Follow up

not new- title misspelled

I talked to the boss today, beginning with trends I’ve noticed on our sales and suggesting locations for more street racks (paper machines).  Our sales are down as more and more people get their news and information online or elsewhere.  The printed newspaper is on a downward curve and has been for a long time, accelerating as more sources of news and information appear.  The Oregonian is not the only paper suffering these days – bigger, more famous papers are seeing their distribution rates and subsciption rates decline too.

They do sell though, if they are available, and there’s nothing like spreading the paper with coffee and a donut.  As someone mentioned to me, they do make for a kind of armor, distancing the reader from others, so they are especially good riding the bus (or sitting across the table from your significant other).

I moved into a discussion of the medical bills from my foot injury and mentioned the total of the "damage" so far.  I think all the bills have come in by now – about $600 so far.  This is rather shocking – I didn’t need much attention, thank God, but even so, boy oh boy, is it pricey!

(I lived in Japan, and they have National Health Care- taxes on income were paid to support it, but we could go more or less anywhere to be seen and cared for, and while it wasn’t "cheap" it was a lot more reasonable than it is here in the US, where shopping for care is the best thing to do.  Sometimes, you don’t have the "luxury" of shopping for health care though.)

The "boot" they gave me, an "air cast", alone cost more than $230!  More than I’ve ever paid for any pair of boots, and I just got one! I’m not using it now- I don’t feel I need it anymore, but I’m "stuck" with it.  I wonder if I could, like, E-bay it or something?

The boss was probably more shocked by the expense than I am (of course.  I’m not the one who’s gonna be paying the bills).

I was figuring to go back to working six mornings a week to deliver the papers, but now he’s reconsidering that to cut his expenses.  While taking another day off will affect my check, I really do understand why he would think about it.  The Oregonian’s compensation to him has not changed in the eight years he’s owned the routes, so as gas and insurance costs go up, his profit margin vanishes.  At this time, he has two stepvans delivering the Sunday first and final editions (Sat. and Sun.) but in the two and a half years I’ve worked for him, our Sunday paper draw has declined by almost a third.  He is considering just running one truck on the weekends (and only the one driver) and combining the two route’s deliveries.

Thankfully (?) for me, he still needs drivers for the morning papers and the afternoon papers, but the afternoons have seen a very steep decline, as fewer and fewer of them sell.  The afternoon driver is a retired guy, who is not relying on the income to live, like I am for the morning papers, and it seems to me that the time when the paper won’t be publishing the afternoon papers is coming sooner than later.

At this time, I deliver the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday papers, five days a week.  Drop two mornings worth, get the night off, then three mornings and another night off, on Saturday nights.  I like this schedule, but it may be hard to work around, since most jobs want 8 hour shifts out of their employees, whereas four or maybe six hour shifts are what I want.

I’ve pretty much recovered from the brain injury, but feel that I’m working nearly as as hard as I should now.  I do have a lot of time to myself, and if I could work online at home, that maybe would be best, but most all of those work at home deals are scams, rather than real, paid for work.

Ideally, I would/will write for $ and become. like, famous or somthing.  I personally think I have something to say that many would find worth paying for, and many here in OD land feel the same- that I could make some cash writing too, so as my wallet gets flatter and flatter, I think of it more and more.

Samuel Johnson said "None but a blockhead writes but for money", so I may indeed be a blockhead, since no one is charged to read my words now.  But, this blockhead likes writing, and likes the personal response I get here…

On another subject, I called the IRS this morning and renegotiated my monthly payment to them for the 04 taxes.  We barely talked about the 05 taxes I owe too…  I was counting on that SS payment that I was expecting to fill these holes and get my dumb ass out of the holes I’ve dug, and it really really pisses me off that I don’t owe any federal taxes (because I haven’t made much money) but that the tax bills I owe are acually SS payments!  There is no floor to those- every dollar made is taxed at at least 9%, whereas federal taxes do have a point where, if you don’t make much, you owe nothing.

SS had kept every dime my mother ever paid into that, and in the early 80’s the SS rewrote it’s rules so that they ended up keeping nearly everything my dad had paid into them too.  Now they are weaseling on my limited diability payments.  I am not putting in for a lifetime disability, but a limited period when I could not work.

I have a full and complete rant about what and who they pay those lifetime disability payments to, but it doesn’t belong here.

Since it doesn’t, that’s pretty much all I have to say on this now.

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