Wolfpack764

Do Not Disturb?

2010-09-23T11:13:00.003-04:00

Heather got sunburned kind of bad yesterday, so today, we're going to spend some time in the room nursing her burn. Since it was close to the time the cleaning crew to start cleaning the rooms, we decided to put out the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. That's when we noticed that we didn't have a sign in the room. I went to the front desk and asked for one. They said they would send one up and deliver it to us. I asked if they would knock on the door to deliver and they said, "Of course." Kinda defeats the purpose doesn't it? (They ended up just hanging it on the door.)

2010-09-03T21:31:00.001-04:00

Just testing a new way to publish. Hopefully, I'll write a new blog in a few days.

Save the Manatee

2010-07-01T06:17:00.001-04:00

Limitations

2010-06-19T21:14:00.003-04:00

Everyone goes through times where they realize their limitations a little too late to do anything about it. If you’re lucky, it’s a trivial thing when you notice, others, it could be life or death. Today was one of those trivial times for me.

Heather decided to do something with the girls to burn off some energy today, so I called my parents to see if we could bring them over to swim in the pool. Of course, they said yes and we headed over there. We all got in the pool. Riley decided she wasn’t going to be a water baby today and Heather had to take her to the park to play while Ansley and I stayed in the pool. After a couple hours of playing it was time to get out and head home. I got Ansley over the ladder and she got out. I reached up and realized I couldn’t do that. During my surgery a few weeks ago, my Doc had to remove a large muscle the runs from shoulder to shoulder off of my spine to do his work. The majority of my healing is that muscle reattaching itself to my spine. For the time being, I can’t lift any more than 5 lbs, I can’t use my arms to pull or lift anything while they are outstretched. So, as I looked at that ladder, I realized I couldn’t pull myself out of the pool. I waded over the shallow end and checked the height of the pool top to see if I could “jump” up to the top and sit myself out. It was too tall. My parents’ pool doesn’t have a set of steps going out of the shallow end either, so that wasn’t an option. And, there was no one there to lift me out. Crap. I felt like an idiot not being able to get out of the friggin' pool!! Finally, I asked Heather to go get a lawn chair or something out of my parents’ garage to help me get out. She found a small step ladder and brought it out. I used it to step out of the pool and all is well.

Limitations are ok, if you remember them before you cross them. :)

The Last 9 Months

2010-06-08T21:06:00.006-04:00

Wow.. Have I really not written anything worthwhile since September of last year?? I have really gotten slack about this.. And, it’s not like anything interesting hasn’t happened over the last 9 months. To the contrary, too many things have happened over this time, and I think because of the severity of some of them, writing was the last thing on my mind.

On the good side, both Ansley and Riley-Kate are growing up fast. Riley has been walking since December (11 months old at that time.) She is talking up a storm and is showing some good smarts. (Must be from her mom) Ansley has been in dance class and had a “practice” recital back in December and her first real recital last weekend. She did awesome in both of them!! Heather has started running and biking. She has run a couple of 5K’s and even placed 5^th in her age group in one of them. She is working her way up to a triathlon and, later, a full marathon. That’s awesome and I’m proud of all of three of my girls..

We’ve had one real dive trip. We did our yearly manatee trip to Crystal River back in December. We had about 12 people in the group and we all had another great time.. I also did a two week TDY to MacDill AFB in Tampa back in March. We had tried to make a trip to Venice Beach during that time to do some megalodon teeth hunting but got weathered out. So, we made an impromptu trip to Crystal River and dove Rainbow River again. Another good time and I had my first raw oysters, ever, during that weekend. (Thanks Dee) And, I got a new tattoo back in October. I have the girls’ infant footprints surrounded by angel wings on the upper portion of my back. Ink done by Les Collier of Atomic Tattoo in Warner Robins, GA.

On the downside of things.. My sister’s cancer has returned. Her breast cancer has metastasized and has shown up in her brain and a couple of other spots in her body. They have been doing radiation treatments for her brain since the cancer is in an area that cannot be operated on. After three weeks of daily radiation treatments, the legions were less than half the size they were when they found them, so she will now a “surgical radiation” procedure tomorrow. They will pinpoint the legions and zap them that way. The radiologist is saying only one treatment is needed and they should be gone. She is still going through chemo for the other spots in her body. She is scheduled to go through that until, at least January 2011. Her fight is there and we are all optimistic the Docs will have her healthy in time.

On the same cancer note, Scuba Kat, our beloved dive buddy from Covington, GA lost her battle with cancer on 23 May 2010. Rest in Peace, Kat. You are dearly missed. Dive Buddy Dee and I made the trip up to Covington and went to Kat’s funeral. We got to speak to her mother again and meet her son. We wish the family well in their grieving.

On my personal note, I thought I was healing up pretty good from my neck fusion surgery. However, back in February, the Doc noticed two of my ten screws were not fusing to the bone like they should, so he said he was going to have to go in through the back and add more hardware to get the screws to set. So, on 7 May 2010, I went under the knife again. The surgery went well and after a couple days in the Hospital, I came home for 4 weeks of recuperation. Everything went well and I had my first post-op meeting with the Doc last Wednesday. He pulled pout my staples, cleared me to start driving again and told me I could take off my neckbrace, but I had to VERY careful not to pick up anything heavy and to especially not straighten out my arms while I had any weight on them. He had detached a muscle in my back from my spine to do his work and that muscle had to have time to reattach itself before I could really use my arms. Easy enough. Of course, that VERY evening, I was carrying something very light up the stairs and as I lifted it a bit higher to get over the baby gate, I felt a “rip” in my neck. I came downstairs and asked Heather to look at it. She said part of it looked a bit sunken in, but other than that, no big deal. I didn’t worry about it, but, as I was taking my shower the next day, I felt the sunken area and it freaked me out. It was “huge.” So, I called the Doc’s office, I told them what had happened and they had me come in today. The doc wasn’t there so I saw his PA. After some tests and finally, some x-rays, we figured out what had happened. During my surgery, to get all my new hardware to fit, the doc had to remove the “spinous process” from my C4 and C5 vertebral bodies. What is a spinous process you ask? “The bumps that can be felt down the back are the spinous processes. They are bony projections that arise at right angles (perpendicular) to the midline of the lamina. Each spinous process is attached to the spinous process above and below it by ligaments. Sometimes these processes are absent or bifid in the cervical spine.” (Link where I got info) So, after all was said and done, I did no further damage to my neck area and even went to my first Physical Therapy session today. I hurt afterwards, but I know it’ll help me out in the long run. I’ve got 4 weeks of that to go.

So, in a nutshell, that’s what has been going on for the last 9 months. I’ll try and do better with this writing stuff again. I enjoy doing it. Finding the time to do it, that’s the problem.

At The Gym

2010-05-02T11:38:00.001-04:00

Does anyone else think it's weird when you see cigarette butts on the ground outside of a gym?

Vegas Vacation

2009-09-06T21:13:00.006-04:00

First blog in quite awhile.. I need to get better at this, but the free time just isn’t there like it used to be. However, today is an “Energy Day” here at work. Meaning, all military have the day off and Government workers can take a day of leave if they wish. Since I just took a week off, I decided to come on in and since it’s going to be so slow, I can write up some of this blog in a Word doc and then upload it later from home. So, that’s what I’m doing. This is your tax dollars hard at work (for a few minutes anyway.)

As most of you know, I just got back from a week in Las Vegas. Purely a pleasure trip. Evidently, a few months ago, Heather and I were talking and she asked; If I could go anywhere in the US, where would I go? I had to think about that. There aren’t many places in the US that I haven’t seen that I want too. So, after a few minutes, I told her, if I had to stay in the US, I guess I would like to go to Las Vegas, stay in the Luxor and see Criss Angel’s live show, “Believe.” Well, for my birthday, that’s exactly what she gave me: Two round trip tickets to Las Vegas, 3 nights in the Luxor and 2 front row tickets to see “Believe.”

It was an awesome trip!! We saw just about everything there was to see on the strip. We walked through most every “themed” hotel, saw the tourist stuff, the Bellagio fountains, spent an evening on Fremont Street, rode all the rides on the Stratosphere, saw Criss Angel and ate a lot of food. Notice I didn’t mention any gambling there. Not a cent. We were going to get rid of all of our quarters at the airport on the way home, but all the coin slots in the slot machines are covered and you play with bills or credit type cards. So, we didn’t even play on our way out like we planned. The only things about Vegas we didn’t like were the Mexicans standing on the sidewalks slapping Porn cards against themselves trying to get you to take the cards and the people in every hotel trying to get you to look into timeshares in Vegas. Every time we heard, “Hey are you going to be here tomorrow night?” or “You want free tickets to a show?” we knew what it was and just kept walking. It even constantly happened in our own hotel, which really got on my nerves.

The Luxor was a neat hotel. It is starting to show it’s age a bit and the air conditioning didn’t cool the room worth a crap, but it was still ok for the money. I think if we went back, we stay a bit further down the strip to be closer to the heart of things. The reason I wanted to stay there was the look of it and because Criss Angel is based there. Speaking of which, the “Believe” show as awesome!! Just seeing Criss Angel live was cool for me. Because I’m a fan and have been watching his show since Season One, I had seen 90% of the illusions before and was even able to figure out a few of them while seeing them live. But, he still blew us away with others. And, we got to see the famous levitation thing three different times during the night. GREAT show!!

As always, a couple of humorous stories came out of the trip. The first one came before we even left Atlanta. We were boarding the airplane and were standing in the boarding tunnel just a few feet from the door of the airplane. Since we were going to be putting our carry-on’s in the overhead bins, Heather and I had pulled out our books we were going to read and laid them on top of our cases so we could put them in the seats prior to shoving the cases in the overheads. My book was “The Proficient Pilot.” It’s a technical book about the finer details of being a pilot and flying aircraft. As we were standing there waiting to board, the pilot of our airplane came out and was standing around talking to some of the passengers. He looked down and saw my book. He looked up and me and said, “Hey, you mind if I borrow that? I might need it.” Everyone laughed and I told him, “Sure. And, I’ll also give you some pointers if you them. Just holler back to me if you have any problems.” He said he likes to ask passengers if this is their first flight and if they say “Yes” he likes to tell them that it’s his second and it should be ok. :) He was a fun guy.. Luckily, he didn’t need my advice and we made it to Vegas with no problems.

Another story came from the trip to the Stratosphere. I had two things on my agenda when I knew I was going to Vegas: 1. See Criss Angel and 2. Ride the rides atop the Stratosphere. They have three rides up there. The “Big Shot,” which is a shoot your seat straight up in the air 150 feet type ride. No big deal normally, but when the bottom of the ride is already 900 feet above the ground, that will make your boots shake a bit. It was friggin’ awesome!! I got my adrenaline rush so big on that ride, my hands didn’t stop shaking for almost 20 minutes. After that, I rode on “Insanity: The Ride.” Basically, you and another person sit in a two-seat arm in a round configuration with 4 other two seats things. Once everyone is strapped in, the whole thing swings out over the edge of the building (900 feet above the parking lot) then starts to rotate. The faster it spins, the more the arms with the seats spread out until you are looking pretty much down at the ground. Not a bad ride, but nothing major. Then, they have the “X-Scream.” It looks like a roller coaster where you sit. However, the track is only about 40 feet long and goes straight off the edge of the tower. What happens is you get in, the track tilts forward and you speed towards the end of the track off the edge of the building. The track actually goes about 8 feet under the train, so it completely disappears and then you stop before plummeting 900 feet below. It picks you up and then drops you down and shoots you over the edge a couple times. I didn’t think the ride would be anything, but it will get your heart racing. While we were getting strapped in, I was sitting by myself and a girl in her mid 20’s came up and said, “I’m going to ride with you because I am scared to death to be on this ride.” Being the gentlemen I am and not even taking into account that she was hot, I said OK. :) She sat down, strapped in and said, “I’ll warn you right now. You and I might be REAL close by the end of this ride.” She said, “I’ll try to keep to myself, but if I get too scared I may grab your arm.” I told that would be fine but I figured she’d be ok. The gates dropped and the track started to tilt forward and the next thing I know, before we even moved, she had her left arm wrapped around my right arm and her right hand clutching my right wrist. The thing raced forward and she screamed bloody murder. The circulation to my arm wasn’t completely cut off, but I’m sure I had some pretty low blood pressure in that extremity. As it raced forwarded, lifted us up, dropped us down or whatever, she screamed, she clutched tighter and, evidently, actually had a good time. About ¾ the way through the ride, she looked over and said, “Oh. By the way, my name is Laura.” I laughed and said, “Hey Laura, I’m Dale.” There was a couple that was seated in front of us and the guy turned around and said, “Oh, you two are way past the names bit now.” We all laughed and finished up the ride. The ride ended and we all went our separate ways but the story of Laura will stay with me for a long time.

Like I said, it was a great trip. I doubt we’ll ever become regulars at Las Vegas, but I can at least say I’ve been there, done that and got the Mindfreak sweatshirt. :)

What were you doing at 4:00 am?

2009-05-28T04:19:00.004-04:00

Over the past few days, we've noticed that our air conditioning unit would turn on to cool. but then would fail to turn off after reaching the desired temperature. It would go a degree or two below and we'd catch it and turn it off. The other night, Heather turned the a/c back on and forgot to turn it off. So, when I got home yesterday afternoon, it was 67 degrees inside the house. That's going to be a nice electric bill. :) Since the unit is cooling fine, we figured it was just the thermostat. I did some research on the web and saw the type I was going to need. I got the essentials (voltage/for a heat pump/etc) , because our original thermostat isn't made anymore. So, after heather got home from work, I went to Lowe's and got a new one. nothing fancy. Just a digital, non-programmable replacement for the one we had. I got home, took the old thermostat apart, labeled the wires and got it about half way wired when they called me for supper. The Father-in-Law had come over to see the grand kids and cook supper for us, so I didn't want to make him wait for us to eat. After supper, I went back to finishing up the wiring. Everything went together fine and I flipped the circuit breaker to run it all back one. You are expecting me to talk about a fire aren't you? Nope. Everything worked fine. The temp was low enough in the house where the a/c unit didn't come on, so I didn't give it another thought. As we went to bed, the thermostat read 74 and the house temp was 74. Good to go.

About 3:15 am, I woke up. I was hot. Crap. Well, I thought, we've had the problem with the a/c the last few nights, maybe I was just used to sleeping in the 70 degree temp and 74 feels warm right now. I'll think anything to keep me from getting out of bed. A few more minutes and I couldn't take it anymore. I was getting hotter. Crap. I had to go see what the temp said. The readout said 78. Crap. The fan was running, so I walked over to the vent in the floor and put my foot over it. Hot air. Crap! I shut off the unit, pulled off the face plate, got the installation manual and proceeded to check my wiring. My wiring looked good. Crap. So, I got on the web and started researching my original thermostat, the new thermostat and wiring diagrams for units to see exactly what wire was designated for what. After some trial and error, a lot of reading and cross-referencing, I finally figured out the problem. There was one wire that had a double designation on it. "O/B" that I had read earlier that evening as "D/B". Since there was no "D" on the wire plan, I wired it to the "B" post. Once I saw what the two designators were for and that it was actually an "O" and not a "D," I figured it need to be wired to the "D" post and not the "B." I rewired my thermostat and by 4:00 am, the bottom floor was cooling down nicely. The rest of the family doesn't even know I screwed it up. Of course, putting the story out on the web won't help me keep my secret very long, but keeping my ego intact has never been a high priority for me. If it was, I wouldn't write half the stories I do on here.

"God looks after fools and drunks" or "Not my time to die"

2009-05-26T20:08:00.007-04:00

If you've been reading my blogs, you know this first picture is the way we store the Rag-A-Muffin in Dad's hanger. We took about a month and a half of trying to figure out how to hang it from the ceiling. It was trial and error and even a little damage to the airplane, but in the end we figured it out. The winch is mounted on the beams in the ceiling and hooks to an "eye" bolt mounted on the hanging frame that attaches to the airplane wing bolts by carbines and fabricated metal slats. Just in case the winch fails, we have 500lb rope that is secured from the hanging frame to the hanger wall and from the tail section to the far side of the hanger. It all works pretty well.

Today, Dad and I decided to meet at the hanger to try and finish up the radio push-to-talk switch I started installing last week. I got to the hanger before Dad and opened it up. After I pulled the Tomahawk out, I lowered the Rag-A-Muffin. I undid all the safety lines and then I noticed it was a bit cockeyed with the Port side wing touching the wall. So, I got directly under the airplane and pushed on one of the tires to move the wing away from the wall. As I did that, I started to lower the airplane with the wench. Now, the cable on the wench wraps over itself when it winding up, so to see and hear the airplane bang and bounce on the way down doesn't bother us anymore. It did it three times today as I was lowering it. As soon as the plane was low enough to stay away from the wall, I moved out from under it and lowered it to the ground. Easy enough a one person job.

Dad got there not long after I got the rag down and I showed what I had done on the radio last week. Once he was up to speed and we figured out the next step, we started getting everything together to solder some wires together. I didn't bring my reading glasses (getting old is a bitch) so Dad was going to do the soldering. While he was doing that, I started looking at the hanging frame and wondering why the airplane was closer to the wall than it had been originally. I decided the hanging frame had been turned around 180 degrees and it was just enough to move it a few inches closer to the wall. I proceeded to unhook the frame from the airplane and turn it around. Just as I started to spin the frame, I saw it...

The "eye" bolt was just barely a "J-hook." The complete circle that was the eye bolt had been stretched out and it was hanging on to the winch hook by less than a quarter of an inch. I told Dad, "When you get to a stopping point, you have GOT to see this." He came over and saw the eye bolt. I was just amazed at how far it had stretched. Then dad looked at me and it dawned on both of us. I was standing directly under that thing while it bounced and banged its way down just 15 minutes earlier and that quarter inch was all that was between me and a 250 lb airplane falling directly on my head. Holy shit. That's when Dad said, "God takes care of fools and drunks." That's when I said, "See. Like I've always said, when it's your time, it's your time. Whether you are standing under a 250 airplane that is hanging by a thread or sitting on your couch eating potato chips. When your time is up, your time is up." I guess my time wasn't up this afternoon. Even so, you can bet your bippy I'll be checking that stuff each time before I walk up under it again. Oh, and we changed out what was left of the eye bolt for two sections of chain that are both bolted to the hanging frame by aircraft grade bolts.

Stupid Kid

2009-05-22T21:47:00.003-04:00

This morning, I have the day off and I take the girls to daycare so Heather doesn't have to hassle with it. As I'm leaving, I notice a few of the mailboxes in our neighborhood, including the "Tard's" mailbox have been "tagged." Meaning, they have been spray painted. All of the mailboxes in our neighborhood are brick, so there is a lot of area to paint. The three that I drive past have "13", "Will and Slocomb" and "Fuck Me" written on them. Great. Some little paint happy bastards drove through my neighborhood last night. As I'm driving out, I look in the rear view at my mailbox and there is nothing on it. After I took the girls to daycare, I came in the other entrance to the neighborhood to see the other side of my mailbox that I couldn't see earlier. Sure enough, there was white paint on it. I was the proud owner of a tag that said "19 1/2" on my mailbox. WTF??

When I got in, I called my cousin, who is a Sheriff's Deputy in my county. I told him what had happened and asked who I needed to call. I wasn't expecting anything to happen, I just wanted it to go on record, plus, if there was a rash of them going around town, it would just be another charge to throw on them if they ever got caught. Plus, I wanted to let them know that if I caught the little bastard in my yard again, I'd beat the ever-luvin' shit out of him and leave him for dead in the middle of the road. He told me that a lot of cars had been spray-painted over the last few weeks and I was probably lucky they only got my mailbox. He gave me the non-emergency number to call and I called them.

About 10 minutes later there was a knock on my door. It was actually my sister's brother-in-law (her husband's sister's husband; Greg) who is also a Sheriff's deputy, that got sent to the house. He got all my info and everything I knew about what had happened. Then, he walked down the street to write down each thing that was written on a mailbox. I went back in the house while this was happening. I glanced out one time and noticed a lady talking to him. Thinking nothing of it, I sat down to watch this week's episode of "Big Break: Prince Edward Island." About 10 minutes into it, my doorbell rang. It was Greg and a teen-aged boy. Greg said the boy had something he wanted to tell me. I figured he saw who did it and was going to tell me. "Mr. Hall, my name is (name withheld) and I'm the one that spray painted your mailbox." For the second time in less than an hour I'm going: "WTF???" I was dumbfounded. Come to find out, the lady I saw talking to Greg earlier was this kid's mother and she was telling him that her son had tagged the mailboxes and he was coming out to talk to him. Greg and I talked to him for awhile. He reasoning was that he got "super bored" last night and was walking around and just decided to do it. He thought it would wash off in the rain and didn't think he was doing any harm. First off, it's enamel spray paint on brick. It ain't gonna wash off. Second, you are writing on people's property and you think you aren't doing any harm?? He said he didn't think about his actions affecting my kids. I told him he wasn't effecting my kids in the least, but e was affecting the entire neighbor by doing this. Now, everyone thinks the neighborhood isn't safe and has thugs riding through it or worse, living in here now. There was about 10 minutes of talking. We asked what the things on te mailboxes meant. He said they didn't really mean anything. It was just wat come to mind when he sprayed. There was something about his story that never did settle right with me. I don't know if there were others with him and he was hiding that or what, but there was something "off" about it. I never did put my finger on it. He said he was trying to join the Air Force (his dad is in the Air Force) and he really didn't want a record. I told him I wouldn't do anything right now, but I wanted my mailbox fixed. He said he was getting with his parents and they were going to figure out a way to get the paint off all the mailboxes. It's night time now and my mailbox is still painted. I'll give him a week and then I'm going to his parents and tell them either my mailbox get fixed or I'll get with the other 4 homeowners to file charges. That will put his Air Force dreams in a bit of a bind.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not out screw the kid. We've all done stupid stuff when we were younger. Hopefully, you learn from them and become a better person in the long run. But, if he says he's going fix what he screwed up, then he better stick to his word. If he doesn't fix it and no one does anything about it, then he'll never learn. He'll just go about his merry way thinking he do whatever he wants without any recourse. I personally don't want someone like that in my Air Force.

We'll see what happens and, of course, I'll update here.

Stupid Kid.

Medical Update

2009-04-30T09:58:00.005-04:00

For the last three weeks, I've been feeling better each day. The first week, I wore the neck brace 24/7 and took my pain meds on time every day. The second week, I didn't take any pain meds (unless I over-did it; which I did twice) and I only wore my neck brace in the car, when I was sleeping, in public and if my neck really started to hurt. (Which, again, it did on a couple of occasions) The third week, I only wore my neck brace when I was in the car and going to sleep and took zero pain meds. The range of motion in my neck felt really good, but I didn't know how much I was supposed to move it, so I never went to the extremes when moving my neck.

Finally, the day had arrived for me to have my first post-op appointment with my Dr. Since I still wasn't supposed to drive, my sister took me to the appointment. Once we got back in the room, we started looking at the pictures on the wall and tried to figure out where the cadaver bones went in my neck. BP seems to be very interested in my "Dead Guy Bones" so I wanted to try and find out for him. My sister is a Registered Nurse and has never dealt with this type of treatment before, so her curiosity was piqued also. As we were looking at the picture on the back of the door, the X-Ray tech opened the door and scared us both. She took me back into the x-ray room and I was explaining what we were doing behind the door. She asked what the Dr. had done to me and I told her he fused 4 layers of my neck. She looked through her little window and said, "Four layers??? Can you even move your neck?" I showed her what I could do and she was amazed at the range of motion. That made me feel good. After we got back to the room, the Doc showed up less than 5 minutes later. He started answering my questions and explaining a bit more on what he did.

OK BP, here it is.. The discs between my vertebrae also have bone on them. When they do surgery like they did on me, they actually remove the old disc and put in a "fake" one with wire mesh type stuff around it and the cadaver bones. So, the dead-guy bones are between my vertebrae where the new fake disc is located.

The Doc was pleasantly surprised at how well I was moving and said I was doing very good. He released me for minor activities. I can drive again (whoo-hoo!!) I no longer need to wear the brace, at all!! I can only pick up things that weigh 25 lbs or less. I have to do some exercises to work my neck and shoulders. I can go back to work, but I can't do all the manual labor stuff that can be involved. I can only do computer work right now. I have Physical Therapy twice a week for an unknown amount of time. But, all in all, I'm doing great!! I still have no use of my left hand, but it should come in time. I feel good and I'm determined to get my left hand back.

The next day, I had my first Physical Therapy appointment. I showed up and had gotten my Physical Therapist I had been assigned back February again. (I actually requester her) We spoke for awhile getting caught up and once she knew what all was going on, she started my routine. Heating pad, TENS machine, neck stretches, squeeze balls, wrist curls, bike you pedal with your hands and the neck massage. The end of the session neck massage is worth my co-pay alone!! Last time I was doing physical therapy, it was trying to help a problem that couldn't be helped. Now, I feel like it will actually do something. MK (my physical therapist) was very impressed by my neck motion also. However, she is still very worried about my hand and arm. So, instead of just doing the neck stuff like the Doc has ordered, she is also working my hand and arm at the same time. She even had another PT specialist come over and look at my hand so she could get another opinion on how to work it. She said we'll step it up each time I come to work it out. I've got all the faith in the world in her (which is why I requested her again) so I feel she'll get me back my hand in time. So, that is where we are. I have PT appointment # 2 tomorrow morning.

On a family note, the baby is doing awesome!! She is still a dream child. Ansley has come around and has really warmed up to "Baby Sister." So, everything is good with the kids at the Hall Household.

I also have some great news about the Rag-A-Muffin. It flew on April 18th. I'll write about that day tomorrow, probably.

PS: The picture up top is not my x-ray. I don't have a copy of my own, so I just grabbed one from the web that had a 4 layer fusion done. They are missing one set of screws in their neck. but it's close to what mine looks like.

Adrenaline

2009-04-19T03:25:00.004-04:00

You ever notice what adrenaline can do for you? A couple nights ago, I woke up about 2:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I figured I could go out and watch a bit of TV to see if I could clear my mind and get back to sleep. While I was watching something, I heard a noise upstairs. Both of the girls sleep upstairs, so I muted the TV to listen. I heard Ansley cough but something didn't sound right. I decided to walk up and check on her. I walked up the back set of stairs so I wouldn't have to open the baby gate in case she was still asleep. I got into the computer room and heard another noise. Then, I knew what was happening, she was getting sick. I ran from the computer room through Riley's room, down the hall and into Ansley's room. It was pitiful. She was sitting up in bed, both arms drenched, the front of her nightgown soaked and all in her hair. She was crying lightly and then started to heave again. I yanked her out of bed and ran down the hallway to the bathroom with her so she could stand over the toilet and not get any more on her. As she was getting sick again, I called into the baby monitor down to Heather that we had a problem. She came right up. We got Ansley all cleaned up with a bath and new clothes and got her down in the bed with us so we could keep an eye on her. She got sick, slightly, one more time that night and nothing more after. All we figured was it was something she ate the day before.

But, what I was meaning about adrenaline; Since my surgery, the Doc put me on very specific restrictions. One of them is not to lift anything over 10 lbs for at least 6 weeks. I don't exactly know why or what damage/setback in healing it would cause, so I just follow the rules. However, when your baby girl is sick and you don't want her to get sick on herself any more, all that goes through your mind is grab your 26 lb precious one and run her where ever you need to take her so she feels better. I didn't even realize I had done it until about 45 minutes later when we finally got back to bed. And then today, she fell off her chair at dinner and hit her head. She sits right next to me, so what did I do? I turned quickly to her and scooped her up off the floor. That's twice in 48 hours I've done that. So far, no residual pain or seemingly setbacks, so hopefully, I'm healing enough where I didn't screw anything up. Adrenaline is a funny thing.

April 2009

2009-04-09T11:03:00.005-04:00

The last time I sat down to write a blog, I was amazed at how it was already February 2009. Now, the next time I sit down, it' s April 9th. Wow, time flies. But, life goes on and we do what we can in the time we have and pick up the next day where we left off today.

