I’m going to try a new technique with this post and that’s typing for 30 minutes straight without a filter. No backspaces (except for typos) and my stream of thought as if you were the therapist and I’m the patient.

I saw Sam listening to Twenty One Pilots on Spotify and decided they were a fine choice for a band to listen to as I type this. I chose Vessel instead of Blurryface and decided to turn the shuffle off. There is a missed magic about listening to albums in full with digital in full force.

That’s all I have to say about that. I took a bite of some shitty Jimmy Dean sausage, egg, and cheese that I cooked 90 seconds in the microwave. I don’t like it but I didn’t eat the last piece of Shroomin’ tonight. That’s a pizza, not a drug.

I was at South Bowl where I seem to be spending more time than usual. I’m not sure why I like the bowling alley to hang out but it’s a skill game and I like the people around the alley. Sure, there is that family of 9 people who ruins the entire experience but it’s pretty fun for the most part.

Which will lead me to tonight where I bowled in a 14 person tournament in a 9 tap format. A 9 tap is when you get a 9, you get a strike. You’d be surprised how often you don’t get a 9. In the 1st round I beat a quality bowler who choked in the 10th. In the next round I beat a guy who was equally poor closing. In the semi-finals, I played Nichole who went open in the 10th. All I had to do was to not split and pick up the spare…and I blew it. No big deal. Only experience. I respect Nichole’s game as well. I’m not saying she would hold an edge on me, but I’d like to think I can throw a few more strikes.

It’s been about 7 minutes and I wrote this would go on for 30. I’m at 330 words which is a decent amount but it looks like I’ll have to hit 1,000.

I intro’d in the last post that I was a pathetic loser for binge watching the Office for a seemingly long time, and I’ll touch on that with this post.

I don’t have a girlfriend. My friends are mostly either engaged or seeing someone and I’m at the age where people are tending to settle down. I’ve never believed in the idea of settling down just to settle down and that shines through the older you get.

Here’s a link to Your Life in Weeks and you’ll notice that there is a lot of time left. More than half your life when your 33 like me. Picking someone to live with the rest of your life with isn’t a decision that you make because your friends are making that decision. It’s one that you choose carefully and that’s why more people are getting married later. It’s knowing whether your are responsible enough to be a father. Anyone can have a child that you don’t do your best with and that’s not me.

My goal in life is to do any task the best that I absolutely can. I’m not into settling or giving up and that’s the personality you need to succeed. There are too many people in this world to get stuck in the herd. Many people are fine getting a job, finding a wife, having children, and seeing out that life. I don’t doubt for a second that there is plenty of fulfillment in that life choice. It’s not me though.

I don’t even know what me is. I have a good job that is growing with well thought out plans. I know I’m destructive when I have nothing to do. That means betting on sports, getting hammered, doing stupid shit. I’ve done a lot of that. This past weekend I pretty much did nothing and feel fine today while I type this instead of feeling like a turd that can’t get out of his bed until noon. That’s not who I want to be but I’ve learned that there isn’t any go between. It’s not, “I’ll drink a little bit” because that always leads to worse. So being and introvert, and trying to remove the binge drinking, alcoholic from my system, it leads to a lot of “what am I doing?”

Which I’ve learned that most people are asking this question. No one out there has it all figured out. Your place in history is most likely non-existent. Many people think the world revolves around them that is that fundamental difference between what I’m writing in this post and many beliefs. I don’t have the answers. I’m a guy who was gifted a few talents and have no idea how to utilize them to their fullest. I do know that most people don’t keep a blog for 7+ years for the sake of it. I’m at the end of this stream of thought. I ran out of material and didn’t quite get to 1,000 words. 849 to be exact. If this method of blogging catches on, just know that you read it here first.

I have no idea why, but the posts that are being released don’t seem to be appearing at the top. In fact, they don’t seem to be appearing at all. If you hit F5, they will come up but this is not a solution. I have absolutely no idea why this is happening. None of the settings were changed but I’m pretty sure it’s linked to the Dave Gildea security breach.

I haven’t been posting much of late and there isn’t much reason other than I haven’t felt like it. I’m heading to Europe on Jan 16th and have been back to studying some German so I can feel extremely uncomfortable trying to say a single word over there. Even if I can learn a few hundred words, it serves almost no purpose because I still can’t speak it. I plan to do some sightseeing and there’s a trade show I’ll be attending as well as a factory we do some business with.

Not much else going on.

