Blog, I

Filed my taxes online in under 40 minutes just now. The ‘windfall’ will be split in half…part to catch up all bills, the other working on my driver license reinstated and a vehicle.

It’s really difficult to talk about not driving to many people, when the subject of me using the bus and having a family of six comes up. I didn’t get in trouble…I wasn’t drinking…I simply found it cheaper once our car broke down 8 years ago to take the bus!

No car insurance. No gas. No maintenance. No accidents! Granted, the city I live in doesn’t have that great of a transit system, but with planning…that any family SHOULD have and not fall into impulse constantly…it’s doable.

I’m feeling better now that the antibiotics have gotten most of the nasty virus out of my head and chest. I’m having ALOT of back pain though, probably from being so sedentary. It hurts just to cough in the area just under and at my belt. Chances are I’ll return to work on Monday, I’ll just need to wear a back brace and not take it to hard.

I met and did my intake at River Region on Friday afternoon. Going through the question and answer phase made me feel better about myself than I thought it would. I’m not personalizing on the past, and much of what I’ve done over decades…it was just good, that’s all. The plan now is to determine what other medications can help me get more stable from going into manic phases, so as to avoid the depressive ones as much.

Mania…is Gooooooooood. It’s got it’s strengths, when it’s needed. It’s not anymore. I want normalcy from cycles. Little steps, and I’ll get there.

We also touched base on OCD, DID, MPD, ADD, ADHD, all after making sure there wasn’t anything possibly connected with HIV and needles. At first I was put off by the initial questionnaire…’what drugs have you done?’. I let it go, and just filled it out.

I’d say here, but then again my kids might find it, but I don’t wanna go there. Nobody would…in their right mind. It’d make the fight in parenting harder.

Speaking of parenting, don’t ya just love how you can be more evil than Satan to a kid when they don’t get their way…but then after getting some shuteye you’re told ‘I love you’ or given a hug…without being asked for something?

Oxygen is what it feels like sometimes.

Kids forget those important papers sometimes, so we found out through the news that a child two grades higher than her. The news had this to say. What we as parents got from the school in writing was the following…AFTER…we did

‘Did you have something you were supposed to give mom and dad, honey?’

Dear Parent,

An individual has been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Situations such as this occur once or twice a year in the Duval County School System.

All teachers and students identified as being at risk are being tested. If you have not been contacted, then your child was not identified as being at risk and there is no need for testing and/or medical treatment.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to call the Duval County Health Department at 630-3336.

Sincerely,

J. Alfred Bowers, M.D.
School Physician

My wife and I contacted a few individuals in the school system, but everyone’s pretty much tight lipped or honestly aren’t being made aware of what’s going on fully. This school in particular is the target school location for children in elementary ages who reside in Jacksonville’s homeless shelters downtown.

That in itself shouldn’t be scary to Jacksonville residents with homes. The scary part is towards the residents of the shelters, if in fact someone infected has carried it back and transmitted to other residents. Shelters try to be as hygienic as possible…but reality is what it is.

It’s just another thing to make you think of what parents have to deal with while in the shelter system. As for my wife and I, we’ll trust our children’s primary care physician to tell us if there’s nothing to worry about.

Does this mean the ‘infected’ kid came from there? Not whatsoever. Does it mean there’s the potential epidemic by homeless kids? Not whatsoever. The important thing is that all parties involved get out of ‘politically correct’ mode and deal with the kids needs. A number of kids have been tested positive in now two schools in Duval County.

Get them treatment, as well as the others that will need this immediately.

According to Fox 30 News, 180 students’ parents from Stanton College Prep High School recently were informed in writing their kids needed to be tested. The others received an ‘all clear’ letter. How many kids at my daughter’s school honestly were told to get tested…

…no idea.

Sheesh. Nothing posted between November 2004 through August 2005. Have to see about getting and going through my raw data files for anything worth mentioning, and then insert it chronologically in the blog entries…just have to make sure to put a disclaimer in at the end, in case people are using rss feeds on me.

I’ll see what I can come up with over the next week, as well as pictures of the food. Speaking of food, homeless, and stereotypes…as you can see on this blog; and homeless in jax Dot com; I…can code HTML! Click the pic for some info on the pic now. I always wondered where that actually came from, and just ironically found it! Check out what Dvorak’s gotta say.