In the last entry, I mentioned that I would going to see my Doc and was expecting to be referred to a Neurosurgeon to get my hand/neck/arm fixed. That is exactly what happened. I saw the Neurosurgeon. He scheduled me for three rounds of spinal injections that would put steroids/pain meds directly in the area hoping to restart the nerves. I took one shot and showed up two weeks later with no improvement at all. He told me that we could take another but, in his professional opinion, the only thing that was going to help me was surgery. He diagnosed me with "Degenerative Disc Disease." He said that 4 layers of my neck (C4-C5, C5-C6, C6-C7, and C7-T1) had collapsed on themselves to the point where my nerves weren't being fed the impulses. etc they needed to work or grow the muscles. The only thing that would fix it would be to separate the vertebrae and open back up the passageways. So, I said, "Let's not waste any more time. Let's schedule the surgery." That was Wednesday, the 25th of March. Next thing I know, my surgery is scheduled for a week from that Friday, April 3rd. They are going to fuse all four layers of my neck. I will get titanium plates screwed into my neck bones to keep them the proper distance apart and then they will place cadaver bones somewhere int here to also aid in the correct positioning.

The week goes by and the morning of my surgery comes up. Heather and I get my Mother-in-Law to come watch the girls while we go to the Hospital. Everyone says I will be in the Hospital from 1 to 3 days. Luckily with it being a Friday, maybe heather won't need to take any time off if I can come home within the 1 to 2 day mark. We are checked into the Hospital by 0650. By 0730, I'm in my room dressed for surgery, got my IV's in and I'm waiting for them to come get me. Heather and my parents are there with me. They come and roll me into the surgery area and give me my "feel good" shot. Awhile later they roll me into the operating room and get me on the table. I remember the mask going on and thinking, "This stuff isn't working." That's the last thing I remember until I wake up in recovery.

Once I wake up enough, they feed me a few ice chips and then wheel me into my original room. They go and get my family and tell them, as soon as I wake up enough and the Doc checks on me, they start my go-home paperwork. Huh??? The Doc said the operation went so well and I lost so little blood (only three tablespoons worth) he saw no reason to keep in the hospital overnight. Awesome!!! So, I went home that afternoon and I wasn't even the Hospital a full 12 hours.
I've been at home since then. I had a chest cold the day after my surgery and that hurt a whole bunch!! Every time I'd cough, it felt like I was coughing up my entire chest. But, it was slowly gotten better over the days. The only "post-op" pain I've had was my throat. Since they had to move it out of the way to work on my neck, it has been very sore and swollen from all that. Each day that goes by the pain gets a bit better. The neck itself is ok. I can't go without my neckbrace and I'm scared if I do go without it, I'll over do it, so i keep it on for safety reasons if nothing else. I have a follow-up appointment in the 28th of this month and we'll see how I'm doing by then. Doc will release me to do certain things in "baby-steps" so even if I am doing ok on the 28th, I still won't be able to pick anything up or drive. We'll see how it goes..
I've had a few visitors stop by the house. Thank you for doing that!! It was awesome to see some folks. My family, my In-Laws and especially Heather have been GREAT during all this. I appreciate each and everyone of them.

Thanks for all the emails that have been sent also.. They make my days go by quicker..
That's where we are, medically, for right now.. As soon as I get an update, I'll post it here..
I've got other stuff to talk about (kids, ultralight, etc) but I want to keep this as short as possible, so I'll more another blog or two in the coming days talking about those...

Already February 2009!!

2009-02-15T09:11:00.005-05:00

Wow.. It's February, actually it's already half way through February and I'm just making my first blog of 2009. That's pretty bad. Ok, so here's what's been going on since 21 December. Christmas was awesome!! Since Heather was 8 1/2 months preggo, the In-Laws decided to come up here for Christmas instead of us driving down there. So, the only traveling we did was the 6 mile trip to my Parents’ house and back that day. New Year’s Eve was about what I expected. Heather and Ansley were I bed and asleep by 9:30. So, I spent the evening on the computer talking to a few friends, hanging with my dog and playing Guitar Hero.

January 7th, we had the scheduled c-section for the new baby. We were at the hospital at 0600. 0700, Heather was in-processed and in the staging room. 0730, she was wheeled into the delivery room. About 0745 I was brought into the room and 0755, Riley Kaitlyn was born into this world. A beautiful little girl just like her big sister. Although, Big Sister Ansley has had a bit of an issue sharing mama and the spotlight. But, we have gone from “Mama, you come home, leave her here” the first time Ansley visited Heather and Riley in the hospital to “I wanna see Baby Sister” now. She has come along way in a month and we are very glad she did. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it wasn’t rough going there for awhile.

That Wednesday night, while staying at the Hospital, I slept on one of those couch/bed things they have in the Hospital rooms for visitors. My left arm was killing me, but I chalked it up to just being a bad thing to sleep on. Thursday night, I went home to shower while my Mother-in-Law stayed with Heather and I had to take some pain reliever because I was still hurting pretty bad. Heather came home Friday and her Mom with us. Thank goodness, because the pain in my back/arm was getting worse. Friday night, it was so bad, I decided to go to the Dr the next day to get it looked at. Come Sunday, I had lost the use of the last three fingers on my left hand. To make a long story short, after 5 Dr. visits, x-rays, a regime of steroids and pain meds, an MRI and an EMG test it has been decided that I have a herniated disc in the C7-T1 area of my neck. The Doc put me in 4 weeks of Physical Therapy. During my initial eval, the Physical Therapist told that because of what she was seeing, she was only going to schedule me 2 weeks of PT. If there wasn’t any significant improvement by then, she was going to forgo the next two weeks and have me go back to my Dr. We did the two weeks and there has been very little improvement. I go back to see my Dr. Monday (tomorrow) at 1510. At that time, I expect him to refer me to a neuron surgeon for surgery to fix it. We’ll know for sure tomorrow afternoon.

As for the Rag-A-Muffin ultralight, we’re about 3 weeks away from it flying again. The wing has been patched, and we’re updating a few things on it. Hopefully we’ll have some flight pics and vids of it soon.

So, as you can see, it has been a bit non-stop around the Hall household lately.. But, everyone is doing good and life is good. I’ll update my situation when I get some definitive news.

Florida Trip 12-14 Dec 08

2008-12-21T14:12:00.007-05:00

I know I haven't written in awhile. Life just seems to get in the way of sitting down and writing lately. But, right now the 2 1/2 year old and the 8 1/2 month pregnant wife are both taking a nap, so I thought I'd sit down and do a quick blog.
3 of my dive buddies and I went to Florida last weekend on our yearly manatee visit. Dive Buddy Dee and I started this 3 years ago and we've been going ever since. Originally, I had 18 people say they would go on the trip, but as usual, when it came time to put down money, everyone except 4 of us backed out. So, Dive Buddy Dee, M2, F+10 and I headed down to Florida in Dee's RV early Friday morning.

Our first stop was Blue Grotto in Williston, FL. We signed in, got our fills, geared up and went diving. We went to Peace Rock, and then down into the cavern exploring all there was too see around in the "horseshoe." When then worked our way back up and into the Fresh Air Bell where we took a couple pictures. Then we worked our way slowly to the surface. After we got our, we refilled our tanks and just BS'ed during out surface interval. I took off the top of wetsuit different than I normally do. Normally, I just peel it off inside out. But, since I thought I'd be putting it back in soon, I worked it off my arms instead of sliding it off inside out. (This will be brought up again a little later) After about an hour being up top, and none of us were warming up, we decided to cancel the second dive. So, we loaded up all the gear and headed to our second stop of the trip, Crystal River, FL.

We got to Crystal River and F+10 went and checked into his hotel. M2, Dee and I were staying in the RV to save some money. After he was checked in, F+10 met us at the restaurant and we all sat down for some beer and a good meal. After we ordered and were having out first beer, I reached to my right wrist to play with my KIA bracelet I wear in memory of Cartney. It was GONE!!! I reached all up my sleeve to see if had moved, but my arm was bear. When I realized I had lost it, it felt like someone had kicked me in the chest. I never take that bracelet off for anything and now it was gone. I thought long and hard about it and then I remembered, I slid my wetsuit off instead of turning inside out and that must have been where it had come off. I knew I had a spare at home and I would call Blue Grotto on Monday, so there was no sense of worrying about it now. But, I was VERY bummed by not having it.

The next morning, we went to breakfast and stopped by the two dive shops in Crystal River we were going to be with the next two days. Bird's Underwater and American Pro Diving. We talked to the people int he shop and did some souvenir shopping. We then got our gear ready and headed to AmPro again to get ready for our Drift Dive down Rainbow River. It was an awesome dive!! It always is.. 60-80 foot viz, max depth of about 20-21 feet and a 1 knot current. Just a relaxing dive down the river. We got cleaned up and then headed to "Cracker's" for our dinner. Another awesome place to eat in Crystal River. And, as always, we left there too full!!

Sunday morning, we met at 0600 and headed to Bird's for our manatee snorkel. We got there, got signed in and left the docks right at 0700. They took us to a place called "Three Sisters." Last year during our trip, I swam for 10 minutes before I even saw my first manatee. This year, I stepped off the ladder of the boat and couldn't even move because 5 manatees were right there in front of me!! It was amazing!! To make a long story short, there were more manatees than I have ever seen and the majority of them were playful. In the hour and a half I was in the water, I don't think I went any more than about 30-45 seconds without a manatee on my hand or in my face. It was the BEST manatees visit we have ever had!!! After our hour and half in the water, we got back in the boat and were back at the dock at 0900. We waited around for the DVD's they made of our swim and then headed to lunch. After lunch, we headed back home to GA. We were in my driveway by 1645. It was a GREAT trip!!

On Monday, I called Blue Grotto to tell them what I had lost and to see if anyone had turned it in. The guy told me he hadn't seen anything like that, but he would take down my name and number and call me if anyone did turn it in. He also asked where we parked on Friday. I told him and we hung up. About 10 minutes later, my phone rang and it was Blue Grotto. He had gone out to where we were parked and he found my bracelet right where I told him it might be!!! He said if I would give him my address he would mail it to me. On Thursday of that week, it showed up in my mail!!! How cool is that???

The pic is me holding Manny in the fresh air bell at Blue Grotto. The video is one I shot while swimming with the manatees.

I also want to wish each and every one of you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!
**D**

The New Playtoy

2008-10-25T01:59:00.007-04:00

My Dad and I recently started talking about wanting a project to work on together. A couple years ago, we worked on rebuilding a Falcon XP experimental airplane. We worked for a couple years on it and were coming into the final stages when a guy from Kentucky wanted to come by and see it. Before he left, he ended up making Dad and offer for the plane that he couldn’t refuse. So, he sold the Falcon and bought his Piper Tomahawk just a couple months later. Dad always said he would rather fly than build anyway. Although he likes to fly, we had such a good time working on the Falcon, we started discussing another project just for something to do. We started surfing the internet and found a few places that sold plans to build your own airplane for not a lot of money. Building that way, you buy the parts you need and build. Once you get more money, then you buy more parts and continue. If you don’t have the disposable cash, then you let it sit for a little while and pick it back up when you can. Sounded like a good deal for us. Plus, we were looking at building an ultralight airplane so I could fly it without having my pilot’s license.

We found one that we thought suited our needs and I ordered the plans. They came in and I started pouring over them. I was getting up a parts list and doing what I could to get ready for it. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it, after doing more research on the airplane in the plans, I couldn’t find one flying example of this airplane. Even though, the plans had been selling for almost 10 years. That, to me, wasn’t a good sign. Not to mention, the guy that sells the plans gives you no way to contact him on his website, nor does he visit the websites or Yahoo groups that have been made for builders of this airplane. To not let your customers contact you is very fishy in my book, so we decided we didn’t want to build an airplane that, from what we could see, even the designer wouldn’t support or stand behind. So, I started looking at other airplanes and plans. All of a sudden, I started getting emails from Dad showing me finished ultralights for sale that would suit our needs and the budget we had set. Ok, maybe we are moving on from a project to a flying ultralight. After looking at few and making some phone calls, I went on my favorite airplane classified site: Barnstomers.com. It’s a great site to find anything from ultralights to experimental to warbirds. I jumped on there and on the first page of ultralights and saw one that really caught my eye and, it was fairly close to us, Jacksonville, FL. I read the info and sent the ad to Dad for him to look at. After discussing it, he told me to call the guy and talk to him about it. After a couple of phone calls, Dad and I decided to take his airplane down to Jacksonville to look at the airplane. On our flight down there, we made it about half way and the “Scattered at 5000” clouds became a wall that reached as far down as 1500 feet. Since neither Dad nor his Tomahawk are IFR certified, we turned around and came back home. After we landed and put the plane in the hanger, I said, “Road Trip.” We jumped in Dad’s car and 3 ½ hours later we were in the Mike’s (the guy selling) driveway. (Yes, I hauled a bit of ass) After about an hour and half of looking over it, and talking to Mike, we decided to get the airplane. Dad gave him a deposit to take the airplane off the market and told him he would send the rest of the money within two weeks. We would wait two weeks for the check to clear and then come pick it up on the 8th of November. So, that’s where we are at now. Just over 2 weeks before we go pick it up and bring it back to GA. There are minor things we need to do to it. One of the wings got a tear in it by the propeller when Mike was pulling it out of the “garage” it was in. We also want to strengthen the floor a bit. But, other than that, the airplane is airworthy and ready to fly. I’ll update with new pictures and stories when we get it back here to GA.

Oh.. What is it called? It’s a Roger Mann design called the RagWing # 6 also called the RW6, RagWing6, Ragwing Parasol, or the “Rag-A-Muffin.” Personally, I like the name "Rag-A-Muffin." If you are interested in learning more about this or any of Roger's other designs, you can see them all at http://www.ragwing.net/. The picture with the wings attached was one Mike took and used on Barnstomrers to advertise it. The one with the wings off (to make it easy to transport) is one I took while we were down there that day.

Labor Day

2008-10-23T21:10:00.002-04:00

I looked at my blog the other day and realized I hadn’t written a new one since my trip to North Carolina in the middle of August. It’s not that I haven’t wanted too; I just haven’t had the time. So, now I’m making the time. I have three different things I want to write about, so I’m going to write them and publish them separately within a few days of each other. Just a couple weeks after my trip to NC, the family headed down for our yearly Labor Day weekend trip to Panama City Beach, FL. My family, my sister’s family and my Mom and Dad all rented a beach house just down from the strip for the weekend of the week after Labor Day. We got down there late Friday night. Saturday was both, nephew Logan’s and Heather’s birthday. So, after spending some time on the beach, and doing some shopping in the three local dive shops, we all went out to eat at Capt. Anderson’s. (awesome food!!)
The next day, all 4 of my sister’s family and I had a 2 tank dive scheduled with DownTime Dive Charters. We had used them the year before and had a good time with them. Their Divemaster/Mate Jessie, is a hoot and we just liked diving with them. We met at the dive shop and did a check on the weather with other boats that were out there. Hurricane Gustav was making it’s way through the Gulf, so the waters were a bit choppy, but they said we’d be ok. We got out to the dive site and the water’s were getting kind of rough. We all decided to go ahead and dive. We dove the Coast Guard Cutter “Strength.” It was an OK dive, but viz wasn’t all that great. But there were tons of fish. At times, the fish were so thick, I had to put my hand out in front of me so I didn’t run into anything solid. At the end of the dive we surfaced and the weather had turned for the worse. Surface chop was awful and getting back on the boat was a serious chore. We all made it back on the boat, but we were pretty beat up afterwards. With the problems we had and the weather not expected to get any better, Capt Pat called off the next dive and we headed back in. What we didn’t know was after we went in, Capt Pat had the dive shop refund 100% of our money to us. That was awesome and we will definitely be using them a third, 4th and 5th times. We also decided that Diver’s Den has some of the best customer service we have run across and will be using them again also. For the next two days, Gustav had the beaches closed. We didn’t get a whole bunch of weather/rain, but we got a bit.
Everyone except my family left on Monday. We stayed until Thursday. Heather had some friends in the area, so we met up with them and did a Dolphin Spotting Cruise and went out to eat a couple times with them. We also took Ansley to Gulf World Marine Park and she had a ball. She loved the Sea Lions, which after she heard them, are now called “Ow-Outs.” So, now whenever she sees anything that looks like a sea lion (seal, manatee, etc) they are all called “Ow-outs.” On Wednesday, Gustav was far enough away and the rip tides settled down enough for the beaches to open back up. So, we spent the day on the beach and just relaxed. On Thursday, we packed up and headed into a very uneventful trip home. It may be called the “Redneck Riviera” but we have come to love Panama City Beach.

NC OBX Trip

2008-08-24T02:59:00.004-04:00

This was a most excellent trip (as Bill and Ted would say) Only two other people were able to join me on this trip (Bill and Kat).

Thursday: 0600 Bill picks me up at my house and we head to Covington to pick up Kat. After picking up Kat, we head to Morehead City. We arrived in Morehead City around 1530 and went straight to Olympus Dive Center to do our paperwork, pay for the fuel surcharges and our NITROX fills for the weekend. Checked into the Buccaneer Inn and then to eat at Sanitary Restaurant and Fish Market. Buccaneer: Clean, no frills Best Western with a complimentary Continental Breakfast each morning. Sanitary: Higher prices and “ok” food. You would hope for better food with what you pay.

Friday: Up at 0300 (just because it’s not easy sleeping in a strange bed) Report at Olympus at 0530 to load gear. We left the dock at 0635 and then left the dock again at 0700 due to late arrivals and they actually went back to pick them. Great customer service, but pretty crappy for those of us that showed up on time. We arrived on site at 1000. Yes, a 3 hour boat ride to a wreck called the Cassimir, 55 miles off shore. It’s a wreck that they don’t do very often. On the way out, I was able to take a compass reading class taught to me by Kat. So, after the class, I knew one thing: If you are lost in the woods and Kat has the compass, don’t expect to see civilization for about a week. :) Dive 1: Cassimir.. Air temp: 89F Water: 87F at surface, 79F at depth. Viz was around 35-40 feet. Dive time was 27 minutes and max depth was 104fsw diving EAN30. There were hundreds of fish around the wreck. Schools of amberjack, my first lionfish and, as always, barracuda. Nice dive, but I don’t think it was worth a 3 hour boat ride.

2 hour surface interval

Dive 2: Cassimir.. Same temps and viz. Dive time was 29 minutes and max depth was 102fsw diving EAN30. This was dive 50 for me. During this dive, I was actually able to enter a bait ball. While in the ball, I was just mesmerized by all the fish swimming around. All of a sudden, they all darted to the rear of me and I looked up to see a school of Amberjack crashing into the ball for a quick meal. They were headed right at me and all I had time to do was “duck and cover.” I didn’t get hit and after about half of the school passed me, they turned and went another direction. Scared the crap out of me for a second there. Good way to remember 50 though.

At 1700, we were back on the docks. We went and showered and headed to another restaurant that was recommended by the staff at Olympus. Piccata’s. Very good food!!! Prices were a bit on high side, but the food made it worth it. Unfortunately, about half way through the meal Kat found an unwanted visitor in her food. We called the waitress and she took the food away. The staff were very apologetic and didn’t make excuses. They said they would figure out how it got in there and were very sorry about it. They also took care of the bill for the entire table, not just Kat’s food. So, we thanked Kat for taking one for the team. Back to the hotel for some much needed rest.

Saturday: Today’s boat didn’t leave until 0730, so we slept a little bit later. We showed up, and Nema, the shop manager and my new Buddy, already had our boarding passes waiting for us. She met me at the door with all three in hand. We boarded and headed out to the U-352. Only 1.5 hour ride this time.

Dive 3: U-352.. Air temp: 89F. Water temp: 87F surface, 80 at depth. Viz was down. We only had about 25 feet on this one. Dive time was 29 minutes and max depth was 112fsw. Awesome dive. We looked all over the u-boat and took a bunch of pictures. Saw many Lionfish on the wreck. There was some current on this wreck. If you were on the side of the 45 degree list, there was very little current, but if tried to go around the stern, you got hit with a pretty powerful current. This was 50 for Kat. Great dive!!!

Another 2 hour surface interval and during it, we head to another wreck called the “Spar.” I have failed to mention that during these surface intervals, we saw more of our dive buddies than any of us really wanted to. Anything from “Just say NO to Crack” to “Dude, have you ever heard of a training bra and if not, please put back on your shirt,” to “Why are you running around in just your underwear” to wearing teenie bikini bottoms but never heard of the phrase “bikini wax.” (Is Macy Gray hiding out in those bikini bottoms??) Wow… They were all just sights to behold. And some sights that will scar you for life!!!

Dive 4: Spar.. Air temp: 89F. Water temp: 87F surface, 80 at depth. Viz was about 35 feet. Dive dime was 30 minutes and max depth was 95fsw on EAN30. On this wreck, Sand Tiger Sharks!!!! Awesome friggin’ dive!!!! We saw sand tigers ranging from about 4-5 foot to a 10 foot big daddy Most were in the 4-6 foot range. They were all over the bow portion of the wreck. At one point, Kat and I went to the bridge and checked out a school of Amberjack that were all inside of it. Very cool site. As we worked our way back down, we stopped to let a couple of divers take some pictures. As we were stopped, a sand tiger swam slowly right by us, close enough for either of us to touch it. I looked and Kat and she gave a huge grin and “two thumbs up” that made the whole dive for both of us. We got some pictures and headed back up. While we were on the hang line and Bill was working his way up the ascent line is when the big daddy came by. He was below us and at Bills level. He snapped a couple good pics of it before it slipped off into the blue. An excellent dive!!!

After this dive, we head back to the dive shop. Bill and I are changing boats and going out for a 1 tank on an inshore wreck. Another artificial reef project called the Indra. Kat decided to forgo this dive so she headed back to the hotel while we went back out. Only a 40 minute boat ride to the Indra.

Dive 5: Indra.. Air temp: 90F Water temp: 87F surface, 80F at depth with a few cold pockets around the wreck. Viz was awesome!! The best we had all weekend.. About 60-70 feet at the start of the dive. It was getting lower as the dive progressed, but it was great to start with. Dive time was 47 minutes and max depth was 69 feet on EAN30. Very cool dive.. HUGE ship (330 feet long) with many holes cut through it for beginner penetration like the Oriskany Island is done. We also saw the “Mac Daddy” of barracuda in the cargo bay of this ship. It was HUGE!! Bill and I did a full circuit around this ship both inside and out. A very nice way to end the diving. I told Kat that, unfortunately, I think she missed out by not doing that dive.

We were back on the docks by 1915 and headed to dinner after getting cleaned up. This place was called “Floyd’s” and was recommended by one of our Divemasters, Mark, on the boat. Excellent, excellent, excellent!!! The only problem: I ate too much and was too full when I left!! No complaints what so ever about this place!!! Best meal of the weekend.

Sunday, on the road by 0700 and back in W/R by 1630..

I have to say, the staff at Olympus was, by far, the best Dive Operation I have ever dealt with. Every person on the boats and in the shop were very knowledgeable and very friendly!! They did everything possible to make our visit a memorable and enjoyable one, especially Nema and Mate Mark!! Even when boats were coming in and going out and there was complete chaos in the shop, they were just an unbelievable outfit!!!

Awesome staff, awesome dives, AWESOME TRIP!!!!!!
The two pics: Top: One I took of the U-352. Bottom: Me diving the Indra.

CSI Dive #2

2008-07-09T21:43:00.004-04:00

For those that aren’t aware of my CSI dive, here’s a brief history: Back in January, there was a retaliatory shooting done in my local area. During the shooting an innocent woman was killed. After the shootings occurred, the alleged suspects stayed at a KOA campground North of our area. At this campground is a football field sized pond and the rumor was, they might have thrown the weapons into the pond to get rid of them. So, we were called in to dive the pond and look for the weapons. We dove it back in April with only 3 divers and one surface support person. The water temp was 53 degrees and visibility was zero. And, of course, we found nothing. So, this time, we went prepared.

We had 12 people show up for this dive. We met at 1000 at our LDS to load tanks and then we headed to the site. After we got to the site, we grouped and got our briefing about the case and then I briefed the group about water conditions the last time we were there. I was the only diver that did the dive in April and was back for this one.

For dive 1, we had 6 teams of two to work the grid that was laid out for us. Basically, the surface person would guide the diver from point A to Point B with a rope. Once a point was reached, they would tug the rope to alert the diver to stop and turn around. As the diver turned around, the surface person would dole out another arm’s length of rope and would lead the diver back to the starting point. Back and forth until their part of the grid was complete. The first dive took about 45-50 minutes for everyone to complete their part of the grid. We found nothing. Water temp was 59 degrees below the thermocline and depth was around 20 feet. I was glad I was diving dry this time around. Again, visibility was zero. Nothing but blackness after about 8-10 feet.

Dive 2 was a bit more hit and miss. The shore didn’t allow for the rope buddy teams, so the second dive was just, whatever diver wanted to get back in the water, head to the far shore, drop down and search the area best they could. The area was shallower but just as dark in places. The second dive was about 30 minutes for the few of us that did it. Water temp was, again, 59 degrees, max depth of about 15 feet and still black as night at the bottom. We did the best we could but still found nothing.

The water temp and visibility was basically the same on this dive as it was back in April. The biggest difference, however, was the smell. I’m not sure what the hot sun had done to the water from April to July, but the smell of the water was ungodly. We didn’t really notice it until we started stirring up the bottom. Once we started stirring everything up, the surface workers could smell the odor coming out of the water. Then, as we surfaced, we had the stench on us from head to toe. It was a very bad smell and it was all through our gear. I’m just hoping the stench came off my gear. I’ll see when I get home tonight. All in all, most people said it was absolutely the worst “non-current” diving conditions they have been in. And, the fact that we didn’t find what we were looking for didn’t make things any better. But we were glad to help out the local Police Department. I don’t know about the rest of the folks, but I’ll do it again if they ask. I’ll just hope for a new location.

We even got a mention in the local newspaper and were on the 11:00 news last night. Kinda cool, but since we didn’t find anything, there was no fanfare about it. Just to be involved was cool for me.

Holy $#@%, They Bite!!

2008-07-01T06:07:00.003-04:00

This past Sunday, I helped Scuba Steve with a Rescue Diver Course. When I “help,” for the most part I play the victim for the Rescue students to respond to and “save.” I act anywhere from a tired diver to a passive panicked diver to a blown-out aggressively panicked diver. It can be a lot of fun and it can put the students through the paces if it’s done right. I’m still learning the nuances of being a victim, but I’m getting a little better each time. I can also be a buddy to any student that is taking to course along when buddy teams are needed. That allows me to help teach a bit and it also keeps my skills sharpened up. Steve brought 5 new Rescue Divers into the diving world. Congrats to them all.

While helping out, I also used my new “long hose” configuration for the first time. I moved to a 7 foot primary hose, an octo bungee and a small SPG a week or so ago and this was my first chance to dive with it. Short answer: I like it. I am much more streamlined and everything feels better. We’ll see how it goes with more diving, but my initial opinion is very favorable.

