I am back!

I finally left in April after about three months living with my e-wife. I loved the time I was able to spend with my Son, but things were going to get ugly so I left. I was able to get my old apt. back so that was not so bad. I put down new carpet and painted and also got a new couch. The normal blinds and curtains too! I knew Logan would be coming over here every other weekends now instead of a few hours every other Sat.

At the end of last school year, I went to his school‘s “field day” or what ever they call it. I took a lot of pics, some I put in an album here. He had so much fun running around like a nut and all. He loved that all the events were the boys against the girls. He thought the boys would win it all, but he soon learned a good lesson, girls can hold there own! In his own words “girls are tougher than I thought, but I still don’t like them”. ( he’s only 7 )

During the summer his day care asked me could go with them on a trip to the Franklin Institute in Phil. PA so I went. I had a great time with my Son seeing all the cool stuff and trying to answer all his questions. I got pics there too and you can check them out in my albums. It helped him a lot to be able to read the info with the displays to get his own answers. I encouraged him to seek them out on his own by not just telling him, but pointed him to the answers letting him get it on his own. It is very easy to just answer it and be done but I think it is important for kids to learn how to find there own. If he could not then I would help or get some one who works there to explain. There was so much there to see I can not write about it all. It is a cool place to visit and does not cost much to get in. They were great with explaining thing to kids also. If you are going to be near Phil. PA, check it out!.

Last fall I had my child support reduced to $25 per month. My Sons mom get SSI for him because I am on SSID and do not have much of an income. I wanted to pay it online but for some reason DCSE( child support folks ) have no electronic way to pay. There is no way to set up automatic payment through my bank because DCSE has nothing set up to receive the payments. I have to send a check and wait 10-14 days for it to clear or get a money order for a dollar or so. This has to be driven to them or mailed. DCSE has the power to attach pay checks, confiscate money from bank accounts and countless other powers to get what is owed. That is a good thing, but they should have some way we can do it willingly automatically/online. If I can pay others bills, buy a pooper-scooper, pay a parking ticket or buy a DVD, I should be able to pay something as important as child support electronically. An article in the local our DCSE bragged about having collected a record $95million last year. That amount has to generate a lot of interest in the bank so they have to be able to afford to set up something online. It could only encourage people who owe to pay by making it easier (auto-pay ) and take away one more reason for some one NOT to pay. ( too much hassle )

The reason I am writing so much about DCSE is because I sought to find a way to pay it once for the whole year and be done thinking about it until 2007. I sent a check for $300 ( $25 x 12 ) to DCSE and forgot about it. To my surprise, in late April I got a letter saying that my license was now suspended for non-payment of my c.s.! I was pissed to say the least. I tried to go to them to talk but they sis not want to hear me out saying only to “tell it to the judge”. I need to drive to pick up my son for our weekends amongst other thing. I also bought my ex’s old car “rusty” for $100 because my old car died. DMV would not let me change the title over to my name because my license was suspended. On top of all that my license expired May 31 2006 and I was not able to re-new due to the suspension. I was even more irate to find out the reason, is seems DCSE took that $300 for only that month and still required me to pay the $25 a month per the court order.

We had our court date on August 23^rd, and I was able to convince the D.A.G and judge by showing the processed check DCSE cashed. After all that I had to pay $150 for the unpaid months and promised not miss any more, witch I won’t. It took all day to go everywhere needed to get the suspension lifted, license renewed and title changed, but as my luck would have it, as soon as I left to get it all fixed I was pulled over and got a ticket for driving while suspended, driving expired license and driving an unregistered vehicle. The policeman did let me drive away after showing the paperwork from court but he still gave tickets. I have to go to court for that Feb. 27^th 2007.

Other than all that mess, thing have been great. I have a great time with my Son. I love having him here more. It is helping us catch for the time we lost. Thursday I plan to pick him from school to go fishing for a few hours. It should be a blast, the weather is supposed to be great too. I’ll take my camera to show what we catch so come back to check them out. ( next few days)

Thanks for reading this long entry J Bye for now…tom g