J_E_G.....From the land of OZ

Friday, April 29, 2005

 

I've been sitting here for a while trying to think of something to post today. The fact is I just can't come up with anything interesting or hell even uninteresting (is that right?) to post about right now. Maybe I'll come up with something later. For now you all go out and have yourselves a wonderful weekend.
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 11:27 AM   

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

 

It's a given Monday is not one of my favorite days. The question then is do I have a favorite day of the week, uhh besides the weekend of course. Yes I do and Wednesday happens to be it. For one thing it's the day before the last day of the work week. But it's also the day my boss, who is the general contractor, holds his weekly progress meeting with the foremen of all the sub-contractors. I get a kick out of this because I get to sit back and watch at least one or more of the foremen come back on the floor all fired up over what they found out or were told at the meeting. Well today's meeting didn't let me down. In fact they all came back fired up today. It was over an issue of workers being caught not wearing the proper safety gear i.e. safety glasses and hard hats. It has gotten to the point that the higher ups of the hospital were complaining to my boss. Now my boss is an easy going guy and has even tried dropping hints that the guys need to follow these rules and still there were some who wouldn't comply. So in today's meeting my boss finally told them anyone caught not complying would be sent home for the day. Boy did the foremen come back grumbling about that. I couldn't help but think to myself....How about this for a concept suppose they just make sure all their people wore all the safety gear they were supposed to and you wouldn't have to hear about it anymore. But I guess that just makes to much sense.

Ok I'm off to go visiting some of my favorite blogs before it gets to late. That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 6:56 PM   

Monday, April 25, 2005

 

The weekend is over and for that matter so is Monday. And I don't think I'd be alone in saying thank god for that. Well maybe I am, depending on how your day went. One thing I will say is thank goodness I have such a good and understanding boss. The way my morning went without such a boss I may be looking for another job right now. So what happened to make my morning so memorable. There were some panes of glass stored in a room that needed to be moved so the drywallers could tape and mud it so the room would be ready for painting. Since I drew the short straw the job of moving these glass panes became mine. Actually being the only laborer the job was mine to begin with. So what's the big deal about moving some panes of glass? Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal, but these panes were four feet wide and five feet tall and I had to move them with a two wheel dolly. So I loaded a few up and headed down the hallway towards the new storage place navigating the obstacle course the other trades left in the hallway. The first two trips went fairly well. Not so on the third trip. I must not have had them loaded on the dolly properly because when I hit a bump in the hallway I saw the glass flex. Yeah you guessed it, one of the panes snapped in two. I thought oh great (ok, so maybe those weren't my exact words) I continued on and as if that wasn't bad enough three steps later my aim was a little off and I ran into one of the plumbers work carts. This time I didn't just snap a pane in two, oh no, it shattered all over the floor. Now I assure you this time some colorful words did fly. Anyhow after cleaning up the mess I had just made, I got the rest of the glass moved without incident phew. So I headed up to tell the boss that not only did I get the glass moved but that we now had two panes less then before I started, figuring at the very least I'd get an ass-ripping. But he just said don't worry about, adapting a shit happens kind of attitude. Like I said I'm glad I've got an understanding boss.

OK it's late and my bedtime is rapidly approaching. So that's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 9:53 PM   

Friday, April 22, 2005

 

Why oh why is it that on your days off the clock seems to spin round at the speed of light. I've been up since almost seven, decided to do a little blog surfing and damned if it isn't already ten thirty. And yeah you read right I said seven. You might be asking yourself why in the hell I would want to get up at that time on my day off. The answer is really quite simple I value my day or days off and I'll be damned if I'm going to sleep them away. This habit sorta started back in the day when I worked at the quarry and we only got one day off a week. Now that I have a job where I get three day weekends I feel like I'm in hog heaven. But I still don't want to waste these days by sleeping them away. Now all I've got to do is figure out what to do with this time I've got. Coming from a sleepy little town in the middle of Kansas it's hard to figure out exciting things to do as each weekend rolls around. As for this weekend since we've had a tad bit of a weather change it looks as though this one will be spent mostly indoors. After having the last few days in the eighties around here a sneaky little cold front strolled on through leaving in it's wake a strong northerly wind. They say we'll be lucky to see sixty degrees today, though it's hard to believe with all that wonderful sunshine and blue sky out there. Who knows I may brave it after all.

