Me

HOA battle

I own rental property in a neighborhood that is deed restricted and covered by an HOA. Three years ago, that HOA tried to make a rules change. This is the rule that they wanted to change:

Leases – All Leases of a home shall be restricted to residential use. All leases shall be in writing and shall provide that the Association shall have the right to terminate the lease upon default by the tenant in observing any provisions of the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for [neighborhood]. A copy of any such lease shall be delivered to the Association upon request. Each lease shall contain the following provision:


The lessee hereby acknowledges that this lease is subject to the Declaration of Covenants, conditions, and Restrictions for [neighborhood], that lessee has read the same and agrees to be bound thereby, and that failure to comply with the same may result in certain remedies being applicable to lessee including, without limitation, termination of this lease without further notice, and personal liability of lessee and lessor for damages, including reasonable attorney’s fees.

I had a number of problems with this. The first is that the HOA wanted to have the power to evict my tenants, but expects me to assume all liability and expense. No fucking way. So I went to the HOA meeting and told them that not only was this illegal, but that it would expose the HOA to liability if a person they ordered to be evicted was part of a protected class and decided to sue under the Fair Housing Act. The HOA lawyer agreed. I figured I had won that round, but took that as a warning and become involved in the HOA, eventually making it onto the board.

I am on the board as the treasurer, and I represent the interests of several property owners who own rental property in the neighborhood. Collectively, we own as rental property more than a third of the properties in the neighborhood, or more than $10 million worth of rental property. The rules of the neighborhood cannot be changed unless 2/3 of the property owners vote to do so, and we have the votes to block any rule change that we choose to.

So now here we are, three years later, and apparently this rule was put in place without our knowledge. One of the landlords showed me a letter where the HOA is telling her that they want a tenant evicted within ten days because that tenant has been parking a boat in the driveway of the rental house.

This all stemmed from an argument with a petty tyrant in the HOA. Another HOA board member lives across the street from the rental property in question, and told the tenant to move the boat out of the driveway. The tenant told him to mind his own business, a screaming match ensued, and now the board member is demanding that the tenant be evicted.

I am not going to allow that to stand. I will sue if I have to, but for now I am advising the HOA to meet with an attorney before pushing this any further, because litigation can be expensive.

By Divemedic, ago

Bleh

It began with a tickle in the back of my throat Sunday morning. By last night, it had progressed to a sore throat. By the time I awoke this morning, I could barely swallow cold water. I spent the day in bed, getting my ass kicked by whatever virus this is. I slept until 10 am, got up to make a breakfast of chicken soup and Gatoraide, then back to bed by 11, slept until 3 pm.

Fatigue and sore throat appear to be the only symptoms. I am scheduled to work tomorrow. Let’s see how I am doing in the morning. I already feel a bit better…

But no free ice cream today.

By Divemedic, ago

Ghosts of the past, present, and future

Exactly twenty years ago. I still remember that morning in more detail than all but of a few of the mornings that have come since. The sky was a beautiful blue, the sun was warm, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A typical Central Florida day. My shift, C shift, had just started our 24 hour workday.

I was driving Engine 2 that morning. Dennis was riding in the seat next to me as the Lieutenant, and Justin was the back seat firefighter. Our shift had begun at 7:30 that morning as it always did. We did our morning routine as we always do. At 8:30, we left the station to do annual flow testing of fire hydrants.

By 8:45, we were behind the Winn Dixie and just about to test our first hydrant. Our Battalion Chief called us and told us to return to the station and turn on the TV. I remember jokingly asking Dennis who the guy on the radio was and what they had done to the Chief, since he would never tell us to watch TV during the day.

We arrived back in the station just in time to see the second plane hit the south tower. I remember watching Fox news and seeing them switch to the DC bureau, where reporters said they could see a column of smoke. Things were happening so fast, I couldn’t figure out what that smoke was coming from. It was then that a fellow firefighter told me that the Pentagon had been hit.

The chief called us, and when I was on the phone with him, the first tower fell. The chief said to me, “Oh my God. 30,000 people just died.” I remember being stunned that so many people could be in a building.

By noon, we had an armed SWAT officer with an MP-5 riding along with us on all of our calls “for security.”

For weeks, we firefighters were stunned at the loss of 343 firefighters. I felt a sense of awe that the guys who went into that second tower after watching the first one fall went into that building, in awe of the guys who were in the second tower when that first one fell, all the while knowing that they would never come out of the second tower. What was going through their minds? I asked myself if I could make the same choice, if I *knew* that I would not come out?

