Sunday sleepy Sunday

I am not sure what it is about Sundays, but I was so tired all day. I did not stay up that late on Saturday night, but when I got up to get ready to go to the church, I was already dragging. I got there at 8:15 and left shortly before 1. We had a quick lunch then went to the Sunset manor nursing home at 2:45 to set up the mini PA for the service we had there. After this we went back home for a while and I had to pack a piano to ship out. Then there was leaders meeting and then.......whew. Just a very busy day. My friend Jay pretty much always crashes out on Sunday afternoons. Perhaps I need to employ this policy. I have to work today, in fact I am at work now. I am so busy...obviously. I have a lot to do today, I have to upload some photos to my computer so I can list some stuff on eBay, I have to vacuum the floors a the station, I have to take a nap, then eat lunch. Pretty full morning.

To my wife and kids, I miss you already and love you very much. - DJ

How right I was...

Yep, feeling that dodge ball game today! My everything hurts....Both arms are sore from throwing, legs hurt from running, back hurts from all of it and my wallet will hurt from chiropractic bills. I am excited though, I have a killer day. Me and the fam went garage sale'n this morning and found some good bargains. We had lunch at the deli and came home. My friend Luke came over to jam and Kent joined us later on. It was a hoot! I love jamming with the guys. Wish there were more guys.......JOE! Anyway, did a repo job with Kent after dinner and watched a movie with the kids. Now I am going to bed. Just wanted to put my thoughts down. Busy day tomorrow, church, nursing home service after church, leaders meeting tomorrow night...whew! I am already ready for bed tomorrow! - DJ

I am too old for certain things...

As we age, certain things happen. We loose that spring in our step and replace it with a brace. We also loose the ability to know our limits. I was pretty sore today after sleeping on a lumpy mattress at work, so I decided to hit the chiropractor's office. I see Tim Voss. He is a nice guy and an excellent "cracky prakter". Anyway, he fixed me up great. I felt fairly good afterwards with only normal soreness. Then....I decided to go to the school and have lunch with my kids. I guess it is tradition for the kids to play dodge ball after lunch, so I decided to join them. We had a ball. They made me team captain, so of course I picked all of my own kids first. They were thrilled! We had fun throwing balls and getting hit with them. I only made 1 kid cry and only cried once myself. Well, not really, but I did get hit in the.......ya know... Over all it was great. However, now, even as I type this, I can fee the soreness that I will have pretty much all weekend. It was worth it though. I had great fun. Gotta go, going yard sale'n. - DJ

God in our midst

I worked today with a different partner. His name is JB. He is an EMT and is my age. We were out and about today and he kept looking at women as we would encounter them either on the road or in stores. He would also comment about whatever body part impressed him the most. He then started talking about how he looks at porn on his computer at home 2-3 times a day. Being the fan of conflict that I am, I decided to call him on it. He asked me what I thought of a certain girl we saw and I told him that I do not want to look upon her that way. I also told him that I felt that his looking at other girls and porn was very disrespectful to his girlfriend and bride to be. He said "she does not care that I do it". I persisted and informed him that he was wrong, that she WAS effected by it. I told him that it was quietly killing her inside. I then turned the conversation to the sin issue at hand in what he was doing. Must have sparked something, because the rest of the day off and on we talked about God and muslims, Catholics, Mormons, Budda and a whole host of other things. It was a true one in one example of why we need to be ready in and out of season. I spoke more about God today with a professed unbeliever than with my partner yesterday who is married to a minister! It was cool. He has not given his live to Christ yet, but I am working on him and more importantly, I think God is working on him.
It is often easy to slip into the "at work" conversations and forget to mention God, it is even easier to join in the conversation and lower our standards to whatever the subject may be. I am challenged daily to NOT do this. I am trying to always be mindful that Jesus rides with me in that ambulance and He hears ever conversation that I have with whoever I am with. I look forward to future opportunities to speak the truth of God with my partner while at work. But I also look forward to the day when they know I am a Christian by the way I live and not by what I say. - DJ

Paybacks

Well, I am back at work today. Came in last night for a 60 hr stretch. I also traded with another guy so he could be off on his kids birthday and so I could be off on Sunday. This means I am working 84 hours this week! But I will be off Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Nice! I guess you have to pay for days off that you want. Looking forward to Wednesday. Some friend and I are going to KC to get some musical gear. eBay can be a good thing. It was a good service on Sunday (Easter). Jay Lotterer did a 1 man play as the voice of Jesus kind of in a post modern dress, jeans, white button up (untucked of course) and Jeruselem cruiser sandals. He did a great job. Doug gave the message and it was good as well. I got to play bass so I whipped out my lefty 6 string fretless bass. All the bass players in the house were freaking out! It was funny. Planning on taking it easy today. I hope the citizens of Linn county agree with that plan. - DJ

My weekend

Well, the KC trip went great. We went to the Kansas City Zoo, we saw monkeys, gorillas, yaks, lions, cheeta's.....well, you know zoo stuff. We walked about 30 miles...ok, it was only about 4, but for a fat guy, it was enough. We stayed in a hotel and went for a swim in the pool there. The following day consisted of shopping, eating and general fun stuff for the kids. They really loved it.
We took the kids to the Musicians friend store and we all bought some instruments and stuff. It was fun too. Mainly for me! We got home Friday late afternoon and my 2 oldest kids went to a birthday party.
Today was nice too. My wife and the 2 older kids went to Joplin for the day and Molly hung out with me. We had some alone time packing up some things to ship, going to the flea market and worship practice at the church. I go back to work on Sunday night for a 60 hour stretch. I had applied for a position as a supervisor but did not get it as my co-applicant was a former officer in the military and has more supervisory experience than I do. It is ok though, I am looking forward to working with him. Seems like work is shaping up to be even more enjoyable for me. I already like my job, now I will have a great working relationship with everyone on my shift. As I am told by the big dog, we are getting Dish network as early as Monday. Not that TV is the greatest thing, but try and work in the same building for 48 hours strait with NO stimulation. I have managed to do ok, I have increased my reading and will be starting a new book Monday that My wife got for me. But decent TV will be good.
Please feel free to leave comments or communicate as you like. I will put some more EMS stories on my blog if people want them. DJ

Worth Saving

Well today was a bit more eventful. We had a mass casualty incident drill this morning and that went off with tons of hitches as I am told. We were put on "In unit stand by" for an hour and a half. We never made it to the event. Oh well, had a chance to book the hotel for tomorrow while I waited. I have been told that I should share some EMS stories on my blog. I am not sure why, but I guess some people are interested. So....
We ran a call where in an elderly lady had fallen and struck her head on the coffee table. She got herself up and decided to clean up the blood stain on the floor. She went into the kitchen to get a wash cloth and discovered that there was blood all over the kitchen as well. While cleaning it up she realized that it was still bleeding....badly! in fact, she had torn an artery in her scalp. She was literally bleeding to death. She called 911. When we arrived, she was sitting on the front porch. She was more concerned about the stains in the carpet than her own health. I assessed her and found the loosely wrapped arterial bleed to have filled the dressing applied with blood. We loaded her up and unwrapped the wound and lets just say she re-decorated the wall of the ambulance in a stylish red. I decided I had better put a stop to her art work and applied pressure to the wound. I had a fireman ride in and continue the pressure while I did other stuff. She was taken to the hospital and is doing fine.
In retrospect, I find her desire for a clean house being greater than her knowledge of her impending doom to be a bit perplexing. Sometimes I guess we all over look the important things in life and place too much importance on things that on a grander scale just do not matter.... DJ