It has been quite a day. My phone was turned off, again, because I am behind on the payments due to the data overages from my daughter's line which the company somehow cannot block. She has blocked my texts and calls to the phone so I can't contact her on her phone. I contacted her mother via text, in an attempt to keep from her baiting me into some kind of argument. She tried anyway over text. I told her I was going to have to cancel my wireless account because of all this. She guilted me by telling me that I was shutting off her phone and that it would devestate her. She also blamed me for not trying to contact or see my daughter and also asked me if I was going to continue to pay my child support. I told her I hadn't seen my daughter and have tried several times to be told she's always gone somewhere, either a friend's house or out of town. She went on to tell me I don't have the right to see her for overnight visitation because I haven't proved to the courts that I have a bedroom for her to stay in that was separate from my own. The divorce decree was written after this decision was made in the courthouse and judges chambers when the judge ordered my ex to go retrieve my daughter so she could tell the judge herself that she wanted to be able to see me for visitation. I went around and around with my ex, telling her this but she wouldn't listen and told me I was going to have to pursue it through the courts. I am going to have to proceed with a plan I had from the beginning, to exercise my rights to see my daughter by involving the County Sheriff and arriving at the home to take her with me for an overnight, as the court order states. I am fighting the urge to do this action without feeling I am doing it out of spite. That is the opposite of what I want to be feeling toward anyone, especially my ex, as I refuse to let her vindictiveness effect my life in any way. I will not give her that or any control over me as that would constitute failure on my part. More to come. -Chief out

I was taking classes from the month after I retired in April until August. I was told I could take online classes without a drop in my GI Bill finding, which proved to be wrong, to the tune of a 40% loss. I had taken algebra with the expectation of tutoring in the event i would need it. I did and the help never came. I failed algebra after beating myself daily with studies I neither understood, but fell desperately behind in. It left me very depressed, wrung out and generally depleted with regard to higher learning. I have long since rested but have also fallen behind in my bills due to the thousand or so dollars a month I lost in my income. I am ecstatic, though that my son has relocated to Missouri and now resides with me as an adult. He has become a very wonderful man in whom I am well pleased. My lowered money situation has made things rough on us and to top it all off, I have heard nothing about my disability from the VA. I am now enrolled in classes again and am excited to begin learning again. Management and Art appreciation should prove to be decent to get through. I have met a very cool lady from Jefferson City but have not been able to meet up with her face to face. Ah money, the filthy lucre! We were chatting a lot and texting back and forth but have chilled a bit with that after not being able to meet. Sad but true. I still haven't seen my daughter in a very long time. Months and months. I'm very sad about it. I find myself not even thinking about her until something puts her in my mind and I'm immediately wracked with sadness. It's quite maddening. OK, well now I'm depressed so that's it for this entry. Julia, wherever you are, Daddy loves you and wants to see you very badly. - Chief out

so it's been like a year since i posted in this blog... a friend of mine has inspired me to begin blogging again about my life, more as a journal than anything else. it was when I had shared a link with her to my blog that I actually started to read the damned thing again. I scrolled all the way back to the first entry and found that the posts contained such disheartening content about my situation that I had to rethink my life. I have been divorced around 4 to 6 months now, living in my tiny hovel in Rolla. I pay child support in a handsome sum, and refuse to not live in some fashion that reflects how hard I've worked and what it took me just to get here. Internet, dish tv and the like. My son Brett, 25, has moved out to stay with me! He's a wonderful man and I cannot express just how amazing it is to be around him as an adult. He's very intelligent and gentle in every way. I love him so. I have fallen behind in my bills, rent car payment and others, and am facing bankruptcy just to keep the creditors at bay. I have applied for help from a couple agencies set up to help retirees supplement their finances with donated funds, as I await the outcome of my disability claim with the VA. God I hope they help me out! I hate being broke and overdrawn by the 10th of every month!!!