Ok, so I guess you’re wondering what the title of this blog is about. The Open Water portion of the Rescue class was held at a local quarry in Macon. The quarry isn’t open to the public. It’s on privately owned church grounds. But, the church has a relationship with our LDS and they are allowed to conduct classes out there as long as waivers are signed at the store. So, we were out at the quarry and Scuba Steve is in the water briefing the Rescue guys about what is coming up in the class. He’s standing there in his shorty with the back unzipped. All of a sudden, he jumps and yells, “Get off me, punk!!” He said he had been bitten by a fish. I laughed thinking he was messing with the students before they got in the water. As I was standing there near him, I had my hands in the water and felt a nip on finger. I looked down and there was a small Bream. And, he had just bitten me!! I looked at Steve and he said they go for exposed skin. Well, I had on a full wetsuit and boots, so no big deal. I’d just have to watch my hands. When it came time to do the “circular reel search” later in the afternoon, one of the students didn’t have a buddy, so I went down with him to be his pivot man. Just after we dropped and he started his search pattern around me, I noticed I was surrounded by about 40-50 Bream. I was pretty amazed at how many there were and how close they were to me. That is, until I remembered: I wasn’t wearing a hood!!! Those of you that have met me, know I shave my head. So, here I am, down at only 15 feet, sitting on a rock so I don’t move, one hand wrapped in a search rope to guide the searcher around, a shaved head, no hood and 40 cocky-ass Bream swimming around my head. This isn’t going to be good. Then it started: The first bite hit the top of my head and then my ear. Next thing I know, I started getting bit everywhere there was skin showing. My ears, my head, my neck and my throat were all getting nipped by these little bastards. Every time I would swat them away, they would just come right back, and with a vengeance. They were like little piranhas that didn’t actually eat you. After, what seemed like an eternity, Steve sounded sub-duck, signaling the exercise was over, and I shot to the surface as safely as I could. After that dive, I pulled out the dragon hood and used it the rest of the day. Although it was too warm for a hood, it saved many more bites to my head. That was an unreal experience for me. And, as do many of my experiences, it makes for some decent reading..

Shark's teeth anyone?

2008-05-20T19:38:00.007-04:00

Dive Buddy Dee called me up last week and for the first time in a long time, she did not have to keep her young grandson over the weekend. It just so happened, when she called, M2 was in my cube visiting, so we decided to help Dee make the best of her weekend and we put together a quick dive trip for the three of us. Dee has an RV so lodging was no issue. All we had to do was figure out where we wanted to go. We had all discussed wanting to go to Cooper River in South Carolina and dive for megladon shark's teeth in the past, so M2 and I did a Mapquest from our town to Goose Creek, SC. Only 4 hours away!! Let's go shark tooth diving!!!

I called up a charter that was recommended to me by a person I met on DiveBuddy.com and spoke to the captain, Capt. Phil. He sounded like a a "good 'ol boy" and we got along good, so I asked him to be our charter for the Saturday we were coming. (www.backwaterdiversions.com)

Saturday came and the RV showed up at my house around 4:15 am. We got all the gear loaded and off we went. I plugged in "Gabby", my Garmin GPS, and she said we would arrive at the boat landing around 7:46 am. Awesome. After stopping for gas a couple times, we were getting close and Gabby said we would be arriving at 8:06. I had 7:30 on my watch, but we still had 80 miles to go. Something wasn't right. M2 grabbed Gabby and looked in her settings. She had been set on Central time and not eastern. He set it right and, beep, 9:06 was our arrival time. Crap. I got on the phone to Capt Phil and told him I screwed up our traveling time and we would be an hour late. He said it was no problem because we were the only people on his boat that day. Whew.. Thank goodness.

We got to the boat landing at 9:10, loaded our gear on the boat and parked the RV. Then we noticed the sign at the dock. Hmm.. This could be interesting. We get on the boat and head out to our first dive site. We get to the site and the first thing we see is about a 4-5 foot gator swimming just off the shore about 40 feet away from the boat. Kinda cool, but we've never jumped in water knowing there were gators in the immediate vicinity before. Capt Phil then gave us our briefing. He told us what we should, where we should be looking, what we were looking for and his only rule: Come to the surface when we had at least 500 psi left in the tank. Why? In case a gator is near you, you can go back to the bottom and stay until he leaves. Nice.

Dive Buddy Dee and I drop down together and we start searching. I finding nothing and only about 5 minutes into my dive, my dive light goes out. I can't see enough with the ambient light around, so I surface to get my spare. While I'm up there, M2 is asking for more details because he's not having any luck either. Capt Phil gives us a bit more and we head down again. This time, I go to an area that is more like the search area should be and I start me searching. Searching involves finding an area that look promising, waving your free hand side to side to blow the sand off the area and sift through the rocks you uncovered hoping to find teeth. Pot luck, shot in the dark, needle in a haystack? You bet your bippy it is. But, luckily, when we all surfaced, we had all found some teeth and/or artifacts. I thought I found a really old bottle until I surfaced and we noticed it was the very familiar shape of a Yoo-Hoo bottle. This dive had a bit of current, but not much. Just enough to move the silt out of the way when you stirred it up, but not enough to carry you way. Viz was about 8-10 feet max. I came up with 520 psi and had logged a whopping 110 minutes on that tank. Of course, the depth was only 17 feet.

After we all surface, we headed to site two where we would do our other two dives for the day. Dive two consisted of no current and visibility that ranged from 6 feet to zero when I kicked up silt searching. I brought up more pieces on this dive than any of the three. I had a depth of 21 feet, came up with 1100 psi and logged 83 minutes. Dive three had a ripping current at the end of it. The current got so bad, the boat had to keep cranking up because it was dragging the anchor. When I heard him crank up to get closer to me, I knew the other two had surfaced, so I went ahead and called my dive early. I had a depth 19 feet, 1300 psi left and logged 61 minutes on dive 3.

When it was all said and done we all had a good number of pieces that ranged from the actual megladon teeth we went for, Great White teeth, Mako teeth, Sand Tiger Shark teeth, petrified wood, whale bone, pottery, quartz, unknown materials and a couple of "Indian Sex Rocks." We asked Capt Phil what an Indian Sex Rock was and he said: "Just a F***ing rock." We only saw two gators all day. That small one at our first dive site and another about 10-12 feet long that was cruisng the banks when we were headed back to the dock. It was an awesome day!!! Capt Phil was a gracious host and we learned a lot about shark tooth diving. We will be going back and doing this again!!

After we unloaded at the dock, we took the RV to a campground and set up camp for the night. That's when I realized I can't make a campfire, but I can cook some good Brats after M2 gets the fire going. We all crash around 10:00 and get up the next morning around 7:15. M2 and I tear everything down outside and I start the coffee on the stove. The smell of coffee wakes Dee up and after we have our coffee and get everything ready, we're on the road again before 10:00 am. We get back to my house around 2:30 Sunday afternoon. It was an awesome trip!! Great trip, great dives, great times, great friends.

Gear Configuration Change?

2008-05-13T19:41:00.005-04:00

Only my dive buddies will know what I'm talking about here, so if you aren't a diver, excuse me for leaving you out this time.

I'm seriously considering a gear configuration change. I want to go with the 7 foot primary and a bungee for the octo. I had thought about doing it last year, but since I was helping in O/W classes, I didn't do it because I had to look, more or less, like the students did in the class. I haven't been able to help out in classes in some months now and even if I did, I could just use a set at the dive shop instead of my own, so that's a non-issue now.

I look at a few pictures of me and, at times, I look like Dr. Octopus with the hoses going to every side and out from my body at least a half a foot. (See picture) I'm thinking the 7ftt, bungee method will be the best way to streamline that stuff. I'm already using a BP/W set up, so, I won't look like a DIR wannabe Stroke with a 7foot and a jacket style BC. But, don't get me wrong, I don't want to go DIR either. So, can anyone offer any pros/cons on my gear config change?

Seaworld Experience

2008-05-05T04:13:00.005-04:00

Last week, we went on a short “Family” vacation to Orlando. Since I have a non-diving spouse, I promised her there would be “zero” diving related activities during the week. And I kept my word.

Although I didn’t dive, I did participate in something that was just as cool and would be very interesting to anyone that dives and likes marine life. For my first Father’s Day back in 2007, my wife gave me the go-ahead to participate in the “Marine Mammal Keeper for a Day” at SeaWorld, Orlando. I had seen this program during a Travel Channel show called “Top 10 Aquariums” and was dying to do it.
The morning of my experience, I arrived at SeaWorld around 0615. The experience started at 0630 and they asked us to be there 15 minutes early. Just a little after I showed up, the other two participants showed up. (They only have three people per day do the Mammal Keeper) Katie and Nicole; Two High School seniors that were on vacation from school in New York. Right at 0630, Johnathon, our guide for the day, showed up. He checked all the paperwork and then took us into the back lot of SeaWorld. This was where the main “Fish House,” where they prepared the 4000 lbs of fish for food each day, was located, along with the rehab area for dolphins, manatees, sea turtles, birds and sea otters. The vet’s office and surgery buildings were also located back here. We watched the keepers tube feed a sick dolphin and we helped feed mending dolphins. We fed the rehab manatees and watched Jonathon bottle feed Jackie, an orphaned baby manatee. We toured the vet/surgery areas, the sea otter/birds rehab area and fed the manatees in the exhibit area of the park. We also went in the Fish House and helped prepare the food and formula for the otters and Jackie.

After all of that, we went across the park and changed into our wetsuits. As we were coming back across the park, we noticed the park had opened and the people were filing in. Next, we went to the “Dolphin Nursery” to feed and play with that small group of about 9 dolphins. That’s when we noticed that not everything we do that do is going to be “behind the scenes.” We went out into the crowd with or buckets of fish and into an “Employees Only” area. All the dolphins came to our side and we started feeding them. Jonathon taught us hand signals to use with the dolphins and we actually performed a “show” for the crowd gathered there. It was VERY cool to here the cheers of the kids when the dolphins did their thing. There a small crowd of about 50 people at this exhibit. Next, we headed to “Dolphin Cove” where we did just about the same thing. The biggest difference, there were 22 dolphins and about 200 people gathered around. After about 30-45 minutes at Dolphin Cove, we headed to “Wild Arctic” where we did another interaction with Beluga Whales, this time. Same thing: Feeding, hand signal and small tricks. If you have never felt of a beluga whale, it’s like grabbing a thick piece of Jell-O. Not a hard part on their bodies except for the jaws and a small part of the spine. These three interactions alone were worth the price of the experience. But, we were also able to interact and “play” with seals, sea lions, sharks, sting rays and even a 900 lb walrus named Dozer. We saw behind the scenes with Polar Bears, Sharks and Penguins. The thing that kept amazing me was how clean everything was, even behind the scenes. Even the places where the fish was prepared all day were cleaner than an operating room. It was an amazing day.

If you ever decide to participate in this experience, here are a few things I learned to help you out: First, you are not behind the scenes all the time. If you are not comfortable in front of crowds, don’t do it. You are in front of the crowd for about 3 hours of your 8 hour stay. You need to bring NOTHING with you. They have the wetsuits for you to wear, including the booties. They have locking lockers for you to store your personal items in at the wetsuit building. There is even a towel in the locker for you to use when you get back. (Although, none of us got wet enough to warrant the wetsuit or the towel.. You never get “in” the water. Always just beside it.) The wetsuit building also has showers in case you need it. The SeaWorld photographers do follow you around during the Dolphin and Beluga Whale interactions and take about 180 pictures of the group. (Or, that’s how many they took of ours) These picture are available at the photo booth at the end of the day. Instead of looking through 180 pictures, I just purchased the CD with all of them and printed off the pics I wanted in album or on my website. They also give you a t-shirt and a book about SeaWorld rescue and rehab efforts. Although the experience is $400 for the day, I, personally, feel it was worth every penny.

Macon : CSI

2008-04-07T19:34:00.006-04:00

I told some folks last week that I had something cool coming up that I couldn't really talk about until after it was done. Well, it's done, so here it is.

As most of you know, my friend and scuba instructor, Scuba Steve, is also a Sgt with the Macon, GA Police CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) Unit. Last week, Steve called and asked me to get up a small group of advanced divers that were comfortable with their skills. He said he needed us for a special task. That task: Diving a small lake at a local campground to search for two murder weapons. Holy crap!! How cool is that?? OK, not the murders, but the fact that we got the call to help look for them. So, I called my 4 "top" divers that were going to be in town and asked them if they wanted to join us for the dive. All 4, of course, said yes and I told them I would get the details to them over the week on when and where to be.

Friday, I got the call from Steve with the details that we were meeting at the campground at 1100 on Monday and dive at high noon for the most sunlight. I passed it along to my group over the weekend.

Monday came and got a call from two of my four. One was sick and the other got called into to work on Monday and wouldn't be able to make it. So, it was just going to be me and M2 meeting Steve and his group of divers. He had 4 or 5 others lined up, but most of them bailed. So, come the actual day of the dive, we had 4 divers and 1 surface support man.

Mark showed up at my house around 0930 and after we loaded the gear in my truck, we headed off for the 45 minute drive to the campground. We made good time and decided to hit a fast food joint and grab a bite before going in. Just as we were pulling in Steve called me on the cell and asked where we were. 5 minutes later, he was in the parking lot with us. 5 minutes after that, the 4th diver, Hyatt, was with us.

We get to the campground and Steve goes in to talk to the clerk. They knew we were coming and had everything ready for us and even offered up a cabin right near the lake so we would have a place to change before and after the dive. We all got changed, got our gear together and got our briefing. By this time, Lee, our surface support was there and helping out also.

We got in the water and Steve devised a search plan and pattern for us to work. We were to drop down within touching distance of each other and stay side by side as we ran a hands through the muck at the bottom working our way from one side to the other. Easy enough.

A few things we were noticing about right now: 1. The lake was a bit bigger than a football field. 2. The sun never came out. It was complete overcast. 3. The bottom was non-existent. You stepped down and your foot went, at least 10-12 inches into the mud. 4. The water was damn cold!!! 63 degrees at the top is what were reading. We had no idea what it was at depth. Three of us, Steve, Hyatt and I, were all diving wet, Mark was diving dry.

We all line up and descend. You could see only about 1 foot in front of you as we starting dropping, but you could see daylight around you. Unfortunately, about 8 feet down, the daylight was gone and it was pitch black. Nothing could be seen at all. After we got down and realized we couldn't see anything or anybody, Steve signaled and we all surfaced. We decided to hold wrists while we dropped and squeezed when we were ready to search. Even that didn't work. Mark came up with the perfect way to explain what it looked like: Go into an elevator, shut the door and turn off the power. That's what we were diving in. It could be called "Oh My God Black." So, Steve had us all surface again and made a judgement call: He said, as long as everyone was comfortable doing it solo, then we would all just pick and area and go search it ourselves. He said anyone that didn't want to, didn't have to, but it was the only way we were going to get anything done. We all said yes and we about our business. So, we drop down, get to the bottom, stick your hands in the bottom and move them side to side seeing if you hit anything, If you hit anything, you feel of it trying to figure out what it is. If it feels like the type of weapon we are looking for, you bring it to the surface.

Mark had an ear problem and had to bail out early on. So, he worked as a surface spotter for the rest of us. Steve and Hyatt worked with Lee and used a line to traverse the shore line and I just did shore to shore runs through the middle of the lake. I would use mark as my target and just hope I was somewhere close when I surfaced. I found rocks, cement blocks, logs, sticks, coke bottles, Dixie cups and even a bike flag. But no weapon. In fact, no one found a weapon. We search for an hour, but, because it was such a haphazard search, it was worse than a needle in a haystack scenario. We're actually going to go back with more man power, search teams with ropes and warmer water.

The details: 24 foot max depth. Water was 63 degrees at the surface and 51 degrees at depth. 1 hour of bottom time logged and zero weapons found.

Although the diving REALLY sucked, it was a cool time and I do appreciate Scuba Steve calling and asking for our help. We'll do it anytime!!! Nice to try and use this hobby to give back every once in a while.

The last few days...

2008-04-01T20:14:00.008-04:00

As everyone knows, yesterday, 31 March, was the first day of Spring. Although, here in Middle Georgia, it didn't feel much like it. The high here was 57. Now, I know that's a good temp for some of you reading this, but it's considered cold for here. Well, I guess the Ice Cream man didn't watch the weather and only looked at the calendar, because, he was out in my neighborhood yesterday. Bells and jingly song just blaring around the neighborhood. For some reason, you can hear that dang jingly song from miles away. But, as you would expect, no one was out in the street trying to catch him. It was just too darn cold. Oh wait. EXCEPT, the Retards next door. Of course they were out, in full force, getting ice cream from the ice cream man in 57 degree weather. Sorry, they just prove to me, day after day, that they are retarded.

Heather and I decided we needed to get in better shape. As of the moment, we own a Weider weight system, an elliptical machine and a recumbent bike. They were all used pretty heavily in their day, but since we have moved into this house, they have been used more for hanging up scuba gear than trimming fat or making muscle. So, after a year of not using them I decided I had no excuse not to sell them. And so, 48 hours after deciding to sell them, they were sold. Heather and I wanted something we could do together, so we went and purchased a couple of Nordic Track Bikes. Now, every evening after Ansley is in bed, we put on a program we DVR'ed, get on our bikes and work out while watching a show. Quality time. heh.. We've been working out with the built in iFit programs in the bikes. I went and bought the next step up of iFit cards today and we are going to try them out as soon as Ansley is in bed. (Heather is putting her to bed right now) We'll see how well Step 2 works for us. 8 week program burning over 5400 calories. Update: The first session of iFit 2 was pretty good. We could finish it, but we felt it. This will be fun.

We took Ansley to her first airshow this past weekend. Macon, GA was having their annual Cherry Blossom Festival and one of the weekends always includes an airshow at the airport where I took my flight lessons. Ansley is enamored with airplanes. Any time she hears one fly over the house, she stops what she is doing, looks up and when she finds it, she points and wants me to pick her up so we can watch it together. So, I figured an air show would be great for her. She absolutely loved it. Every airplane that went up, whether it was a formation fly-by of a single aerobatic flight, she watched every minute of it. She actually enjoyed the whole afternoon. I love watching airshows. Although, after my aerobatic hero, Jim LeRoy was killed last July while performing in Dayton, Ohio, I watch them with a bit of trepidation now. But, the show went without a hitch and I was able to watch a performer I had never seen in person, but had seen on TV many times. Mike Mangold, the 2004, 2005, and 2007 Red Bull Air Race Champion. He put on an awesome show and even finished his routine in the rain. Great flying and a great little trip with the family. The picture was taken at the airshow. Yes, I know it's quite the MANLY pink umbrella, but, it was the Cherry Blossom Festival, so pink is the color of the week here.

Nothing else really going on. I hope everyone had a great weekend and is enjoying their Spring Break now, or upcoming. Stay Safe.

It ain't right...

2008-03-23T21:42:00.002-04:00

The day before Easter, my Aunt came over to see if she wanted the white sink I pulled out a week ago. While we were in the garage, a miniature Doberman pincher came in and was whining like it was hurt. She walked right up to me and as I looked her over, I didn’t think she was really hurt, but lost. As I stood up, she got scared and ran off. She ran towards the neighbor’s house. (Not the retards, but the good neighbors) I watched her go in their yard and then she ran right back to me. I looked and she had a collar on, but no ID tag on the collar. She also had a broken clasp on the collar, meaning she had gotten out of where ever she was by mistake. I brought her in the house and showed Heather. My dog, Ripley, didn’t know what to think, but he was ok with her. Ansley was intrigued by the Doberman, but that was about it. We brought her in and fed her. She was good around the house, but was pretty skittish. I got in the truck and drove around the neighborhood hoping to see a “Missing” sign or people out looking for a lost dog. Nothing. After awhile, I went out and walked around the neighborhood with her on a leash talking to anyone I ran into. Again, nothing. So, I decided we had a house guest for the night and I would put up a sign in the yard the next day.

We were going to let the dog just stay with Ripley for the night, but after she noticed Kyko, my African Grey Parrot, and looked like she wanted to eat him, I decided she needed to stay away from him. She had gone upstairs during the evening and was very comfortable on the couch up there, so I took up there and gave her the run of that room and the hallway. I closed off the rest of the rooms since I didn’t know if she was housetrained or not. The night went smooth until about 6:00 am.. She was whining up stairs and I didn’t want the baby woken up, so I went and got the dog. She started going after my bird again and making a big racket, so I made her go outside for the rest of the morning. We got up about 8:00 and let her back in. It was a very mild night, so it wasn’t even cold outside.

We had to do the Easter thing with both families, so we fed both dogs, got ready and left them here for the day. While we were gone, Heather said she would bet money the dog was the next door neighbor’s dog. (The Retards) I was hoping not, but they weren’t home this weekend and the dog was skittish around people (they have 3 boys at their house) so it would explain a lot. When we finally got home, “they” were home, so I walked over and one of the kids was outside on his bike. I asked if they were missing a dog and he said “Yes.” I asked, “A miniature pinscher?” His eyes lit up and he said, “Yes.” I said, “She’s at my house.” He looked kind of puzzled, so I told him the story. He came over and showed where the chain had broke and she got off it. He was very appreciative to get her back. Of course, I never heard anything from the parent’s.

Sitting here thinking about it, I’m VERY glad they have their dog back. I know how I would feel if it were my dog missing. But I can’t help thinking: They stole my pizza and I save their dog. It just ain’t right.

Productive day

2008-03-15T19:52:00.010-04:00

You know, you have those days where you feel like you've accomplished something and you have those days where you don't feel like you've done crap. Well, today was an, almost, too productive day. It's the weekend; I'm not supposed to work this much!!!

The day started with Ansley actually letting us sleep until 8:00 am. Once we did get up and get breakfast, Heather decided she wanted to make a quick trip to Lowe's to get a couple things. She wanted one of those "Rain" shower heads for the Master bath and we needed to get a 10 foot ladder so I could reach our gutters and clean them. We went to Lowe's and got the ladder and the shower head, but Heather also decided she wanted a new faucet for the kitchen sink. She wanted a high-rise faucet and the sprayer on our has been sticking for some time so she thought it would be a good time to replace it all.
When we got home, I installed the new shower head real quick and then I started on the gutters while she was with the baby. We have 5 sets of gutters on our house ranging from 20 feet to about 60 feet long. I dug all the leaves and crap out of all of them and the sprayed them all out with the hose. Everything went well until the last one that had a hose running from the spout at the bottom into the ground. It was clogged up beyond belief, so I took the hose off of it and then took the gutters apart and cleaned all the parts out. After that, I hit the weeds in the front yard with the weed eater since there isn't much growth in the grass.

As I walked in from the outside, Heather mentioned that she had time to think about it and decided she didn't really like the white kitchen sink we had and wanted a stainless one. So, she asked me to install a new sink instead of just a new faucet set. OK.. So, I disconnected all the plumbing and the garbage disposal and then pulled out the old sink. After I took the old faucet set off, I put the sink in the truck, in case we need to look at anything while shopping. Back to Lowe's. We picked up a new sink, some gaskets and a drain kit.

Back home, I start working on the sink. The new faucet set goes on much easier when the sink isn't in the counter. After getting everything ready, I put the sink and and work on getting the disposal hooked back up. After that, I start re-plumbing. That's when I notice the drains are about 2 1/2 inches further apart than they were in the old sink. Back to Lowe's for plumbing parts. (My Lowe's is less than 2 miles from my house, luckily)

While I'm at Lowe's, I pick up the parts I need to re-plumb, but I also think about 2 toilets in the house that are acting up. One won't stop running and the other, you have to hold the handle up the entire time or it won't flush. So, I got all those parts too. Came back home, got my sink working after re-plumbing everything, fixed the non-flushing toilet and fixed the one that wouldn't stop running. While I was finishing that up, Heather was out back cutting the yard.

It was a very productive day. I'm tired. Although, I did get to use the new rain shower head first and that was cool. And, as you can tell, I did have some help while working on the sink.

Bad Attitude and Pizza

2008-03-04T09:35:00.009-05:00

A couple weeks ago, as you all know, I went on a dive trip with a group from this area down to Florida for the weekend. During that weekend, we had a scheduled power outage in our building for some HVAC upgrades to be done. I knew my telephone switch didn't have the battery back up to run for 12 hours, so it was scheduled to crash about 2 hours into the power outage. which it did. No big deal. It has always booted itself back up and ran as normal any other time. Except this time. When it booted up, it came up on a database that was 1 year old. With the amount of work we had done in the last 12 months, it meant about 500-600 phones were either not working at all or working where they were physically placed 1 year ago. And, our voicemail system didn't survive the outage either. Not a good situation to come back too. To make a long story short, it's now been 3 weeks to the day that we started trying to fix our problem. The switch is still broke, but limping along. We have been able to re-program all 500-600 phones and got them working. Today, the new voicemail system is going online. So, why the bad attitude? I work with some of the biggest frigging whiners you have ever known. I even had people complaining to my Colonel that their stuff wasn't fixed, although they had never given me the list of phones they wanted fixed. It was a small but vocal line of complaining and whining from certain areas and people. After busting your ass for so long and working overtime to get all those people up, the last thing you want to hear is someone whine. So, after three weeks of it, I'm sick of it.. But, there were some GREAT people we dealt with also. I even had one send an email to me and my Colonel yesterday saying what a great job we've done. That is always great to see, since my colonel normally only hears the complaining. No one ever takes the time to say "Job Well Done." So, it means a great deal to me when they do. To all you whiners: Y'all can all kiss my ass!!! Which is why I needed to take the day off and get a grip on my attitude.

So, where did the "Pizza" in the title come from? You ever had one of those stories that starts out: "Y'all ain't gonna believe this shit" Well, y'all ain't gonna believe this shit. Saturday afternoon, Heather and Ansley went for haircuts and took Cousin Alyssa with them so she could watch Ansley while Heather was getting her hair done. After everyone was back home, Heather said I should just order pizza and invite Brother-in-Law Dale and Cousin Logan over since my sister was out of town and we already had Alyssa. Good idea.. So, I called BiL Dale and invited them over and they accepted. I got online and ordered a good amount of pizza and stuff. 42 dollars worth, to be exact. If you have ordered online for Domino's lately, they have the "Pizza Tracker." It shows when you order is received, when you pizza is put together, in the oven, out for delivery and been delivered. I had the Pizza Tracker up and went outside to play with the family. After awhile Heather came outside and so I went in to listen for the delivery guy. At about the 40 minute mark, I noticed the Domino's car at my next door neighbor's house. He gave an order to the kids and they went inside. I figured, what's the chances of both houses ordering at the same time from the same place? But, I just figured since they are 207, they delivered to them first and we would be next. The guy got in the car and left. After about 5 more minutes I checked the pizza Tracker and it said, "Delivery Complete: We hope you are enjoying your meal." WTF??? So, I called Domino's and said, "Hey, I'm just checking on my order."
Dominos: "Umm, hold one, let me see." (They have caller id so they knew who I was) "Uh, you're 209 (road name)?"
Me: "Yep, that's me."
Dom: "Uh, I just delivered that order."
Me: "No you didn't."
Dom: "Uh, yeah. Kids out in the yard with a trailer next to the house?"
Me: "Nope. That's my neighbor's house."
Dom: "Are you serious?"
Me: "Uh, yeah."
Dom: "Oh my God. Dude, they signed the credit card receipt and everything."
Me: "And you didn't check an id or anything?"
Dom: "Man, it was the kids. and they didn't have a number on the mailbox."
Me: "Was it the kid's credit card? No. It was mine. And, I have a number on my mailbox and I'm the one you were supposed to be delivering too"
Dom: "Oh wow man.. I'll get your order in and I'll have it back out to you very fast. No charge."
Me: "No charge? You think??? I know I'll get mine free, but you need to make sure you tear up the credit card receipt that was signed by a KID."
Dom: "I will."

So, after my call to Domino's I'm thinking, ok, now my neighbor just stole my freaking pizza!! Then I started, thinking, maybe it was just kids home and they thought the parents ordered it for them. I was going to walk over there, but cooler heads (Wife and BiL) prevailed and told me not to go over there right now. So, I waited around. Before the second round of pizza got here, the neighbor's wife's car pulls in there driveway. OK, the parent's weren't home. That explains it. She wasn't in the house 2 minutes when my phone rang. She thought she was calling Domino's but the number on the box was mine. She asked if I ordered pizza and I said Yes. She said her Husband and kids thought she ordered it for them while she wasn't home and they ate my pizza. I told her I had already spoken to Domino's and they were bringing me another. I was cordial to her, but the entire time I'm thinking: What kind of a freakin' retard is your husband to not check the credit card bill that the kids signed for and brought in. I don't know what kind of relationship he and his wife have, but if Heather or I are doing anything for dinner, we let the other know so we don't duplicate any effort for supper. Domino's did deliver my pizza order, an hour late after all this. I got my pizza and Mr. Delivery Dude got no tip. I also saw he went next door after he left here to, I'm figuring, to get the money they owed for the meal they ate. No idea if they paid or not. I'e actually seen the guy twice since then and he has said nothing about the incident. So, how did all of that actually happen on Saturday night? I definitely fault Domino's for not checking addresses or ID's on credit cards, but mainly I'm just chalking it up to the fact that I have a freaking retard for a neighbor.

