Water Everywhere

So, I leave for a week and we get dumped on. People at work today were complaining (and rightfully so) about the massive amounts of water in their basements. I can see how. We took on quite a few storms in the past week. When Heather and I looked at this house, one of the major drawing points was that there was never a record of water in the basement, and that there was drain tile installed a while back. Knowing these two things are probably related, this was a good move on our part, because to date, we have dealt with no water issues. Our sump pump is working feverishly, but it's keeping up. Reports were that less than 90 seconds went between pump runs when the storms dropped all the water, but at least it's being kept out of the house. I'm thinking it's better that the water stay out of the basement, and in the now functioning Hot Tub!! That is going to get some soak time later tonight as the weather seems about perfect for it. One of my favorite times last year (or possibly a couple years ago) was after a soccer outing, I had a game in Sioux Falls the next day, so I just stayed at my cousin's house. She had a hot tub, and we were out there in about 50 degree weather with a mist falling, but nice and toasty warm. It's currently 61, but with the water just over 100, I'm thinking about a nice relaxing soak, especially after the weekend.

If you've noticed the post number remaining low, it's due to the small amounts of time. Heather and I have two free weekends left before school begins in the middle of August. We filled up the calendar rather quickly, that's for sure! One of the those weekends will be eaten up by some time with friends, we just haven't picked it out yet. This past weekend was some refereeing that I've been doing for quite a while now. I've gone to Sioux Falls for their club soccer tourney for at least 5 years now, and that continued this past weekend. This year was a better year in that every game was 10 minutes shorter. They shortened the game times to remove 5 minutes from each half for this tournament. That might not seem like alot, but when you run up and down the field for 5 games in a row on Sunday, you appreciate those extra steps that you no longer have to take!

AgSense Training Comes in Handy!

I know it's been a while since I've worked there, but I had an expirience when I had some major flashbacks to my time in Nebraska working on Pivots. This is a smaller scale project, but you'll see the similarities.

The first and obvious difference was the sheer volume of water. When working on the pivots, if I fired one up, I'd have to wait several minutes for the pressure to reduce otherwise the water running back to the well combined with the pressure of the water being pumped at it could blow apart the pivot. Thankfully in my hot tub, all I have to wait for is the relays to trip, and I'm back to ready to go. Also, the voltage is a major difference. I've got half the voltage on the hot tub (240 volts) compared to the pivots (480 volts). I still was double checking the disconnect was off when putting my screwdriver into the box. First thing I started tracing was my power to the outlet that powers the heater since the tub wasn't heating. The relays weren't hitting properly, and at first I nearly replaced a relay that didn't need to be replaced, but avoided that. Later, I got the box wired up and ready to roll again, and found that I had a bad pressure value. This was also a major deja vu as I constantly checked those at AgSense because the pivot would power down if the pressure wasn't maintained. So, by backing down the pressure valuve, the relay got to the proper position, and the hot tub went from 82 degress to 106 degrees in about 4 hours. I was beaming proud of my skills. Thank you AgSense for that training lesson. Last night was enjoyed sitting in the hot tub after the storm rolled through in the cool evening air with a great 70 degrees. Of course, the tub has been backed off a bit for temp. This morning, it checked in at 98 degrees. We'll try to progress upward from there.

Well, it's time for me to board my flight. I'm having more fun travelling. I'm going to Detroit today, then turning around to head to the west coast for Sacramento. I feel like my trips to Iowa all over again. Anyhow, this evening, I'll be enjoying my flight across the country in the comfort of First Class. Thank you Delta!

Weekend Parenting

Heather and I spent the past weekend brushing up on our parenting skills. No, nothing on that front to report. Actually, I was more trying to find any form of parenting skill. Heather already came equipped with them standard, no extra charge! She's dealt with her nieces for longer than I've been around, that's where she got the practice from. She brought them back on Thursday morning, and at ages 4 and 2, we had our hands full. It was tiring and fun. It wasn't like the standard get them all riled up and give them tons of sugar and send them back to their parents like usual. Instead, we riled them up, got them so much sugar, immediately regretted prior decision, and then chased them around. On the hot days, we got into the "swimming pool". It was a pretty good hit, so at least it's getting some use. Currently, it doesn't even qualify as a hot tub, its more of a luke warm tub. But, the girls liked it a lot and we did some swimming, played in the back yard, played at the park, read lots of books, kept us up way too late, and many other things through out the weekend. We even ventured out to a former co-worker's wedding. The wedding went well with the two of them, the reception, not very well at all. We had a couple disputes in which children got taken out of the reception hall to calm down. The traveling was interesting too. Lots of watching for cows, hay bales, and singing Sunday school songs. I still remembered pretty much all of them too. Anyhow, now Heather and I are trying to catch up on sleep. Tonight's bedtime might be around 7:30!

