More old news from Jan 2007

Back in December we had some real interesting weather, ice, snow and wind. The windstorm knocked out my power for 5 days, a new record! I had bought just the day before an inverter I think it's called. It's just a battery that you recharge and has a compressor for pumping tires, a flashlight and (the important part) 2 plugs to plug household items into. The first night the power was out was Survivor night and my friends who are addicted to the show (like me) came over to watch. I plugged in a little 13 inch TV and we were warm and had apple cider and pie, then they spent the night since they didn't have heat and live only 2 and 3 doors away. I had company every night, we had BBQ and I had a lamp in the kitchen, a battery powered radio and we put together puzzles. It was almost like we had power and I really enjoyed having all that company.

Between snow and ice storms, just on a wet hwy Kevin was involved in a 3 car accident, he being #3. It was very rainy and car #1 lost control of his car. Car #2 then lost control and Kevin was in car #3. He saw his chance to go around car #2 and so hit the gas to pass it when #2 hit #1 and flung it right in front of Kevin. It was a camry just like Dane's, the trunk was pushed into the back seat and the back window was broken out. The guy had to be removed with the "jaws of life". Kevin was in his little Toyota pickup which was raised and had those tubular bumpers. The 2 cars were hooked together and when they got them apart he could actually still drive the truck, the tires rubbed on the fenders and the steering wheel was moved up and forward, it prolly has bad frame damage and will be totalled. Car #2 was blamed for Kevin's accident. But fortunately Kevin is OK, he went to the hospital because his elbow hurt, he thought it might be broke but it's not, he was just banged up but is fine now.

In the middle of all that weather in early January Dale was having chest pains and ended up having to go to the hospital and having angioplasty and a stent inserted into an artery that was 90% blocked. All in all he was in the hospital for parts of 3 days. He was being beligerent one day, claiming that he wasn't gonna let them keep him overnight and no one had been able to go see him (everyone works and after dark, after work, it got real cold and the roads froze up and were treacherous) so I was determined to go see him and took off early to do that, so I could get it done and be home before dark. That morning Dane had called and said HE was also having chest pains! He's only 18, what's that all about?!? When I was almost to Auburn he called and said he was going to the doctor, the pains were worse and the school nurse told him not to go to work, but he shoudl go to the doctor. So I told him I'd meet him at Auburn Hospital emergency room. While we waited he was having arm and neck pains, headache, nausea and was nearly in tears. They finally got us back and put him on IV fluids and painkillers. His temp went up to 103. They did and EKG and bloodwork, chest xrays and blood cultures. They couldn't really figure out what was wrong with him, he had a "cloud" on a lung, elevated liver function and had a virus they suspected was mono even though the mono test was negative. The fever broke and they had 2 liters of fluid in him, they prescribed antibiotics for suspected pneumonia and we went home. The week before he'd had 7 days of diarrhea and went to the doctor for that, they didn't see or hear anything unusual in their exam of him so we suspected they were unrelated. Then all this stuff started coming out in the news about salmonella in peanut butter and I recognized the brand as the one that I buy from Walmart and checked the bottle and sure nuff, it was the right lot#. Dane had been eating it and moreso when he got the diarrhea. So I'm pretty sure the diarrhea was related to the peanut butter and we joined the class action suit. I dont know if the chest pains, etc were connected. Yesterday Kevin came over to work on a cabinet he's buiding for me and he has pleurisy. I researched it a little and discovered that that's maybe what Dane had, the hospital never even mentioned it but most of the symptoms are similar and he would have recovered quickly from it due to the antibiotics.

The weekend after Dane's hospital visit Rach & Tony and Denny & Heather and Dane & Keith & I all went to Leavenworth for the Bavarian Ice festival. The boys and I stayed in a smoking room in a motel that just stunk. The kids all stayed in a cute Bed and Breakfast with a nice living area and hot tub. In the evening we got together in their living room and played games. It was in the single digits most of the time we were there. See pictures in my pictures section under the title "2007". The kids went snowboarding while we were there and we found a real cute hat shop that we had a lot of fun in.

Shirley is pursuing her modeling and will be in Vegas for a bikini contest on TV in late March. I don't get cable so I don't know the show she said it would be on but she's very excited about it. If she does well she gets to go back east later in the year for another contest that may eventually get her into a well read magazine.

Dale's restaurant closed about the end of January. The wind storm is mostly what brought its demise. It blew out the sign and then didn't have power for about 4 days. They opted to not open while it was open and lost all the food in the refrigerator, that pretty much did them in. They never really recovered from that and after Dale had his heart "episode" I think he decided he didn't need the added stress, I don't think it ever was what he expected it to be. So now Dane is basically unemployed, he's helped one of the friends from the congregation who's a contractor but that's only happened a couple times, not even part time work. He wants to work in a fitness club.

Rachyl was able to get a real nice job working in the AP dept of Krusteaz in Tukwila, it sounds like a real nice place to work. The average employee in the accounting dept works there for 10 years, that's better than most. And her hubby Tony I guess is gonna work for a local electric supply house soon, the company he's working for as an electrician is going bankrupt, poor money management.
Not much has changed for Denny and Heather. Heather is now unemployed but I don't think she's worrying about finding anything right now, Denny's doing real well in that area. They gave one of their dogs to a no-kill shelter to find her a new home so they only have the one beautiful German Shepard, Gage, and cute little Lily, their orange tabby cat brat. I think they're looking to buy a house maybe this spring.

I'm getting my reservations lined up for my trip to Hawaii this summer. Only Dane is going with me this year. I try to do something fun every year and we're running out of things to do on Kauai, and everything left is so expensive, I decided to look into visiting the Big Island since I've wanted to go there since I lived there. Well, the excursions on Kauai cost about $150/person (horseback ride, helicopter ride, ATV ride, etc) and the round trip ticket to the BI is - guess - $150/person! Sooooo, we're gonna do that and rent a VW camper for $100/day (I'm saving almost that much on Kauai not renting a car for the whole time and no ticket for Keith). We'll eat camping food and try to get to a meeting on Sunday. One campground we'll stay in is on the volcano at an elevation that it gets cold at night, in the 40's so we'll have to have blankets. I sat down with one of those awful "secret places" book on the BI and planned what to see and what to skip since we only have really just over 3 days. I want to take Dane to a real black sand beach, somewhere where we can see lots of honu (green sea turtle) and, of course, the Volcano. There are a couple really fantastic places to see the sunset and lots of hot springs. I'm very excited. I got a DVD player so we can watch a movie or something in the evening since it gets dark about 7:30 and we'll be stuck in a camper then.