I came in to check on Snakes too, since they specifically mentioned Columbus on the news. I was wondering about your neighborhood too, swampy; thanks for the update.
Off to get ready for work.
GT
We are getting drenched, and there are flood warnings for the part of Joisey to which I will be travelling - which is also where Draelin lives.
Drae - are you staying dry?
I am off to a few appointments, then to pick up Cousin, and off for a weekend of poker and beerverages*. Actually there will be plenty of other things going on, but those are the two are the ones in which I will be participating. I won’t be back until Sunday evening - try not to miss me too much.
- I generally substitute Mike’s Cranberry Lemonade, but in a pinch Mike’s Iced Tea or a Woodchuck will do quite nicely
So you have to give up all those sailors? 
snakes - report in already!!
I got the giant-in-a-beanstalk sized coffee this morning.
And my Mega Millions ticket, so sometime after 7 tonight when they have the drawing and I win $267 million, we can all start working on my new name hare, 'cause I SURE ain’t gonna be anyone’s “Bus Guy” with the kind of change in my pocket.
BusBoy you’re wasting your money. The GF and I have had the winning ticket on the fridge since Wednesday.
Happy Anniversary, Cherries
QD I’m assuming you work in the health care field? I got a good knee story. My friend Fred was a big guy, around 6’5" tall, 275 or so pounds. Had both of his knees replaced at the same time. He was up and moving well fairly quickly, and his physical therapist released him from therapy early, because he healed fast and everything looked great. She told him he could go forth and live a normal life again, but to just take things easy for awhile.
Fred was a really smart guy. I worked with him on one of the ships I was stationed on for five years, and he was incredibly knowledgable about the little tiny trivial things of his job (water chemistry, radiation/contamination control, and the operation of the power plants.) But fred loved playing basketball, too. So he played a game of bball on his new knees one Saturday afternoon. For about ten minutes, until he went up for a layup, came down hard, and blew out both of his new knees.
He had to get them replaced again just a couple of weeks after finishing physical therapy for the first round of replacements. I transfered away from that command shortly after that, while he was still recuperating. As I understand it, he caught a lot of abuse from his docters, etc about being so dumb.
So MamaTigs, no basketball for you from now on.
Thanks again for the anniversary wishes! I’m excited about the yummy dinner I’ll be having tomorrow night, though my review could in no way compare to the gastronomical epistles penned by our dear swampy. If I’m going where I think we’re going, I plan to have scallops, prepared with an incredible mushroom sauce and lolling about on a bed of lightly cooked spinich (the scallops, not me).
Good lord, the South is imploding. Bus full of college ballplayers falls off interstate bridge in Atlanta?
I hope Ms. Cats is OK … waiting for her to check in!
The tornadie watch for Mayberry has been cancelled. 
This affects Sean’s Hooterville, too.
In other news, I had a fire run as soon as I got home last night. The hospital in Betsytown has a satellite clinic in Mayberry, and the call was for a strange odor and noise in the mechanical room.
The rest of the guys on the department are either in the ag business or work for the local metal fabs, and don’t know anything more about telecom and IT stuff that what a circuit breaker looks like.
Them: “An alarm is going off…”
Me: “No, it sounds like a switched power supply in operation.”
Them: “It’s an alarm.”
Me: “Then find the master panel, and see what the alarm says.”
Them: “???”
The real problem? The UPS powering the Cisco Routers for all their med equipment and PCs let the smoke out, and I was hearing a switched supply. I was the only one there who knew what I was looking at, and how to isolate the problem. We had the nurses find a power strip and bypassed the UPS, telling them to have the hospital IT guys replace it ASAP. The chief was impressed
Morning, and happy wet-and-messy Friday!
Yeah, it was lovely-looking outside this morning. My windows were spattered with slashes of light rain and the snow outside had a slick sheen to it; the rain had frozen on top of the dumping we got yesterday. It was going to be fun.
On a good note though the roads were a hell of a lot better now that the plows and salt trucks had the opportunity to drop by, so everything moved along at its usual pace. The only difference being the tidal waves that large passing vehicles visited upon unfortunate pedestrians on the sidewalks thanks to the huge puddles that gathered around the curbs. Oh, and the four foot banks the plows deposited at the corner of every %$&*@ crosswalk. The ones you could only climb over after you’d waded through six feet of puddle to reach. Not that I’m really complaining, I’ve been through worse. Like the time I went through the above, except in colder weather, much larger puddles that were slush instead of water, and that maintained just the right consistency to keep a good firm hold on my boot while the rest of my foot continued on its journey to the top of said snowbank. Performing precisely the reverse manoeuvre does not work. Resigning yourself to the fact that you’re just going to have to plunge straight in with your stocking foot does, though.
Anyway, I arrived at work and am caffeinating at present, thankful that it’s friday and a payday to boot. I’m a little upset with myself. I forgot about my eMusic monthly renewal. I had about 50 songs left to download, and since you can’t carry balance over to the next month I meant to use them up – and I didn’t. So my account renewed itself and I was left with 91 downloads. (I get 90 a month – they do let you carry one song over to the next month… wee!)
