Does anyone want an old U-Haul

Hello everyone,

I have the current burden of trying to sell this old U-Haul truck for the band boosters. We have decided to sell the truck and purchase us a trailer. This will save us a lot of money in maintenance and upkeep. So if anyone knows someone that wants one, let me know.

Since my last post, I worked at SAS on Monday. We had a easy shift with three calls total. Nothing exciting to speak of. For some reason, I could not sleep at the service. So when I got home on Tuesday, I went to sleep for what was supposed to be a short nap. I awoke at 2:30 pm in a panic. I was supposed to have an ad in the traders helper by 3 pm for the truck and have a grant application to Wal-Mart today. I got both done believe it or not and was still early to pick Hunter up at practice. Hunter, Amy and I then rode up to Talladega to submit a grant application to the Wal-Mart there also. I sure hope these matching grants come thru. It would mean $2000.00 for the band to work on purchasing instruments and equipment needed. When we got home from Talladega, I rested some more looking at my new personal info cards that Amy hooked me up with. They are call MOO cards and to see more about them, visit Amy's blog by using the link to the right side. I can't wait to use them. We are going to make a collage of the first run series of them due to the pictures are a great snap shot of me and my interests. I will try and do a post with a picture of it so you can see. I am going to have to re order some more cards to hand out since I am using half the order for the picture. Wait till I see you and give you one, you will see why they are so interesting. Today, I got to sleep in just a little before coming to work at TCC at 2:30 this afternoon. I was supposed to have lunch with a friend from high school but we are having difficulty pulling it off due to our schedules changing. We will try again another day. It has been steady here but not to bad. Another hour till I go home to get ready to start the process back over at SAS tomorrow. I do not look forward to tomorrow since I will not be with my partner till late in the day. I don't mind working with Deanna, I just hate changing back and forth. I don't like change very much, especially in the middle of a shift. But it will be OK. I will let you know how it goes.

Till next time,

Jeff

Costa de Cocos Survived Hurricane Dean

In a previous post, I mentioned my friends down in Mexico. I heard from Dave a few days later. He said...

Good Morning, Well what ever you did it worked. We are all alive and well.

A lot of cleaning up but all is here and mostly in tact.

Thank you so much for your concern

Dave

Thank you all for your prayers and I hope you get the chance to fish down there sometime. Visit the link on the lower right column, for Costa de Cocos info.

Thanks,

Jeff

Happy Birthday Amy

Happy Birthday, AMY

Well, Amy turns 35 August 27, 2007. So that means that by the time you read this, it will be her Birthday. We had dinner at my parents tonight to celebrate with a meal that Amy ordered up, along with a Red Velvet Cake as per Amy's wish. Above are the pictures of the gift I crafted for her as a Birthday gift. It is a lanyard for her school ID when she starts to substitute around Winterboro. I made it from ribbon and put a few essentials on it. It has a place for her ID badge, a watch (since she does not like to wear one)and I put her a 2 Gig jump drive on it so she can carry PTA files or documents back and forth from school to home. I hope it will hold up well and she enjoys it.

Just a quick note on what's been up around here since my last post. I believe I left you at TCC. We had an uneventful night. I did get Amy's gift made. The next day was back to SAS. We had a hard day with one call after another. Both units kept going steady tell about 6 pm, then it just stopped. We had a good dinner and some relax time. Both units got up once during the night to take a patient to Birmingham. On Saturday and Sunday I was off both days. I'm not use to that. I did have a special called meeting at the fire department to go over the specifications for a new quick response type vehicle we are trying to purchase. To my disbelief, we all agreed on one pretty fast and decided to move on getting the bids out and the unit purchased rather quickly. I came home and we worked on the den some more, till time for Amy to go work at Grandmom's house for the night. I watched a movie and Hunter played on the computer till about 11 pm and then we went to sleep. I slept in till almost 2 this afternoon. A got up and put on my old clothes and crawled under the house to run new wires in order to move the entertainment center to the new spot. I hate all the wires needed to make all the surround system and dish ready to move. But it's done and all moved. It does look so much better in the new place. I can not wait to finish the other side of the room and get the computer station set up and out of the bed room. Then, like I said above, we had dinner for Amy's birthday tonight and now it is time to get some sleep so I can work tomorrow at SAS.

