Friday night bliss and a Beautiful Saturday

I left you as I was leaving work Friday headed to the game. As normal, the band looked good, but the team did not. I am not a football person, so I can not tell you what is going on with them. It looks like they just can't get together. As I said, the Blue Knights looked good. They performed the entire show for the first time and I thought did a good job. The video for the performance is in the right side area under a new link place to videos. Just click the video you want to see and it will start showing at the top of this column. Then you can click on the link under the video to go to a larger screen size viewing. I will attempt to keep the videos from the games posted. Other videos I post to Google will also show up here, so look for the band picture for band video. I have already posted two videos, one is of our band. The other is of the TCCHS band performance at the County wide exhibition at Childersburg on Tuesday. It is a show to see. I will get our performance from the exhibition uploaded soon. I upload from my computer at work due to the very high speed connection we have verses at home.

Let me cover the last couple of days for you. Friday night went well. We made a decent amount from the concession stand. It actually got chilly during the game. Amy worked a table to sign up PTSA members and I think got 5 members signed up. I slept good that night. Saturday, I headed to SAS with concerns due to the events of last shift. To my surprise, the day went pretty smooth. We only ran 8 calls total with my unit transporting two and a public assist and a PRT. We got some good sleep. during the day and night. My partner and I rode out to the Sycamore Fire Fighter appreciation day at Chief's house. It looked like they had a good time. We only stayed a short time.

Today, I got home about 8:15. I laid down with Amy to watch some TV before getting ready for work. I of course fell asleep. I got up at noon, got ready and left for TCC. Picked up lunch and take out for supper at Hooters. Made it in to work on time. A co-worked at TCC brought me his trencher so I can cut the conduit trench to my shop tomorrow. I think I will go ahead and trench in a line from the water line to the shop while I have it and put in a spigot at the concrete pad for so we can wash the tractor or whatever. I'll let you know how it goes next time I post.

I work tell 10:30 tonight and then have plans to work outside tomorrow till time to go to Band Boosters, Scouts and a Foundation meeting tomorrow night.

Till next time,

Jeff

Rough end week of Sept 07

Hello everyone,

I have had a rough week this week. I sure hope you have had better. My works have both been very stressful this week with conflicts between fellow employees and my worrying on how to solve the problems. If you know anything about me, you know that I do not like conflict and am a saver of the world and its problems. Well, this week has been one that I have gotten into messes trying to do just that, solve the problems and reduce conflict. But as always, it has just made it worse.

I ended the last blog at work on Saturday, it ended without much incident.

Sunday was at SAS, the day was slow but of course we were up all night.

Monday, I went home and slept till noon. Got up to get ready for work and headed to TCC. I barley made it in time. We had a busy shift but during the shift I did try and solve some of the problems with the pool personnel shift schedule that a co worker and I are trying to get started at the request of Joe. We are getting some resistance to the change and a couple of people are real mad, but Joe approved the plan, so I guess I will just have to put up with the complaining and being mad at me till it all blows over. I did not get out of there till after 11 pm. That meant getting home after midnight. Amy needed help with a couple things so I did not lay down till after 2 am.

Tuesday, I got up with Amy at 6 am. I worked on getting the trailer ready to go get painted on Wednesday. I also worked on checking grants and doing some fund raising calls for the band. I went to town to check on Amy, who was a chaperon for the pool party at school. I then had lunch and headed home to complete getting the trailer done and to be at the school at 3 pm to get loaded for the band exhibition. The band did a great show. Then it went downhill. We had several kids decided to wonder off and be where they were not supposed to be. Myself and another parent went to retrieve them. One of the students decided to be trouble and resist the command to go back to where he was supposed to be, He was verbally abusive toward us and to Ms. Street ( the band director). this just made the rest of the night tense and unenjoyable. When we got back to the band room and were unloading, Amy called and said she was coming to meet us but the car would not start. We finally got all the students gone about 10 pm and Hunter and I headed home. We have not eaten supper even at this late of an hour. I got home and found that indeed the car would not turn over. It jumped right off, so we headed to town to get a bite to eat. The funny thing that happened during this was that Amy (known for going slow everywhere) got pulled over for going 40 in a 25. The officer knew me and did not give her a ticket, but it was funny to Hunter and I. We ate at McDonalds and Kelly came by and visited with us there. When we got ready to leave, the car would not crank again, Kelly couldn't jump us with the patrol car so as I was hunting for someone to help us, he pulled back up with a fellow Sycamore FD member that he had come across down the road who jumped us off. So once again, I got in bed about 2 in the morning.

