It may not be pretty in here...

I was filling my sister in (via text) about the audit and she asked how I felt. I repeated, numb.

She said it was PTSD.  Makes perfect sense. Who am I to argue with her?  

I have street smarts. She has native intelligence.

When I had COVID she recognized it. I didn't.  When I've talked about giving up events, she's the first to point out that I don't need to do the things I do (which I know but I need to hear it every so often).  When I mention that I'm tired (not something I mention that often) she points out "This (concessions) is a young man's game".

So when she offers an opinion, I listen to her.

I'm sure every day will get easier.  I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel for the time being.

In the meantime, the lawyer told me that it will still take a month or three for all of the paperwork to make it's way through the system until this thing is finalized.  That's fine.  Once it is we have to approach the IRS about a payment plan.

In the meantime....I know that I'll feel better once my contracts for the spring events show up.  Right now I'm 49 days from working (46 if you want to count the trip down there). 

The headlights I ordered for the 2006 were delivered yesterday.  Hopefully that means that sometime in the next two weeks Rob (the mechanic) will be done working on my truck and I'll get it back.  I'm a little excited about that, but I still feel like I want to get back into a stick shift. There sure is not a rush.

Anyway, I made soup (mushroom!) and I'm watching videos and surfing the web.  We are expecting UPS or Amazon today so I'm trying to keep a tight rein on the dogs.  This morning when I let them out, the neighbors chickens were in our back yard. 

I'd like to say they all escaped with no casualties, but Cody got to one and killed it and I had a hell of a time getting the body away from him.  I guess he likes chicken....

After a fitful night I realize that this whole affair (audit) is draining the life out of me.

When I started Mounjaro I said "I don't want to die a fat man". (Of course, as well as I'm doing, my BMI is now 25.9 and I am classified as...OVERWEIGHT) well, I'll stick with it, I'm only 8 pounds away from "Healthy Weight".  But the point is I am/was concerned about my passing.

For Christ's sake, I'm only 72 (and when I was 10 I thought 60 was old....) My grandfather lived to be 96 and my grandmother on my mothers' side lived to be 95 and my grandfather on my mothers' side lived to 98 but I think about dying a lot.

Like I'm not ready to die. I don't want to die. I still have a lot of things to do before I die.

Sex-wild uninhibited sex with a variety of women is off the table. Thanks to my prostate the machinery doesn't work the way it used to, and thanks to the dogs I don't want to give up hours away from the house.  Thank goodness I enjoyed that one to the fullest years ago.

Toys-I still want to get a manual transmission truck. No idea why, my fear is that once I start with one again I'll decide it isn't fun anymore and regret the purchase.  Best case scenario I find one that I can pay cash for, and then if it doesn't fit the lifestyle I can chuck it.

The business.  I could give up the carnival or the independent spots at any time if finances were in order.  Either Deb retiring and my social security increasing, or a death in the family and an inheritance (I know, I sound like a ghoul).  But I got nothing to prove at this point, and I still maintain that at this point I am doing this more for fun (although the money is nice)  I'm still capable as hell-although it's obvious things will never work out as I had hoped.

At worst I have two years to run on my loans to the finance company.  I have said before I want to buckle down and become debt free.  That still holds.  Get myself out of this hole I'm in (although part of it was to keep afloat this winter).

There was a point in my life where I wanted to gravitate away from pizza and just do ice cream.  The pizza bookings really took off for some reason (maybe it was the trailer) and last year I did $68,000-$63,000 if you subtract Mobile, which was a loser and IF I could do that consistently it would throw off about $40,000.  That would be fine.  I have a lot of data and a lot of ways to work this-I don't have to work my ass off, not really but I will again this year for sure. 2027?  Who knows?

But I DON'T want to become a legend in the business for dying at an event or worse yet in the rest room along the interstate while on my way to an event (there was a popcorn guy who died like that).  I do want to go out on my own terms.

You know, I really won't see anything clearly until this audit is over. If it ever ends....

Yesterday's entry was not that great. I'm getting used to things here vs. LiveJournal and I tried to post some screen shots that pretty much ruint the whole thing.

