What's under your lip/in your nose right now? - Part 2

[rothenbj]

To be quite frank, I don't believe I'm looking for a vehicle for long term use. If what I read about his disease follows the line, he's probably two thirds of the way as sad as that is to say.

I found a 2001 Ford Windstar with less than 35k on it about an hour and a half drive from here.for $7,500. I found a, I think 2013, Honda for a little over twice that much and twice as many miles. That one I liked but there were four bucket seats which makes taking him, his three kids and his wife and another adult impossible.

I'm waiting on a carfax but I'm guessing it may have been an older couple that initially bought it since the ramp and mobility stuff were installed in 2000. That would explain the low mileage. Not a big fan of the Ford vans but have to consider the situation. Just don't want them in a money pit.

 

[hittman]

That's awful good of you to help them out so much.

 

[rothenbj]

I think I'm looking at my past. His wife reminds me of my grandmother. I'm not sure when she came into the country, but she never had more than a marginal knowledge of English. Justin's wife arrived here, I believe, at the age of 12 from Thailand where her elementary school years were spent working in the fields. She did get some education as far as the alphabet and numbers, but she had no elementary schooling and I still haven't been able to determine what schooling she had. She was raised in Philly so I don't expect it was to great.

It appears that she's going to be raising the three kids, 2 boys (3 & 10) and a girl, 9. My mom and her three brothers basically grew up without a father. They moved to the suburbs after the depression and apparently moved a lot, sometimes in the middle of the night. My grandfather who I never saw, would work in the city all week, come home on the weekends to work a second job just to keep the 6 of them in food and some clothing. I just see them having it as difficult as my mom's family had it and I feel I'm paying it forward in a way. Their kids are so cute, little oriental Americans.

 

[hittman]

You are indeed good hearted. I know his outlook isn't good but hopefully her and the kids find a way to manage.

 

[rothenbj]

Hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July!

I took a longer than expected cycle ride to New Hope, PA yesterday with a gal that used to play poker with us. I figured it would be a nice ride and we could get lunch along the Delaware river. It is normally a 45 minute ride but, starting out, I said we were going to take a route of roads I never took knowing as long as I headed East we'd hit River road eventually.

It was a really nice ride that eventually led to a covered bridge and shortly thereafter to river road. I made a right and headed toward New Hope and she immediately told me I turned the wrong way. It confused me because I was sure we were North of where we were headed but after she said it, I saw a sign saying we were going north so I turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

Since it was right around noon, the sun was no help but for awhile, I thought she was right until she started looking for a bridge into New Jersey. I just let it go since all I wanted was a nice ride. She wasn't sure which direction to go so I pulled over and put on the GPS, knowing full well we had to go right, but no idea what roads would get us back to a bridge to PA.

We wound around a long while as I had the cycle GPS set on "adventure" which keeps you winding on out of the mainstream pavement. Our 3/4 hour ride became almost two hours but lunch was great and we took the most direct route home.

We were just relaxing outside her house and her son came out and joined us. She brought up our journey and the fact that we got lost and did the Jersey route. He said, "Did you have helmets with you"? Oops, it never hit me until that moment that 1. Jersey has a helmet law and 2. I had taken my helmets out of the bike the day before because I went to Harbor Freight the day before and they were sitting on the seat of my S2000.

I was real happy that we took the "adventure route" rather than main roads. NJ cops are not real pleasant to riders not obeying their laws.

 

[hittman]

Sounds like you had a great time Roth.

We are going to a friend's house tonight so I got out of buying fireworks again this year. The kids and I spent a lot when they were younger. I don't miss sweating my .... off going from stand to stand trying to find the fireworks we wanted.

 

[Waho]

Happy 4th everyone!

Got the man cave almost there, few finishing touch's left but the major stuff is done.








We had a birthday party for my grandma in law at our house yesterday. I bought some 5" mortars to light off for her. After a few shots my neighbor came out and I don't know what he fired off, but it shook the neighborhood. Set off car alarms and everything.

My sister in law brought my nephew for his first fireworks. Even at 3 months he was doing his giggle at them. Hard not to melt a little at a laughing baby.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[hittman]

Looks nice waho! I don't have a man cave. Maybe some day I'll get the basement finished. It's still mostly concrete after all these years. There's so much of the kids stuff stored down there that I'd almost have to get a pod or something to be able to work down there.