Manatees

2008-02-23T20:26:00.006-05:00

Back in 2006, we had discussed getting a group together and going to visit with the manatees in Crystal River, FL. I had just learned what they were a few months earlier and was really interested in seeing them up close We had been talking about the trip for a couple months and a guy at work was saying we were wasting our time going to see those things. I disagreed and set up a group trip to go down there in November. The group started with about 10 people and as time drew close and people needed to make reservations and pay money, as always, the numbers started to drop. In the end, it ended up only being two of us making the trip. Dive Buddy Dee and I were the only two. We made the trip and when I finally got to meet the manatees face to face, I fell in love with them. They are awesome animals and the fact that they are listed as "Endangered" every one's help is need to keep the manatee numbers up. West Indian manatees in the United States are protected under federal law by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which make it illegal to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine mammal. West Indian manatees are also protected by the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978 which states: "It is unlawful for any person, at any time, intentionally or negligently, to annoy, molest, harass, or disturb any manatee." Anyone convicted of violating Florida's state law faces a possible maximum fine of $500 and/or imprisonment for up to 60 days. Conviction on the federal level is punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and/or one year in prison.

During our yearly trip back to Crystal River last week to see the manatees again, a bunch of us decided to help out in any small way we could. One thing we did was pay for the PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors) Manatee Awareness Specialty that was offered by the shop we booked our manatee visit through to certified divers. Some of the money goes to PADI for processing, but some also go to the Manatee protection programs. Another way a couple of us decided to help was to adopt a manatee through Savethemanatee.org. They have manatees from 3 different areas in Florida to choose from along with pictures and bio of "your" manatee. When you adopt, you get an adoption package with a lot of other info in it. My package hasn't arrived yet, but I will post about it when it does. I adopted a younger manatee in Blue Springs State Park named, "Georgia." (of course) I hope to make a trip to Blue Springs during the Winter and see Georgia with my own eyes. That will be cool. I also have a friend that has also adopted "Lenny" in Blue Springs and M2, one of my dive buddies, adopted "Deep Dent." It's a great way to help out. You can even give an adoption as a gift. How many people do you can say the gave or received a manatee as a gift? And for as little as 25 dollars, it's also an inexpensive gift.

If you are interested in learning more about manatees or would like to help, just visit http://www.savethemanatee.org/.

Dive Trip 15-17 Feb 08

2008-02-20T04:35:00.004-05:00

Our dive "club" went on a weekend trip to Florida for some diving and a manatee visit. Our numbers ranged fomr 6 on some dives to 12 on others during the weekend.

Friday, 15 Feb, we left middle GA around 0900 and headed down to Ginnie Springs. After stopping for gas, food, etc, we arrived at Ginnie around 1400. Being a Friday, the place was almost deserted. We got in two dives that afternoon. Both dives for me and my buddy were in the main Ginnie Spring. He was on dives # 2 and 3 after certification, so we were working on his comfort and skills. He did go in the ballroom and down to the grate on both dives, so I guess he's more comfortable than most would be on numbers 2 and 3. Our second dive, we were the only two in the Spring. Some of our group dove the Devil's side for their second. There were, of course, cavers on that side, but again, not many. After breaking down the gear, we drove to Crystal River, where we would be for the next two days. We had a great meal, as always, at Crackers in Crystal River that evening.

Saturday, we booked a drift dive down Rainbow River (KP Hole State Park) with American Pro Diving Center. The drift was awesome for the first 30 minutes or so. Long nosed gar, bubbling sand, soft-shelled turtles, and some serious outflow from "The Blow Hole".. Beautiful dive. Unfortunately, a group that was supposed to be behind us, overtook us and completely destroyed the viz for us. If it had silt on it, they went through it, kicked it or stood on it. They were wearing scuba equipment, but they were far from being "divers." One guy even lost complete buoyancy and landed on top of one of my guys and planted his face in the sandy bottom. How this group ever got a c-card is beyond me. We let them get ahead of us and tried to enjoy the rest of the dive with less-than-pristine viz. It was a great dive if you can forget the non-divers wearing scuba gear. The picture is from the Rainbow River dive. I crawled into the cavern and snapped the pic of my group on the outside. Saturday night, another good meal at Fat Boy's BBQ.

Sunday morning, we arrived at Bird's Underwater at 0615 for our morning with the manatees. After trying to find manatees at three spots to stay away from the crowds, they had to head to the main spring where there were no less than 12 other boats loaded with people. It was stupid crowded there. There were manatees to be seen, but not in great numbers and with the amount of people around, not all of them were playful this time. But, everyone in the group still got to see at least one manatee and pet them, especially those that had never seen one before, so it was well worth it. After the manatee visit, we went to a place called "Three Sisters" and some of the people on our boat snorkeled in that area while others of us rested in the sunlight. After a pretty good lunch at "The Ale House" we said goodbye to Crystal River and were on our way back to GA around 1500 and made it back just in time for some big storm to hit our area.
All in all it was a great time and we had a group of 14 people go on this trip. So, I consider it a great success.

Lessons Learned on this trip:
1. Go to Ginnie (or any dive site) during the week. You have it all to yourself.
2. Do not book manatee visits on President's Day weekend. 2 reasons: It could already be getting warm and the manatee numbers start to dwindle and it is also the busiest weekend of the year for Crystal River, which we did not know when we scheduled it.
3. In Crystal River, whether you dive with American Pro or Bird's Underwater, you can't go wrong. Both are class acts that respect the area, the environment, and the manatees.

January is almost finished??

2008-01-27T13:02:00.001-05:00

Wow.. How time flies.. I didn't realize I made my last entry on 31 Dec, so this is my first post of 2008. So, first off, Happy 2008 to everyone. A lot has been going on with work and home life, but nothing really worth writing about. Just your everyday non-stop work-home-work-home, etc. Although, I will admit, I got a new PC game for Christmas and I've been playing it a lot when I can get the free time. For anyone that games, it's called "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare." Awesome game. And the online play is unbelievable. Well the worth the money in my opinion.

This weekend, some "write worthy" stuff finally came up. The National Hockey League is having it's All-Star Game this weekend. And, it just so happens that Atlanta is hosting the weekend, so #1 Mom was able to score some tickets from some of her connections at work at the 11th hour. We didn't find out until late Friday that we were getting tickets to Saturday's event. During the NHL All-Star weekend, they have a "Skills" competition on Saturday and then the actual game on Sunday. The game is not normally a great game to watch. All the great names are there, but because it's more of an exhibition than it is a game, the hard hitting and the intensity isn't there that you would find in a regular season game. The reason to go is to watch all the big names in one place. The skills competition on Saturday is a different story. They guys get to "show off" and you get to see some things you wouldn't see in a regular game. I wanted tickets to the Skills competition more than I did the game and that's exactly what we got. So, I spent Saturday evening in Philips Arena in Atlanta watching the NHL All-Star Skills Competition with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew thanks to my darling bride.. It was a great time!!! I have never, and really hope to never see again, Philips Arena and CNN Center that packed with people. Very crowded!! But, had no problems with the crowds and we didn't even have any trouble getting out with the traffic afterwards. Just an overall great evening. If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it.

Saturday morning, Heather and I took Ansley to the Mall up in Macon and to some other stores to do some shopping we needed to get done. When we were in the Mall, people were walking up to us and tell us how "precious" and "adorable" Ansley is. To be honest, that's one thing I never get tired of hearing. (Just being the proud Papa here) In some of the stores, she would go to the front window and wave out at the people walking by in the mall. People would wave and smile back. At one point, we were in Old Navy. Heather was looking around the store and Ansley wanted to go to the store front like she normally does. So, we walked up there and she starts her normal routine of watching and waving. A little bit into it, there is a lady with 4 kids standing outside the window. I see them looking at her and the lady looks up at me smiling and says something. They are outside the store and I couldn't read her lips, so I had no idea what she said. We were next to an outside door, so I opened the door to see what she said. Fully expecting to hear, "What a beautiful baby," or "She is so friendly," I asked the lady, "I'm sorry, what did you say?" She looked at me smiling and replied, "I said, your daughter is licking the window." Nice.

The playground

2007-12-31T13:05:00.000-05:00

If any of you reading this are on MySpace as one of my "friends" then you already know about "The Playground." If you aren't on MySpace, then let me get you up to speed.

Back in early December, Heather decided she wanted Ansley to have a playground in the back yard, so she got her one from ToysRUs. She had searched around for a few weeks comparing prices, reading reviews, etc.. After her research she settles on the one we purchased. The reviews were mixed. Some were saying it was great, some were saying it was too hard to build, too flimsy, blew away in a storm, whatever. The more we read into it, the it seemed, if people knew what they were doing, they could build it, if they didn't know the difference between a hammer and a jigsaw, they said the playground sucked. So, we purchased it. It came in 4 boxes, one of them being the slide by itself. The rest was wood pieces and all the hardware. True to the reviews, none of the pieces were marked. But, in the instructions, it says to inventory and lay out all the pieces. So that's what I did. I even laid them out as to what page they were on in the manual. All the pieces on page one were laid in one pile, page two another and page three another. If you knew the difference between a 1x6, a 2x4 and what a 5/4 piece of wood was, and could and work a tape measure, it was no problem. It took about 2 hours to sort through it all, but all the parts were there. I didn't inventory the hardware because there were about 400 pieces of screws, bolts, washers, etc. I just figured whatever was missing, I could pick up at Lowe's.

I worked on the playground on and off for 3 weeks. If I had about 5 full 8-10 hour days, I could have finished it within a week. But, I only had an hour or two on any given day with one full 6 hour Saturday thrown in there prior to Christmas to try and finish it. It wasn't a Santa gift, so it wasn't imperative it was done prior to Christmas, but it would have been nice. Then, we also got a few days of badly needed rain, so I couldn't work on it at all for those days, not to mention days I had to work and other engagements we had to attend. But, after all was said and done, 1 day past three weeks of working on it, it was completed. I had people offering to help on it, but it was really a one person job. One step had to be completed before you could move onto the next. I did build all the separate parts on it first before I started putting the big pieces together. It seemed to make the overall building process go smoother. I didn't have to stop, build a piece, and mount it. I built them all, them mounted them when the time called for it. So, 99.9% of it was built by myself. There was a time or two I could have used another set of hands, but no one was really around, so I just made do.

It was a fun project to build and after seeing Ansley on it this morning, it was worth every bit of time, blood sweat and money put into it. (No tears, it wasn't that hard to build)

The pictures: Top: The pieces prior to sorting.
Middle: The finished product.
Bottom: The reason for it all.

Just a Rant

2007-12-07T19:29:00.000-05:00

Now, I’ll be upfront, this isn’t some politically correct write-up. If you have a problem with people voicing their opinions on touchy subjects then you might want to go to a different web page right now. I’m not writing this to make any friends. I’m writing it to get it off my chest. You’re welcome to read it, but remember, it’s my opinion and my opinion alone. If you agree, great. If not, great also. It’s a free country.
It’s one of those times that, whenever I look at the news, I get mad. You read what’s going on and you wonder how we’ve been able to make it as far as we have considering how many STUPID people there are out there. Looking at today’s headlines… Now granted, I’m picking out the stories of stupid people and not the “feel good” stories, but I’m trying to prove a point here.
The biggest headline right now is the idiot that shot 8 people in the mall in Nebraska. Some of his last words were, “I’ve been shit all my life, now I’m going to be famous.” Umm. No, you’re an idiot. Now, not only are you an idiot, you’re a dead idiot. No one will even remember idiot’s name in 2 weeks. They’ll just remember that some idiot killed 8 innocent people in Nebraska a few weeks before Christmas. That’s not famous, that stupidity.
I won’t go into the stories of people accused of killing their children. That just makes me furious. I’ll just say if the State doesn’t want to foot the bill for the electricity to fry them or the drugs to inject them, hand them to me. I’ve got some left over ammo from the gun range I’ll be happy to donate. I’ll even pull the trigger and not charge the government for my services. Those people do not deserve to live and I don’t deserve to have to pay for their food and lodging in jail. Guilty = BAM!!! Easy enough.
Then you have the case of the “Teddy Bear Teacher.” A British teacher who was teaching in the Sudan allowed her kids to name a teddy bear they were to take home, care for and write a journal about, whatever they wanted. The kids named the bear “Muhammad.” Big deal. When I was over in Saudi, I met about 30 guys with that name. It’s a popular name and used all over the place. Well, true to idiotic extreme Islamic stupidity, the rag heads arrested her. She could have gotten 40 lashes with a whip, 6 months in jail and a fine. Some of them were even calling for her execution. For letting kids name a freaking TEDDY BEAR??????!!!! Her actual sentence was 15 days in jail and deportation back to Britain. Sounds to me like they did her a favor. I’m beginning to wonder why we even bother trying to deal with those people. I say let them blow themselves up. Honestly, if Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Saudi, etc, etc, etc were to go away, would you miss them? I highly doubt it. Would you feel safer in your country knowing they were all gone? Probably so. I say we all go out and buy a pot bellied pig as a pet and name them all Muhammad. It’s a free country and we can do and say what we want. Of course, that would probably get your house car bombed by some jackass that is living illegally here in the States. Just another reason to let them all blow themselves up. If nothing else, get all of the illegal aliens (not just Islamic, but Mexican, Puerto Rican, and any other ILLEGAL alien) out of here. Deport them all!!!! If you don’t pay taxes, go back home. Of course, this is where our own government fails us by doing nothing about this problem. I went on a bit of a tangent there, but 9-11 wouldn’t have happened if those people weren’t in this country.
Now this isn’t anything from the news, but a “discussion” my wife and I had the other night. She was telling me about a co-worker who has had her house broken into twice and attempted break-ins two other times. She said she is worried her husband or 15 year old boy is going to be home at the wrong time and do something they would come to regret. I asked what they could do that they would regret. She said “kill whoever breaks into the house.” My question to that was, “Why would they regret it?” That’s when the “discussion” started. I do not understand how someone could feel guilty about injuring, maiming or killing someone who has broken into your house with the intentions of committing a crime. And, she does not understand how I could not understand. Now, I am military and I’ve been in situations where it almost came to the point where it was going to be “them or me.” I made up my mind a long time ago that, if it came to that point, it was going to be them without a doubt. And that was on military deployments. If you think that mindset is going to be any different when I’m in my own house, you are gravely mistaken. If nothing else, I am even more adamant about it. If someone breaks into my house at 2:00 am, they aren’t there to bake me a cake. They are there for no good reasons. So, as far as I’m concerned, if you break into my house in the middle of the night, I promise you that you will be carried out in a bag. You won’t have a chance to sue me for hurting you because you’ll be dead. How will I feel about it the next morning? When I see my wife and baby sitting there all safe and sound, I’ll be just fine about it. If it takes more than one shot, I may go to the range to work on my aim a bit, but I will have no regrets.
Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure do feel better. Feel free to comment if you want. Please remember, just as these are my opinions and my opinions alone, this is also my space in the web, so I also choose what comments get posted. So if you disagree, feel free to comment, but death threats won’t get posted. : )

Another Hero Loss

2007-11-30T20:34:00.001-05:00

Growing up, we all had heroes, idols, people we looked up to or wanted to be like. Shoot, even a lot of adults still have them, but we ALL had them as kids. Some were adults we knew and others were “famous” people like sports figures and astronauts. Many were even comic book characters for some kids. And, as our childhood heroes, we always knew nothing could happen to them. They were above the “mortal” ways of the rest of us. Of course, as we grow up, we realize they aren’t immortal and, most are, in fact, just like the rest of us.

The reason for this write up? I lost a childhood hero today. Growing up, I idolized the greatest daredevil of his time: Evel Knievel. I rode motorcycles almost my entire childhood and wanted to be just like him. I had every toy ever put out for Evel Knievel and watched every jump that was shown on TV. I watched his movie and I even got to watch the failed Snake River Canyon jump he did back in 1974 in the famed rocket-powered “Sky-Cycle.” I never got to meet the man in person and that was a bummer. But, as far as I was concerned, he was awesome.

Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel:
Born October 17th, 1938 and died November 30th 2007.
R.I.P.

3:00 am ramblings

2007-11-27T03:47:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning because I thought I heard a sound upstairs. So, I got up and checked it out along with checking on the baby. Everything was good, but after walking around the house, letting the dog outside and hitting the bathroom, I was wide awake. I stayed in bed about 30 minutes and gave up trying to go back to sleep. So, here I am, 3:50 in the morning, typing a blog. I'll be honest, there is no telling what this one will say.

First off, kitchen ceiling update: It's fixed. The sheetrock guy came by on the day he said he would and gave an estimate. He showed up the next day and patched it. Then, he showed up the next day and sprayed it. He did it in the time frame he said he would and it cost exactly what he quoted. You gotta like that. And, as I mentioned before, we did not let my sister pay for it. She still has an $800 credit here. So, by the sheetrock guy's price, she's allowed 4 more trips into my attic for free. If you click on the picture to get the full size, you'll see the area that's a bit darker than the rest. That's the patch. I took the picture before everything was completely dry. You can barely notice any difference in the area now. As with everything that's been patched, if you look real hard, you can find it, but anyone just walking in the house and looking around will never notice it.

We started decorating the house for Christmas. We have the big tree up and about 75% decorated. We found out real quick that all the glass ornaments we have for the tree aren't a very good idea this year. I took everything out of the closet and we started going through the boxes to see what was where. The ornament box hadn't been out of the closet more than five minutes and Ansley already had a box of glass ones out, opened, and banging two of them together. As you can see by the picture, we are down one ornament. She wasn't cut or anything. We gave her a box that was loaded with about 25 plastic balls and that kept her busy while we sorted the rest of the ornaments out. So, now we have to make a trip to get more plastic ornaments for the big tree and her tree in her room. Other parts of the interior have been getting decorated also. The stockings are all hung on the fireplace and other small accents are up. The outside hasn't really been started yet. I hung up all the wreaths on the porch, but the lights haven't gone up. It's actually been raining here for a couple days (Thank Goodness) so I haven't been able to do them. We don't do a "Clark W. Griswold" on the house. Just a layer of lighted garland on the porch railing and net lighting on some bushes that are shaped like Christmas trees out front. We add a string or two each year, but we try and keep it from getting gaudy. We'll leave that to other folks on the street.

The baby just woke up crying. I went to soothe her, but I guess Mama's better with that. She didn't stop crying until Heather came up to get her. Oh well, we she wants to play, she comes to me, so I can deal with that.

Oh geeeez. Can someone explain to me why dog farts smell so bad??? Man.. Ripley is asleep in a chair about 7 feet away from me and he just let one go. Wow. That's just awful. Time to open a window and turn on the ceiling fan. (2 minutes later) That's better. Do you know how hard it is to type when your eyes are watering? (No, I don't know how to type the "real" way. I use 2, sometimes three fingers on each hand and my right thumb. That's all. I can type about 40 words a minute that way, but I still have to look at the keyboard.)

I've been getting the itch to fly again. For those of you that don't know, back in 2003, I decided to get my Private Pilot's License. I took the written exam in December of that year and passed it. I started my actual flight lessons in mid 2004. I had a total of about 19 hours logged and 6 solo flights under my belt when I dropped out of the flight school I was attending due to poor management and decision making by the flight school. (When you lose trust in the people you are flying with, it's time to move on) So, I found a local instructor that could teach me in my Dad's airplane. Dad's airplane (a Piper Tomahawk) is a handful to fly and it was nothing like the plane I was used to using at the flight school. I had a hard time getting a handle on the airplane and to keep up with what I learned, I needed to fly 3 times a week. Well, the instructor costs 40 bucks an hour. If you use him for two hours a day, 3 times a week, that gets expensive. So I had to put flying on hold due to financial reasons. My last logged flight was in January of 2005. I've been up since then, I just couldn't log the time. Lately, I've been wanting to finish what I started, so I've been talking to Dad about it. (Damn, the dog just farted again. Holy cow. That's worse than the first one) We're going to get me back up in the air and try and get me comfortable with the Tommy before I start with an instructor. I still won't be able to do the 3 times a week thing, so we'll have to work out something else for me to stay current while in between instructor settings. One thing that really stinks about the whole deal is the written exam I've already passed is no longer valid. It's only good for 2 years if you don't get your license. My two years passed in December of 2005, so I'll have to retake it. For now, I'm going to focus on the flying now and then I'll redo the test later on. I'll update my website under the flying portion when my flight training starts back up.

Speaking of Dad and the airplane, he got a new hanger last week at the airport. The Tomahawk was being kept in an open T-hanger. It kept the rain and most of the sun off of it, but it was still open to the elements to a great extent. The airport built a new set of enclosed hangers and Dad got one. We went last Saturday and moved the Tommy into it's new home. Now, he's in the process of making his own. (wall hangings, tools, work benches, etc) Perfect timing since Christmas is right around the corner.

That's all I've got for now. It's 4:45 am and I have to get up in less than 30 minutes, so I need to get off of here. Not to mention, I want to leave before the dog decides to blow out another one. I hope everyone had a good and safe Thanksgiving.

Procrastination

2007-11-15T20:00:00.000-05:00

You always hear that procrastination never pays off. Well, I have a true to life story that verifies that statement.

Last night, my sister, Leslie, called and wanted to borrow a few boxes we have in our attic left over from the move into this house. I have a fairly big stack of them, so she always calls if she needs a box. I told her I would grab a couple boxes from the attic and put them downstairs for her to pick up the next morning. As per usual, I forgot and didn't do it.
Today at work, I heard my cell phone ringing at my desk, but I didn't reach it in time to answer. I looked at the call log and saw it was my "Home" that called me. I knew my wife was at work so I was wondering why my home phone would be calling me. Then I realized, it was my sister calling about the boxes I didn't get out for her. I called back to the house and she answered my phone. The call went like this:
Leslie: "Hello?"
Me: "Hey, I forgot to get those boxes out for you."
Leslie: "Yeah, I know, but I knew where you kept them."
Me: "So, you got them yourself?"
Leslie: "Yeah. But...."
Me: "But what?"
Leslie: "You know I'm your sister, right? You know I'd never do anything bad on purpose, right?"
Me:"What happened?" (As my heart starts to race)
Leslie: "Weeeeeeeell. As I was coming back across the attic with the boxes..."
Me: "You went through the ceiling"

And then she proceeded to tell me that even though she had a flashlight and made a mental note of every area up there that didn't have plywood on it, she still managed to hit one area that was only sheetrock. Her foot went right through the ceiling in the kitchen between the bar and kitchen table. My biggest worry was she fell through it and got hurt, but she didn't. The area she stepped in is barely big enough for a foot to go in it, but she managed to put her size 8 in there just perfect and go right through. She wasn't hurt, but she was really worried about my ceiling. The ceiling is repairable, little sisters aren't always repairable. So, I'm good with the results. The hole is barely 8 inches across. It just looked much bigger with the insulation sticking out of it.

Not to mention that when Heather and I stayed with Leslie and Dale a couple years ago while we were moving into this house, Ripley (our dog) ripped up about $1000 worth of carpet in their upstairs playroom. They refused to let us pay for it. This hole is no where near a grands worth of damage, so Leslie still has a ways to go to catch up.

By the time Leslie had called me, she had already called Brother-in-Law, Dale and our Mom and Mom had already talked to a sheetrock guy to get it fixed. He's going to be here next week.

Below are three pictures of the hole. All 8 pictures that I took are in my photo area of my MySpace account: Wolfpack764 MySpace

7 Home Remedies

2007-11-14T12:51:00.000-05:00

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES

1. If you are choking on an ice cube simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.
2. Avoid cutting yourself slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold while you chop.
3. Avoid arguments with the Mrs. about lifting the toilet seat by using the shower.
4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.
5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, then you will be afraid to cough.
7. You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.

Daily Thought: SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES. NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

Halloween

2007-11-10T20:36:00.000-05:00

I've been so busy lately, I haven't been able to make any entries.. I've actually got two to make, so I'll do one now and another tomorrow.
The first was Ansley Tiny-Baby's second Halloween. She's still a bit too small to go trick-or-treating, but we did have her dress up for the day. And, since we are in GA, a Bulldog cheerleader seemed fitting. During the Trick-or-Treat times, my niece, Alyssa, and her best friend Angelina, came over and handed out candy at our house. We had pizza delivered to the house and we all had a good time. We didn't have many kids stop by and barely even put a dent in the candy we bought. But, we let Alyssa and Angelina take home whatever they could carry, so that helped out a bit. All in all, it was fun night. Next year, Ansley will be 2 1/2. I'm not sure she'll be old enough to go house to house, but we'll figure that out when the time is closer. Until then, here a couple pictures from Halloween 2007.

Morning from Hell

2007-10-23T14:29:00.001-04:00

Have you ever had one of those days that you just wanted to go back to bed and start over? Today was one of those.

A little background first: We are keeping my cousin’s dog, Jake, while they are on a cruise this week.. Jake, I think, is a poodle. He looks like one anyway.. A white poodle. Jake sleeps in his kennel at night. The first night we had him was pretty bad. He was up all night howling, barking and screaming to get out. I figured it was just because it the first night way from his real family. And, it turns out, the next night was much better.

Heather had to be in Atlanta today by 7:30 am. Meaning she needed to get up by 4:15 and leave the house by 5:30. Since she was going to have to leave early and I was going to take Tiny Baby to Daycare, I decided to take the day off so I could get some stuff done around the house. At 3:50 am, Tiny Baby wakes up screaming. I wasn’t going to work, so I got up to check on her so Heather could get her last 15 minutes.. When Ansley saw me come into the room, she laid on the bed and rolled to far side clinging onto the railing so I couldn’t pick her up. I have no idea why she did it, but she’s done it twice in the last two weeks. Heather hears her still crying over the monitor and comes up. Ansley lets her pick her up. Ok, Mom is the soother, I can deal with that. Heather sits down in the rocker with Ansley and tries to sooth her back to sleep. Our dog, Ripley, follows me wherever I go, so I have to leave the room when Heather is putting Ansley to sleep so the dog will leave also. We both go downstairs and, in the distance, I hear Jake howling and screaming. I figured he heard the commotion with us and Ansley and wanted us to get him. Since it was only 4:00, I didn’t go in there. Around 4:15, Ansley still wasn’t down, but Heather needed to start getting ready for work, so I went up and relieved her. Ansley was tired enough where she didn’t realize (or didn’t care) when I took over her rocking. At 5:15, Heather came up ready to go and I still couldn’t put Ansley down without her crying out. Heather took her form me and said I needed to go downstairs with her. She also said there was very bad smell around the kitchen area. She went down stairs with Ansley and I went to check on the smell. It was right by the back door that went into the garage. But, that was also the bottom of the stairs that led to my office where Jake was kenneled. I went up the stairs and noticed the smell getting stronger. Ok, Jake pooped in his cage and I’ll to clean it up. I just hope he didn’t get any on him. White Poodle + Dog Poop = Not Nice. Well, I opened the door and saw it… Jake had evidently gotten into Ripley’s food and it didn’t agree with him. He had diarrhea and it was all over the cage sides, the bottom and him. It was EVERYWHERE!!! I couldn’t leave him in there, so I opened the cage and let him out. He was so grateful t be out, he had to show his appreciation by jumping on me. So, now, I have an office that smells like an outhouse, a baby that won’t go back to bed; a wife that needs to leave to go to work, a dog covered in crap running around my house and puppy poop prints on my leg. All at 5:20 in the morning. Boy, if I hadn’t decided to take today off, all this would have changed my mind.