Bottom line was the dealership would not let me drive the truck to an independent garage for what ever reason. Same dealership refused to budge on the price 3 weeks ago, but now has come down.  

I felt a little bad-I had made up my mind to buy this one, and just have it fixed. However....life had other plans.

That's fine. I need to stick to the original plan, Older SuperDuty, supercab (not the full blown 4 door) Diesel and a standard shift, all wrapped up in a California or Texas or Oregon (rust free) truck.  I'm the guy who always says things happen for a reason.

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Monday I heard from my attorney regarding our last volley of documentation for the IRS.  The story here is that the guy we are working with was out of the office Monday and today.  Tomorrow (Weds) we should know more.  As always, this is maddening.

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I'm still on the edge of my seat waiting for the Texas contracts to come in. I'll breathe easier when they show (or don't but at least I'll know what's going on.)

I heard from the attorney today and he seemed pretty pleased with what I had sent him.  I asked if I had heard him wrong about them telling him that they were granting ALL of my contested items, he logged into the IRS portal, and read the email to me again.  No, they said everything was granted.  I pointed out (as I wrote yesterday) either they were lying or couldn't count.   He then asked me to send him a narrative to send the IRS.

This is that letter, which he said he was going to forward verbatim to the powers that be:

The attorney called. The IRS reviewed what he sent and they reduced what they are asking for from like $87,000 to $74,000.

That will drop when we get Deb's credit card statements and can substantiate a few more things.

In the meantime...my instructions were to go through EVERYTHING again and find more stuff to challenge.

So it looks like I will be doing the same stuff this weekend that I did last weekend.

Apparently I was not as thorough as I could have been and Ithought they would look at everything again since I had pointed out so many mistakes that had been made previously they would go through it line by line.

Nope.

I take Deb in this afternoon and then it's back to work on this I guess.

My God, REALLY....when will this end?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/15/carter.obama/index.html

I've said before how much I respect Jimmy Carter. I applaud the fact that he's not taken the comfortable route of clucking his tongue and shaking his head about this. I make no bones about the fact that I am an Obama supporter. I honestly feel that the most qualified individual was elected (finally) and that while we are free to disagree with him on anything, we have to be fair and give the man a chance to straighten out the mess we are in. I find him an inspirational speaker, and he has instilled the confidence and optimism that I haven't had since Bill Clinton was President.

I don't know shit about Joe Wilson. What I do know is that he's shown himself to be lacking in the most basic of social graces and I don't know that his apology rings sincere to me at all.

Okay, that's it. Computer off till this evening.

I didn't even mention the passing of Patrick Swayze.

Of course my best wishes go out to his father, John Cameron and his sister, Swayze Kurtz....

Well, when I interview people I do let them know that I am the Captain of the Enterprise-and I am specifically paying people to do things my way...

Anyway, right now the two biggest issues are cell phones (like you turn them off or leave them in your car, but I don't wait on people who are on their cell phones and I refuse (using the BOLD enough Ock?) to have my people trying to text, talk, etc. when they are supposed to be taking money.

Item #2? Unlike the majority of humanity since 1990, I need people who can make change without a cash register telling them what the amount is. One applicant got a little perturbed at me today, telling me she's an LPN and she can count (I told her that Pretty Wife is an RN and has issues making change-so there!) I just turned down a lovely girl who visibly paled when I told her she'd have to figure change on her own (all the more noticed since she was African American). Pity because she was the politest applicant I had so far, but I'd be tossing her to the sharks if I put her on a window.

In the meantime, Der Octopus has arrived in Texarkana, the trailer is in position, clean, and ready to be stocked. I've hired one person so far (and am ignoring the applicant who said (and I quote) "i was reply to the job you had posted and was asking do you have any more job openings" um....NO.

In the meantime, I have checked into my luxurious digs at the Motel 6 (a friend of mine tried to steer me to this great motel he found-and I had to tell him all about my experiences there http://octopus-garden.livejournal.com/2003/09/12/ (hey! I'm still writing the same crap, but instead of fretting about turning 50, 56 is rearing it's wrinkled ugly head! The good news is that I no longer feel I have the emotional maturity of a 16 year old, having progressed to that of a 17 year old-and a pretty responsible one at that too!)

