Most of you who regularly read my blog know I work on a farm…that means roughly 90% of my work, especially during the warmer months, takes place outdoors. I sweat and when I’m not sweating, I’m often being rained on or getting soaked using a power washer or a hose. Normally I carry a “magic wallet” which is smaller and more convenient to carry than a standard leather wallet and tends to cause me less discomfort when driving or operating heavy machinery at work. The only drawback to this is that the contents of my wallet end up getting wet or crushed into the leather and before too long, cards get bent or worn out, papers end up faded and unreadable, and so on.

While grocery shopping tonight I came across something interesting… it was called the Aluma Wallet. It’s main advertising perk was that it protects against RFID theft (where a thief has an RFID reader that can steal the info right off the magnetic strip of your credit cards simply by being near you). While I’m really not all that concerned with RFID theft, I liked that it was an aluminum case (read: durable) and being a case, it would protect the contents of my wallet from the elements much better than my current wallet. It sure wasn’t cheap with a price tag of $10 however…but I’m willing to pay for something that’ll get the job done the way I want it to. Sooooo…I sprung for it.

A few minutes ago I decided to clean out my wallet… first I removed all the old business cards and other papers that were faded from the elements and no longer readable. I threw away probably 30 business cards and a bunch of papers with info written on them…such as driving directions to places near where I frequently visit and things of that nature. I then replaced a few of my cards that were in rough shape… cards advertising my reptile and amphibian forums. I threw away about 10 due to fading and grabbed 6 new ones out of my dresser. I also had about 10 cards advertising my mechanic buddy’s business. I pulled 5 out and set the rest aside.

I then worked on loading up the new Aluma Wallet. I opened it up to find the latch was quite cheap (just your basic plastic latch) and the case wasn’t actually aluminum…it’s a cheap plastic box with aluminum covers on each side. But it functioned well so I shrugged it off. I loaded all my cards in…probably about 20 business cards total split up in 3 different pockets. I put my CCW and my driver’s license into their own pocket, my credit card and debit card in their own pocket, my boss’ credit card in a separate pocket and then all my cash (a whole $7–a $5 bill and two $1 bills) into a pocket. With all this stuff loaded into my magic wallet…the thing was nearly empty. Loaded into my Aluma Wallet, I barely got it to close. “You’ll be surprised at how much it holds!” my ass…

But it gets better! Upon closing it and getting it to latch…I hear the familiar sound of tape peeling. My aluminum casing was starting to separate from the plastic on one side. At this point I’ve come to realize I just paid $10 for the biggest piece of “Made in China” shit ever. So what do I do when I realize I just wasted my money? I sure ain’t gonna throw away my functional wallet and try to use this one…so I dissected it and now I’m going to post the pictures so you can see for yourself why you shouldn’t waste your money on this product either!

The aluminum sides were held on by two pieces of double-sided tape…well, let me rephrase that. They are held on in two locations by five pieces of double-sided tape. Yes, you’re reading that correctly. In one location, one piece of tape was placed on top of another piece of tape. And in the other location, three pieces of double-sided tape were placed on top of each other. What did this accomplish? Not a damn thing.

To make things even better yet…I pulled the pockets out of it. The pockets were made of a plastic material which appeared to be pretty strong until I found it ripped about as easy as paper at the creases. They were attached to each lid by what appeared to be a single strip of double-sided scotch tape which took ZERO effort whatsoever to pull off.

Yep…that’s what I got for $10…

Funny thing is their website claims the wallet is made of solid aluminum and that it’s “nearly indestructible!”…HAHAHAHAHAH….right.

One more thing I must add…since writing this blog, I found my brand of magic wallet online and if you want to get away from the traditional bulky wallet and try something new, check these out. They’re now only $10 (used to cost around $20 last time my dad and I bought them–yep, he uses one too, or at least he was still using one last I checked) and they’ll last you for a couple years easily before the elastic starts to lose it’s elasticity. Even mine has lasted a few years now and like I’ve mentioned, I work outdoors so it takes a LOT of abuse. Wilson’s Leather – Magic Wallet — I just bought two of them.

