found a job, whew

Wow, what's going on here??  I go nearly a whole year not writing in my blog, and then write 3 posts today.  
It's a unique time.  I'm not working, but I'm not unemployed.  I have things to do, but I feel like writing.  I don't feel guilt as I sometimes do sitting down and writing.  The job I used to have was so entangling, so encompassing, that it followed me home and I had to work at things at home as well as at my job.  I felt guilty writing then, b/c there was so much to do for work even when I was home !!! 
That's over with. 
If I sit down and write, I don't have to feel bad that I'm supposed to be looking for a job.  
So, 8/18/2015 will go down in history as the most blogs in 1 day.  Yay!!!! 

I had an increasingly bad situation where I worked at the law firm I was with.  I had worked with them under 2 years. The situation was progressively worse and then all of the sudden it ended. I found myself in an argument with the managing partner who accused me of making mistakes on purpose.  That wasn't the case.  The powers that be at that law firm just had no idea how much work was given & what the implication was when they just piled lots of work on me.  If you give too much work, mistakes will be made; it's that simple.  So, that was it.

I sent out resumes from various sources. There was encouragement, because I had interviews.  I had an interview way up in the northern city limit of Chicago.  It was not easy to get to.  I transposed the numbers of the address and broke a cardinal rule and was late.

I kept cool; I displayed enthusiasm which is one of the things the experts encourage.  Clearly, it was genuine.  I needed a job, they were offering a paralegal, and I felt I would do well for them.  The interviewer and my future boss had a good exchange.  She was nice, she was candid.  I gave a lot of energy, earnestness, insights into concerns she had that necessitated hiring a paralegal.

The interview ended about an hour later.  The traffic and remoteness from my place are factors.  This is the 1st time that it will take me 2 hours to go from my condo to my workplace.  It will take 2 trains and a bus ride to get there.  I'm taking the challenge very seriously.  I'm going to practice it this Thursday and Friday mornings to see what exactly will make it hard, what could help me make it easier.

There is absolutely no way in hell that I will drive from my home to work.  The exception will be on light traffic days like the day before Christmas, the day after New Years Day, days surrounding the holidays and holidays when the clinic I work at will be open, maybe Columbus Day.  
Otherwise, there is no way I will drive my car to work.  The car is 11 years old; it only has 75,000 miles on it, but I would quickly have it go past 100,000 miles in a few short months.  It just seems like you start running into a lot of expensive problems after the car goes past 100,000 miles.  I want my car to last 5 years.  I don't see that happening if I drive it to work everyday.

I feel happy that I found a job within 1 month of leaving my last job.  Last time I was unemployed, I didn't find a decent job for a year and a half.  I knew if it took that long this time, I would be financially ruined. It was downright scary.  But I kept reading what the experts were saying, send out resumes, send out quality cover letters with the resumes, and talk to people in your network.  
I wondered at times if I was doing enough to find a job.  Thank God, whatever I did in the early part of August worked ! !

The First Love

Do you remember the first time you fell in love, even if you were younger than 16? They apparently call it puppy love, but I don't think it should necessarily be scorned or forbidden. It's just that certain aspects of love should wait.  The priests and ministers state you should wait until your married.  The trend is for the 1st child to be born later and later these days, yet many  (most??)  don't wait for marriage to have _______.

Does a son or daughter not love one or both of their parents?  Isn't it possible that there's an immature but sometimes intense love for someone, for 2 kids to love each other?

When I was in middle school and high school, maybe even earlier than that, I was in the same classes as this girl.  We went to the same CCD; we went to the same church sometimes.  It was pretty amazing.....some weeks I would see her every day of the week - 5 days of school, CCD on Saturday & Church on Sunday.  She was not only nice looking, but she had a great personality.  She was very athletic starter in 3 sports, was editor of the Annual Staff, was on the Forensics team with me where we both made history at our high school for being the 1st 2 people in Forensics to  compete at State level all 4 years of high school.

