Not all of them, and the two in back have since died (this is from 2018). But they are all cute, and they all get along.
Request for Assistance
I have a huge problem, and I'm hoping people here can help me find a solution.
Hi everyone!
I joined DailyKos in early 2004, and ever since it has been a major part of my life, both as a way to deal with and respond to the ongoing Republican assault on America and everything we stand for, as well as to use all the other conversations going on here to understand, learn about, and act on issues such as the true story ofAmerica, which is so obfuscated, obscured, hidden, and lied about while still standing in plain sight for anyone with an open eye to see; the horrible urgency of global warming that will destroy our global civilization unless we completely change everything about how we live and do business; everything going on with immigration and refugees, issues with the treatment of anyone not white, male, heterosexual, and at least upper middle class, and also including all the cooking diaries, and the Science Saturday ONDs. In general I have participated here through comments (of which I have apparently made nearly 34,000) rather than diaries, as I have not yet found any issue I truly have a deep understanding of that (i) is something people here would likely be interested in, and (ii) that isn't already being covered by others much better than I could.
Unfortunately, I have recently ended up in a truly catastrophic situation, substantially caused by the clowns currently in positions of power throughout the various levels of government - Federal, state and local - the now generally accepted common wisdom being that we are headed for a massive recession at the very least. I personally am not yet completely convinced of this, mostly because I don't really see the Administration as being competent enough to pull off what they actually want to see - massive deportations of agricultural, manufacturing, and construction workers, combined with huge performative tariffs that will constantly shift and change as Trump reacts to pressure from his constituents (that is to say, the billionaires) and extensive destruction of large chunks of the government. My personal expectation is that they will try to do all this very aggressively, but will at least partially fail because eventually the fact that much of this is blatantly illegal, combined with the pain that it will generate in Trump's segment of the electorate, will bring a lot of it to a halt (although not before many lives will be destroyed and a huge amount of pain inflicted). Ona side note, this is not to say that Musk and his baby DOGE pseudo-consultants won't be able to inflict pretty much irreparable damage on large parts of government and American society. They already have and not all the damage they are doing will be reparable in less than two generations.
Nevertheless, perception beats reality any day of the week (and my guesses about the future are certainly not anything to count on), and this has had a huge impact on my business and therefore my life. Mos tof my work and my revenue comes from building and formulating products for my clients, most of whom are blenders making a wide variety of industrial lubricants. My particular focus has been on metalworking fluids (MWF) and metal cleaners that work to rinse off the MWF after the part is machined. I also spend a lot of time creating products intended to protect finished parts from rust and corrosion after the manufacturing process is completed. Don't get me wrong - I am quite prepared to work on and be interested in anythingI get called about, and I certainly have had a few truly fascinating projects appear out of the blue - including the one where a guy whose family owned a company that makes processed and canned tomato products called me looking for a better way to remove the skins from the tomatoes. (I spent a nontrivial amount of time and effort looking for a way to improve on what they were using - I developed several different ways to do it, but nothing that was better. So, in the end I didn't even bill him...maybe I need to hire a business manager. I did learn a whole lot about tomato biology and structure in a hurry, though - and it was a lot of fun.)
I probably waited too long to write this, but I really did hope that some of the conversations I have been having with several companies to enter into development projects would turn into something useful.Unfortunately, the possibility of a severe recession has made the small and medium sized companies I focus on very reluctant to consider product development projects. It now has been over three years since I have had any reliable income, and I am now out of money. Most of my potential clients have now told me they won't be able to consider any projects in 2025, and the rest have let me know that if they do decide to do anything it will be in Q4 (which is to say, they are still holding out hope that we will dodge the bullet, but they are skeptical too). These aspirational statements on thepart of some potential clients are largely irrelevant to the problemI face, which is an absolute cash crunch NOW that has already impacted my lab and is about to cause me to lose my (and my four cats') house.