Gonna keep this one short… as of today, I’ve made the decision to officially withdraw from the Warrior Dash which I have been registered for. I started jogging again recently outside and just a mile left me wanting to die…not to mention I could barely walk for 3 days after. That alone wasn’t going to stop me from participating though…I was going to continue jogging and do my best come race day. In the past couple weeks my knee injury from when I was 17 has started to flare up. I’m not sure of the cause…my best guess is I may be developing arthritis in it already, but I really don’t have a clue. A couple weeks ago, it started to throb really badly out of nowhere…I ignored it and it seemed to go away…until the next day. The next day it started throbbing at random…and right as I was leaving work I bent down and when I stood up, I had such a terrible pain that I nearly fell to the ground holding my knee in agony. It hurt SOOOOO much. I didn’t pull anything that I’m aware of…it was a normal motion that I do daily and I didn’t feel like I strained anything…in fact, the pain hit as I was releasing tension on my knee rather than when I was putting tension on it. I went to the bar that night and drank the pain away and I was good…until yesterday (or maybe it was Sunday?). The throbbing returned…a little worse than the last time it started throbbing. Today, I was working on our lawnmower at work and when I got up off the ground and bent my knee as I was standing up, the pain hit me worse than ever…it’s to the point where it hurts about as bad as the original injury (if not worse). Again, it happened more when I was relaxing my knee than when I was actually bending it…so I again don’t think I pulled something. I talked with a doctor a couple years ago who deals with injuries of my type (hyperextension) and he recommended that I keep working it…since I had allowed it to heal on its own, he said a brace would probably cause more pain than anything because it would cause it to freeze up and develop arthritis faster or something like that. He said if I was able to bike long distances, jog, rollerblade, etc without much, if any, pain…to just keep it up because it’d be the best thing for it. So I guess I’ll continue to try to use it for low impact stuff like rollerblading and general biking…but for now, jogging is out of the question, as is most of the obstacles in the Warrior Dash. Looks like I’m gonna have to eat $110 now…damn.

On the bright side…the whole girl situation is going great. I haven’t brought it up lately because quite honestly there isn’t much to talk about. I’m doing what I should have done in the first place and that’s letting things happen the way they’re meant to happen. And that’s what I’m continuing to do so I’m still not going to talk about anything. Just know that things are good and I’m happy.

I guess I’m going to go pass out now…gonna be hard to sleep…between the knee and me being itchy as hell today (allergies I’m guessing since I ran out of Zyrtec), I think I’m pretty much screwed. Hah.

Oh and I got a text saying my uncle and grandparents will be in the area tomorrow evening…hooray for a kickass early bday gift. lol

In one of my recent blogs, I posted about how broke I am. Well, I’m still broke. Big surprise there? However… I’ve recently been following my “I just don’t care anymore” attitude and spending my money like it’s going out of style and I just wanted to point out one tiny observation I’ve made thus far.

Money ≠ Happiness

Nor do the objects that money has purchased…that may not include hookers, but I haven’t tried it…yet…so I’ll have to update you folks on that later.

I recently got my CCW permit (Carry Concealed Weapon) so now I’m able to carry my gun on me almost everywhere I normally go…and while I do feel a bit more secure, it really didn’t change my mood much. But it did set me back over $200 between the training classes, the holster, and the permit itself. You can add in $300 for the gun and ammo too if you want since it was purchased solely for CCW usage.

I traded in my Taurus .40 handgun on a Russian SKS rifle…since I really didn’t use it much and it was too big to carry on me with my CCW. Instead of doing an even trade on a cheaper SKS, I ended up finding a really nice Russian which costs more than all the other SKS rifles out there…soooo that involved me shelling out another $75 plus ammo costs…and I’m already looking at a kit to “modernize” it.