I need to get some order in this chaos. After I had both dogs go outside to do whatever they needed to do, I put the poopy puppy back up in my office. I don’t put him in the cage, but I close the office door so he can’t run all over the house and I open a window so he can breathe. He starts to bark, but I can live with that right now. Heather has given me the baby starts to leave. As she’s getting her stuff ready by the back door, the smell overcomes her and she starts to dry heave. She makes it into the garage and opens the door before she hurls all over the garage. Of course, with all this commotion, neither of us are in a good mood now. She leaves and I take Tiny Baby back to our bedroom. Ripley comes in with us and I close the door behind us to muffle Jake’s barking. All three of us lay on the bed and Tiny baby goes right to sleep. It’s now 5:45 am.

I get up about 7:30 and put pillows all around Ansley so she won’t roll off the bed. I get cleaned up and get dressed. At 7:45, I wake her up and start getting her ready for Daycare. I get her changed, dressed and fed and we head out to Daycare around 8:10. I drop her off and the ladies say, “Did Daddy do your hair this morning?” Ok, so doing girls’ hair isn’t a strong point of mine. I told them to feel free to fix it they way they like and they said they would.
Now it was time to come home and tackle the Poop-Meister. I got home and let Jake out of the office and took the cage out side. Fist things first, I washed both dogs. After they were both clean, I went out and washed the caged. Once that was clean, I came in and washed the food and water bowls that were in Jake’s cage and then I threw all the towels I had just used into the washing machine. It washed once and as soon as it was done, I reloaded the soap and washed it all second time. I also lit some smell-good candles and put some kind of smell-good thing that plugs into the wall in the kitchen. Then I went up stairs and cleaned up where he had spilled poop from the cage and where he laid another puddle of it since he had been out with carpet cleaner and then I steam cleaned the entire area. After all of that and a half a can of “Oust” you can actually stay in the room again. In fact, that’s where I’m typing this up right now.

So, the morning to beat all mornings was coming to a close and I was about to sit down and watch a TV show before I balanced my check book when the phone rang. It was my sister and she preceded to tell me that we had a family member die during the night. My Great Aunt’s husband. We are a tight family and everyone is local, so it’s not like it was a “distant” relative that died. To make matters worse, my Mom and her sister (who are my Great Aunt’s nieces) and their families are on a Caribbean Cruise this week and can’t be notified.. Great. My sister will take care of the flowers and such, but with the 2 sisters gone and their families, my sister and I are the bulk of the family this week. My mom will be crushed when she realizes she missed Papa Doyle’s funeral.

Ok, so what else can happen?? I let both dogs go out back to do their business. Jake backs up to a branch that it right against his tail and precedes to poop all over himself again!!! He’s got crap everywhere again. I get a cloth, wet it down and wash out what I can so he’s not trailing crap everywhere. He’s not as clean as he was, but he’s pretty good now.

So, here I am. 2:30 in the afternoon, the poop is clean, the house smells good, the laundry is done, Heather is back in town from Atlanta and talking to me again, the checkbook is balanced and most of the bills are paid. We still have a visitation and a funeral to attend, but it looks like the morning from hell is over for me.

Although, considering what my Aunt Gunny is going through today, my morning doesn't seem that bad.

How to have your day started off on the wrong foot...

2007-10-19T11:45:00.001-04:00

Heather had a golf tournament today and needed to be at work early. I had jobs that had to be done this morning, so I couldn’t go in late. We were wondering how to get Ansley to the daycare when Leslie, my younger sister, volunteered to take her for us. Awesome.. Thank you!!! Leslie came over this morning, picked up Ansley and took her to the Daycare after they opened. Ansley is in a new room since the last time my sister had taken her or picked her up, so when she walked in, the Daycare crew didn’t know her and she didn’t know the routine for this room. She asked what they needed her to do. They showed her where to sign Ansley in and where to place her diaper bag for safe keeping. After she was all signed in, the daycare worker asked my sister, “So, are you the Grandmother?”

Don't use the water...

2007-10-18T18:18:00.000-04:00

(Douglas County, GA) -- Service will be disconnected without warning for Douglas County residents who violate the state-mandated outdoor watering ban. Water Authority employees are patrolling late in the evening and throughout the night in search of violators. Anyone caught using water outside will have their service automatically disconnected and will be charged a one-thousand-dollar restoration fee. So far over a dozen customers have had their water shut off.

Wow....

Update on Car Preparedness

2007-10-11T11:32:00.001-04:00

I’m using the “secret” email address to send this write-up. If the format gets messed up, bear with me and I’ll fix it when I get home tonight. If it works right, cool. I’m also checking to see if my subscribers get the email notification they signed up for. If you are a subscriber and you get your notification, please send me and email and let me know it’s working.

In my last update, I talked about the problems Heather had on her trip to Atlanta. I thought I’d update with what we have done to combat the situation if it happens again.

We did do the tire changing seminar that following weekend. We went over how to put together the jack handle, how to lower the spare tire from the bottom of her car, where to place the jack under the car, how to use the jack and how to remove and replace the tire.

The bottle jack that came with car is a real pain for her to use, so we bought a floor jack that she can carry with her. It’s a bit heavier than the bottle jack, and it takes up more space, but it’s much easier to use, so she’s happy with it. We bought one that came in a carry case, so she doesn’t have a jack just hanging out in the back of her 4Runner. Just a black case.

We also bought an Emergency Road Kit to go in her car. We were making a list of things to put in the kit and were going to buy everything separate until I went to the car section of our local Wal-Mart. They had a 91 piece set for less than 30 bucks. It came with a small assortment of tools, the roadside triangle, flashlight, blanket, tow rope, zip-ties, and even a first aid kit. I don’t remember exactly what all is in there, but it had stuff we hadn’t even thought about adding. Great value for the money.

We are also now card carrying members of AAA. When she had no number to call that night, I knew that needed to changed. AAA was the best way out.. $64 for a single membership and another $30 for a second family member. 94 bucks a year for peace of mind when she or I are traveling back and forth is worth it..

And, last but not least, I have ordered her a container of pepper spray and a stun gun to carry on her person. I tried to talk her into carrying a gun, but she isn’t comfortable with carrying one, so we opted for the stun gun. I was going to go for the Taser, but they are very expensive and bulky. She wanted something she could carry in her purse or pocket. Although some are small, Tasers aren’t known for easy of concealed carrying. So, she has a 1,000,000 volt mini sized stun gun that will actually fit inside a cigarette pack. Although small, it packs a punch. I know I don’t want to get ht by it. As for me, I have my .40 cal Springfield Armory XD by my side. I’m covered.

So, I think we have covered all the bases to help Heather on her business travels. Hopefully we won’t have to worry about it again, but if we do, I believe she’ll be able to handle the situation with confidence next time.

Are you prepared?

2007-10-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

OK.. Something happened the other night that I need to pass along before it catches anyone else off guard..

The scenario: Heather had a business meeting last night in Atlanta. Her and 2 other ladies from work all rode together to the event (or whatever it was) One of the guys that works with them actually followed up in his car since he didn't have to go all the way back down to Macon after the event. Getting there and the event all went without a hitch. The event ended around 10:00 pm and the ladies headed back here with the guy going his way, but still in close proximity of the women. All of a sudden, going down the highway, Heather ran over something and blew out her left rear tire. She was in the fast lane and with typical big-city mentality, no one would allow her to move over to the slow lane to get on the break down lane, so she had to park in the breakdown lane on the edge of the median. You can't get as far off the road on that one and people are haulin' ass one lane over, so it's not a fun place to be.

The Problems: 3 women in the car and no one knew how to change a tire. All three are married and have guys that change tires for them, so, in the past, there was no reason to learn. They knew they needed to get the jack out and they did that, but it was in three pieces and had problems getting it together. Most cars that Heather has owned has had the spare in the trunk or under the storage area in the back. Imagine her surprise when the floor of her cargo area in her '07 4Runner didn't lift up. For a few minutes, they had no idea where the spare was. They found it under the rear of the car and then had to figure out how to lower it. So, here they are, three women in skirts, on the side of I-75 in Atlanta trying to read tire changing instructions off the jack set in the back of the vehicle. And, of course, not one person stopped to offer any assistance. They called the guy that was close to them and he was able to come back. As they were waiting on him to come back, Heather finally called me. She wasn't frantic, but she wasn't in the greatest of moods either.. She asked me what she was supposed to do. She asked if we had AAA or something like that. Unfortunately, we did not have membership into anything like that. Our insurance covers Emergency Road Service, but it's a reimbursement thing. You call whoever, pay them and State Farm pays us back. So, since she was on the fast side of the highway and didn't know how to change the tire, I told her to call 911 and get a cop out there to help them. I would rather her get a cop there and have him around to keep cars from getting too close along with being there in case someone who we didn't want to stop and help decided to do just that. Since I was at home with the baby over 45 minutes away, I was no help. But, she was able to get a cop to show up, their male co-worker also showed up and he and the cop changed the tire for the ladies. While this was happening, the Policeman also spoke to ladies about not knowing how to change a tire, and not having any protection in the car with them. After it was all changed, they all made it home safe. It was a tense hour around here until I heard they were on the way again.

The fixes: First, we are becoming members of AAA. That will give her a number to call 24/7 no matter what happens to the car. Second, this weekend, we are having a tire changing class. Heather will know how to change a tire on her car come Saturday night. Also, since the bottle jack in the car was such a pain in the butt, we're also going to get her a small floor jack that she can carry with her instead. They were in desperate need of a screwdriver for something during the night. I'm not sure for what, but she will have a screwdriver in the car from this point on also. We're going to put in a "break-down" kit in the car. The safety triangle, flares, a blanket a bottle of water, some rope, etc. And, we will get her some protection to keep with her. I'm licenced to carry a gun and will when I feel its necessary, but Heather isn't very interested in carrying a loaded firearm in her vehicle anymore. She's more of a "shoot first, ask questions later" type person when it comes to her well-being and she thinks she'll shoot someone that doesn't really deserve it. So, we're going to look at mace as the first line of defence and a taser for the next step. I think tasers are cool, so having one could be fun. :)

The thing is, this whole episode caught us completely by surprise and we weren't equipped to handle it. Calling 911 and the lucky guy that happened to be up there with them was their only hope. I want her to be able to handle a flat tire on her own and call others if she wants to not because she has too. We're just really glad it wasn't just her and baby that night. And, the piece of mind of being a AAA member in case anything worse than a flat happens in the future is well worth the 64 dollars a year.

Please learn from our mistake. If you don't have a number to call, find one or become a member of some auto club. If you don't know what to do if you have a flat, please get someone to teach you. And, because of the world today, please carry something to protect yourself in your vehicle. You never know...

5 Years

2007-09-21T20:13:00.001-04:00

5 Years ago today, Sept. 21st, 2002, I married my beautiful bride. It's been a wonderful 5 years. We have actually been together since August of 1995, so that has been 12 years, but the marriage has been for 5. I hope there are many more to come. Happy Anniversary to the love of my life.

Diver Congrats

2007-09-16T19:33:00.001-04:00

Congratulations to my Brother-in-Law, Dale. He took his PADI Rescue Diver class this weekend and completed it today. The whole class did great. Scuba Steve, I, and the entire class had a awesome couple of days. All of the students learned a lot of new skills and will be safer divers, themselves and for others from this point on. Congrats to the entire class, especially B-i-L, Dale.

Test of New Way to Publish

2007-09-13T20:36:00.001-04:00

I’ve been reading on Blogger that we can publish a blog entry by just emailing to a “secret” email address. I heard that it actually works from my Bro, Don, who’s in the process of deploying right now. The military blocks Blogger on it’s networks, so the only way for a Military member to update is use the email publisher.

I tried this when I first joined Blogger, but it messed up the template and everything of my blog, so I have never used it since. I thought I’d try it since the new Blogger was online and see if it works this time.

If it does, Thanks Don and Take Care, Bro!! If it doesn’t, still take care!!

Time Flies

2007-09-09T20:33:00.001-04:00

Man.. It just seems harder and harder to get time to sit down and type anything up these days. I don't see how people can do it everyday.. I have a hard enough time trying to get it once a week. But, I wanted to do a quick up date tonight so I'm just making the time while Heather gets her clothes ready for work tomorrow.

I just noticed that Blogger lets you upload video, so I loaded one down below just to see how it works. This was taken Labor Day weekend while we were in Panama City Beach, FL. My sister wanted to take her kids diving before they went on their cruise to the Bahamas in October, so we all headed down to PCB to spend the weekend and do a couple dives with them. We stayed at a condo of a family friend. We had a great weekend. Tiny Baby went to the beach for the first time, ever. She, honestly, could take it or leave it. She did seem to have fun, but she seemed to have more fun in the Kiddie Pool at the Condo Complex more than she did at the beach.

Our dives were in the Gulf of Mexico. We did a wreck called the "Black Bart" and one called "Bridge Span #14." Both had a huge amount of fish and lots of barracuda. The kids had a great time and my sister and brother-in-law had a good time diving with them. This was my sister's first dive since she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. After the chemo and three surgeries, she's back in full swing. She did great on her first dives in a year and a half. This was also Logan's first salt water dive in about a year and a half and it was Alyssa's first dive since her Open Water checkout dives in April of this year. They all did great. M2, a dive buddy from work that dove the "Oriskany" with me, met us down there and he teamed up with me for the two dives. Good times..

Most of the family came back on the 3rd, we stayed an extra day to miss the traffic going back to GA. We took Tiny Baby to Zoo World so she could see and pet some animals. She got to see all sorts of animals and she petted a goat, a duck and a giraffe. I had never petted a giraffe before, so that was a first for me too. Just my luck, he was dirty and shedding something awful. But, we had a good time.

Next dives aren't really dives. I'm helping with the Rescue Diver class that's being taught next weekend. My brother-in-law is in the class, so it will be fun.

Everyone take care I'll try to update quicker next time.

Growing Older

2007-08-27T20:48:00.001-04:00

You know you're starting to get a bit older when you just don't care what other people think of you anymore. I am on a hunt for #1 Mom's birthday present. I know what I want to get her, but it is becoming harder and harder to find it. I did actually find it today and that's when I noticed, I must be getting older. I can't tell you what it is because she reads this page every 10-12 weeks whether she needs too or not, and this might be within that time frame. I asked the salesman how much it was. With a straight face, he spoke a number that left me speechless. I asked him to repeat his price, thinking I added a zero or two in my mind and misheard him. He repeated the same astronomical number and all I could do was laugh at him. I laughed my ass off at him. I politely told him thanks for his time and I would not be back. In my younger years, I would have played off the price and acted like I expected that kind of price and would tell them, I'd think about it and get back to them. Not now, Bubba. I think you're stupid, I'm gonna tell you that I think you're stupid.

As for the birthday present: Back to the drawing board. I better hurry.. Her birthday is the 30th.

Congrats to another diver..

2007-08-20T22:21:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to my friend and co-worker, Sid, on getting his PADI Open Water certification this past weekend. He took the confined course back in July and went on his check dives this past weekend. I was there with him as I was doing my Divemaster Candidate internship this weekend also. So, I actually got to help out with his class.
It was a good trip. We went to Blue Grotto on Saturday. I had been wanting to dive Blue Grotto ever since Scuba Steve told us about it during my Advanced O/W class. I finally got my chance and it was cool. Since we had students, we didn't get to go in the deepest part of the cavern, but I did get to see "Peace Rock" and take a few pictures while we were waiting on one of the groups of students to get in the water. I'll make another trip down there to see the whole thing next time. We stayed in Crystal River that night and ate at Crackers. That is some good eatin'!!! Then we hit Troy Springs the next day for the students to do their last check dive. After they completed their last skill, they were all able to do a dive as newly certified divers. I buddied up with Sid and took him on his first certified dive.
We met some cool folks this weekend and had a great time. I'm ready to go again. But, the next class I help out with will be the Rescue Diver course in September. My brother-in-law is in that class, so I get to help out another familiar face.
Congrats again to Sid for becoming a PADI Open Water Diver!!!

Happy Birthday

2007-08-15T21:32:00.001-04:00

Happy Birthday to my "baby" sister, Leslie. She turned the BIG 4-0 today!!! Although some people may dread turning 40, after two bouts of breast cancer in 5 years, 4 or 5 surgeries, countless rounds of chemo and 1 full regimen of radiation, we're just counting our blessings that she is here to turn 40. And, with everything, including the last surgery, behind her now, she will have MANY more to come!! Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes from everyone out there. Happy Birthday Sis!!!!

The picture was taken last October when she was about to start her chemo. I decided we could be bald together, so she shaved my head for me. Of course, she's grown hers back now and I've kept mine off.

Another Diver Soon

2007-08-07T20:40:00.000-04:00

I forgot to mention that I will have a new Dive Buddy soon. Sid took his confined water class last weekend with ScubaSteve. Everything went well and he is ready for his check out dives the 18th and 19th of August. He had a few things he wanted to work on prior to the trip, so we have been going to my parent's pool and doing just that. We worked on weighting and other things today. He's going to upgrade a couple things tomorrow and then we'll hit the pool again later this week to make sure everything is good to go. Congrats on the Confined portion and good luck with the Check Dives.

USS Oriskany

2007-08-06T20:03:00.001-04:00

As you all know, I'm an avid scuba diver. The weekend of 27-29 July, myself and a group from work went to Pensacola, FL to dive, what is known right now, as the Recreation Dive Site of the World, the USS Oriskany. It is an aircraft carrier that was sunk 24 miles off the cost of Pensacola back in June, 2006 as part of an artificial reef program. It's in 212 feet of water, with the control tower being as high as 68 feet and the flight deck is at 137 feet. Below is my write up I put on my Scuba Forums.. The detailed write up is on my website linked from the "Trips" page.

Report from the Oriskany, 28 Jul 07.
Booked the Charter through MBT Divers in Pensacola. We were charted on the “Tech Rec” with Capt Chris Wachtel and deck mate, his very attractive, yet under-aged, daughter, Erin. They were most excellent hosts and provided a great day on the water. The charter had my group of 4 and two other divers from NC and PA. The 6 of us enjoyed a looong 2 hour ride out to the “Mighty O.” The Tech Rec isn’t the fastest boat to charter to the “O”, but it was the slowest either. In it's favor, it does had a head and cushioned bunks below for those that wanted to nap.
We got above the “O” and Erin tied us off to a buoy. We first splashed at 1100 local with 27% NITROX. We went straight to the Flight Deck. The down line was tied off on the ship at 111 feet, so by the time we got to the end of the line, we could see the flight deck. We jumped down, took a reading showing 137 feet as we stood on the flight deck, and then took a few pictures. With our profile, we only had 9 minutes of bottom time at 137 fsw, so right after pics, we started to spiral our way up and around the island. Vis was only about 60 feet on this dive. Capt Chris said it was the worst vis he had seen in a few weeks. (Lucky us).. We worked our way up and ended the dive 1152 local. Saw a bunch of amberjack, bleemies, triggerfish, and a good number of barracuda.
1.5 hours surface interval and we splashed again. This time we were running 30% and kept our max depth above 100 feet. This dive concentrated on the swim-thrus all along the island. We entered the bridge and took a couple pictures and then hit just about every door we could find working our way up. There was one that allowed you to go up a stairwell and another that took you from one side of the island and out the other. It was an awesome time going into the wreck with no chance of getting trapped or lost. From every open door in the island you can see another door way or opening to the outside. They planned this wreck well for Recreational Divers. Vis, unfortunately, dropped to about 40 feet near the end of this dive. We were all getting low on air, so we called it and ascended to our safety stop. For the most part, uneventful and very cool dive. We had a couple “operator error” minor SNAFU’s, but nothing that caused any harm or danger to anyone in our group. After the diving, there was a loooong 2 hour ride back to the Marina. But, we had a blast on the trip.!!! All in all, a VERY exciting day.
In case anyone is interested, we also ate at two really good joints: The Fish House and Trigger’s Seafood. Both highly recommended. The Fish House is a bit more upscale that we’re used too, but Trigger’s is a down-home “Mom and Pop” type joint that is some good eatin’!!! To finish up the story, we stopped by Morrison Spring and did a dive to rinse the gear on our back to GA. 3 of the 4 of us had never been and the other had been over 4 years ago. Nice dive, but it got crowded near the end. We were running 32% there and got an hour, 27 minutes on that one dive out of an AL80. Afterwards, we loaded up the gear and headed back to GA.. I was back home in enough time to tuck my 13 month old into bed that evening.

All in all, it was an AWESOME trip!!! Thanks to Dive Buddy Dee, Mark M2 and Bill F+10 for going with me. Good dives, good times and good Buds!!! Thanks to all!!!

The pictures are: (top) Me on the Flight Deck of the Oriskany 137 feet down taknen by Mark M2. (Yes, I know my head looks like a glow stick) :) And (bottom) the flags draped off the side of the "Mighty O" in honor of those that served on her. Isn't that just a cool picture?

**D**

Requip

2007-08-06T19:53:00.001-04:00

Have y'all seen the commercial for this drug? It's a drug for RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome) First off, I'm not real sure what restless leg syndrome is. I know the symptoms they show on TV, but is it really a disease?? Well, other than the fact of not knowing what RLS really is, they have this drug that's supposed to help you sleep when you suffer from RLS. Ok, that I can understand.. But, as you know, nothing in this life is free, so for you to be able to sleep, you must also suffer the side effects. This is taken directly from the Requip site:

Prescription Requip is not for everyone. Requip Tablets may cause you to fall asleep or feel very sleepy during normal activities such as driving; or to faint or feel dizzy, nauseated, or sweaty when you stand up. Tell your doctor if you experience these problems or if you drink alcohol or are taking other medicines that make you drowsy. Also tell your doctor if you experience new or increased gambling, sexual, or other intense urges while taking Requip. Side effects include nausea, drowsiness, vomiting, and dizziness. Most patients were not bothered enough to stop taking Requip.

Increased GAMBLING, SEXUAL or other intense urges???? How, in God's green earth, does a sleep medication make you want to gamble or have sex? Can someone explain that to me?

"Honey, I really didn't want to come to Vegas and blow our retirement on Roulette and the Bunny Ranch. It's the REQUIP!!!!"

August 2

2007-08-06T19:46:00.000-04:00

I had my 43rd birthday back on August 2nd. Yep, 43 years ago, in 1964, I came into this world. My lucky parents. LOL...

I try to make an effort every year NOT to work on my birthday. I was able to do just that this year. Me and group of folks from work went to Six Flags Over Georgia for the day instead of working. I had a blast and really enjoyed the company. Sid, Yo-Yo and Cornholio, I appreciate y'all taking the time off and spending the day with me on my birthday. It was a great time. Thank You All!!!!

I also want to thank my family and my In-Laws for the dinners and time spent over the weekend to celebrate also. And, all of those that sent, emailed or MySpace commented me for my birthday. We don't make a big production out of birthdays. Shoot, we're just happy to make the next one. But, when someone does remember it, it is appreciated. Thanks to everyone!!

Another Idol Gone

2007-07-30T19:51:00.000-04:00

I just got an email today from my Dad. It was forwarded from his EAA Chapter to everyone. One of my Airshow Performer Idols, Jim Leroy, was killed this past weekend performing in Dayton, Ohio. I've seen the Bulldog in action on numerous occasions and even had the privilege to hold the pole for his inverted ribbon cut a few years ago. He was an amazing aerobatic pilot as well as an all around good guy. Not to mention he was a veteran that served as a Marine Sniper.

From his website (Bulldog Airshows):

Jim, our friend is now with God. He was performing "Mary's Lamb" at the Dayton air show, doing what he loved.
He passed away at the age of 46, Saturday, July 28, 2007 in Dayton, Ohio. Please keep Jim and his family, who were at the show, in your thoughts and prayers.

Damn.

Sister update and the Tale of the Toyota

2007-07-25T10:25:00.001-04:00

First update: My sister is home from her reconstruction surgery. She had the surgery on Monday and was home the following Thursday. She is mighty sore but is getting better with each passing day. I dropped by to see her yesterday and she seems to be doing very well. She came home with 6 drainage tubes coming out of her body and is hoping to have them removed during her post-op appointment today. Other than being sore and getting wiped out pretty easily due to being able to do nothing for a couple weeks, she is great. She isn't taking very much pain medicine either. If she gets her tubes out today, she will well on her way to recovering and moving more normally. I asked her if she was ready to have a sit-up contest, but she passed on it for right now. :) Thanks for all the well wishes and thoughts.. I'll keep you informed to her progress.
The next update: As you read a couple weeks ago, we got a new Tundra for the family. Well, after Tundra #1 was sold, we decided to get Heather a new car also. She liked her older car (2005 Chevy Equinox) but she was never in love with it. Just not the car she thought it was gonna be. So, we decided to get her a new one also. She was choosing between the Toyota 4Runner, the Toyota Highlander and the Honda Pilot. She did quite a few hours on the web researching, as she always does, and did a few drive-bys and see the vehicles. She got to look pretty good at a couple 4Runners when I bought my truck and she went at the new '08 Highlander when one got on the lot. Although impressive inside (Heather said the inside changed around so much with all the compartments it was almost like a Transformer) but she wasn't all that impressed with the outer looks. She like the Pilot, but the Toyota name has always been good to us, so she started looking very hard at the 4Runner.
This past Saturday, we decided to go look at the local Toyota Dealer in Macon and see what they had on the lot since the Warner Robins Dealer didn't have what she was looking for the day we went up there. We got there and she found a couple and even drove one. When we went in to discuss the price, we found out the one she was she was looking at was a Demo in black with 4000 miles and we figured we could get it for a great price. When they came back with their offer, it was about $1000 over invoice. You have got to be kidding me!!! Heather looked at the offer and decided to go home and see what we could find on the web. She like the Salesman and wanted to deal with him, so we said we'd come back even though they made a stupid offer on that black demo. So, we home and started looking. We found one that met her needs/wants and called the salesman to see when it would be available. It was still at the port and was headed to Alabama, but he could intercept and have it delivered to Macon. We told him not to worry about it.
Later that night, we found a dark blue (the same color as my Tundra) on their website and it had all the options she was looking it without all the extra options she didn't want. We went back up there on Monday to discuss that car. She didn't really didn't want the same color as my truck, but decided to look at it anyway. I thought it would be cool to have the same color, she thought it would be weird. We looked at the blue car and while they got the info it, we found out it was also a demo with 4500 miles on it. The salesman had been called back from his lunch to help us out. We didn't know that had happened, but he hadn't gotten to the restaurant yet, so it wasn't like he left his food. As he went to get the offer, Heather told him he had one chance because we were on our lunch break and she didn't have time to play games. She also told him she didn't expect much of an offer to come back because of the stupid offer they made on the black demo last weekend. He came back with a stupid offer. They still wanted well above invoice for, what we considered, a "used" car. Heather looked at him and said, "You're kidding me, right?" He said he didn't make the offer, he was just the messenger. She said, well you can give the message that we are leaving. And she got up to leave. He asked if she would just wait for the manager to talk to her. She looked at him and then he said, "What would you give for this car?" She looked him dead in the eye and said, "It's not my job to come in here and tell my highest price I'd pay, it's your job to make me an offer I'll take. You're the salesman, I'm the customer." He left and when he came back, she had had time to stew about everything was just mad at them treating her like a "dumb girl." Not to mention it was easy to see they refused to do what she asked. Heather hates paying interest on anything, so she doesn't want the cash back rebate, she wants the lowest APR she can get. And, she wants to know the "Out the door price." Every time they came in with something, it had the 1500 dollar rebate taken out and it was without taxes, tag fees, etc. In other words, no the out-the-door price.
Before he said anything, he looked at me and said, "Did she negotiate your truck like this?" I told him, "No. The Toyota Dealership in Warner Robins made us an offer that was below what we were going to offer, so there was no arguing. You people don't seem to want to work that way." Then he sat down and instead of giving Heather another lower price on the car, he preceded to explain why they were offering what they were offering. And again, it was with the 1500 dollar cash back and no tax, title and fees added in. Heather was about LIVID at this point. She grabbed her keys and said, very professional like, "Keith, I'm sorry I interrupted your lunch. Go get yourself something to eat, because that's what I'm going to do." He said could his manger talk to her and she told him, "No he can't. I see the way (insert name of Toyota Dealer here) does business and I don't appreciate it. We will not be coming back here." And with that, we walked out of the office. As we walked out, I shook his hand and told him sorry it didn't work out, but if he really wanted to make money in the car business, he needed to go work for the dealer in Warner Robins. All he was doing in the Macon dealership was losing opportunities because of their business practices. As I was pulling around in my truck, I saw the Manager talking to Heather in her car window. I saw her shake her head and he walked away.
Heather and I left and went and ate lunch. She was so mad at this time, she said we will never step foot on the property again. At her window, the manger actually made an offer that, if he would have done it in the beginning, she would have taken it, but he waited until we walked out, so she told him to keep his offer. Remember, she had told them they had one chance (and then gave them a second chance anyway) and they decided to play the game anyway, even though they had been warned.
Heather went to the Warner Robins Dealer that day after work. 4 hours later she came home with a beautiful Nautical Blue Metallic 2007 4Runner with 17 miles on it. For a better deal than the Macon wanted to offer for their "used" car. She didn't really want a car that was the exact same color as mine, as I mentioned earlier, but it is a very nice looking car and she's OK with the same color. We never drive both vehicle together anyway, so what's the difference? She was very happy with her purchase and the experience she had while buying the car. I have a problem with "free advertising." I don't do it. If the dealer doesn't throw anything in for free or make it worth my while, I don't run their name on my vehicles. The first thing I do when I get home is take off the dealer graphics and get rid of the tag frame. Heather said she was so happy with her time up there, that if they had painted a big (inset name of dealership here) Toyota sign on her vehicle, she would have kept it. I'm just glad they didn't piss her off like the other dealership did. But, I knew from the day we bought the truck, she wasn't going to have a bad experience. Although I like my dealership, I'm still not going to advertise them for free. Her graphic is on her car, but not on mine.
But, I will give you the name of the dealership to stay away from: And since we only have two Toyota dealerships in the Macon/Warner Robins area, it will be easy to figure out who the good guys are. The one to stay away from is Bill Butler Toyota.
Heather was awesome to watch these last few days. She thought she was going to embarrass me. I was totally in her corner and loving every minute of it. You really can't get the true feeling of how cool she was from words on a blog, but take my word for it, she was awesome to watch. And the whole time, being as mad as she was, never once losing her composure or being non-professional. That's what I have a failure to do, so it was cool watching someone that can work that way. Although they may treat the next female in there like a "dumb girl" they will never think of Heather that way again. She rocks!!! :)
I will post pictures of the new 4Runner as soon as I can take a couple.