We all wanted to be able to say yes. It isn’t the same thing when you go into an ordinary fire. Firefighters are a cocky, professional bunch. When we run into a burning building, we tell ourselves that we are trained and experienced enough that it will not happen to us. Not so those guys in the towers. They went in KNOWING that they wouldn’t come out. That is a time that you don’t know what you would do until the moment of truth comes.

I just hoped that I would have the fortitude to make the choice that needed to be made, to have the courage to choose duty and honor over self preservation, and the fortune to never be placed in that position. I hoped that I would never have to make that choice.

I spent the majority of my adult life in one uniform or another, dedicated to the protection of American lives and values. I spent six years in the Navy, doing two combat tours in the Persian gulf. I wasn’t a big hero or anything. I, like millions of others did my job. After that, I spent two decades in a firefighter’s uniform. I that time, I ran into hundreds of burning buildings, jumped into a dozen lakes, thousands of medical scenes, and 22 natural disasters. I was injured three times in the line of duty. I saw a couple of thousand dead bodies, dozens of shootings and stabbings, and saved more than a few lives.

In 2011, I retired. I had seen enough death, misery, and blood for one lifetime. I thought that the time of risking life and limb for the good of this nation and its people was over. I had given enough. I deserved to be left alone to grow old and enjoy the rest of my life in as much peace as I could manage.

All I want is to be left alone to grow old in peace. The events of the past 18 months make me believe that this won’t happen. I fear that I may have to make that choice after all.

By Divemedic, ago

COVID

Some COVID facts, straight from my hospital experience. We are still short staffed, but that is more a pay issue than an overcrowding issue. I am still working 60 hours a week.

We are still at higher than normal patient levels. Our admitted patients are almost all either cardiac or COVID patients. We are seeing younger patients now. The typical patient being admitted now is in their early to mid 50s.

More patients are critical and are dying than before. I am seeing an average of 2 to 3 patients die of COVID related problems each day. There were none yesterday at my hospital, but four the day before. Nearly all of the deaths are in older people, but there are a few younger ones.

The treatment for COVID that I am seeing is largely high flow oxygen, Remdesivir, Vitamins C, D, and Zinc. We got a new protocol this week: any COVID patient who is on more than 6 liters of oxygen has to be placed on continuous remote blood oxygen monitoring. We don’t have enough of those for everyone, so surgical patients, those with a DNR, and other low priority patients are having to have their blood O2 checked manually every hour instead of continuously.

Anyhow, I managed to get the weekend off, so I posting on this blog will be light. I am going to relax for the weekend.

Enjoy your labor day.

By Divemedic, ago

Why get a test?

I just heard from my daughter. Her children (my grandkids) are staying at their (other) grandparents’ house. My granddaughter, the oldest of the two, was complaining of a headache and had a fever. So the grandparents took her to the Doc in a Box, who tested her for COVID.

You guessed it- she has COVID. Now at seven years old, she is unlikely to have much more than a mild illness from it. Any of you who have raised kids know that the little ones get mystery illnesses all of the time, and most of them come with a fever. You treat it with children’s Tylenol, fluids, and rest. What HAS changed is now my daughter can’t go to work, the kids can’t go to school, and my grandson is now going to get tested as well.

I just don’t understand what you gain by getting a COVID test. Whether it is COVID or some other illness, what you do to treat it is the same: Tylenol, fluids, rest, and maybe something for any other symptoms you have. How does knowing that it is COVID change anything? The only thing it changes is transforming you and the other members of your household into pariah for the next two weeks.

If your curiosity simply MUST be satisfied, take the at home test. At least with the at home test, no one else but you has to know if you have COVID.

In case you are keeping score, the members of my family who have had COVID:

  • Daughter in law to be (vaccinated)
  • Father in law (half vaccinated at the time)
  • Mother in law (half vaccinated at the time)
  • Daughter (not vaccinated)
  • Mother (vaccinated)
  • Brother (vaccinated)
  • Granddaughter (not vaccinated)

In addition, I have eight other friends who have had it. Most of them caught it before the vaccines were available. Two of them had COVID after being vaccinated. Not one of them had a serious infection.

The most serious of them were my mother in law and father in law, both of whom were sick at home for a couple of weeks. Everyone else had symptoms best described as a cold.