I’m buying a new pair of rollerblades soon I think…I need to start getting into shape and on top of general exercise, I want to get back into rollerblading this year. My old hockey skates are still in really good shape (plus I just dumped $100 into the wheels and bearings last year)…but the way they fit makes them extremely uncomfortable for long duration trips. When they’re comfortable, I can easily do 5-10 miles without stopping or getting too tired. Unfortunately, that’s going to set me back about $100-150 depending on which pair I buy.  Maybe I’ll get lucky and will be able to transfer the wheels over from my other skates so I have really nice wheels and bearings still. lol

Anyway…the point I’m starting to get sidetracked from is after all these random impulse buys…I’m still no happier than I was overall.  I thought being broke was my cause for depression, but I think it’s not so much depression as it is just loneliness. I’ve realized that all this spending I’m doing makes me happy briefly…but at the end of the day, I’m still all alone and I’ll admit, it kind of bothers me. I have my dog and I have my friends, but that just isn’t a replacement for a relationship (I swear I will kick the first person to make a peanut butter comment square in the nuts). Being alone is usually just a temporary bother…but being cooped up indoors so much this winter I think is just getting to be too much for me. I guess you could say I’m getting spring fever. All I want to do is take the top and doors off my Jeep…and drive…

So with that…I’m going to continue spending money on me…though hopefully I’ll try to budget it a LITTLE bit better so my debt level doesn’t skyrocket…and then I’m going to go sit alone at the bar and drink my life away.

You all know where to find me.

I’m going to hit a variety of topics in this single blog…I hope you all are okay with that. If not, oh well…you’re stuck with it now unless you click that magical little ‘Back’ button or something like that. For the record, yes, I spent the evening at the bar tonight and had a number of drinks, but no, I’m not drunk. Nor am I depressed (what?! No way!). Ha.

So first off…I just want to rant a little. About two things. First, those of you who work jobs where taxes are taken out and you’re getting a refund who are so stressed about doing your taxes. You suck. For real. I owe the government $4700 before write-offs. I don’t want to hear your bitching about how stressful it was for you to get your $1800 refund (or probably a shitload more than that if you’re married with children). Secondly, I’m really getting annoyed with all the Facebook “woe is me” style posts…constantly. “Oh my God, so much is on my mind… I’m so depressed and stressed out.” and then when you crack a joke to try to get them to smile, all they can reply back with is, “You just don’t understand…you don’t have to deal with what I’m dealing with.” You know, you’re probably right…but why don’t we compare lives a little bit here…first off, I’ve got about hundred things eating at my mind. Most of them are minor stresses like owing more than my life is worth to the federal government…and then there’s major things on my mind that I have only actually discussed with two people. Stuff that could mean the difference between life and death. And then you can look at my past history too…I mean my life has been pretty peachy, you know. My mom died when I was still in highschool…she never met my first serious girlfriend, missed my first prom by just a few weeks…my brother was nearly crippled/killed in a moped accident…which combined with our mom dying led to him nearly killing himself on cocaine (and probably nearly every other drug known to man). But you know what, I realize some people would die to have a life as “easy” as mine…so instead of throwing pity parties for myself, I accept what’s happened in my life and deal with things as they come.

So new topic now…in previous years, I made enough money that the miles written off on my vehicle would cover all taxes owed. This year, I owe a small fortune to the IRS ($4700 to be exact–before any write-offs) which means I’ll probably also owe a crapload to the state, school district, and city of Piqua. I could risk jailtime and flub it…but I like my asshole nice and tight so I’ve decided I’m going to have my stepmom help me out and do things the legal way. While doing that, I decided to run some numbers… I have nothing to hide and I’m not ashamed of what I make so I’ll just post the numbers up so you can understand what I’m discussing as I discuss it.