Much Better Mood

2007-07-17T20:06:00.001-04:00

I'm in a much better mood tonight. I slept pretty good last night (unlike Sunday night). I did get up at 4:00 this morning with Tiny Baby, but she fell back to sleep within 45 minutes, so I got a tiny bit more sleep before I had to get up at 5:15.

A few updates..

My sister, Leslie, has had her reconstruction surgery. She was under the knife for over 7 hours on Monday. Everything went well and the doc was pleased with the results. They said she was sitting in a chair today. She wasn't a very good mood, but they have her on some good pain medication. The meds actually make her sleep a lot, but she feels no pain when she's sleeping so that's a good thing. She's going to be in the hospital for a few more days and should come home later in the week. All in all, a very good report from the surgery.

I sold the '03 Tundra. For those of you that have no experience with Military folks: Each base has a parking lot they allow members to put their used vehicles in and try to sell them. We pay a dollar a day to put our vehicles there and 90% of the time, they will sell before your first contract runs out, if you have a decent vehicle and don't want a million bucks for it. We call that Parking Lot, "The Lemon Lot." The vehicles there aren't "lemons" but it's a name that was given to the Base Used Car Lot years ago and it just stuck. I put the Truck on the "Lemon Lot" last Tuesday. I got two calls on it on the following Friday. One was a girl that seemed very interested in it and another was a dude that could read. The sign in the window said: "2003 Toyota Tundra SR5 2WD Extended Cab" He called me up and asked one question: "Is your truck 4 wheel drive?" "Ummm.. Oh yeah, normally it is, but the front wheel drive portion really need a break so it's on vacation in the Caribbean. It should be back next week. If you want to buy the truck now, I'll tell them where you live when they get back." Here's your sign. But, Luckily, Buyer Allyson wasn't a dumb ass. She liked the truck and wanted to buy it for her husband, who is deployed, for his birthday. How cool is that? We met and she drove the truck on Saturday and then she had the Toyota place look at it on Monday. She called me Monday afternoon, we settled on a price and I met her this morning to sign the papers at the Credit Union. We signed over the title and she's now the proud owner of my '03 Tundra. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.

I was also able to complete my American Heart Association CPR/AED Instructor course today. I took the course last Thursday, but we had to actually instruct a class and get evaluated to become "official." So, I instructed my first class today. I didn't have to do the whole thing. Our evaluator started the class and did block one. I did block two and another instructor candidate did block three. We did good and are now CPR instructors. The reason I wanted to be an instructor stemmed from last year. I need to be CPR qualified to take my PADI Rescue Diver course. That's when I noticed we had no instructors at work and there was no way for me to get qualified. I took me three months to find a way. I finally had to sit in with Healthcare Givers and take the "Mac Daddy" of CPR courses. I was well trained, but I was trained well above my level. But, hey, when you're desperate, you'll take what you can get. Since I got so pissed off about not being able to get qualified, I decided I can't sit there and complain if I wasn't willing to do something about it. So, I have become an instructor so no one else has to go through what I did to get qualified.

Everything is still a "go" for our Oriskany dive, so we're getting excited about that. I hope we get some good pics and video from it.

That's about all I have for now. If you get time, drop me line and post me a comment. I don't seem to be getting very many comments lately.

Useless People

2007-07-16T02:43:00.000-04:00

I knew I had done a write up awhile back about useless Managers and Supervisors, but I didn't remember what I wrote. I found the original (Feb 16, 2007) but it mentioned more about the useless people in the Corporate world. Which, believe me, there are more than you can count out there. I have no use for those people. The military, on the other hand, doesn't have quite as many, but in this day and age of political correctness and being sensitive to every one's needs, we are starting to get more and more each year. It's a sad state of affairs when the US Military starts worrying about people's feelings. I can honestly say that, when I got out of the Air Force in 1996, I had 2 supervisors that I thought were great guys and role models to being a supervisor. These guys a couple of great guys. We even partied together outside work. But if you screwed them over they would bust your ass just you like deserved to be busted. On the other hand, if you did everything you were supposed to do and you did it to the best of your ability, they would stand behind you 100% no matter who was coming down on them. That's what good supervisor is. And, I will never forget Pat Thorsen nor Matthew Teasdale as long as I live because of their mentoring, their motivational skills, their support and their friendship. Both of these guys had plenty of reason to bust my ass, but both of them also saw what potential I had and they never gave up on me, no matter how much outside forces were trying to make them. And, for that, I am eternally grateful. I have patterned my supervisory skills after both of guys. And, I believe, after quite of few years of supervising young airmen that have made a few mistakes themselves, I think I did a pretty good job of emulating my supervisory "heros."

Now, I was Active Duty for 11 years. And I had TWO supervisors like that. That's not a good ratio. But, since getting out of the Active Duty Air Force and being a civilian for the last 11 years, I can tell you I have had exactly ZERO supervisors that were worth a crap. Not a single one!!! They have all been "Yes" men with no backbone. None have had the balls to stand up to anyone that even questions our motives, much less downright disagrees with what we're doing or how we're doing it. It has been super frustrating dealing with this useless people. After getting royally screwed by my supervisors at both Deltacom and Powertel, I realized that the only person that was ever going to have my back was me. But, when I cam back to the Military, I expected things to go back to the way they were when I was Active Duty. Wrong. The kindler, gentler Air Force has brought about the same type of supervisors and officers that I saw on the outside. No backbone and no backing of their people. They are too afraid of pissing off some higher up, so they just bend on command. It's sad, but I've learned to deal with it. I just go in, do my job and leave. I don't stick around, I don't go the extra mile anymore. It never helped anyway. After they proved that they aren't going to back us when the chips are down, we just do our job to the best of our ability and leave it at that. I don't ask for permission to do anything. I do what needs to be done to get the job done. If it wasn't the right call, then maybe someone will say something to me. But, with these people, it's doubtful. So, I don't put too much worry into repercussions of doing my job the way I see fit. As you can tell, I'm really not worried about it if I'm going sit here and discuss it on a World Wide BLOG. LOL.. Of course, all personal pages are blocked on Base, so none of them can read this anyway. Not that I care. I'll never write anything on this or my website that I wouldn't tell them to their face. But, they are too caught up in their little political ass kissing games to be bothered by a little person's opinion, like mine anyway, so it's moot point. But, I do like to vent and get my feelings out there. That's what helps me release the "pissed-offed-ness" that sometimes keeps me awake at night. Hopefully, this will help me get back to sleep tonight. Actually, I think it might.. My mind is starting to slow as I type now.

On a brighter note: We have booked a charter to dive the Oriskany, the aircraft carrier intentionally sunk of the shore of Pensacola, FL on 28 July. That's gonna be a blast!!! Of course, there will be a trip report and pics when I get back.

My Sis and my Truck

2007-07-15T21:03:00.000-04:00

First and foremost, please keep my sister, Leslie Lorenz, in your thoughts for next few weeks. As most of you know she has gone through two bouts of breast cancer in the last 5 years. She's clear of cancer and is doing very well. But, this week, she goes through, what we hope, is her last surgery. With this stint with cancer, she decided she had had enough and got a double mastectomy. So, now that she is all healed up from the chemo and other surgeries, she is having her reconstruction surgery this week. She went to Atlanta today to check in and she goes under the knife for 7 hours tomorrow morning. It's going to be a long, painful healing process, so please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

As for the truck, Heather couldn't get in the truck all that easy due to the Tundra's size. So, she asked me to put some step tubes on it so she could get in it easier. Since I like the look of the tubes anyway, she really didn't have twist my arm. When it comes to step tubes, I only have one choice. Westin. So, as I was looking at the Westin site, they had put up a big banner that they finally came out with a bull bar for the Tundra. The bull bar can have a front license plate holder with it and since, on the Tundras, you have to drill the bumper cover to mount a plate on the front, I wanted that licence plate relocator. So, as I ordered my tubes and noticed the company had free shipping on everything, I ordered the bull bar and license plate relocator to go with it. I ordered the stuff on Sunday night and it showed up on Thursday afternoon. So, after work on Friday, Sid came over to give me hand, since he has already mounted the bull bar on his Tacoma. After about 2 hours and a beer or two, we had the tubes and bull bar mounted. My sister even gave me a new Dive Flag tag to put on the front, since my original is so faded out. Here is the finished product:

As the Toyota commercial says: MMM, MMM. Tasty.

Thanks to Sid for helping me out...

The New Ride

2007-07-09T20:35:00.000-04:00

I mentioned my new 07 Tundra in an earlier post. I was finally able to take a few pics of it today. Love it!!!

Victory Lane!!!

2007-07-08T19:28:00.001-04:00

I forgot to mention in my middle of the night ramble:

HOW ABOUT MCMURRAY??!!!!!!

Whoo-hoo!! First win since Charlotte, October 11, 2002!!! And, he did it at Daytona, of all places.

Awesome!!!

Hopefully, more to come!!!

Can't sleep. Might as well update.

2007-07-08T00:48:00.000-04:00

I can't sleep tonight. I laid down over two hours ago and just can't get settled down. I finally gave up and came up here to the computer thinking if I can do something up here, it will settle my mind and I will be able sleep later on. So, here I am doing something.

A lot has happened since my last post. So much so, that I haven't had the time to even sit down and write about it. First and foremost, Tiny Baby turned one year old on the 3rd. We had her birthday party on the Sunday before and had a great time. It was a family only occasion and I think she had a really good time. That year has gone by so quick. I can still remember sitting in the hospital that day waiting for everything to be over. Of course, I wasn't the one laying on the bed with patossin running through my body for 12 hours, so I had no reason to complain. But, everything turned out well and we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl who is already growing up too fast.

The 4th of July, we had another family day. Tiny Baby didn't let us sleep very late and so we just kind of lazed around the house and cleaned up a bit in the morning. The In-Laws came by for awhile and then it was nap time. For the baby and us. After everyone woke up from the nap, we all went to my parents' house for a family get together. Tiny Baby and I got in the pool together. She seemed to have a pretty good time, but she wasn't real sure what to make of it. She lasted about 15 minutes and then was over it. So, we got out and visited with all the family after that. She was passed around from person to person for the next 2 hours. She handled it like a trooper and was good the entire afternoon.

The next two days at work were pretty painful. Most of the Active Duty people took off and a lot of the civilians did also. So, those of us that were left, had very little (if anything) to do at all. I had some work I took care of, but after that, it was (twiddle thumbs, whistling...)

Heather and I have been talking about getting new cars. My Tundra doesn't have a big enough back seat for the baby seat to be in there and me to carry a passenger and she just isn't real happy with her current vehicle. It's not a bad vehicle by any means, it's not her dream vehicle and is wanting an upgrade. We've had my truck up for sale for a couple months. I haven't done a whole lot to get the word out there. I've put it in the Credit Union Bulletin a few times and I've parked it out by the street at home on the weekends, but other than riding around with a sign in the window, that's about it. We want to sell mine, use that money as a down payment on my new one and trade hers in to get her one. That's the plan anyway. Today, we decided to go to the Toyota dealership and just look at what they have on the lot. I KNOW I'm getting a Toyota and she wants to have another one, so we decided to go look today. We got to the lot and made it about half way across before a Salesman got to us. We told him we were just looking and he was cool with that. He was asking a few questions and then I told him what we were both looking for. Me, a black TRD Sport Tacoma and her a 4Runner or Highlander. They didn't have any black ones on the lot, but they had two dark blue (Indigo Ink Pearl) ones. Heather loved the color and it grew on me the more we looked at it. They got the keys, started one up and pulled it out in the lot for me to have a better look at it. Yeah, I like this. We decide to run the numbers and see what we're up against. Long story short: After crunching the numbers, looking at incentives, rebates and APR specials, I didn't get my '07 V6 TRD Sport Tacoma. But, I did get my new '07 V8 TRD Off Road Tundra. Yeah, baby. BEEFY. Love this truck. It's got the back seat I needed and plenty of other stuff. It's much more truck than I need, but sometimes, excess is a good thing. I don't have a pic of it yet, but I'll take one tomorrow or so. I do need to mention that getting the Tundra instead of the Tacoma was actually Heather's idea. We she crunched the numbers on the Tacoma with the APR we were being offered versus the Tundra with Toyota's 0% APR for 60 months, financially, it was a no brainer. I'm REALLY glad I have her when it comes to everything, but especially when it comes to matters of the pocketbook. :)

I'll leave you all with this picture.. We're getting Tiny Baby to feed herself. That works out great with chicken nuggets, peas and corn and things like that. Chef Boy-R-Dee Beef-o-Roni? Not so much.

Golf and the Single Parent

2007-06-23T21:02:00.001-04:00

Not much to write this week. The work week was ok. Nothing spectacular, but nothing overly detrimental either, so I guess that's a plus.
Thursday, I was hired to do a cabling job (my other job when I'm not doing my normal job or my military job) up in Macon. I took the job and was hoping to get it done fairly quickly. Well, I misheard what the job was and instead of being a "one cable run to the other side of the wall" it ended up being 3 cables, run 150 feet down the hall, through a cinder block wall, across the room, down the wall and over. That was a bit more than I expected. But, I went and did it. Unfortunately, I didn't get done on the first day, so I had to go back over the weekend to get it completed. It was one of those days that I had the "Un-Midas Touch." Everything I touched turned to crap. I ran the cables ok, but then the panduit I bought wasn't big enough for three cables to run through it. While I was trying to mount the faceplate box, I broke it. While I was working in the ceiling, I slipped on the ladder and when I grabbed for something to get my balance, I pulled some supports for the ceiling tiles out and they went crashing to the floor. Then, I left my toner plugged in one of the jacks I was tracing (from Thursday to Saturday) and killed my battery. It was just one of those days. But, as I went back today, rested, refreshed, with a better attitude and more parts, it all came together quick and easy. The new cables are run and active now. I do appreciate my Dad going up there with me today. It's always nice to have some company.
I did get a bit of time away from work this week. I played in a Golf Tournament on Friday. My golf game, which is never really existent, was even more non-existent this week. It was a four person Scramble and they didn't even use one of my shots until about 6 holes into it. Once they started using mine, I was able to hit a few good ones, but I wasn't much of a team player this week. I guess playing once every month and a half isn't the best way to get good, huh?
I'm also a single parent this weekend. #1 Mom needed a Girls Weekend away, so she and two of the ladies she works with all packed up and headed to the North GA Hills this weekend to stay in a cabin and just relax. Hopefully, she's having a good time.
Tiny Baby and I are having a good time together. Since I had to do that job today, Mom came over and watched the baby while I went and did the job. My mom isn't one to just sit around while she's here (neither is my mother-in-law), so while I was gone and baby was napping, she started cleaning my house and doing my laundry. Whoo-hoo!!! Thanks Mom!! Then, when we got back, Dad wanted some time with the Baby, so I was able to run outside and cut the grass real quick. Thanks Dad!! :) They left and it was just the two of use, plus the dog, plus the parrot. It's now 9:20 pm and everyone is asleep but me. So, I decided to sit down and write a bit on the BLOG.
Like I said, not much to write about, but like always, I can take not much and still be long winded about it.
Y'all take care...

Happy Father's Day

2007-06-17T19:47:00.001-04:00

Happy Father's Day to all the Father's out there.
Especially my Dad, Don Hall and my Father-in-Law, Ed Warren.

Thanks to all of you that emailed, Commented or text-ed Happy Father's Day messages to me today. It was really appreciated.

I hope you all had a great weekend.

Water, water everywhere. You can even drink it if you want.

2007-06-16T13:47:00.000-04:00

We have irrigation!!! And, for once, everything worked as planned. I really expected a comical weekend, but, fortunately for me, it wasn't to happen.

BP sent me a list of items I needed to pick up from The Home Depot, so on Wednesday, I went and got them. I had to borrow a trailer from a friend at work to get 30 pieces of 20 foot long pipes to the house, but that was easily done. On Thursday, I went and picked up the trencher and had it at the house for Friday morning. The plan, as I understood it, BP was going to show up at my house around 10:00 and and start working. We would get done what we could that day. He would crash at my house that night and we would finish the rest the next day. That's not exactly what happened.

BP did show up at the house around 10:30 am. I met him there and he laid out the flags where he was going to install the heads. Originally, were going to have 6 heads in the front yard and 4 in the flowerbed. When it was all said and done, we had 10 in the front yard and 7 in the flowerbed. After that, we started digging near the house to find the water main going into the house. He wanted to have the vales within the flower bed, so we started digging. After about 45 minutes of digging, we never found it. So, he decided to dig out of the flower bed and closer to where the main shut off is in the yard. 2 minutes of digging and we had the line. So, he decided to have the valves in the yard for simplicity sake. After he decided how to run the main feed line and where to run the lines to each head he laid out, he got the trencher off the trailer and trenched the yard. Where he crossed two trenches, I grabbed the shovel and cleared out the intersections of dirt. I was known as "Paco" for the rest of the day. I was hoping we could get all the trenching completed by 3:00 pm because I only rented the trencher for one day and it had be back by 4:00. I was worried, but BP didn't seem to think it would be a problem. And, it wasn't.

After the trenching was complete, we laid out the pipes all around the yard. (The top picture) Once it was all laid out, BP went to installing the backflow preventer, or whatever it's called. Once that was installed, we started gluing all the pipes together throughout the yard. After the main pipes were joined, BP installed all the valves for the 4 sections and then we started putting in our T-junctions where the head were going to run off the mains. After all the T's, the lines and caps were installed, it was time to start putting on the heads. BP cut the "funny pipe" and gave me a bunch of connectors and we were off the races. We were racing against the weather because Mother Nature started grumbling and the rain was a comin'. We got about half way through putting the head on and it started raining. BP asked, "Is it going to blow through quick?" I said, "Sure." 30 minutes later, it was still coming down and I was drenched. BP, I noticed, was sitting on the front porch drinking some water and was nice and dry. He said one of us needed to keep the integrity of a dry work force and he volunteered for it. So, while he sat on the porch, I finished putting the heads on the lines. When I was done, I don't think I had a dry spot on me. And, of course, after I was done and soaked, the rain let up. It came back shortly after it let back and we decided to take a break. The bottom picture was taken during the "rain delay." We had the trencher loaded up and ready to take back, so while we waited for the rain to go away, we went an returned the trencher around 3:30. We dropped by Home Depot to grab a couple things and then back to the house.

We got back to house and the rain was gone. We covered up all the lines we dug except for the ones waiting on wire or covers. BP then went about putting the heads in the ground, while I... Hmm, I'm not sure what I did during this time, but I don't think it was much of anything. After the heads were in the ground, BP tested them all with the manual on-off on each valve. Everything was working, so it was time to wire it all up. We needed a bit of wire, so it was off to Lowe's. 20 minutes later, we back at it. BP ran the wire and then started jumpering everything together. After that was done, it was time to get the wire into the house so we could attach it to the control panel. We measure a spot on the outside wall of the laundry room and drilled into it. Perfect placement. Mounted the control box, wired it all up, checked the wiring, found one small problem, fixed it and we had 4 working sections of an irrigation system.

BP turned everything on and then adjusted the sprayers for the coverage that we needed. After that, we sat down for a quick bite to eat. Around 8:00 that evening, BP was on his way home. We trenched, built and installed an entire system of 17 heads in 9 hours. That was a productive day!

I thought it was going to take two days, but we did it in a day. The only thing I had to do when I got up this morning was put in the maintenance covers over each valve, cover the trenches that had the wire running through them and bury the wire going to the house. That was no big deal and I was happy to do that this morning. It went off without a hitch and everything worked after I buried it all. Although, by looking at my hands right now, you can tell I don't do much manual labor anymore. They are covered with blisters. And, yes, I'm sore.

MANY Thanks to BP for all the work, help, expertise and education during the installation. It was great time, a great project and it works great!!!

If anyone in this area is looking for irrigation, BP's business is Lakeside Irrigation (http://www.lakesideirrigation.com/) and I have his contact info. His website is under construction, so it's not working at 100% right now. He is based out of the Columbus, GA area, but he is more than willing to come this way for jobs. And take it from me: He does a great job!!!

TomYuck

2007-06-14T20:31:00.001-04:00

Holy Crap!!!!!!!! I have finally found the most putrid dish in Warner Robins that is supposed to be made for human consumption.

Heather had been craving sushi over the last week. We have a place here that we used to go for Sushi for lunch, but the owner opened a new restaurant down the road and is trying to drive business to it, so he doesn't open our normal place for lunch any more. So, instead of trying the place where we know the owner does good sushi, we decided to try a new place. It's actually not a new place, but we have only made one trip to it prior to today, so it's still new to us. It's a place that serves Japanese Sushi and dishes along with Thai dishes. So, Sid and I met Heather there for lunch today. We got there, sat down and start looking through the menu. I found some sushi I wanted. Some they named after the town in which we live. They were called the Warner Robin Rolls. Rolls of rice, filled with crab meat and tempura flakes. Nice combo and none of that vegetable crap in it. Since there were only a few rolls on the plate, I decided to get some soup to go with it. I didn't realize that Miso soup was the normal soup I got and I ordered something called TomYum Seafood soup. It had scallops, mussels, shrimp and other stuff in it. Sounded great. The spring rolls showed up and Sid and Heather ate them. Then Heather's sushi showed up. Right after that, my soup showed up. Heather was downwind of me and she started gagging right after the soup got to the table. She asked if that was my soup of her sushi. I bent down and smelled my soup. OH MY GAWD!!!!!! It was the most foul smelling stuff I had ever smelled. It literally smelled like sweaty ass. I am not kidding you. If you want to smell the smell of that soup, run your fingertip across your butthole after a hard day's work and take a big whiff. It was unbelievable. I actually tried to eat a couple bites of it, but the smell was so bad, it permeated everything around us. Heather had a napkin over her mouth and was about to throw her food away because she couldn't eat. Most smells don't have a taste, but this one was so bad, it did. I tasted what I think sweaty ass would taste like in the two bites I took of the soup. It almost made me gag. I finally just had to push it aside and hope the waitress would come and check on us quick so she could take it away. Luckily, she did show up quick and she asked if I was done with my soup. I said, "Yes." She said, "You didn't like it." I said, "No. And, by the way, have you ever smelled that soup?" I didn't tell her what I thought it smelled like, but Heather was rolling. I wasn't sure if she was rolling with laughter or just licking the carpet to try and get that smell out of her head. Later, she told me that usually I'm not very outspoken about bad food and that's why she thought it was so funny when I asked the lady if she ever smelled the soup. Believe me, there are some things in this world people NEED to be vocal about and this friggin' soup definitely qualifies. So, please take it from me, if you are ever at the Sushi-Thai place in W/R, don't, for the love of God, order the TomYum Seafood soup.

On a good note, I have my trencher, all my pipes, fittings and parts for my irrigation system. BP will be here in the morning and we will get to installing it over the next two days. There will be pics and a write up with it.

Another week gone by

2007-06-08T19:51:00.001-04:00

And, another week without a post. There's been a lot going on and I just haven't had the time to write. Last week, everyone in the family was sick with some kind of nasty stomach bug that's being passed around. We've all had it in the past. Tiny Baby got it from daycare and passed it to each of us. We were all down for about three days. This time, Heather got it from a lady at work (it's passed by physical contact and she was all in this lady's office.) We didn't know she had it and then she passed it to the baby. I was the lucky one. I thought they both had a small case of food poisoning. Until Tiny Baby threw up all over me. That's all it took and 6 hours later, I was praying to the porcelain princess for the next 12 hours. It was so bad, even the dog threw up. It was a rough couple of days in the Hall household. But, again, the Mother-in-Law came to the rescue and stayed at the house and watched the baby on the day I spent hugging to toilet. She was a GREAT help yet again when we got sick. And yes, if you remember the last time this happened, I lost my voice. It happened this time too. Fortunately, the sickness only laid any of us out for about 24 hours. So, no three day ordeal this time. Come the weekend, we were all 100% again, except for my voice. But, I had drill, so I worked all weekend anyway.

Speaking of drill and uniforms. Both Sid and I sewed on TSgt. Sid on 1 Feb and I did it on 1 May. No thanks to my useless training NCO at the Squadron, but thanks to our local Training Guru, my supervisor, my Squadron Commander and a couple nice ladies at the MPF, I was able to finally sew on TSgt. Sid earned his the old fashioned way: Testing, medals and EPR's. I just did a 2 week school and was given the stripe. But, you know what? I'll take it. So, today, he and I invited some friends/co-workers to the club so we could buy them all a few rounds to celebrate our stripes. It was nice turn out and we had a good time. I had sent out the invites and when we looked around at the table while everyone was there, we had invited 8 or 9 women and 2 guys. Actually, that's what was there, but there more of each that were invited that couldn't show for one reason or another. But, I didn't realize how much the female to male ratio was slanted. Need me to do the invites for your next party???

Some of my dive buddies are headed to Lake Juliette tomorrow. I wanted to go, but there are some things I need to do around the house to get it ready for the sprinkler system next weekend. And, I bummed up my knee somehow. It feels like it's going to give way at any minute. If it doesn't get better by next week, I guess I'll have to go get it looked at. But, what ever is wrong, I couldn't be walking around with 40 pounds of gear on my back with my knee the way it is.

I will leave you with this that I overheard in a conversation at the Hospital last weekend while I was doing my yearly physical exam: "I wonder how you field dress a moose?" You know, that's just something you rarely hear in a hospital conversation in Middle Georgia.