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EDIT: I noticed that the link to Dvorak is bouncing back. I checked the HTML, and it’s good. The URL is www.html4.com/mime/markup/html/will.html

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EDIT: 2/2/2007: Some people simply aren’t fans of linking to their site, using their images. That’s understandable. It’s about traffic…unlike me, many people have limited bandwidth they’re allotted. Rather than copy someone’s image to my site physically…which is theft, in my humble opinion…I’ll link to their site info or story using something from it. The above mentioned site’s recently been having major attacks, per it’s root site URL. Luckily, I found another location on the internet that had the picture also…who actually is the rightful owner of it, I don’t know…but it’s back for your viewing pleasure.

Well, we got through singing Happy Birthday and enjoyed watching the younger ones eyeing each other to see if the other would be the first to eat cake without hands or utensils, or plop a piece in the others face. My daughter took some pics with her camera, but since it’s 35mm I’ll have to wait til they’re on CD. Everyone’s asleep, and I’m about to hit the hay for tomorrow’s return to work.

Only four more working days as a temporary employee, then I’m a ‘company man’. Doesn’t feel different, but the benefits are a nice security factor that makes me more comfortable. We’ll have 12 months coverage under Medicaid for the kids still, so I’m not sure if I’ll take coverage for me and the wife or the entire family yet.

Dental will be a big plus. I was able to get most of the problems with my teeth taken care of; in terms of abscess and such; but due to flashbacks wasn’t able to get everything done when it came to doing the root canals. My goal is to have the remaining ones pulled, and dentures in place in three months.

It’ll be nice to be able to smile without being self conscientious.

Off to bed. Tomorrow, I resolve to make breakfast before heading out.

Let’s see if I actually do it or not.

Night

Dang! ‘I did not know that!’
I was just doing some site traffic checks on what search engines were pushing people to the site, and I was kind of shocked…I was listed as the 3rd place. Apparently I was looking at a cache page, because when I went manually to yahoo and typed in ‘homeless blog’ without the quotes, this is what came up.

…and it’s still 2006.

Happy New Year to everyone that’s stopped in, followed us, and sent prayers. Your support has meant so much.

Thank you, from our family.

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UPDATE: January 20th, 2007 - Not sure why, but Yahoo is not showing the site in even the first 200 on a search for ‘homeless blog’. It IS showing the site at #2 on a search of ‘homeless family’.

It’s probably due to changes in the META files as well as above description. Weird, because I was checking it regularly and noticed the last time it’d been at #3 on the ‘homeless blog’ search. Guess it means that Yahoo’s info is held on and dealt with longer than people originally thought.

My older son was acknowledged by local paper; with his classmates; in participating in an early college program.

He has come so far, through so much, words cannot express how I feel about his effort. Besides, he’d be perturbed if I got mushy about him.

Tough, kid. I love you.

When our family first became homeless, he showed alot of care and friendliness to other families when they’d first arrive at Sulzbacher’s. He’d regularly loan person items to other teens, and help out staff at the Community Connection’s Davis Center afterschool program. Even after having items ‘not returned’…even when he was hurt by others…his caring and compassionate demeanor wasn’t lost.

Now that we’ve got our own home, he wants to return back to places we frequented to play chess with other kids. In the future he’s said he wants to go into engineering, a field his great grandfather John pursued and later brought him originally to Jacksonville making designs on the U.S.S. Forrestal and Saratoga.

I’ve seen alot of kids go in and out of experiencing homelessness. I don’t know of many of his peers through that experience who’s face doesn’t brighten when seeing him these days, as well as adults who became familiar with our family as well.

I’ll quit for now, before I get him really upset.

9:51, and all but one child is snoring. That one had the task of baking cookies herself. Mom and I are staying up watching 7th Heaven, waiting to be able to do the final touches on stockings and such.

Surviving traumatic experiences isn’t easy. At many points I thought about me and my family, while at others my concern and emotions fell towards others. One of the things I’m learning to do is not fall victim to feeling guilty for prospering as we have to date.

Can I make a difference in the lives of others, ultimately, in their experiences through homelessness? Honestly, I don’t think it’s my place to answer that as well as anyone else about me. I can only relate on my experiences in an effort to show where I came from and what effect those experiences had on myself, my wife, and my children.

While there were many experiences that could be described as bad or negative, there are many that could be described as good or positive. In all, these fall into one simple category: life.

Some people recently claimed me to be too easy to turn the other cheek. In all honesty, I simply did not let them aware of moment’s of emotion that were the exact opposite. It didn’t make any sense to share those when it came time to address the matters publicly at that occasion.

God bless you, and Merry Christmas.