Archive → April, 2009
Flashback to how I became homeless
Ah, what a lovely day today was. I knew something was going on when I got to work and saw that the cafeteria, right next to the entrance door, was crowded with people from marketing. Well, I’m a programmer, not marketing, so nothing to me. Boy, was I wrong.
End of an Era
At the God’s Extended Hand Mission, one of the folks that ‘volunteered’ there (more on volunteering elsewhere) was ‘let go’ or, as is better known, they where kicked out. Mac (real name changed for obvious reasons) had fallen out of favor due to not going to school. The Pastor in charge wanted him to go. Originally, Mac, a homeless man who ‘volunteered’ to work at the mission, was all for it too. The Pastor even offered to pay for one class. Mac tried to point out this wasn’t necessary, as he has VA benefits to cover such, but the Pastor was insistent. The Pastor has a tendency to want things to go the way he has decided, no matter what.
However, this was in late fall and the first classes where not until spring. By the time spring had come along and it was time to enroll, two things had happened. Firstly, he had a bit of dental surgery to go through and the pain thaqt came with it, secondly, his tenure as a ‘volunteer’ had so depressed him, his enthusiasm for the entire project had worn off.
Did I mention that the Pastor wants things done his way? The Pastor informed Mac that Mac had a week to leave and found a person from the homeless multitudes to replace him. Now, this replacement person was already scheduled to come into the missions as a ‘volunteer’ but this got fast tracked. The only good point to this is that this person, Carl, is not the religious, pious person the Pastor thinks he is, but rather a scammer who has memorized much of the Bible.
Karma is rarely this fast, but you have to admire it when it is!
Heck of a day yesterday
So, the day went well as these things go, did a lot of reading while waiting to be interviewed here and there, had five interviews in all to go to. Had earned a small amount of money from doing a web page for a person. Just one page, not much money, but decided to spend a $5 bill on some food.
Started off well, dining at my favorite spot for inexpensive but really good chinese food, a two belly filler™ in my book! Great Happieness Chinese Food Restaurant in National City.
Then my iPhone died…
Then my car died…
Thankfully, both repairs where small.
Posted via Pixelpipe.
Steam Cleaning
My my my, now wasn’t that fun! Today, I went to St. Vincent De Paul for a 
shower The last time I was for a shower at Vinny’s, the shower control knob in the handicapped shower was out of order. The knob is the kind where you control both the temperature and the pressure with one knob. Well, the pressure part worked just fine, however; the temperature part was set to full on hot hot hot! There was no option but hot and the water heater at Vinny’s is set to scaldingly hot. Nearly to steam! The water was so insanely hot, I had to hold the shower nozzle (it’s one of those setups where the showerhead is on the end of a flexible hose) as high over my head as possible while aiming the water towards the ceiling and letting it fall back down on me. This sort of works, cools the water to bearable, however, rinsing takes niegh on to forever and you cannot focus the water anywhere, especially at the naughty bits. Now, I had been there only a few days prior when the same thing had happened. Now, I had reported the problem to the lady sitting behind the desk at the area where you have to have your Vinny’s ID Badge scanned to come in the first time. She said she would have it taken care of. Well, several days werren’t enough it seemed. I tried to report it again, but the ladies in the office where they scan your badge where not yet off breack. When they are on break, they will not turn to look at you. They will not turn their heads. They will do nothing at all, it’s as if you had not knocked on the window to their office. I thought, they cannot really be this rude, so I knocked louder. Nothing. I knocked very loudly, using my cane. Nothing. So I reported the problem to the people there that handed out soap, shampoo, moistierizing cream, towels, etc . I then left and did not return for nearly a month to give them plenty of time to get things fixed. Amazingly, when I went back in to shower on my return, nothing had changed. Understand, I suffer neuropathy and don’t really sense temperatures well. It’s hard for me to know how hot or cold things are until they’ve been hitting me a while. So I can cook before I know it. I did, I got nicely scalded with a nice first degree burn on my leg. Well, that was that, as the saying goes. I got dressed without showering and set the beast loose! The beast withing. I went out screaming and shouting and hollering and in general making a major nusance of myself. I was rude and loud and caused a lot of ruckus. They had guards down, managers, assistant managers, etc. It was fun. I stopped short, just, of being kicked out or arrested. But they saw me. They remembered. They HEARD me! Which is what I wanted, of course. I’ not shy. And I did want this fixed, but not only for me, but for all the other homeless who needed to use that stall. Since I don’t believe I’m the only one to use that shower, and don’t belive I’m the only one to complain, obviously, they were ignoring the problem Not any more. My next post will bring you an update of my success or failure!
A new experience, eating at a soup kitchen
To keep body and soul together, it became a requirement to find a way to eat. The solution? There are two places here in San Diego which server food pretty much every day of the week. God’s Extended Hand and St. Vincent De Paul. Both are located in the same neighborhood, which you might as well call skid row, Just outside of downtown, at around 15th and Imperial or 16th and Island. The image at the top of my blog is part of the mosaic mural at God’s Extended Hand. I will write more on both of these places, God’s Extended Hand and St. Vincent De Paul in later posts.
Scrappy the hero!
Scrappy is my car. Scrappy is it’s name not because it’s scrap, but because it’s a scrappy car, as in a fighter. As in a tough little car that won’t give up! The picture here is not an actual
picture of my Scrappy, but one I found somewhere on the net. I will take and post a picture of Scrappy when I have the time to download and install graphics program so I can blur out the license plate and any other overly distinguishable features, so bear with me. The car in this post is, however close. Scrappy is an 1990 Pontiac Lemans ‘hatchback’. I use quotes ad the car really doesn’t have a hatch. However, the back seat is made so that the bottom of the seat folds up and towards the front of the car and the back of the seat folds down to make a cargo space 7 feet long of the trunk and back seat. Very nifty and useful, save if you are trying to fold your front seatback down so you can sleep.
Lost my storage
As of today, everything I own is now in my car again. My storage came up for renewal and there simply was no money in the kitty to pay for it. So, all my storage boxes now reside in the trunk and the back seat is no all storage too. This will make it hard to sleep in the car, as there is now no way to put the driver’s or passenger’s seat back down to get comfortable. Given the bad health of my legs and the swelling that happens even when I’m just at a slight angle in the car, this will be bad. The storage shed I had was $73 a month. I’ve found a smaller one that is just a quarter of the size, for only $69 a month. What’s wrong with this picture. Guess they’ve geared up to fleece the newly homeless during this lousy economy.
A little Open Mic
Spent the day at my favorite hang-out, Rebecca’s Coffee House and did a lot of work on my various web sites. Decided to try this service to start a blog about being homeless. I like this better than google’s blogger where I started a similar blog which I plan to delete.
Yes, I have a lot of websites, some which I use, some which are just place holders to keep people from hijacking close names, some are email only domains, etc. I did have a life before homelessness and most of the sites are good for up to 10 more years.
Yes, I have a laptop computer, it’s an old old old business model HP with a meager 512m of ram running XP. It’s horrid and barely works, but what can I do, I’ll write more about it in the history section.
The best thing at Rebecca’s is it’s an old style coffee house, one cup and you can stay all day and night till closing. Free wifi, of course. And today is Open Mic Thursday! Amazingly, all the talent has been great tonight, with a lot of jazz and blues, I’m in hog heaven here!