2.2 points last night.

Expert sit last night not playing Jordan Matthews in my championship game in Steve’s league. I had to choose between Cameron Meredith, Robby Anderson, and Malcolm Mitchell. Weird that you get to the end of the season and none of these guys are even on a draft radar. Props to the Shee for letting me know ahead of time that the sharps were on the Eagles last night as I picked up a game in the Pigskin Pickem. With 2 weeks left in the season it’d probably be best to say I have no shot but I never say die. I’m down 10 games ATS to the leader and 5 in the Softerware pool. Like I’ve written a million times before, this is where the winners shine. Call me Tom. Tom Brady.

I binged watched through the first 3 seasons of the Office and I have a gripe after watching about 50 episodes. Michael obviously steals the show with his antics but there are too many episodes. I watched the Fun Run last night and finished the 40 odd minutes wanting it to end. The Jim and Pam plot is what it is but there isn’t much depth surrounding pretty much everyone else. When you have that many episodes, it starts to fall flat. I have a feeling I’m not going to make it through the entire series. I may start Sons of Anarchy up again once one of my friends confirmed the trip the Ireland was the worst season.

Christmas is coming up and tomorrow should be an awesome day of football. I’ll be reading Silva’s match ups in a few minutes as the phone has rang here exactly 1 times and I’m pretty much packing it in, hence the post.

2 posts this weekend! I know, I know, I don’t have to put in the long hours to this website but hard work pays off.

Temple’s Finest

First and foremost, I had an expert start playing Robby Anderson last night. I’d imagine not many people have even heard of him let alone know his established rapport with Bryce Petty. Straight up guts on that play and hopefully will be enough to push me over the perpetually good Jon Bond in Steve’s league. On the contrary, I left the lackluster Jarvis Landry on my bench in Bake’s league with the decision to start A-Pete. For the record, I’ll be benching Kenneth Farrow as well and playing Ty Montgomery over him.

I’ll also pat myself on the back for 0 too drunk nights this weekend. I called it early both nights and feel fine for the days. I’m much more productive when I do this. JC cracked me up because we had an alarm go off at 3:30 am at our building and he asked if I checked it out. I live 5 minutes away and I’m not sure getting on site during an impending robbery is in my job description. Everything was fine.

Forgot this picture of Sofia Vergara’s ass yesterday.

Brunch today with the Schmidt’s and then a day of football. May try to squeeze some bowling in just for the heck of it. We played yesterday at Revolutions and I was far from my 195 average at South Bowl. I was 110, 110, 140 and pretty pleased with the results. I was throwing a house ball, which has less back end than my usual ball, and the lanes are not oiled as much as South Bowl, so I started off chucking it too hard and missing right. Then I’d slow it down and start missing left. Towards the end I was getting a better feel on the speed and I’m sure I would have started to throw up better numbers. You live, you learn.

You’re welcome for the Sunday post.

Living is expensive. It’s tough to wrap my mind around how much money I spend but I’ll give you an idea.

• 

  Who wants to go bowling?

  Monday night is bowling league night. It’s $20 dollars to bowl, each pitcher is ($11 divided by 3) x (3), and splitting a pizza is around $7. Add tip, add the 5 dollars I spent for the strike pot, and it totals close to a $50 dollar night. It’s funny to think how much money I would spend if South Bowl didn’t give league bowlers the special of $3 per game. They are usually closer to $6 for normies.

• 

  These are the cheese steak rolls. They were actually pretty good.

  Tuesday night I played trivia at Smiths and drank about 6 beers and had $5 cheese-steak rolls. Beers between 5pm-7 are $4 dollars each. After 7pm, they get hiked up to ~$7. My tab at the end of the night was $41 and I paid near $50. I ubered to Center City for $8.56 and got a taxi back for $11. I should add that I stopped at Wawa at the end of the night for some additional food and a coffee which made me stay up all night.  $80 night.

• Wednesday I had dinner with my mom at a chain restaurant in the Willow Grove Mall. She had a $25 coupon so the meal only totaled $39. I failed to tip on what the total would have been without the coupon, and only tipped on the $39 so it was only a bit over $50 meal.

In those 3 days I spent near $200 dollars. Minimum wage is $7.25 in Pa. It would take a minimum wage employee 27.5 hours to spend 3 days living my life. I make more money than minimum wage but taking a step back and analyzing this makes my head spin. I wouldn’t classify any of these events as extravagant or wasting money like going to the Sugarhouse. It’s just living life in a city atmosphere. In the suburbs you can go out and eat like a king and drink your face off for $30 bucks. In the city you can go home with an empty stomach and barely a buzz for $60.

