Terrible Tuesday

Okay 12:01 A.M. and we had successfully cleared loft A without it collapsing. By that time we had stacked about 9,000 pounds of hay on loft B and it looked as solid as a rock. We decided that it would be easier for us to work on the loft if we took the ten or so bales that were on the ground and put them up in loft B. So Joe's son started up the skidsteer (small bulldozer) and Bob loaded the bucket with a few bales of hay. As those who were on the ground stood against the back wall of the barn to watch, I climbed up on a couple rows of hay so we could make a row behind them taller. Bob grabbed a bale, tossed it to me, and I plunked it down on the row. Then it happened. CRACK!!! I heard a massive snap and felt myself start to slide. I spun around to see the ground rushing at me and had time for but one thought: "I am about to be completely crushed by thousands of pound of hay!" I was in the process of thinking that thought when a bale struck me in the back. I instinctively put out my hand to stabilize myself right when the floor decided it was time to hit me. ... ...Ouch!... ... I lay on the floor for a while and realized that by God's amazing protection, I had been thrown clear of the crushing hay. My face was pointed over towards my right hand, which was partly covered by a bale. I thought "Wow! that got swollen up fast!" because my wrist had a bump that went a little more than an inch above my forearm. I slowly pulled my hand out from under the bale and realized that it was not swollen at all. It was actually my wrist that was above my forearm! I sat up and said "I've never seen my arm look like that before!" Then I said "Let's go to the hospital."
And I will tell about my hospital visits tomorrow.

Super Monday

Monday was a great day in my life. Everything ran smoothly and I was just praising God for everything. I wasn't scheduled to work, but I called in and asked my manager if I could, and he was like "ummm... sure I guess." I'm not sure he every had people ask to work on their days off before. So I went in and it was a good thing that I did because both the guys who were scheduled to work in electronics had problems, so my manager handed me a phone and a walkie-talkie and was like "Here, go do electronics!" So I took the stuff and went out to straighten up CD's and DVD's and just hang out. I could choose who I wanted to talk to and when I should talk to them, AND IT WAS SOOO FUN. Every once in a while though, the lines would get long and I would get called back to cashier (which was also fun, just not as much). While I was cashiering I was thanking God for my ROTC training, because I had the discipline to not say "No it's just for decoration" to all the people who were like "Should I put my stuff on the belt?" Anyway, after I got off work at about 9:00, I came home to find my entire family gone and me without a house key. So I lay on the trunk of my car and enjoyed the night air for a while until I remembered that my phone was in the car. I listened to a message from Bill (names are changed to protect privacy) who wanted me to go with him to help save Joe's hay loft which was in the process of collapsing. Then I called Mom and found out that she was on the way home. When Mom got home I asked if I could go (begged and pleaded actually) and she finally said I could. So I grabbed my construction tools (all four of them) and drove to my Bill's house. When I got there Bob and Bill were waiting (Bill had also asked Bob to come), so I jumped right into Bill's car and we headed out to Joe's house. We got there about 10:30 that evening, and got right to work. We were in a large barn that had several hay lofts, and saw that one of the main cross braces for loft A was broken in two. We cut supports for the sagging timbers and knocked them into place, then we went up into loft B and built a rail so we could move the hay over there. After the rail was built I volunteered to climb up in loft A and throw the hay over to loft B, but Joe had his son, who is a bit lighter, do it instead. So I stacked hay with Bill and Bob until Joe's son got tired of throwing bales. Then I went over to A and took his place. I was having the time of my life doing actual physical work, and Monday ended with me gingerly throwing the last bales off of the loft while trying to avoid having it collapse with me on it.

prayer and rest

I was really tired and worn thin by the end of work last night, but with the wonderful blessing of a day of rest from my Lord, I am refreshed and ready to go. I don't see why anyone would refuse to take a day off to worship God and get recharged for the next week. We had a time of prayer after the end of the service tonight and it was great! So life is looking good once again.

Crazy Pens

I checked out my friend from across the the street today, and he let me preview a pen that will soon be available at United Skates where he is a manager. It is a clicky pen, you know the type where you press the button on the top, but when you press the button on this one it gives you a small eletrick shock! It is soo cool. I have to get one. Don't say I didn't warn you. HaHaHaHaHa (sinister laugh)

Havoc on the trails!