So now my friend is watching out for the haunted television too! Me? I'm gonna get some dinner and then decide if I want to invest the $3 for wireless tonight. I'm just stubborn enough to go to Starbucks (where I am now) or McDonald's or even try to gank signal from nearby places. God, I'm such a case!

Another birthday looms (beats the alternative, right?) and I stopped for fuel in Vandalia, IL.

The first time I made a road trip was in 1973, and I went by this same exit and there was a Ramada Inn with one of these big old signs in front, just like the one in the picture.

It's gone, the motel is gone, and gee, this makes me feel old for some reason....

I kinda miss those giant ass Holiday Inn signs too-they were energy hogs sure, but boy they were colorful. Don't even get me started on the Travelodge Bear...


So far it's been smooth sailing, although I avoided the scales in Michigan, I ended up going right past two in Illinois so far. I think guys like me aren't quite the priority in other states.

Onward and upward....

Will be tomorrow, for about a month.

Damn! I'm so used to being in familiar surroundings right now, and loving seeing Pretty Wife every day. If only I could win the lottery. Of course I guess I'd have to start buying tickets first....

I got popped by D.O.T. again this week. It was a speeding violation, but it was motor carrier enforcement that stopped me, and he then went into the usual routine, where are your numbers, health card, etc. He pulled me into a weigh station and did an inspection and I pretty much played dumb. I ended up with no tickets for the D.O.T. stuff, but a ticket for failure to signal, so he was pretty decent.

But I decided that I would be "legal" and post my D.O.T. number on my truck, and go through the scales (for anybody who's unfamiliar with my plight, I drive a pickup truck and pull a concession trailer that's smaller than many travel trailers on the road-and the fine folks at D.O.T. are convinced that I'm in the same category as the people who drive those large tractor trailers with as many as three trailers behind them, pulling forty tons down the road, as well as hazardous materials. It's pretty much like calling me an airplane pilot because I'm on the plane after all...but I digress).

So I decided to comply-put the numbers up, get a health card this winter, carry a fire extinguisher, flares, triangles with me, and go through the scales. Then I found out that the state wants me to have a chauffeurs license because I drive a dual wheel pickup, that they want those D.O.T. numbers (used for interstate commerce) to be on my truck constantly, that I have to have all my trailers inspected annually (I've never had one inspected ever) and my trucks inspected annually, keep that info for fourteen months, and of course I'd be subject to audit at any time, then there is the log book, and as long as I am in a vehicle with the D.O.T. numbers on it, I'd have to account for every hour of every day (there is no down time as far as they are concerned-they want to know if you are exceeding your duty hours-which I do constantly). Then there is this, then there is that...y'know what? I've now been stopped three times in 31 years. I've gotten a total of $500 in tickets. Even though I had good intentions, all I see compliance as at this point is just calling attention to myself. I think I'd rather continue to take my chances. I don't see myself going at my business hot and heavy for more than another 4 or 5 years, and then really scaling back until I can't do it anymore-and the older I get the easier it is to sell that befuddled "Huh?" bit I do so well (is it too much to hope that I remind some of these younger cops of their father and they just warn me about what I'm doing?).

I don't suggest for a minute that this is right-but I'm a one man band, I don't have an administrative assistant, and while I don't see myself ceasing operations, knowing that I'm on the decline and that there are a lot fewer years ahead of me than behind me I just don't see the upside of making myself crazy over this.

I can be stopped at any time. I know that. I also know that I can duck a lot of scales, and that for the time being I can pretty much blend into the woodwork. Guess that's the way it's going to have to be. We'll see, if I get stopped regularly in the next year or so, I'll rethink this, but for now it's business as usual. Funny, I was going to change my evil ways, and while it's not impossible, it sure wouldn't be easy. I'm a guy who sells Cotton Candy and Pizza at carnivals. I happen to use a pickup to get my equipment from place to place. I'm not a truck driver. I don't have the skills, I don't have the training.

Life goes on.