Tempestuous Fury

My time here in Orlando is coming to an end one way or another. I just keep getting new things to be unhappy about. Like, for example, the latest roommate we had. You may remember Kenny, the one who I posted about not doing his dishes? The one who’s parents still take care of him at 35? That guy? Well, we ended up evicting his lazy ass on Sunday a couple weeks ago on strong suspicion of crack addiction.

Yup, we had a crackhead here. How fun. Towards the end, we were scared our doors were going to get kicked in and our shit stolen. He had a bunch of his cracked up friends over a day before his removal, and that was what really catalyzed things. We witnessed what looked alot like a drug deal going down in our front yard, and then all those assholes hung around the house till evening on Saturday. Jim told me that he knew what they were doing: they were waiting for the house to clear out. Saturday night, you know? So they’d have the place to themselves. They finally gave up on it though, because we sat them out.

That was the last straw for me, and for everyone else too. Everyone felt they needed to move to new lodgings after that, and Sue the landlady listened to us, showing up to help dump this guy out, for which we were all quite grateful. There just wasn’t any alternative really; either all our stuff would eventually get stolen by this ass or his buddies to get them their next rock, or we’d eventually end up on the receiving end of a drug raid by Winter Park PD. Kenny needs serious help, and we ain’t the ones to provide it.

His mom had all the right excuses: he was in Palm Beach county before, and he was all crazy about this girl, but she broke up with him, and he got all depressed, became a vegetable, too depressed to go to work, she had to help him break out of it, blah blah blah, how could you evict him, he doesn’t do drugs, I don’t give him enough money. Yes, dear reader, we discovered that she took his paycheck from Einstein Bagels from him, deposited it into an account SOLELY IN HER NAME, and then doled the money out to him. And then she tried to tell us that she was trying to make him independent by giving him his own place, albeit with other roomies. HA!

No explanation required to see how fuxored that is, and the bank! How could you just deposit a check intended for someone else in your own account under a totally different name? Where’s the ID check? Where’s the RED FUCKING FLAG? Ridiculous! Totally, completely, entirely, unprofessional. And that’s a capital sin in my book.

And so, since she only gave him $3.50 once a day for bus money, where could the poor boy get money for drugs? Well, let’s see. He pawns his shit that he has, is always talking about pawning stuff. There’s a starter right there. And that money story is a lie; one day his stepdad came by with $10.00, because Kenny “owed his boss.” So he begs it off his coworkers and boss too. And who knows if it was paid? And how else does this guy lie to his parents to get extra money? Maybe he panhandles on some intersection with a sign too. I see those guys making it pretty decently; they’re all too clean to be homeless and not shower.

I knew and told her that she wouldn’t be legally or financially responsible when our stuff got stolen. She just wouldn’t be. Her response when I first brought that angle up was to inquire if we had homeowner’s insurance. Jim and I just looked at each other like, “What the hell?” Then she left off that because it was a losing response, and she insisted after that that nothing would be stolen because of Kenny. Yeah, right, sure. And you’ll be all shocked when our stuff does get stolen, and I never would have believed Kenny could do such a thing! If you don’t deny Kenny’s involvement entirely. But you won’t pay up or be responsible, and our stuff is gone. Screw you and your crackheaded son.

So we changed the locks on that Sunday.

Interesting behavioral note: Kenny had been homeless in the street briefly before as we discovered during the mother’s sob story. Although he locked his hall door, we discovered when he left that the main large window in his room was unlocked and had the screen removed, so that anyone could lift it up and get in through there. E. mentioned one of April’s scumbag roommates did the same thing, using the window as an entrance/exit, never locking it. As a note for the future should I encounter and have to deal with street people again, when they stay in houses they always leave an open back door. I can only suspect that this has to be some sort of instinct with them, the way rats and other vermin always have a second hole to back out of in case the first is blocked off. It makes sense from that perspective, to have a second way in and out; the only problem is that ANYBODY could have gotten into the house and looted the place from the inside. But I suppose when you’re a piece of shit little human vermin, consideration for your fellow man doesn’t register as a priority. So, an important Lesson Learned when dealing with these scum.

I’m tired of this game of Roommate Surprise. Who’ll be the next asshole that comes in when I’m gone over the summer in Texas? And Patrick and Jim, the two other guys I really like here, are on their way out. I really don’t want to see what replaces them. This place moves in sagas it seems; the Saga of Lewis, then the Saga of Steve, and the latest, the Saga of Kenny. I’m tired of being a part of a reality TV show that doesn’t pay anything.

Mom has suggested putting in for a transfer for the Tampa branch of ASM, which I’ve done. Going back home for a bit makes some sense as a staging area for where I end up next, and she seems to want me to stay around the house for some reason anyway. Besides, I came to Orlando to be at ASM corporate office to work inside developing new skills, and instead I’m outside as a rodman, for God’s sake! I could’ve gone anywhere and got that! Shit, I had that last summer! So I’ve realized that the whole reason for coming here is now gone. I’ve no reason to stay anymore, and big reasons to leave. I can be a rodman in Tampa, get paid the same, and save $585/month in rent. Plus I can trust Mom and Dad.

The year was not spent totally in vain though. I made a goodly amount of money, and stayed busy outside of work. Although I lost a substantial sum investing, I still feel good about it, because I always learn a little more each time. Simulated and real trade experiences make me stronger, give me new insights. I’m well on my way to finishing up what I view to be the most interesting hack I’ve ever participated in, an exploit, if you will, in the free market system in which we live. I slammed out the first quarter or so of a proper procedure to follow in commodity speculation. I’ve also begun a new line of research into the mathematics of probability theory, which I have discovered is extremely important with regards to the placement of stop loss orders. Surprisingly, I discovered this on my own; no one I’ve read seems to grasp this as I do. Everyone just seems to call it a high art, but there’s more to it than that I’ve found.

I’m in need of a good introductory level text in probability; thus far I’ve found a scanned PDF of a textbook on the ‘Net, but it’s not exactly user friendly. Thus far I’ve grasped the basics of the reasonings behind the Gambler’s Ruin problem and Random Walk, as well a simple but important derived algebraic formula which determines if a particular wager is fair, or equitable, but I want to know more. I’ve got a basic low level Calculus background to make it work, but I need a good book as I mentioned earlier. Do you know of any, dear reader?

And so all that remains is to sit around, test the procedure in simulated runs, refine it, and accumulate money in the meantime. I’ve got it all in my head; it just needs to be committed to paper, or in this case, gedit. Then when I get it working, I’ll.. I dunno, accumulate money faster or something. I’ll figure it out when I get there.

In the meantime, I’ll have to find something more fun to do than this survey work or something. I’m not exactly happy with what I’ve seen of the profession in the real world so far. But hey, sometimes shit happens and you strive and overcome. I’ve been there and done it before, and I’ll do it again.

I was afraid for a while that I’d go stupid out here, start getting fat, sloppy, and slow, lose my knack for innovation and critical thought with nothing from my job to challenge me. You get complacent without intellectual stimulation, without any challenge. You start losing your way, just drifting about, slowing down because there’s no need to be quick, no need to even run at the same mental level as you were going at before. Why think when you don’t have to? Just show up to work, drag through the day, and forget about it all at the end with a tall can of beer. Flush it away with alcohol, or weed, or whatever your intoxicant of choice. Shit, I’ve learned more about drugs out here than I ever wanted to know. But I haven’t changed, thank God and Praised be Baby Jesus. I still stick with caffeine only occasionally, and that only to amplify reality when I’m being creative or having a good time gaming or some such.

I’ll be so happy to get out of this shithole, I really will.