Wednesday, I got up at 5:30 so that I could take the band trailer to the body shop and get the truck back home so that I can jump the car off and leave it for Amy to use. I then headed back to town to get a the battery checked and replaced. I made it in to work at SAS just a few minutes late. That is when everything went wrong. Of course I was grumpy and tired. I was in the supply room and was gripping about the lack of some supplies and not knowing who my partner was today since David had school again and Patsy would not be with me. Patsy heard my gripping and for some reason got upset with me and yelled about several issues and stomped off. I got with Preston and we left to run some errands. we got a call and then the other unit had to go to Montgomery. While they were gone, we ran our tails off. Then when they got back, we again had a small conflict with the other crew about a call. It took a four page report to Barry to explain all the events of that day and night, so I will not bore you with all the details. Lets just say that it did not get better but worse, to the point that Patsy left in the middle of the night.

Thursday, I was awoke by Barry to ask me to write a incident report on the events of the night. I had to work over till 6 pm today. I got up and wrote the report. The mood around the service was awful for the whole day and of course I was tired since I had all of 2 hours of sleep and not good sleep at that. We had a decent day with not to many calls. I got off work at 6 pm and made my way to the PTS meeting at the school. we than went to dinner and I got to bed a little before 10. Finally some decent sleep.

And now it is Friday. I am at TCC working the 6:30am - 2;30 pm shift. I left the house at 5:30 and made it in fine. We have had a very slow day. I got about 30 minutes before I get to head home to change clothes and go to the school to work the concession stand. Then to SAS tomorrow ( I am worried about what the mood will be).

I will update you on Sunday when I am back at TCC.

Tell Then,

Jeff

Trailer for Band taking shape

I can not believe I have not put on a blog all week. It has been a busy week.

I don't even think I can start to tell you about the whole week, but I will give you a quick snapshot.

Monday was a SAS day, We had a pretty good day till that evening. About dark (we were headed to dinner), the other unit got a call to a possible death of unknown type. We went as backup for them. We arrived to find a young man (22 yo) ,that we all knew due to the fact that he worked at the hospital, dead on the couch. No apparent reason for death. As I did a survey of the home for possible medication bottles or other facts, I came across some explosive devices and what looked like a bag of nails. We evacuated the home immediately. The ABI came and cleared the home before we could remove the body. it made for a long few hours. I fell for our acquaintance, but we all knew he had some problems going on and was not right when it came to firearms and explosives. It scared all of us that he had the devices we found. The ABI confirmed that the devices were triggers for hand grenades and the bag of what looked like nails were something he called fasets. He explained that these were projectiles from the Korean and Vietnam war that are basically nails with fins on them so that they fly straight. He told us they are rare to see and mostly use to load shotgun shells with to fire like a bunch of arrows. Like I said before, it was not a good feeling to know these things are out there much less that a person you knew and someone that talked about weapons all the time had them and was doing something with them. We finished the night pretty quietly.

Tuesday, Got off and got ready to head to B'ham for an afternoon shift. I ran a bunch of errands on the way in. I had to go to the cleaners, to Home Depot for stuff to work on the trailer on Wednesday. I then went to the Rogers to pick up the new band director podium that Mr. Rogers built so that the new director would not fall threw the old one. It looks great. He helped me round off the edges for the boards for the new trailer floor dividers also. Mr. Rogers had also called a friend of his and arranged for some railing to go in the trailer, so I left there and went to pick it up. I made it in to work a little early. It was an interesting day with a charge from my director to figure out how to get all the "pool" staff on a path to doing our schedule differently. A co-worker and I figured out that the only way to make it work with the staff never being in one place at a time and it hard to communicate between us, was to do it online. So I set up a new Blogspot for tccpool and than linked a calendar program to it so that we can input our days and communicated from where ever we are. It is not exciting or anything, but you are welcome to look at it.