Right now I'm getting ready to throw in a Led Zepplin CD and get some house errr I mean apartment cleaning done. Nothing like a little Zepplin to get the heart pumping and the work done. So with that said I'm off. And you all have a great weekend!!!
That's it for now. Later

Posted by J_E_G 10:33 AM   

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

 

I'm sitting here with the windows open and a fan going. It's just way to early in the Spring for it to be damned near ninety degrees. Makes one wonder what it's gonna be like when it's supposed to be hot. Ah well not much we can do about the weather.

One thing is for sure I'm glad today is over. Question....What's worse then a Monday?? Answer....A Wednesday pretending to be Monday. And that's just what today was. It was the type of day where I know I accomplished some things but was left with the feeling that I could've and probably should've accomplished more. Kind of like climbing a mountain wearing shoes soaked in oil, no matter how hard you try to move you always end up staying in the same place. Anyway it's over, I made it through and the plus in all of this is tomorrow's the last day of the week. YAY!!!

Took a walk last Saturday night and below are some pic's of the nicer older homes in my neighborhood.

That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 7:37 PM   

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

 

Just finished watching House on TV and damned if this wasn't the best episode yet. It was about a couple who were expecting a child but they discovered she had cancer. Anyway she was rushed into surgery of which her chances of surviving were very slim. So her husband had to decide whether or not to take the baby by c-section in which case the mother would surely not survive but the baby would. Or to try and save both mother and unborn child and risk having both parish. He choose to save the baby. On TV it seems so easy so apparent. But it got me to thinking if I were to find myself in this dilemma what would I do. If faced with having to choose between the woman I loved and the unborn child she was carrying, would I have the courage and ability to make the right decision. After thinking on it a while I believe if faced with the same exact set of circumstances I would make the same decision as he did on the show. It would be hard knowing I would lose someone I loved, but since she was already dying and her wish was for the baby to live no matter what, I would reluctantly choose to save the baby and grant her wish.

Now lets turn the tables a little and make it a little harder. Suppose during this same surgery they came out and told me that instead of no chance of saving my wife there was a 15 to 20 percent chance of saving my wife if they tried, but if they failed they would certainly lose them both. So the choices would be my wife whom they might be able to save or the baby that they can save for sure. This one would be a lot harder, but again wanting to respect her wish that the baby live I believe I may again reluctantly choose to have them perform the c-section. With all that said let me add this. In this little make believe situation it's easy to sit here and say what I think I might do. But if faced with this in real life I don't think I could honestly say right now what I may do or decide. I can only hope, like I said earlier, that I would have the courage and ability to make the proper decision. What are your thoughts on this?
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 9:26 PM   

Monday, April 18, 2005

 

When Will I Ever Learn??

You know the saying you're only as old as you feel? Well it's true, I don't really feel as old as I am. But it would seem my body has other ideas. And it would do me well to occasionally remind my young feeling brain that I am walking around in a fifty year body. Case in point, today at work I needed some more floor sweep which is stored in the office trailer. So I grabbed my five gallon bucket headed over to get some. As soon as I got out of the building I set the bucket down to get something out of my pocket. It was very windy and as soon as I set the bucket down the wind took the bucket down the street. So without thinking I took off in a dead sprint after it. Well somewhere along the way I tweaked my left ankle. In other words I didn't fully sprain it just twisted it enough to cause a little pain. The hardest thing for me to do is realize I can no longer do the things I was able to do in my teens and even twenties. Oh well, maybe limping around a couple of days will serve as a good reminder.

It would appear that the pic's I posted last night were not to pleasing to the eye, well half of them anyhow. But then again they can't all be pleasing to the eye. Not that anybody complained, they didn't. It's what I saw when I reviewed what I posted. So here are a few I think will be a little more pleasing to the eye.