We spent a lot of time together.  We had some good talks.  & at certain points of middle school (even earlier than middle school) and high school, I was in love with her.  I wasn't obnoxious about it, when she had boyfriends, I didn't try to steal her away, but she knew what I thought about her.  She didn't feel the same way.  Oh well.
 It worked out for the best.  I didn't get along with 1 of her older sisters.  As nice as my friend was, that's how taciturn, haughty and mean her sister was. That would have been a problem had we dated or hypothetically gotten serious.  Years later, when I wrote all these reasons down of why I was glad I married my ex (years and years before the divorce, of course!)  one of the 1st reasons I was glad to be with my wife was that I had a great relationship with her sister.  Her sister was ALWAYS nice to me, and we never had any problems.
My old friend from decades past not only had a not-so-great sister, but an obnoxious, smart-alec cousin who people nicknamed "Smiley".   He was one of those jerks that acted the same way after high school as he did during high school.  So, years after we both graduated high school he would STILL  remind me that I loved his cousin.  I swore after that if I ever saw him again, I would punch him in the face repeatedly if he ever brought up the subject again.  I was a bigger than him & had experience in fights in my 20s even though he was older than me.  But that was just it, in high school, he was 3 yrs. older than me and could domineer and talk crap to me.  I wanted the opportunity to really show him how much times changed.  
But with more age, and more wisdom, I stopped thinking that way, and decided fighting him wouldn't prove much.  It's probably not even the best way to tell him as clear as possible "DON'T DO THAT!" which would have been the whole purpose of hitting him.


So many things happened after graduating high school:.........graduating college, figuring out my career, getting married, being the father of 3 kids, reconnecting with old friends from high school on Facebook, going through cancer and still fighting depression.....

Here's a big irony.  In 1990, my best friend, Frank died.  In fact, it was 25 years ago on August 15 !  The irony is that I saw Frank more recently, than the last time I saw my first love which was just under 30 yrs ago.  She didn't join Facebook; we didn't reconnect.
That's fine; that's her perogative.  One thing I was curious about was.....if we hadn't seen each other in 30 years, did she look different.  Did she look a lot different??
So, early this summer, I went to Google Images and looked her up.  Wow, there she was.  I saw pictures of her as recent as 5 years ago. Yes, she changed; just like we all changed. You knew what blew me away?? It wasn't even her; it was her husband.  I couldn't believe how little he changed.  He just added a mustache since I last saw him, and that's it !   He looks young ! 
This old friend & I  were friends; we were never, ever lovers.  The relationship affected the way I approached women thereafter.  I would be nice to women, and I had lots of women over the years who were friends of mine.  It certainly affected college. Her reaction to me being in love with her  & what happened between us affected my approach, b/c I was bound and determined never again to be so overt or to never, ever "chase" a woman.   I just figured chasing would never win the woman over, and would just lead to heartache.  I never wanted to feel bad again (but I did in 2002 & 2003, & I already told that story).   It made the time in college really bereft of girlfriends; sometimes you have to "apply yourself", use some charm.  There was only 1 person I could really say was my girlfriend in college and even that didn't seem to go very far.
It was all for the best.  She married a good guy.  I wasn't ready to be married in my 20s.  I had to get more mature and less callow.  I had to work on my manners.  I developed job skills and became an excellent paralegal.
Best of all, I fell in love with my truelove in 2010.  Being in  a loving relationship has been taken care of ever since........

that's not us back then, by the way.  I only kissed her once, and that was at the end of our high school graduation when graduates come together and say goodbye

LinkedIn really annoys me sometimes

Linked In has become vital to some businesses, to people looking for jobs (like I was until Monday  when I scored one :) !)  So, I've used it to my advantage at times.

But, it's also gotten me in trouble and it can get others in trouble easily here's why.  This happened in the past, and it almost  happened a few minutes ago.  Linked In will make a suggestion about someone who ought to be  your connection.  In the process of saying "Yes, that's a good idea, I want them to be my friend/connection,"  LinkedIn will import all your contacts from places like Yahoo or wherever and ask every single, solitary person on there if they want to join you on Linked In.
So, a few years ago, I had 1 of my "flintier, high-strung" associates get an email by me through LinkedIn.
He got all upset and gave me a nasty e-mail.

Now, we can say, my associate over-reacted; we might even argue that he was being a jerk.  But I also hold LinkedIn responsible, b/c they shouldn't make it so easy to import contacts you have NO INTENTION OF CONTACTING !   They SHOULD make it much more clear that they are going to contact  all the people in your Address Book !  & is it that good of an idea that they do that in the first place?  Shouldn't they make that not so easy to do??
The fact that they don't do that is a poor reflection on such a high-powered, well-known, renowned website and organization.