I knew today was going to be bad because when I tried to throw a 2″ paper receipt into a trash can whose width was 36″, I missed.

Derp

Yesterday was a big day with Fantasy Football playoffs getting set and obviously this title is foreshadowing the results. It appears as Sam and I will be missing the playoffs after having the #1 and #2 most points scored in the league. We needed Bud to lose for one of us to get in. Jerry played the LA Rams against the Patriots as his defense and shot us both in the dicks. I intend to complain to the league commissioner for his termination from the league. Of course it is possible that Forte, Hilton, and Vinatieri get less than 20 pts, but not likely. I would also need Luck and Marshall to combine for less than 24.42 points, which is also unlikely, but this would finish me ahead of Sam in points. When you see that the people in the first 4 spots all have points scored against them in the 1,100’s, and Sam and I are approaching 1,400, you know you got the short end of the stick.

Complaining aside, my management skills cannot be put in question for another year. In other news, I did manage to make the playoffs in both my other leagues so that helps the burn. Technically if Frank Gore goes for less than 3.8 pts AND Luck and Enunwa go for less than 17.8, it is possible I don’t get in one league. Unfortunately neither team is nearly as strong as the Wild Turkeys.

I posted a picture of us in the Pocono’s for the weekend which I thought was a fun weekend. The life is slower in the mountains but we still made it as entertaining as possible. Friday was a relaxing night. Then Saturday we Jubiliee’d and I went on a 6 or 7 mile run in the frigid weather. Sam and JC arrived and we went bowling. If you aren’t following Sam’s snaps, you must have missed the JC pump fake but that’s your loss. We then went to the Mt Airy casino where we were violated by a tardo. Technically I only lost 4 dollars but I had a double on a hand where I hit a soft 14 to 20, and lost to a 21. We then got into some heated Sixers talk that had me bet Sam 1k that the Sixers wouldn’t make it to the Eastern Conference finals by the year ’19-’20 season. We also bet another K on who would roll the first 300 game. I’m none too worried. There was some late night conversation about people’s differences in movie tastes but that’s to be expected. I woke up with a bit of a hangover but a good time was had by all.

Stortz Tools received a phone call from Dave, who inquired for his partner, Richard for some 341-A scraping tools. He told Jeff that he was looking for a quantity discount and that he’ll follow up with an email. The following email chain occurred.

—–Original Message—–
From: Richard Splinter <dicksplint@aol.com>
To: jeff <jeff@stortz.com>
Sent: Tue, Nov 29, 2016 3:12 pm
Subject: Floor Scrapers

Jeff

You just got off the phone with my partner Dave who is supervising on a job site in Horsham. One of our laborers purchased a 6 inch bent blade scraper from you a while ago and he has it on the job site. Dave and I do floor and tile sub-contracting in the Philadelphia Tri State area and we are currently working on a job at the Horsham Business Campus removing carpet that has been glued to a concrete floor and your scraper has gotten Dave’s attention.

How many scrapers can you have ready for delivery in 30 days? We have an long term large job coming up in Wilmington, Delaware and we’ll need lots your scrapers. We have been previously buying scrapers from Lowe’s and Home Depot as needed but we would prefer to buy direct from a manufacturer if possible.

Can you please quote via email your best price on 500 of your bent blade scrapers.

David and Richard

Commercial Carpet & Tile
197 Easton Road
Horsham, PA 19044
215-675-7827

Thank you

Richard Splinter

From: Richard Splinter [mailto:dicksplint@aol.com]

Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 8:18 AM
To: jeff@stortz.com
Subject: Fwd: Floor Scrapers

Jeff

We are getting ready to move our operations and work site from Horhsam to Wilmington. Can you get back to me with a price so we can place a start up order with you. Can you have ready 85 Scrapers for immediate delivery? If you can we’ll mail a check and you can wait until it clears as payment before shipping.

Richard

—–Original Message—–

From: Tom Stortz <tom@stortz.com>
To: dicksplint <dicksplint@aol.com>
Cc: JEFF <JEFF@stortz.com>
Sent: Wed, Nov 30, 2016 9:02 am
Subject: Scrapers

Richard,

I tried the number in your signature and no one answered. I google mapped your address in Horsham and there are no buildings that identify as yours. Please excuse my skeptic nature of this request but my radar is going off as not a typical situation. Please substantiate your business (which also doesn’t appear to exist in a google search) as having an actual need for this product and we can talk further.