Again, we need to be spending our resources finding out why a small percentage of the public is having serious problems with this infection. Why them? What is different about them?

By Divemedic, ago

Now my brother

Two days ago, I announced that my mother has COVID, but only had mild symptoms. Last week, my Brother received a so-called booster of the vaccine. Today, he was diagnosed with COVID. It seems that even fully vaccinated people with booster shots can get it.

One of my employees today told me that her mother is in the ICU on a ventilator, with an exceptionally bad case of COVID. The mother is unvaccinated, and there are many people that will view this as: “AHA! If she had been vaccinated, she would be fine!”

They would be ignoring that this woman got sick a month ago, and her doctor diagnosed her with tonsilitis. Three weeks later, she woke up gasping for breath, and passed out. She was taken to the ER, where her advanced case of COVID, which her doctor had misdiagnosed, was finally treated.

So is this a case of no vaccine, or a case of an untreated, serious case of an infection caused by a medical error? How does a doctor not test someone for COVID if they come in to the office sick? Or was the test faulty?

Another 12 hour shift today. Sorry I don’t have anything else for you. Tired. I spent all day in the COVID isolation wing, where I walked 10,000 steps. I am worn out.

By Divemedic, ago

Thank you to me

There are so many times that I see news that disheartens me. I see our nation dying before my eyes. It saddens me that there are so many signs of what is coming. I truly love this nation and the ideals that it was supposed to stand for. To watch it fall to the communists is tragic. It is easy to allow this to get to you, but I also know that things will get worse. Much worse. This post is a message to future me, and I hope it resonates with others.

I, future me, want to thank past me. Thank you for continuing to prepare for what has yet to come, for keeping at it day after day, even when it was difficult. No matter how dark and disheartening things were, the dark days to come will be so much better because you were prepared.

This nation will continue to fall apart, and things that you cannot even imagine will come to pass. Have the courage and the foresight to keep preparing, and know that you are not alone.

By Divemedic, ago

Lobster, pt 2

Florida surf and turf.

Pictures from my trip:

Here is a guy that was on one of the boats. Yes, he dove. Yes, he wore the suit, just not the hat or glasses.
Here are some of our fellow divers and their catch.
By Divemedic, ago

Lobster

The last Wednesday and Thursday of July each year brings the most Florida of events to the state: mini Season. Each year, thousands of people from all over the state head to the Atlantic ocean to hunt. Lobster. I usually look forward to this, and sure enough, my son and I went.

I made sure that I was not scheduled to work during mini season this year, because we didn’t go last year due to the lock downs. I packed up my SCUBA gear and headed down south with my new, $27 dollar fishing license. We managed four dives to a maximum of 95 feet and had some good father son bug hunting time. We were in West Palm Beach, within sight of Mar A Lago, about a mile and a half offshore.

The water was cool for this time of year, but there was plenty of visibility and plenty of wildlife. We had a great time, and there will be more posting later today.

By Divemedic, ago

Back again

The good thing about working where I do is that our normal shift is three- twelve hour days per week. I managed to get the schedule worked, so that I had to work the first three days of the week and the last three days of this week. I refused to work overtime these two weeks. That left me with a continuous eight days scheduled off. I used those eight days to travel to Maine for some fishing.

I have a cabin up there. I keep a boat and some supplies up there. So I went fishing. My wife and in-laws left two weeks before I flew up to join them. We caught bass, pickerel, white perch, yellow perch, and chub. We threw everything back. The fishing up there is incredible. If you aren’t catching a fish every couple of minutes, you need to check your line to see if it’s baited.

The weather was a nice escape from Florida’s oppressive July heat. It was 20+ degrees cooler the entire time we were there. There is a lack of technology in the entire state, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s tough to get any internet there by cell, and even hardline based is slow and unreliable across the entire state, with the exception of the southeast part of the state.

Maine’s future doesn’t look good. I have been fishing there each summer for a decade, and I can see that the cities on the coast are being filled with refugees from the liberal cities of the northeast, especially Boston and New York City. They just made all plastic bags illegal, the cities of Maine are papered and painted in the new rainbow flags, and the laws are slipping to the left. The inland counties hate it. The people I talked to up there don’t want it, but the coastal cities are driving a hard run to the left.

  • The upcoming fight will be cities vs rural areas

The inland areas are still using plastic bags, still not dying their hair blue, and are resisting, but that won’t last long.

Now it’s time to go back to work.

By Divemedic, ago