Developments or Not

We’re beginning the transition into Texas summer and the lovely swelter of many months. We still have some relatively mild weather for the next few weeks, so I’ve been checking off my yard reboot task list. As of yesterday, I’ve completed manual aeration of both front and back yards, and I fertilized and seeded the front on Tuesday. Today I’ll finish that off for the back yard. The ratios and spreader settings are a bit sketchy, but I was trying to follow the recommendations from the soil sample testing I had done. As I may have mentioned, our yard was deficient in most nutrients, with only calcium and sulfur being overly abundant. I’m curious if that’s an issue of toxicity, or it just lays inert, so to speak, if the plant life isn’t using it. This is based on the assumption that my core sample mixture was representative.

Core aeration is not something I wish to perform manually for the entire yard again. It’s a tedious and cumulatively arduous task that would go exponentially faster with a machine. I ran into enough roadblocks trying to rent one or get the service performed that I got fed up and just decided to pay $36 and do it myself. I don’t regret the decision and the tool will come in handy in the future, because I’m sure there are nooks and crevices that the machine can’t reach. That said, my plan for the future is to hire a guy (as you do) to have this service performed in the fall and spring. This is assuming I can see some tangible improvements. Hopefully, the assortment of interventions (dethatching, scarifying, raking, aeration, raking, seeding, fertilizing, mowing, watering) will pay off with a thick, and dark green lawn. I have some iron supplement to provide more color if needed, but I’m holding off on that until the new seed is established.

The soil test lab recommended potash and phosphorus as well as “my choice of micronutrients” to get the soil into shape. I’m not sure I got the ratios right, but hopefully there’s enough of the potassium and phosphorus in particular to make up the deficit. I followed those two select ratios with your more standard fertilizer comprised of nitrogen and the typical cross section of micronutrients. Hopefully this won’t burn out the lawn. It’s a lot of supplements at once, hopefully in the future I’ll only need one standard fertilizer to complement the overseeding.

Despite waxing agricultural, I don’t want to dedicate any more time to this than is absolutely necessary. Our yard/soil had been neglected or at least hadn’t had focused supplementation since we moved in, so it was due for more TLC than would normally be necessary. We’ll see how things go. I’ll be watering twice daily for the next few weeks (not counting rainy days) so hopefully the new bermuda seed will germinate and take root. We have a few large bare patches in the back yard that are competing with trees and a reduced amount of sunlight exposure. I’ll see how overseeding goes there. We may eventually decide those areas should just be patios. One project at a time.

I got a second set of overhead storage shelves for the garage, but I’m going to delay installation until next week. We also got a paint sprayer so we can hit the garage door and fence, but that’s also going to wait until at least next week. I’m only going to engage in time-swallowing projects one day at a time. Today I’ll complete the back yard fertilization and overseeding since there’s a limited amount of effective time after aeration that it will make a difference. I think the aeration should have some long term benefits beyond just the seeding/fertilization, mainly in drainage and water/nutrient distribution, but the time for overseeding/fertilization is within 48 hours of aeration.

Continuing on this post a day later - I discovered my core aeration efforts in the front yard are giving me some extra work and additional practice at sprinkler system repair. To my chagrin, I learned the drip tubing on the streetside strip is only buried about 3-4 inches deep, so the core aerator punctured the lines in several locations. I’m going to need to buy a roll of tubing and some connectors and perform several repairs. As I’ve stated before in many different contexts, failure can be a great teacher.

I had performed a few google searches about sprinkler pipe depth but I guess I was using the wrong nomenclature and I should have searched drip tubing. When I searched for underground sprinkler rubber tubing repair I eventually discovered it’s called drip tubing in the industry and now I know it’s buried at a shallower depth. Not a devastating error, just some more sweat equity and a serving or two of humble pie.

Although not my intention, each project seems to beget more projects. My hope is to get most of this lawn and short term DIY stuff knocked out so I can get back to my core (no pun intended) disciplines. I definitely plan on availing myself of the core aeration service in the fall.