I'll talk to you guys later,

Jeff

Pray for my friends in Mexico and Belize !

Please pray for my friends at Costa de Cocos resort, David and his family along with all the guides and their families that work there. Also pray for the people affected by Hurricane Dean along the Mexican and Belize coastline. My family loves to visit this part of the world and a year ago on our last trip made new friends along the hardest hit area. The picture at the top of my Blog was taken while fishing with our guide out of Costa de Cocos in the cay between Mexico and Belize. May GOD be with all of them in their time of need.

The "Man Cabinet"

Hello everyone,

As you can see, I have shown you a little piece of heaven for me. Hunter and I call it the "Man Cabinet". The actual cabinet is an old cabinet that we came across in the attic of Grandmom's house. There is no telling when it was constructed. It is definately handmade some years ago. We have used it for several different displays, over the few years since we got it and cleaned it up. But for the last few times, it has been my liqueur storage or a display of my things. As you can see, it has some cigar boxes that have been collected along with a few Tequila bottles. The two important bottles are the Cabo Wabo Bottles. Up on top of the cabinet, is a couple of interesting bottles of cashew wine. These came from Belize and are made from the fruit that the cashew nut hangs from. It has a distinctive cashew taste. Other special things of mine are in the cabinet, along with some representation of my life. This is my area of decoration in our home, and I enjoy it.

We got the cabinet placed back up last night. As you know from a previous post, we have been working on painting the den and redoing the arrangement. As we rehung it, Amy and I talked about sharing it with you guys that may not come to the house and be able to see it. It really is pretty with the new wall color.

Just a quick note about what's been going on for the last couple of days. On Tuesday, I worked SAS. Patsy was out so I had Deanna for a partner. We had a decent day. Nothing really exciting to talk about. It was steady but not what I would call busy. I just hate when the few calls thru the night are spaced so you never get any good sleep. When I got home, I got on work clothes and headed to fix the tractor from my bad day on Saturday. It went good. The repairs were not too bad expensive and went smoothly. I also got the push mower running for Mom and returned the box blade to Chris, whom had let me borrow it. When all that was done and I had the bush hog still on, I went ahead and cut the under brush behind Mom and Dad's house. I did not realize how hot I had gotten till I got off the tractor to wash it off and got light headed. I decided that that was it for now and put the tractor up and went and took a cold shower. I met some of the other Band Booster members for us to look at a trailer for sale to replace the u-haul truck we have now.

After dinner, is when Amy and I worked on putting the cabinet up and arranging it. Hunter and I went up to the shop and got the mower deck replaced under the tractor so that the grass could be cut. Hunter had to do a safety inspection, any repairs needed, and install a farm implement for a merit badge he is working on. So we satisfied that requirement. From there, it was back to the shower then to bed.

I am now at TCC working a 12 hour shift from 10:30 to 10:30. Someone called in, so they called and wanted me to come in early and pull the 12 instead of an 8 hour shift. I really needed the time so I was glad to. I will let you know about my day today later on.

Talk to you soon,

Jeff

Not much to say, just tired.

Hello everyone,

As I sit here at TCC "working", I have gotten a couple of things done on my blog site for you to take note of. The first is that I have my friend Dave's 911 site logo for his link done. I have also gotten my Photo site started. I will be putting pictures here for all of you to see. I don't guess most of you know that I love photography and especially enjoy nature photography. I hope you will check out my pictures every once and awhile and see some of my photos. There is also some photos from other sites and places there to see. Let me know what you think.

We have been very busy here today with some awful patient reports to relay. I won't even go into some of the calls due to how bad they have been. I don't enjoy days like today, but it does make it interesting.