On Wednesday, I spent all day stripping put the inside of the trailer and rebuilding a system for the instruments and equipment to be secured. Check out all the pictures of the trailer by clicking on the Picasa link to the Right side of this and go to the band album. It looks great inside. Oh and by the way, I got a my friend who owns Watson Paint and Body to agree to paint the trailer for the band and he got Dupont to donate the paint for it. I also painted the podium base and put the carpet on it. The podium was delivered that afternoon when we picked Hunter up from practice. We relaxed the rest of the evening after dinner. I guess it was the first time I had sat and watched the new TV. It is amazing to me how clear the picture is, even without the HD tuner yet.

Thursday came, I went to SAS and Any to the school. She called me shortly after 9 am and said she was having trouble with her vision and had blacked out a couple of times. I went ahead and took the day off so that I could watch her and be there if she needed anything. It actually gave me a restful day that I probably needed anyway. She is doing fine now, i think it was just the sinus infection she has that has been going around these parts. I picked Hunter up from practice and we went to town and ran a couple of errands and picked up dinner then relaxed some more.

Friday was of course a busy day for us. I finished a few things that needed doing to the trailer for use for the game. Did some chores around the house, then headed to town to get my radio programed and get some lunch. I got to the school at 2 pm to hang a curtain rod for Amy and then load the band trailer. If you looked at the pictures, you saw that everything fit great and it went well. The game went well tell the rain came than it all fell apart. We rushed to get instruments in the trailer and out of the rain and during this, one of the football players got hurt and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. At the same time, we had a band member having chest pains and shortness of breath. We ended up calling a ambulance for her also and she went to the hospital. we left a parent with her and headed back to Winterboro. As soon as I got back to the school, Amy picked me up and we headed back to Wedowee to pick up the parent and check on the students. My mom came and picked Hunter up and took him home with her for the night. We got back to Wedowee a little after midnight to find that everyone was already gone home. I sure wish I had had phone signal threw the woods so that we could have not made that trip. We got back to the school about 1:45 and picked up the truck and got home right after 2am. I don't even remember laying down.

And now it is Saturday. I am at work at TCC. So far it has been a good day, But it is a Saturday, so there is no telling what will happen later.

I will fill you in next time. Check out the pictures on the Picasa link to the Right for pictures from the week in the Band and school albums. I also put a vidio below of the band as thay prepair and play thae fight song as the team comes to the field at Woodland.

Jeff

What a beutiful Weekend

I don't know how your weekend was, but mine was great. Could not ask for better.

Friday, started at SAS a had a good day. Got off from there and went to the ballgame to volunteer in the concession stand. We had a decent night as far a fund raising goes. the team did not have such a good night, but the band did well. Came home and got to sleep in my bed.

Got up Saturday morning and headed to town to get the parts to fix the car. Rex hand I knocked the job right out and I learned a little about brake work. Rex then took me on a tour of the river down stream from his place. It was so beautiful out there and the temp was awesome with a cool breeze. Got home to find Amy and Hunter up and we got ready and went on to Birmingham to do some shopping. I did not find the Crocs I was looking for nut we did find a good deal on a 42 inch LCD monitor that Amy wanted to buy the family for both TV watching and for the computer to work on her web sights. Like I'm going to argue with that. We also got a DVD player that expands the current DVD's to 1080p format and records DVD's so Amy can record some of her shows she keeps on the DVR. Hunter and I got it hooked up and watching fast when we got home. We took the Sony 32 inch up to grandmom's so that she would have a bigger set so it would be easier for her to see.

I got to sleep in this morning which I needed badly. When I got up, Hunter was on the phone and Amy was still asleep so I went out and pulled the vinyl stickers off the trailer for the band. Hunter and I then did some more work on getting the trailer cleaned up and ready for new carpet and to be cleaned up good. We straighten up the shop and fixed a bar on the 3 point hitch of the tractor. Since then I have just relaxed, ate dinner and done this blog. I look forward to a busy week, but it should be a good week.

