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“When God has a plan for your life, I don’t care how much you murmur and complain and kick and fuss and scream and yell. When you know that God has a plan for your life, He got you tied up… I serve a God who will tie you up when you’re acting crazy, tie you up, while you’re trying to do your own thing, tie you up while your temper is raging, tie you up, when your ambition is out of control. Sometimes, God will tie you up til the time is right. Nothing will work, your money won’t work, your career won’t work, the boyfriend will leave, the house will sell, cause when God has you tied up, He’s not gonna let you get away. He’ll say, Be still and see the salvation of the Lord.”
–T.D Jakes–

I felt that – Max.

Time: 11:16pm

Date: August 12-2021

Place: The club in the ATX

I was looking for a quote to express things for this post, and I decided to look up some TD Jakes quotes and when I came across this one, I just couldn’t help but say to myself… Damn that’s me. That’s so my life right now. My life is just not working, no matter what I do, I just feel like my hands are tied, like life just won’t budge in my direction. Emptiness is one thing, and I’m learning to deal with that, but to feel boxed and chained is a whole new dimension to the pain.

So what’s been happening recently? well not much. Like literally. My life seems to have come to a standstill.

Let’s see if we can make sense of what’s been happening lately in  my life and how TD Jakes quote hit the spot like a virgin watching porn for the first time…..

Recently I went for a checkup from my stye surgery that I had a couple of weeks ago. And luckily the healing from the surgery went well, but it also turns out that I now have another small stye. I can see a really tiny bump above my eyelash. And I wonder if the doctor was not able to get that small oil clump out of one of my stye’s and maybe the tiny oil clump traveled down to the bottom of my eyelid next to my eyelash and was not able to naturally come out of my oil gland. I don’t know…. it’s just a thought. Either way I still have a stye in my eyelid. And so the doctor pulled out a big ol’ digital camera and took several photos of my eyelid and then he prescribed some me an antibiotic, but the antibiotic needs to be ordered thru a special online pharmacy, otherwise if I try and buy it at my normal pharmacy, this bottle of 1ml antibiotic eye drops will cost almost $300. And somehow this online pharmacy will sell it to me for $60. but it takes about a week to 14 days to receive it. So…… my eye issue is sadly still not resolved and all I can do is wait.

Now last time I wrote, I also talked about my car taking a poop and now almost dead in the water. It’s a 2007 Toyota Yaris with almost 200,000 miles on it and the engine is about to die and I am literally afraid to drive it. I am worried that it will die while driving it. So I just have it parked until I can find a solution for it. And since my last post, the autos shop near my house that does engine overhauls is not yet able to find me a truly reliable engine. There are two companies that they deal with from where they buy rebuilt engines, but these two companies don’t seem to have a engine like mine that they can rebuild. And my other option is for me to buy a used engine. But the drawback with a used engine is that you just don’t know how long it will last. or how well it was cared for, and from the mechanics perspective, the car is 14 years old, and even if I put a used engine in the car, it will still cost me almost $4000 to buy and install a used engine. And it just leaves me with a dilemma of what should I really do about this car.

The car is paid off and the monthly insurance is low so if I fix it, then I won’t have much bills with it, pretty much everything is good on the car. Sadly it does need some body work, and the rack and pinon will need to be replaced but those things can wait. My other option is to fix my truck (the money pit). The truck is a 2001 Ford Ranger, and after I paid it off I put huge 37 inch tires on it and blew the engine on it, later I put another engine in it (the same size and type) and I blew that engine in 6 months. So after that I went balls to the wall crazy and put a Chevy 350 engine in that Ford Ranger, and after that, shit just went sideways. SMH. Since that moment, I had to change EVERY god damn thing in that truck, just for the engine to work properly. And worse, I just couldn’t fathom the amount of money that it has cost me to have it only halfway done.  And for that reason the truck is a money pit…. Now, with that being said, this week I aired up the tires (they went flat while sitting at my house for the last several months, they are 15 to 17 years old and the truck has just been siting in my driveway collecting dust. So I aired up the tires and tried to start the truck to take it around the block to see how it feels. But before I could do that, I had to fix the windows. The truck originally came with manual windows that you roll down with a handle, and because I am just that crazy, I decided to change it to automatic windows years ago. And did I tell you that I also shaved off the door handles and also got rid of the key entry to the doors? Yep I changed the doors to pop open via remote. Which is cool until you don’t use the truck for 15 years and have it sit out in the texas sun for over a decade. Sun and rain can do some real damage to a vehicle that just sits there. And did I mention that the driver side window was rolled down the whole time while sitting in God’s weather. The window was rolled down because if you had rolled the window up and you don’t have a key for the door, then you’d be fucked on getting the doors open. So….. my dilemma when I got the truck  was to fix the windows to roll up. The rain has just caused so much havoc and deterioration to the inside of the truck. So the first thing was to replace the motors for the windows and now that I repaired the automatic windows, I now need to replace the door poppers. They don’t work, probably from the rain. So this week I called a place named A1Electric and I ordered some new door poppers for the truck and also an emergency door entry cable. This way if I ever lose power on the truck that I will still have a way to get into the truck. This is something that I didn’t do when I first put door poppers on the truck all those years ago.

