sending wiring thru conduit....

but first you must gather the HEAVY SPOOLS OF WIRE on a 10 ft. piece of conduit and watch the conduit bend. then try to get the HEAVY SPOOLS OF WIRE back OFF the conduit. right. good luck with that. oh yeah, then they all crash down and the spools break. did i mention how fun that was? we did that on thursday of this week...i believe. i dunno. all these fun days run together!

happy birthday shelley!

you can guess the culprit....

back to the courts

well, last week we had a pup running around with carpet scraps, muddy deliveries, and a ROLLER indoors to try to flatten the one tennis court that has a few issues. popcorn fest was also this weekend and we made a float. that's about it. (oh yeah, and i got, like, NO SLEEP whatsoever.) i'll catch up this week.

cancelled! postponed?

we're not opening on time. that's kind of a relief now that it's been announced. stuff has been crazy. on top of me working at the courts trying to get everything ordered, delivered, and ready for our (now delayed) opening, i'm decorating stuff for our little popcorn float as well as making videos for church. kinda busy. anyway, i interviewed three people tonite for the dvd--joe, cindy and rick. the best pic i took this week was of rick on sunday. tonight the guys did the wiring for tvs throughout the church. now all we need are more tvs!

i drove it :)

yup i did. and here's the view in all directions.

yukki day

it dragged on. and on.

i was sposed to meet some guys at the gym this morning (at 9) to go over things we're ordering for the foodservice stuff. the concessions stand. one guy ended up canceling--AFTER i was already there. so the other guy called me and i drove back down to valpo to meet him at bob evans. we agreed on some stuff and he ordered it. that was good.

everything else was bad. found out this guy eric was right about me having to take some dumb class. it's called "serve safe" and i heard it's totally gross and disgusting. (in order to have our concessions stand valid and in good standing.) the day dragged some more. all the building's doors were shut when i finally DID make it in today--but the smell and air quality was awful. guys were cutting the ceiling tile and there was some kind of fine dust EVERYWHERE. it almost hurt to breathe.

bad news all day. another bit of not-the-greatest-news was that the health dept. is trying to say that we have to have a three-sink thing in our little "kitchen." AS IF!!!!! we're not a freaking restaurant! or a camp! we are not washing any dishes because we are using disposable everything! the few utensils we use can be washed in the sink that will be there. but there's no need to do the three-sink-thing. that is TOTALLY unnecessary.

bad news kept coming. some i won't even go into detail about. would take way too long to explain.

and then BROWN showed up. in all his glory. and gave us TWO of THREE packages and drove off. and yes, before i realized we were missing one. i tracked him down through the westville office and after a LONG while, found out that our poor lone parcel had been delivered to some chrysler/jeep dealership on route 30. WHAT IS THAT? anyway, after numerous phone calls, i got the guy to agree to deliver it yet today. he last spoke with me at 5-something to make sure we were still there on-site. when i left at 6:15ish, he had not come yet. oh well. BROWN is becoming a TARNISHED color.

had a cookout with mom, dad, and moussa, and that was good. now i'm going to bed--and THAT will also be good.

hope tomorrow's better.

here's a pic of the little zamboni-type machine i drove all afternoon yesterday to try to clean the tennis surface so it could be sealed today. every time i emptied the dirty water tank, i could definitely tell i had been cleaning a blacktop surface. hopefully it was cleaned sufficiently.

hi moussa!

our parking lot at the courts today was a LAKE. another reason to have a TRUCK or other suv to drive to work. besides that, it had better be a truck pullin a boat! here's a pic of me and mark working on the bathroom floors. i did trim stuff and he rolled. then nikki, his daughter, and i would throw these chips/flakes on the floor. it was fun. even the chip fight. the pic mark took of me and nikki is gone. don't think he saved it. bum. oh yeah, and mark is very FUZZY.

oh, and welcome, moussa! moussa is a friend of my parent's who is visiting from burkina faso, africa. he runs several schools and churches there. they got their doctorates together at TIU. he'll be here about a month. have fun and get lots done!