Talk to you later,

Jeff

It's gone, it's finally gone !!

Hello everyone,

Yes, I sold the u-haul truck. I am so glad. We have already purchased the trailer to replace it. I will get some pics up soon of the trailer for your viewing.

Anyway, let me catch you up from my last post.

I left you as I was getting if work at TCC. We had a staff meeting at TCC after my shift. Not much to update there, a possibility of more part time and full time positions coming as we expand and we went over new Trauma Plans for North Alabama region. I headed home about 9:45. I stopped at Hancock fabrics to see if they had a square that Amy needed with no success. I then had to go on into Sylacauga and pick up Hunter's uniform at the cleaners. So I got home about noon. I had to be at the school to load the band at 2:00 (you do the math, that's not much sleep). Anyway, We got the truck loaded and headed tho Pleasant Valley for the game. It did not take long before Amy and I realized the truck had an fuel leak and a exhaust leak. We were flying high by the time we got there. The game did not go well. We lost about 5 or 6 players to injury and lost after a great start. The band did GREAT. Dad rode back with me due to I would not let Amy ride in the fumes.

The next day was a SAS day, We had a great day. it was relaxing and smooth. On the way back from a Brookwood trip, we stopped and I got to look at the SMART car. It is so cool, I want a silver or red one bad. Chris worked for Preston and he is the "MASTER' of ribs, so he did us several slabs up and we were in heaven. Amy came over and got her hair cut. We had a steady night but not to bad.

I went home the next morning and took a 3 hour nap before heading to Work at TCC. I did stop at the SMART car exhibit again so that I could drive one. It just made me want one worse. They are so much fun to drive. At TCC, we had a busy afternoon with several long flights for LifeSaver.

On Monday, Amy and Hunter headed to school and I was going to sleep just a little but awoke at noon. I went to the school to take the u-haul truck to the shop. it has a major fuel leak and we found that the exhaust system was completely shut down and collapsed. I got a great offer for the truck for parts from the shop mechanic. At the Band Booster meeting, we decided to sell the truck and go ahead and buy the trailer. We did other band stuff to but nothing really to tell you about except to be ready to purchase cookie dough and pizza kits soon.

Then it was back to SAS. We had a busy day till I got off at 5:30 to go to a Foundation meeting at the school. The foundation meeting went real well with the foundation giving $1231.00 to the band for help in the purchase of instruments. Back at SAS, we had a slow night and got some decent rest.

On Wednesday, I went home when I got off from SAS and cleaned up, then headed to the school to help Amy move some computers and go sell the truck. Of course, if it can happen, it did. We found out we had no title for the truck. I still sold it to the guy fro parts but lost $750.00 due to him not being able to turn around and sell the chassis without a title. But it is gone and I do not have to worry with it no more. I spent the rest of the day either at the school working or running to the bank for the band to make deposits and get a check to purchase the trailer. I picked the trailer up in the afternoon and then when Hunter and I got home, started cleaning stickers off of it and getting it in tip top shape for the band. It is going to be so much better to use than the truck was. The family actually ate at home last night which was a great treat. Amy and I watched some TV and went to bed.

I now am at TCC for the 6:30 to 2:30 shift. It has not been to bad today here. I have done a lot of organization of things in my binders and worked on next months schedule. I did realize I had a brake problem on the Sable, so I will be doing a brake job on Saturday with Rex's help.

I am looking forward to this weekend. I get off from SAS tomorrow afternoon to work the ball game and don't have to work till Monday again. Beside doing the brake job, I hope to just do things with Amy and Hunter and relax.

I'll let you know how it goes. Bye for now

Jeff

Slow night at TCC with EMERGENCY DVD's

Good morning everyone,

I have been here at TCC all night on a 12 hour shift. It was a good quite night. I got 6 episodes of EMERGENCY watched. I am almost done with season 3.