I went to a party

I don't go to parties too often.   Most of the time, I think it costs too much, and I'm spending money I don't have.The other thing is my friends don't throw parties; they're about my age and people in their 50s don't have weddings and don't party like it's "1999".     But, there was a very nice guy in my club that invited me and his friends, neighbors, a musician, a band (!!) and about 100 people.  So, this afternoon, I went eager for a good time.
I had a very good time.   I was smiling, the food was good, my girlfriend was at my side happy, too.
At the end of the party, the host actually played with a very good band he hired to play at his party. (Host is the 3rd from left from the 4 you see)

 There was a guy that I know and spent some time with who attended.  He's actually the cousin of the host. We'll call him Karl. Karl has a "song & dance" about how he was once rich but got screwed out of money and was conned & lost 90% of it.  In actuality, he doesn't work except very sporadically.  He's just turned 50 and STILL lives w/ his parents.  I said he works sporadically, NEVER a steady job.  Here's one example.  He was hired to be a baseball UMPIRE in a league.  You know why he stopped umpiring ?  He was told to stop umpiring b/c he was seducing women right in the middle of the damn game !! No kidding.  I think what happened was it was a co-ed league, and he would either be talking all this stuff to a female catcher or female batter  and then call balls & strikes !  Can you imagine?  Unreal !   He also collects aluminum cans, but obviously if you aren't doing that on a massive scale & he ISN'T, you make pennies per week.....LITERALLY
Oh, and he also gambles.  He's actually lost tons of money gambling at slot machines in a matter of hours. He actually told my kids once that his job was gambling & then he makes money.  Thank God they were smart enough to know that was wrong.
He got up and sang 3 songs while the band was on break.  To his credit, he sounded good. He can carry a tune.....oh bummer,....most singers (especially the ones singing in the shower or to the radio in their cars) don't make much, if any, $$.
Keith had a girlfriend that was with him.  She clearly liked him for his sense of humor.  I've seen many women fall for guys who were funny.  About a decade ago, there was a co-worker who ticks off about 9 faults her date had. So, I'm like, "Annie, why do you go out with him??????"
"HE'S FUNNY !!!!"
"Oh ok.....I guess I'll go back to work.  Hope it all works out for you, Annie"
So, there she was tonight.......Keith's girlfriend Jane.  Very nice looking....she made me think of the lyric "sweet, sweet Jane!".  What's going to happen to Jane? What's going to happen to Karl & Jane???  Karl had an on-again, off-again relationship with another woman.  You know why it ended?  She logically got very tired of seeing Karl lose $100s and $100s  week after week and wondering what he should do, and hitting her up for money when they went out to eat.  She was a nice person.  She worked not far from where I once worked as a legal secretary.
Jane is a nice person, too.  Karl is nice, but so behind, so unbelievably Immature, asks such stupid sophomoric ?s like a 12 year old would making a stupid adolescent attempt to be funny.  He got my girlfriend very pissed off, because he had the nerve to ask her about our sex life and how often we kiss.  But sweet, sweet Jane is right.  Karl is funny.  She already knows he gambles but apparently (and this is early in the relationship) she saw him make money.  He would make money if he pulled the handle at the right time.  So 2 weeks ago, she prompted him when to pull the lever, and he repeatedly won.  Yipee.  Karl triumphantly called her "my GOOD LUCK CHARM !!!!"   We all should be happy for Karl and sweet, sweet Jane (the hard working medical assistant that takes care of Alzheimer patients).  Ummmmm, ooooops  Karl and Jane had to admit that last night, she was with him and he  gambled  and lost money. More of that to come, Honey.

Jane is a good person, she's only a few years younger than me and still very nice looking.  She takes care of the mentally ill, Alzheimers patients, autistic kids & young adults.  & when they get upset with most of the workers at her medical center, they don't get mad at Sweet Jane, b/c SHE takes the time to listen and understand and empathize with them?    She's going to be REQUIRED to show a lot of empathy with Karl.
She walked up to me later during the party to say goodbye.  She said it was nice meeting me, and she hoped to see me soon.

Oh really??? Me??? Your kidding, aren't you (I silently thought) ??  Yeah, I got some issues too.  While I'm throwing rocks, criticizing Karl, I better think about how I could improve.  Here I was at this very happy party and when I walked into our host's really awesome house, I felt the happiness melt away like hot butter.  He had this wonderful huge house based on a thriving craftsman business, and here I am with just a paralegal career.  Yes, I like helping people, but it's slowly swallowing most of my life each and every day.  If I'm not drowning in work, I'm away from work thinking about how odious the place; now that's an exaggeration, but I do spend too much time thinking about that law firm away from work !  So, I walked out of my host's palace, & I brood about how I should send more resumes out and get a better job.
Then I correctly, figuratively kicked myself. What the hell am I supposed to do?? Whip out my damn smartphone and send out the resumes from there? Ask to borrow the host's fuckin desktop computer??   What happened to all the tried and true wisdom about living in the moment.  What the hell am I doing all pensive & feeling bad about a palacelike house among a group of happy people at a happy party????

