Ha ha ha yeah, can I interest you in some bags of orange shag carpet? Great for that 70's decorating look! Got some lime green shag carpet too... IT'S FREE
This is not a journal! Or a diary!
- Thread starter jc972
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Ha ha ha yeah, can I interest you in some bags of orange shag carpet? Great for that 70's decorating look! Got some lime green shag carpet too... IT'S FREE
Woke up today with sinuses draining, automatically set the tone for the day. I'm sure it was brought on from all the dust under the house the other day. It has rained here all day too so I'm sure that didn't help. I've taken two antihistimines and my usual allergy pill. I just don't feel good and haven't all day. A friend's dad asked me to fix his hunting rifle earlier so I assume he'll drop it off later in the week. I'm not particularly looking forward to it as I've never had one like it apart before. The problem with his will require taking it's action all the way apart. Ugh. We really need a competent gunsmith around here somewhere. There was one here a long time ago but he has retired, unfortunately. Maybe it will give me something to do next weekend. I loathe working on things but when someone is absolutely disgusted with something, I often offer to attempt to fix it for them. My wife has been trying for years to convince me to go to school to be a real gunsmith even though I tell her every time how much I hate working on things. I think when someone takes their hobby, any hobby, and turns it into a real job, it takes what fun they have out of doing it. She believes I'd be happier doing that as a job than being a machinist, and it might be true, but if it's not I don't want to turn my tinkering hobby into a loathsome career. I guess I'm just weird but when I see something, anything, needing to be repaired, I can't stop myself from fixing it. Over the years she has had to deal with all manner of man made objects laying in pieces in our garage while being fixed. Everything from cars to tractors to lawn mowers to firearms to electronics to childrens toys at one point has been fixed in our garage, or, in rare times, our living room or kitchen depending on what it is being worked on. I don't mind taking a working firearm and making it work smoother or doing other things to it per the owner's request but to fix one that won't even function is a full on nightmare to me for some reason. I'd rather just be re finishing one or replacing worn or broken parts. But on the other side of things, I now have a project for next weekend.
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Feeling much better today. Hopefully it will continue when I get up later in the day. The rain stopped and it was a beautiful day here and earlier the wind started blowing and made it all nice and cool outside :bigsmile: it was a balmy 53 degrees when I left work. It was so nice with the windows down on the way home, looking at the stars up there all nice and sparkly. I really love this time of year, especially when the leaves change colors and the moon is really white looking. I have a lot of good memories of autumn. I started dating my wife around this time of year, we got married on October 14, all the great hunting trips over the last twelve or so years. I absolutely love walking through the woods on a crisp, clear, windy, night. It's almost surreal in my opinion, like I could just sit down on a log or a stump and stay there in that night, that weather, and be there for years and be happy. This is the time when I would normally be taking my dog to the mountains to hunt coons and wild hogs, I reckon that sort of died with him. I could get another dog and hunt using it but it'd never be the same so I'm just going to hang it up until time heals things. Maybe I'm too sentimental? A decade ago, give or take, the friends I had and I would be riding around all night shooting at street signs or lighting hay bales on fire in the middle of the highway or just driving around on the dirt roads drinking and just goofing off. I miss those days awful bad. But I'm an "adult" now with priorities and stuff. Oh well. Enough reminiscing, 3rd shift comes early again.
Finally the weekend! But I can't go to bed because I have to be somewhere at 8:30 and then I have to pay a few bills and cut the grass. Probably take most of the day. I dread it because I'm sleepy already. My sister in law and her two daughters are here spending the weekend at my house because her husband is out of town on business for several days and she was scared to stay home alone. I'm so sleepy it's not funny. Maybe I can go do all this stuff and come home and take a nap? I got a Halloween card in the mail today from someone I met a long time ago, (when did they start the "giving-a-card-for-Halloween" thing?) but she is a story for another day, although I have been wondering how she's doing for a while now. Included with the card was a picture of her and her children, which is now prominently displayed on the wall in my living room. She always writes a thoughtful note inside the card too. I know of another former fireman who probably got a card and a copy of the same picture today as well. Aw, what the heck, I'll just tell the story. I have nothing to do anyway.