It's going on ten thirty and definitely past my bed time on a work night. So...That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 9:54 PM   

Sunday, April 17, 2005

 

Sitting here with the TV on in the background feeling the weekend slip away. Soon it'll be back to work time and the most dreaded day of the week will be upon us. Now there I go projecting again....I really shouldn't be doing that. After-all One's Monday is only is bad as we let or as good as we make it. Right?? Ok, well maybe.

My weekend wasn't to bad, although I did shuffle my plans around a bit. I never did make it to Topeka like I was going to. After writing my post Friday I stayed online to pay some bills. I don't know if it was the bill paying or what, but by the time I was finished I had a whopper of a headache, so I didn't do much the rest of Friday. Saturday found me in the car heading for Manhattan to go to the college baseball game. I don't do that very often so it was a nice change, and the home team even won. In fact I even thought about going back over for the game today. However I decided against it seeing as I had laundry and grocery shopping to accomplish. Got that done and just kicked back for the rest of Sunday. Now I'm going to try and enjoy what's left of the weekend. Hope everyone's week is starting off good.
That's it for now. Later.





WILDLIFE IN THE CITY

Posted by J_E_G 8:50 PM   

Friday, April 15, 2005

 

Five Simple Answers

Alright now I don't have to think hard about what to post today. I still have to think hard because I accepted Kats offer to do a five question interview. So lets dive on in before I chicken out.

1. What caused you to cut your adventure so short?

There was a combination of things that caused me to cut it short. The first reason was financial, in that I jumped the gun and went to Phoenix to soon. To better understand you need to know a little about the situation I was in. First off the house we were trying to sell didn't belong to me. It was my parents. Shortly after my dad died my mom's health got to the point where she could not stay in the house alone. So being the only one out of the eight kids in the family without a family of my own to look after I opted to move back into the house. The option of a senior home was never on the table. Sometime last year my mom decided to go and live with my sister in Phoenix and get away from the harsh winters here, so we put the house up for sale. I was to get a part of the proceeds from the sale to make my move and start over. After being assured that the sale was a done deal I headed off to Phoenix. Little did I know that while enroute the sale was delayed. So there I was in Phoenix at my sister's home with nowhere near enough money to get my own place and start over. The other reason came about after I'd been there a week. My sister's husband came home one night, how can I say this nicely, well not himself. Some very unwelcome things were said by him. It was then I decided to head back here to Kansas. The house finally sold, I have my own place and a job I really like here now.

2. How you ever been married, or have you ever been close to being married?

The answer to the first part is nope always been a bachelor. Guess I never found that one special person. Though came close once. I lived with this one gal for like five years but moved on when it became apparent the bottle meant more then I did. Maybe someday I'll meet that special someone and get married.

3. Your photography is excellent - you have a real eye for it. How
do you go about choosing what to photograph? What sort of planning
goes into this?
I look for things pleasing to the eye. I also try to find different angles and use of light. It's kinda hard to put into words, mostly I go wandering around see something and take the pic. The only planning that goes on is where I might go to wander around. With me I'm always on a photo outing. I carry my camera with me every where I go, yes even to work. I believe the secret is that a good picture is not planned its happened onto. Thus you better be ready to take the picture or it's lost forever.

4. You have the money and the means for a month long vacation
anywhere but you can only stay in one place - you can't just travel
from place to place. Where do you suppose you'd like to go?

Ohh this one's hard there are so many places. But since I'd have to stay in one place I believe I'd to go to a tropical island. Someplace like the Bahamas, with warm air, white sand and blue water. A place also where one could go wandering around exploring.

5. We all have things about ourselves that we need to work on,
mentally, spiritually or physically. What is it that you believe you
need to work on?

Hummm now this is a good one. Well let's see, I need to work on not letting others (mostly family members) chop away at my self-esteem. I also need to work on getting back into better shape physically. Or as good a shape as I can get this fifty year old body of mine in.

So there you have it, five simple answers, or maybe not so simple, but certainly longer then I thought they'd be. I hope you didn't need to many extra cups of coffee to get through this. Right now I'm feeling kind of impulsive. Think I might just rip off an arm and a leg and fill the car with gas and head for the big city of Topeka and just do ahhh whatever.
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 10:06 AM   

Thursday, April 14, 2005

 

Sitting here savoring in the end of the week. I've been home from work for a little over two hours. And in that time I've managed to get cleaned up, eat some breakfast for supper, surf some of my favorite blogs and watch Survivor. Exciting huh, well not really, but it'll do for now.

