Hooray for Fall!
What do you mean it’s not even officially Summer yet?
Oh, I’m a fan of that kind of appreciating. But not on the side of a busy highway by fellow fireMEN… 
I’ma gonna wait for **swampy ** or **c-bear ** to chime in on this one… 
Morning, all. Sounds like everybody’s having a heat wave. We are, too – or will be; it’s supposed to be mid- to upper-90s Amurkin this weekend with high humidity. We were planning on going to Wolf Trap for the annual Swamp Romp this weekend and taking any Wounded Warriors, as they’re called these days, from Papa Tigs’ hospital who are from Louisiana and would especially enjoy the music, but at those kinds of temps and with no Warriors volunteering (since apparently they have more sense than we do), we’ll probably skip it. Even if I would love to see the Wild Magnolias again. They’re not only about the funkiest funk band ever, but they’re members of one of the Mardi Gras Indian tribes. We saw them last at the House of Blues in New Orleans pre-Katrina, and fell in love for life. Sigh. Why do they have to be here on the hottest, muggiest day of the year thus far? 
Speaking of the Wounded Warriors, guess what a bunch of them are getting for transportation around the hospital these days? Segways! Is that cool or what? Not only does it help their balance and mobility, but they can see where they’re going so they don’t keep running over peoples’ feet and smashing into them at painful levels as they wheel around corners far too fast in their wheelchairs. Papa Tigs wants his own Segway now, too, to get around the hospital even though he’s not wounded, just cause it looks like so much fun!
And one more Wounded Warrior fact: Anyone care to take a guess as to how many amputees have been able to return to full active duty? Anyone? The number would surprise you – about two brigades’ worth, which means several thousand! And we’re not talking desk jobs, either; they’re back doing their regular jobs. Even scary Special Ops guys. Whatever you think of the political mess surrounding the current wars, that’s still a pretty cool factoid!
Anyway, I’m babbling this morning, aren’t I? I was having weird, weird dreams last night; fortunately, I can’t remember enough of them to [del]inflict them on you[/del] tell you about them, but they were right up with some of the other weird dreams people here have been reporting. Apparently my brain hasn’t settled down to functioning yet this morning. In spite of too much caffeination. So I shall go back to doing something constructive, or at least trying. Everybody stay cool, now!!
How bout if there were some bushes or trees nearby?
Morning Mumpers. Nelly is on The List. she unplugged half the peripherals on my computer last night. Thrak is 1/3 litterbox trained, 1/3 papaer trained, 1/3 go behind the TV. I also prefer October.
Morning. It’s supposed to get hot-ish here (in the mid-80s) but every day for at least the next 5, there’s showers & thunder storms in the forecast. This weather sucks!
You daywalkers and your heat.
I laff and laff and laff (and sleep).
I see the key to recruiting [del]victims[/del] volunteers is to have a large magenta sig. We are now all signed up for the next three weeks: swampy, NoLa, Haze.
What day do you leave, Haze? It’s so odd to think that you’ll be posting from a whole different place.
Nice to see you have creative pets, doggio.
I’m home for my daily estimate. It was kind of a waste of time. More expensive and only for roof repair and gutter replacement.
Guess I should get back to the old grindstone…
GT
Well, there’s this babe from the Suffolk Fire Marshall’s office I work out with at the Y. In the bushes <snerk>, in a heartbeat…
So it turns out that the UPS guy wasn’t bringing me a replacement Blackberry as I’d originally thought. It was just a gift certificate from my employer, thanking me for five years of loyal [del]slavery[/del] service.
Of course, the GC only works in stores and websites belonging to said employer. Their generosity knows no bounds. :rolleyes:
Maybe I’ll use it to buy a new Blackberry, seeing as they’re dragging their heels on replacing the one I’ve got (it’s been out of commission nearly a month now). Grumble grumble grumble.
It’s hot and sticky and muggy outside right now. Add me to the chorus singing the praises of fall… anything over 30C, let alone 40C with humidex, is enough to keep me indoors for the rest of the day (which is exactly what I’m planning on doing, actually).
Yay for Firday!! I have speed read (that looks weird) the MMP in order to keep up.
Tarra, when I first quit smoking I frequently dreamed about smoking. I’d find myself puffing and knew something was wrong. I hardly ever have the smoking dreams anymore. It’s been nearly three years.
rigs, these are scary times. There are a lot of folks out there who are stressed about employment and whether they can even make ends meet at their current jobs. My bro works for a utilities corp. and he tells me there’s some asshat out there predicting oil will be at $150 a barrel by July. :eek: Time to buy that Vespa.
Yes, it be hot here, too, swampy. 97° Murkin yesterday. Our pool is at 88°. I love summer. Bring it on!
bobbio, keep up the good work!
Remember the jackass IT guy who annoyed me the other day? Well, JACKASS got hisself a promotion! :eek: :mad: I guess it pays to be condescending.
