What A Day!

Or maybe this should be titled: "Things I have never seen before!"

In sort of reverse order:


1. Tight rope walking - we were heading home for the day when a child behind us was looking through a pair of binoculars and cried out, "Look! Up There!" So naturally we all looked and there was an individual walking a tight rope between two very tall buildings. None of us had ever seen that before so we stopped, watched, and using the nearly 10x digital zoom on our cameras got photos of the last half of his walk.


2. Butterflies Galore - some of us were more fond of this than others. I, for instance, deposited my audio tour equipment and exited this VERY quickly and found a nice bench in the outdoor park where I napped in the shade while Jean made some very colorful friends. She had several of the 50 species land on her and took pictures of several.


3. Class 6 Rapids - these have killed enough people who attempted to swim or float through them that there is a $10,000 fine for trying to make it through them - that is, if you live to tell the story. This is a very impressive river!

What A Week!

Work Trials
I have been struggling with overuse of my wrists, forearms and now my right lower leg. I saw an osteopathic physician to start treating for my neck, shoulder and upper back this week - that will take time. I have had my work station adjusted (I had already had this done once and use a split keyboard at work since "Day 1") and have ordered an
Evoluent Vertical Mouse for home use. I also requested one for work - they do not have the Evoluent product on their "approved" list but have ordered a 3M Ergonomic Mouse for me to use at work.

I can hear some of you saying, "Just switch your mouse to the left." I did. Both at work and at home. Withing 3 days I started getting symptoms in my left arm despite using quite a few shortcut keys instead of the mouse. And I really like what I am doing. Hopefully with some stretching, ice massage, and splinting things will improve.

Car Prep
Last night shortly after I got home from work we had a torrential downpour. I put my Hybrid and Jean's PT Cruiser out in the driveway and when the rain had nearly stopped I went out and washed both of them. I have washed the inside of both windshields and wiped down the inside of both dash boards, steering wheels, and so forth. I still need to vacuum but ran out of time. That is a relatively small thing left to do before the car show this Sunday.

Car Show Performance
Allison asked me to play clarinet with her and the Community Band "at the end of the month." It turns out that it is for the car show! So we went to a rehearsal this week. I have lost a lot of my playing ability by not playing for nearly 10 years but there are only 2 pieces (out of a 1 hour program) that I truly cannot play and do not have the time to practice to be able to play them. One piece I had played years ago (Liberty Bell March - a Sousa piece) but the rest I was sight reading on Thursday.

This will be interesting. However, it's a part that hadn't been heard previously as they had no 3rd Clarinet which has long been my favorite part to play because my clarinet sounds so good in the lower register. Allison has a clarinet that is set up to sound the best in the high registers and she is much more technically advanced than I am so she plays 1st clarinet.

Mopsy says, "Hi, World"

Mopsy says, "Hi, World"
Originally uploaded by Larry13.

Beth's new kitten, Mopsy, is having a delightful time exploring all over the house. She's a sweet tempered little fluffball.

One Down, One To Go

One Down:
Poor Allison had her wisdom teeth out two days ago and is struggling through those first couple of days of swelling and pain. All the women in the local family have been spending a bit of time over helping her with fluids, food and medication schedules. I keep repeating to myself "She really will be glad to have this behind her when she's feeling better."

And the One To Go...
is Miss Mossflower with her sidekick Mopsy Kitty (AKA Pumpkin Pants - or something like that, because her hindend has an orange patch on the lefthand side). GMP and Miss Mossy leave early Monday morning to move her down to her Grammie's house where she will be "Girl Friday" for the near future. And maybe longterm if it works out for both of them.

Work Goes On:
My work list is down to 13 files tonight...from the 30s when I came on board fulltime 6 weeks ago.

Don't worry - it's that low ONLY because there are nurses on vacation currently. It will go back up a bit when they are back from enjoying the Maine summer.

Paid Time Off:
It seemed unreasonable that I would get the same amount Paid Time Off for THIS year, when I started in May as I will get next year when I work all 12 months. So I called Human Resources.

"No, that's NOT right. I'll check the numbers and call you back."

2 minutes later...

"Doctor, you are a company officer." Me: "Yes, I am."
"Then that is NOT a mistake. There are different rules for officers of the company. You DO get all of that. You can carry over 40 hours into next year if you don't use it all."

So...

We get to take a Vacation! Time to be determined but it sounds like we'll get to visit our grandchildren again this year - now THAT'S something to look forward to!

Sobering Thought:
I can work on files from work from anywhere in the world as long as I have a broadband connection. So the GMP pointed out today. She is right, of course. So if it is raining and she is reading to children, I can break out my work laptop and log onto my work's mainframe and do half a day's work.

A Happier Thought:
I checked the Dell laptop case that comes with my work laptop and it appears that I can put my own laptop in a 2nd pouch of the case and carry them both along with me with one case so that we can have our built-in wireless connection for checking our own email and a set up that GMP is used to when traveling.

Lawn Care:
Don't worry about mowing the lawn when the remnants of a tropical storm are passing through. 'Nuff said. I'll mow when the weather clears - I happen to think that clover is cheery anyway!

Farm Co-Op:
Is this ever a good deal or what?! We get to pick vegetables from the community garden that the staff do all the planting and care for THREE times a week! And once a week we get up to 10 lb. of organic vegetables - and sometimes fruit, like the strawberries that we have enjoyed for the past 1 1/2 weeks. This week we have enjoyed greens (chard and kale), young peas (snow and snap), radishes as well as a few more strawberries that GMP and Qwerty picked.

Civic Hybrid Instrument Cluster

Civic Hybrid Instrument Cluster
Originally uploaded by Larry13.

This photo demonstrates that Toyota doesn't have a lock on making cars that get over 50 mpg.

This is a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid that has about 3,200 miles on it. This photo was taken within a mile of our home as we were returning from Popham Beach Sabbath afternoon.

I commented as we were headed to Popham that the gas milage was creeping upwards DESPITE there being 3 of us in the car. I was told - "Of course, we're going 'downhill' to sea level. It will drop on the way home."

Au contraire! It rose from about 52.2 mpg to 53.7 mpg as noted in this photo by the time we arrived home.

This photos has been printed out along with my first blog post and put inside a plastic sleeve to go with me to the 2nd Casco Bay Auto Show later this month where we will be showing this car.

2nd Casco Bay Car Show

See What I Missed!

Camp School Bus Accident near our home:

Camp Bus Accident

There is a good likelihood that I would have been just going off duty when this accident happened and would have been called back if I had already gone home.

For nearly 20 years I have lived in dread of a bus accident, plane crash at the nearby airport or some similar mass casualty accident that would overwhelm resources and nearly guarantee that someone would have had permanent injury or death because there were not enough medical resources to care for all the casualties quickly enough.

This time - it looks like a happy ending all the way around. Except for the bus driver who now has a permanent big black mark against her driving record and the reputation as the first bus driver to have a roll over bus accident in the mid-coast region in over 20 years.

Thankfully, they could not call me to the ER: my privileges to practice at our local hospital were dropped effective 7/1/05!