Busy Day

Well my leg looks the same as yesterday... not as itchy but still painful... Stupid yellow flies from hell....

Today we cleaned this morning..... I cleaned 4 rooms, tom did...ummm.. he did...... well- hell if i know what he did.... but WE cleaned..he will even tell you WE cleaned. He did vacuum some of the floor..... I did the rest.. but it doesn't matter it's done.

This afternoon my nap was interupted by him to come see this boat sinking a few boat down from ours. This is the boat that is just like ours. it doesn't have motors in it and was only used to liveaboard on it. The lady who lived on it has moved off of it a few months ago but was here today while it was sinking. Everyone chipped in brought pumps and electric cords to pump out the water, and they got the water pumped out, they don't have a clue on why it was taking on water, but for now it's ok. It was going under fast, but came up just as fast - they had 3 pumps working to bring it back up.

Here are some photos of them working on it. I didn't take that many, cause it would of been rude to have them see me snapping pictures. So I rudely took pictures when they weren't looking... It makes me feel better..

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Boat before they started pumping.

After about 2 hours of pumping they were making progress.

There were several people there trying to help and as long as they can figure out why the water came in and get that corrected they should be ok.

It's sad because she has clothes and stuff still stored on the boat. Hopefully not much got ruined.

Last time anyone looked at the boat was about 11:30 this morning and it looked fine. Tom checks most of the boat daily on his walks with the dog, so he knows what's going on.. Kind of like a little old lady who keeps an eye one everyone.

So that was the excitement of the day here. And no Boodles didn't sit out in the hot sun all afternoon, she weaseled her way into a cool house and visited till she got to go back to the store.

Which is where they are now, watching the race.

Me? I'm gonna go take a nice cold shower cause Tom sprayed everyone with swamp water when he lost contol of the hose that was pumping out water. So we all got a swamp water bath.

Bites- Day 2 Update

It's looking better!!

Leg still hurts like hell. It's looking a little better, but walking on it for a while makes it hurt again. I'm so miserable .... If I take benadryl to stop the itching, it knocks me out... So I can't win.. I will just have to suffer through it. Hopefully it will just disapear over night.. lol yeah right. Tom has some bites too.. he doesn't seem to be bothered by them as much as I am. Of course he's not as delicate or dainty as I am.



Boodles is tired of all the whining about these bites.

My apologies to Charlie - Sorry Charlie!

I will make a public apology to charlie who I called a "Wuss" when he told me that getting bit by Yellow FLIES is painful......... After all its a fricking FLY ... How bad could they bite????? How much could it really hurt?? After all IT"S A FLY For God's sake...... But Charlie tried to warn me about this Yellow Fly Season that we're in...... Did I listen? lol for those that know me, already know the answer to that question.

Fly (n) : annoying little critter that bothers you while sleeping, or ruins your picnic.

Now did Charlie tell me that these flies orginated in Hell? That they could be used in the Military to deter the enemies? Hell no... Which is why I called him a Wuss... He called them - Just a FLY...... Shit.... I knew NOTHING about these "flies" ...... I honestly thought he was joking about them. After all, I can be an easy target to be picked on....


Ok Let me tell you what I have learned about this muntant Fly from hell.... They are about the size of the horsefly.. Which when they bite you, they sting, but you get over it quickly........

These critters bite you and you feel the pain.. The pain is like - your stung by a bee, then the bee spreads poision Ivy on the spot around the bite so that the whole area is itchy..... And you remember that bite for a few days...... This bite is 10X worse than a 'miss-key-toe's' bite..... (I can't spell then name of misquitoe's right but if you sound out the words, you -yourself will have pronounced it)....

This is the 2nd day after the bite... and how my leg looks... standing on it all day, made my leg swell, and its soooo painful...




So Is Charlie a wuss? Hell NO! Actually he was just trying to warn me about these flies... Which BTW originated in Hell..... Will I be sitting at the store tonight talking to Charlie and watching for these flies again? Probably not.. I'm gonna go take my benadryl and see if I can get the itching to stop.......

Sorry Charlie~

PS.... I'm sure that these flies have been the star of a SCI-FI show at one time..... they are that bad.....

Redneck Bird Bath & The Ant Trail Found

It was pouring down rain yesterday, and these two birds were on the boat during the storm. So this is the Redneck Birdbath. The rain didn't help much with the wild fire, still get smoke. But this picture is rain not smoke this time.

The good news is we found the Ant Trail. We lubed it up with Raid to stop them from coming in. They have been coming in on the power cord to the boat.

Boodles could care less about this post.

It's been a Helluva Week - TGIF

What A week.... Thank God it's over.