At least I get to leave at 3:00 on Fridays for the rest of the summer. Whoot for that!
Frankenpuggie will get her stitches out this afternoon. They actually look much better now after two weeks. The hair has already started to grow back.
That’s all I got.
Tupug
Quick break post - we’ve concreted the trenches, disassembled the radial arm saw work bench, hauled a bunch of stuff to the garage, and I’m supposed to be printing out the wall layout while everyone else does dirty work in the basement. Tomorrow is daughter’s last day home for a while - she leaves for camp on Sunday - she is very excited. Odd for a newlywed, ya think??
Hot, humid, icky here. Mebbe rain tonight, just overcast today.
Back to work with me. Laterz!!!
MWAH!
Urk. Outside is gross.
I bought ice cream. Pecan butter tart, and chocolate cherry.
What? ICe cream is nutritious.
So, VBob, got a lot of smoke up in your neck of the woods? It smelled like burning inside the library while I was manning a desk last night. I didn’t find out there was a big huge massive forest fire one large county away until this morning. I have friends moving to the Outer Banks tomorrow through that. In the 100+ degree humidity. Very glad I am planning for the other side of the state when I make my move.
In other news, I have two announcements:
Today marks the seventeenth anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with ITP and the tenth anniversary of the year I unofficially went into remission. (The official declaration anniversary is next year.)
Other announcement gets its own post.
Good morning my fine Mumpers!
It’s my RDO, so I’m sort of lounging around the house. I should get my butt in gear, though, because I have a hair appointment at one o’clock this afternoon.
Swampy, we’re selling the boat for a variety of reasons, really. **Mr. Taters ** feels like the rest of us aren’t really into the boat as much as he is. This isn’t true, I did enjoy myself on the boat. My daughter appreciated the boat too, but she just didn’t like the fact that he insisted on taking friends EVERY time we boated. My daughter just wanted it to be family once in awhile.
If he wants to wakeboard, there must be at least three people on the boat, and sometimes it’s not possible to round people up. He’s tired of it taking up space in the garage, and finally, the thought of paying to gas that thing up doesn’t thrill either of us.
If we can sell the boat and his truck, he wants to get a car. He’s looking at Beemers. Not brand new, of course.
Rigs, I hope your husband will be able to hang on to his job. Hugs to you in the meantime.
The weather here sucks yet again. Summer? What is this summer you all speak of? What is this heat you all speak of? It feels like friggin’ early April here.
Hmm, I guess I should get cleaned up. Smooches to all.
There’s a dog up at the Middleburg Humane Foundation in Middleburg, VA who has a rare disease. His name is Squishy and here’s the bio from his Facebook album:
Squishy is a growing puppy and has outgrown all of his shirts. He needs long-sleeved t-shirts to cover the hydromas on his front legs. So, if you have any XL boys or small men’s long-sleeved T-shirts, send them to:
Middleburg Humane Foundation, c/o Squishy
P.O. Box 1238, Middleburg, VA 20118.
This is Squishy. Squishy loves octopus.
Mornin’… Stayed up too late, slept too late, gotta go out in this crappy ass windy rainy cold weather to shop for electronic stuff to make circuit boards, Himself is being a grumpy ass and I’m not much better. Grrr.
Having Grandkid over tomorrow for the night, though–that’s nice.
Happy Firday anyways, blerf…
I knew about it Monday. People at work keep asking me why I’m not putting out the fire. Well, there’s not much a structural FF like me can do to put out a burning swamp. The forestry guys are the ones equipped to do that. Plus, it’s 60 miles from Mayberry and across a little crick called the Albemarle Sound, so it’s outside our mutual aid jurisdiction.
It’s smoky now in Portsmouth VA, 100 miles away.
I strongly suspect a very busy weekend in the lights and siren sense. Electrical fires, brush fires, and heat illness.
It’s far too wet for forest fires here right now. In fact, the damn snow level is dropping to 3500 feet today. In June! The higher elevations received two feet of new snow overnight. In June!
For the record, I’m sitting at about 500 to 700 ft level. So, although I won’t see snow (and who wants to?), the temps are in the fifties here. In June! WTF is wrong with THIS picture?
Ah well, if the temps were in the 90s I’d probably be bitching too. I’d just like to see more than one day at a time of sunshine with some relative warmth. Like say in the 75 to 80 degree range. I could live with that.
I just talked to my husband. He was telling me about one of the guys who works as a dispatcher at his company. Apparently, the dispatcher walked outside to have a smoke when he saw a night shift truck driver STANDING on the bumper of his brand new Jeep. He asked the guy what the hell he thought he was doing, when the driver jumped up into the air, onto the hood and stomped down the hood of the Jeep INTO the engine. Over $2,000.00 worth of damage. Why do people have to be such jerks?
I don’t know what happened to the driver, but I certainly hope he’s paying some kind of price.
I should get in the shower. Lots to do.