This year I made approximately $24,000. Of that $24,000, $4700 goes toward federal taxes. I don’t even want to think of what I owe for state, SD, or city…but even excluding them, my point will still be validated. That means I brought in approx. $19,300 after taxes. Are you following me?

From there I calculated up all of my bills…semi-necessary bills.

Credit card payments — 3 credit cards totally a shitload of debt. I made some stupid mistakes when I was 18-19 and I’m paying for them now. They are now mandatory bills. I calculated my current minimum payments and nothing more.
Rent
Other Utilities – Satellite/Internet/Trash Pickup
Car Payment – You can argue I don’t need a vehicle, but if I want to make money I need a reliable vehicle to get to/from work and my payment isn’t all that high
Car Insurance – Clean record w/ full coverage because my vehicle is financed
Gas – I estimated $100/mo
Food – I estimated $400/mo and this figure includes both groceries and eating out for lunch on weekdays while at work
Server Bill (this one is a want–but being $108/yr it’s really negligible anyway)
Cell Phone Bill

I left out any misc expenses like car license, dog license and food, etc…I just put the main bills in there.

My total came out to over $20,000/yr…money that went out to pay regular monthly bills. Now remember that figure up above…$19,300. Yep…even if I took money out for taxes every paycheck, I’m not making enough money each year to even cover my bills. The sad part is…I’m working full-time and I’m working more hours and making more money than a lot of people with even higher bills than I do. Point is… IMO, income taxes are very large contributors toward poverty.

Which brings me to where the title of my blog comes in…I’ve been dealing with an abnormal amount of depression lately. No, I’m still not suicidal, but I’ve been sleeping way more than is healthy. It’s caused me to lose hours at work because I overslept and like any normal person, I really don’t feel like going to work at 2pm and coming home at 11pm. I leave at 6pm like I’m supposed to with the intent of going to work at 9am the following day and forcing myself back on schedule…which doesn’t happen of course. The cycle just continues.

So I’ve decided that instead of freaking out over my debt… I’m going to continue to pay my main bills, and as far as taxes go, I’m not going to let them stress me out. I’m going to setup a payment plan with the IRS and I’m going to pay them off in a few years. If they don’t accept it, they can get in line. I’ll pay them off when I get the money, but I’m not putting them as my number one priority. I am my number one priority. I’m going to continue putting money into my Jeep, I’m going to continue buying gun stuff, I’m going to continue going to the bar and drinking every now and then (like tonight as a matter of fact), I’m going to go on trips like I always do, and overall…I’m just going to try to be happy and care-free. I’m going to a gun show tomorrow, I took out enough money to pick up a new gun. I’ve got my CCW application in and will hopefully be legal to carry a concealed weapon within the next 2 weeks. I just registered for this thing called the Warrior Dash which is like a marathon but instead of just being a race…it’s a race over crazy obstacles like through extreme clouds of dust, wading through streams and over floating logs, crawling through mud underneath barbed wire fences, rappelling down cliffs, etc. I think maybe that’s the motivation I need to get into shape…and on top of that, even though I’m in debt up to my eyeballs, I paid for my roommate’s registration so he can join me. You know, money isn’t something we die with…but depression and stress can be deadly…not to mention even when they aren’t deadly, they just make you miserable. So I’m going to spend enough money to stay happy…and continue doing my best not to miss any important bills…like bills that affect my life–food, shelter, emotional needs, my job.

That’s about it I guess…

While picking up some parts for work recently, I got to discussing depression with my roommate and it turned out to be a very interesting discussion.

We essentially came to the conclusion that depression has two primary causes–one being a chemical imbalance in the brain that can’t be solved without medication and/or appropriate medical treatment. The other caused by our environment. Basically…we’re unhappy because we don’t have good jobs, a steady relationship, plenty of extra money, etc, etc and all of that unhappiness and disappointment combined causes us to fall into a state of depression. We were analyzing various people we knew who are depressed and determining what kind of depression we feel they have, whether they are medicated or not. I also included myself for that analysis. I’m mostly going to discuss my personal battles with depression.