Amy and I rode to Birmingham together today. We had to run to Talladega for her to do some more paperwork for the school system. Then we made our way over to B'ham by I-20, stopping in Moody at Cracker Barrel for some lunch. She dropped me at work and went shopping. Hunter gets to stay at Nana's tonight so she could do this. I'm sure he is not suffering any.

I can't wait to get home and get some sleep. I did not rest good last night after sleeping some during the day yesterday. I will be at SAS tomorrow, so I will catch up with all of you on Wednesday.

I just wanted to help !

Hello everyone,

As I have said in a previous post, when I get involved in something, I'm all in. Well, something else I should tell you is that when I try to volunteer to do something, especially if I volunteer to use my equipment, I usually end up breaking something. So as you can figure out, I have a story to tell you.

I volunteered to go to Winterboro School on Saturday for a clean up day around the field to get ready for the football season. We had greed to be there between 6 and 6:30 am. Well I finally stopped hitting the alarm at 6:30 and got up. Amy told me that I did not sleep good all night and talked to myself trying to rationalize tuning the alarm off. I got up and headed up to the shed to get the tractor ready to go. The finishing mower was under it so I need to get it off so I could put the bush hog mower on. I should have known when to stop when I started having problems getting the mower off and it just would not cooperate. I got it off and got the bush hog on. Dad had walked out to see if I needed help. I should have asked for a prayer, but instead said I was OK. He helped me anyway with the bush hog. Then I turned the tractor around and put the box blade in the bucket of the front end loader to take in case we needed it. Dad even asked if it would ride like that and I said "no problem, it will ride fine. We put it on the trailer and I finished putting a few lawn tools in the truck to use and headed off. By now its 7:30 am and I am an hour late. Being late is a big stress point for me and I should have know it was going to keep going down hill from there. I turned out onto Main Street in Sycamore, when the box blade fell off the front end loader and hit my tail gate and bumper of the truck. I made it a few hundred yards to the church parking lot and wrestled it into the back of the truck. I don't know how I did it by myself, probably from the state of mind I was in and the adrenaline going hard. As you can see above in the picture, it messed my tailgate and bumper up pretty good. I got going again to the school. When I got out on the highway, I figured out fast that the tractor was not sitting on the trailer right and I could not pull it over 30 mph or it would sway badly. I just went slow instead of trying to stop and reposition. I was not in a good mood. I did make it to the school and got unloaded. Everything seemed to be going OK, except that a lot of people did not show. I used the loader to pick up some trash and a pile of debris into the dumpster. I then went to bush hog behind the bleachers like I had planned. I was making good progress and cleared several passes before the first problem started. The first was when I got up against the fence with the tractor and I think every pin or screw that stuck out on the side of the tractor got tangled into the fence. It took forever to get out of that mess. I then got tangled into a piece of guy wire or old power line wire that someone had cut loose and left in the brush. Again, it took me forever to get it out from under the bush hog. Again, I got going and made a small piece of progress before disaster struck. I was using the loader to push the brush down so I could bush hog over it. I got against a big piece of brush and was using the hydraulics to push it out when the line to the lift portion of the loader blew out, spraying me with hot hydraulic fluid. Of course this also meant I could not raise the loader any more. Well, I had to back out from in the woods all the way around the field and to the trailer due to the bucket would not let me go forward being down. I finally got to the trailer to realize now that I can't get on the trailer without going forward. I got the trailer at an angle and wedged the loader bucket up onto the trailer so it would slide on the trailer bottom. I thought, what else can happen now. Well then my chain saw would not start to cut the two dead trees that stand behind the field and look awful. I finally packed it in and came home.

I got my shower and told Amy about how it had all been so bad all morning. I had to be at the ambulance service by noon to relieve the coworker that held over for me to be able to go help at the school. I made it in at 12:15, so that was not to bad.