*clears throat*
A long time ago, in December of like 2004 or 2005, another fireman and myself had been deer hunting one cold, snowy day before having to be on duty at the fire department that same night. We had known each other for years, went to high school together and often hunted together. So later that day we leave the woods and head to work, the weather gets worse. the roads were icing over and hardly nobody was out because of the road conditions. The snow kept falling and it got cold. Well at that time the fire department and the police department were in the same building so we were playing cards and watching the TV with the single cop that was on duty that night. Pretty soon, he leaves on patrol and we stay there figuring it would be a slow night. But we were wrong! A little past 8 p.m. as we were playing poker and listening to the fire/police/ambulance radio bands, our one city cop gets in a car chase with some dude, and he has kidnapped a girl from another county (she was an adult, maybe 19 or 20, around my age at the time anyway)... at gun point! So we're listening to him broadcasting what roads they were on and so forth, all the county cops were busy with a wreck on the South end of the county -30 minutes away- so it's the lone cop chasing this kidnapper and his hostage. We firemen get a hasty plan together because he just couldn't get the guy to stop his car, we radio the cop and tell him to try to chase the kidnapper towards the big bridge headed into town where we would block the bridge off with fire trucks. He quickly agrees and by that time we are getting into the old 1959 Ford city engine and getting it started. The county sheriff radio's us and tells us that the guy is apparently dangerous and he has his hostage at gunpoint they think, I tell him that don't matter to us - the guy has to be stopped and the lone cop couldn't do it alone. He agrees and then he says "You boys is temporarily deputized, so as to be all legal, I'm headed that a way, just get him stopped". Just before leaving the fire station, (remember we had been hunting earlier in the day...) I grabbed a pistol out of my vehicle and stuffed it in my waistband and hopped in the driver's seat of the fire truck and we got to the bridge, which is arched so much you can't see one side from the other - it's a long bridge, I backed the truck up at an angle so a car couldn't pass through and we waited. Pretty soon the cop radio's us to tell us he has slid off the road and his car is stuck but the bad guy is headed right for us! We sat there on the completely-iced-over bridge so the guy can't see us as he approaches it and we see headlights coming at us and fast! Before we could get blink, the guy has crashed into the guard rail of the bridge and the rear end of the fire truck. We jump out real quick and the other guy gets the girl out of the car and gets her and himself in the fire truck and locks the doors (we already had the plan worked out while waiting), I lean down in the car just as the bad guy starts to reach for his gun, at that very second he sees me looking down at him and my own pistol in his face. I told him to get out of the car with his hands up, he did, I ordered him to get behind his car and down on his knees with his hands on his head, he complies. I reached in his car and got his pistol and stuck it in my belt where mine had been since mine was now in my hands - and pointed at him. I stood behind him and told him he better not try anything stupid. He says "you guys ain't no cops! Let me go!" I said "no, we're firemen but we've been deputized by the sheriff so you just stay where you are unless you wanna be the one gettin' shot". In about 15 minutes the first county deputy got there with the one that had wrecked, he handcuffs the kidnapper and asks us to take his hostage to the fire station with us until they can talk to her. Ok sure. So I get back in the driver's seat and drive us all back to the station. She told us he said he was going to kill her and thanked us for stopping his car. She was very emotional and rightfully so. She had a hot meal with us there at the station and then the sheriff arrived and told us we'd done good and that he was proud of us. He takes our statements and hers and then he un-deputized us. He asked us if she could just wait there with us until her family came to get her and of course we said that'd be fine. She spent several hours waiting at the station with us and asked for our names and addresses, we gave them to her. She hugged us both when her folks got there to get her and so did her parents after she told them what had happened. Her parents were very appreciative of our actions. Then they went home and we stayed there until our shift ended. It was a very happy ending, no one got hurt and the bad guy went to prison for a long time. Every holiday she sends me a card and I send one back, she has two children now and normally puts a picture of them and herself in the card. We're not friends or anything, she just never forgot about that cold night on that bridge. I don't know if we saved her or not but it made us both feel good to help end that ordeal. Funny thing is, I got a letter of reprimand in my employment file for crashing a city fire truck (even though it was crashed into while not moving), it got fixed though, not a lot of damage. I often wonder if that guy would've really hurt her or not, not that it matters now because she has since moved to the Northern part of the state and moved on with her life very nicely, but who can say if we did or didn't save her? He could've been just saying that to scare her. Oh well, THE END.
