J_E_G.....From the land of OZ

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

 

Posted by J_E_G 9:58 PM   

Sunday, June 26, 2005

 

Bet You Can't Guess What I Did This Weekend.

Actually it started out to once again be a very typical weekend. What with the very hot weather that has hit us and the lack of things to do here locally it was hard to get motivated to do anything. However this feeling of being a prisoner in my own apartment was starting to get old. So I jumped in the car and headed east and ended up in Topeka. Once there I decided to go to the zoo there. I admit not the most exciting thing to do, but hey, it sure beat the hell out of sitting in this hot apartment of mine. Besides that it gave me a chance to take pictures which I enjoy doing.

As you can probably tell from some of the pic's most of the animals were rather laid back because of the heat. That is except for the gorilla, he was in a rather feisty mood to say the least. There is a glass tunnel you can walk through and view him. Well he would stay off to the side waiting for people to gather in the walkway and when people were watching him, out of the blue he would charge the walkway beating his chest and smack into the glass. There were these two kids in the area the same time I was and when the gorilla charged I swear if they could jump out of their skin they would have. It was all I could do to keep from bursting out in laughter. Ok so that's not true I was laughing my ass off over their reaction.

All in all it wasn't to bad of an outing. And like I said it was better then just sitting around the apartment. I was going to go for another picture taking drive today, but with the extremely high price of gas I decided against it. So there you have the highlight of my weekend hope you all had a good weekend as well.
That's it for now.

Posted by J_E_G 1:44 PM   

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

 

Do you ever get stressed out over an upcoming event or situation only to find yourself, afterward, wondering what the hell you were stressing over. I found myself in this very situation today at work. All because of a little concrete work that was to be done. There was a small area in the floor that they were going to patch with concrete. Normally this wouldn't be anything to worry about except this particular area in the floor had four holes penetrating through to the floor below. The dilemma was could they get those holes sealed up tight enough so that water and concrete wouldn't leak onto the floors below. Usually this wouldn't stress me so much but my boss is away right now and was looking to me to oversee this project and make sure it was done right and there were no problems (leaks). Not only that but I know firsthand that if you screw things up the hospital people will not hesitate to kick a company off the job. I also wanted to show my boss I can handle things and maybe move up a little.

So how did it go then? With me keeping a close eye on them they managed to seal the holes and pour the concrete without anything leaking onto the floors below. When it was all over with and went as well as it did I found myself wondering why I was so stressed to begin with. Oh well what's life without a little excitement....right?
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 8:04 PM   

Monday, June 20, 2005

 

It's been a long year but it's ended this weekend with the safe return of my nephew from Iraq. We know we are lucky and very thankful for this, as we know so many more families were not as fortunate. My sister and my mom flew out to New York Sunday to properly welcome him back since it'll be two or three weeks before they let him come home on leave when we'll all be waiting to welcome him home.

Hopped into the car yesterday to drive through the countryside just to get away for a while. Below are a few pic's I took on the drive.
That's it for now. Later.






Kansas isn't all flat.






The wildflowers are starting to bloom.






I came soooo close to just parking the car and hiding out here the rest of the day.

Posted by J_E_G 8:00 PM   

Thursday, June 16, 2005

 

Thought that it was maybe time I did somewhat of an update since I hadn't done so in a while. This week is coming to an end rather uneventfully, which is why I haven't posted much. It's not really much of a post when all you can say is I went to work and came home again. But I'm not complaining because it cold be worse.





Speaking of worse, as you can see in the pic above my windshield has developed quite a crack. Actually it didn't just develop a crack, it's been that way since my trip back from Arizona when a truck in front of me blew a tire and a chunk of rubber flew back and bounced off the bottom of the windshield. At first it was just one tiny crack so it wasn't so bad. But recently it has started to grow and branch out in the opposite direction. So the decision has been made and I take the car down in the morning to get a new windshield put in it. I decided to do it now while the insurance will still pay for it. Well not pay for all of it, I still have to cough up one hundred dollars to cover the deductible. I really love those unexpected expenses, but hey, I guess you got to do what you got to do like it or not. Right??

That's it for now, heading off to do some blog hopping. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 8:33 PM   

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

 

Takin The Easy Way Out

Posted by J_E_G 9:57 PM   

Saturday, June 11, 2005

 

Rain Rain Go Away.....

Actually this post could have also been titled Be Careful What You Wish For. It had been so dry for so long around here that many people myself included had said many times sure wish it would rain. Well it finally rained and now it won't shut off. In the last week alone we've had more moisture fall from the sky then we had the previous four months. Though it would be nice for the sun to come out for an extended period of time, I do know the weather is one of those things you just can't do anything about. So we just roll or should I say float with the flow and wait for better days to come.







Went out the other night and a storm appeared to be brewing. No big deal really.






