Introduction

On this date, August 23, 2014, I have several significant stresses that combined are overwhelming my ability to manage.

Stress 1: Social

On September 12, 2014, I will travel from his home in Pittsburgh PA, 400 miles east to attend the reunion of a group of friends who he hasn’t seen is over thirty years. For me, any social interaction is stressful, and this one will not be particularly demanding. My concerns are that this is a multi-day event which may have issues with my special diet and with sleeping arrangements in a remote location.

As part of this trip I will visit my father, someone I have not seen in years, and someone who has treated me badly in the past. My reason for going to see my father is to retrieve some personal possessions I left at my father’s home many years ago. The last time I visited my father’s home my step mother kept me waiting outside for more than an hour, and made it clear that I was not welcome inside. It is possible that I will drive over 100 miles out of my way and not be able to retrieve the items that I am going there for. The most important items to be picked up are:

*  Two racing bicycles from my youth.
*  A bicycle repair stand that weighs over 80 pounds.

Also as part of this trip I will visit my great uncle and aunt. They are both lovely people, but I am not sure how this interaction will be, not having seen them in more than a decade. From their Facebook pictures they are now much older than I remember them, and I am unsure of what their reactions will be.

Update 9/18/14:

The trip went well.  I rented a van and the guys from my Coast-to-Coast trip were welcoming.  Predictably, some of the members of the group had aged better than others.  I managed my diet well and I took a mattress with me to sleep in the cargo van that I had driven there.

My father was predictably unwelcoming.  After not having seen me in over six years my father was nothing but critical of every action that I took from parking the van, loading the van, and to my leaving.  Toward the end of the evening I asked my father to say one thing that was nice to me.  He did not do so in the time before I left.

I did retrieve my bicycles and my bike repair stand.  My father had used each of my bikes, and had over the course of years modified each taking off valuable parts and putting on junk.  It will cost me more than a thousand dollars to restore these bikes to the condition that I rode them in.  Finally, at some point my father had taken my bicycle stand and had it put outside.  When I got it it was rusted solid from having been left out for many winters.

My aunt and uncle were welcoming, giving me a place to stay for the night, breakfast in the morning, and a tour of their new business the next day.  They looked well, aging predictably.  My uncle is now 69 years old.

I returned home from the trip without incident, unpacking and returning the rental van having driven a total of 1214 miles in five days.

Stress 2: Storage

Another part of this trip will be traveling from this reunion to the location of my storage unit in Massachusetts, an additional 200 miles away. This will not only add significant driving, but will also add the stress of loading the cargo van alone. In the storage unit are a few large items to be picked up, and a few small items. The list of items to picked up include:

*  A refrigerator.
*  A large dresser for clothing.
*  An old computer.
*  A computer printer.
*  An gym size exercise mat.
*  A toolbox of wrenches.
*  A skateboard.
*  Parts of an antique vacuum cleaner.
*  A power saw that I could use now for home renovation.
*  And to go through as many boxes as I have time to empty from the unit.

I arrived at the storage unit during the next to last day I was on the road.  After five years the lock on the unit had rusted, but a worker at the storage unit company helped me free it up and unlock my unit.  The unit was as packed as I could have made it before I left.  It took me six and half hours to get out the refrigerator, the large dresser and the exercise mat and put them in the van.  Rather than spend the additional time at the storage unit to dig out the other items, I chose to drive back through the night.  I picked up the large items that required the use of the van.  The other items listed above could easily fit into a small car at another time. 

Stress 3: Driving

In addition to the social stresses of this trip, I am concerned about the risk of driving for so many days. Any time on the road is potentially life threatening, especially acting under the limitations of fatigue, not enough sleep, and perhaps poor diet. In total this will be 1,200 miles of driving over the course of only about five days.

Stress 4: House

When I return home with a full van of items, the rented cargo van will need to be emptied quickly. To make room for all of these items I will need to clear a large room in my house. I have already made some progress but there will need to be many more days of work on this task to empty the room needed. To organize my house will require time and patience and I only have 20 days to complete this task.

