Sad anniversary

Today was a good day to be slow at work. The snow started around 10am and once it started it came down fast and furious. I could have saved one of my inspections from yesterday for today so I could have "business" on both days. I'm glad I drove the extra miles yesterday and got it all done so I didn't have to be out on the roads today.

Rudee and I stayed huddled up in the 5th wheel all day watching it snow. Looks like we'll have no problems getting the 4-6 inches they predicted. I'm glad we're not further east. They are expecting more than a foot near Washington D.C.!!

17 years ago today I was working at the Sheriff's department. I was on "light duty" because I was recovering from a shoulder dislocation. In fact it was my last day before going back to regular duty. I was working in the dispatch center and was about an hour away from calling it a day and heading home. It was Friday and the weather was unseasonably warm. Around 1:30 in the afternoon I overheard a call from the State Police requesting assistance. One of their officers was on a traffic stop just over our county line and had been shot. Mike Greene was a Senior Master Trooper for the Indiana State Police and was assigned to our county where he had grown up as well. He was gunned down while attempting to arrest a motorist for an open warrant. He was on patrol when he saw 2 men outside their car parked alongside the interstate. The two were urinating on the side if the road. Mike turned his cruiser around and questioned them. He got I.D. from them both and had called in a records check on them and found out one of them was wanted for a traffic warrant. While Mike was handcuffing him the other guy pulled out a 25 cal. handgun and shot Mike in the chest killing him. I worked with Mike for several years. We regularly took our meal breaks together and he would back me up on calls and I would do the same for him. Mike stopped into the dispatch center earlier that day and was teasing me for having such a "cush" job. He was a nice guy who left a daughter and son behind. Rest in peace, my brother, I am proud to have called you my friend.



We are supposed to get together with friends Rob and Jany Runion tomorrow for dinner. Not sure if the snow is going to put a damper on that and any other plans we have for the week end or not. I'll keep you posted.

Snow on the way!!

Work this week has been slow, slow, slow. I'm not sure what is going on with our business but my assignments have dropped off dramatically.

Tuesday I received a call from our mail forwarder that I had a package there so after work Rudee and I loaded up in the truck and drove to Brownsburg. We picked up our mail and the package which was the replacement heated water hose from Pirit. They sure got it here quickly. I hope the other one going out was just a fluke. We stopped in at Buffalo Wild Wings and had a quick dinner of chicken wings and nachos.

Wednesday I got the new hose hooked up. I picked up a set of new garden hose ends at Lowes and, using an older white hose I had, rigged up some adapters for the new hose. The heated hose has an electrical cord on the end that hooks to the campgrounds hydrant. This allows you to plug it in at the electrical post that is usually near the hydrant. The thermostat that turns the heating element on and off is on the opposite end that hooks into the 5th wheel. The company said that having this end inside a compartment (like mine is) has caused problems for others. I guess if the compartment stays warm enough the thermostat wont turn on and the hose will freeze. What I did was make up a homemade adapter so I can reverse the hose and then just ran an extension cord for the power. Hope it works.

We had a training meeting this morning in Indianapolis and I found out the other two appraisers were not getting many assignments either. Not that this is great news, but it made me feel better knowing I'm not the only one sitting around with nothing to do.

This evening the weatherman is saying we are in for the largest snow storm of the year. We decided (along with about 200 others) to head to Wal Mart and get some groceries. The place was a zoo. We took our time and probably bought a lot more than we should have. We got in line to check out and it took us 20 minutes at the register. There were only 2 people in front of us but the cashier, who had to have been at least 70 years old, was way slow. I'm not knocking senior workers but perhaps the manager that assigned her the register should have realized her limitations and put her on the 10 items or less aisle.

Looking forward to Super Bowl Sunday. Go Colts! We have not made any real plans and may just end up watching the game from right here in my recliner. I'll keep you posted.

lazy week end

We were pretty lazy compared to last week end. Friday evening we stopped at the local video store and rented a couple of movies. We subscribe to Netflix and can get 1 movie at a time and enjoy their service. The shipping is pretty fast and we can usually watch 2 movies a week this way. We did sign up for rentals at a local store though just for times when we were bored and wanted to watch more than 1 movie.

Rudee and I each picked out a movie and watched them both Friday evening. I guess I was not too impressed with them because I cant for the life of me remember the titles :-).

Saturday morning we drove over to Avon and visited my Mom. She was in good spirits and was thinking fairly clearly. We spent about an hour with her before she headed down for her lunch. We left there and went to Brownsburg to our mail forwarder and picked up our mail. We now have almost everything we need to do our taxes. I always get nervous starting that chore but we usually end up with a small refund, would be great if it was a great big fat refund but that's not normally the case :-).
We made it back to Crawfordsville and dropped off the rented movies back at the store. We didn't have any other plans so we rented 2 more movies and headed home. We watched both of those and headed to bed. See I told you we are pretty boring people :-).

Sunday morning I got a call from Niles who was unloading his bike from their trip to Florida. He has been researching his options on how to carry the bike on the back of his new Freightliner and wanted to do some measurements and test fittings. Sounded like a neat project so I offered to help and we headed to their house. We got the bike unloaded from his enclosed cargo trailer and measured out the space needed to fit it to the truck. He is going to have the frame lengthed and a new bed built to accommodate the motorcycle. The only drawback is which type of lift system to use. He found a hydraulic lift system that consists of a platform that sits flat on the ground and you anchor the bike to it. The platform is then lifted onto the back of the truck by a hydraulic arm. It's way cool but needs more room than a Rampage ramp like I have. Here is a pic of Niles' new truck.


We finished up all of our planning without really making any head way. The girls needed lunch and a Wal Mart run so we packed up and hit the road. Lunch was at the Red Onion in Sheridan where Niles got the biggest tenderloin sandwich I have ever seen. The meat and bun were both the size of a dinner plate! Huge!
We did some shopping and looking at Wal Mart and made a stop into the Harley dealership which was closed. They have "open 7 days a week" in large letters on their sign but I guess that's only on the summer :-(. Oh well no new motorcycles for us :-).

We dropped the Robinson's back off at their house and headed home. Rudee was talking to Steve and Trish on the phone on the way home and we made plans to meet them in Frankfort at Applebee's. We had a light meal and some good fellowship with them before heading back to the 5th wheel.

We made it back home and relaxed until bedtime. The weatherman says we are in for a bit of a warm up around here. Hooray!! Looks like we will get above the freezing mark most of this week. I sure am glad January is over. Next thing you know it will be spring and we can start riding the bike and enjoying the outdoors again, can't wait. I'll keep you posted.