In brief, I haven't had any reliable revenue for about three years, and things have been getting worse over the past six months. This means that I have drawn down my available money to the point where I now quite simply have nothing, and no real prospect of immediate revenue or income - I currently have under $2 in the bank, and one credit card that has $2 left of available credit, although it will blow up with an interest charge and a mandatory minimum payment in about a week. This leaves me with a very real and immediate problem, which is how to get through the month of April without losing my house or things like my phone, email, and electricity (which are critically important to my ability to find a sustainable way forward, as I'm sure all of you understand), and then to get through to mid-May, by which point I think I'm likely to find some more permanent solutions in the form of a "standard" job. Additionally, I need to have a mechanic see what's wrong with my car (a 1995 Honda Civic) because it is not working properly. In the larger sense, I do have several options that would provide real, sustainable, and long-term solutions to this problem. They all involve companies I am currently talking with about "normal"jobs; this would be bittersweet in that it would mean the end of a company that I have truly enjoyed running for the last 20 years and which I would like to think has made a real positive difference for my customers and for the world as a whole (about 10% of all the energy used globally is wasted as heat because of friction, and reducing that has a major impact on the world's energy budget).
To the extent that anyone is moved to help me deal with this and survive to the point that one of my other options begins to help me,I will be truly and forever grateful. Setting that aside, I think wecan all see the new economic reality that is being crafted by the billionaires who are enabling Trump and his minions as something deeply toxic and dangerous, that may rapidly kill the will of theAmerican people to try to live a good and rewarding life. The other possibility, of course, is that the impact of everything Trump andMusk are doing will energize Americans to get serious about rolling back the political changes of the past forty years and get ourselves back on to a path that leads to a just and sustainable future. I certainly am hoping for the second option.
My urgent motive in asking for help here actually is not primarily about me. True, if things completely fall apart I will lose a bunch of material possessions that mean a lot to me - a collection of books dating back to my undergrad days and before (I don't think I've ever parted ways with a book), my grandmother's paintings, my brother's sculptures, and a set of kitchen tools that has taken me twenty years to put together. But the true reason for me to beg for some help is my cats - if this all falls apart I'm going to need to put them up for adoption. There is a (usually completely full) no-kill shelter here in Toledo that I think might be able to take them, but that would mean absolutely destroying the lives they know and are happy in, and throwing them into a completely uncertain future If I have to, I will do whatever I need to do to try and get them to somewhere at least not horrible, but I clearly have an absolute obligation todo whatever I possibly can to preserve what we have now if it's at all possible - thus my plea here.
To anyone who has read to the bottom of the diary, I truly appreciate your taking the time to look at this; even if you can't afford to help me, your interest is truly valuable. Also, if anyone has other thoughts about possible approaches to this, I would love to hear any insight you might have in the comments.
I am set up to use Zelle, Paypal, or Venmo. My bank is Huntington Bank, and my phone number is 419xx346xx0247. My email is peter [dot] hug [at] rinucleus [dot] com. My Venmo account is [at] Peter-Hug-2. I think that’s all the needed information — if I missed anything please let me know.
Once again, thank you very much for reading this, and I will be forever grateful for any help anyone can give to deal with this.
Specifics - these are all critical needs which are necessary for me to remain in the house, take care of my cats, and be able to continue to look for work:
Mortgage - I am three months behind, which is $2,334.00 as of 4/1
Gas $140.00 - turns off 4/10
Water $65.00 by 4/5
Cell phone $186.00 by 4/4
Internet $205.00 - turns off 4/14
Mechanic to diagnose my car (I don't know how expensive it will be to find the problem or fix it, but I need the car in order to look for work.)
Car insurance $300.00 by 4/14
MasterCard payment $150.00 by 4/5
American Express payment $1,346.00 by 4/6
Cat food $40.00
Cat litter $40.00
This all adds up to a bit less than $5000. It’s an awful lot, but it will get me through to May 1 (although without any food for me, but I do have a bunch of very old dried beans).
I’m not sure I did the tag right — if it wasn’t done right, I would appreciate it if someone can fix it.
![Banner for The Inoculation Project series, with added caption "Solid science education is the best inoculation against ignorance."](https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1136033/story_image/TheInoculationProjectnewbannerorig1024wblue.jpg?1668980926 "Banner for The Inoculation Project series, with added caption "Solid science education is the best inoculation against ignorance."")