So as I first mentioned, I aired up tires, and was going to take the truck for a ride around the block, but when I went to turn the key, I quickly learned that the battery was dead. This was definitely something that was unexpected. But luckily I have a battery charger. (Those things come in handy when you least expect it) So I grabbed my battery charger and let it slowly charge the battery over night. I then got up the next day and tried for a second time to start the truck. And again, the battery was dead. I was like WTF? And turns out something drained the battery so much that I now needed a new battery. So later that day I went to Walmart and paid about $120 for a new battery. I then went home and tried to start the truck… And again, the truck wouldn’t start. Luckily it wasn’t the battery this time. It was still frustrating though because the engine and or starter would turn over but it wasn’t actually starting. So by this time it was getting late and I was so frustrated that I told myself that I will mess with it again tomorrow. I was really frustrated with the fact that I already had to buy new automatic windows for the truck and install them, and then have to buy a battery for it and it still wouldn’t start. So rather than working on it the next day, I actually waited a couple of days until I felt motivated enough to get dirty and try to figure something out that I have no clue how to work on or even care to learn about. The tough part about learning…. is not the learning itself, but instead it’s putting the energy into “wanting” to learn something that you don’t ever care to know how to do. That really is the toughest part about learning. So about two days later I mustered the energy to go and play with the truck again. And after a long enough time of playing the mechanic version of Sherlock Holmes, it turns out that the gas in the gas can (remember my truck doesn’t have a gas tank. I had to remove the original gas tank because it was in the way of the new drive shaft for the new engine and transmission. again, man, just thinking about the shit I had to do to that truck…. UGH! So yeah… gas can…. The truck has a gas can in the back of the truck and it turns out that the gas in the can went bad from sitting in the sun for so long and also possibly getting water in it from the rain. So I had to empty out the old gas an put new gas in the gas can then retape up the mouth of the gas can so that only the hose to the fuel pump was entering the gas can. Then I had to dribble gas into the carburetor of the trucks engine. and after about doing this for about 30 minutes I finally got the truck to start. by this time I was mentally drained from messing with the truck. And I don’t know what it is, but I just REALLY hate working on cars. Like I really just don’t give a shit to ever work on a car. That’s just not what I am meant to do in life. In my mind, I subconsciously say to myself…. “This car thing, that’s someone else’s job, not mine”. So needless to say, I waited another day or two before I mustered the energy to fuck with it again. So a couple of days later I went out to attempt a 3rd time to drive the truck around the block. And when I got into the truck to turn the key, somehow the battery was dead again. FML. Like it is a brand new battery. How could this happen to a brand new battery.  So what did I do? Well…..Again, I had to play the Sherlock Holmes mechanic. And while mentally preparing to do that, I went and grabbed my battery charger and put the setting to a fast charge, I waited about 5 minutes and it still didn’t have enough of a charge to start the engine. So I was done, I tapped out. I decided to change the charge setting to a slow charge and let the battery charge overnight. Then the next day I went out on a 4th attempt to take the truck around the block. And this time while at Autozone, I texted an old friend. He’s an old guy and has been a mechanic almost all his life. And I told him about the battery problem and he gave me some advice on how to test to see if something is draining the battery, and after putting a volt meter to things, it turns out that something is draining the battery. And so I took out the radio in hopes to solve my dilemma, but somehow I still had something drawing a 12 volt charge from the battery. And again. I know nothing about cars and plus this car is a piece of like 5 different cars, so I can’t easily look for answers on the internet. Just super frustrating. And did  I mention that I hate working on cars? So instead of trying to figure out what’s draining the battery, I told myself…. “Fuck it, just get the truck running and drive the motherfucker around the block” So after playing with the battery for about half an hour trying to figure out where the draw was coming from, I decided to just start the truck and take it for a drive…. And when I turned the key, again the truck wouldn’t start. The starter would work but again, it somehow wasn’t getting gas to the engine. I have no clue what the fuck the problem is, so I decided to go and dribble some gas down the carburetor again, I did this for about 10 minutes and after a while the truck finally started. I then closed the hood and took it around the block.