TORNADO!

lots of trees down. teeny bit of hail damage to my car. (it was quarter size hail.) major MAJOR wind damage. top wind speed was clocked near the pines at 106 mph. and then there was the calm after the storm--as pictured here over lake michigan.

hoops

we have hoops! the backboards on end are quite a bit taller than me. gotta say that surprised me. they look so small! but it's starting to look like a gym. in order to lay the hardwood floors, the surface must be even. the concrete cured all within one eighth of an inch of being level. for the little dips and discrepancies on the concrete, felt must be laid before the wooden buffer is laid. (the wooden buffer goes between the hardwood and the concrete.) today they started marking (spray-painting with orange) those spots and cutting and placing the felt. strange, eh?

anyway, the other pic is of the gym from across the highway. on the exit ramp on the way home from chicago i took a pic.

pics from ohio

away

been on the farm. at the farm. in ohio. back now. pics will follow.

my new office

how?

how am i sposed to drive my lowrider 01 camry through all this?????

helen

helen is a neighbor of mine. there are two widows who live in my apt building and helen is one of them. she is pictured here with her boyfriend ernie. helen lost her husband quite some time ago and ernie lost his wife an equally long time ago. ernie lives about 30 minutes away from here and they only get to see each other about twice a week.

anyway, helen and i hung out on sunday. we had a blast. we went to the gym and she really liked it. then we went through the bk drive thru for frozen cokes. then we went up to the beach and drove around the dunes. helen has lived in the area almost her whole life. and has never been to the dunes. ever. i was SHOCKED. but she loved it. so it was good.

this is a picture of helen's surprise birthday party last year. her birthday is in july but my impact group went down and threw her a surprise party in october. boy was she surprised! ernie helped me pull it off.

wanna drive a dozer

and if i'm lucky i will. i'd LOVE to drive a bulldozer! how fun! and all i can picture is the little ant driving a bulldozer in richard scarry's children's books. anyone else remember that? that's a serious blast from the past.

anyway, i'm dealing with a low-rider toyota camry driving on a construction site daily. so far it's not unbearable but i think i'll bottom out soon if these piles of stuff keep appearing out of nowhere. i also went up on a sizzor lift with mark and shane. mark is the guy i'm working for. he's the one on the left. anyway, that was fun but i didn't like how that thing swayed. they hung light fixtures up in the rafters. and with the thing being so high and wiggly, it was weird. anyway, the front entrance has had progress (doors!) and there are now walls in the office area! oh, and you gotta watch out when certain people have the power sprayer.

courts website

there is info and more pics at the gym's website. the courts. (my new place of employment.) my pics are more recent but it's cool to see the progress. go to:

www.thecourtsofnwi.com

(the courts of northwest indiana)

an international big mac

The bank calculated the "weighted net hourly wage in 14 professions" and divided it into the local price of "a globally available product," for which it chose McDonald's flagship hamburger.

"On a global average, 35 minutes of work buys a Big Mac," it said. "But the disparities are huge: in Nairobi, 1.5 hours' work is needed to buy the burger with the net hourly wage there. In the U.S. cities of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Miami, a maximum of 13 minutes' labor is needed."

In Tokyo, it takes a mere 10 minutes. Bogota, Colombia, came in last among the 70 cities surveyed at 97 minutes.

mmmmmmm

here is a pic of my dinner last nite. it was WONDERFUL. i'll have to go back and get more. this is SO the funnest time of year--with all the fresh produce everywhere.

oh, and here's also a pic of the gym today. there's fresh concrete outside the main entrance. and something that is actually starting to look like a main entrance. mark asked me today what color it should be and i asked him what color the main part of the building would be. he said tan. "what color is that stripe gonna be?" i asked. (there's a stripe going all the way around the bulding nearish the top. see it???) he answered, "dark blue." so i told him the block marking the entrance should then be that same blue. he replied, "WHAT? WHEN THE ROOF IS GONNA BE BLUE TOO?" i was like, wow. hey dude! you asked! who knows. maybe it should be fuchsia. or chartreuse. or maybe just tangerine and peach paisley striped.