So, I stopped. It's a party, listen to the band play rock n roll, enjoy the music, don't worry about sweet, sweet Jane, don't scorn Karl,
Stopping being depressed over a troublesome future.
Start being thankful for your good, well-meaning kids, start being blissful for being with an awesome girlfriend.
Take her by the hand and sing along to the lyrics the band is playing, because after all, you like the song and know the words ! 
Well, I did some of that, not all,  I'm not quire light enough and a little too Dark to feel blissful at a fun, happy party.
But when it was over, I walked over to the host and gave a very heartfelt, sincere, "Thank you" for inviting me to such a nice, posh party.  That doesn't happen very often. Ummmmm when was the last time I was at a fun, posh party???.......ummm about 8 years ago.  Oh, yeah, you damn well better thank the host !!

Well, I left the party with my girlfriend.  Patricia thanked me for taking her.  OMG, Dear !! I wouldn't have it any other way !!!! My God, you are 1 of only about 10 people that keep me going and make me happy!!!!  & your thanking me?? 

something to see, something to think about

After another sad day at work where I was supposed to do 50 things and could only do about 35, When I go home, I go home on the train. The train It's a nice, pleasant relaxing time on the train, one of the nicest times of the day, no one hassling me, just me chilling out.   The train ride is never long enough, most especially in the morning.    I sometimes listen to songs and sometimes they fit my mood (sad, bummed out that I have a job that has unrealistically given me 115 cases).

One evening this past week, I wasn't really feeling that morose, but still....definitely not happy at all.  So, I just went to YouTube and played Don McLean's "Starry, Starry Nights". (that actually isn't the right name for the song, but I really don't feel comfortable indicating what the actual name of the song is)  Since it was a song where Don McLean discussed Vincent Van Gogh, the very famous painter, this YouTube video scrolled the lyrics, the sad story, the story of indifference and in the background were the paintings of Van Gogh.  One of his paintings is actually called "Starry Nights", one of his famous paintings and worth millions and millions of dollars.
If you want to see the song/YouTube video, it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrK    You know what's neat about the song?  Well, it's a tuneful, bittersweet, sensitive song, but I gotta say it's kind of neat the way they scroll out the lyrics.  It's done very artfully.  & you can see the actual name of the song which I don't feel like sharing (sorry).
So, in the latter part of the song, there was a painting that hit me.  Hit me right in the eyes.
Now this blog is not about how sad I feel, and I'm not going to list the things that are really bothering me, b/c well.....that can be tiresome to read.
Why don't we take this at another angle, Ok???  
Here's the painting.  The title is called "Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate)"

This painting was done in 1890, a few months before he died.  His health was not good, and he created this painting while he was convalescing.  So, sad that if you added the worth of all of Van Gogh's paintings, you would probably come up with over $10,000,000.  An 8-figure sum!!! & the Late Vincent Van Gogh most definitely did not enjoy any of his riches.  No, just like Mozart, he died poor.

About the painting. It's striking, it really makes true the old cliche that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Haven't we all felt bad?  Haven't we all felt pretty despondent?  Sometimes, there isn't much to do, but cry.  So, why is he crying?  I bet you it's because of poverty.  How am I going to survive when there's others that are taking my place.  How long do I get to live in this little home.  How long do I get to enjoy the warmth of this hearth (over in the lower left corner) and not be homeless in the cold. Now if you see this on Wikipedia, there's actually people that say there's a sign of hope in the painting, because the painting is entitled "At Eternity's Gate", so he's near heaven.  I just don't see that.  This guy is inconsolable.  He's had it.  Life hurts; it really, really does.
There's just so many things you could attribute his sadness to.  He's at the age where he's near the end of his life, so it could easily be conceivable that one of his friends who is his age died.  What can you do after a funeral and the sad, final burial but cry?
The painting is amazing, because it strikes a common chord.  We all feel bad at times.  We all have times where there's nothing left to do but cry.
It's funny, but I used to be very hardcore about not crying.  I wore it as a badge of honor and toughness that I would go years and years without crying.  Still, don't like crying.  I especially make it a point not to cry around my kids.  But I guess I'm not so hardcore and anti-crying as I used to be.  I guess I changed my mind a little when I found out that tears actually remove toxins from our body that build up courtesy of stress. They are like a natural therapy or massage session, but they cost a lot less! (I got that from a quote from article written by Therese Borchard.).

