No time gotta run

No time to yak. Gotta run, run, and then run. Too much going on this week work-wise leaves me little free time. Perhaps this is a good thing, at least for my wallet :)
Hopefully the weather will break soon and get back to a normal winter. What's normal anymore? Today, freezing rain followed by snow. Oh, and throw in a few 40 mph gusts of wind. Driving a bus these last couple of days is like being on the business end of a kite in a hurricane.

Quickie

Gotta make this one a quickie because I'm due back at work in about twenty-five minutes.
No abscess for me. Simply in need of a serious scraping as the dentist defined it. Also, I have quite a few cracked teeth in back from years of grinding. Time for a couple of caps. Oh, we need to replace a few of the fillings I received early in my teenage years. I'd say they held up rather well wouldn't you think?
Really strange weather here in Missouri. Last week it was below zero. Sunday and today are near or at sixty degrees. Tomorrow morning, twenty-five degrees and more snow. Thursday, more snow. Saturday, you guessed it, more snow. However, here it is, January, and I'm outside in my t-shirt.
Do you like today's picture? I just finished it. I took it yesterday. Michelle was sitting on the couch and holding her cellphone. I couldn't resist spicing it up just a bit. Some might say, "BAM!"
Jon went back to the dentist this morning. I haven't heard how that went yet.
Jan and I were shopping this weekend and ran into Charlene. She was working at Pier1 Imports and we just meandered right in. She looks good and is keeping busy.
Yesterday I finished Michelle's taxes and my own taxes. Michelle is doing okay on that front. I, however, will be paying :(
Okay, time to go enjoy the beautiful weather. Tomorrow is a very long day. At least the afternoon and evening are filled with bus driving late into the evening.
Have a happy Monday everyone!

Needy

Yes, I am feeling quite needy today. I'm needing Summer very badly. The day I took this photo (August 2007) it was darn near 99% humidity and topping 110 with the heat index. Whew, it was hot. To my left about twenty feet was the Missouri River and to my right about the same was the Leavenworth, KS Community Center.
Went to court downtown Kansas City today regarding that accident last month. The fella told the judge he was getting an attorney and was going to plead not guilty. Great, more court dates in my future. I'm definitely NOT happy about that. It costs me plenty to get to the courthouse between lost wages, fuel and parking.
Next was just plain work. Blah and brr.
Last, dropped the truck off at the dealer. Perhaps they can figure out why I don't have heat. Goodyear figured it out although it only lasted a couple of days. Not good enough when it's zero degrees out in the am. Tomorrow's prediction is ten below zero with a wind chill when I step outside to begin my day. I'm definitely NOT looking forward to THAT.
Tomorrow brings the dentist, hurray. This abscess is driving me wild. I finally figured out this has been the reason I've been so ill on and off this past month. I'm a bit overdue for a cleaning anyway so it's time.
Tomorrow will be a better day. I can see it coming :)

MLK Day

These days most seem to lack appreciation for the reason they may be off work, or why the governments are shut down on this cold Monday in January. It seems rather sad to me after spending some time over dinner thinking about it. Perhaps we've come further down the long road than Mr. King would have anticipated by this time. We have a minority presidential candidate in Obama, and perhaps, if a Republican candidate is victorious, a minority VP should the whispers continue to ripen about Condi Rice. There seems to be a slowly swelling group of folks who believe Rice could and should be a Republican Ticket VP runner. As an African-American and a woman, Rice neutralizes the two Democratic front-runners. And why not? I'm even being quickly converted. Rice brings foreign policy experience that can't be matched by any of the front-runners of either party. She holds a Ph.D. in international studies, was a former national security adviser, and is unmatched in her current position performance by anyone since Kissinger, in my humble opinion. This says a lot since Colin Powell has been one of my role models for quite some time. Okay, enough of that.



Not much else to cover other than COLD weather. It's almost more than I can stand. My wallet is also suffering given last month's electric bill. This month's outlook is certainly no better. Snow is forecast for this evening with more coming Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Will it ever stop? I NEED to find a suitable/affordable snow blower once again. I sure wish I had kept the one I had years ago. It was small yet always performed well. Most of what I see out there today is much larger and definitely NOT what I need today.
Poor Jon must deal with the file the dentist broke off in his jaw. It doesn't bother him although the only method that may be used to extract the file is to cut directly into his gums then stich him back up again. Not an easy solution. Poor Jon.
Jan and I have both been mildly ill lately. Head and chest colds prevail. Just when it begins to get better you go back down hill the very next day. Perhaps Spring will be just around the corner and we can open the house back up to rid ourselves of these germs. As Poo would say, TTFN.