Ants: I think we got that problem taken care of. I did an experiment with the ones in the sink. I added water to them. It didn't work out well for them. So They probably didn't swim to the boat. We got stuff, and so far they seem to be gone.

Boiling Water: We got the Hot water tank heating element. We're too big to squeeze in the spot to turn down the tempature. So the Water comes out boiling. We turn the tank on about 1 hour a day and I still have hot water at 5.30am for the shower. As soon as we catch Brant sober, (this is a real challenge) He will crawl down and get the temp fixed. He's small enough to do it. But as it stands now, the water comes out soooo hot that its dangerous.




Smoke: We are still effected by the wildfire smoke. Some days its so bad, that you can't breathe outside. It's so smokey that it looks like fog. I'm ready for it to go. These pictures were taken at noon.

Broken Hoses: The other night we heard water running. Sounded like there was a huge hole in the side of the boat, and water rushing in. The bilge pipe hose broke and was putting the water back in the boat. We got that taken care of.. Of course the batteries in the Flashlight died at the exact moment that we needed the flash light........ At 11:05pm and the store closed at 11:00pm....... Talk about timing!!!

Let me tell ya.... when you hear water gushing on a boat... it gives you a sinking feeling... (no pun intended)......

Other than these few things the rest of the week sucked.... More things that sucked......

Lost Money: I guess I gave someone a $20 bonus one day at work, cause my drawer was short... It wasn't even a busy day, I only had $1200 and was short $20... somedays I handle allot of money in 8 hours, and balance...... slow days I mess up.... Go figure. So it took 3 hours to do the audit for the drawer, and still couldnt find the money.... I have never been that short in a drawer before ..... Today a big old woman came through pulled her money out of her bra and gave it to me.. All I could do was think YUCK! Well I had to smile and Thank her too...... sheesh! This is why I hide out when I come home so I don't have to deal with people.


Getting Peed On: Tonight we were talking to our neighbor, she has a little Cha-wow-wow dog..... He lifted his leg and peed on Boodles.... So we had to give her a bath before she got back on the boat.... Oh course she was pissed. and jumped in my lap....

We were sitting at the picnic table the other night..... And was watching a snake swim out there, I thought wonderful... One day I will miss the dock and be in this water with this critter.... So I came home to work and the batteries were dead in the keyboard, so I had to charge them....

So I am sooo Glad the weekend is here... I will be hiding out all weekend.. away from everybody and everything.

Ants?

Ants!

We got ants on board. I'm trying to figure out do these little critters get on the boat -

Do they

• swim?
• take a little boat over? - and if they take a boat do they have life jackets?
• or jump from the docks to the boat?
• Maybe the are tight rope walkers and come over by the ropes?
• Fly over on the birds? Like something out of the Flintstone cartoons?

We have no Idea but we know we got them in the boat, but we got 'em on board. Zillions of these critters. Tom's mission tomorrow is Ant Patrol. Plus tomorrow he has to clean. I left his as much of the cleaning as I could stand just for him.

Today I made him fix my hot water today, the Element burned out, now he's too big to get in to adjust the tempature, so we have to get a skinny person to do that. But at least I got hot water.

He's happy to be back home, I'm glad they're home. Boodles is more possessive of him then ever. At Michelle's he could come and go, here -- she won't let him go anywhere. But its his little pal. Man's best friend...... As long as she leaves me alone, I'm fine with that.

The ABC's of my $104.27 pizza

Dinner tonight was a small Pizza from Zero's Subs. This place is right across the street from us..... How ever I was too lazy to walk across the street.... SO I drove from Point A to Point B... In between Point A and Point B was Object "C" .... in this case "C" stands for cop. ( see map? see how close Point A is to Point B?)



View Larger Map

Total Distance: 0.1 mi

So within this 1/10 of mile.... probably 250 steps of walking... I ended up getting a seat belt ticket for $100 bucks. The good news is that they gave me the Sr Citizens' discount again on the pizza. If I wasn't so tired or so hungry I would of been upset, But while he was writing my ticket, I was eating my dinner..... No sense letting my dinner get cold..... He said I could go to court, I asked him what my chance of beating the ticket was in court, he said none..... so... why did he tell me all that crap.... I would lose a day of work to end up paying the ticket anyhow.

The reason I went to get the pizza cause I didn't want to drive 5 miles to Walmart for something to eat. Why spend the money and waste the gas when I could of gotten out cheaper....... Maybe I should of gone to wally world. sigh....

Somes days are bad, others are worse.

Tom comes home tomorrow!! YAY!! Him and the dog will be here by the time I get off of work. I think he's ready to come home. He finally has the bank straightened out, now we can change banks. I dread changing banks, everything I do is attached to this bank, but I guess I need to make my list and get it done.