But then something strange began to happen.






Until finally the entire sky as well as the town was bathed in an eerie glow. Fortunately nothing became of this as the sever storms waited till they got east of us before they hit.

Posted by J_E_G 8:00 PM   

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

 

Live and Learn Or From a Sweet Deal To A Royal Ripoff

Yes we can definitely file this in the live and learn category. If you remember from my previous posts I was without my phone for a couple of weeks. During that time I needed to make a couple of long distance calls so I did what most do in this situation, I bought a phone card. I just happened to be at Wal-Mart, you know that friendly old discount store, when I spotted their display for phone cards. So I grabbed a sixty minute phone card for $4.95. That's all the minutes I needed and the price was certainly right, so I purchased it. Now all I needed was a phone, but wait I remembered seeing some phones in the lobby as I went into the store. Now isn't that nice of them, not only do they sell the phone card but they provide the phones to use. Ok, so they were pay phones and little did I know at the time I was about to pay for using those phones. Yep, here's where it takes an interesting twist. I dialed the number on the card and then punched in the PIN number. The operator came on and thanked me for using the Wal-Mart phone card and that I have sixty minutes on to use on this card and that I could now dial the number I wanted to call. I did so and then I got the surprise, I found out the catch or rather it was more like a bomb being dropped on me. Before the call went through the operator came back on and informed me that since I was using a pay phone there would be a thirty two minute surcharge and that I now have twenty-seven minutes left to make this call. WTF I've used over half the minutes on my card and I haven't even said one word yet. I mean of course I'm using a pay phone, if I had a phone to use I not only wouldn't use a pay phone I wouldn't need their damned phone card. So there you have it, your super friendly, got to have one in every neighborhood Wal-Mart has become a highly talented ripoff artist. So My advice to you is if you need to use a phone card do not get it from Wal-mart if you can help it. And if you must get it from them by all means stay away from pay phones. Go to a friend's house and use their phone or if all else fails beg and plead to use a strangers cell phone.

Posted by J_E_G 10:00 PM   

Sunday, June 05, 2005

 

My Adventures In amateur Storm Chasing

For the most part Saturday was turning into another run of the mill mundane day, that is until around four-thirty. I had been over at my brothers house most of the afternoon when a storm appeared to be brewing. As it started to rain I decided to head back to my apartment before it got to bad. On the way I turned on the radio and head that a town about sixteen miles southwest of us was under a tornado warning. Yep, a funnel cloud had been spotted and it was moving to the northeast right toward us. After hearing this I decided to drive out a couple miles west of town to see what I might see. I know probably not one of my brightest moves, but hey, I've never seen a tornado before. So I drove out and come to this paved area just off the road and parked. The storm was just starting to hit as I got there. It wasn't long after that that the lightening started popping around real close and the wind and rain were picking up as well. It was then I was beginning to believe that maybe just maybe this wasn't the best of places to be sitting. It was but a second or two later when I suddenly could not only hear but feel the thunder that I decided to get my ass the hell out of there.

By the time I got back to my place the rain was coming down in buckets. Needless to say I got soaked during my sprint from the car to the front door. Anyway it rained like that for over an hour. And half way through the rain the hail started. It sounded like a truckload of fairly good sized rocks bouncing off the apartment building and all I could think of was my poor car out there being pelted by all of this (it survived by the way). So an hour and a half or so after it started it was over and the sun was out again. I still haven't seen a tornado, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Today was a bright sunshiny day in which I just kind of lounged around. Well after I got my laundry done that is. And how was your weekend?

Oh, here are a few pic's I shot just as the storm was winding down.

Posted by J_E_G 6:56 PM   

Friday, June 03, 2005

 

Was very rudely awakened at 5am this morning by a long loud rolling clap of thunder. Shortly there-after it started to rain and rain and rain and it's still raining. In fact in the first hour alone we had nearly three inches of rain. Hmmm maybe that's why I saw that big wooden boat and lots of animals running around in my neighbors yard yesterday evening. On a slightly more serious note we have a bewildering situation developing out at work. Seems the roof where we are working has sprung a leak in a couple of spots and every time it rains it leaks down onto where we are working. Here's the bewildering part no one wants to take responsibility for the leaks and fix them. The hospital people are blaming us for the leaks and our higher ups are saying no it was there before we started. Meanwhile we have water leaking down on our new construction and if it gets on the floor there's a possibility it will seep down onto the floor below us which happens to be where the operating rooms are located. Not good, not good at all. You'd think it would be in the vested interest of both parties to come to an agreement and get the damned roof fixed. Anyway I sure hope the trash cans I put under the leaks to catch the water are holding up.

Ok I'm off to catch up on some housework and blog reading. Not much else ya can do on such a shitty day, right. Have a good weekend.
That's it for now. Later.

Posted by J_E_G 10:09 AM