Take the time...

2007-05-28T10:11:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day began in the United States on May 30, 1868, after the Civil War had ended. Flowers were put on the graves of both sides, in order to help heal the nation. It was later expanded to include all men and women who had died in America's wars.

It is now celebrated on the last Monday of May.

For many, this day carries no special meaning except perhaps an extra day off from work and school, a barbecue, the start of the summer holiday season, and for stores, the opportunity to hold their annual Memorial Day Weekend sale.

In reality, the holiday is observed in honor of our nation's armed service personnel who were killed in wartime.

If you know anyone that was killed during a war or know anyone that has lost someone in time of war, please take the time to remember them.

If you know anyone that has served or is serving this great country, please take the time to Thank Them.

We have porch swing

2007-05-26T15:06:00.000-04:00

Yes, we now have a porch swing!!!

My Dad read the entry about my failed attempt at hanging our porch swing and called to offer assistance in repairing what I destroyed and getting it hung up correctly. I readily agreed to his offer. My Dad ran his own housing construction company back in the 80's. He's built both houses lived in growing up along with close to 20 other houses in the local area. I even roofed some of those houses while I was in High School to make an extra buck or two. So, when it comes to knowing how to work on a house, my Dad knows his stuff.Dad had his monthly EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 38) meeting this morning and then he was supposed to go and finish up an engine overhaul on his airplane. After he finished putting the engine together, of course, a test flight was in order, so I didn't expect to see him until about 4:00 this afternoon or so. But, the part he was waiting on didn't come in yesterday's mail and today's mail wasn't going to run until about 2:00, so he came over right after the meeting. The first thing he did was decide that all of the vinyl that was partially coming down, needed to come down all-together so we could fix the wood it was mounted too. First we had to figure out how to get it down without tearing it up. Once we figured that out, we decided to run to Lowe's to get some screw-nails, roofing nails and a tool to separate vinyl pieces. Once we got back from Lowe's it was on the disassemble, which went very quickly. After we pulled all the vinyl down, we reattached the strip of plywood with screw-nails. After that was back up, we started putting all the vinyl back up. Again, that went very smooth also. Once we got the vinyl all the way back to where the swing mounts were gonna go, we measured and drilled the pilot holes for the eye bolts. Then we finished the vinyl . After that, we located our pilot holes under the vinyl and drilled into it. (Of course, I didn't find the pilot hole in my first attempt of drilling a small hole in the vinyl, or even my 4th attempt on the left side. Thank goodness for caulking) We installed the eye-bolts and hung the swing. Then the test. Dad sat down on it and it held. Then, I sat down with him and it held. We have a working porch swing!!! The biggest test of faith: Heather sat down it with my Dad.. When Heather will sit on it, you know she trusts it, so we are good to go. Thanks Dad for all the help!!!! You know I couldn't have done it right without you!!!

Forthcoming Lawn Care

2007-05-24T19:40:00.001-04:00

BP is probably my most regular reader. (It was his idea for me to even get this BLOG because he didn't like the way my self-made blog looked on my website.) :) Anyway, he read my entry on May 20th about killing my lawn and wanting to install an irrigation system in the front yard so I could start mowing grass instead of weeds and dirt. I had forgotten that he installs lawn sprinkler systems as a side business. He called me up the next day and told me he would be more than happy to design me a system. He said he could order a lot my parts through his business, and he would come help me install the system one weekend in the near future. He gave me a quote, I checked with "The Boss," and, after she OK'ed the deal, we've got us a plan. Of course, when we install this thing, I'll be taking pictures and doing a write-up because, you all know, when I'm involved in something, it never goes as planned, so it should be interesting. I know BP knows what he's doing, but my karma seems to come into play with even the most knowledgeable of people. I don't even call it bad luck.. I call it: Just another chance at a good story for the BLOG. :)

Crap...

2007-05-23T20:04:00.001-04:00

Last weekend I finally got around to hanging our front porch swing. When my Grandfather died last February and the daughters were getting ready to sell his house, they gave Heather and me the porch swing from his house. We were the only folks in the family with a front porch and had a use for it. I took it to my sister's father-in-law and he refinished the swing and painted it white to match our porch. Unfortunately, the swing has been sitting on the porch floor since last August because of one reason or another and was never hung. So, this past weekend, I was finally able to make the time, buy the parts and get it hung. To start off, just about every piece I bought to hang the swing had to be bent, stretched, ground or cut to work, but I was finally able to get it all together. Then, it was on to hanging it. The right side (as you look at it) went up great and it was sturdy. When I worked on the left side, however, it didn't feel near as sturdy and it felt like only a thin piece of wood was all that was up there when I drilled the pilot hole for the eye bolts. I decided to try my luck and hang the swing there anyway. After it was hung, I sat in the middle of the swing and it felt fine. I swung in it for a little while and had no problems. The left side still bugged me, but I guess it was going to hold. I told Heather later that evening, that some time the next day, we both ought to sit in it to make sure it was going to hold.

The next day, I was walking the dog and decided to sit in the swing again. Ripley jumped up in the swing and went to the right side, so I sat on the left. I think it held about 7 nano-seconds. The whole left side ceiling of the porch above the swing came crashing down while the swing and my butt crashed to the floor. After I moved the vinyl siding off my head, I looked up to see what had happened. When I installed the eye bolt, I missed the stud and put it in a sheet of plywood that was only about 8 inches wide. That plywood was then nailed by two nails into each stud for the entire 8 foot length of the plywood. When I sat down, the eye bolt stayed in the plywood, but the plywood came off the studs it was nailed on. As it ripped down, it pulled the vinyl siding down with it and made a big mess of the whole area. On the bright side, I can now see the studs I need to put the eye bolts into. I just need to get some extra time and an extra set of hands to help me get the vinyl back together and nail everything back up.

Now I remember why I never started that construction company....

CONGRATS!!!

2007-05-21T20:47:00.001-04:00

A hearty Congratulations goes out to Dive Buddy Dee. She earned her PADI Advanced Open Water certification AND her Enriched Air/NITROX certifications this past weekend. She also made her first ocean and night dives of her diving career for these certifications. Below is her quick write up of her events:

All I can say for my first dive in the ocean--Oh Wow! We dove Friday and Saturday. Friday, the weather was beautiful and the water was calm. Perfect for my first dive. We did two dives that day and went back that night for two night dives. During the day, we got to see a shark hiding under the reef, a sting ray, puffer fish, lobsters, big blue fish that I can even name and soooo many others. It was just beautiful. Then we went back for a twilight dive. The weather was rough with thunder and lightning all around us and huge waves (to me) as we jumped in. As we descended, you could see the lightning from above and hear the thunder. That was the coolest thing ever. The reef was very active at this time of the day. The current wasn't too bad either so we just floated gently along the wall looking for critters. We saw two wrecks on this dive. We came up just before dark and did another dive after dark. Spooky but fun. We were at the wall of the reef and that's when it happened...we were attacked...by a turtle! Yes, this peaceful animal came gracefully gliding toward us out of the dark and I thought, "How cool!" But then it kept coming right at me and I had to get out of the way. Tim, Dick and I were right there together and this turtle kept doing figure-eights around us causing us to keep dodging it until it finally rammed Tim and then left. It was quite an experience! Mark, who was hanging out just above all of this commotion, later said that it was quite amusing. The next day we did two more dives. The first was my deep dive for AOW so we went down to 97'. The water was so clear at this location that you could see the bottom almost as soon as you got in. This was also a drift dive but I think it was more like a fly-by as I swear we were going 30mph. (I later asked Tim how fast we were going and he said about 2mph.) Anyway, it felt like we were flying! It was the most beautiful dive of the trip with the water that clear as we sailed over the reef. We saw a couple more turtles on this day but they were all sleeping. Anyway, wow! Thank you Tim and Diversity Diving with Capt. Tony and DM Sherry for a great trip! I hope to do it again soon. Dee

Congrats Dive Buddy Dee!!!!

You done good. :)

Oh Yeah....

2007-05-20T20:49:00.000-04:00

If anyone went to the GA Dive Show in Atlanta over the last two days, can you pop me an email and let me know how it was? I didn't get to go because of the stuff we had to do around here. (Not to mention I had been gone three weekends in a row, so there was no kitchen pass being issued this weekend) Thanks....

Another weekend has passed...

2007-05-20T19:53:00.000-04:00

Another weekend has passed, and it was a good weekend. It looks like Tiny Baby is finally over her stomach bug, allergies, pink eye or whatever the heck it was she had. She was out of school all last week and will finally go back tomorrow.

Saturday, Heather and I cleaned up the house during the morning while Tiny Baby took her morning nap. After she woke up (3 hours later) we went to the Mall to get her Mother's Day present. Heather has wanted a bit of "bling" to wear for awhile now and I figured her first Mother's Day would be a great excuse to buy her some bling. After looking around and having my sister look for me, I never saw anything that I was comfortable getting because Heather can be very particular about certain things. As I was in one of our local jewelry places a week or so before Mother's Day, the girl working the counter told me they were having a custom jewelry show on the 19th and they could make anything she wanted. So, that's what I did.. I gave her a nice thing of flowers and a card that explained the custom jewelry thing and that we would go that day and have her something made. So, Saturday, we went to the jewelry store and she picked out her necklace and had a ruby (Tiny Baby's birthstone) added to the arrangement. She has been wearing that necklace every time we leave the house. Heather has never been one to put a lot of emphasis on material goods, but she LOVES this necklace. It's worth every penny I paid for it just in the joy she displays when she wears it.

Now, while we were shopping, we decided to stop by the food court and grab a bite to eat. There standing in line at the Chik-Fil-A was this lady. She had to be in her mid to late 30's and about 30 pounds over weight. She had bleach blond, long, curly, stringy hair. She had on shorts and a top that showed her midriff. Her pot belly was poking out further than her boobs and with the short shirt, you saw it in all it's glory. On the shirt was written: EYE CANDY... After seeing that "eye candy" you almost wanted to take one of the chopsticks from Yokohama's and jam it in your eye. But unfortunately, the image was already burned into your memory so you would accomplish nothing by poking out your own eyes after the fact.

After the most enjoyable trip to the mall, we went by my parents' house so they could spend some time with Tiny Baby and then it was back to the mall to pick up the necklace. After that was dinner, putting the baby to bed and Nextel All-Star Challenge. My man, McMurray didn't make it to the All-Star event, but he ran good in the Open and it looks good for his car in the 600 next weekend. Maybe we'll see another good run by the 26 team this coming week. For those of you that follow the Cup series, how about Busch taking out Busch???!!!!

Sunday, we decided to do some work around the yard. Somehow, last year, I managed to kill our grass. Now, when I cut the weeds out front, I have more dirt, rocks and dust flying out from under the mower than grass. So, we've decided to put in an irrigation system. It's in the planning stages, but it shouldn't take too much time or money since we have a small yard. But, even though I have no grass to work on, there are plenty of weeds in the flower beds and everywhere else. So, Heather pulled up the weeds while I FINALLY installed our front porch swing. It's been sitting on the front porch for about 9 months now and I finally got all the parts to hang it today. So, she got the weeds, I hung the swing and she and her mom planted more daylilies around the house. Maybe if we have enough flowers around the house, no one will notice the huge dirt patch that's supposed to be the front lawn. Hopefully, the irrigation system will put enough water on the lawn that our grass will come back. My Father-in-Law seems to think it will, so we'll see when we get some real water on it. You know I'll update here whether it works or not.

Now, I sit here typing my BLOG while #1 Mom puts Tiny Baby down to bed for the night. It's been a very good and productive weekend. You gotta love those types of weekends... Hope you all had an equally enjoyable and/or productive weekend.

Since I didn't have a picture that really went along with this entry, I decided to just upload a pic of the family that was taken on Easter Sunday. The post was mostly about the entire family, so I guess it's fitting.

This weekend...

2007-05-16T20:21:00.000-04:00

Good Luck to Dive Buddy Dee this weekend. She is headed down to Boca Rotan, FL to get her PADI Advanced Open Water certification and her Enriched Air/NITROX certification. When I get her trip report, I'll write about it here.

New Diver!!!

2007-05-13T20:06:00.000-04:00

As of last weekend, we now have a newly PADI certified diver in the family. My niece, Alyssa, was able to do her check out dives on the 5th and 6th of May and received her PADI Jr. Open Water certification. I was supposed to go with them as the Safety Diver, but they changed which instructor was to go with them just days before the trip and it wasn't an instructor I work with, so I was left out in the cold. (sort of)... But, this isn't about me.. This is a very big CONGRATULATIONS to Alyssa for doing her check out dives and doing great with her skills. Her brother and Dad were along for the trip, so she did have moral support. Not to mention, it's very cool to dive with your family members. That's awesome Baby Girl!!! Now, let's go diving!!!

Never fear for me though.. I wasn't left in the cold for long. Scuba Steve, since he couldn't go on the check dive trip either, got me invited on a spearfishing trip he was going on that weekend instead. We had a blast!! Highlights: Racked up 6 dives over the 2 days, I speared three fish and dove a cool wreck. We also saw a 500 lb fish. The full write-up is here. And the pictures are here.

One picture everyone wanted to see was the "Dragon Hood" in action. Although the water was actually too warm to warrant wearing a hood, I wore it on our first dive so I could get the picture I promised.

And here it is:

Whoops..

2007-05-08T20:44:00.000-04:00

I didn't realize it had been so long since I made an entry.. Sorry about that.. Been kind of busy.. My wife's grandfather died last week, so we had visitation and funeral days. Then, I went away for 3 days on a spearfishing dive weekend with some friends down in the Gulf of Mexico. The write up about that weekend will be ready in the next day or two.

A quick update about Tiny Baby: She crawls with lightning speed now. She can hold her own bottle while she drinks. She can drink from a "sippy" cup. She can stand up while pulling up on something. She has her first tooth. She can eat soft table foods and crackers with the best of them. And while we're on the subject of food: She has learned that if she drops food on the floor next to her highchair, she can see her dog when he comes to eat it. Fun times!!!!

Gun Control

2007-04-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

Since the shooting at Virgina Tech, gun control has been brought to the forefront of debate again. As always, the Gun Control Freaks are screaming that guns were the cause of this.

Hey Dumbasses: The guns didn't walk in the school by themselves and pull their own triggers killing those 32 people and one ass. The jerk-off behind the trigger did the killing.

I just got this in an email tonight and it's perfect timing:

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." - Thomas Jefferson

FIREARMS
1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a victim.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Colt: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
7. "Free" men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don't know your rights you don't have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved.
11. What part of "shall not be infringed" do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others.
13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies; rust and politicians.
15. Know guns, know peace, know safety. No guns, no peace, no safety.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer.
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we ALREADY have, do not make more.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
26. "A government of the people, by the people, for the people..."

'Nuff said...

It ain't like it used to be...

2007-04-24T16:02:00.000-04:00

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because o f creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Whatever happened to these values??????

24 April 07

2007-04-24T10:39:00.000-04:00

Those of you that know me, know about April 19th and what it means to me. For those that don't, April 19th is the day of the Oklahoma City Bombing back in 1995. I lost a very good friend that day, Cartney Koch McRaven. Her memory is as fresh to me today as it was 17 years ago and I wear a black KIA bracelet on my right wrist in remembrance of Cartney. Each year on April 19th, I get kind of reserved and quiet, which, again for those of you that know me, know that quiet and reserved is not me. I just keep to myself that day and around 10:00 EST, I go find myself a quiet place where I can't be disturbed and have my own few moments of silence in honor of Cartney and the other 167 souls lost that day. This year was no different. The biggest difference was I didn't really feel like writing about it until today. I did a write up about the day that Timothy McVeigh was executed and my feelings of that day. If you are interested, it's here.

12 years. Wow. It's really hard to believe it's been that long.

We still miss you, Cartney.

Comic Book Guy Update for 23 Apr 07

2007-04-24T10:32:00.000-04:00

Ok.. Again, the guys had to go back to the comic book store. They keep telling they have a cute girl that works there. Uh, huh.. I'll believe that when I see it. So here we are again on Monday, 23 Apr going back to the comic book store looking for whatever they are looking for, again. We have to go there on our lunch break because the store doesn't open until 1200. It's 1:30 and we pull up. We walk to the door and see the sign: "Out To Lunch. Back at 2:00." WTF???? You open at 12:00 and then close at 1:00 to go to lunch? I want THAT job!!!!

Needless to say, we didn't honor Comic Book guy with our presence that day. I'm sure they'll go again when I'm with them and I'm sure I'll have something to write about when we leave.

Comic Book Guy Update for 20 Apr 07

2007-04-24T10:20:00.000-04:00

As you know, 2 of the guys I work with are big World Of Warcraft (WOW) players. I mentioned the trips to the Comic Book store and the Majik store a few entries ago. Well, they are still trying to find those cards or whatever it is they are looking for, which means, repeated trips to the comic book store. There will be no repeated trips to the Majik store as the guy that worked there freaked them out just as much as he did me. So, they are just waiting for the Comic Book store to get the stuff in.

So, Friday, 20 Apr, we go to lunch and they stop by the Comic Book store. They ask me if I want to go in and I say, "No, but there may be some good write-up material I could miss if I stay in the truck, so I'll go in." I wasn't disappointed.

As the guys are looking around, the owner and his 5 year old son are standing up at the front of the store. A song comes on the radio that is very reminiscent of my childhood. It was the theme song they used in the Spider-Man cartoon back in the day. However, it was being played by "The Ramones," an American Band often regarded as the first "punk" band. The Comic Book guy jumped and said to his son, "Hey, it's the Ramon's." And then preceded to sing the Spider-Man theme along with the Ramones in a not-so-quiet voice. At that point, we all figured it was about time to go. See you next week, Freak.

Update to Weird Majik Guy

2007-04-16T19:49:00.000-04:00

First off.. I'm not kidding you.. This is what he looked like!!!!! Sid found this today and I had to use it.. We also did some research on the guy and found his background:

A science fiction buff, Comic Book Guy has a bumper sticker that reads "My Other Car Is The Millennium Falcon," given to him by a Harrison Ford lookalike. The license plate on his AMC Gremlin is NCC-1701, the registry number of Star Trek's USS Enterprise. The contents of his display case include, among other oddities, a photo of Sean Connery signed by Roger Moore and a very rare Mary Worth in which she has advised a friend to commit suicide. He wears prescription pants, and in the 14th Halloween episode revealed he had a "Jabba the butt" tattoo in "the appropriate place". In the episode My Big Fat Geek Wedding you get a quick glimpse of a Superman logo tattoo on his butt but no evidence of the Jabba tattoo. He also owns a T-shirt that says "C:/DOS C:/DOS/RUN RUN/DOS/RUN." (Notice the incorrect usage of the forward slash. DOS directories are listed with a backslash.)
Comic Book Guy is a fan of the comic strip Hi and Lois. His store contains a section full of illegal videos (which include Mr. Rogers drunk, a top secret American nuclear war strategy session, a "good version" of The Godfather Part III, and Kent Brockman picking his nose). He once had to give up the Ultimate Belt (which he won as a door prize at a Star Trek Convention) because, as he pointed out, "the average Trekker has no use for a medium-sized belt." He was a virgin well into his forties when he became romantically involved with Principal Skinner's mother Agnes. (Chief Wiggum was notably repulsed when he and his officers stumbled upon the couple "in the act".) He later dated Edna Krabappel. His store is his sanctuary, where he holds some level of self-esteem, imperiously lording over pre-teen kids, like Bart Simpson and Milhouse Van Houten, using a heavily sarcastic tone. When he was the target of mockery while trying to return the Ultimate Belt, he famously sighed, "I must get back to my comic book store, where I dispense the insults rather than absorb them."
Comic Book Guy was once married—in an online role-playing game. He and his Internet wife contemplated having children, but that would have severely drained his power crystals. While part of an intellectual junta that briefly ran Springfield, he proposed plans to limit breeding to once every seven years (a reference to the Vulcan blood fever of mating, called Pon Farr), commenting that this would mean much less breeding for most, but "much much more" for him.

Info taken from Wikipedia... :)

Stupid people and WOW

2007-04-14T20:27:00.000-04:00

Well, it’s another drill weekend and I’m sitting here at work. Actually, when I post this, I’m not sitting at work, but while I’m thinking and typing up the rough draft, I am. We have so many stupid people that have access to computers at work that the network folks have had to lock down all kinds of access to the outside world. You can’t blame them. Most people now-a-days can use a computer to send an email and look at the news, but that’s about it when it comes to “expertise.” Most just aren’t smart enough to grasp the concept that you don’t click on EVERY link that’s sent to you, that they didn’t really win a lottery in England (although they have NEVER been to England) that there really isn’t some dude in Africa that needs your help to transfer 10 million dollars to the US, and so on and so on. So, since these people are too naive, stupid, trusting or whatever you want to call it, our access to the outside world from work is severely limited. Some of the sites we can’t get to are site like Blogger (where my blog is located), MySpace, YouTube, of course, porn sites and they’ve even forbidden access to eBay. Every one of those sites could eat up an entire day’s productivity if people around here could get to them. The funniest part about that? When they forbade eBay, our Helpdesk actually had calls from idiots complaining that they couldn’t get to their eBay accounts. Now, you already know you aren’t supposed to be hitting those sites while you’re at work and now you’re going to be stupid enough to call the Helpdesk and complain about it? Yeah, now you can see why they had to install Nazi Server 6.0 on our Internet access.
Being here this weekend is good and bad. It’s an off weekend so no one else is here but about 3 of us. Our regularly scheduled UTA weekend was back on 31 March-1 April. I had my Rescue Class that weekend, so I rescheduled to this weekend. As far I as knew there was nothing going on so this would be a good weekend to make it up. WRONG!!! Dive Buddy Dee and some folks decided to go diving in the FL springs this weekend. They went down on Thursday, went diving on Friday, stayed the night are diving again today. They may even stay the night again and dive some more tomorrow. So, I’m missing out on that. Then, I get a call from Scuba Steve last night. He was put on a check dive trip at the last minute and had to go to Florida with some students this weekend. He called me last night to see if I could go and give him a hand with the students. Dang. The one weekend I pick to make up a weekend because there is nothing going on and I miss two dive trips. What are the odds? Oh well, there will be plenty of time to dive on other weekends. Still sucks though.
There really isn’t a lot going on this week. I still haven’t sold my truck yet. It’s in the Credit Union Bulletin and I have flyers around Base. I’ll probably put it on the Lemon Lot next week and see how that goes.
Tiny Baby and #1 Mom are doing very good. I just loaded up a few new pictures and a video of her on my MySpace page. (Link to the right of this column) So, if you get a chance, go check out that vid. It’s pretty funny.

I just remembered about a couple of stops we had to make yesterday and I must pass that story on to you. I work with a couple of guys that play “World of Warcraft.” They are playing a few nights a week and quite a bit on the weekends. They talk about all this stuff and I have no idea what they’re talking about. I know what the game is, but that’s as far as my knowledge goes. Well something having to do with the game was being released this past Friday, so they had to go find it downtown. Some kind of cards or something. So, our first stop was in a Comic Book store. After we left, I congratulated them on taking me to the very first store in my 42 years of life that I had no desire to look at even one thing in that entire place. I walked in, saw some tables in the middle and plopped down into one while they did their shopping. It was Geek Central. But, that wasn’t the highlight of the day, I’m afraid. The UPS guy hadn’t run yet, so they didn’t have the stuff they were looking for, so we headed over to the local Majik shop in town. Yeah, it’s a place that sells all kinds of Wiccan stuff. Books of witchcraft, herbs for potions, spell books, you name it. I was going to ask if Piper, Phoebe or Paige were there and if I could see the “Book of Shadows.” But, I decided to keep my mouth shut. Then as we walked around the back, there were bongs of all types all over the place. But, you weren’t allowed to call them bongs. They were “water pipes” or “tobacco pipes.” If you called them a bong, they would kick you out of the store. And you had to promise you were only going to use them with legal smoking stuff. Ok, so they were only for use with legal smoking material, yet there were little gram scales for sale in the same area. I guess when you want to scale out your dime bag of good ‘ol homegrown North Carolina Menthol, you could do it precisely.. But you can’t use it with marijuana.. We won’t even go into the massive amount of pipes and all the other things you could smoke your legal tobacco in. Seems to me, it would be a whole lot cheaper to just buy some Marlboro’s than to spend that kind of money on a big multi-person “water pipe.” Umm, yeah.. When was the last time you’ve seen six people take a hit off the same cigarette??

On top of all this drug stuff, the store clerk was a massive World of Warcraft geek…errr, player. To hear him talk about the people that come over to the shop on Friday and Saturday nights to play just gave me the willies. As much as I have tried to put this experience into words, for the first time, I didn’t quite capture the moment. I guess you just had to be there. But, honestly, be glad you weren’t.

Unexpected Phrase

2007-04-08T19:35:00.000-04:00

I said something the other day I never thought I'd say.

The background: Tiny Baby was having a rough day and nothing I did would calm her down. She was tired and cranky, but, like most babies, was fighting going to sleep. So, she did nothing but sit there and cry. No amount of playing, bottles, food offerings, toys or even Daddy being an idiot in front of her was going to settle her down. #1 Mom had been recording some kid's shows on the DVR for when there was none being broadcast. As I looked through them, I saw a Barney show she had recorded. I started it up, he started singing and lo and behold, she quieted down and watched the entire show. After that, she was settled down enough to drink a bottle and go to sleep.

Then, out came the words never foreseen to be spoken by these lips: "Thank God for Barney."

Sister and Qualified Phone Guy Update

2007-04-07T08:06:00.000-04:00

I was reminded that I hadn't updated you folks on my sister lately, and I deeply apologize for that. I get asked at work so much, that I forget there are still people out there that don't know the latest.

As of today, 07 April 2007, Leslie has finished her chemo treatments (about 4-5 weeks ago) and has had her hysterectomy. I forget the actual figures, but after you have breast cancer once, your chance of getting it a second time is pretty high. Then, if you do get it again, which she did, there is like a 60-80% chance of getting ovarian cancer after that. Leslie decided not to chance it and go ahead and get it all taken out. So, she's three weeks past her hysterectomy and is healing up nicely. She has been given clearance to drive and pick up Tiny Baby, so she's happy now. After she heals completely from this last surgery, she will go on her Church's Youth Choir Tour. After she returns from the tour, then she will schedule her reconstruction surgery. After that, she will back full strength. It's really been amazing this time around. She barely slowed down during this round of treatments. It was awesome to see how she blazed through this considering how this whole regime started with such a bleak outlook. The entire family really appreciates every one's thoughts, prayers and well wishes for her. They have definitely come in handy.

As most of you know, I am "The Phone Guy" where I work. I install and troubleshoot phones, program the phone switch, run, install and wire out LAN and phone jacks all over the place. Sid and I even do it as a part time business away from our normal jobs. So, we're pretty knowledgeable when it comes to these things. Well, we had a cordless phone in the house that just refused to hold a charge. So, Heather went out and bought a new set of cordless phones that we could use downstairs. After I got those plugged in, programmed and working, I decided to take the base unit of the cordless that we replaced and use it upstairs in the computer room, since it was a corded/speaker phone. I brought it up here, plugged in the power, plugged the line into the wall and set all the features again in the phone. I just plugged it all up and left it be. When the phone rang later that night, I didn't ring in here and I wondered why. So, I looked in the programming and the ringer volume was set at MED and turned on. I picked up the handset and there was no dial tone. Great. So I checked all the programming and checked the jack in the wall and made sure the line was plugged in. I knew the power was in because I could program it. Still no dial tone. I worked with it for a bit and then gave up. The next day I came in and started working on it again. After double checking all my wall connections again and they were correct, I was starting to think the phone died. Then, as I looked around the speaker the phone was sitting on, I found my problem. The phone line from the wall was laying on the floor. I never plugged the line into the phone itself. You need me to do any phone work at your house????