Now let's talk about a little tidbit I heard on the news today. It deals with our governments attempt, or as I see it, feeble attempt to protect and keep us safe from terrorists. As of today a person can no longer carry a cigarette lighter on board a plane when they fly. Reason being that a terrorist may use one to ignite an improvised explosive device (a bomb). Sounds reasonable right, but if they are doing as good a job detecting and keeping the explosives off the plane it won't matter who is carrying a cigarette lighter. That's ok, people will get over it and just start leaving their lighters at home. Now here's where the feeble, or the crazy or the what the f**k were they thinking part comes in. The new regulation goes on to state... However any passenger will still be allowed to carry up to four packs of safety matches on board a plane. WTF that's like putting out a fire with gasoline. I mean do they figure a terrorist is to dumb to strike a match? Now when asked why matches were still being allowed they replied because matches were harder to detect when going through an airport security check-point. Now that makes a lot of sense, if it doesn't jump right out at you and say here I am then you just ignore it and it won't be a problem right. Well it would seem so to our government it appears. Now I'm all for doing whatever it takes to be safe....but hey guys, let's get it right shall we.

So now I guess I'll try and figure out something exciting to do this weekend. For those of you whose week goes on for one more day I feel for you. And I don't mean that in a bad way, may your day be good and fly by.
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 8:06 PM   

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

 

Still Trying

Yep I'm still trying to upgrade my computer by increasing the memory. And after last weeks episode I'm kind of hesitant but I'm determined. So I stopped by the computer place and picked up another different memory chip he ordered to see if this would work. So I headed home full of hopes that this time it would work. Tore apart my computer, something which by now I ought to be able to do blindfolded, and added the new memory. So did it work this time when I hit the power button??? In a word NO!!! All I got was a screen telling me that windows couldn't start because of a recent hardware or software change, and gave me the options of starting normally or in safe mode. To make a long story short it windows wouldn't start in either one. So I took out the new memory chip and put things back the way they were and everything worked again. grrr I don't know, either this guy is ordering the wrong kind of memory or I just wasn't meant to go over 256MB of memory. When I get a chance I think I'll drive over to Manhattan to the nearest Staples and see what help they can be.

Below are a few pic's I took yesterday as the sun was falling from the sky.
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 9:34 PM   

Monday, April 11, 2005

 

It was that day again. Yep everybody's favorite day...Monday. Now I ask you what's worse then a Monday? How about over-sleeping and running behind on a Monday. And that's exactly what I did. I tell you, it's no fun moving at the speed of light trying to get cleaned up, dressed drink a cup of coffee and get out the door all at the same time. Somehow I managed it though because I rolled into work only two minutes late. Phew!! The rest of the day wasn't to bad. Well except for listening to the subs moaning groaning and complaining about how things were going. I came close to just telling them to get over it and deal. Complaining and whining wasn't going to get them anywhere, especially to me. I mean after all I'm just the laborer, which is just about as close as you can come to low man on the totem pole. There was at least one plus today, we didn't get the storms they were calling for today. To sum up this little tidbit I'm glad this day is over. Hope your Monday wasn't to bad.
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 6:48 PM   

Friday, April 08, 2005

 

As I was leaving work yesterday I heard those magic words flowing forth from my boss...SEE YOU MONDAY!!! Yep the weekends here. Well for me at least, reward for working those ten hour days. I love it when the biggest thing on my mind is what am I going to do with this day.

I'd love to be sitting here writing a long interesting post, but the more I think of something to write the less that comes to me. So this is where the reading part of this post ends and the looking part begins.


















I titled this one falling water....go figure.






Again my creativity shows in leaps and bounds, I titled this wtree. Bet you can't guess what the W stands for.
Ok that's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 10:59 AM   

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

 

The rain started yesterday afternoon and has been raining off and on all day today. Of course I knew it would, it's payment for the nice days we had last weekend. But that's ok, at least it's doing it during the week when I'm trapped inside working all day. I can live with that. Besides we sure could use the moisture. That and the fact that they're forecasting another nice weekend.