Grr.
I also thoroughly failed to win the one-off “Millionaire Life” lottery. Some jerk in the west must have put his fix in with a better bribe than mine. Damn! I knew I should have offered dinner and a nice dessert.
doggio - For some reason the idea of smelling chitlins cooking reminds me of when I was a kid and my temporary guardians kept chickens. The smell of them boiling the freshly killed chickens to remove the feathers made me gag something fierce. Yecch!
Morning everyone. Today feels like a blah day just waiting to happen. At least it’s Friday. Lots of snow falling hereabouts. Big storm, etc. Not nearly enough to close the school. Which is immaterial for me since I have no classes on Friday anyway, and I’m in the office about to do work regardless.
Progress on looking for an apartment: good.
Progress on looking for car insurance: not so good. GEICO and Progressive originally gave me okay quotes, but then they started confusing me: I went back and did it again, and the numbers changed. GEICO went radically up, and Progressive went radically down. Now, I’m all for radically down, unless it indicates that something’s screwy. Now, Nationwide is giving me a good low number, but I would need to register the car in NH, which I don’t mind doing. Yay car insurance!
Snakes! You there? Hope everything’s okay!
Morning, all. <yawn> I had to get up at 8:00 to make a call, so I figured I’d just stay up and take a nap after therapy this afternoon. I’ll need it more then, anyway. Therapy is exhausting, for some strange reason!
QD, you need to institute a program where you are of making sure that before your patients get their new joints, they learn that they have to have someone with them afterwards. For several weeks. And preferably call them ahead of time to make sure. I was impressed – nay, astounded – by a call from my insurance company the week before my surgery making sure I knew how long I’d be in the hospital, what my arrangements for PT post-hospital were going to be, that I had someone with me full-time for at least a couple of weeks, etc. First time I’ve ever had that happen. I guess they don’t want to have to replace knees again immediately because of idiots like your patients. Or Fred.
And your patients don’t start hobbling until their IV is out? Wow, I was hobbling literally eight hours after surgery. Talk about misery. But it pays off. Kinda like when they pried me out of bed the moment I finished giving birth to Young Tigs and said, “Now go to the bathroom.” I said, “Excuse me, do you know I just had a baby?” Somehow, that didn’t do me any good. 
But even my mother will be doing what I did – her hospital clear out on the other coast has adopted my hospital’s program. Apparently it’s pretty much the model for “How To Produce the Best Results from Knee Replacement” – they’ve got every single detail worked out. It’s not fun but frighteningly effective.
But ya’ll are still going to have to wait till next week’s MMP to hear the gory details. 
Snakes, where are you? Check in!
I should go do my morning exercises now that my drugs have kicked in. It seems quite unfair to take this high a dose of good drugs and get no benefit from it except barely enough pain control to make it (barely) through an exercise session. I mean, if I took this dose and didn’t exercise, I’d be snoring for hours. But the exercises burn it all up. Like I said, quite unfair! What’s the point of being allowed to take good drugs if you can’t enjoy them?
P.S. I LOVE the new nick!
Thanks for being concerned about me, ya’ll - we’re fine here! I kept a close eye on the cats - if they had headed under the sofa I was going with them.
Some bad damage in North Columbus (I’m in Central). A friend of mine is married to a firefighter and she sent me some pics of the damage - some very expensive homes are very damaged, and some commercial properties were also damaged. One of the pics shows a utility pole that was spiked into a massive chunk of underground granite - it pulled up a chunk of granite bigger than a SUV.
I haven’t heard of any injuries as of yet, but looking at some of those houses makes me wonder… I’ll try to get some pictures posted later.
On to happier topics…This is a link to the Pointstreak boxscore for the Jacksonville-Huntsville hockey game last night. Huntsville beat us on Tuesday, and we play Jacksonville tonight. Should be interesting. I understand quite a few H’ville fans were removed from the arena by the boys in blue for throwing stuff on the ice.
Gotta go putter around the house some - back later!
Hi, everbody - didja miss me yesterday?? I came home long enough to take the doggies out and fold some underwears, then I headed back to the car dealership to get my license tags. **FCD ** met me at the dealership, and we ran to WalMart for some dog food, followed by a stop at Chili’s for a quick supper. Then I ran to another WalMart to get the rest of what I needed, and on to class. I trimmed the 3 pieces I’d made on Tuesday, cleaned up, and left early.
Sadly, I still didn’t sleep thru the night yet again - I am so tired!!! Today’s training was abbreviated, but it started late rather than stopping early, so I didn’t get home till close to my usual time. I’m getting caught up on the MMP and the funnies before changing into grubbies and putting a second coat of trim paint on the window and door trim in the not-quite-done guest room.
Tomorrow, we’re driving up to Timonium for a craft show and Home & Garden show. We’ll stop in Baltimore at one of our favorite places for breakfast (Rollo’s on Federal Hill, if anyone cares) then on to the show. Then on Sunday, I’ll slap the blue paint on the walls while **FCD ** makes the closet door casing. We should have the room done by next week.