I have had a good couple of days. Wednesday was at SAS. We only did like 5 or 6 calls (i know I only did 3) we did not run a call after we got back from Montgomery at about 6:30 pm. I stayed up all night to make it so I could sleep during the day Thursday cause I had to work the 7:30 p - 7:30 a shift here at TCC. So of course that is what I did during the day Yesterday till time to get up, get ready go get Hunter from Band and make it in to work. We have staff meeting at 7:30 this morning so I am doing this blog before everyone gets here. I will then go home and take a nap before having to be at the school around 2 to get ready to go to the football game tonight. We go to Pleasant Valley (close to Jacksonville). I am driving the old u-haul truck. It should be fun. LOL.

Ill talk to you guys later and let you know how the band did and I guess how the team did also.

Jeff

Friends and Faith feedback

Hello all,

I got a little feedback on my post about both friends and faith that I would like to share with you. A co-worker at TCC had some great comments that he shared with me. He told me that I needed to look at how I define friendship before I make a statement that I did not feel like I had friends. He asked me if I considered him a friend. I told him no, that I considered him a co-worker or acquaintance. He asked me why. He told me that he thought of me as a friend but not as a buddy. This really got me to thinking about what he was saying to me. He defined a friend as someone that you can go to and ask for help or talk to. It does not mean that you have to do things together or talk a lot. He gave the example of us like this - he said that if I was to call him and ask him if he wanted to go fishing for the day, he would find an excuse to say no because he does not like to fish. But if I was to call him and ask if he would come help me build a shed or house or do something like that, he would gladly come help cause he likes to do this type of thing. I have always defined a friendship by how much I put out verses how much I receive. I have figured out that that is the wrong way to approach being a friend. As most of you know, I am a giver and a doer. I don't know how to say no. Well that is what I have to change in order for me to find the JOY of friendship. I thought all the way home about the words that were said to me and then got to thinking of all the FRIENDS I have. I have more than I can count when I change my thinking of the people that I can call on if I need something. I got to thinking about the different friendships I have. For a few examples; David and I have a cigar friendship, Chris and I have a rib friendship, Patsy and I have a partner friendship, Marc and I have an old and lasting friendship, Charlie and I have a hunting friendship, and the list goes on and on. I am so sorry to those of you that I doubted our friendship because of my definition and way of thinking. I was wrong to have expectations of you that you did not even know about. And it is my choice to be the giver and not yours.

As far as a little inside into faith that I was given; it was pointed out to me that faith can be measured in the JOY you receive from anything you do that is a gift or ministry to others. You do not have to be in a church to minister or have faith. It is a good thing to have a good church home, to be able to give and receive joy in relationships between yourself and other believers. But if you believe that you have been saved and have FAITH, your soul belongs to GOD and all the non joy is the devil's work. Find joy in what you do and you will find peace. If you don't have joy in it, don't do it.

Thanks to you all for being my FRIENDS, for if you are reading this blog you probably care for me in some way, and that means a lot.

Jeff

Faith, Family and Friends

"It's just a normality of life that I've been searching for. I'm just tired of being gone."
Michael "Fatback" McSwain
http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/headlines/cup/08/28/mmcswain.stepping.back.belliott/index.html

Hello everyone,

As you can tell from the header, I'm want to talk about how we all should look at how we are living our lives and slow down some.

As I was sitting at work Sunday, watching Speed channel prior to the NASCAR race, I saw a interview with Micheal "Fatback" McSwain that really caught me off guard. I really wish I had a recording of the interview to share with you, but I could not find it anywhere. As soon as the interview started, it caught my attention and made me start thinking about how what he was saying was how I felt almost entirely. He was telling the reporter that he has made the decision to step down from his crew chief duties at the end of this season due to his desire to work on his "Faith, Family and Friends". He reiterated that he had given everything he had for the last 15 years to gain in his career, but had sacrificed the relationships with his faith, family and friends. But now has figured out that this sacrifice he gave was not worth it in the end and he has decided to make the change in his life to regain some of what he has lost. I quote a comment from him," If I can lead one person over to celebrating life, I will have succeeded". He goes on to say that "I love life".

Well, this is the same type action that I have been trying to figure out how to make for several years now. Unfortunately, I am not as well off as Micheal and just can't stop working; which I don't think he is stopping, just slowing down. But his words of leading his life for his faith, family and friends really hit me hard and has given me a slogan to use in order to set my life to the way it needs to be. I am going to call it ''the three F's of life". I encourage all of you that read this to think about these words and make the decision with me to live your life by these "three F's.

