A Man, A Jeep, No Real Plan

Amazing Stories and Adventures

Home remodling

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

by

Since my last post I have been struggling to make another… I try to write at least twice a week, as much to have some quiet introspective time to reflect on my adventures as to entertain everyone… Well it’s been radio silent for two weeks for many reasons.

I mean yes I have been doing boring “adult things”, but also I’ve been in kind of a funk. This funk has resulted in some mild insomnia and some SERIOUS writers block. So, I am taking advice that is often incorrectly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, “Write drunk , edit sober”. Fun fact while he was a notorious drunk, he always wrote sober. That being said, this evening I am not sober and I make no promises to sober up before editing is complete.

About a week ago I was up late watching TV and I suddenly realized that there were engines idling outside my window. I pulled back the curtains to see flashing lights, stopped traffic, and… two sheriff deputies parked in my driveway. So of course I did what any rational adult would do… I turned on the porch light and asked the officers if I needed to give my attorney a heads up about anything…

The good news is that they were not here to see me. The bad news is that my road was shut down by 4 sheriff deputies, 2 state troopers, an ambulance, and a fire engine… There was no accident, no fire, nothing to indicate that there was a problem other than the large contingent of emergency services… Why were they stopping traffic? I shit you not, when I asked, I was told, and I quote, “redneck stabbing at the boat ramp.”

Apparently there had been a massive brawl at the boat ramp near where I live that resulted in someone getting stabbed. Due to the remote nature of where I live, the authorities take a while to show up. So they decided to set up road blocks to try and catch involved individuals who were fleeing the scene.

So, I poured myself a drink and watched the chaos. When they finally decided to start allowing the normal flow of traffic, they had four cars full of people being detained and god only knows how many people they caught still at the ramp…

Over the next few days I discovered that the local newspaper doesn’t care what happens out here… or at least not enough to mention the chaos. So all I know is that there were some rednecks who got into a disagreement. I’m choosing to believe it was over whether Bud Light or PBR is better, but someone got stabbed…

Speaking of chaos, the house renovation is still underway. We are officially over half done with redoing the siding. Which honestly I can’t wait to be done with, I mean yes it’s hard work, and it’s hot, but… I am allergic to something in these walls and I basically work as long as I can handle, and then do nothing for 3 days while I wait for the rash to stop itching. As soon as the rash goes away, I dive back in like the idiot I am. If this doesn’t prove my unwavering dedication to making this damn place my own, then I don’t know what will.

I should also mention that my Dad is just as vested in this project as I am and it may be the Jack and Coke talking, but he deserves some recognition on how colossal of a DIY we are thus far successfully doing. So in the spirit of Fathers day (which I totally did not forget), thanks for diving down this rabbit hole Dad. It’s all your fault on multiple levels, but I think I can mark “have a grand adventure with dad” off my bucket list.

On the being a father front… This year Pretty Lady and Tiny Terrorist recognized me on fathers day. I mean they would have last year, but it just didn’t feel right to me.

Grant is without a doubt my son. If you know me, you know I can get scary angry from time to time… Apparently “papa bear” mode makes that angry look like a disgruntled puppy… As his former daycare can attest, I don’t just burn bridges, I reroute entire fucking rivers if you mess with my kid. If you weren’t told I was his step dad, you wouldn’t know. He calls me daddy, has my mannerisms, my temper, and allegedly looks like me (apparently we both are fucking adorable, I don’t know…)

I am the only father he has ever known and the gravity of that responsibility blows me away. It doesn’t matter what happens between Pretty Lady and I, Grant has chosen me and I have chosen him.

Some times, he points at me from across the room and I point back. then he’ll run up to me, and I catch him mid jump, turn him upside down and we run around the room squealing. This embarrasses Pretty Lady when it happens in Lowes… but she picked me, and he doubled down. Thus the above adorable photo of him watching me do questionable things on an extension ladder, and worshiping the ground that I would have landed on if I screwed up…

Speaking of screwing up… I have gotten fat… like over 210 pounds of sitting on my ass eating nachos for breakfast fat… I blame a lot of things for this. I mean being in a management role for the last 2 years didn’t help, but mostly I think it’s my indestructible self imagine that has allowed me to get this round. I mean, yes I can balance my drink on my gut while doing the macarena, but I am confident that I can still out climb the average joe and I dare an individual who has worked for me to try and out work me.

Why am I admitting to getting fat? Well, the climbing gym reopened recently and then temporarily closed again, but for the 2 weeks it was open, I was going every other day and while my hands hurt more than they used to, and I definitely was gasping for air, I was still climbing at a level that would be considered respectable. That being said before they reclosed I realized that my fat ass needs to get back into shape if I’m going to live long enough to hear the tiny terrorist’s grand kids bitch about the way I’m rebuilding this house.