*clears throat*
A long time ago, in December of like 2004 or 2005, another fireman and myself had been deer hunting one cold, snowy day before having to be on duty at the fire department that same night. We had known each other for years, went to high school together and often hunted together. So later that day we leave the woods and head to work, the weather gets worse. the roads were icing over and hardly nobody was out because of the road conditions. The snow kept falling and it got cold. Well at that time the fire department and the police department were in the same building so we were playing cards and watching the TV with the single cop that was on duty that night. Pretty soon, he leaves on patrol and we stay there figuring it would be a slow night. But we were wrong! A little past 8 p.m. as we were playing poker and listening to the fire/police/ambulance radio bands, our one city cop gets in a car chase with some dude, and he has kidnapped a girl from another county (she was an adult, maybe 19 or 20, around my age at the time anyway)... at gun point! So we're listening to him broadcasting what roads they were on and so forth, all the county cops were busy with a wreck on the South end of the county -30 minutes away- so it's the lone cop chasing this kidnapper and his hostage. We firemen get a hasty plan together because he just couldn't get the guy to stop his car, we radio the cop and tell him to try to chase the kidnapper towards the big bridge headed into town where we would block the bridge off with fire trucks. He quickly agrees and by that time we are getting into the old 1959 Ford city engine and getting it started. The county sheriff radio's us and tells us that the guy is apparently dangerous and he has his hostage at gunpoint they think, I tell him that don't matter to us - the guy has to be stopped and the lone cop couldn't do it alone. He agrees and then he says "You boys is temporarily deputized, so as to be all legal, I'm headed that a way, just get him stopped". Just before leaving the fire station, (remember we had been hunting earlier in the day...) I grabbed a pistol out of my vehicle and stuffed it in my waistband and hopped in the driver's seat of the fire truck and we got to the bridge, which is arched so much you can't see one side from the other - it's a long bridge, I backed the truck up at an angle so a car couldn't pass through and we waited. Pretty soon the cop radio's us to tell us he has slid off the road and his car is stuck but the bad guy is headed right for us! We sat there on the completely-iced-over bridge so the guy can't see us as he approaches it and we see headlights coming at us and fast! Before we could get blink, the guy has crashed into the guard rail of the bridge and the rear end of the fire truck. We jump out real quick and the other guy gets the girl out of the car and gets her and himself in the fire truck and locks the doors (we already had the plan worked out while waiting), I lean down in the car just as the bad guy starts to reach for his gun, at that very second he sees me looking down at him and my own pistol in his face. I told him to get out of the car with his hands up, he did, I ordered him to get behind his car and down on his knees with his hands on his head, he complies. I reached in his car and got his pistol and stuck it in my belt where mine had been since mine was now in my hands - and pointed at him. I stood behind him and told him he better not try anything stupid. He says "you guys ain't no cops! Let me go!" I said "no, we're firemen but we've been deputized by the sheriff so you just stay where you are unless you wanna be the one gettin' shot". In about 15 minutes the first county deputy got there with the one that had wrecked, he handcuffs the kidnapper and asks us to take his hostage to the fire station with us until they can talk to her. Ok sure. So I get back in the driver's seat and drive us all back to the station. She told us he said he was going to kill her and thanked us for stopping his car. She was very emotional and rightfully so. She had a hot meal with us there at the station and then the sheriff arrived and told us we'd done good and that he was proud of us. He takes our statements and hers and then he un-deputized us. He asked us if she could just wait there with us until her family came to get her and of course we said that'd be fine. She spent several hours waiting at the station with us and asked for our names and addresses, we gave them to her. She hugged us both when her folks got there to get her and so did her parents after she told them what had happened. Her parents were very appreciative of our actions. Then they went home and we stayed there until our shift ended. It was a very happy ending, no one got hurt and the bad guy went to prison for a long time. Every holiday she sends me a card and I send one back, she has two children now and normally puts a picture of them and herself in the card. We're not friends or anything, she just never forgot about that cold night on that bridge. I don't know if we saved her or not but it made us both feel good to help end that ordeal. Funny thing is, I got a letter of reprimand in my employment file for crashing a city fire truck (even though it was crashed into while not moving), it got fixed though, not a lot of damage. I often wonder if that guy would've really hurt her or not, not that it matters now because she has since moved to the Northern part of the state and moved on with her life very nicely, but who can say if we did or didn't save her? He could've been just saying that to scare her. Oh well, THE END.
