Another crazy week

Well, last week was no different for me. Monday brought about the end of my work week, or so I thought. We quickly got knee deep in remodeling our back entry way. My friend Jesse and I tore down the walls, re-sheetrocked it and rebuilt the window and hung new siding on the exterior. With the nice weather we decided to take advantage of it and paint the exterior of the house. Once the windows were taped up, the paint sprayer did the rest. We painter the whole house in about 3 hours.

Michelle had a teachers conference all week beginning last Wednesday. That put her out of town on our 16th anniversary. So on Tuesday evening after working on the house all day, I decided to take her out to dinner and a movie. It was fun, but I nearly fell asleep at the dinner table! We went out to Jim's steak house and ate well. We then went to see "Get Smart" at the theatre. It was funny.

Michelle left out early that next morning and we were back at the remodel. We put a second coat of paint on the walls then did some cleanup inside in prep for the floors. First though I took the kids to the pool all afternoon on Wednesday. Needless to say, I got burned! I have a killer sun burn all over my back. It was fun though. the kids really had a great time. Wednesday night was our normal homegroup meeting in our barn. I know, sounds strange, but it is remodeled into a large open floor plan apartment building for guests and my studio. God gave me an answer to my question of "what am I supposed to talk about tonight?" He did so in the form of a book called "The Answer". How ironic ! Anyway, I read a section about loyalty from the book and we had a great discussion about it.

Thursday came and me and the kids started the clean up process. We cleaned a bunch of the construction stuff up and I started on the floor. Laid a new sub floor, prepped it for the new laminate only to find that the laminate flooring had been dropped at some point of it's life onto something round. This caused a huge divit in the tongue end of the flooring, rendering it useless!
I was fit to be tied! I had bought it almost 8 months ago from a discount store, and they only take exchanges on items for 30 days. No refund, no nothing! I had to eat $100 in flooring. Not happy...

Once I went to home depot, the flooring issue was satisfied by my 11 year old daughter picking out a nice flooring. It was a laminate flooring with a vinyl backing that stuck together. It went down fairly easy and looks great!. My buddy Kent came by and helped out a bunch. For his help I decided it best if I took him out for dinner, so we all loaded up and went out for sushi. It was "Yummy".

Friday came and it was more cleanup, painting trim, hanging trim and one last trip to home depot. I finished up the rooms and moved furniture back in. I had to come in to work that night due to no medic being available to work. Michelle arrived home around 11pm last night and was thrilled at the result of the weeks labor. I was very glad to hear her reaction.

I am on a 3.5 day stretch at work, but it feels more like a vacation compared to last week. We have been slow here in LaCygne, so I have slept alot. My partner Dawn is a medic student and has been in classes all week on top of working every other day. Needless to say, she has been asleep most of the past day as well. I work as acting supervisor on Monday in Pleasanton and there is a mandatory meeting for all Linn County FTE's (Full time employees). Not sure what is going to happen, but I guess I will find out tomorrow.

Next week will be pretty crazy too as my business "OTR Productions" will embark on the largest sound gig since it's inception. We got the contract to run sound for 2 days for the city of Pittsburg's 4th of July celebration. Setup begins Thursday at noon. I will be there at the park from 2pm Thursday till midnight on Friday doing various tasks running sound for 5-6 bands and other PA needs as well as playing music constantly. I have drafted some helpers for the event who will be paid for their help. This gig will open doors to other gigs in the future. I love being the sound guy! Sometimes though, it can be hard listening to some of the bands. Every band thinks they are good, most are not, but is my job to make them sound good. That is all I have to say about that... - DJ

Time out

The July schedule is out! No more forced overtime!! THis means that I will only be working my 48 hour shifts. This will give me lots of time off the rest of the summer. Good thing as I think my business interests are going to get busy.
We leave for Oregon on July 7th and will be there for a week. That will be fun. I am looking forward to it. I love to fly and to share new experiences with my wife and kids. None of us have ever been to the west coast. We are going to go to the beach, Mt. Hood and all over the region. I hope to find the Rolloff ranch where they film little people, big world. They are a family who have 3 little people and 2 regular sized people. Their show is very interesting.
Before we leave though, I have the task of setting up for and running sound for the Pittsburg 4th of July celebration. 2 days of sun and loud music should do wonders for me. I have 2 good friends who have some knowledge about sound equipment helping me. I am hopeful that by doing this gig, it will secure future gigs of similar type and also that it will get me more of them at other places. All the gear is paid for, so profit potential is pretty good. I am always looking to the a better way to support my family. My hope is to be self employed and not reliant on a job to make it. While I like EMS, It may well be time to move on. If I can, I will. I guess we will see. I must admit though, working in Linn County has been pretty easy cheesy. We will see how how things progress. - DJ

Light at the end of the tunnel

Well, the new guy officially starts full time as of the 20th. This means that the overtime will be minimal. While this is good for my social life, it will be more challenging on the budget. My hope is that repo's pick up to compensate.
My wife is leaving for a trip to Texas in 2 weeks. This leaves me with the dubious honor of painting the house while she is gone. I just hope the weather cooperates. This week the plan is to work on the interior if the house. I have to gut the back entry way, put in a new window, re-sheetrock, paint, lay new flooring and trim. All in 3 days. We'll see. Either way, at least I am motivated. At work till Wednesday, looking forward to going home. Short week this week. Only 60 hours. - DJ

Non Stop!