Stress 5: Renovation

In addition to this set of tasks I also have a major plumbing renovation that needs to be completed this summer. I did the excavation for 25 feet of sewer line, had plumbers come in to replace that pipe. After they did a poor job I then successfully argued for them to return and redo some of their work which was not adequate to meet code requirements. Unfortunately, for them to return there is preparation work that I need to do. For my part I am still so annoyed about the work that they did that I am having a hard time getting motivated to do this preparation. I don’t think I should leave this project for the uncompleted until after I return in a month. To complete this project will require the re-excavation of a collapsed ditch, and the manual moving of several tons of stone and earth.

Stress 6: Automotive

My old truck will not pass inspection this year due to rust. In the best case I would have time to remove the bed of the bed of the truck, replace the metal that is rusted out, and put the bed back on the truck before it is due for inspection in November. Because it is unlikely that I will have time to do this work myself, it is likely that I will need to pay someone to do this welding work for me. The estimated cost of this work will be $800 plus the cost of a rental vehicle while mine is in the shop.

Stress 7: Money

Beyond the stress of just being able to accomplish all of these tasks, each item on this list carries with it an associated cost. The rental cost on the cargo van will be about $800 not including the gas which could add as much as $400 to driving this van. Added to this expense could be the cost of food and housing for these five days which could add several hundred dollars to the cost of this trip.

Actual costs for van:
$655.29  Van Rental
$243.00  Gas for trip
$898.29  Total

Added to the cost of cleaning my house has been the use of friend’s garage to sort materials into. In time I will need to pay her for the use of that storage space, at an agreed upon rate of $50 per month.

Finally, it will cost another $1,000 to complete the plumbing work in my home, even doing the majority of this plumbing work myself.

Altogether this will be over $4,000 in expenses, an amount that will take many months to pay off, plus the interest on this loan for that time.

Stress 8: Income

In addition to the cost of completing these tasks in money, there is also the cost of completing these tasks in my time in which I am not earning money. To free up the time to complete these tasks I have turned down that could have brought in money to pay for some of this work. Further, I have not made progress on my own projects that could earn money in the short and long term. These income producing projects include:

*  The development of two major income producing websites.
*  The development of a syllabus for teaching an engineering course.
*  The development of three separate product lines for sale on personal web sites.

Stress 9: Ongoing

Finally, in addition to the stress of needing to complete these many tasks in the next three weeks, there is also the ongoing stress of not making progress on my long term projects. These projects include, working on my novel and a how-to manual that I have put three years into writing.

What I need to move these projects forward are one or more people who can sit and talk out ideas with me while I write. These writing helpers do not need to type or have knowledge of the topics I am writing about, but they do need to have the time and willingness to write with me on an ongoing basis. They will also need to use the basic Internet tools of Skype, and Google Docs.

Completed Tasks

Finally there are a few completed tasks, and partially completed tasks that can be recognized to reduce the stress of what needs to be done.

Legend: * = Complete,  / = Partially complete.

*  1)  Finding storage to empty my house, truck and storage.  It was several days of calling to find a place I could store stuff in, and then a day of work to clean out my friend’s garage so that it could be emptied.  Just having this space has allowed me to organize and empty many items from my home.

*  2)  Emptying the bed of my truck.  Prior to having a storage space I was carrying around 500 or more pounds of half completed projects in the bed of my pickup.  This was causing wear on the truck, costing me fuel economy, and was preventing me from doing other tasks to empty my home.

* /  3)  The last time I used a credit card was in 2009.  However, car rental companies require the use of a credit card and there may be other times on this trip when I may need one.  After years of not using them I had many expired cards, two cards were cancelled due to lack of activity, and I wasn’t sure where the card I actually needed was in my home.  I spent an afternoon sorting through old cards, making calls to credit card companies, and requesting new cards.  I am still waiting for these new cards to arrive.  I found the card I will need for the trip.

/ /  4)  Emptying my house.  So far I have taken several truck loads of items from my home to my friend’s garage.  One truck load of items to donate to Goodwill, and been able to process at least another truck load of projects that lay half completed in my home.

There will be more to do, but recognizing these parts that have been completed is useful in reducing stress.

Motivation

Moving forward, it is useful if I can share my progress on the above tasks as I complete them. I thank my Miss in advance for her support in completing the tasks needed so I can be ready for my trip and beyond.

Regards, Dante