After a three long days, I'm back home (I was actually home last night, but was too tired to do anything other than hug my dog and go to bed). Texas was a lot of fun, but I'm glad to be home! As I said in my last post, these work trips are a lot less glamorous than I thought... I ended up being out all day without much email access and then going back to my hotel room to work until late at night. So much for seeing the city. That said, I did get to see some of Houston (my field and customer took me out to lunches and dinner and showed me what they could).
I swear, if I don't have another steak the rest of this year, it's going to be too soon. I ended up having three steaks in two days... everyone wanted to take me to "Texas' finest steak". It was delicious, but a lot of meat!
I'm still completely exhausted... I think I must be getting old. Apparently I can't zip back and forth across time zones like I used to be able to. :( I fully intend to go to bed super early tonight and hopefully catch up!
In other exciting news, Kati and Dad are continuing their trek across the US. Today they're somewhere around New Mexico. I'm so excited that she's finally coming home! Never fear, I'm planning a welcome home party and you're all invited. Details to follow once I figure everything out.
Greetings from beautiful Houston! It's much greener here than I expected! Anna (funny, I'm traveling with someone who has the same name and actually pronounces it the same!) and I got here at around 5pm local time. After a small fiasco with the rental car (mine wasn't ready, so we took a minivan) we headed over to meet some of the field guys for a delicious Texas steak dinner... it was FANTASTIC!
Now I'm in my little hotel room, working and getting ready for bed. I've discovered that's the crummy thing about business travel - you never just get to relax in your room. Instead, it's catch up time since you're busy all day. Oh well... I'll save the relaxing for some other time!
Once again, another super busy weekend.
On Friday night Brig, Amber and I went to see "Hancock". Absolutely hilarious movie. I love Will Smith - and he did not disappoint as a reluctant superhero. There was a pretty cool twist in the movie - I won't give it away, but I think they did a good job with it.
On Saturday I did some work with CERT - we taught a basic first aid class to the Sacramento Young Marines. They were all between the ages of 8-12 and were a lot of fun. I taught the airway management, choking and how/when to dial 911 sections. I worked with some of the younger kids and we had a blast splinting each other and learning head tilt/chin lifts (sounds a whole lot like my EMT skills class!).
Today I worked a 2am to 10am shift with CERT at the Citrus Heights Community Campout. My little body definitely doesn't like getting up that early (1am came way too soon!), but it was a lot of fun. I got to work with some new people and met a really cute little boy. His name was Bubba and he's 2 years old. I gave him a fire badge and as I got up to leave he yelled for me to come back for kisses... he gave me a great big wet kiss on the cheek followed by a high five. A little later in the morning he burned his little hand on the grill, so he came back over and I got to put some ice on him:
Moments after this picture was taken he leaned over, practically pulled my shirt off and asked where my badge was. Not awkward at all. :)
It was a great weekend, but I'm definitely ready for bed! I spent the afternoon taking a short nap and then heading to the gym so that I'm nice and tired for bed tonight as I have to leave early for Houston tomorrow. Hooray!
What's worse that a sky full of smoke?
106 degrees and a sky full of smoke.
Remind me why I left San Diego again?
Tonight when I got home from work, I opened the laundry room door only to find Shadow pancaked on the floor with his nose pressed against the door. This is not normal. I immediately worried that he was sick and he jumped up and started whining. I figured he hadn't peed in the house, so maybe he was holding it and REALLY had to go. We raced outside and sure enough, he peed. We came back in and I thought nothing of it. About 5 minutes later, he started whining again. Knowing the pee wasn't the problem I kind of ignored it. He went into my bedroom and kept whining until I finally followed him in there.
*pause that portion of the story*
Every morning when I leave, I give Shadow some sort of treat as a distraction. He has a little bit of separation anxiety, and I've discovered that if he has something to focus on and doesn't actually see me leave the house, he does ok. Lately, it's been his big red ball that I can shove a bone into, chuck towards my bedroom and while he runs one direction, I run out the door. It seemed to work pretty well... until today.
*unpause*
Allegedly, when I chucked the ball towards my room, it broke off part of the bone and rolled under the bed. JUST under the bed to where Shadow couldn't reach it. I assume this is the equivalent of being too short in the dog world - where you just can't reach stuff. He spent part of the day trying to get his ball out and the other part smashed against the door, waiting for me to come home and retrieve it for him. It just took me a while to catch up to what he was thinking.
Here are some pictures from under the bed (please excuse the dog hair...):
I love that dog!
This was a much needed three day weekend - I'm finally feeling rested and ready to go - it's been a while since I've felt "caught up"!
On Friday I hung out at Mom and Dad's - Shadow had the most fantastic time swimming with Darcy and Tucker! I was hoping that all of the running, swimming and playing would poop him out and he would sleep through the fireworks. More on that later. Mom and Dad had Fran and Chuck over and we had a declicious BBQ - nothing says it's summer like chicken, corn and pasta salad!