The good news is that for some reason my bad luck took a break and we did not run all day and I got some rest. The bad news is that when I awoke from my nap, I hurt all over from all the wrestling I had done with the equipment. Then we stared running calls. Nothing good for awhile, then at 2:30 this morning, we had to go out to one of the local taverns to check a person involved in a fight. He had gotten the crap beaten out of him. He was mostly calm thru us putting the collar on and onto the backboard. But once in the ambulance, I went to put an IV in him and he became a live one and wanted to fight again thinking that we were the ones from before. It was all my partner and I could do to not get hurt, till the police could get into the ambulance and get him wrestled down and handcuffed to the stretcher. He cussed us and was not a pleasant person till we got him sedated in the ED. This did not help my back at all. We had just gotten back to sleep from that when we were called to check another domestic fight victim. She was drunk and also uncooperative and that call was no more fun than the other. At least she was not violent, just aggravating.

I finely got off this morning and got home. It's been a pretty pleasant day. We did some family stuff and rested a little. But I wanted to do this post to tell you about how my day yesterday went from bad to worse and remind all you to look at the signs and if they are telling you to stop, STOP. Maybe it won't end up costing you like it always does me because I won't listen to the signs and keep going. After all, my volunteering is only going to cost me a tail gate for my truck, a hydraulic line and hydraulic fluid, along with the four hours of work I missed just to be there.

Good luck to all of you !

Jeff

Happy Birthday to my brother Kelly

Well, Kelly is 35 !! Happy Birthday to you Brother.

These pictures are of his cake that Mom had done here in Sylacauga at "Teresa's Catering". It was amazing and tasted good to. As you can probably figure out, Kelly is a big fisherman. So most everything has to do with fishing or bass. The picture he is holding was our gift to him. It is a signed print from an artist from Laural Mississippi that Amy and I found at the Homestead Hollow Craft Show in June. It just happened to match the cake. Mom did not know about the picture and we did not know about the cake. Funny how things work out sometimes.

Other than Kelly's birthday dinner tonight, I have been home all day helping around the house. We are still working on the den area. We got all the windows clean and back in and the blinds rehung. Coming right along. Hunter had band practice late this evening. They have not had outdoor practice due to the heat for the past week. They are behind with their show so they practiced late when it cooled off some. They are sounding good, now to get the marching down.


We had a pretty light shift at the ambulance yesterday. Slept all night. I love getting paid to sleep. I wish it could be that way every shift. No exciting calls to tell about. I'll be at TCC early in the morning, so I am going to go on and try and get some sleep. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Jeff

Hunter - "the Drummer"

Hi folks,

Look at this, my son all grown up and marching in the band. I can not believe that my life has come full circle to me being a band booster and him marching. He is playing the tenors (Quads) for his first year marching. He loves playing and of course he beats on everything he can. Well got to go to band booster meeting in a few minutes, so I'll go for now. Check back in with me later.

See Ya !!

Hot days of working !

Hello everyone,

To catch you up. My last blog ended with me at TCC at work. We had a busy spell where we had about 10 patients within an hour then back to slow. All the patients were mostly from two wrecks, one in Walker county and one in Shelby county.

I got off a few minutes late and got home to find that the TV had gone out. Hunter and Amy stated they smelled something electrical burning and then the TV went off. It won't even try to power up and smells awful when you plug it up. Oh well. Maybe I can talk Amy into a plasma or LCD (LOL). Amy and Hunter had finished the painting, so Hunter and I rehung the sliding glass door blinds and pulled the tape border off. I will still have to hang the mini blinds and curtains when Amy gets them ready. Hunter showed me some drummer videos he had found on youTube and I worked on a letter to my boss at SAS and a letter for the band boosters. I laid down about 2am and guess I fell asleep sometime around 3.

Woke the next morning to go to SAS. We had an easy morning, but caught it all afternoon. We had a lot of high blood pressure patients, I guess from the heat. But we had one hell of a wreck at County Road 41 and 280 around 5 pm. It looked like we had every department from Coosa County and southern Talladega County there. We had four patients in a minivan that blew a tire and rolled, according to witness, 6 times before going into the woods where it went another 40-50 yards thru the trees landing upside down. We ended up flying two patients out and ground transporting two others. My patient was not critical and got a bunch of stitches but was OK. We had to transport a patient to Princeton about midnight, so we got back and into bed about 2:30. Slept the rest of the night.