This weekend is going by really fast and that sucks. I have to wire up a well pump tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it because it got sprang on me earlier this evening. I'd rather be home with the family on my last day off but whatever. I heard today that a cousin of mine's ex wife's new husband was found dead at his home, shot to death - murdered. I hadn't ever met him but everybody I've talked to said he wasn't involved with drugs or anything illegal. I'm really wondering what the motive was, if it ever even comes out who did it. I find this unsettling, despite the fact there is normally around 6 or 8 murders here per year and half of them are never solved. Usually the ones that end with the cops catching the killer was because someone witnessed the thing. Apparently no one saw this one. Lets hope who ever did this gets caught by the cops. I don't like leaving to work the night shift when there's a killer on the loose, leaving my wife and kids home alone all night. Funny thing is that this happened between daylight and noon yesterday (friday). Broad daylight. Weird stuff and bad juju floating in the air it seems.
Got the pump wired up in the well. Nothing like high voltage and water at the same time Funny how two things like that can be so close to each other and not do something bad, like electrocute me! I should have been an electrician instead of being something else and doing a bunch of different stuff on the side. I had taken my grandfather with me and he couldn't get his mind around the wiring setup. Two hot wires and one ground wire is what I did cause it's a 240 volt water pump. He was pitching a fit because he believed it was supposed to have a hot, a neutral, and a bare ground wire, I told him that'd be correct in a 110 volt circuit. He shakes his head and says "Well you're the one that went to school for this stuff so whatever." And he kind of seemed a bit surprised when we put the electric to it and it started pumping. He means well. Got home muddy and sweaty and in need of a shave, so after I mustered the energy to get up I took a bath and shaved my face. Feels so much better to be clean
Funny how two things like that can be so close to each other and not do something bad, like electrocute me! I should have been an electrician instead of being something else and doing a bunch of different stuff on the side. I had taken my grandfather with me and he couldn't get his mind around the wiring setup. Two hot wires and one ground wire is what I did cause it's a 240 volt water pump. He was pitching a fit because he believed it was supposed to have a hot, a neutral, and a bare ground wire, I told him that'd be correct in a 110 volt circuit. He shakes his head and says "Well you're the one that went to school for this stuff so whatever." And he kind of seemed a bit surprised when we put the electric to it and it started pumping. He means well. Got home muddy and sweaty and in need of a shave, so after I mustered the energy to get up I took a bath and shaved my face. Feels so much better to be clean 
MikeyC
Well-known member
Maybe some guys like to show off their achievements to the next guy.You know, every time I'm forced to use a public restroom, I see how disgusting people really are. That handle thing on the side of the toilet will do magic, people!
Maybe some guys like to show off their achievements to the next guy.
Gag! :thumbdown::thumbdown:
Well it is now officially October 14th here, today is my 8th wedding anniversary. :inlove: Any woman sticking by me this long deserves a medal! I have to say, I have a great wife, and a great life with her despite some glitches on my part. She has stuck by me through a lot of things, almost too numerous to list here. Most of all she has shown me that I am, in fact, capable of love and emotions and all that other sappy stuff I don't usually speak of. I really owe her a lot, and I'd do anything for her. I'd lay down my life for her (or our children of course) without hesitation. She has taught me to respect women and what it means to be faithful in a relationship, something I never even tried to do before her. I say all this not to show off or make others jealous but that I'm happy right now, content with my life with her. And she's not awake to tell so I'm saying it here.
ha ha ha ha ha ha i love that!
What a long, boring, slow night at work this was. Glad I'm home now. So totally not ready for two 14 hour shifts the next two days, but I want a three day weekend so I'll do it. But getting Monday over with is the hard part, all downhill from here. I just want to tell the whole world where they can go and what to do with themselves when they get there. I just feel so.... I can't put my finger on it. Aah whatever, off to bed.