Sometimes I feel like life is pretty much non-stop. We went to Colorado the week of Memorial Day and returned last Monday. The trip was great. Relaxing, the views were spectacular! I will try to upload some pix. Not sure how to do that yet. Anyway. We drove back about $900 poorer for the gas it took. Bout fifty cents a mile! Paid $4.29 a gallon on Estes Park. Once we got back there was the unpacking. Then I had to return to work where I was welcomed back with a call first off. Some poor dude had a hernated scroatum. You do the math. Dude's guts were in his n*%t's! OUCH! I felt for him so I gave him the good stuff. The second day of my shift was no better. We worked a double fatality accident in the construction area of 69 highway. Bad one. Semi vs/ small car. No contest.
After a long day on Friday, we took a trip to Coffeyville, Bartlesville and Caney. We had a good visit with some old friends in Caney on Sunday. Today was pretty tiring. I took Molly and a couple of pals up to KC to buy some inventory for my eBay business. Got some good deals. I hope to turn a nice profit off of the items. Repo's are down right now, so no funny stories to tell. I will post more details and possibly pix of the trip tomorrow. DJ

Almost outta here!

I do believe I have not been so excited to go on a vacation in a very long time. Been working on the trailer to make it a little less "ghetto". We put new walls up, re-insulated some walls, re-covered all the cushions, pulled all the carpet and put down new flooring, puled out the bathroom vanity and rebuilt the counter top. We also put up some battery powered lighting as there is no electric hookup where we are going. All in all I think we are ready to roll. We leave out Monday morning at 0500 hrs. The kids are NOT thrilled about getting up at 4 in the morning, but I predict they will sleep along the way. it is about 13 hours out there not counting potty breaks. I am guessing we will get there in time to set up camp and then go to sleep. I will try to blog wile on the trip as I can. Till next time - DJ

Getting closer

Yesterday was pretty cool. Having only 2 days at home this week has been different. I have to cram all of my family time, friend time and everything into 2 days. I guess normal people do that all the time, but I am used to having more days off. Anyway, I showed up at the kids school for the last few minutes of the school year. They were sooo excited to be getting out of school. We went to Subway for lunch and then I headed to Girard to tag the RV trailer. I am still pretty deep into renovations on the RV, but it is coming along nicely. Michelle and I decided to recover the pillows throughout the trailer. It was a pretty ambitious project that we did not start until after 6pm. Needless to say, we did not finish. I also made a sheld to replace the one that had to be removed. No all I have to do is re-panel the walls, insulate and paint inside. I do not think I will paint before the upcoming trip. I will try to fit it in, but I need to make sure it is usable first. I still need to do a water test and re-do the bathroom counters. I should be able to get that done in a day. Michelle is making curtains for it. Once all of that is done, we should be good to go. We are all looking forward to this trip. I think I am most of all. My work schedule will reduce quite a bit once we return. I am looking forward to lots of Risk games with my kids, lots of jammin with the guys and traveling. I have to work today and tomorrow, but Monday we are going to KC to get some eBay stuff to sell. That should be a fun day. - DJ

Bad timing

Well I got home yesterday and had a ton of packing to do. I sold a bunch of stuff on eBay and had to ship it out. Got done with that and wound up working on the travel trailer a bit. did some digging and found some severe water damage. I fixed the leak, but the damage was done. I wound up ripping out about a 1/3 rd of the walls down to stud. I had to replace some of the studs themselves. Also the front window was barely even hanging in the frame as the frame was rotted out and wet. I rebuilt the frame around the window and got it in just in time to have to go find shelter from an approaching tornado. It was pretty exciting. There was a distinctive wall cloud above us and a funnel cloud formed literally right on top of the house where we sought shelter. I loved it! I am into severe weather, but as far as my kids are concerned, I think safety first.

I am back at work today and get off on Friday. I then come back for my 3rd 48 hour shift on Saturday and Sunday. 120 total hours this week. That sux! But God wiling, I will make it till Monday. Then, just one more 48 hr shift till we leave for vacation! I am doing NOTHING! For at least 2 days....then maybe a hike through the mountains...or not. We will see. -DJ