My Hero

It's cold and nasty out today, but that hasn't slowed Carol down any. While I've been sitting around the fire, watching TV, or playing with the computer or the dog, she went on an early ambulance call, picked up a patient in Seal Rock and drove on icy roads 85 miles from Seal Rock to the Florence hospital and back. On the way home she stopped by the grocery store to get boxes for the canned food drive tonight, and picked up the neighbor's mail.

She thawed and reheated a big pot of home made chili to feed the crew, took it down to the station, went to the library to return some books, picked up a book for me and paid the power bill.

Tonight and tomorrow night she's going to be helping with “Operation Santa Claus” which is a canned food drive for the needy. She'll be inside a Christmas light decorated ambulance stacking and boxing food while other volunteers go from house to house gathering everything from noodles to canned peas. (Santa is going to be riding a quad this year!)

Where she gets the energy amazes me, and I sure am proud of her!

Christmas Tree

As usual, right after Thanksgiving, Carol put up the Christmas tree and spent the day decorating it. I've learned over the years to stay clear and let her do it. I found out that I'm completely stupid when it comes to hanging ornaments, because wherever I'd hang one it would be in the wrong spot and have to be moved. It's much easier to just sit and watch from a safe distance.

I started a story website that I can change pretty easily every week or so at this site. Maybe I can write down some of the stories we talk about at our weekly barbecues.

Thanksgiving

Carol and I went over to J.C.'s for Thanksgiving and had a feast as usual; champagned ham, smoked turkey, deviled eggs, succotash, brussel sprouts, home made biscuits and on and on...
I'm still stuffed. We ate out on his deck, it was warm while the sun was up, but as soon as it dropped behind the trees we had to fire up the chiminea stove and put on some jackets. After dinner we went inside and watched football.

Drift Creek

J.C. and I hiked into Drift Creek on Wednesday and caught a couple of nice salmon, a 10lb. Coho and a 30 lb. Chinook. We released them both and it was good that we did because I sure had a hard time climbing back up that trail. I don't think I could have packed a 6" Trout out of there.When we got home Carol was so worried that she called one of the paramedics she works with to come over and take my blood pressure. It was fine; 130 over 70, so I guess I was just having a bad day. Plus, maybe I'm starting to get old?

Why I don't watch (much) pro football anymore.

A rant by Bob

I used to be a big football fan.

When the chill of Colorado's fall was in the air, I knew that my Sunday's were going to be spent in front of the TV watching pro football. I even went to some of the games at Mile High stadium and watched the old AFL Broncos play. Over the years I had my heroes, Johnny Unitas, Walter Payton, Bart Starr, Brett Favre, John Elway and even O.J. Simpson to name a few. They seemed to be good sports, tried to be good role models for kids and it looked like they enjoyed playing the game. There were a lot of players like them, and I respected and admired them.

Then for me, things gradually began to change. Maybe it was just my turning a blind eye to the faults of my heroes, (like O.J.) but I began to wonder about all of the mocking, strutting, and in-your-face taunting that was becoming more and more common in the games. Instead of tossing the ball to the ref and returning to the sideline after a touchdown, the scoring player felt obliged to do a dance, or in some cases, before they outlawed it, an entire vaudeville routine. After a good tackle or block, we have to endure chest beating, taunting and bragging. How often now do we hear the announcers mention “sportsmanship” or “humility” or “gentleman?”

It seems to me that the higher the player's salaries go, the more repulsive their behavior becomes.

Their idea of being an off-field role model is to dress like a pimp, get busted for drugs, drunk driving, wife-beating or murder, and then use their high priced lawyers to beat the rap. On the field they act like the over paid, primping, posturing, publicity seeking, selfish, steroid popping prima donnas that they are.

There are still lots of players who are good role models for our kids, but I'm afraid they're getting harder and harder to find in the media. I guess one of the problems is that the good players deeds are overshadowed by the bad press that the prima donnas make.

Oh well, maybe I'll watch a little bit of of the Green Bay Carolina game. After all, Bret Favre is one of the good guys. (Or maybe I'll go up to JC's and watch the Seattle game in Hi Def.)

Last Apple

Well, the crows finished off the last of the apples. Taz did manage to find one they left behind and he fiercely guarded it until he could eat what was left of it. His breath may improve now that the apple season is over, as he usually smells like fermented apple juice. Could be worse, I guess.

Chewy woke us up at 3:30 this morning to go out and pee. Even though he's blind, he usually can find his way back in OK by his sense of smell, but when it's raining he just goes around in circles. By the time I got dressed, put on a raincoat and carried him back in I was wide awake so I put on the coffee and started another early morning.

Carol answered a call to a very bad wreck yesterday right across from J.C.'s driveway. A lady lost control of her car, or maybe hydroplaned on the wet road, knocked down 5 trees and landed upside down in the yard of a new manufactured home. They had to use the “Jaws of Life” to extract her. The whole crew was soaked by the time they got the patient stabilized and ready to transport to Newport. They tried to get a medical helicopter to take her to Portland but they were refused because of the bad weather. We haven't heard if she lived or not.

Carol seems to be able to handle those kind of situations really well, even though Tony, the head paramedic, worries about her. I actually think she does as well as, or maybe even better than he does. They do have counseling available if anyone needs it.

Weekly Barbecue

We had our weekly barbecue yesterday; it was our turn, so we set up the patio furniture and Carol cooked up a feast of grilled Salmon, home made biscuits, brussels sprouts and salad.

As usual, after eating, and several glasses of wine, the reminiscing began.

J.C. Usually has a story or two about his days working for E.G.&G. tracking down radiation leaks all over the world, or about something his kids did when they were little, which reminds Carol about our kids escapades, and I'll remember something that happened while I was working for Coors or working in the mine, and after another glass of wine the stories really start flying.

At one time I thought that maybe we should have a tape recorder set up to save our conversations for posterity but then I thought again, maybe not!

Daylight Savings Time

Well, we got all of the clocks set back yesterday morning, except for one... the fuzzy one. Now he's waking me up at 3 instead of 4 am. How do you teach a dog to spring forward and fall back? It's beyond me.
Carol had a busy day yesterday with 3 transports to the hospital, she has trouble with headlight glare in the evenings so she's changing her duty hours from 6am to 4 pm instead of 6 to 6. Now that she's taking 2 days off every week she's averaging about 20 calls a month, which is plenty.
I've been doing this blog for a year now, and I have to admit that I've enjoyed it, even though hardly anyone reads it. It's meant for family and friends, anyway.
The sunrise picture was from last week, I just unloaded the camera yesterday and found it.

Adam?

I saw a picture like this on "Flicker" I think, so i thought I'd try it.
It took a lot of attempts because every time I'd get ready to snap the shutter, Taz would run up and steal my leaf. I finally had to throw one of his squeaky toys as far as I could , and then quickly shoot the picture before he got back.