 

[The Rebel]

Gesh, I unplug for the holiday and you guys get all chatty. Looks like everyone had a good weekend, I did as well. Spent some time getting to know my new pellet smoker, did some whole chickens on Saturday which came out excellent. I bought a dual digital thermometer off of Amazon that had great reviews. Used one to track the temp at the grill grate level and the other for the chicken. I was impressed how well the grill held temps for the three hours it took to cook the chickens. Only a few degrees swing whenever the auger pushed more pellets into the firebox. And with the wireless remote I didn't have to babysit the grill and could monitor the temps from just about anywhere in the house. I also bought a meat grinder attachment for our large Kitchen Aid mixer that we got for our wedding centuries ago. I get a quarter cow in meat every year and there are always a good amount of roasts that we hardly ever eat. So I took four out of the freezer yesterday and let them thaw a little, then ground them up for hamburger. I was surprised how easy it was and the burger turned out great. Mixed in some garlic, salt, and pepper while we were grinding and I bet I made 20 lbs in under an hour. Used some to grill some burgers and the rest I'll freeze for later. Productive but relaxing holiday at home for a change. I could get used to it instead of our usual running the roads.

 

[hittman]

Sounds good rebel. Is that an electric pellet smoker? One of the guys I work with has one that drops biscuits. He really likes it. I think my next smoker will be electric instead of the barrel style with the firebox like I have now. I get tired of having to constantly keep an eye on it.

 

[Waho]

I recently bought a dual probe thermometer for my smoker as well. I went with a Thermoworks Smoke, costs more but the probes are easy to order and replace. Makes life a lot easier for sure.

Good to know the kitchen aid meat grinder attachment works well. We've been thinking of getting one but I don't trust online reviews for the most part.

 

[The Rebel]

Yes Hitt. It's a Traeger pellet smoker which uses a hot rod to heat and light the pellets in the firebox which is fed by an auger from the pellet bin on the side of the grill. There is a digital thermometer on the grill and it will only feed the pellets to maintain the desired temp. I can run it on the low smoke setting for doing longer cooks like ribs or brisket or crank it up to high for burgers and steaks. I had it up close to 500 degrees for the initial burn to remove the factory oils and impurities but usual only take it up around 400 for burgers.

I looked at the Thermoworks Waho but just couldn't drop the cash. The one I found on Amazon had good reviews and comes with an extra probe in case one takes a dump. I really like the grate probe so I can monitor the temp at the meat level. So far it works great. Here's the link.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y3R6R91/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The meat grinder attachment was awesome but I made sure to follow some online suggestions like only grinding partial frozen meat and to stop every once in a while to clean the blades. Sinew and some fat will get wound around the blades and make grinding pretty difficult. I tried to trim all the sinew but it's almost impossible to get it all, plus you need some fat as a binding agent and for flavor. I think some people just don't have the patience to follow simple instructions and then blame the product through bad reviews for their mistakes. It ain't no industrial strength meat grinder but it'll get the job done with a little patience and insight.

 

[firechick]

We use our kitchen aid grinder for our deer. Works better than the old stand alone my grandmother gave me.
Hubby has a barrel smoker and an electric. I'm not sure which brand of wireless thermometer he uses. If I smoke meat, I do it over an open pit fire

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[rothenbj]

Boy Reb, that sounds like a great toy. Too bad that woman in my house doesn't like smoked food, I'd love it myself. I have a big green egg that has to be 40 years old, maybe more. I know I mended it up some 20 years ago and gave it a new paint job. However it's holding down a section of the deck asa paperweight these days.

Weird day in the disability world. I scheduled a look see for between 9 and 10 on the Windstar which meant I had to leave around 7 to get there on time. Before I left there was a text message from the guys wife that his SSDI case was dismissed. Of course she only gave me the first page so that was in the back of my mind for the next 5 hours and I couldn't do what I planned, get there on time and spend the rest of the day biking around aimlessly. The only good thing is that the van might be the right one.

I tried to get my lawyer while out there but no answer so I wasn't sure if they could do a trade in even if they want to. As it turns out, it didn't matter. My live in and her sisters ex bf are down in VA getting his stuff out of her sisters house and I want them to stop on their way back to make sure they agree with my view before I commit.