So that's about all I have tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to come up with something a little more interesting. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 8:30 PM   

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

 

CRASHED AND ALMOST BURNT

Recently I had been thinking about getting another computer or at the very least upgrading my current one. And since Best Buy didn't think my meager wages warranted the risk of giving me one of their credit cards I opted for the upgrading. What I decided to do was add another 128MB of memory. So Friday I went to one of the computer places here in town and had them order it for me. It came in today and I was excited to be adding a little more speed to my machine. Installing the new memory was no problem at all, it was when I turned on the computer when the shit hit the fan. I got a message on the screen that a memory decrease was detected, WTF how could this be I just increased it not decreased it. I got the biggest surprise of all when I exited out of the first message. The new message read windows cannot start because an important file was missing or corrupt. So now we're reaching the tear my hair out point, and believe me I can't afford to do much of that any more. So after about two hours of scratching my head, looking and oh yeah a fair amount of cuss words a brilliant idea came to me. That being pull out the new memory and put things back the way they were. I did that and guess what, well since I'm typing this you probably guessed. Yep my computer started up. I know, I have the same question you're most likely asking...How in the hell did this so called missing and or corrupted file suddenly show up and work. One things for sure me and the guy at the computer place are gonna have a long talk about this. I'm just glad I got it up and running again. It's late and most likely past my bedtime sooo.
That's it for now. Later.

P.S. Sorry no pic's tonight, my photo hosting site is down at the moment.

Posted by J_E_G 9:49 PM   

Monday, April 04, 2005

 

I drove over to Manhattan yesterday to wander around the college campus and take pic's. Just as I got there I was overcome with a strong urge, to ah um how do I say this nicely. Oh yeah I had to pee. So I popped into the student union to use the facilities. When I went to wash my hands I was in for a surprise. There wasn't the usual sink with paper towels to dry your hands. Instead there was a place in the wall for a person to stick their hands. Once you put your hands in soap was automatically dispensed and a few seconds later water started running and you then washed your hands. But wait there's more. Before you remove your hands the water stops and a blow dryer comes on to dry your hands. Yep all three steps done without even haveing to move your hands once. Ahh the joys of modern technology!!! To bad I had to go into a bathroom to come across this marvel of technology.







That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 9:06 PM   

Sunday, April 03, 2005

 

Today was one of those early spring days you usually just dream about. Plenty of sunshine, blue skies and warm air. The type of day that brings the birds out singing. And while you're out in it you can almost see the leaves popping out on the trees bringing them back to life. Feel the ground rumbling with the flowers looking to erupt with colorful splendor onto the scene. Yes what a wonderful day this was.

Got out and about to enjoy this nice day and here's a little of what I saw.































That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 8:16 PM   

Friday, April 01, 2005

 

First things first...Happy Birthday to Kat over at Kats Stuff.

This has been one of those weeks that makes me happy we only work four days. After this week the weekend couldn't get here fast enough. Ever had one of those weeks? Seems this week has been all about babysitting or running damage control. All of which means my regular duties had to be set aside to take care of these others and therefore have been piling up. I told you already about having to watch over the window guys in a previous post. The latest event happen yesterday when the concrete guys were cutting a doorway through a concrete wall, maybe you heard them that saw they were using was loud enough to wake the dead. The problem was their saw that used water to keep the dust down while cutting. Well that water was getting down into the floor and leaking out onto the floor below. As if that wasn't bad enough it was leaking right onto an electrical circuit panel. So they had to stop until we could set up this special bubble tent (see pic below) and get one of their guys up in the ceiling with a bucket to catch the water. Now I know why my boss seems a little stressed every now and then. Now it's time to kick back and figure out what to do with this weekend. Maybe I'll just rent a few movies and watch them, unless the weather turns out nice then I'll be out roaming around with my camera in my hands. Anyhow have yourselves a great weekend!!
That's it for now. Later.






The special bubble tent the hospital makes us use so we can work in the ceiling without contaminating the rest of the floor. The doors in the background lead to the operating rooms.






The infamous window guys in their lift.

Posted by J_E_G 8:00 AM