There's an emotional resonance to the painting for me. Not for the sadness, but for the age of the man.  I'm most definitely not a young person anymore.  I grew a beard willfully during the winter to let others know I'm not young (but the bigger more decisive  reason was so I wouldn't have to shave and it saved me time).  Every single day I work at Chicago, I see 4 or 5 homeless people. There's one I don't have as much sympathy for one of them.     He usually harangues people by Starbucks to give him money, and while I feel terrible for most homeless, he annoys me b/c he just has to be so abrasive about it.  One day he tried to flatter me to get money out of me.  So he called out to  me "young man".  I yelled back while I walked to my dreaded job, "I'M NOT YOUNG!"

how bad do you want it?

Things are the same at work.  I have many tasks to do.  There's over 110 cases of people getting hurt that I have to take care of, and I work as a *Medicare negotiator.  A case has moved to the forefront.  We are going to take it to trial, and I have to get the case ready by putting together a group of documents showing what our case is about, why we are suing for the amount that we are suing.

 We have a client hurt badly in a car accident.  Hurt so bad that he has gone years and has not worked.  His injury is so bad that there's little hope of recovery, and he will go for the rest of his adulthood not working as well as living with very significant pain. There's no treatment, there's only pain medicine to make the pain tolerable.  The case is worth quite a bit of money, and I have to play a significant role in what will hopefully be the case's success.  Putting the documents together in a clear, cogent manner, adding up how much money they have been damaged, and putting together a narrative of what happened in the accident and the injuries suffered/treatment done.  I learned how much the case was worth.  It's A LOT.  (I have to be deliberately vague so that if someone is looking through Google they can't say,  "Oh, Vince working on (name of person)'s case!!" I would like to say how much the case is worth, b/c I was the one who helped determine it, the person to find out FIRST, but I can't do that ).

But my point is this. 
 How far will you go to make sure you are an EFFECTIVE worker?  What will you do when your workload is overwhelming? What are the sacrifices that you would make carrying such a big workload? Would you say, "I work 8 hour a day, my usual shift, and then I'm leaving.  I have a family at home that needs me."
Or, would you say, "I'll work extra.  If I work 8 hours a day, I will NOT get what I MUST DO done. If I work 8 hours, I will blow deadlines, I will put cases into jeopardy!
No!  I will work on cases when I go home for awhile.  I will drive to work on Saturday and put in 4 hours. I must fulfill deadlines.  I must do what I can for our clients so that they get the compensation they deserve for the injuries they suffered as a result of other people's negligence.

That's exactly what happened yesterday, That's what's happened week after week, Saturday after Saturday.  Yesterday, I worked not my usual 4 hrs, but 5 hours on Saturday.  I burned a quarter of a tank of gas to drive to work and drive home after I was done.  No compensation for that. Some Saturdays, I have to pay $13 for parking, no compensation for that.

But, I got to have a piece of mind, and I will work very hard to get it.  Could you imagine failing a deadline just before a trial?  Could you imagine being responsible for ruining a case for someone who suffered for 5 years, spent a fortune on treating his injuries, and he gets nothing because you refused to work extra hours?  So, one case see I'm not as much of a "shmuck" for paying for gas, paying for parking when I really didn't have to, when the boss has never told me to work a Saturday.

 But in my view, there is no choice.  Even though I work extra, I have a lawyer who points out each and every week the assignments that I'm behind in and the bad consequences if I don't start working on it, finishing the task SOON, and how it was wrong that I let it go for awhile without working on it.  &, of course, I had so many other tasks to do. & he is very aware of the fact that I work until 6 pm, not 5 pm, and that I work on Saturday and that I sometimes work at home.

Yesterday, I went for broke. I worked 5, not 4,  hours in Chicago.  I came home took about an hour break and worked on the case until after 1 am.  I cannot, I will not tell my boss the work I was assigned is "not done".  Tomorrow, I want to say, "Here is the draft, check it, make revisions, take it to a copy company, bind it and then hand it into court and the opposing counsel."