And when it was all said and done, I can feel that the transmission isn’t working well enough. I put the truck in reverse but it didn’t have enough power to go backwards up my driveway. So something is wrong with the transmission. So lets just try and sum up the truck thing and paint a well understood picture of this money pit dilemma…. The brakes work but need bigger brakes to help stop the large tires, there is no gas tank yet, the door poppers don’t work and I will have to install the new ones this coming week, I have a battery drain problem and have no clue WTF it’s coming from, the speedomter doesn’t work, and because I have no gas tank, I also don’t know how much gas I have in the gas can until I run out of gas. And the tires are 15 to 17 years old and new tires and rims will cost about $4000. (remember everything on this damn truck is custom…..And all the while, I am still debating about what to do with the Yaris and it needing an engine. A new engine for the Yaris will cost $6000 tax not included, and by my minimum estimates, to get my truck to where I can drive it on the road is also going to cost me about $6000. So what do I do? Do I keep trying to find an engine for the Yaris or do I slowly put the money into the truck. Either way it’s going to take me time. And even if I find a way to buy an engine for the Yaris by tomorrow, it will still take about two weeks at the soonest before the Yaris would be fixed. The mechanic would need to order the engine, and they would have to ship it, and during that time they would need to take out the old engine, and then put in the new engine. which all in all would take a minimum of two weeks. And this is assuming that I can order an engine tomorrow. Which sadly I really don’t know when and how I am going to get an engine for the Yaris. So maybe my best bet is just to fix the truck. I can probably take the truck next week to get the brakes fixed and find the solution to the battery drain and also have the new door poppers installed. then a week or two after that I can have a new gas tank ordered and installed. And at the same time have a mechanic look at the transmission. and when its all said and done, within a month I can have a truck with a working engine and transmission, and brakes. Then I will need new tires and rims. Then after that I will be able to drive the truck and I can slowly work on getting the other things working, like the speedometer and the air conditioner. Oh and the truck also needs a muffler. When they put in the new drive shaft, not only did they have to take out the gas tank, but they also had to take out the muffler. luckily there are a ton of muffler shops in my area and getting a new muffler is relatively cheap and easy to get done compared to all the other work that needs to get done.

Now recently when I talked to my friend Billy (the old mechanic) he told me about a place where he used to work in Kyle Texas and said that I should call them and ask about their price to put in a used engine. Billy seemed to be very confident that the shop owner could find a good used motor and that he would do it for a reasonable price. Billy said that the shop would do a lot of engine swaps and that he hadn’t seen one ever come back for repair. So I decided to call them and now I am also waiting for them to call me back. I will probably need to call them on Monday and see what they have found. And I also found a motor supply shop here in town and I need to call them and see what type of warranty they give on their motors. So far the best motor rebuild shops give a 100,000 mile warranty on their engines, but sadly those places are the ones that don’t have my engine in stock. and other places only give a 12,000 mile warranty. And even at a 12,000 warranty  is still going to cost me a minimum of $4000 just to get an engine in my Yaris that will last a minimum of 12,000 miles. So my dilemma of what to do is just not easy. A friend at work said….”Max just get a new car. $6000 will make a great down payment” And my friend is correct it will make a great down payment, but I don’t want just any car, if I am going to buy another car, then I want a Landrover, and that is a minimum of $40,000. And in the end that will cost me about $800 a month, and the insurance will be over $200. Which means that I will have a $1000 monthly payment for at least 6 years….. And did I mention that I need to lower my debt because soon I will need to try and find a bank to loan me $300,000 to build a 4plex? Now you might say Max, does it have to be a land Rover, isn’t there another car that you would like? and the answer is yes, I also looked at a 2020 Toyota Camry. but a used Camry is about $20,000 and will be about $600 a month including insurance, and sadly that will also be for 6 years. And so the question is…. Do I really want or need a new car payment at this point in my life? Especially with all that I need to do with the 4plex that I have and with hopefully the ability to build a 4plex from ground up?