I took the Pathfinder in for an estimate of repairs to fix the gas neck issue that’s plagued us for years. I had found a service bulletin which I assumed meant it was a recall type issue, but I’ve learned that even though a service bulletin might get published, it doesn’t equate to a recall. So, I paid $120 to have Don Davis Nissan tell me it will be an additional $405 just to get a look at what’s wrong in particular.

No idea of what additional costs I might have to pay to actually get it fixed. It’s a pain in the ass to fill it up, but not a $500 to possibly $1000 (or more depending on how gougy they feel on that particular day) of a pain in the ass. I’ll just suck it up with my slow fill ups every couple of weeks. I only use it two days a week and eventually I want to get an electric car, but I’m putting that off until well after we pay off the house if possible.

On the workfront, things have settle into a tolerably predictable flow with VES. I’m slowly learning the techniques to avoid QA addendums. It goes against my long established habits when working directly for the VA, but ultimately it’s a losing battle against their policies, so I’ve adjusted to their preferences. I’ve learned that you really only want to address exactly what’s on a claim unless it’s a gen med “all conditions found…” type of exam. They invariably will ask to remove any conditions not mentioned on the claim, whether they are valid or not.

The DBQs are so much more convoluted on the VES side, and just ripe with opportunities for errors of omission. That’s one of many things I preferred about the VA’s version. Auto-negative functions like greying out irrelevant follow-up question were pretty standard, but the QA on the actual forms themselves is significantly lacking at VES. I guess they prefer to pay people to do it rather than build it into the forms.

Also of note, I had gotten a text from a former co-worker stating that “they” were looking to bring me back on as fee-basis at FWOPC. Apparently the low productivity rate of the federales has caught up with them again. Amazing, considering how far their numbers have dropped since most exam requests have been diverted to outside contractors. From what this co-worker said, even the contractors can’t keep up. I’ve seen a few announcements on the VES website that corroborate this, they did request for providers to provide additional booking days if available since there was a backlog.

All that said, I haven’t heard a peep so far. The co-worker had said they only wanted to ask me to come back, which indicates it’s not an enormous backlog, but in my estimation it’s probably those big cases that all the federales avoid. One big issue is my credentials being expired. In typical VA timeframes, that means it would likely be another 2 months to get me back on board. I’m wondering if they’ll go with a second or third choice from any of the providers who still have active credentials. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re going for a quick fix and not thinking long term. Letting my credentials expire proves how nearsighted they can be.

If they aren’t willing to make the effort to get my credentials renewed, I’m not confident it would be worth the trouble. I definitely prefer fee-basis as I’m sure I’ve said ad nauseam in the past. The pay is better, the schedule is preferable, and the frustration index is significantly lower. We’ll see. At least I’ve settled into a livable lifestyle with VES and we can maintain this indefinitely if needed.

The held breath before the drop...

It’s Election Day here in the US. The hope is that in twelve-ish or so hours we’ll have a new president-elect due to an overwhelming margin of victory. That’s the hope. The expectation is that we won’t be fortunate enough to get an overwhelming margin of victory and Trump will claim voter fraud and any number of other falsehoods if he isn’t declared the winner. There’s a chance the election won’t be settled for days, weeks, or even months. There’s also the chance that even with an overwhelming margin of victory by Biden that Trump will claim voter fraud, election tampering, etc. Some of us would like to think he might finally eat some humble pie, but why would he at this point? He never has before from what I know. It will be what it will be. I only hope that there isn’t an outright attempt to ignore the will of the people, because who knows what will happen to our society in the aftermath. Large scale demonstrations and riots are likely to erupt if Trump tries to subvert an election in which he’s the clear loser. Justifiably so, but I still worry for our democracy.

On to some marginally better news - I finally got someone in HR that’s responding to my request for help with my retirement savings and it appears they will submit a transaction to correct the mistake. Hopefully within the next few weeks I’ll find out my TSP account has been switched to separated, and if desired I’d have access to those funds. At present, I have no plans to touch them for another six years since I’ll be assessed an early withdrawal fee before then. As mentioned earlier, the plan is to return to full time with Berklee, and hopefully by the time I have used up the rest of my GI Bill benefits, a trickle of work would have come available by then. There are a lot of ifs in that planning, especially considering that currently the COVID pandemic has come back with a vengeance, and appears to be setting new records of morbidity and mortality. It’s tarnished the luster of returning to work in the near term a bit.

