UT OH

So Monday was a normal work day. It started out with me getting in 7.5 miles that felt great. Towards the end of the day my wife calls and says they would like me to travel with them to my son’s lacrosse game. It is played in a city about 60 miles south of where we live and normally we travel it in about an hour. What was different this time is they wanted to stop and take my son’s grandma, (son is step son and this is his fathers mother) sweet lady, dinner. So I get out of work at 4:30 and head home.

We leave the house slightly later then anticipated and when we get to the interstate to head south it is backed up with something. We head down the frontage road and see there is an accident on the interstate and with us going down the side road we should be okay right? WRONG! There was a second accident on the frontage road and we had to travel around to another road still to get going south. OK we are off but with our timing we are going to hit this large city at quitting time. YEP, you guessed it. It took us 2 hours to get to a place that normally would have taken usually 1 ¼ hours. OK we are here and having dinner and will be a little late to my son’s lacrosse game but that is fine.

We finally get over to the lacrosse game that started at 7:40 and my son starts playing. It is in a park that with all our rain over the weekend the grass grew and really needed cutting, long grass. With the moisture, long grass and setting sun my daughter was cold and to save from mosquito’s she ran back to the car and got a blanket. We finished the game just as it was really getting dark and picked up to leave. My wife asks if I have the keys and I replied no. Remember daughter and blanket. Well we don’t have the keys, it is now dark people are almost gone and we are searching the long grass for the car keys.

Here are our choices. Find the keys, or call family that would take them almost 2 hours to get us a second set of keys. Not a happy thought at 9pm. I head to the van to see if it was by chance unlocked and you guessed it NOPE.

My wife mentions to a couple of the last people leaving the area to “please watch the ground for a car key with a black remote.”
Some Guy: “Did you mean keys?”
Wife: “No a single key with a black key fob for the doors.”
Some Guy: “What car does it go to?”
Wife” “Our Van.”
Some Guy: “Anything good in the van.”
Wife looks at him kind of weird and he holds up a key. His dog had found it when he was walking out to the game. It seems my daughter had dropped it on her way back from the van with her blanket. This guy saved us a lot of headache and we got of very lucky.

Tuesday I get a call that the softball tournament that was rained out last weekend is now scheduled for this weekend. Our head couch is out of town and I get to try an bring this together.

I find out on Wednesday that one of the gals won’t be there so now I have a 8 girl team. Today I get to start figuring out how to fill my team and move forward in this state tournament. Wish me luck.

Smarter Begins

What a week. I know why I was hired her now. I can barely keep up with all the stuff I am doing never mind adding in the customer parts that the gal I was hired to help does now. She is gone this week marrying her daughter off and I am trying to keep things rolling here. Been very busy, so busy I have not had time to write any.

I have been working on PC’s moves for new people including Smarter that will be here on Monday.

Last weekend ended up raining the whole time. Now we need the water on our lawns but it also messes up our plans now for other weekends. The rain ended up canceling my daughters softball tournament that will now be moved to a weekend that we had originally had set aside as a free weekend and was thinking of taking off for a few days. The rain also cancelled my company party which will now move it to some other timeframe. Ohh well guess we will live through it. We did get to the Pirates of the Carribbean 2 movie though.

Monday Smarter started here at the new company. He brought me a jumbo box of bottle caps just as he promised. I think his first day went well. I know he will enjoy it here.

4th of July

What a great 4th of July. I started mine with an 8.5 mile run that wiped out my legs. It took a while to recuperate from this one. We went to a large parade for the morning that we ended up sitting kind of in the back and had to stand often to see but was still relaxing.

We then prepared and went to the pool for a couple hours to hang with a bunch of friends. Watching the splash contest, different relays and kids play was a lot of fun. The pool closed at 4pm and we again returned home where I spent a couple hours working on that new car we just got. My brother in law came by and together we got it to running a little better yet. Enough that we were able to take it around the block and give it a little try. It is HORRBILY gutless and soon realized the turbo is not working yet. That is the next step. It should get better when that works. I am at this point just happy to see it trying to run and coming along. So far $0 has been spent on it.
At a little after 6pm we took off to a friends house and had a picnic of hamburgers, brats, salads etc. It was a good dinner and we then, all 10 of us, piled into their suburban and went to City Park for the firework show. We arrived a little later and was cut short on places to sit but found a spot and met up with other friends. We watched the fireworks sort of behind a tree and then migrated with the 1000’s of people back home. It was a good night.

A New Car

Friday right after work I had a car delivered to my home. It is a 1986 Buick Skyhawk, Oxidized red, with a 1.8 liter turbo that won’t run, not been licensed for the road since 2002. The guy hauled it to my house gave me the title and keys and said it is all yours for FREE. So we pushed it into the back yard.

My van had been making noises for a couple of days so I decided Saturday morning to take the front wheels off and take a look as I thought it might be brakes. It was and one of the pads was totally gone. I called the local parts store and went down and picked up the brakes. I got home and they were not the right ones. I went back and they didn’t have the right ones, but a store on the other side of town did. So I headed across town.

I was sitting at a stop light about 6 cars back and suddenly I hear a large crash and see parts flying in front of me. An accident happened in front of me and took out the whole front line of cars at the light, 5 cars all smashed taking up the whole intersection. I was in my dune buggy and was able to squeeze through with a couple of motorcycles leaving everyone there to take care of the mess. I had gotten out and everyone was okay scared and upset but okay so I didn’t feel bad leaving and I could not add anything the people in front of me weren’t going to add to the reports.

I finally got the parts and was able to get my van back together and then went to work on the new Skyhawk in my back yard. My son was even having fun working on the car with me and wants to do more to it. We played with it some and by that afternoon we had it sort of running. It is still starving for fuel and I have to keep helping it along to run as in fuel pressure is not right or the injectors are bad is where I am now. I think by the end of the week I will have it running provided I can get any parts I need in town.

Spent the rest of the weekend doing birthday parties for family members also did some running with the group on Saturday, along with a long run on Sunday. I did Fartleks for this mornings run. Spent some time trying to find a sponsor for a major long run I will be doing in August. It is a 195 overnight long relay race. So the planning for that race is beginning to start also.