I was planning to work 14 hours tonight but I just couldn't make myself stay there any longer, it's like if I did I was going to tell everyone there where they could go and what they could do to themselves when they get there. I don't know what my problem is or why I'm feeling the way I am. I don't want to be at work and I don't want to talk to anyone there on a good day but now I just feel the urge to tell people what I really think of them after working with them and observing all the petty, immature, backstabbing, gossip and rumor spreading. It's hard to force myself to even look at them because I can feel my face turning red and my ears getting hot with anger just to make eye contact with one of them. I could never trust any of them after seeing the undermining ways they do each other. I have to speak to my boss every day and while I'm standing there smiling and nodding in my mind I'd love to get my hands around his skinny neck for 10 good seconds, just to let him know how much I despise the ground he walks on. A conversation with one of my underlings goes like this "Hey, they want these parts done, those parts done, and then start on them over yonder if you can. If you have any problems come get me. Thank you." I say this with a smile or at least a smirk, but I try to give off positive body language.
On a different note, I tried to call a "friend" yesterday because I read in the local newspaper that a mutual acquaintance of ours went to jail for assault. He had changed his phone number so I called my old lady and told her to message him on facebook and tell him to call me. She said he said "OK" but he never did. I have known the "friend" for around 10 years yet for the last year and a half or so he don't seem to want to return a call every few months. Is it that hard? I can't remember how many times I helped him change engines in his stupid car, and by help I really mean I did almost all of the work while he sat in the shade drinking MY beer and handing me tools occasionally, and then made a big deal out of having to get up to hand me a wrench! He threw a fit like a small child would! Makes me want to scream into my hat! So to Hell with him. I think I've been mad about all the above and it's just getting to me, making me irritable. Time to take a mental vacation if there is such a thing, and if there ain't there should be.
And if that ain't enough, I still have to go to a stupid machine shop in Boston but the higher ups at work can't decide on when exactly it will be, so there's that hanging over my head. Yeah, I really want to go up there all by myself and stay in a strange place and work with strangers for a week and not know a soul in the whole town to make small talk with, let alone a conversation. Sounds like a real blast, alright. But they said it needs to be me that goes there so I reckon there's no getting out of this one.
On a different note, I tried to call a "friend" yesterday because I read in the local newspaper that a mutual acquaintance of ours went to jail for assault. He had changed his phone number so I called my old lady and told her to message him on facebook and tell him to call me. She said he said "OK" but he never did. I have known the "friend" for around 10 years yet for the last year and a half or so he don't seem to want to return a call every few months. Is it that hard? I can't remember how many times I helped him change engines in his stupid car, and by help I really mean I did almost all of the work while he sat in the shade drinking MY beer and handing me tools occasionally, and then made a big deal out of having to get up to hand me a wrench! He threw a fit like a small child would! Makes me want to scream into my hat! So to Hell with him. I think I've been mad about all the above and it's just getting to me, making me irritable. Time to take a mental vacation if there is such a thing, and if there ain't there should be.
And if that ain't enough, I still have to go to a stupid machine shop in Boston but the higher ups at work can't decide on when exactly it will be, so there's that hanging over my head. Yeah, I really want to go up there all by myself and stay in a strange place and work with strangers for a week and not know a soul in the whole town to make small talk with, let alone a conversation. Sounds like a real blast, alright. But they said it needs to be me that goes there so I reckon there's no getting out of this one.
I got a raise today. Supposedly the biggest dollar amount of one that company has ever gave to anybody. Then they're like "Be at the airport at 7 A.M. Monday, have fun in Boston. Oh, and here are your plane tickets, car rental papers, hotel reservations, company credit card, and $1,500 to use how ever you want on your trip." Yippee! A working vacation! Just what I always wanted! :sarcastic: Well, at least I got a raise.
I woke up today and my wife came in the bedroom crying, her grandmother died today. She had never met her but they wrote letters to each other and talked on the phone. I asked her if she wanted to fly to Oklahoma for the funeral, but she just started crying harder and said she didn't want to. I hate it because I know she's hurting but there's nothing I can do for her. I don't really know what to say to ease suffering. It's not been a fun day at my house.