I went running with Eric this morning. Got up at 5:30 to go over to his house and then to Eagle Creek Park. It was so nice in the woods. Until Eric stopped recognizing the trail due to the greenery (he usually runs in the non-green months) and got us hopelessly lost. Well we weren't really lost. We just made a wrong turn onto a dead-end trail. We ended up running over three miles in 25 min. Pretty good for some old nerds like us. After running I came home and conked out on the couch for a while and got Caleb started on a blog. Check it out at calebsliferocks.blogspot.com!

long day

I got my last break at work today half an hour after the store closed. So you can probably imagine how busy it was. But I didn't mess up any checks! :) When we get checks we are supposed to push the check button and put them in the machine to be endorsed and yesterday I kept accidentally pressing cash which automatically ends the purchase and leaves on way to endorse the check, but today I was good. I had a girl come through my line and buy nine cases of beer. You will never guess what University was advertised on her shorts. That's right! It was IU! How in the world did you know? Well I better head off to bed because I am going running in the morning. Go Purdue! where students work out instead of party.

blah

My day was pretty boring today. I did have a few highlights though. I made a video out of my ROTC photos and it is very cool. (still needs work though) We got the rest of Christopher's wedding pics back. Ahh the memories... And I saw dad's cousin at the store today. He is only a few days older than dad and almost as much fun to be around, but he lives out in the counry so it was great to see him. That's it for today.

Who wants to fly with me?

I'm hoping to get some time in pretty soon. It will probably be in the morning or maybe an afternoon when I have a day off. Hopefully I can take my family up first and whoever signs up next will be treated on a first come first serve basis. Today I had someone pull the most low-down, cheap, rude, and stingy trick I have ever seen. I was given a roll of nickels and a roll of dimes as payment for a purchase. I could see right away that the nickel roll was short so I told the customer about it, but the dimes looked to be the right size so I left them alone. When I had a break in customers, I opened the dime roll to discover that someone had stuffed the roll with pennies and put three dimes on each end! That looser of a trick is not worth the money you save compared to the dignity, morality, and face that you lose. When I told the lady about the nickels, she seemed upset and said that she had gotten them from friend who was always shorting her, so she could have been innocent, but I would not put anything, especially barefaced flat out lying beyond the scum who would go that far to steal a few dimes. Enough ranting for tonight. Sweet dreams y'all.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Hooray for rest and fun.

The sermon this morning was on having fun. Not in the way the world goes about its sinful pleasures, but in taking time to enjoy the life that God has given us in a good wholesome manner. This week I am going to have fun or die trying.

P.S.

Oh yeah, I can't figure out how to get polls in here, so any help from fellow bloggers would be great!

Whew!

I had a long stressed-out day today. I don't know why, but it was just that way. I am so glad for a day of rest tomorrow. Thank You Lord! Two cool things did happen today though. I got to put my Spanish skills to work (or at least attempt to) and helped a Mexican dude out, and The wife of Mr. C's favorite plumber went through my line. I case I don't see you at church tomorrow: Good Afternoon, Good Evening, and Good Night! :)

Two wheels on solid asphalt!

I went to work an hour an a half early today. I feel really stupid. I was supposed to go in at 1:30, but I left at 11:30 like I did yesterday when I started at 12. And I was blessed with another grumpy folk. She was more nit picky than cranky, so I will get on to more exciting things in my life. I went to the tail end of CYA after I got off work at 9 and got there just in time to see the end of a movie called the Truman Show. Then I got my FIRST MOTORCYCLE RIDE EVER! on the back of Ross's chopper. Way fun. Well it's late and I better get to bed. Goodnight.

Grumpy Folks

I had my first truly grouchy customer today. He wanted to pay with a mastercard and absolutely couldn't understand why our store wasn't "with the millenium" and couldn't take mastercard as credit like "any other place in the world" He made it quite obvious to the entire store that he would fork over his "last bit of beepn beepity beep cash very grudgingly, but only because we were so beepity beep beep behind the beepin times" Yeah, pretty interesting. Fortunately I had called my supervisor over before he started into that, so his behavior did not reflect on me.

Police Shooting

I was reading let it out this morning and found something that really irked me, so I am going to get off of the theme of my blog and talk politics for a while. There were peole commenting on how terrible it was for a police officer to shoot a resisting criminal. I hadn't heard about the shooting so I rooted through yesterday's paper until I found the story on B3 buried under a story about porstate cancer. Three officers went to serve a warrant on a druggie when he attacked them with a metal pipe and wounded and disarmed two before the third shot him down. And people a mad at the police? come on! The dude was attacking them. Police should be allowed to shoot anyone who resists and/or flees them with no consequences if said person dies. Even for minor stuff like traffic tickets. This would cause criminals to fear the police again and would save lives in the end, because fewer people would run and end up in car wrecks with innocent people dead. Whew, I finally got that off my chest.

I'm Back!