Drama and the Masters

2007-04-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

My brother-in-law, Dale, and I went to Augusta, GA on Tuesday to watch a practice round of the Masters. My father-in-law was in the lottery to win tickets and for the last two years in a row, he’s gotten them. So, for the second year in a row, Dale and I have traveled to GA Golf’s Hallowed Grounds to spend the day watching the pros do it. It is awesome walking around that joint. The first thing you notice is the grass. The grass they have out for the masses to walk on and trample down is better than what I have in my front yard!! Not a weed in site and I don’t think they allow bugs in there either. I think bugs and women are held in the same regard when it comes to Augusta National; neither is allowed to join there. LOL.. Of course, the Azaleas were almost in full bloom and the weather was fantastic. We saw Phil, Tom Watson, Jim Furyk, Ian Woosnam, a bunch of guys I didn’t know, some guys I can’t remember and Vijay. I can’t stand Vijay, so I never care to see him, but we did see him at one point. We didn’t get to see Tiger this year. One of the cooler points of the day were standing behind the green on 9. The players’ second shot is from down hill to the elevated green. The shots were right at us. Very cool watching the balls come our way from almost 200 yards out and hit the green only feet away from the pin. We also stood around 16 and watched the players skip the balls off the water up to the green. That’s always a highlight. We also stood at the tee of 6 when Tom Watson came up by himself. He spent a bit of time talking to the folks in the gallery and took three shots to the green hitting various places on it. It was very cool to see people with that kind of accuracy playing and to see them take the time to talk to folks as they played. It was a great day out.. I will have pics on my website as soon as I get them from Dale. The picture above was from the 2006 trip we took. It's Dale in front of the Leaderboard.

As for my drama; it was at 0230 this morning. Tiny Baby woke up coughing around 0220, so I went up to make sure she was OK and rocked her back to sleep. After I put her back to bed, around 0230 and went back downstairs. Of course, Ripley was following my every footstep, so I let him outside to go do his business. There was a cat on the porch, so he tore off after it barking his head off. I knew, as soon as the cat was over the fence, he would quiet down, so I didn’t bother chasing him. As soon as he quieted, the cast iron fire poker next to the fireplace located about 8 feet from me, and right next to Kyko’s (my African Grey Parrot) cage, decided to jump off its holder and go crashing to the hardwood floor. It made one helluva racket when it hit the floor. Of course, when it hit, it scared the bird, he jumped off his cage and went crashing to the floor himself and fluttered all the way across the kitchen floor to the far side of the kitchen. I keep Kyko’s wings clipped, so he can’t fly, but that doesn’t keep him from trying. After he was across the floor, Heather comes busting out of the bedroom asking what’s wrong. I explain what’s going on and where everyone is and she goes back in. I look down and there are 5 red tail feathers all over the floor. Kyko hit so hard, he knocked out every tail feather but two and left a trail of them across the kitchen floor. As soon as I noticed this, Ripley comes busting back in the door and runs into the kitchen. He gets over the bird and wants to play. A 28 pound dog and a 10 ounce bird do not make great play buddies, so I had to keep Ripley at bay while Picked up Kyko to get him back to his cage. As I picked him, the dog jumped, scared the bird again, he jumped, fluttered off my arm, crashed the floor again and ran around the corner of the bar. As I got around there to push the dig back, I noticed blood drops on the floor. Kyko had broken off the tip of his beak on that last jump and was bleeding. This isn’t the first time he has done this, so I knew what to do. I got him on the bar and got some baking powder. You can put baking powder on the break and it will clot quicker. As I stated, it was only the tip, so it’s not a life threatening injury, but it’s still not good. I got the baking powder on his beak and the bleeding stopped almost immediately. Of course, all this time, the dog is jumping up to see what’s going on and whining like I locked him out of the house. After I knew Kyko was ok, I got him back on my arm to get him to his cage, the dog jumped again, and Kyko, in turn, jumped again and fluttered to the living room. I had had it “up to here” at this time and popped the dog on his butt and told him to get on the couch. He jumped up on the couch and stayed there the rest of the time. I finally got Kyko back on his cage. Besides only having 2 tail feathers left, a wing feather that was sticking out sideways and a white power all over his nose that made him look like an extra from the movie, “Blow,” he was no worse for wear. Of course, the dog was pouting because I popped him, so I had to go love on him for a few minutes and let him know I didn’t hate him. I finally got back to bed around 0300 and didn’t get back to sleep until close to 0400. Oh the joys of owning animals. But, I wouldn’t trade either of them for anything.

I Am Rescue, Hear Me Roar

2007-04-02T19:56:00.000-04:00

OK, well not exactly roar, but hear me announce proudly that I am now a fully certified PADI Rescue Diver. We actually, finally, had my Rescue class this past weekend. After two cancellations by my local Dive Store due to no one signing up, I was able, along with 4 others, to take the class. The full write up is on my website, but I will hit the highlights here.

The class was two days. Saturday, the first half of the day in the classroom watching the video, going over knowledge reviews and taking our test. I missed one question and got a 98 on my test. 2 of the guys aced it, one got a 96 and I'm not sure what the other got, but it, also, was in the 90's. The next half day was in the pool practicing some new skills such as calming a panicked diver, getting a hold of a panicked diver without them drowning either of you, swimming with a non-responsive diver while giving rescue breaths. Note: That last one sucks!!!!

The second day was at a local open water site going over underwater search techniques and then running 4 scenarios. That was very cool, because it was play acting for all of us. We would be given a situation, how it started and when, the rest was up to us. Who would do what, how to deal with the person calling EMT/DAN etc, along with Basic Life Support and/or First Aid of the person. Luckily, we got to work as a team and not as individuals. Everyone stepped up to the plate and did their job and we passed the 4 scenarios with only minor hiccups. Not anything that would kill anyone, but minor things we could do better in a real-world situation. As they showed us in the class, there is no real right and wrong answer. They give you the knowledge to make decisions and some ideas on how to act upon those decisions, but how you get it done is up to you and what you are comfortable doing. Just for an example, we had to get an unresponsive diver off the bottom and to the surface safely. Some guys would lay down next to their victim and bring them up with them. I couldn't get my victim up while laying down and had a really hard time with it. I asked to do it again and this time, I stood up, pulled them to me and got them up much easier to the surface. See? No right or wrong way, just what is better for you.

All in all, it was an outstanding course. I was sore Sunday morning after the Saturday pool session. I was OK on Monday because the scenarios didn't tax us as much as the pool portion did. Plus, we were able to take breaks because there was an Open Water class there getting checked out in between our sessions. I learned a lot and it was, by far, the most taxing and rewarding course I've ever taken. I enjoyed every minute of it.

Of course, I have to thank Scuba Steve for yet another great display of instructing. He took the time to make sure we did it right and did safely. If we had questions, he answered each of them and never thought any of them were dumb questions. And, I want to thank Dive Buddy Dee for being our designated "Victim" for the day. Her story is on the website with the details. Next stop: Divemaster.

As I stated earlier, the full write is on the website.

Headed tomorrow to the Masters in Augusta, GA. I'll tell Tiger you said Hello.

Hello Charlie, Goodbye Charlie

2007-03-20T20:11:00.000-04:00

And so, the saga of Charlie the squirrel continues; and ends. I fed and watered him and come the next morning, he was still sitting on my back porch waiting for me to come out to feed him. Anytime the dog and I would walk outside, there he was running up to greet us. After people had read about the squirrel, they started to drop by to see him. Especially concerned about him was my nephew, Logan. He came over as soon as he found out and wanted to see him.. I took them out back and Logan was, at first timid around around the squirrel. I told him he didn't need to be as I stepped down the steps right next to him and knelt down to rub his head and back. The squirrel was just sitting there letting me rub him. As soon as Logan saw that, he knelt right down and scooped up the squirrel in his hand. Even after two days with it, I still didn't feel comfortable enough to pick him up, but when Logan did, he just sat right there in his hand. All the pictures tonight are Logan with "Charlie." I was originally going to name him "Earl the Squirrel" but, as always, everyone hated my idea and Logan said he was going to be called Charlie. So, Charlie, it is. Logan really bonded with Charlie. They played for close to an hour.

They had to leave for a previous engagement, but I figured I'd see them later. And, after they were done, Logan and Brother-in-Law, Dale, (yes, my sister's husband's name is Dale) came over to check out Charlie. We all watched Logan with Charlie and started to wonder about Charlie. As I mentioned before, he has a bum foot. It was working much better on this day than it did the day before, but the two things got us wondering. Because he really trusted people and had a bad foot, was he being raised in some rehab place and was around humans already? Or, was he just a retarded squirrel that didn't have motor skills and didn't know better? No idea. But, watching Logan play him, it didn't matter. After they were done playing, the sun had gone down and it was getting chilly out. Logan had taken Charlie in his hand and started to rub an area of his back. Charlie curled up into a ball and had fallen asleep!! No kidding, he had a sleeping squirrel in his hand. Since it was getting cold, Logan couldn't stand the thought of just putting him on the cool ground, so we went in, got a box, cut a hole out for him to get in and out, Logan loaded it with grass and put him in there for the night, right by the bottom step where I had his food and a water bowl set out. We all went in for the night.

The next day, today, I stayed home with a sick baby. So, when I got time, we went outside to check on Charlie. He was no where to be found. We looked all over the yard, in the box, under the porch and he wasn't anywhere. Even the dog couldn't sniff him out. All throughout the day, each time I let the dog out, we went out looking for him to no avail. Logan even came by after school to check on him and I had to tell him he had bugged out. Of course, he had to check for himself, so he searched everywhere and Charlie wasn't around. Logan and his Dad had decided that if Charlie was still here, they were going to keep him and take him up to the Animal Rehab place in Atlanta. Very nice thought, but there was no need. I guess we gave Charlie enough food, water and attention to where he felt better and decided to go off and be a squirrel. Maybe we did some good. I just hope he doesn't come back to chew on my water pipes like his elders have done in the past.

Tiny Baby is doing better. We found out why she was running a fever. We have a tooth!! We just noticed it yesterday. This whole time, we thought she was teething, but never felt anything. Some babies will run a fever when they are teething. Then, while my sister was over here, she was playing with her and as she put her head down, Ansley opened her mouth and we saw her first tooth is on the top and not the bottom like most babies have. That's why we never felt it. So, we have our first tooth.

We also want to wish my Sister good luck this week. She has her first, of two, major surgeries this week. Wednesday to be exact. So, good luck and we'll be around if y'all need anything.

Squirrel

2007-03-18T20:11:00.000-04:00

I don't normally make two posts in one day, but I had to pass this along. This morning I let my dog, Ripley, out for his morning duty. After a few minutes of him being out there, he was barking up a storm. He normally doesn't bark at much except when the kids next door are in the back yard or the other neighbor's dog is in their backyard. Since it was 9:00 in the morning, I knew it was too early for either of them to be happening, so I knew something else was up. I walked out on the back porch and saw him just going off at something up against the house. As I looked closer, it was a baby squirrel. At first, I did what I always do when there is a squirrel, I told him to "Get Him!" He just started barking louder, but doing nothing but dancing around the squirrel. Then I remembered it was only 9:00 in the morning, so I went down to get him to stop barking. As I got closer, I noticed the squirrel had a bum front paw and couldn't move as easy as he normally could, so I called the dog off. When I called Ripley off, he just started sniffing the squirrel and just being interested in it. I ran in, got the camera and snapped a few shots. After a bit, I came in and got a carrot slice. I took it out, broke it into small pieces and gave it to the squirrel. He started nibbling on one and the dog was being nice, so I decided to come in and show Heather the pictures. After that, I went back outside and the dog wasn't being so nice anymore. He was trying to smell the squirrel, but as he was doing it, he was picking it up and rolling it over with his nose and if it would move, he would paw at it to move it. So, I had to protect the squirrel from Ripley since it was so small and hurt already. I got Ripley in the house and went out to check on the squirrel. He was headed under the porch, so I threw the pieces of carrot under there and hoped he would eat. I figured that would be the end of it. Not so.. The next time I let Ripley out for a bathroom break, I went out with him just to be sure. Sure enough the squirrel was still out there and was already trusting of me. He ran straight towards me and jumped on my shoe. Ripley was occupied and didn't see him for awhile, but it didn't take too long and he was over there trying to sniff him again. Once I got him off my shoe, I gave him some peanuts, raisins and carrot pieces on the step of the porch. I left him there and we went inside. As I looked out the door, the squirrel was following us up the stairs (his foot was doing better, I guess) and he came right up to the door and looked in. Sorry, as cute as he is, I can't have a rodent in my house. A few hours went by and we went back outside. The squirrel was lazing in the sun and looked hot. I went in and got him a bowl of water and brought it out. He went straight through the bowl to get to me. After I settled him down, I took the bowl and tilted it towards him. After he realized what it was, he started drinking the water. He was a thirsty booger. After then, he started chasing my shoes again.. So, I got him to chase me to the only tree we have in the backyard; a huge pecan tree. He actually followed my shoe all the way into the tree. (I took it off and stepped it with my hand in it).. But, as soon as he got up there, he started back down.. We started running towards the house and he followed about half way. We went in and he stayed in the general area of the water bowl the rest of the afternoon. When the sun started to go down, I wanted to try one more time to get him into the tree. There is a nest in the lower portion and I figured he could stay warm in it, if I could get him there. As he followed me again, I let him get back on my shoe. As he sat on my shoe, I took it off and held it up in the portion of the tree I wanted him in. After a few minutes of trying to get him off my shoe, he finally stepped off into the tree. He tried to come back down, so I ran around the other side and tapped on the tree calling him. He came through the middle and saw me. As he started down that side I ran to the other side..I got in the middle and stayed. I ran back to the house and went in. I watched for a bit, but I never saw him come in the yard again. I went back out just as the sun was going behind the horizon and didn't see him in the yard or in the tree. I did see another squirrel in the tree, so maybe his own kind came to help, or maybe he's under the house. But, I guess I'll look for him again tomorrow. Tiny Baby is sick with a fever and I'm going to stay home with her tomorrow, so we'll see if the squirrel is still around.

Nice weekend..

2007-03-18T17:34:00.000-04:00

It's Sunday afternoon and I've got a bit of time while the baby naps, so I figured I'd jot down a few words..

The Friday golf tournament was not the best tournament we've played in. Of course, I hadn't hit a ball since last November, so I wasn't expecting to do very well anyway (not like I EVER do very well) but I had a pretty hard time of it. The wind blowing 20-25mph didn't help matters, but my swing was way off kilter. I did hit some nice shots, and luckily when I didn't, my teammates did, which was more times than not. We were all rusty and finished 2 over par 74 for the day. Once we got in, we saw the handicapping was all screwed up. Teams that had players with handicaps in the teens were awarded more strokes than us. The lowest handicap we had the team was a 24, the rest were 36's. So, after seeing it, bringing it to the officials attention and them doing nothing about it, we knew we weren't going to be in the running for anything, so we left. It was a nice day out of work, but I really need to spend more time on the course if I expect to 50% of my shots decent.

Saturday, we went to the new GA Aquarium in Atlanta. Heather has some friends at work that have small children and the 3 families were meeting up there to check it out. We also took nephew Logan with us. (In picture with #1 Mom and Tiny Baby)(One of the families are "members" of the Aquarium and can gets guests in for 10% cheaper and through a special members entrance that lets you avoid the big crowded line at the regular entrance. After seeing the line at the regular entrance, that membership was well worth the price. So, we all met up there about 12:45.. What we didn't realize when we headed up there was that it was St. Patrick's Day and Atlanta was having a St Paddy's Day parade. The directions I printed off to get to the Aquarium led us right into the Parade area and since none of us are from that area, we had no way of knowing how to get around it. After a lot of guessing and then finally running into something that Heather found familiar since she had stayed up there two weeks ago, we were able to find the Aquarium about 30 minutes later than we expected. We met up with the other families (one family was actually following us through the maze that is Atlanta because she didn't know her way around..Lucky her, huh??) We went in and, oh my gosh, was it crowded!!! People everywhere.. I don't like crowds and neither does my family, but it really ended up not being so bad.. We got bumped, squashed, squeezed and all that, but it really could have been worse. The Aquarium is nice. I've only been to the TN Aquarium in Chattanooga, so that's all I have to compare it too. The lay out is kinda crappy in Atlanta. There is one big Atrium and the entrances to the exhibits are all around that central area. You get pretty well squeezed in some area, but the big viewing areas are HUGE and allow many, many people to stand in there and see the fish. I believe they all even have two decks for people to watch. They have some really neat stuff in there.. The coolest, to me, is the tunnel you walk though in the "Ocean Voyager" part of the aquarium. Water and fish on all sides of you except the floor. In that area is also a great array of sharks, rays, fish and even 3 whale sharks. They were awesome to see in person. There is another place that has Beluga Whales. They, too, were awesome.. And, I love jellyfish and I got to see those also.. Overall, a VERY nice trip, although, I think the next we go, we're going to go during the week and avoid the weekend crowds.

If you are interested in more pictures we took at the Aquarium, go here, click on "Trips" up top and click the GA Aquarium link. There are pics of the rays, whale sharks, black tips, piranhas, etc. As I said, it's worth going to Aquarium, but I would suggest going during the week to avoid the crowds that are there on the weekends. Also, Military Members get 10% off in the gift shop, which is a good thing since I spent over 75 bucks there.. LOL..

Sunday is here and Tiny Baby isn't feeling too well. We don't know if it's allergies or a cold. Whatever it is, it's gotten her really snotty and congested. She's run a very tiny fever today, so that's why we're thinking it may not be just allergies, as we thought two days ago. She doesn't seem to feel all that bad, but she is really tired, so we'll just see. If she isn't any better tomorrow, #1 Mom may stay home with her and take her to see the Doc..

Two weeks to Rescue Course... Wish me luck...

Just ramblings

2007-03-15T20:34:00.000-04:00

You know, I really don't have anything to write this time.. So it's another one of those that I will just write and see what comes out.

Of course, with #1 Mom being home this week, the week has been all back to normal. Nothing major happened at work, no businesses ignored me, nothing bad happened at all..

Sometimes I hate to admit because of the "stigma" tied to it, but, it's really not that bad: I'm the captain of our Recreational Bowling League team we have at work. Back in 2002 when we started the team, I was approached by the founding member and he asked if I bowled. I did at all my previous bases, but I hadn't since I got out, at that time, 6 years ago. He asked if he put together a team would I bowl on it. I said sure. He put together the team and because I ran all the other teams, we kind of shared the Captain-ship. He PCS'ed (sent to another base for you non-mil folks) and I inherited the team. I am the only member that was there the first year and I'm there every year. We've never been that good, so it's a good thing it's a handicap league. Most of this year we've hovered around 10-13th place out of 14 teams. We're just there to have fun, socialize and have a few drinks.. Although, we started a late season push and are actually tied for 6th in the standings with 6 weeks left in the season. Although I don't bowling seriously, it is more fun when we're winning.

Speaking of fun and drinking, we have our first golf tournament of the year tomorrow. Golf is another sport I don't take seriously, but I do have more fun when I'm actually hitting the ball pretty good. We haven't played since last November, so it should be interesting tomorrow. We've got our "normal" foursome to play: Me, Sid, Big Dawg and PW. We'll see how it goes..

Although there has been no diving (still looking to do Rescue at the end of the month) I do have a new piece of gear. It's just a fun piece, but it's pretty cool. I heard a story about someone who had seen a guy with a dive hood that had a shark fin on the top. I thought that was cool and I started surfing the web looking for something like that.. After a few MONTHS of searching I finally found a place that makes custom dive hoods. And, one of them is a shark finned one. After looking at the ones they had for sale, they had another that caught my eye also. It's a "dragon" hood that has 4 spikes across the top and a small dragon tail off the back. The price of that one was the same as the one with the shark fin, so I decided to go with 4 spikes instead of one dorsal fin. You can pick your colors, so I did black on the side, a royal blue center section (because all of my wetsuits have royal blue on them somewhere) and silver spikes/tail so they would stick out. Recreational Scuba is supposed to be fun and if you can't dress fun every once in a while, then what's the use. I'm sure I'll get a few looks from the Tech/Cave divers next time I head to the Florida Springs. LOL.. Here's where I got the hood from. Terrapin Wetsuits. Chris is very nice to deal with and she cares about customer service. The hoods are on the "Accessories" page.

I just saw a new Subway commercial.. It has a couple ordering at a fast food drive thru.. He is ordering things like "Love Handles", "Blubber" and all those things you'll get if you eat too much fast food. His girlfriend in the car orders the same stuff as him, but instead of "blubber" she wants a "badonka-donk butt." Can anyone tell me what a "badonka-donk butt" is? I figuring it's one of those butts you see able to jiggle all over during the booty shakin' contests you see at bars.

I heard some music from a band I had never heard of until just recently. They've been out awhile, but I never heard them before because we no radio stations in this area that are worth listening too. They are all country, classic rock or chick stations. (I call ANY station that plays Justin Timberlake music a "Chick Station") I don't listen to any of that, so, to hear good music, I had to get XM.. Well worth the 10 bucks a month.. The band is called "Silvertide" If you like that old 80's-ish sound, they have it. Good sounding band.. I do have to mention another good song that's being played a good bit now, "Ladies and Gentlemen" by Saliva. Great rocking tune!!!

Well, there isn't really that much going on and Baby and #1 Mom are already in bed. I still need to walk the dog, so I'm going to sign off for now. Hope everyone is making it through the pollen storm we're having right now. I know I'm suffering.

Have a good one..

Long Week

2007-03-11T21:44:00.000-04:00

So ends a long week. #1 Mom was on a business trip in Atlanta all last week and it was just me and Tiny Baby for the week. During the evenings, it was no big deal. She has a schedule and as long as your stick to it, it’s all good. The mornings, however, were a different story. I normally leave for work around 6:10 am. On most days, Tiny Baby isn’t even awake when I leave. So, for this week, I had to change up my routine. Well, in reality, I did everything the same every morning, but when I was ready to leave, I just waited for her to wake up. That ranged all week from 6:15 to 7:00. So, I did her morning stuff, got her to daycare and was anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour late for work each day. Again, no big deal. I just took that much leave that I was late each day. #1 Mom and I, both, were a bit hesitant about this week. I’ve had evenings that it was just the two of us, but never an entire day, much less a whole week. Well, I am happy to say, we blazed through the week without nary an incident. Everyone is good and I think even Heather was a bit surprised at how well we did.

Now, here’s a bit of Middle Georgia Better Business Bureau information for any of you in this area. If you need any glass replaced or repaired in your vehicle DO NOT use Safelite Auto Glass in Warner Robins. Here’s the story: I got my windshield broken on my way back from Florida back in November. After the cold/heat/cold/heat we’ve had, the crack stretched all the way across the windshield, so I figured it was time to replace it. I called every window business in the phone book and Safelite was the cheapest. So, I set an appointment with them for the coming Friday. Come Friday, the tech called and told me he had broken my windshield and wouldn’t be replacing mine that day. I was ok with that (things happen) and asked when he could do it. He said he’d be there Monday. Cool. Monday came and went with no word and no windshield. So, Tuesday morning, I called the company after they opened. I had already decided to talk to a Supervisor or Manager because I wanted to see what the excuse was and what they intended to do to keep me and any person I run into as a potential customer. When I asked for either of them, I was told they were too busy to come to the phone and what my call was about. So, I very politely told the lady the deal and what my problem was. She told me, very matter of fact-ly that no one worked on the weekend and the tech didn’t even get the windshield until Monday. I asked her how I was supposed to know that without a phone call from the company. She didn’t have an answer for that. So, I gave her my numbers (cell and work) and asked for either the Supervisor or Manager to call me. That was at 9:30 that morning. About 3:00, no call back from anyone at that time, the tech called and told me he was ready to do my truck. I told him about my phone call that morning and since his management had no concern about their customers when they had a question, I no longer needed his services. Not only did I not need his services, I would make damn sure that anyone that I had contact with would know what kind of service his company provided. (or didn’t provide, would be a better wording) The management of Safelight never once tried to call me or care about the fact that they lost a customer. It’s typical with today’s society. They figure one person can’t make a difference. Well, I’ve been telling this story by mouth all week, and now I’ve had time to sit down and type it up. Just goes to show, since they were the cheapest in town, you get what you pay for. If you want someone that cares about their customers and does great work, use Glass Doctor on Watson Blvd. 478-922-5339 And, my new windshield from Glass Doctor looks great!!

Now that I have the windshield fixed, does anyone know anybody looking for a slightly used Tundra? The backseat in my ’03 just isn’t real conducive for a baby seat. #1 Mom wants me to have a real back seat, so I need to upgrade to a 4 door. (oh darn) :) So, as soon as I get the time to wash it, I’ll be putting it up for sale, since I refuse to trade in at any car dealer.

Small Scuba Update: Dive Buddy Dee has scheduled her trip to get her Advanced Open Water rating. I’ll list her Congrats here when she passes her check dives. Good Luck!!!

A Real Role Model

2007-03-03T19:37:00.000-05:00

A couple of things that bug me and then on to the real entry..

Anna Nicole Smith: WHO CARES???? Shut up about it already.

Hollywood Celebs and who they back in Politics: WHO CARES??? Celebrities live in a seriously convoluted world and don’t deal with “everyday” problems like the rest of us. How would they who the best person is run the country when they don’t even live in the “real” world?

(Stepping off of my soapbox)

Ok.. I was emailing with a friend of mine, LJ, the other day and she told me the coolest story. I just had to pass it along. So, with her permission:
LJ has two kids. Jake, 4 and Hannah is about 5-6 months. Jake is the reason or this story. LJ and her family live close to Philadelphia, PA and her husband (JP) and Jake are hockey fans. Of course, the Flyers are the NHL team for that area and little Jake had picked Michal Handzus as his favorite player. As with every major league sport, trades are inevitable and Handzus was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks before the 2006-2007 season started. Jake was crushed that he wouldn’t be able to see his favorite player in Philly anymore. Well, Jake and his father wrote a letter to Handzus and told him how upset Jake had been about the trade and they promised to come to Chicago to see him play. Handzus, in the meantime, had been injured and was recouping from knee surgery when he ran across Jake’s letter. Handzus actually called JP on his cell phone and asked if they were still coming to Chicago. When JP answered, “Yes,” Handzus said he would love to meet up with Jake.
During their trip to Chicago, Michal Handzus and his girlfriend met with Jake and his father. They all went to lunch together and then he took them to the Chicago locker room so they could meet the rest of the Blackhawks. LJ said Jake was so excited about the entire day. How cool is that???
You hear, almost daily, in the news about Professional Athletes getting in trouble, beating their wives, doing drugs, cheating, etc, etc, etc. Every time they mess up, it’s on the news. But, hardly ever, do you get hear a story that is actually “news worthy” because it’s a feel good story. People want dirt, people want others to do bad so their own lives don’t look so bad from a different perspective. I, for one, like the good news stories. This is a feel good story about a professional athlete that took time out of his schedule to help out a genuine fan. A real “nice guy” in the world of cry-baby, spoiled brat, millionaire athletes. (Note: I’m not talking about just hockey players, I’m lumping ALL professional athletic forums in that negative generalization) I know there are many “nice guys” in professional sports, so don’t think I dislike them all.. I’m just noting you see and hear more about the bad stuff they do than the good stuff.. This says a lot about Michal Handsuz.. I don’t know the guy from Adam’s Housecat, but I’m a fan now because he’s “keeping it real.” Of course, no news media deemed this meeting worthy because Jake is just a regular kid. So, I’ll use my own "media outlet" to tell the story. On that note: Please remember that this is a special thing that Mr. Handsuz did for Jake out of the goodness in his heart. It's not an everyday occurance that's mentioned here and don't get upset if your favorite athelete doesn't do the same. Sometimes timing is just as important as the request itself. Timing just happened to be perfect in this instance.
A salute to you Mr. Handsuz. And, if my Thrashers can’t win Lord Stanley’s Cup, I hope your Blackhawks do. (Although, with the 2007 stats, it’s not going to happen for either of them this year)

The picture is Handsuz, JP and Jake while they were in Chicago.