He has to drive through Raleigh, where they are getting the smoke from this fire near the beach. We had the smoke the other day, now they have it. Here is a picture of Downtown Raleigh with the smoke.

As long as the smoke stays away from me I am happy. It was bad here the other night, I turned on the AC and stayed in the house.

But I am glad that Tom and Boodles are coming home, it's been boring here. No one to write about, my blog has suffered in their absences. So tomorrow the captain is back on the boat. (with the bossy 1st mate Boodles).. I'm just the underpaid, under appriciated Deckhand.....

Smoke from Fire

We finally got a break from the heat.... Today was hot then we got rain.... Now we have another problem. Seems that fire is still burning strong a few counties over, and with this rain, it shifted the winds, and blowing all the smoke our way. So far this wild fire has consumed more than 30,000 acres and is still burning strong.

Here are some photos Or you can visit the Harbor Cam Which is located about 2 blocks from where I work. So You know I will be affected tomorrow.... These photos were taken about 6:15. Click on photo for fullsize.

Hot Heat! We're Baking here.

Notice the Tempature today is higher than Yesterday...

Yes that does say 103 degrees!

So today I decided to go get a fan. Even though we have Central air, its just not working good enough to keep things comfortable. Now Tom's truck may not look pretty but his AC is absolutly great. It will freeze you out. It's a shame that Gas is so expensive, I would of spent the day in the truck driving around.

I got my fan home, and wanted to put it in front of the vent. Well the AC vent is inside the middle step. The fan was too wide to sit on the step.... So if you are a boater you know that there are always bungee cords around. We use bungee cords for anything and everything. So I hung the fan from the bar at the top of the step.... Let me tell ya it worked kind of nicely.

A/C Vent

The Bungee Fan!

Since I have been inside all day working on the computer it blew right to me, its still warm but not like it was yesterday - Tomorrow is going to be just as hot. :( I can hardly wait.

Now I was doing calculation is today.... Just to see how much space I really am trying (not really succeeding) to cool.. Here's my math.... (You may want to go to other post about my grades in high school, and then do the math your self to get the right answer)... Usually I have Howzee do my math and spelling but he's not online at the moment, I will have to wing it.

Boat = 36 feet

Boat is 12 feet wide

Back cabin I figure is about 12 feet long, and I had the AC shut off to that part of the boat...

That leaves 24 feet that I am trying to cool.... so 24*12= 288 square feet.... doesn't sound like much does it..

So this AC is blowing cold air, running wide opened and its still "warm" in here. At night I turn the AC off cause I freeze....

I do look like I'm getting a tan.. Or maybe it's cause I'm baking at low temperatures.... who knows.

I went to the store (about 500 feet or so away) to get ice, and it was melting by the time I got back here.... It was in a Styrofoam cup and melted.

There is a nice benefit to this heat.. MEN IN SKIMPY OUTFITS..... WOOO HOOOO!! Men have been in and out of the Marina all Day..... Some are soooo tanned (or baked from the heat)....

But I am ready for the heat to go....

Heat Wave 101

The first photo is from the local newspaper. Notice they feel the need to tell us it's hot as hell out there..... Well, if you are here in the area you don't need a newspaper telling you that it's hot. You just know it, even without a college education, you would know its hot. I went to walk to the store without shoes on, I didn't make it very far, the dock is hot as hell, burnt my little tootsies. I would take an actual photo of my thermometer but I think it melted, its not hanging on the window anymore....

So I did what I had to do this morning, (grocery shopping at Walmart at 5.30am) and been back home and inside ever since. I did stop at the post office to get my mail. It's been 2 weeks since I got my mail they crammed it in there...

Not only do we have heat -- If you click on the photo you will see the other headline I have marked, about the Wildfire in Washington NC. SO we have heat and the smoke from the fire, I think Tom left me in hell....... You can't breathe anyhow cause the humidity is higher than the temperature, and then you smell smoke. On my way to work yesterday it was so Foggy (or so I thought) that i had to turn on headlights. Then found out it was the smoke. Seems they can't get this under control. We aren't expecting rain anytime soon either.

Hyde fire's smoke adds to morning fog

Fire covering 30,000 acres not controlled

At least the boat has central A/C. Which is running wide opened but still lacks in cooling it totally off. So when Tom gets home we're gonna have to put in a little window A/C also to cool it off better. He will be fine, his room is nice and cool.. Where I work is not as cool.... I can sit and stay cool, since heat rises, its hotter at the ceiling. At least this is one time I am glad that I am vertically-challenged.

He's still in Charlotte with the dog. It's not much cooler there. It's 97 there - so him and shell are staying inside today. In fact not many people are outside today.