You know, goals like that may be why I have the outlook I currently have. Pretty Lady and I were shopping recently and the salesman asked what I do for work. I told him I’m currently unemployed due to covid-19, but I’m not worried about it. We chatted a bit, and he commented that he’s never met an unemployed person who was so nonchalant about it.

I’m not nonchalant about being unemployed. I just don’t base my value on having a gig. I am more than a job. I’m a father, a spouse, a climber, a bourbon snob (with a weak spot for jack and coke), and a bad ass self made individual. Am I privleged by gender and race, yes! But at the end of the day I am proud of what is mine, what I have accomplished, and what I know I can do. So I’m going to control the controllable, enjoy my life, and anyone who judges me for not being a slave of the man can choke on a dick (or whatever genitalia they prefer)…

Sorry, writing drunk… At any rate, I now am on a strict diet, using the home gym at least twice a week, and striving to be in better shape than the dad at Grants day care who has to be using performance enhancing drugs. Seriously, no one over the age of 30 has muscles like that without some chemical help… I wonder if he actually is 30? Am I older than him? Is that diet coke in my drink? Who mixed me an old man drink?

On the topic of older, I am proud to announce that Jeff is officially an older brother. Caitlyn purchased a 2014 Jeep Wrangler. His name is Jackson (after Andrew Jackson) and Jeff is ready to play “follow the leader” and get his younger brother stuck. We have only had one adventure with General Jackson so far, but he is a solid jeep despite his abundance of plastic parts and underpowered V6 engine.

That being said, we will be putting him to the test on my next adventure. On this coming Saturday, we are embarking on a 2 week long trip to Colorado and we are taking General Jackson.

Pretty Lady, The Tiny Terrorist, and I are headed to Mineral County Colorado with my parents for a family “vacation”. I plan on putting General through his paces and proving that we should have taken Jeff, so what if his AC doesn’t work, Jeff is still the superior jeep…

So, please follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and of course here. We will be doing multiple updates a day on the Instagram and Facebook, and a few posts a week on here.

Would you like an email every time I post something? Would you like to get exclusive content like teasers of the book I’m writing? If the answer is anything short of “Hard Pass” please sign up and prepare to enjoy updates and exclusive content!

Would you like to hire me to write for you? Please email me at amanajeepnorealplan@gmail.com

5/26/20 Planning, Planting, and Still Working on the House

by

Hello All! Brace yourselves, Pretty Lady and I are going on an adventure this coming weekend. The plan is pretty fluid, especially since campgrounds aren’t open in KY yet, but we will be departing for Mammoth Cave on Friday afternoon, and then heading on to Great Smokey Mountains National Park. This is going to be our first adventure together with Jeff, so expect there to be some serious entertainment! I don’t think we’ll be doing daily posts on here, but we’ll be posting on our facebook and Instagram.

The Tiny Terrorist has also been practicing for road trips. I really don’t understand how he can sleep in the positions that he does, but he is a pro! Unfortunately he will not be joining us on this adventure, but we are also planning a 2 week long trip out west and he’ll be on that one.

I’ve spent some serious time in the last few days setting up my garden. Unfortunately my father was right and it was too wet to till the areas. That being said, I was already late planting for the season, so I just put down some cardboard and hay and went for it. I also took a couple of livestock panels and bent them into an arch for my green beans and cucumbers to grow up. When it’s all said and done, I’ll have tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, green beans, potatoes, onions, carrots, and watermelons this year!

I’ve also made progress on the house. We stripped the old siding and underlayment off of the exterior wall above the roof and replaced it with OSB and cement board. As soon as I get it painted it’ll be time to start on the trim for the backside of the house! So soon, we’ll get to actually see what the outside of the house is going to look like!

Would you like an email every time I post something? Would you like to get exclusive content like teasers of the book I’m writing? If the answer is anything short of “Hard Pass” please sign up and prepare to enjoy updates and exclusive content!

Would you like to hire me to write for you? Please email me at amanajeepnorealplan@gmail.com

5/21/20 We Are Not Failures

by

The Tiny Terrorist went back to day care this week! All parties involved were ready for this to happen, but I’m not going to lie, there was some anxiety on the part of Caitlyn and I.

For the last 2 months we have been taking care of Grant without a lot of outside assistance. Yes, my mom did help out, as did Caitlyn’s mom, but there were no reprieves from him that weren’t logistically necessary. So, he has picked up some of our habits, and not all of them are “daycare friendly”. Yes, he is peeing in the potty more often than not now. He also has become mesmerized by CSI and Eureka… But his tendency to poop his pants and his love of the word “Damnit” were worrisome traits to send him back with. That being said as we were walking away on Monday we heard another child shout “shut up” at the top of his little lungs. So, we may be failures as parents, but at least we aren’t the only ones.

Speaking of not failing, the weather has still been actively working against me making progress on the house. For the last 2 weeks its either been raining, cold, or both. That being said, Dad and I have still made progress on the house.