Today I went home and visited with my parents for a few minutes then went down to the house and Amy and I got a few errands together before I left coming to Bham, back to TCC at 2:30 pm. I went toward Pelham to Amy's parents to get a TV they gave us to use, but I made several stops on the way there. I got to TCC a little early to move the satellite dish so the tree will not interfere with it during rain. It was HOT out there. Now I am sitting at my computers and awaiting patient calls. Its been a decent day so far here.

Amy has not had such a easy day, but I hope she will be alright. Just a little stress in getting her paperwork done for the school. I look forward to getting home and spending some time with her since we have not had but this morning for a short/busy time together since I left for work at lunch time on Saturday. I worked TCC Saturday evening. She worked at Grandmothers Saturday night. Then I went to SAS Sunday before she got home and then had to get on the road to Bham today early. So it will be good to get home.

I am off tomorrow but it looks like a busy day of projects around the house and I need to go fix a drum at the school. Then tomorrow night is Band Booster meeting and Fire Department meeting.

Maybe one day soon I can just have an off day. Lets hope!

A little bit of home time !

Well, This is my first real posting on my blog. I am working hard to get my blog to look the way I want it to and Amy is helping me as much as possible.

My last shift at SAS was not the best. I get so tired of the internal struggles between us the crew members along with the normal stresses of the job. I was tired all day but we stayed steady. One of our patients was the sweetest little 3 month old Hispanic girl that had to go to Children's in Birmingham for definitive care. I felt so sorry for the family, we had such difficulty with communications. I can not imagine having a sick child and not understanding what the people trying to help are saying. I have got to learn Spanish soon. Other than that call, the rest were normal or BS calls. We slept most of the night and got off on time.

When I got home, I was amazingly relaxed and had a great conversation with Amy and we went to lunch and did a few errands around town. We decided to work on painting in the den area of the house to make it more comfortable and more to our taste. We are working on the house slowly as we have time and money to do it. Hunter is working on a scouting merit badge that has a requirement to do some household repairs such as paint a wall and hang curtains, so this fulfilled this requirement. We did a lot more of the requirements the other night up in the shop. We worked on prepping the wall and prime and painting till about midnight. Amy is going to work more on another coat of paint and rehanging the blinds today while I work at TCC. I will have to run new cables for the satellite dish and surround speakers on my next available day to move the entertainment area to the other wall were we want it. Then we can finish the other side of the room and move or computer/desk area into the den and out of the bedroom. I can wait to get that done so that I can leave the computer running and my weather station online.

As I stated, I am at work today at TCC. So far it has not been a bad shift, but it is a Saturday evening so I expect it to get busier. I will let you guys know later.

Amy did make a big decision this weekend that will help our family a lot financially. She is going to do some substitute teaching for some extra income. I feel it will be good for her to be more active on a daily basis but worry about her health a little also. I feel she can do it and she will feel better being active. She is also working hard on getting the schools wiki space up and going and then linking all the rest of the departments wiki's to it. It will be awesome. I will let you all know when it is up so you can check it out.

Keep a close eye on my Blog for constant changes and I look forward to any comment s you might have.

About Jeff

I am my work is what I am told. I admit that I put my all into my work and all that goes with being a Paramedic. I give away all my time then wonder where it has gone. I love getting involved and when I get involved, I am all in. I volunteer for Sycamore VFD. I volunteer at Winterboro High School for the PTA and Band Boosters. I work for Sylacauga Ambulance Service, Inc. and Trauma Communications Center - a division of BREMSS. I am currently working on making an identity for myself that is not work related. This is probably going to be an impossible task, but that is my goal. As my header states "Everyone Knows Jeff" comes from my family stating that we can not go anywhere that I don't know someone or someone knowing me. But most of you do not know the true me and thats what I want to share with you.