Thursday already?

Pretty good day today here. Not a windshield day, but at least being a bug didn't hurt as bad as it has lately. Our industry has our big show this June, it's called NeoCon. Since we supply many in the industry, we've been getting more calls for rushed parts than I recall in the past. Every time I turn around, we have another rush order. It's all good, but really hectic.

Here's a shot of Ian and one of the boys we got to know. His name is Gar-leek, well, it's pronounced sort of like that, but it's probably spelled way different. Ian had a pretty good time messing around with the kids and hanging with the adults. It was interesting to watch him transition from hanging with kids and playing games to hanging with adults and doing a Bible study. I watched him grow up a lot, and we had a pretty good time.



Have a great day!
Pat

Whoa, the rain just keeps a coming!

Today was a supplier outing. Typically these are events where we hear from the customer on their view of the state of the industry, the state of the economy and the state of their company. Pretty dull, very heavy on the power point slides, very heavy on the "We need to pull together to get the costs out of the system". Today however this customer was going to be different, they invited us all to a baseball game at our own West Michigan Whitecaps. They are the Class A farm team of the Detroit Tigers. I thought they were higher up the food chain, but no. Anyway, it was pretty rainy here. So the game was to start at 11. We arrived, had ample networking time and lunch, watched them take the tarp off, squeegee off water, warm up, put the tarp back on as it rained hard again, then about 1 they were taking the tarp off again. I'd had enough and opted to get back to work to deal with some things that I had going on. They did play and lost 4 to 0, so I was OK that we left.

Here's a shot of the living accommodations at Hope House in Haiti. These tents were where the girls on the team stayed. Us guys were put up in the foyer. Not many Haitians sleep indoors just yet. I tried to fix the one tent that was the saggiest, but it was in pretty rough shape, it wasn't intended to be set up and left in that climate for months on end.


Have a great day!
Pat

Tuesday is Sunny!

Wow, after the rain yesterday we have the sun today! Awesome. I was surprised at all the issues we had with a mere 6 inches of rain; Childsdale road was washed out and impassable, the power was out for long enough to get air in the system and now we're on boiled water.

It's funny how put out we are and yet, in April Ian and I were in Port Au Prince Haiti and we drank bottled water everyday, took bucket showers and brushed our teeth with bottled water. We forget how nice we really have it some times.

Here's a picture of a little cutie we met face to face while there. Her name is Kalencia and she's staying at Hope House until she can get an operation on her heart. When she first came to the house she had rusty red hair, now it's black. They say the reddish hair is a sign of malnutrition. She's doing great and scheduled to come to Michigan for that operation later this summer.


Have a great day!
Pat

Memorial Day Post

Happy Memorial Day! The day dawned wonderfully and I got up and let out Bean, the loaner dog. As we went out for the morning bathroom break I noticed it was raining, no problem I figured, it's pretty warm and light, I can still get the work done. Next I see flashes of lightening and rolling thunder which became streaks of lightening and crackling thunder and finally Bolts of Lightening and Crashing Thunder, and then the power went out. Hmm, guess I was stuck inside after all. I did what I always do when I have my plans hit the skids, I went back to bed and took a nap. When I woke up it was clearing and so I went out and finished it up, by noon all of us were out and putting the finishing touches on the yard and it looks great! Here's the front bed, we bought these last year thinking they were annuals and they never looked this good.


Here's the typical from Bean, she's at the end of the lead pulling as hard as possible. Then, just before I snap the leash to get her come back, she goes to the bathroom. Crazy dog! She's stretching out my arm.


After all of our hard work I went on a ride with a buddy. It was touch and go, but we figured we could buzz northwest and then scoot back without getting wet. We got to the Croton/Hardy Dam area and it started looking really bad, by the time we go to Morley it was pouring. We pulled off for a few minutes but realized that it wasn't going to let up anytime soon, so we headed for home, in the pouring rain. Not a good ride, but hey, the leathers needed the bugs washed off anyway.

Have a great day!
Pat

Took a day off the blog

Well, that was weird, I somehow posted without typing anything.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!


As usual, we have bitten off more than we should. We've been hauling mulch most of the weekend. I work with Holly and the boys in the morning and then we're off during the heat of the day and if I'm lucky, later in the day when it cools off we haul some more. Today was just the AM shift. We're down to about 3 yards left to go. I'm going to try to finish early on Monday so that we can have some fun too.

I haven't posted a shot of my new ride and thought I probably should, so here it is with my old ride. It's a Honda VTX1300 and it's awesome. I got it just before I went down on a mission trip to Haiti. I've added a backrest so that Holly is more comfortable with me giving the boys a ride. Oh yeah, I sold the 750 in 2 hours on Craig's list, guess I didn't have the price high enough.


That's it for now, have a great day!
Pat