Like in reality, I need to skinny down on my debt until I can get all my units up and running. So for me, I really can’t truly see myself going the route of buying a new car. As I have been mowing over thoughts in my head, it is much cheaper for me to spend almost $10,000 and get both the Yaris and the truck running and that way I will definitely have two form of transportation (not including the motorcycle that I use to drive to work in Austin) And I won’t have any extra monthly debt. Now I will need to keep slowly pumping money into the truck to get it where I want it to be? The answer is a resounding YES. But that has always been the goal, it’s just that I have put the truck on the back burner because of things like all the construction of my own house and things at the 4plex. But now I am needing to switch gears and make sure that I have dependable transportation. So I am just coming to the point where I must be ok with not having a car for about a month, and use these next 30 days to get the truck to where I can use it in the neighborhood, and in tandem also narrow down on the cheapest way to get an engine…. either luckily be able to find a great rebuilt engine, or decide on a cheap rebuilt engine or maybe a used engine. Either way I will get an engine for it. My worker Bob even mentioned……”Max can’t you just have your engine sent to the people that do good work so that you can get that 100,000 mile warranty? and honestly that might be an option… but again, the turn around on that might be two to three months. and I just don’t know all the answers to those questions yet. But at least now I have a small frame work of a game plan. Sadly it’s just going to take time. like a minimum of a month and up to 3 months. This is extremely upsetting for me because I don’t like to drive the motorcycle in town. I like having air condition and I like to relax on small drives. So a car works so much better for me when I have to go to Walmart and buy a shit ton of supplies and groceries. It’s just super non convenient to do things like that on a motorcycle. So yea….. I’m basically car less for at least a month. Something that I don’t like but that I gotta be uncomfortably comfortable about.

So that’s my car situation, now what’s happening in the real estate? Welps,  I called the lawyer again this week and I paid him $250 to send a certified letter telling my tenant that he his lease will not renew after September….. Did you read that….. AFTER SEPTEMBER! Like WTF. Because of the covid laws, I have to give the tenant a 30 day notice and it is NOT allowed to be given on his door, instead it has to be sent via certified mail. So that means that this tenant gets away with out paying for rent for another month. That’s 3 months of not paying rent. And that really fucking pisses me off. Because I know he can pay rent if he wanted. the fucker has two hand’s two feet and even has transportation. It’s just really upsetting to have someone steal from me like that. And after a long talk with my lawyer, I am now going to have to eat my own anger because my lawyer said that Texas has a covid progam that will pay rent for tenants if they can’t pay rent, and that the program will even pay the back rent. And so he convinced me that even though my tenant is choosing to be a horrible person and try and steal from me by not paying rent, my lawyer said that it is better for me to get the tenant on this covid rent program because the program will pay the back rent that the tenant owes. And the lawyer said that the program will require that I keep the tenant for a minimum of 3 months before I can refuse to renew my lease with him. So in other words, I am stuck with this damn tenant for minimum of 3 more months. It’s just super frustrating to rent my apartment to someone that is choosing to steal from me, and in the end will just steal from the state of Texas. I just really want this tenant out of my life, but I must learn to be the better person even though this tenant is fucking me where it hurts the most….. I just really wish I could be there when Karma shows him what he did to me. But sadly again, that won’t happen. So with this tenant, the only thing I can do is wait. Wait until the wheels of government get this tenant out of my life. Really fucking frustrating. And all the while, I get no rent from him. Paying bills just got tougher. Thanks tenant! you’re an A+.

As for my other tenants, the ones that are leaving at the end of August…. I will need to text them this week and get the status of when they will leave so I can go in there and do what I can to get that unit rented ASAP. And at the same time come up with $5000 to fix the A/C in that unit. And how am I going to come up with $5000 when I still need to make sure that I have dependable transportation? I don’t know…. I really just don’t know. Again… God is just making me wait. My hands are currently tied.

And what about my loneliness and need for love? Well…. that is also on the waiting list and also costing me money. Several months ago I paid two dating services to set me up with dates, but since the inception of paying thousands of dollars to these dating services, I have only gone on two dates. And both of them were not fruitful. And this next week I have another date setup for this Tuesday or Wednesday. What will happen? I don’t know, I’m just going to have to wait and see. And yesterday I decided to take an uber to a neighborhood bar near my apartments. Word on the street was that there was a pretty female bartender working there, So I decided to take a stab and go there. I met her and gave her money to talk with me. She’s pretty but I’m just not into her. I don’t know, maybe I am looking for something specific, I don’t know. But also my closest male friends say “Max, don’t be so picky” So even though I’m not really into this bartender, I tell myself that I will go there two more times and just see what conversation I can make happen. Again, this will cost me two things……. Money and time.

Are you yet noticing the resounding things that keep happening? Money and time….. Everything is costing me money, and worse, I will need to spend money and then I will HAVE to wait. and wait and then wait some more. Like nothing has a definitive time of coming to fruition. Nothing.

Now there is Richard, the guy who is going to try and help me get my 4plex built. And although this is a positive thing (if it can truly happen), but something like this obviously takes time. How long does it take? I don’t know. I’ve never walked these waters before so this is something that I will need to be patient with. And honestly, I don’t mind this part of my life taking a little time. This is my future and I want to ensure that I learn it and do it properly.

