Rain / Flooding Again - Fotos

Look at all that water coming toward our front steps!

3 streams coming down through the yard ...
heading for the front steps!

Look at all that water flow ...
The slats are floating. I had to put water bottles and another block to hold them down and block some of that water ... which was undercutting the corner of the house.

Rain / Flooding Again - Videos

The bottom video was actually first in line ...
a lot more water flowing.
I had to go get another block and add the water bottles to hold the slats down and block out some of the horrendous water flow.

Horrendous water flow ...

water, water, everywhere ...

Scenic Floral Drive

Since it wasn't raining on Sunday, they held the scenic floral drive looking at lovely homes on Sunday.
Rain is due again tomorrow ...

This is a lovely "Tudor" type home.
On the western side of city center ... water bubbling up through the manhole covers ... eastern side of town had several streets so deep in water you could only see the roofs
sticking up above the water level.

The Local River

All the water levels have risen significantly ...
The dock is under water.

This is when the rain has just finished ...
what is normally a trickle, has filled the banks to the top.
But wait until the run-off upstream fills the river ...
It can go even higher and overflow the banks.

This side stream flows into the river ...
those trees aren't normally in the middle of it.

A Walk in the Rain

It hasn't stopped raining ... yet.
But I had to get outside and take a few fotos ...
Like the lake in the front lawn ...

The boat dock under water.
When I stepped on the section back of the boat,
water squished up between the boards ...

Here's a view of the pond taken from under my umbrella.

Birdsong ... in between the showers

Nothing like a little birdsong ...
to brighten the morning amid the rain showers

CRASH, BANG !!

3 days of thunder storms. This was taken at 9:00 a.m. this morning.
The hyacinth to the left of the post is drowning. It had let up yesterday afternoon and evening. Then about 8 or 9 p.m. it started again. At 3:00 a.m. this morning it was seriously thundering and continued to do so (almost continuously) thru 9:00 a.m. when it lightened a little. A few birds sang. But at 10:14 a.m. it is thundering again and the downpour has increased.

Used the camera flash to show this "river" running past our steps and around the side of the house. I wore my Crocs (rubber clogs) when I stepped down onto those gray slats ... which promptly sank ... and I was ankle deep in water.
Play the video below to hear and see the rain with another brief flash of lightning towards the end.

Hazmat Test

I took the written (computerized) Hazardous Materials test today. Brain racking study. I passed. It only cost $25 cash (correct change only) to take that part.
Then you contact TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) online at http://www.tsa.gov ... where if you search hard enough, you may stumble across the CDL Hazmat online application page ... hazprints.com which sends you to https://www1.wildlifelicense.com/hzbg/application.phpit (for my state) where you pay a fee of $89.25 (credit card only online or money order only in person) to get a confirmation number, so you can drive to the state capitol and get all of your fingerprints taken on an electronic screen. Altho it looks like you are paying for a wildlife license ... you don't get a tag to go shoot any deer or wild pigs.
Then wait 2 or 3 weeks for them to send you a letter of tentative approval. Which you take back to the correct DMV office and pay another $18 for them to re-print your license.
So, for the paltry sum of $132.25 you can have hazmat added to your Class A license.

Date Night - Appetizers

These two fotos are very similar ...
but notice the difference in depth of field of focus.
I thought it was interesting to see the leaf from last year ...
versus the new growth from this Spring.

For date night, we went to Captain D's.
For appetizers, we ordered jalapeño poppers ...
and battered, fried, dill pickle chips with ranch dressing.
The fried pickle chips were actually kind of interesting ...
not that bad if you will.
My Wife actually said, "These could become a favorite."
Then it was off to watch a grandson play baseball.
He was up twice and got at least one good solid hit.

V.A. -- bearing gifts

Just got these in the mail courtesy of the V.A.
The great big bottle contains 270 tablets of Ibuprofen 800 mg.
The Colestid is to bring my cholesterol down ... my cholesterol is fine ... but my triglycerides are above 200 ... I wonder if this is really going to help all that much with that.
One of the little bottles is HCTZ (hydrochlorothiazide) - water pill.
The other is Lisinopril - blood pressure meds.
Wasn't that just sweet of them?

Lose 40 lbs of weight and I wouldn't need any of these ...

In the meantime, Daniel managed to pick up the loads yesterday in Chicago, but he is so sick he is barely managing to drive. He only made it as far as the scale in Northern Indiana at 4:30 p.m. yesterday. And there he stopped. The sun has been up several hours, he just now fueled, and is attempting to head south. He wonders if he just picks a hospital and walks into the emergency room ... will they accept his VA card ... and will the VA pay for it. He's really feeling miserable.

