I Survived!

I survived my long 7 day stretch at work. Off for a few now.....oh Thank God! That stomach bug is going around terribly right now. So many patients coming in with the nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. I felt kinda pukey on Tuesday, but nothing transpired. I haven't thrown up in over 5 years, and counting, and am not about to start now! I had to listen to my sister puke all day today while trying to enjoy Turkey Day at The Parents house. I'll just steer clear of her for awhile.

Not much on the agenda. Gaylord has gotten a fair amount of snow, and a friend of mine went out skiing yesterday. Slightly jealous. The snow seems pretty sticky yet, so we'll see. I got to run the snow blower for the first time on Tuesday. Of course that was the day I wasn't feeling so hot, so I was quite frustrated when it wouldn't start. I tinkered with it for awhile and finally got it going.

Took the Nintendo Wii over to The Parents house for a little before dinner entertainment. Now I know I look stupid when I play it, but I swear my parents looked a lot stupider than I do. I laughed so hard. Good times!

All for now. Off to bed.......

Glad it is Thursday!

As if my morning didn't start out bad enough waking up to a nice cold house, the day had to go out with a bang also. Dad came over and it was a rather easy fix with the furnace. We cleaned the pilot sensor, and everything seems to be working fine now. What I didn't see happen was when I was still upstairs, he unplugged the washer tub to plug in his spotlight. So as I was attempting to get everything ready to go back to work tomorrow, including doing my laundry, I heard what sounded like water hitting the basement floor. I was puzzled for a minute when I went downstairs to check it out. What I found was something you would see on tv. Water overflowing out of the wash tub, spewing all over the floor, bubbles going everywhere. Luckily I was able to react pretty quickly and shut the washer off. And luckily I don't have a ton of crap in the basement that could get ruined. But there was a ton of water that I spent about 2 hours sucking up with the shop vac. Honestly though, I couldn't help but start laughing at the scene. All is cleaned up now, the floor is drying, and I'm headed to bed in the hopes that I don't have another day like this for a really long time......

Humm...it's kinda cold in here.......

Today is probably the coldest day we've had so far. It is 21 degrees with a 10 degree windchill. So what do you appreciate most on cold winter days? Heat. Guess who has none! I woke up this morning, feeling a little chilly, but thought maybe the furnace hadn't "woke up" and inc the temp to a cool 63 degrees. I let the furnace turn down to 58 at night to save on heating costs. Anyways, I heard something kinda loud coming from possibly the basement or maybe outside this morning. Couldn't tell. But looking at the thermostat, it is 56 degrees in here right now. The furnace will come on and blow cool air out for maybe 30 seconds and shut back off. The noise? Yup, the furnace. So I'm oh so patiently waiting for my favorite furnace man, my Dad, to call me back. In the mean time I'm hiding between the covers with the electric blanket turned on.

Lazy Days!

So today my biggest accomplishment today was getting out of bed and making dinner. I also finally brought the road bike in from the garage. Don't think I'll be riding that outside anymore. It is now sitting in the dining room on a spinner. Kinda fun I guess. Considering you are just sitting there pedaling for however long you're able to entertain yourself. My ass hurts just like it would if I were out riding it for a hour, so I guess it is semi-effective. My main goal with that is to keep my legs in shape, if not improve them for next summer. Which seems oh so far away...... The mountain bike is still in the back of the jeep.....just in case? I don't know. I guess I should probably come to terms and bring it inside also. The highest I saw the temp get today was 23. That's freaking exciting. Supposed to get down into the teens tonight. Burr.....

I'm Thinking Winter is Here to Stay

We've had a fortunate fall, with a nice warm stretch at the end. I'm pretty sure I did the last of my mt biking for the summer on Saturday. Since than, it has started to rain and now snow. The ground is covered, with a forecast of up to a foot of snow by 11am tomorrow morning. We'll see.... Someone was telling me that the Farmer's Almanac has forecasted for this winter, "the worst of memory." Whose memory? Mine? I've been through some pretty bad winters up here. Or is it the memory of the guy who just moved here from California? What does that mean? So, ready or not, here it comes.....EXCITING!!!

Spent the weekend catching up with a friend of mine from Pennsylvania. A bunch of us got together, mostly from work and EMS, and gosh did it kind of get out of control. One of the highlights was teaching my friend's 11 and 13 year old how to play beer pong. Can't wait for them to go back to school and tell all of their friends what that did over the weekend! We did substitute the beer for green kool-aid...yummy!

Other than that, some much needed R and R. Got my Nintendo Wii set up. Gosh is that thing freaking fun. The only bad part is, I'm still recovering from an arm injury from when I crashed my bike two days ago. One of the docs at work said I pulled something and that it will just take time and rest for it to heal. And I'm such a patient person, that that is no big deal! But right now, it hurts to stretch it and do any heavy lifting, pushing or pulling. At work on Friday I did chest compressions for probably 10 minutes, and I felt like that arm was going to fall off. It hurt!

Back to Work

Well, after having 10 days off, it was back to work Monday. My last few days of vacation were pretty lame. The weather turned really shitty here, it got cold and started to rain....than snow. Sunday night/Monday morning, I would say Gaylord got about 8 inches of snow, although I think the totals really varied throughout the county. Pretty exciting. For the most part though, it has melted and I'm sure the rest of it will be gone today as it is now raining outside. Yucky! I can't wait for enough to play in. This is the painful period. So with the snow, I've seen several people out jumping the gun and snowmobiling. Of course one of the docs at work is still out mountain biking....in the snow. He is awesome though, seriously cracks me up. He said he only crashed maybe 6 times, that he could remember. Hit a tree once. Silly man! My legs are covered in bruises from my last crash. And my right arm is pretty sore, kinda concerned about that. Work has been busy lately, but if it slows down while I'm there I'm going to see if someone can snap a picture of it, just to make sure it isn't broken.....that would suck!

