Bag of Randomness for Monday, May 16, 2022

  • Two straight weekends without the kids is tough. But hey, a year ago I could only have them nine hours a week until my psych evaluation came back (as well as finish a five-week anger management and a six-week parallel parenting class), so I’m at least better off than a year ago.
  • It sucks that both our NBA and NHL teams had a game seven and I couldn’t watch either with my son. I never thought it would be this way. I know we are just casual fans, but there’s something special about games seven. My boy did ask his mom to text me during the third quarter that he was happy the Mavs were winning. That warmed my heart. I have to admit I was a bit nervous receiving a text from my ex, especially since she sent me a message via our court ordered app, which I chose not to open because I was having dinner with the president of my company who just flew in from DC and our VP and manager. Back in the day, I’d open her message immediately, but I have slowly trained myself that she is no longer the priority. Also, the president of my company was the COO, but was just promoted and announced at dinner. I rarely do well at these dinners as I’m the now rung on the corporate ladder. I fear I’m going to either say something inappropriate or ask something I should bibulously know the answer to. Also, at these dinners, I used to do nothing but think about how I’d rather be back home with my family. Now, that is not an option. I try to live in the moment.
  • Recently, I received a notice my car was due for a state inspection. When you drive an electric-car, these things are a cinch they don’t emit emissions, there’s no need to pay or take an emissions test. So, the inspection is a whopping $7 instead of something above $30. Thanks to the ex, who I think I may just start to refer as TheQuitter or TheCovenantBreaker, I no longer live in the same neighborhood and had to find a new place to have the state inspection performed. The first place I went to told me they couldn’t do it because their only inspector had the day off. The second place I went to said their only inspector was gone for lunch but would be back in 30-45 minutes. What’s up with these establish businesses, national chains on a busy Main Street, and their limited state inspectors?
  • I had an idea to kill some time while I wait for the state inspector to get back from lunch. About a mile up the road, I noticed there were electric-scooters to rent. I’ve always wanted to take one for a spin, so I figured, why not? TheQuitter and the kids live just across the city border in Flower Mound, but a bit too far for the scooter. I thought it would be neat to scoot by and wave at the kids. So, I downloaded their app, and I rented an e-scooter. I had to give it a quick test run, and it ran great. This was going to be fun. Then, I put in my hatchback and drove it about a mile or mile-and-a-half up the road to the state inspection place, fully aware this wasn’t exactly kosher. I felt more like James T. Kirk pulling a Kobayashi Maru maneuver. I was all set to ride around on the e-scooter as I wait for the inspector to return for lunch and inspect my car. However, the scooter didn’t work. I could manually scoot it, but it no longer provided any power. To make a long story short, it turns out they have some sort of GPS device and they only work within a certain restricted area. So, I manually had to scoot it back into the restricted area, which wasn’t too bad. But that meant I had to walk back in the hot sun to my car a little over a mile away and forgo trying to surprise the kids. But hey, for the time I got it to work and parked it back well inside the restricted area, it was fun. It cost me a dollar to unlock and $o.38 a minute.
  • The CovenantBreaker sent me the following message over the weekend. This is great, I want to be able to help her and the kids out and be an active part of my children’s lives when their mother has schedule conflicts. But there were a few things I found interesting and couldn’t agree to.

    • Last year, the ex could have allowed me to watch our kids during the morning and afternoon as she was at her teacher’s work days. At the time, I was still living in our home and I was less than a mile away from her apartment. It would have worked out great. The kids wanted to spend more time with their dad and be in their only home before it sold. But, to keep the children away from me, TheCovenantBreaker arranged for her mother and sister, on alternating days, to drive 110 miles from their small East Texas town just to watch the kids in her apartment instead of allowing me to help her and them out. You know, doing something in the children’s best interest. In my mind, she was setting a precedent for how she wanted to handle things in the future, as well as using the children as weapons because she knew me only seeing them nine hours a week was killing me. At the time, I already completed all my courses and was just waiting on the results from the psych evaluation. Even if she agreed to allow me to watch them when she was at work, I still wouldn’t have them for any overnights. The judge’s order, which she said she wanted to stick to, said we could mutually agree to anything outside the order. The judge already allowed me to have them with no supervision during the day, but it was just for nine hours during the week. So, allowing me to watch them wouldn’t be breaking the judge’s order. There was no safety issue. Eventually, we were going to have to work together, anyway. She just wanted to torture me and her children. She and her politically conservative family were being hypocrites, letting the government decide what was best for our family instead of the parents.
    • Like I said, I have no problem helping her and the children out. I want to help. But what cracks me up is she wants me to switch days with her so she doesn’t lose any hours. The issue is, she already has them more than I do on a permanent basis. Basically, it’s a 55-45% split. During mediation, she wouldn’t agree to 50/50 and she never explained to the kids or me why they aren’t deserving to have both parents in their lives equally. I proved through the court that I’m not a threat to myself or others. So, not only am I already working from a disadvantage of having them less, but why would I want to swap days so she could maintain her advantage, especially when she worked so hard the previous year to keep our children away from me?
    • It’s also odd she wants me to go against the divorce decree and only get my daughter for her birthday during the time she’s unable to watch her and her brother when she’s at work. Her old excuse was we had a legally binding agreement signed my a judge that said I could only have our children nine hours a week, and she didn’t want to deviate from it. Well, we now have an updated legally binding agreement signed by the same judge, but now she doesn’t want to stick to what’s on that piece of paper like she did before. If we split possession of the children 50/50, I’d certainly be willing to work with her to maintain something fair, but she already has them more than I do. Also, she’s the same person who wouldn’t allow me to speak to my son on his ninth birthday except for a five-minute speaker phone conversation monitored by her mother. She and her family fails at seeing and understanding things from the other’s perspective. I’ve tried to see things from their perspective, even asked to speak to them about it, but they continue to refuse to talk, even with a third-party present.
  • I don’t have to buy a bag of cotton balls often, but I noticed the bag I’ve been using for the last several months stated there were 300. Hmmm, I wonder if there are actually 300 in there and what means does the company take to ensure I have that amount? Next time, I’m counting, just because curiosity is killing this cat. I can easily see the manufacturer easily creating a machine that can count out a particular number of Q-Tips, but I thinking counting out cotton balls, which are often stuck together, would be more difficult.
  • https://twitter.com/GoodNewsCorres1/status/1524959485785251865
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