We may just continue to tread water until it seems we’re on the far end of the pandemic, which could be a year from now or even longer. I have around $20k in my deployment related TSP account, which should take less of a tax hit if I needed to make a withdrawal for an acute need. Hopefully the housing allowance from the GI Bill will be enough to keep us in the black for the next year or until I get some amount of recurring work again. All that said and even with the election misgivings, we’re feeling a bit more stable now and are settling in to the present new normal. We’ll see how long it holds.

The frustration is ever present...

After a few back and forths with VES, they requested a collaborative agreement memo signed by a physician, including their license number. This differs slightly from what I used in 2016, which was just a memo signed by a physician with their name/title printed on it. As that memo was signed by the as of then not psychotic former coworker, I knew I needed an updated memo. Thankfully, my present supervisor in my dormant fee-basis job was not only willing, but very prompt in filling out said document and returning it posthaste. Cry fury, and loose the snares of obtuse administrators improvising further obstacles over which to jump.

Now, they needed a physician licensed in Texas for the collaborative agreement. A fact they failed to mention when specifying the requirements of the memo. As luck would have it, many physicians in federal service take jobs in states different from where they are licensed. It was fairly typical in the military and I’ve noticed the same trend in federal service. To compound that problem, I’m not especially social at work, and there are only a few doctors I would even consider asking. Right now I’m still waiting on a response from the only other physician in that clinic I would feel comfortable asking. The lack of response is starting to feel like a refusal, but I’m going to give it a bit more time.

I think the requirement is nonsense because my colleague who is now working overseas, got a memo from the same doctor and apparently it was good enough for that scenario. What makes overseas and stateside different for an informal relationship where the physician just states they “are available to answer questions” is lost on me. I don’t think it matters, I think it’s just another clerk throwing up unnecessary requirements so they feel better and can shift blame if something comes back on them. This happens time and time again with credentials and other HR people. There are many benefits to being a part of a big organization like the federal government, but this is probably the biggest downside. You’re often at the mercy of an entry level admin type who is some combination of incompetent and ambivalent.

To add insult to injury (that’s overstating it a bit, but I’m going for dramatic effect), I’ve been trying for over three years to get my TSP account (401Kish) changed to reflect that I was separated from regular federal employment in 2017. Without this status change, I have no control over the account and can’t contribute funds, rollover the account, or make withdrawals. In effect, my account is frozen and out of my control. It’s not a huge acute issue at this precise moment, but if we had a financial emergency (especially considering our current situation), we’d be unable to use these funds. I’m hoping to leave it untouched until I’m 59 1/2 and can withdraw without penalty. But, if we really needed to, we could withdraw everything and payoff the house with some money left over. We’d take the tax hit and an additional 10% early withdrawal fee (which would suck), but we’d be able to shift our monthly budget by $1500 in the black since we wouldn’t be paying a mortgage any longer. I’m currently experiencing a similar scenario with the VA where my inquiries are either ignored or get to participate in the admin hot potato email game.

On hopefully more positive news, I’m strongly considering resuming my studies at Berklee. Depending on any developments with the job front, I can go back to full time studies and derive a $900 monthly housing allowance, not to mention the yearly stipend for books. I have 14 months of GI Bill remaining, so this should get us through another year of employment uncertainty. Hopefully by then, some trickle of work would have returned for fee basis examiners. It’s what I’ve been needing to do anyway, and the more I’ve thought about it, I really need to get my ass in gear and submit my application for the guitar dual major and get as much done while I have GI Bill benefits remaining. I may not be able to complete all requirements, but I should be able to close the gap significantly. I think the private lessons requirement of 9 semesters is the one I’ll most likely be lacking when my benefits are used up.

I’ll cross that bridge when I find it. I like this plan because it at least puts on more stable ground financially and I’ll be more or less in the driver’s seat again in regards to my work status.