At this point in time we have replaced the stone half-wall, the old wooden siding, the old school underlayment, and repaired the water and ant damage on 2 sides of the house. We replaced the underlayment with OSB and the wood siding with cement board, so hopefully this doesn’t need to be done until the Tiny Terrorist’s grandkids are old enough to do it. We still need to put the trim on these sides, and put the stone back on, but at this point I think that will be waiting till we have the siding done on the entire house.

With all of the rain, it seemed like the right time to put in a rain catch for my garden. So, I acquired two 275 gallon IBC totes. Pretty lady took the drive to Spencer Indiana with me to pick them up. She took one look at them and then asked if I was sure that the two of us could lift them into the truck. I am happy to say we did fine and in fact, I managed to stack them next to the garage myself. Once they were stacked, I spent 2 days figuring out what combination of adapters it took to get from the threading that they had on them, to a garden house. it also took 3 trips to town to figure out a way to get the water from the gutter into the tanks. If you look closely at the photo, you’ll see a prime example of hybrid redneck engineering and theatre magic. Yes, I am more proud of this thing than I should be.

The garden however is not something I am proud of at this point… for now it is still covered in the plastic I’m using to kill the grass. You see in Indiana the dirt is mostly clay, and there is no way in hell i’m going to even try to cut through the sod and till a new garden with all the rain we’ve had. hopefully it’ll dry out in the next few days and I can get out there.

Until the weather cooperates, my small plants are going to be growing in the part of the house I haven’t started on yet… I currently have assorted peppers, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans and a couple of watermelon plants in what will someday be the main kitchen for the house. They aren’t planted in the garden, but as long as they are still alive, I have not failed yet!

The only other thing I have to report is that I have finished the first few chapters of the book. If you’d like to get a teaser of it, I am going to start randomly sending a page or two to the people on my emailing list. So please sign up for notifications below!

Days Unemployed: 61

Please sign up for notifications.

Would you like to hire me to write for you? Please email me at amanajeepnorealplan@gmail.com

4/24/20 Just Shave the Kid, Fix the House, Potty Training, and Unfriendly Websites

by

So, from time to time as a parent you do something colossally dumb… For me it was the misconception that I could give the tiny terrorist a buzz cut myself. It had been discussed that he needed a hair cut, it had been discussed that we could just buzz it, but I went rogue and tried to do it while Pretty Lady was in the shower.

She emerged from the bathroom to enough hair on the floor to knit a tiny terrorist sized sweater, a child who had had enough cookies that they were no longer working for bribery, and he may have looked like he had mange. She took the clippers, revoked my decision making privileges, and attempted to fix his hair… He looks less mangy, but we do need a professional to correct what I did…

Speaking of fixing things, Dad and I have started removing all of the sidding on the house. It was wood paneling that stopped at the rock “half wall”. The wood panelling has deteriorated, and it has been leaking water behind the rock wall for decades… The plan is to replace the wood panelling with cement board (with a wood grain pattern on it) that will run the full height of the house and then be covered by the rock halfwall (which will only be ornamental this time around).

Of course we found exactly what one would expect when opening up the walls. Slight water damage, and a crap ton of ants…. Lots and lots of ants… The fact that spraying hasn’t solved my ant problem makes a lot of sense now…

That being said, at least it gave me an excuse to get a new toy… I’ll admit so far I’ve been using Dad’s and not mine, but… I now have my very own reciprocating saw…

Another tool that hasn’t really been used… We have begun potty training the tiny terrorist. In the last 36 hours he has used the potty 8 times and gone in his pants 13. It should also be noted that he refuses to poop in the potty, that apparently has to happen in his pants for now… At least he is now telling us when he has had an accident, so thats a step in the right direction.

Pretty Lady also got this little urinal to keep in the living room. Tiny Terrorist does not get it… at all… I offered to demonstrate, but Pretty Lady reminded my that ideas like that are why I had my decision making privileges revoked.

Speaking of people who should not be permitted to make decisions, whomever the hell created an unemployment system so broken beyond use that they have to shut it down for days on end, should not only have their decision making privileges revoked… They should have their internet privileges revoked. I mean for crying out loud, it was bad enough that the site was so over loaded that you couldn’t log on to request your benifits until 2 am. Then they decided to shut the system down from 8pm to 8am everyday, so staying up all night to fill out the freak’n forms no longer works… but thats not unfriendly enough for this freaking system, now they have shut it down for 5 days straight…. I swear to god, it better be a finely tuned machine when they bring it back online.

In other news I am boning up on my 1920’s era depression survival tricks. Once the “Shelter at Home” orders are over, I’m debating declaring myself mayor of a shanty town that I am contemplating building on the front lawn of the Florida Department Of Economic Opportunity.

