being prepared

We have still been really busy at work trying to catch up from all the storm damages, enough about that though. I'm sure you don't want to hear, again, about how boring and busy my job is :-).

Speaking of storms, when you live fulltime in a rolling box you need to be prepared for bad weather. We have a weather radio and have a place to flee to should the storm get bad so we thought we were pretty well prepared. Well, we were not, at least until yesterday :-).

My employer gives out "atta boy" points when you do something above and beyond or get a good report from the public and things like that. The points accumulate and you can use them to "purchase" goodies from a catalog.

I had several points built up and decided to do some shopping so this is what I bought:

Not sure we will ever use it but I'm sure the grand kids will get a kick out of it and it didn't cost us anything.

So now, like Noah, we are prepared for the flood, as long as we don't spring a leak :-)!

Rudee and I both have lap tops (actually mine is a netbook) that we use. Wednesday night her Toshiba took a dive and would not come on. All we got was the "black screen of death".

The computer is 4 or 5 years old and has been getting slower and slower the last couple of months. I blamed it on her being on Facebook playing games everyday. I guess I was wrong and there was a more serious issue.

Last night we went to the UPS store to pick up our "yacht" and stopped into Wal Mart to look at laptops. They had a bare bones, bottom of the line, Compaq for under $300. We decided to stop in at Best Buy and see what they had. Big mistake. We headed for the laptops and looked them over. They had the same one as Wal Mart for the same price. We decided to go ahead and get it so asked one of the "kids" that work there to get us one. He kept asking us what we planned on doing with it. We told him we just did a little internet and email type stuff, pretty basic for today's computers. He then started explaining how this computer wouldn't work for us and we needed "dual processors" and a lot of "other stuff". I told him we didn't need that stuff for what we do but he wouldn't let it go so we finally just said forget it and walked out! He just stood there watching us leave when all he had to do was unlock the case and give us the computer we wanted. Hopefully he learned a little life lesson here, or at least maybe he has a topic for his next report in economics class this fall when he goes back to High School :-)

This morning we drove to Lebanon to go to the Post Office and apply for our passports. I had gotten on line and researched the process so we had all the forms filled out, had our birth certificates as well as copies of our drivers license's. We were ready. Unfortunately the camera at the post office wasn't working right so they sent us to the local CVS where we got the photos done and made it back to the Post Office before they closed. We should have our passport cards in 4-6 weeks.

There are 2 types of Passports these days. The traditional book style and the passport card which looks like a drivers license. The card is a lot cheaper but is only good for land or sea travel into Mexico, Bermuda, Canada and The Bahamas.

We doubted that we would ever be flying into or out of any of these countries (or other international countries) so opted for the card and saved a few $$.

Tomorrow I fly to Los Angeles and have a week of training with "Professor Burke" at the "University". The classes end on Friday before noon and I fly back in Friday night. Rudee is dropping me off and picking me up so she will get to spend some time with her family both days since they live just a few miles from the airport.

We are looking forward to our week long vacation coming up. We are going to the GWRRA 'Wing Ding" in Knoxville Tennessee. The rally stars on the 6th of July bit we are arriving the week end before so we can get in some riding in the Smokey Mountains. I'll keep you posted.