First, I agree with the conclusion above…though I want to go a step further and say that both types of depression can end the same way, treated or not. A person who’s depressed because they’re simply not happy with their life currently is just as likely in my opinion to end their life as someone with a documented chemical imbalance in their head. Why do I say that? Because while I feel that I suffer from fairly severe depression, I also feel that mine stems from environmental influences and I don’t think it’s due to a chemical imbalance. I’m not suicidal but if I didn’t care about the people in my life so much, I very easily could be…this isn’t a secret warning letter or a suicide note you’re going to find next to my body in the morning…this is simply as explanation so don’t take it out of context.

Sometimes people ask me, “How do you know you’re depressed and not just unhappy?”

When I wake up and the first thing I want to do is grab my .380, press it to my temple and pull the trigger, it is a good warning sign in my opinion. The reason why I consider it depression, I cannot pinpoint an exact reason for WHY I feel that way whereas someone who is simply unhappy would be able to figure out what that reason is.

Now why do I feel my depression is environmentally related?

-I have a lot of personal demons…I know I tell people often that I have no secrets and for the most part, that’s the truth, but I’m not going to lie…there is a lot of stuff I omit simply because it’s extremely personal and I am unable to talk about it without difficulty. If someone asks me something they want answered honestly even if it involves one of my personal demons, I will own up to it.

-My relationships are a failure. I haven’t been in a meaningful relationship in a long time and I often feel as if I won’t find anybody who meets my somewhat picky preferences in this lifetime and when I find someone who appears they may meet those preferences, they don’t express much interest themselves.

-I made nearly $24,000 last year and I don’t have jack shit to show for it…aside from a lot more debt and if I can’t dig up enough receipts to write everything off, about $8,000 in owed taxes. Fucking government.

I’ve started trying to better things for myself though…

I’m trying to start working out more with my roommate…I haven’t started following a strict regimen nor have I drastically changed my diet to the point where I give up in a week, just trying to exercise more so maybe I can focus on burning off a bit more fat and getting more into a shape OTHER THAN round.

I’ve started doing a bit of soul searching…for those who haven’t paid much attention lately, I picked up a book at church while I was in IL for Christmas called The Story which is basically a novelized version of the Holy Bible and nearly every single night before I go to bed, I’ve laid down and read one or more chapters of it. It’s nowhere NEAR as detailed as the bible…but it gives me a good summary so maybe I’ll get less bored when I start to study the actual bible. On top of that, I’ve already added a couple more books to my “to read” list…one being a fairly easy to understand version of the bible, one being The Purpose Driven Life which I never managed to read like 6+ years ago when it was popular.

As much as I love my job, I know I won’t be working it forever…and I’m basically trying to find something else I can transfer into when the time is right. Overall, I’m just trying to find a way for me to grow up and become a responsible adult. My dad is officially moving to Florida tomorrow morning…and once they get the house sold, other than my brother (if he chooses to stick around this time), I will be the only one left in Ohio. My family wants me to go to Florida eventually…but while I love warm weather year round, I think I’d absolutely hate the humidity in the summer. Winter would be great I’m sure though. I also have considered IL since the rest of my family is there…but I also am a big advocate of carrying concealed firearms and while I don’t have my CCW yet, it’s high up on my list and IL does not allow ANY form of carrying loaded firearms.

Aside from that…I like this area…I mean it gets cold in winter and hot and summer…and the local economy sucks…but my friends are here…and as much as I hate to admit it, this place has become my home. I’ve lived here off and on for approximately 18 of the 24 years I’ve been alive.

I guess what I’m getting at here…depression can be caused by environmental influences and I believe I am a perfect example of that. I am unhappy with multiple aspects of my life and am working hard to change at least some portions of that. To those of you who read this far…thanks for sorting through all my rambling…sometimes writing these blogs is my only way of maintaining a little sanity.