Still coughing, but I got some generic Hall’s cough drops and they seem to help. Maybe I’ll actually sleep tonight?
All I remember from yesterday’s posts is: **Happy Cherriversary!!! ** And welcome home MamaTigs! And glad all of youse folks with weather are safe. And hugs to the rest of ya, just because.
I’m off to get grubby and paint.
It’s been a heck of a day. I had a major asthma attack unloading the truck, but managed to finish my shift. I hate working for a company that thinks 78 is “cool”. I feel better, so I can go to the hockey game tonight. 
SCL, glad you’re OK. 269 PIM? :eek: The Slugs/Senators [del]bar brawl[/del] gamelast week only had 130. The Ottawa goalie did fight two people, though.
Spats, I have the caveman insurance. I save 40% over Nationwide.
Have fun, rosie!
Welcome home, MamaTigs!
Yesterday was a friend’s birthday, so of course we all got rather drunk. The result was a series of terrible, terrible photos of us doing hilarious and inappropriate things. Scottish Darling and I spent this afternoon sifting through them and discarding the ones that really should never see the light of day. Good times.
And today our department is having an open bar night. :eek:
Hope you have fun, rosie! And to everyone else, appropriate wishes, hugs, sympathetic noises. Don’t expect to see me alive til at least noon tomorrow.
And of course, the ones that are sufficiently embarrassing to show us, your MMP pals?
How cool is this big ole’ connected world huh? I had to get some regularly scheduled maintenance done on the car today. As I was pulling into the garage at the dealer, I see a sign: “Now with hi-speed wireless internet”
So, I’m sitting here, while my car gets poked and prodded and Dope-surfing.
I just spent the last couple of hours playing in clay. I threw 4 pots, a bug flower pot, and 2 dishes to go under flower pots.
And now, I’m in the bum mode. I deserve it, dammit!
Back from the game, we won 3-2. My favorite player score 2 of the 3 goals tonight, so I am happy.
SCL, I saw a boatload of kids with FireAntz jerseys tonight.
Haze, at leat show us the one with the lonk, two squid, and the midget mime.
Glad you’re OK, SCL. All the reports from your part of the world sounded awful.
You sound awfully cheerful for a convalescent, BionicTigs. Must be the drugs.
Sorry about the asthma, doggio; glad you felt well enough for hockey, though (and yay on the win!).
I love wireless connections. I’ve gotten so spoiled that I think I should be able to get to the internet from anywhere as long as I have my laptop with me…
Hank, we want pics!!!
I’ve been having a lovely evening. The Roches were in town tonight and I got to see them! It was a great concert - it just flew by. They have amazing voices and sing amazing harmonies and are excellent musicians and are funny too. They played a single-set show, but it was over an hour and a half and everyone was grinning as they left the concert. A very nice way to spend an evening.
I’m going in to work tomorrow morning. I have a bunch of stuff I keep not getting to and figured my stress might go down if I actually did some of it. As a prize, I get to go to the Home and Garden show in the afternoon. The garden part is supposed to be very nice this year.
Now I’m all sleepy and should fall asleep.
At least it’s the weekend and no one is expecting me at any specific time in the morning. Yay!
GT
The same ref who made such a disaster of the Huntsville-Jacksonville game was visited upon us tonight. We got to see first hand just how lousy he is. It was amazing - one of our guys catches the puck in midair and drops it; just like J’ville had been doing the entire game. We got two penalties - hand pass and delay of game. We lost the game - not entirely due to the officiating, but it sure didn’t help any. One of my favorite players (Connor’s roommate) got a puck in the face and was taken away for stitches. The doctor didn’t like where it hit and the fact that the swelling just wouldn’t go down, so they took him in for x-rays. One of our players was put on “indefinite” team suspension (I hope he is gone permanently) and his brother was suspended for one game and had the “A” taken away. (A= assistant captain) We’ve got a really good chance at the title again and all this is going to hurt us. We played tonight with 13 guys when we should have had 16.
One of the guys on the BC board with me missed the game - his church was totally leveled by a tornado. There was a lot of damage in North Columbus, but so far I have only heard of one injury.
Bionic Tigs, I’m glad things seem to be going so well for you. Keep up your PT, or we’ll sic Swampy on you! My librarian friend had foot surgery yesterday - and she now has a shiny wire sticking 2 inches out of her toe. :pauses for ewwwwwwwww: I can’t even imagine. Now I know why she can’t drive for 3 weeks…
Well. This is all you’re going to get! Me looking disconcerted at the goings-on, and me slumped over Scottish Darling. The more innocuous ones. I’d show you the ones that were more risque, but they involve so many other people that I’ll simply have to leave it to your imagination.
Tonight was even more debauched. Dear God. Somewhere, on someone’s camera, there is a picture of me giving one of my friends (a girl) a lap dance. :eek:
I am suprisingly sober, but completely exhausted. Off to bed for me.