are whittling down the furniture to 11 pieces, half of which are for the bedroom. The rest are for sale or already sold.

Much of the rest of our stuff is books. We started with several thousand books in the house. I have parted with many that I have had for decades. A few are being packed but designated as a donation to the local church library at our new home. Our neighbor will be getting a box of vintage sci-fi stuff after the next garage sale. Goodwill will likely be getting a few hundred pounds of tomes as well.

XBOX is no longer part of our lives. The original console was traded for credit at a local store a few days ago. The 360 and One are going with my son to college–along with the remaining games in our house. I doubt they will survive to the end of the first year of college.

We are parting with more than half the clothing and linens in the house.

Two items remain in the attic, a red wagon and a dedication plaque for a bank that once existed in Elk Grove. (Update:  The plaque left us last week.)

Many of the children’s school papers that we had saved have been sent to the landfill. We saved a few plus the usual—report cards and school photos.

Reducing the amount of stuff, we have is something that is long overdue. I’m glad we are doing it now. However, my choices of what to keep or part with have been colored by the stupid decisions that my son has been making lately. This will be a topic covered elsewhere on the blog. I just want to be on record that his bad behavior has consequences now and not just in the future.

The truth is that we should have left California many years ago. Due to stupid financial decisions, we probably couldn’t have done it but … I’m glad we are getting out now. Gavin and his fellow travelers are turning this place into a third world hell hole.

Two more weeks and we’re outta here.