Still, it bothers me all these sacrifices.  My co-workers work extra sometimes, but it's the exception to the rule.  When I work from 9-5, that's the exception to the rule!  The mystery I don't understand is how do they do it without blowing deadlines.  Their workload is very comparable to mine.  Why do they take a lunch, and I set aside about 15 minutes for eating.  Why do they go home around 5:15 and I go home at 6 or 6:30?

It bothers me, and I wrote to my boss an e-mail saying, I'm overwhelmed.  I have too much to do.  I said that I don't know the solution, It would seem like we should hire more people, but the chances of my bosses hiring more people are as likely as them jumping out the window and flying home at night.  They state there is no room in the office (that's true except on Fridays) and they have no money (well I've never looked at their ledger).

So one of the bosses sat me down and we talked.  The first thing she asked is "What can we do about this?  We don't you to work so many hours."  But I already said that I really don't have a solution.  If the amount of work is as big as a BARN and there's only 6 full time people and 2 young part-time clerks to work on it, then there's no 2 ways about it, there's too much work and there is very little to do about it.   & the bosses want the work to be as big as a barn, b/c if it's a small, manageable amount of work for each of us to do, then we wouldn't make enough money.  We tried to come up with little solutions that might help a little. One is to repeat and re-emphasize the fact, that I can assign clerks work.  Ok, I will do that, but they only work less than 20 hours a week and the 3 lawyers are allowed to assign them work, too and if they assign work, their task must be done first.

So, we are stuck.  I am really stuck.  That's just the way it is.  Oh well..............

-------------------------------
*Where I live, suppose you were 65 or older (which means you're in Medicare) &  you were to get hurt in an accident and it was the fault of somebody's negligence, there's several things that happen.  Medicare pays for the medical bills.  However, as soon as they find out our client were injured was the result of a car accident, slip & fall, or some kind of negligence, Medicare feels that they should GET BACK the money they paid for the medical bills.  The injury was the fault of someone else, so that's the person that should pay, not Medicare.  My job is that Medicare gets their money, but they don't get money based on mistake, like if our client has a stomach problem that has nothing to do with the accident. Sometimes, they will ask, by mistake, for money spent to treat their stomach problem or their intestinal problem. That's when I have to write a letter attached with medical records showing where they are wrong.  It takes a lot of time.  

2014 the good and the bad

There was good and bad to 2014, just like years in the past.   To me only certain years stick out for being very good (1989, 1993) or very bad (2002, 2003), but most of the time I look up to God and appreciate the good, and bemoan or roll through the punches of the bad times.

The good:  being recognized for doing a good job as a paralegal and getting 3 raises during the year.  That's not much to brag about and here is why.  At the start of the year, 1/1/2014, I was paid only a little more than what I was making on unemployment insurance (which I was pretty much forced to be on from 2/14/2012 to 9/15/2013).  Obviously, it was better to be off unemployment making a little more money than to stay on unemployment b/c you become less and less marketable the longer you are on unemployment.
I was not only recognized as being a good paralegal at the downtown/LOOP firm that I am at but also by 2 other lawyers.  I made a few thousand more doing side jobs.  I made several hundred selling on eBay.  My popular items that sold very well were the hammocks and the dog heaters.

BAD
Yet, even after three raises at the firm, money made on eBay and 2 other lawyers, I still didn't make ends meet ! UGH !   I mean I don't have big costs, I keep my condo at a harsh 59 degrees F (15 degrees Celsius).  I shop at Aldi to save grocery money.  It certainly didn't help getting into a car accident and spending well over $1,000 (with help from my insurance company I got another $5,000 and paid to repair car) .  I also suffered some neck and back pain.  Thank God my girlfriend, Pat, was ok !!

By the way, this isn't actually my car. I was too lazy to put my car on this post, and too embarassed, TOO !  I can assure that my poor, silver  2004 Pontiac Grand Am looked about this bad.
The worst thing about 2014 was that my workload quadrupled this year.  I now have 110 cases and am the Medicare negotiator.  It's too much.  It's still too much after they hired 2 people part time this year.  We still have to dig out of the mess created when they are understaffed.  I come home so many times sad b/c  Father Time has beaten the shit out of me.  There's always the nagging feeling, "Have I done enough??"

But we come into the new year with hope. Maybe things will change, maybe we will solve some large problem.  Like last year, 2013, I solved my unemployment problem.  There was financial problems that improved slightly in 2014, but there were more health concerns as now I'm diagnosed with glaucoma.  So, here's a picture I took of my 2 happy sons after 2015 came to us.  My daughter was not with all of us but she had fun too.