Boston was sooo cool. We drove for two days to get out there and checked into our rooms at the Sheraton Hotel on Saturday afternoon. I got to see my cousin's baby for the first time. She is almost two, and she uses perfect grammar and already knows her alphabet. That is makings for a genius. On Sunday we went to the First Presbyterian Church and saw Peter Falk. It was a great church with sound doctrine and super acoustics for singing. Sunday night my aunt and uncle had a dinner at a place called Stephanie's. Verrry Ritzy. Then on Monday we drove out to the Crane Estates (The makers of the Crane toilets) for the wedding. My cousin Chris married a nice girl named Lanie in a private outdoor ceremony. The estates are very high class with 2100 acres of ocean front property, mansions, and flower gardens. I would have loved to stay a week and explore the place. We got to spend one night in an inn on the property. The inn used to be a decorators showhouse and was really top of the line. We had the entire inn rented out so we had the run of the place. :) :) Most of the family and Chris's best man and his wife sat around in bathrobes and played Mafia until two in the morning. :) After a great night's sleep we loaded into our van at 7:20 Tuesday morning and drove until 1:30 Wednesday morning. I got to drive through West Virginia there and back. I went back to work today and it was my manager's birthday! Happy Birthday Robbin!

...

I've been out of it all day. It was really slow at work and I had some of the strangest requests from people in my line. Aside from the usual Mexican who can't understand a thing I say and tries to run the debit card machine in English, and the American who accidentally runs it in Spanish, I had someone pay for an order with cash, check, AND Visa, and another person who wanted me to run three different recipts and pay for it all at once. It was really wierd. I won't be updateing for the next few days because I will be in BOSTON!!! So I better get off now and pack.

To loose the surly bonds of earth

I had a day off of work yesterday. Kind of funny cause with a whole day off I couldn't find time to post a blog. Anyway, I did the only reasonable thing to do with a day off- go flying. I got checked out at Eagle Creek, so now I can take their planes out whenever I have another day off. It was really beautiful up there with all the huge clouds billowing up before the storm, kind of rough on the landings though with all the wind. Then in the evening I went to a Hogeye Navvy concert at Eagle Creek park with Stacey. I was fun listening to all their Irish tunes. Did have one drawback though, I've been going around all day talking with a fake Irish accent.

Cart Boy

I got to be a cart boy at work today. We had some national managers coming in, so they put me out to make sure the parking was extra empty. (and probably also to make sure they didn't go through my line and have me mess up anything they bought) It was fun working out in the sun, but there was this other cart boy who talked worse than a certain general contractor. (talk to Eric for more info on him) (not Mr. C or Mr. G) They also offered me a position behind the service counter at work since I am such a outgoing and friendly person. I was so shocked when they said that because I am such an introvert that I had a hard time approaching them for the job I needed just last month. So, anyway I haven't decided if I am going to take it yet. Prayers would be appreciated.

Life and marrage

Yay! I got a few days off of work so I can go see my cousin's wedding in Boston. Never been there before. Especially in the fall. This hoosier is going to the BIG city to live in CLASS! or not. That reminds me, You know you are a hoosier when you've had to call a tow truck to remove your car from a pothole. And you know you are southern hoosier when you call the truck, but the local motorcycle gang lifts your car out before it gets there. I caught a guy trying to lift a pair of shorts at work today. I was like "Are these yours" and he was like "uh yea I forgot about them...(maybe that's because I hid them behind a bucnh of chips)...sorry man."

Prayer

This morning we had some great instruction at church. Dr. Blackwood preached on Joshua or Jehovah Saves. Dr. Rao said something of special note in his Psalm explanation this morning. He told how when David said in Psalm 5:3 "In the morn my prayer arrange" that he was likening his morning prayer to the offerings of the priests, carefully laid out in the exact order commanded by God. You know, with the sticks and meat all put on a certain way. Hmmm... Good stuff to think on. If you want to study with me on how prayers are to be offered to the Lord please comment on here to get in touch.

time of my life

Time sure flies when you don't want it to, dosen't it? When I started this blog I was going to update every day, but then I started my job and that idea kind of floated on away. Anyway, on the third, after my last post, we took dad out to this great buffet where the ice dispenser was broken. A waitress had to get the ice out for us. After two plates of food though, she was getting ice for someone else and it got unjammed. It started shooting ice all over the place. =0 It was very funny. When it finally quit, there was a huge pile of ice on the floor and counter. I only had three plates when my stomach started hurting. I guess it shrank when I was at Purdue because I used to be able to put away at least five. Yesterday I worked all day and then went to one of the best plays ever. It was The Music Man put on by the best homeschool actors in Indiana. If you haven't seen a play by these guys you are really missing out. Today I worked all day again. It is really cool at work because at the end of the day we get printouts of the stats for our sales. I sold over $45,000 worth of goods in the last three days!

Read this!

It won't probably change anything if you read this, but that dosen't matter. I got my own register drawer today! After only two days of training. Today is Dad's birthday and he would kill me (or at least stop paying for my college) if I posted how old he was. Let's just say he's got quite a few years left in him. Happy Birthday Dad!!!

workin' hard or hardly workin'?

Today was my first real (not sitting in front of a computer training) day at work! It was pretty interesting. I got all trained on how to opperate a cash register and stuff like that. Very Cool. I went to Mr. Bird's Bible study with Stacey tonight. Very good study. We did a review of Isiah. (which we had been studying all winter) Great book! I would recommend it to any who hasn't read it fifty times already.