I know that this is not something that can happen overnight, even though it should be that simple. But I will start working on this direction. I am open to any and all help from you as to how you have found to make these changes in your lives. If you are like me, it will be very difficult to change your ways of thinking and actions. But I feel that if we could all do as Micheal and just do it for ourselves and lead one other person to a better life, we will all succeed with life to the fullest.

FAITH

I am particularly going to have a hard time with the first "F", being Faith. I have my beliefs intact, I have just lost my way of worship. I do not feel that you have to necessarily go to a church to have faith, but do feel that I am missing something by not going to church and being involved with a church. As most of you know, I am a preacher's kid. I have used this as an excuse for not going to church for along time now. You see, when I go into a church building, that is what I see and feel. I find myself looking around finding problems that need fixing or the inner politics of the church tearing it apart. This just distracts me and I end up not coming out with the feeling I feel I should have. I do enjoy going to the contemporary service and the music and fellowship there. But I still don't make it a point to go when I can. As far as my example for Hunter, I don't know how. We have never been a faithful goer to church his whole life, so I am going to have to really think about and talk to Amy about how to make sure he knows what faith is. (Amy told me that she has pointed out faith as a lifestyle, not church "membership" in his daily life since he was little. Apparently they discuss "karma" as she calls it almost every day.) I feel that I have given worship thru my work on several occasions and have attempted to have compassion and be a steward for God as I deal with the different patients I come in contact with. But this is not enough, and I will be looking to find a way to better my Faith throughout this change in my life.

FAMILY

For most this would seem to be the easy part. Well, it is not. I love my family so much, but hardly ever show them or give them what they deserve. I tell myself that all the working I do is for them, but then work takes me away from them and is what drives my stress to make me grumpy and to disrespect them when I am around them. I find that due to being tired or irritated, I am short with them and they do not deserve this. Even having a intentional way of thinking about how I am acting, I find I still am short and irritated. So I have a large obstacle to work my way over. I also struggle with how to deal with Amy's illness a lot since she feels bad a lot of the time and I don't want to push her, but at the same time life has to go on and my way is to just push thru. I have to realize that she can't do that. We think so differently about things like that. Nether of us is wrong, its just a difference that causes stress a lot of the time. So that is something else for me to work toward being better at. Hunter is a typical 13 year old. He is growing up and I find myself having to remember how I was at that age. My parents have always told me that I would understand some of what they did when I was going up, and I find myself telling myself "so that is why you do it this way". I am so proud of Hunter and I hope he will keep growing in the way he is and stay smart and interested in living to the fullest. As far as my parents, brother, and other relatives, it is a day to day basis of what to deal with and how much I can do. I give to all them as much as I can, but still feel like I disappoint them sometimes. I know that they understand, but it does not make it easier on me as one who will give everything away before I think about myself or my family. I do not think I can ever repay my parents or Amy's parents for all the help they have done for us in the past. Perhaps one day I will hit it lucky and have enough to make a dent in the amount they have given to us. We have such a great extended family network and I thank all of them for all they do and hope we all can someday just sit and relax together.

FRIENDS

I struggle with friendships a lot. Most of what I know as friends recently are more work related than actual friendships. I hope no one misunderstands this as they read this, but I just don't feel that I have many current real friends that are life long and lasting. I find myself doing all the work to make the friendship work. I have tried on several occasions to have friendships, but my phone never rings or I am never asked to do things outside of seeing these people at work or other related events. The closest friend I have Is Andrea and she and I don't even contact each other much anymore. I am working on regaining some friendships with some of my old friends from school. But they are hard to re establish due to the distance between us and all the time that has passed. I feel that good friendships are very important to have, and struggle due to the fact that I feel lacking in this area. My partner on the ambulance is probably the closest person I have apart from my family. She and I know each other well, but it is not a "friendship" but rather a working relationship that is close to a friendship. But she at least cares about what goes on in my life and I do the same for her. Like I said earlier, I have a lot of people that I have a relationship with. I just wish I had a true good friend that we did things together and it was mutual in giving and taking.