Really? Since Monday?

Oh my it's been far too long since I've updated the Blog. My apologies.

• Tuesday was spent still feeling ill.
  
  
• Wednesday was running more than anyone should have to. Normal day and evening routes, then running the middle school basketball team to Savannah in an awful snowstorm. No fun I tell you.
  
  
• Of course school was cancelled today so I grabbed my camera and went out to use it.

I got some wonderful shots that I'll post as time goes on. Here's today's favorite that I have titled "Loneliness." I hope you enjoy it.

No story for today. I'm simply too tired. Remind me to tell you about my iPod fiascos of late. I feel like a newbie on the tech scene with this one I tell you. Alas, that's a story for another time. Perhaps tomorrow, or even later this evening. I need to EAT!

Mid-Winter Blahs

Good day everyone. I have the mid-Winter blahs (sp) and don't feel much like doing anything lately. It seems I'm cold most of the time and can't warm up for a very long time.

Poor Jon is at the dentist right now getting (hopefully) a broken file extracted from his jaw. About two months ago this file broke off during a root canal and the dentist could not retrieve it at the time. Later, a specialist determined that he could not easily extract the piect of file either so back to the dentist he goes for another round.

Charlene reported that she will be getting the remainder of her dental work completed this year. Hurray for her!
Charlene - remember getting your picture taken with Trace Atkins while he was signing a menu for you? Seems like it was so long ago doesn't it?

And now for the story of the day. This is too wierd and I feel sorry for them.
LONDON (Reuters) - A couple discovered after they had married that they were twins who had been split up at birth and adopted by separate families, according to a member of Britain's House of Lords.
British peer David Alton recounted the story to parliament last month to support his argument that artificially conceived children should be told who their biological parents are.
Alton said he had heard the story of the separated twins from a High Court judge who had dealt with the case.
"This did not involve in vitro fertilization: It involved the normal birth of twins who were separated at birth and adopted by separate parents," said Alton, an independent member of the Lords. "They were never told that they were twins."
"They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation," he said.
"I suspect that it will be a matter of litigation in the future if we do not make information of this kind available to children who have been donor-conceived," he said. Read the full story here.

Happy Sunday!

Happy Sunday everyone. We made it this far anyway.

Still no comments from my last post asking for February ideas for the Web site. Okay I'll begin working on something soon if I can get my creative juices flowing.

Saturday was fun taking the CSI class to the real CSI Lab in Kansas City. They really enjoyed it. The boys seemed to like the gun areas and the girls were drawn toward the fingerprint area.

Later, I met up with Charlene for coffee and books at Barnes & Noble. We had a good time too. Sorry about the quality of this picture, I only had my phone's camera.

This morning was church and then time for relaxing. I'm weary from this week.

One more request

I need to begin working on a February site update for fosgate.net If you have a good idea other than a "Valentine's Day" theme I'm open to suggestions. I don't really like doing the same old thing and challenges are, well, challenging :)

End of the week

I recently went through about 1500 old photos Jan and I had taken. Whew, this took quite some time. I pulled the best ones onto my computer and am working through them so they may be seen by all. I thought this one was too cute not to show immediately. Charlene and Annie taken December 22, 2001. It's an oldie alright.

It's been a busy week with work, holiday party, and just being plumb worn out. I've been fighting a head and chest cold for a couple of weeks and perhaps I'm on the downside of it now. I have this afternoon's routes and a fairly short trip tomorrow then I can rest for a day or so. Tomorrow brings taking the CSI class at school (new course at the VoTech) downtown to the Kansas City CSI Lab. It should be a fun trip. And they pay me for this stuff :)

Poor Jan has to work for the next sixteen days straight I believe. Fortunately some of these days will consist of merely a few hours rather than the twelve to sixteen she's used to working.

The weather is okay, not much to write home about. A small storm came through yesterday with tons of rain in the morning and snow in the afternoon. It was over by 6 PM or so. Tomorrow is more rain and snow, hurray.

I thought this story was funny so it's the story of the day. Enjoy.