Even Boodles got a cooler haircut for the summer.

Gas prices for the marine fuel has gone up again. It's now 4.099 a gallon. I will be updating Lambs Marina Website soon with that new price. Car fuel is now 3.999 a gallon. Lucky for me it takes me only 1/8 a tank to go to work and back all week. So I still have gas for next week. But with gas prices this high, this boat isn't going far from the marina.

Tom is done with his work in Charlotte, he's now working on the Explorer getting it ready to come home so I don't have to go back and get him. He should be either here or in PA at the end of the week.

Golden Rule for Software - If it's not broke, don't upgrade it.

See this example!

He's been dealing with our bank all week. They had a software upgrade to improve service. It's been a nightmare for us. Every time we used the ATM card over the weekend, it charged an extra $25 on top of the price - says for NSF charge.... We had plenty in there and still charged us.

So our statement looks like This -
Item charged and the amount
$25 NSF charge for the above line.

We had a NSF charge with a positive balance. We never once went in the negative. The bank couldn't see the NSF charge on their side, so we had to print it off online and take it into them. Our bank says it's not their fault, says the places we used our cards at charged it to us, but they had our money, that makes no sense. So right now no one knows why OR who is charging us NSF fees. But damn they added up quickly. Hopefully Monday they will have it back in our bank.

Tom was in a "meeting" with them for 2.5 hours and they still don't know what's happening. He was with the cashier, the Bank Manager, the IT department, and Other officials at the bank trying to sort this out. So far they haven't corrected it either. They did release some of our money back. But we never use cash, we always use our cards, so he will get back in touch with them again on Monday to get it straightened out.

My job is going so-so.. well it's a job lets put it that way. The job is non - stop. People are lined up at the window to pay their bills starting at 7:50 am and we don't open till 8. The hotter it gets outside the more unpleasant these customers are. They not only drive up to the window, they will bicycle, and walk, last week one came up on roller skates.

I am eligible for my insurance next week. YAY!!!!
I figured we would have great insurance after all it's working for a city department. WRONG........ My insurance is free... To add Tom for medical only is ONLY $566 per month... and over $800 to add Tom and shell per month... that doesn't include dental or vision. So I will be the only one getting insurance there. I couldn't believe it when I saw how much it was for insurance. They actually thought I would consider paying that much to put the family on the plan. NOPE... Tom hasn't spent $566 in medical bills in 10 years let alone 1 month. He says that his knee is feeling better, (shell must not be telling him to get a job)...... That will change when he gets back home..... I will discuss him working daily with him again.

Ok Its too hot to stay in here and work, it's almost 5pm when it really gets hot inside no matter where you are down here. I'm going to the store and volunteer to stock their cooler..I at least know it's cool in there.

Dead Critters float belly-up

Looked out the boat into the water, and looked in the water, and saw this yucky icky snake floating in the water. Ok even dead snakes are yucky, but a dead snake is better than one that is still breathing. When I came home from work, the snake was gone....... I'm thinking was was mixed with butter and garlic and became someone's dinner. This critter did have the orange belly, which maded him a water moccasin. ( I know the photo is terrible, I guess I can't blame it on the snake moving around, after all, he was belly-up and not moving........)

Tom is still gone, I've been working on websites. I got Lambs Marina Website done, and up and running. I have to make some changes to it, but its basically done. It only took me a weekend to do it, and I am happy with the way it turned out. I took all the photos that are on the site myself. Everyone around here likes the website that I did for Lambs, they all said that they did need a website for the marina.


Tomorrow I will start on my next website project, which who knows what it will be about, I haven't really decided yet what it's going to be about. I have some suggestions written down, just waiting to buy the domain names and design it.

So I am making good time of my time while Tom is gone. He's still staying with Michelle and still has boodles with him. So this is week 2 that I am stuck here alone. But work has been keeping me busy even though I work 8-5 I'm exhausted when I come home, I go visit the guys at the "men's den", the come home and work on the websites some more, then hit the sack and do it all again the next day.

Neal has given me great tips on how to upload websites. Before I upload to our sites, I have to submit a "damage estimate" telling him exactly what I plan to do. It's easier for him to do tech support and fix my mistakes that way.... :) So far it has worked nicely.

Tomorrow Tom starts working on the Explorer to get it ready for the trip to PA next week. That's right guys, he will be at his mom's for the weekend of the 13th. It's also the same weekend of Butler Car show. I hate that he has to tow the El Camino up there for the show, but it's not selling here. He can't drive it, cause of the price of gas. Right now going to work and back to shell's he's dumping $25 a day in the tank... (me? I will go 2 weeks on my $25 bucks)..

Ok Time to go get my next website planned out.