Days Unemployed: 35

Unemployed adventure points earned on this update: 5 points for Tiny Terrorist going to time out (1 each), 1 points for trying to buzz cut Tiny Terrorist solo, 1 point for trying to pee in the training urinal, 8 points for little man using the potty, negative 13 points for tiny terrorist having an accident.

To see the full list of how I can earn points, check out: http://amanajeepnorealplan.com/tylers-coronavirus-unemployment-adventure-point-system/

This Update’s total points: 2

Total to date: 59

Please sign up for notifications.

4/17/20 Very Productive, not a lot of Progress

by

Hello All!

I know, I know, it’s been a hot second since my last update, but I was hoping to have something more impressive to talk about… but I think my tittle for this post says it all.

As you may recall, one of the many ways I am keeping my unemployed self busy is working on my house. Well the door into my sunroom/current kitchen had seen better days. The door it’s self was starting to rot away, and the door casing wasn’t in any better shape… And since we are planning an replacing all of the siding on the house, I might as well go ahead and rip it all out and start from the studs. While doing this I found the above, a 2.5 foot hornets nest. No clue how long it’s been there, but thank god it was abandoned. I found it on day one of this project. The siding is still off on day 8 of the project, but in my defense, it’s been cold and rainy.

I have however replaced the custom door and added a screen door. I have a new rule for houses though, no more weird angles on doors.

Speaking of frustrating projects that are taking way longer than they should… I have been working on Jeff (the jeep). He has the worlds most frustrating vibration. He does fine at low speeds, but when he gets up to about 43 miles an hour, he vibrates uncontrollably. At first I thought it might be as simple as needing my tires rotated and balance. I mean he sat on his tires for 2 years (I’d like it to be noted that they never went flat). So I got the tires rotated and balance. No dice.

So the universal joints are next on the hit list. I have had 7 trips to town for parts. We have done the universal joints on the rear drive shaft. Once again, no dice.

We pulled the front drive shaft off 3 days ago, it has a CV joint that according to all 4 auto part stores in town it shouldn’t have. Trying to get new universal joints into the CV joint has been a challenge. That being said I also now know (after driving it around without a front drive shaft) that the vibration is not coming from the front drive shaft. So once I get that put back on, we’ll be doing the universal joints on the front wheels.

Side note, I have also fixed the transmission leak. It was just a bad gasket on the pan. So I pulled it off, replaced the filter and put a new gasket on it. Unfortunately I forgot to put the magnets back in the pan… I blame YouTube for leaving that step out of the instructions…. And no I am not opening it back up just to put the magnets back in… it’ll be fine… right? Maybe I’ll go back eventually if I need to deal with it.

Speaking of things that needed to be dealt with, we did not have chalk for the dart scoreboard. I did however have a box of 1 inch chalk for marking floors while rigging at work. So I did what any logical individual would do, I used a Japanese saw to cut the chalk into quarters. I want it to be noted that no alcohol was involved in this process and no blood was spilled.

Speaking of processes that shouldn’t involve alcohol, I have also been devoting a few hours a day to harassing my elected officials. I saw a meme a few weeks back that I am taking to heart. of course I can’t find it now, but it read, “Don’t let the current world break you, let it radicalize you.”

I don’t think believing we should have a better social safety net is all that radical of a concept, but as long as I am unemployed I am going to be loud about how broken the system is. I can tell you that my senator and representative at the federal level have wonderful form letters that they use to respond when you email and they don’t answer their phones. That being said I am still calling and emailing them everyday. I’m going to end up on a list somewhere, but hopefully it’s a list of “annoyingly persistent constituents who won’t shut up until we appease them”.

I’m not going to preach my politics at you all, but if you are fed up with the system, and find yourself with some spare time, feel free to use the below link to track down the individuals who represent you.

https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials/

Speaking of fed up, I believe the tiny terrorist is over my shit. Or at least a few days ago he haphazardly packed his suitcase, dragged it out of his room and started demanding to go to his grandmothers. Luckily she was interested in a visit and that’s how Pretty Lady and I got a childless evening… How did we spend it you ask? simple, we went grocery shopping, took the long way home (like an extra hour of driving long way), and then she watched me fail at cooking something new… I have also been doing a lot of that recently…

Well friends, That’s it for my adventures as of late!

Days Unemployed: 28

Unemployed adventure points earned on this update: 13 points for Tiny Terrorist going to time out (1 each), 2 points for completing notable steps on the house (1 for each door on the sun room), 2 points for getting exiled to the garage by the pretty lady (face licking to wake someone up is cute when a dog does it, not when I do it), 1 point for YouTube lying about how to change the filter in my transmission.

To see the full list of how I can earn points, check out: http://amanajeepnorealplan.com/tylers-coronavirus-unemployment-adventure-point-system/

This Update’s total points: 18

Total to date: 57

Please sign up for notifications.