Flash Flood - Friday Jan 16th

6:00am – Lisa wakes Parnell expressing her extreme dissatisfaction that we have no running water throughout the house.

6:01am – Parnell bolts downstairs fearing the worst that is there is no water upstairs something dreadful happened downstairs.

6:01:15am – Parnell find basement perfectly fine with no broken pipes. Checks all pipe looking for cold pipes none found…

7:00am – Convinced the water stoppage is external of the home Parnell and Lisa both head to work as normal.

8:00am – Parnell calls the Middleboro water dept from work and asks about water stoppage, Water dept agrees to send people over to check it out.

9:30am – Parnell is back at home with 7 guys from the water dept standing in his basement.

9:35am – While working on the pipe one of the city workers exclaims loudly OPPS, as sounds of water start rushing out of the pipe.

9:35:10am – The same city worker now struggles like a Dutch boy with his finger in a dam calling to the others to turn off the water from the street…

9:45am – Another city workers comes back “We can’t find the shut off… it’s under a snow bank” “Then fruckin dig it up the first man cries…while continuing to struggle holding the flood of water from the pipe”

Simultaneously I’m using my 10 gallon wet dry vac, filling the thing every 20 sec and dumping it I couldn’t keep up

9:55am – Water is still flowing heavily and is now rising above the subfloors…. Street shut off still unfound under a snow bank…

10:15am – The only city worker with a brain puts a pressure cap on the pipe and finally stops the flow of water.

10:20am – City workers call their boss and tell them they screwed up and he needs to come examine the flood they created!

10:25am – Street shut off is finally found and turned off, Pipe is cut and head replaced, I have the broken end as a souvenir

10:30am – The head of the water dept is standing in 2 inches of water in my basement apologizing and telling me they will send a company out to dry things up.

10:35am – Everyone from the water dept leaves, My dad and I spend the next hour using my wet dry vac soak up what water we can….

11:30am – World wide drying company shows up and uses there industrial vacuums to get whatever water was left they set up 3 huge fans and left telling me they would be back with dehumidifiers in 2 hours..

12:00pm – I find a cold pipe in my tool room… sun of a bitch!!!! I use a hair dryer on it and 20 minutes later normal water flow in my house is restored!

12:30pm - water dept stops by again asking if the drying company has arrived and if my water service has been restored... I tell them yes I solved it myself…

4:30pm - World wide drying finally shows up (5 hours later) with 2 huge industrial dehumidifiers and leaves all 3 fans and both humidifies running non-stop in my basement for 4 days….

The basement seems dry now but I have no way of looking under my subfloor to see if its still wet under there… I may have to cut into it tonight and look under just to be sure… Lisa says that so far it doesn’t smell moldy or mildueish but a heavy resurgence of pet smell has returned and were going to have to find a way of solving that… chuck gave me the number of a guy Ill ask about that and other testing,,, basement water never got much higher then 2 inches to there was no real water damage to walls and such… so I guess I consider myself lucky… especially since the water guys showed me the pipe that broke… They said it looks like it was ready to break any time and I was lucky it broke while they were working on it… Made them responsible for any damages and clean up…. The city dept was pretty stand up and gave me there number to call if I need to report any damages… I just realy dont want smell problems in my basement!

Blue In the Face

When you were a kid if you attended a decent school system, they made an effort to expose students to theater arts. Having moved around a lot as a child I was lucky enough to have been in several such schools. I really enjoyed theater arts and think it was a close second to my favorite subject science. I have fond memories of my school field trips to museums, parks and theaters.

As an adult these forms of entertainment aren’t automatically setup with tickets and transportation handled for you. On more then one occasion Lisa and I have seen ads for shows, plays or whatnot on TV and talked about going to see them but it always seems because of money, time, or other reasons we’re never able to go. Several months ago Lisa surprised me with and early Christmas present. She bought us tickets to a show that has been running in Boston for several years, one I’ve expressed and interest in seeing many times. This past Saturday Lisa and I attend “Blue Man Group” at the Charles St Playhouse.

Its amazing how much comedy can be expressed without speaking, A lot of the comedy was in their movement and their eyes, which was very easy to see since we were sitting a mere 5 feet from the stage! The theater provided plastic ponchos to protect the audience from paint splatter but I guess we were lucky because even being so close we didn’t get a drop on us. Several of the skits during the show were just hilarious and had me rolling in my seat. When the show was over we got to take a quick photo in the hall with one of the performers who stayed in character the whole time and like a mime gestured his communication. It was really awesome of Lisa to surprise me with this. The show was great and just reinforces my thoughts that Lisa and I should make an effort to see more. If anyone ever has I chance to go see this show I highly recommend it. This show is a great example of artistic/comedic entertainment.

Vegetable Soup

In an effort to eat healthier Lisa was inspired to try her hand at home made soups using crock pot slow cooking. Lisa and a friend found a recipe for a vegetable barley soup last Saturday night, Lisa also bought herself a soups and stews recipe book, This past Sunday afternoon Lisa was in the kitchen chopping and dicing all fresh ingredient, Then she pouring everything into her crock pot. It’s the first time I’ve really seen her cook something from scratch and it was something to watch, she handled the kitchen knife with skills!

Several hours later we learned that her crock pot didn’t get quite hot enough to soften the potatoes in time for dinner, but a quick boil on the stove solved that and soon we both had steaming hot bowls of a fresh vegetable soup. Lisa was a bit disappointed because the soup did turn out a little bland. But I’m being honest here all it needed was a little salt. I added some salt to mine and then I wolfed down the whole bowl! It was good stuff. We also learned that when you crockpot cook you end up with plenty of leftovers… We ended up with enough for several more dinners for both of us so we froze our leftovers.

Ummmmm Soup! I cant wait till she makes beef stew. Your soup was delicious bunches!

Dr visit - Month 2

Another month and another trip to the doctors.  I've now been injecting myself with the trial medication for two months. I was told today that my levels are right were they should be and that I'm getting the right dosage amounts... Woot! that's good news I guess.

The last two months I've had to have blood drawn and shipped to Boston every week... Now that we are at the 2 month point I get a break from blood drawn needles and only have to have blood drawn once a month... Woot! More good news.

Now for the not so good and kind of scary news... Two months from now I get to repeat my overnight blood draw study and have surgery for a second testicular biopsy. Let me tell you the first one was not pleasant...  See my picture... Look at my face...That's the look of a man who knows his privates are going under a knife, That's the look of fear!

In 2 month my medication changes and with any luck after 6 months on that medication Lisa and I just might be able to start trying to make a baby because by the time the medication kicks in on me Lisa will have had her WL surgery and been dropping weight for a few months...    Its looking like 2009 is going to be a very busy and important year for the Greniers. To reinforce that, Jan 1st Lisa and I had a talk. We both agreed that our weight loss really has to more or a priority and goal for us both... It was kind of funny because as we were driving home we said our good byes and waved so long to all our usual fast food restaurants . We've both sworn off fast food and are now cutting all junk food from our diets.   Our only exception to this is my aunts apple pie!  LOL

 

According to the doctors scale I lost a few pounds last month but I'm not happy with only a few pounds... So here is my target...   I currently weigh 312lbs   Yes I'm that heavy, Sigh! My goal for the next three months is to lose 20lbs a month reaching 252 by March 31st then I'll see were I'm at and reset my goals.. I will be posting my current weights here on the blog every Saturday...Positive comments and words of inspiration for both Lisa and I will be appreciated and will go a long way in keeping up our spirits!