Lunch Monday's

Well, today Heather and I got a nice little change of pace from the usual week. Grandpa and Grandma called and wanted to have lunch with us today. So we set up the meeting time at Culvers and went to have lunch. It turned out to be a small party. Adena and Gladys came too, and we had a regular good old time just visiting and having lunch. When we left, Heather and I were commenting about how much fun we had and how nice it was to get some company down our way for lunch. Mind you, we've had other visits from other friends, but it was nice none the less. I told Heather that we should cut out that lunch time and save it for Grandpa and Grandma to come for more often Mitchell Lunches. Maybe we can squeeze a few more in through the summer.

Also, this post in honor of Grandma who got on me about never updating the blog. Here you go Grandma!

Sick, and getting stuck

When I'm referring to getting stuck, I mean with needles. I hate getting stuck with anything, but every time I end up at the doctor's office it seems like I'm going to get stuck by something. I figured that was really going to be the case this past visit, which was Friday. After last weekend, I came home not feeling too hot. After struggling through work with stomach aches and headaches on Monday, I stayed at home on Tuesday, and returned the next day to work to struggle all the way through the end of the week. Of course, I was waiting to wake up one day and be ready to roll, but Heather kept telling me to go to the doctor, but I didn't want to thinking that I would just get told to go home and endure it. Well, on Saturday morning, I finally went because a week of feeling bad is enough. Upon arriving, I got stuck for a blood sample, which of course I complained about. Then, a little while later, I was told I was badly dehydrated and needed an IV. So, to a different room I went and got an IV. I didn't like that one bit either, but the IV made me feel better, for a while. I was told to go home and rest for the weekend, and today, and get back to full strength before returning to work. So, I'm feeling a little bit on the cabin fever side and want to get moving and doing things. One other way I knew I was sick was the loss of appetite. I didn't feel like eating much of anything all week. I'm now almost 10 pounds lighter because of that. Today, I'm wanting to eat about everything in sight, but am refraining. Heather isn't here to keep tabs on me, so I snitched a couple items, but very little because she has a knack for figuring those things out. Anyhow, I think I'm better and will probably have this scar in my arm from the IV forever to show for this trip to the doctor.

Rice-a-Roni Oops

"Tyler Ross!"

That is what I came into the house to a couple of days ago.

"What?" I asked knowing that I'd better be sure I know what I'm being accused of before admitting to anything (even though there was no accusing).

Heather - "How long have you had this box of Rice-a-Roni?"
Me - "I don't know? I know I had it at the other house...."
Heather - "You don't remember because it expired in 2007!"
Me - "Uhhhhh....."
Heather - "And who knows how long you had it before that if it expired then!"
Me - "Uhhhhh.....What do you think goes bad in Rice-a-Roni??"
Heather - "The packet of seasoning was stuck to the side!"
Me - "That is probably not good"

Needless to say, we didn't eat that, and there were some other items found in the cupboard that were thrown out because of expiration dates were 3 years ago. I do kinda wonder when I did buy those......and if Rice-a-Roni does go bad. Ya know, If I were single, I bet I'd have still tried it.

Don't Tase' Me!

Ok, you've maybe seen the video from a while back. There was a young man was harassing John Kerry at a debate, and got a little out of hand, and was asked to calm down by police and escorted out by several officers. The part of the video that was most known was the part where the young man was begging the police men to not turn the taser loose on him. If you didn't catch that, you can go to youtube and find it, but be weary that the language is severe in the video.

Fast forward to last night when a Phillies fan runs onto the field. I've never been a fan of this behavior at all. One that is memorable from a few years ago was that the bat boy at the Metrodome laid a kid out who wanted to slide into home plate. Several years ago, a Royals coach was assulted by two fans in Chicago at a White Sox game (go figure). And, now, the national news is this Phillies fan gets tasered.



The opinions around the sports world are almost exclusively that this was handled properly. However, apparently, the public doesn't feel that way. It's about a 50/50 split on whether the police should have used that kind of force. What I don't get is what deterrent the police should use to keep people off the field. Threats or not, apparently jail time isn't enough of a deterrent for these idiots. I sure hope the threat of being tasered is now enough for these bums. Keep your rear end in your seat and off the field! The worst part was this kid, who was 17, called his dad to ask about doing this before he did it. His dad's response was that it probably wasn't a good idea. Hmmm. I'm thinking this kid got exactly what he deserved.