Slow Progress SWB

Kat's brother is wondering when I will finally finish this bike for him.

It's slow progress ... but it is starting to look like a recumbent bike.

More info about it is found on Freth's Recumbents.

Light Rain Showers

It's been raining steadily since noon yesterday. The rain thundered down during the night and had a period this morning where it hammered down in bucketloads. Although there is talk of it backing off and becoming just scattered rain showers ... the band of rain extends westward halfway through Louisiana and southwest below Corpus Christi, TX to Mexico. There could be several days of this.

Does this mean it is time to start planting???
Kat bought a bunch of seeds at Dollar General for 20 cents a packet. We bought 50 assorted packets: 2 varieties of cucumber, Detroit dark red beets, turnip greens, collards, spinach, black seeded Simpson & parris island lettuce, dill, french & early scarlet radishes, black beauty eggplant, golden wax bean, Burpee stringless bean, henderson's lima bean, danvers & nantes carrots, and zuchinni. We'll use some and "can" the others for preservation for future emergency usage.

St Patty's Day Party

The Art Association was holding it's 1st Annual St Patrick's Day party.
Daniel finally departed today with a load of peanuts ... heading to Chicago ... then it's back to Florida with a frozen food load. First load we've had in 7-1/2 months. At least Daniel has work now. I'm still waiting on the call-back.

The food ... which I don't have a foto of ... was really wonderful. Authentic Irish fare. In fact we had an Irish fellow from North Ireland who hadn't been home in two years ... he sat there eating and sighing ... saying something about comfort food. The only thing I didn't care for was the "Bangers in Rum Sauce" ... pieces of sausage soaked in Rum. Boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, beef brisket, lamb stew, soda bread, irish potato salad, "pasties" (meat & potatoes in small pastry half-shells), green punch (the dark green bowl was the "special" punch with the kick to it ... light green for kids and us), and green colored desserts (angel food cake, key lime pie, green jello).

The Fone Replacement is Here!

Here it is ...
When I went on the website to choose the replacement phone ... they didn't have any Nokia 1600's. So, I had to choose something else. Not being a big fan of the LG 300 that we bought last year to replace the house phone (very marginal on reception -- even in Los Angeles) ... I decided to go with this Motorola W375. The advantage with the Motorola is that I can plug an external antenna (Wilson) into it and get much better reception in marginal areas. Wilson even has an amplifier that will increase the input and output to 3 watts! That is significant when you realize these things normally deal in milli-watts (millionths [ 0.0001] of a watt of power).

Foggy Morning

Yesterday I noticed that wipers are not real effective when riding my motor-assisted bicycle in fog. It is scary to pull your hand off the handlebar at 25 mph and reach up to wipe a finger across the glasses lenses. And besides, you can't see much of anything anyway. My wife was off to work with the car ... and it was a little 9 mile (one-way) ride thru the fog for me to the VA clinic. I set my front light and tail light in flashing mode, had my air horn ready, and prayed that no one would run me over. Of course, it was lovely and sunny when I came home at noon.

A little Sunshine, A little welding

Enjoyed a little sunshine, a little welding, a short bicycle ride, and a lot of hacksaw and grinder work ... gotta separate them bicycle parts from the frames so I can use them. Tried getting some tubing from an old 10-speed frame ... but it was so darn thick and heavy that I just kept the front forks and the headtube. Tossed the rest of it on the scrap pile.

No, my back didn't bother me while riding the recumbent bicycle.
Nice padded seat, firm back support ...
Just don't drop anything on the floor ...
and have to squat down to pick it up.

I'll take my sniffles and see about some yummy onion soup for dinner.

Blockage Between My Ears

It's been a busy day.
Called the recruiter at Werner ... no regional opening ...
in fact, no OTR openings either.

Called Lowes ... they said come in at 10 a.m.
I had an interview with the Store Manager.
So, they interview a few more people ... make a decision ...
and maybe I get a call from them next week??

Visited the local V.A. outreach center ... no help there.
come back next week and maybe we'll give you some Motrin
for that aching back problem ...

Made the long drive to the V.A. facility where they did the MRI on my head ... they confirmed that there is some kind of blockage in my head ... which is why the flashlight beam didn't go straight through from one earhole and out the other. Otherwise every thing is fine. Which had absolutely nothing to do with my back ... maybe I should wear one of those big black back-support belts ... oh, and take two aspirin ...
it might help (it's an anti-inflammatory).