From: Richard Splinter [mailto:dicksplint@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 1:48 PM
To: tom@stortz.com
Cc: jeff@stortz.com
Subject: Fwd: Scrapers

Really? I don’t think I need to be google mapped, interrogated and be on your radar just to buy scrapers. DO I? What? We rent store front 2 doors south from McDonald’s at corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Easton Road. It is just a store front and place for us to pick up mail. My uncle owns the property. He bought it when he moved here 30 years ago. I’m a Mexican immigrant from Guadalupe living in the US on a temporary green card working to get my citizenship. I hire documented and underprivileged legal migrant workers from Mexico and we deliberately try to stay below the radar. Now, especially since Trump was elected. Don’t really think I need to substantiate myself or the work we do to JUST buy scrapers. Sorry my grammar and English is the best and maybe that aroused whatever suspicions there is to us to JUST buy scrapers. But for what? We only want to buy scrapers. What’s the big deal? If you won’t except check we can buy cash.  What is there for you to be skeptical about? If anyone should be suspicious or skeptical it should be US… Why would I have to substantiate anything to you to JUST buy scrapers. What or who are you hiding? I do business email because American have hard time understand me with accent. That is why I have Dave call yesterday and he spoke with Jeff. Sorry to inconvenience you we’ll take our business and money elsewhere if that is the case. If you are looking you won’t find on Facebook, Blogs, Twitter or elsewhere…

—–Original Message—–
From: Tom Stortz <tom@stortz.com>
To: ‘Richard Splinter’ <dicksplint@aol.com>
Cc: JEFF <JEFF@stortz.com>
Sent: Wed, Nov 30, 2016 2:01 pm
Subject: RE: Scrapers

Richard,

Do you know how many requests I’ve gotten for 500 of our 341 scrapers in my lifetime working here, 0. My email wasn’t accusatory. It stated that none of your credentials in your signature exist. If you wanted to buy the scrapers, I suggest you purchase them through our website and we can have them shipped to you. Thanks for the inquiry.

From: Richard Splinter [mailto:dicksplint@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 3:48 PM
To: tom@stortz.com
Cc: jeff@stortz.com
Subject: Fwd: Scrapers

What does it matter how many request you gotten to me. How many do you have in stock if we pick up? What would the cost be per item 100 at a time if you can not offer 500? We would prefer to pick them up at your store and pay cash. I work as a tile and carpet contractor in Mexico with father, uncle and cousins before I move here. My cousins come to US with me and he has crew in Texas and other cousin have crew in Arizona. They interested in scrapers also that is why I ask about 500. We can take care of shipping and getting scrapers to them and relatives. All we are asking is price quote each 100 or more at a time so we have money cash when we pick up.

—–Original Message—–
From: Tom Stortz <tom@stortz.com>
To: dicksplint <dicksplint@aol.com>
Cc: JEFF <JEFF@stortz.com>
Sent: Wed, Nov 30, 2016 2:51 pm
Subject: Quote # 1498

Richard,

I have 144 pcs in stock that you can pick up as soon as we receive your
check and it cashes through our bank. No cash payment will be accepted. Let
me know when you send your check and then I’ll contact you as soon as it
clears and you can pick up your product. You show me that you’re a serious
customer with this order and we can discuss quantity pricing in the future.
Even if you purchased 1 dozen scrapers at the quoted price, I’d be willing
to talk pricing in the future.

I’d note that we’ve been in business since 1853. We have nothing to hide.

—
Thomas C. Stortz

Attached is Quote # 1498 from JOHN STORTZ AND SON, INC.

To view the attachment, you must have the AdobeR ReaderR software installed
on your computer. To get a free version of this software from Adobe, click
here: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html

From: Richard Splinter [mailto:dicksplint@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2016 5:40 PM
To: tom@stortz.com
Cc: jeff@stortz.com
Subject: Fwd: Scrapers

Never mind, you insult and must take me for a fool… You web site sale the scraper for $28.00. You must not be taking me seriously. I’m not in the habit of begging. We’ll take our business elsewhere. I’ve wasted enough of my time. Can buy better scraper at Lowe’s or Home Depot for less. Cannot figure out how you could stay in business since treating prospective customers so rudely. Welcome to America.

I’m looking forward to any comments that anyone may have.