Thanks for letting me share with you and I hope that all of you can understand that the feelings I have expressed are deep in nature and may be hard to understand. I don not wish any harm or ill feelings, just an open relationship with all of you to express my feeling and look forward to your input.

Love you all,

Jeff

Football, Band and School Stuff

As you can tell, I have several posts for you today. I did not want to do just one big one, so I have broken it down by subjects.

This one is about Winterboro school and all the activities of yesterday.

Amy and I started early at the school yesterday, getting there at about 9:45 for the 10 am pep rally. The pep rally went real well. The band sounded great, the cheerleaders looked great and the spirit was high. After the rally, Amy and I headed home to finish a lanyard ID for the new band director and get the bags for student of the week done. We went back to the school shortly after lunch. We picked up the student of the week snacks on the way back. At the school, Amy and I separated to do different tasks. She had student of the week to deliver and then went to work on the school's wiki site (see the new link on the right side panel for the school). I went to the concession stand to help clean it up from where some jerk had broken into it and stole about $1500 worth of drinks and stuff from us along with breaking the glass out to get in. I found several other band boosters already there and done with the clean up and were restocking what they were able to get on short notice from Coke and local stores. I headed back up to the school and found Amy working on the web site in Mrs. Knight's room. I went out to the band room and hung out till the end of school and I could catch Hunter before he got on the bus. We all went to town and got dinner then back home to let Hunter change into his band uniform and then straight back to the school. Amy and I had volunteered to work the concession stand for the night and of course Hunter had to march. We worked the stand till it was time for Hunter to march, then went out to watch his first performance. They did a great job. I will get some pics posted soon along with the video of the performance. We then headed back to the sauna, otherwise known as the concession stand. It was a lot of work, but we ended up doing real well in profits for the night. This money will go to make the uniform payment that is due. I hate that the football team had not so good of a night as the band. They ended up loosing the game 6-0 to Fayetteville. They fought hard and did not let Fayetteville score till late in the game, but need to step up their game considerably. I know it has to be hard adjusting to the new coach just like the band is adjusting to a new band director. They will both be fine, we just have to be patient for the programs to grow. We finally made it home about 10 pm. We sent Hunter to the shower first since, well he just smelt the worse of us. Amy and I also could not wait for showers since we both felt like french fries and hamburgers. After that, it was time for a pain pill and some sleep.

I am now here at TCC working. I am pulling a 10:30 a - 10:30 p shift. I will fill you in if something exciting happens. For now, I just am flight following helicopters and waiting for Amy to call me and let me know how much its going to be to fix our air conditioner that went out sometime during the night.

Update you guys later,

Jeff

Weather Watching

For you that do not know, I am a weather watcher for ABC 33/40 along with a Skywatcher for them also. I have a weather station here at my home and try to report the daily statistics every night. Hunter and Amy help me a lot when I am at the ambulance service. I look forward to one day being able to put my weather center up online and have a link here on my blog, but that is some time off.

As I said, we try to report every evening about 9:30 pm to the weather center at ABC 33/40 so that they can use the numbers if they wish. Sometimes they use rainfall, other times it is temperature readings. So as you watch ABC 33/40 and you see Sycamore , you know where it comes from.

Here is the link to the weather watcher reports that are submitted daily by all the Online Weather Watchers: http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/watcherreports.hrb

I wanted to give you my totals for August from the center:

Total rainfall recorded was 5.24 inches

Average High Temp: 97.7 degrees

Average Low Temp: 71.2 degrees

We had 12 day of 100 + degree heat

Congratulations to Dave

I received an e-mail from my friend Dave Sibley stating that a video he submitted to a contest had won. I have included the link he sent, so that you can view the winning video;

(http://www.firecamera.com/index.cfm?Section=4&pagenum=219&titles=0).

For those who have not checked out the link to the right side column of this blog that takes you to Dave's 911 site, you need to. He does a great job compiling pictures and video from all over of all the hard working men and women of the field.

I congratulate Dave for his video receiving some recognition and I know he will put the helmet cam that he won to great use around the area and get us some great video to see later.