Five hours later I'm looking over the SSA judges letter and it turns out he was turned down last July and appealed it in November when he was supposed to appeal in 65 days. Of course he doesn't remember being rejected or appealing the decision. I have no idea what is mental capabilities were the second half of last year. I just know when they told him he needed a second operation he wanted to give up. I also know he was having seizures immediately after the operation and he had at least one a month until the second operation. Now I have to call Hancock and hopefully they can lead me to a lawyer that can get this straightened out.

On to checking auto insurance. The first thing I noticed was she hadn't been added to his policy, the second was that her name was incorrect on her driver's license. She only passed her driver's test in December so the insurance on their Jetta went up from $678 to $1078 every six months. The good thing was the insurance on the 2001 Windstar would be $15 less than the original insurance on the Jetta. Then the last whammy hit.

The Jetta is involved in a class action settlement on VW diesels. The bad thing, the people that have the Windstar don't want the Jetta. The possibly good thing, they have a choice of having the Jetta fixed or having VW buy it back, maybe. Unfortunately, I got to a point on line where I might have gotten a price that they'd be paid but I didn't know if he filed his case or not and, of course, he doesn't know if he did either. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow.

I only hope I get credit for some of this stuff at the pearly gates to offset any of the bad stuff I made be held accountable for. LOL

 

[hittman]

I'm sure you'll get some brownie points. I don't know how you keep it all straight.

 

[rothenbj]

Hitt, I'm sitting here just shaking my head over this mess. I can't find anything on what to do when your appeal of a denial gets dismissed because the appeal wasn't filed within 65 days after the denial. The denial can be appealed but evidence needs to now be provided as to why the dismissal is inappropriate and the evidence has to precede the date the claim was denied. To put that in perspective- the claim was denied July 7, 2016 (first I learned that, he didn't know it was denied and neither of the SSA people I spoke with gave me that information after I specifically asked). So he should have appealed by September 10th but didn't do so until November 3rd. He doesn't even know he appealed but the letter he received says he told them "he missed the deadline to request a hearing because his lawyer told him he was not qualified".

Now the one thing I'm pretty sure of is that he didn't have a lawyer. Why he would have said that or stated that is unknown because he can't remember anything. Now 8 months to the day after he made his late appeal, the judge dismisses the appeal because he was late less than two months. There are two strange things in this letter. First, the statement after their acknowledgement of his appeal is. "The claimant is unrepresented in this matter". What I don't understand is do they think he lied when he said his lawyer told him he wasn't eligible? The other thing is the appeal needs to be based on facts that were present as of Jul 3rd.

My guess is everything revolves around Hartford Insurance and I think I'm going to have to speak to them again with the fear that they'll stop paying him AGAIN. Okay, enough venting for now.

 

[The Rebel]

Man roth, you'll surely earn a spot up in the eternal retirement home for all this work. You definitely have the patience of a saint so that'll help. I hope you end up with a positive outcome.

The mancave looks great Waho. I finished our basement a couple years after we built the house and it's a favorite hiding spot for the boys and all their electronics. I only venture down there occasionally to find missing dishes and clothes.

 

[hittman]

Between her fibro and migraines, my wife should apply for disability. It takes her hours in the morning to get going. She is going to try botox injections for her migraines. She has had as many as 15 migraines in one month. She always has these fast melt tabs for when she gets them but it still takes about an hour for it to take it away. Her doctor suggested trying the botox. They do like twenty or thirty injections in the head. If it works, it's usually only good for about three months. I'm not sure yet but I called our insurance company and they are thinking that our out of pocket for each treatment will be 2-300. Not like we needed another expense but perhaps if she gets them under control then she'll be able to go back to work at least part time.

 

[The Rebel]

My dad retired on SS disability due to his blood pressure and heart condition. He was 62 when he applied and it's been very good for him. The stress at work was slowly killing him anyway so the change was necessary. He's been a totally different guy since then, relaxed, happy. Just putzes around enjoying the peace and quiet. I envy him in that regard but not in what he went through to get there. Spent the last five years at his job trying to keep the company afloat only to see it dissolve after he left. Worked six days a week as a salary guy so that was dedication. Might be a good option for your wife to check into Hitt, can't hurt.

 

[The Rebel]

On a different note, I'm going to make an order sometime in the next couple of weeks to replenish the snus cabinet. Anyone who wants to jump on board to help lower the shipping cost is welcome. I'll ship from me to you. Just PM me and we'll figure out the numbers like before.