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment's employees. Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.
"I was dumfounded. I thought I was dreaming," the husband told the newspaper Wednesday.
The couple, married for 14 years, are now divorcing, the newspaper reported.
(Writing by Chris Borowski, Editing by Matthew Jones)

Whew

Run, run and then run again. I'm still tired. Yesterday wore me out. I ran all day then Jan and I went to her office holiday party. We didn't stay very long although I was already worn pretty thin by the time we left the house.


Today is merely the same as yesterday although perhaps there won't be an event to run to this evening. I'm looking forward to some down-time if only for a few hours.


Here's an old picture of Nick's first car. Remember how he walked away from being rear-ended by the big rock truck with merely a few seat belt bruises? He was blessed on that day.

Yes, it has been a few days...

Work consumed much of the latter part of my week. Getting back in the swing of things was more difficult than I had anticipated it would be. Thursday and Friday were normal days with some additional routes taking me into the evening. Saturday was filled with taking the Girls Swim Team to a meet.

Thursday was getting Jon's car fixed. He had a problem with his battery and we had a new one put in along with some replacement wiring. Friday was getting Jan's car fixed. It was steadily running worse and getting horrid fuel mileage. It really was scary. We had a FULL tune-up done including new wires because they were the crux of the problem. Early afternoon I picked up Jan's car and left my truck. It was idling VERY high and wouldn't come down. Surprise, I had a cracked intake manifold. It should be done mid-morning on Monday. They worked on it all day on Saturday. Actually, Brad, my next-door neighbor was the one working on it at Goodyear here in town. Total cost for the three vehicles to be repaired...$2000.00 Total cost put into all three of these vehicles in the last four months...$5500.00 although thanks go to Dick and Peggy for covering $1500.00 of that to take care of Jon's run-in with a curb. I certainly hope this will be the last auto repair for quite some time. About half of this was normal maintenance and half of the maintenance was tires. Those things cost a fortune these days.

Yea, this afternoon I finally cleared a bit of space out of the garage. The brother of a friend came over and picked up my band saw this afternoon. I donated it to his new business. He's a cabinet maker and just started a new business with a friend. He should get lots of use out of this bandsaw. It was merely sitting in my garage taking up space for the last few years. It's not an item I use frequently and I only bought it because it was priced right at a garage sale some years ago.

I'm feeling the need to take more pictures. I cleaned the lens on my camera last night and really need to get out and snap some photos. Unfortunately Jan and I are both under the weather with severe colds that make our entire bodies just hurt. Perhaps tomorrow I can get out with the camera after I pick up my pickup :)

The weather has been stellar these last few days. On Friday it began to warm up just above freezing. Saturday hovered around fifty-six degrees and today it's downright balmy with the temperature feeling a very warm sixty-two. Yea! Tomorrow it will be warm, similar to today, although beginning Tuesday it drops steadily for the next seven days. That's too bad.

Question for the day. I've been pondering this lately and cannot find anything definitive in the news. "Has Fidel Castro turned over control of Cuba to his brother "Raul Castro?" Fidel has not appeared in anything other than a carefully scripted government news blog in nearly eighteen months. Is he transitioning or has he already transitioned?

Picture for the day. Here's a cute outline made with shrubs at a McDonalds in Denmark. Enjoy.

Happy New Year

This picture is titled "Welcome to my dream world" and is done by kari liimatainen. See other works by clicking on the photo.

Well, it's 2008 now and I'm certain this will cause me difficulty when writing checks. It will be March before I get this one down as usual.

Nothing special was planned, nor done, for our New Year's celebration. We stayed up to watch the ball drop then mosied on into bed. Today was spent updating the Web Site for January. Have you ever tried to draw a paper clip? Or scotch tape? Or a post-it note? Not as easy as I had anticipated :)

Well, here's the story for the day. Enjoy!

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian newlyweds kissing on the backseat of their hired car were unaware their chauffeur was street drag racing, until a police siren broke their romantic bliss and ended the race.
The chauffeur, clocked at up to 130 kph (80 mph) racing a young driver in a rental car, was fingerprinted on the side of the road and the hire car confiscated.
"It's alleged that as the traffic light turned green both the (cars) accelerated harshly from the intersection and continued to travel at speed along the highway," police said in a statement.
Both drivers were taken away by police, while newlyweds John and Laina Tauranga were escorted home in a police car.