Is there anything on the horizon that I know will make me feel good without waiting a long time? The answer is yes…. Actually something that I am looking forward to is my scheduled meeting with Joan. She is my professional organizer. I used to see her on a regular basis before covid. I look forward to seeing Joan because Joan is always a wealth of knowledge and has an ability to give me an outside perspective from someone that has met a lot of people and has accomplished more in life than I have. I don’t pay Joan to “literally” organize things for me. Instead I pay Joan to help me organize my thoughts and to help with new or different ways to see things in life. And for me that is so deeply important to be able to shift thinking, and shift perspective. And the added bonus if she actually knows someone that can help me with any of my current hurdles in life is super awesome.

I also luckily had Dennis (the guy from the CPA firm) he does my taxes, but about 3 months ago I also paid him to sit with me on the side. I now pay Dennis to see me once every 3 months to look at my finances and to give me his thoughts and opinion about my choices for how I am handling and spending my money. It was Dennis who helped me to make the decision to finally put money towards getting the central AC in my house. Thank you Dennis.

So yea, Dennis texted me, and I am hoping to see him in a week or two. And finally, I also recently ordered about 16 pounds of collagen from China. In my quest to get, look, and stay healthy, I’ve learned that collagen is one of the secret ingredients that many Asian women eat to stay looking young. And sadly collagen is just really expensive (or at least I think it’s expensive). I buy a 30 day supply at Walmart for about $25 to $30 and I go thru it in almost two weeks. I go thru it that fast because I did some research on how much the body needs and how much the average Asian person eats of it a day. and after researching, I’ve come to the conclusion that in Texas, we Texans get very little to almost no collagen in our food. So I am now taking almost 20 grams of collagen a day. And at my age, ever so close to 50, my body needs all the collagen that it can get. The Texas heat easily dries out the skin, the older I get the thinner my skin gets, and as we lose collagen we lose elasticity in the skin. And one of the things to looking youthful is to have elasticity in the skin. Saggy skin just doesn’t look good. Especially on our face. Once your face starts to sag, that’s when shit gets really expensive to fix. So for me collagen is a great way to pushback that problem. so yeah, this week I finally got the order thru to China and I should be getting the shipment in about two weeks.

I also went to my ketamine treatment this week. That was also the same night that I went to the bar to meet that female bartender. And to be honest drinking later that night after having the ketamine treatment is something that I didn’t want to do. The last two times of ketamine, my body felt sea sick for about 3 or 4 hours. I literally had to go home and just lay down. And so this last time after ketamine I still felt the same way, nauseous and sea sick. I went home and rested, and wasn’t going to go to the bar because I just wasn’t feeling up to it, and plus I also had a particular person on my mind. (that one way love) and so a combination of her on my mind and my body not really being up to par is why I was going to stay home, but after a text from a close male friend that told me that I should go to the bar, that I need to move, that it is good for my body and my soul. And so because of his words is why I went to the bar. And currently I don’t think it was worth it. Although I can only assume that it was better than being home alone. but the money I spent and how I feel today, just leaves me not totally happy about going there.

So finally, what did I do today? Sadly almost nothing. All I really did was call the car shop in Kyle to ask about the engine swap. I laid in bed most of the time. I laid there just lamenting about my inability to get anything accomplished. It was so unproductive. about 5:30pm, I decided to pick up my guitar and downloaded an app to teach me how to play guitar. I bought a guitar about 4 years ago, but never learned how to play it. And so today while sitting on the edge of my bed, I looked at my guitar and said to myself….”why not, I don’t have anything else better to do” So I downloaded an app and practiced for about 25 minutes. And to be honest, I hate learning the guitar… The first month is going to be hell because of the learning curve with remembering finger positioning, and pain that it takes to get the needed calluses on your fingers is really painful. But…. If I can practice for just 20 minutes 3 times a week, within a month or two, I might just be able to play something on the guitar.

So to sum things up…. It looks like things are just not going to budge for me. At least not yet. No matter how bad I want to get things accomplished or moving in real estate, love, ending my loneliness, getting my cars fixed and or pretty much anything else in my life. It’s just at a point where if there is a God, that he has purposely raped me being able to do the things that I am trying to get accomplished. And worse, it’s all just costing money that I don’t yet have.. This year is truly an expensive year for me and it’s just not looking successful for all that I am spending. Hopefully what is really happening is that I am planting seeds and that next year I will be able to see the fruit from all that I am paying and pausing on right now. I don’t know…. That’s really just about the best that I can hope from things. (fingers crossed)

Till the next post.

Max.