Mom, Fran and I headed out to the Folsom Rodeo - I got tickets through work. I'm not gonna lie, it's not the best rodeo in the world. In fact, none of the bull riders stayed on the bulls for the full 8 seconds. Most of them were bucked off in about 2. I did get to watch the Folsom Fire Paramedics hard at work - they had a few people in the stands that needed attention and a cowboy who took a nasty fall. My favorite part on that one was the announcers medical play by play ("Ladies and Gentlemen, as you can see, they're putting the collar on. This is just a precaution in the event of a spinal injury"). My favorite part of the whole rodeo was the parachuter that they had - he's done over 5,000 jumps and specializes at landing in small spaces, while pulling a gigantic American flag behind him. As he came down, they played "God Bless the USA" by Lee Greenwood - the ENTIRE stadium was singing along and the whole thing gave me goosebumps. I managed to get some pretty cool video of it:
After the rodeo ended, they did a nice little fireworks display and we headed home. For those of you who missed out on last year's play by play, I had just adopted Shadow and thought I would take him out to see the fireworks, to get him used to it. The whole thing ended up being a total nightmare - he barked and went completely insane and I ended up having to go home. This year I decided to put him in his crate in my room with some music on since I know lots of people do fireworks in my neighborhood. The plan worked brilliantly - when I got home from the rodeo, he was totally calm and happy to see me. I then made the mistake of letting him out into the backyard. At which point some neighbor down the street decided to set off a piccalo pete (Shadow's absolute FAVORITE) and he went nuts. It was all downhill from there. The neighbors did fireworks until 2am and he barked the entire time. I even put him back in his crate with music on, but by then he was all worked up. I ended up sleeping in my guest room.
I had to work a CERT event the next morning at 9am - which amazingly, I was not exhausted for. It was a nice event - nothing really major happened and I got to show a lot of little kids the ambulance. It was still exhausting... I think it was being in the sun and being tired that all hit me on the drive home. I ended up going to bed at about 9pm.
Today was fantastic - I slept in, went to the mall, and took a nap. Shadow got a walk and got to play ball in the yard. Tonight I decided to give him a treat, so I mixed some peas and carrots (from my dinner) into his dog food. Being the genius that he is, he took a mouthful, spit it out on the floor and then sorted through for the peas and carrots. Eventually, he ate the rest of it, but he took his time. Crazy little dog.
Today I got a computer upgrade at work. It's a Lenovo T61 - just about the coolest thing ever. The best part is that it has a fingerprint scanner - rather than typing in my password to log on, I can swipe my finger to log on! I totally feel like a secret agent! It also has a built in web cam! The really neat thing is that it connects to our communicator, so when I IM work people, I can "call" them - we can talk through the computer (like a phone!) and see each other on the screen! WAY cool! I has a super big screen too and is so much faster than my old computer! I'm totally stoked!
This weekend is going to be exciting. I'm spending the day at mom and dad's tomorrow to celebrate their birthday/the 4th of July. Tomorrow night I'm going to the Folsom Rodeo. Saturday I'm going to EMT all day at a local park. Sunday I have every intention of laying around my house, not getting out of my pajamas and just all around being lazy. It should be a lot of fun!
In other news, for those of you outside the great state of California, we just enacted a law this week that requires you to wear a hands free headset when talking on your phone in the car. The idea behind this is that you're paying attention to where you're driving and have both hands on the wheel. While I think it's a good idea, I've seen some odd things happen because of it. The first is that everyone is now walking around with the blue tooth headpieces on. I personally think they look ridiculous and I hate when people talk on them in public. I make a point of only wearing/using mine when I'm in the car. It sucks to be standing next to someone in the store, hear them talking, think they're talking to you only to discover that they're holding a conversation on the phone. Awkward.
The other thing that I've noticed is that people are not gesturing a lot. Apparently the idea of having your hands free to hang onto the steering wheel doesn't quite click with everyone. Instead, people are now driving with their knees, gesturing quite emphatically. Not quite as safe as lawmakers probably planned.
I've been on a cleaning spree this afternoon - I'm off to finish up before I go to bed!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!!!
That's right... they share a birthday! Cool, isn't it? I love you guys and hope you have a fantastic day!!!!
This...
... is why I have a migraine today. Stupid fires. The sky should be blue, not grey.
Today the CERT team worked an event at a local park. I was quite nervous that we were going to have a lot of heat related issues due to the fact that it was well into the 100's today. I packed my little ice chest with cold compresses and hauled myself out into the heat. The first few hours were not much of anything - some cuts, a bee sting... the normal. Towards the end of the day, we had someone come by telling us that we had a woman laying on the other side of the park that didn't look well. So we grabbed our stuff and headed over (why does the little girl always end up carrying the O2 tank?). As it turns out, this woman was in some serious trouble - heat, diabetes, a possible heart condition and shortness of breath. We started packing her with ice and called into the local fire dispatch to get someone over. I got her on the oxygen and we kept trying to cool her off. She was a large woman, so I had to cut her shirt to get to her armpits (we like to pack your neck, armpits and groin when you're overheated - it's the best way to safely cool you off quickly). When the paramedics arrived, they took her blood sugar and it was at 415, dangerously high (normal is 80-120). All a very bad combination. She was having a very hard time breathing and was not looking good when we got there. I'm fairly certain that without medical intervention, she would have been headed down a very bad road!
That said, we saved her. The paramedics packaged her up and took her off the the hospital.
Just as a refresher - here's my little list of things to do in my lifetime... one more checked off today!
Now, after all the fun and games today, I headed home to cook some dinner and relax. Long story short, I dropped a knife on the stove while adding some onions to my spaghetti sauce. Through some feat of phyics (I've since dubbed it "culinary acrobatics" the knife managed to bounce off the stovetop and slice me across my knuckle. The first thought that went through my head was "WHOA! How did THAT happen?!". The second was "Oh $&@!, I'm bleeding!". At this point, the EMT kicked in and I started working on myself one handed. Of course, the cut was on my right hand, so I had to practice being a leftie. After going through a bunch of gauze, three band-aids and 20 minutes of my time, I was finally able to get it to stop. Crazy!