So today I got the hairs cut. So painful. I hate going to the beauty shop....I can't stand sitting there listening to all these woman gossip about people. One old lady...maybe in her 60s, kept talking about her myspace page. I thought that was more for teenagers. I so wanted to say something smart ass, but I'm not feeling up to par today so I just sat there quietly waiting for the lady to hurry up and finish her job. How reserved of me!

Now, I am sitting on the couch, patiently waiting for UPS to deliver my Nintendo Wii. I'm so excited. Last weekend, in my super bored state, I decided I needed a hobby to help pass the time over the winter, so I bought a Wii. Is that considered a hobby? I'm pretty excited. I feel like it is Christmas morning or something.

While I've got time, I want to share a hilarious work story. Which I can share, because there really is no privacy violations, as you will see at the end of the story. So EMS got called out to a residence for a possible DOA (dead on arrival). Apparently the electric company was out at a house last week and noticed there was someone sitting at this dining room table. Well they had to go back out there to finish the job, and noticed that that person was now slumped over the table. There was a cereal bowl on the table, a newspaper spread out, etc. So the workers felt awful that this person was probably dead, etc. Not to mention it was warm last week, so I'm sure the smell would be over powering. For everyone who has not had the pleasure of smelling a really ripe, rotting body, it is the worst. Makes my stomach turn talking about it. Anyways, of course no one answers the door when they knock, so the deputies had to kick the door in. When they made it to the dining room table, it ended up only being a manequin. Apparently the people were leaving for the winter, and in an attempt to make it look like someone was still living there so that no one would break into the house (like what just happened), they tried to make a "scene" of someone eating breakfast. Seriously, that cracks me up! Who does that? The medics were not the least bit amused, so when I started laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my face, I don't think they appreciated it. Good times!

A Productive Day!

Another beautiful and productive day. Unfortunately probably the last one of the year, but I try not to think that way. I was able to accomplish many misc errands I've been meaning to do for the past month or so in the morning, thus rewarding myself with a nice 11 mile mountain bike ride in the Pigeon River in the afternoon. The weather was perfect! Scared a ton of deer, and luckily there were not many gunshots like I heard the last time I was out there. Especially since I was dressed in dark green and brown....I know, real smart. My biggest feat of the day was getting the boat started. All that horsing around with it last week, and all it needed was a new battery. An easy fix, thank God! I was thinking some pretty awful thoughts when I was working on it last week. Shame on me!

Another Beautiful Day!

I slept like a gem last night, and got up this morning full of energy. First I took my parents puppy on a 4 mile hike, that was about all that she could hack. At one point she collapsed in the middle of the trail and refused to move. After I kept on walking, she eventually got up and started running after me. She is a dog that still hates the car, but as soon as she spotted it some 100 yards away, she took off and sat looking at the door until I caught up. Once I opened the door, she jumped in the front seat and immediately fell asleep. Cracked me up.

So after doing some hiking, I went mountain biking on a nice little single track in town. It was a quick 6 mile loop, but it is pretty out there. A wonderful ride, and no incidents!

After that, I came home to cut my grass. The first time, and maybe the last time that I have ever cut grass in November. But it will make the spring raking experience a little less painful. I hope.

And while I was out and about, I decided to go snap a picture of the Obama toilet display for everyone to enjoy. Quite funny. You can take it however you want to.....

Some Crazy Weather!!

I've lived in Northern Michigan my entire life. I do not remember ever, ever having such a beautiful November day. The past couple of days the temps have been in the upper 60s. I was downstate visiting a friend of mine the past couple of days, and the temp hit 73! Geesh! So after being rather lazy on Sunday, we took advantage of the fine weather and did some mountain biking on Monday. Unfortunately, it had rained some the night before so the trail was rather slick. The trail he choose had a ton of slippery rocks and leaves. We both crashed once. I wish I could have caught mine on camera. I was flying down a hill, hit a nice big mud hole and just lost control. I skidded quite a distance, luckily landing in mostly sand. I've got an abrasion to my elbow, a bruise on each knee, and a bruise that covers my outer aspect of my entire right thigh. I look awesome! But gosh was it fun! He was headed out to go again when I left, but I wanted to make it back in time to go vote.

I've got my entire yard completely raked. What an accomplishment that was! I did that over the weekend, but my arms are still killing me! Basically, I'm just a big limp sore muscle lying in bed right now. Of course the next two days are also supposed to be nice, so I'm sure I'll be out there doing something.

Funny thing when I got home tonight after being gone for a couple of days. When I opened the door, the cats were acting all kind of freaky. Well come to find out, it seems that every dead fly came to life while I was gone and somehow have gained entry into my house. In the past, when a fly gets into the house, the cats go mad jumping everywhere trying to kill the little bastard. I can only imagine the chaos that was going on when they all came to life. The cats just look exhausted. Luckily, I always keep my bedroom closed, so I was able to retreat in there without being bombarded by flies. They'll all be dead again in a couple of days.....

Time to go finish watching the end of the elections. I apologize to all of you political freaks, but I'll be glad when it is all over with. I'm tired of listening to it (and I don't even watch tv), seeing all the signs, etc. My favorite though, was a sign I would always pass on the way into work. I sometimes take the long way and venture through a small hickish town called Frederic. Out in one of the yards is an Obama sign that they have proudly displayed on top of a toilet that is sitting in their yard for some reason. Now this could be looked at from many angels. So do you think they like Obama, and are just using the toilet to put the sign up in the yard? Or do you think they are trying to be clever and are using the toilet as a prop, signifying that he would be a shitty leader? I voted for McCain, but it looks like Obama took Michigan anyways......