Random Stories from a Volunteer Fire Fighter

A cursed streatch of interstate

2009-10-13T02:49:09Z

So Last night at about 10:30 my Station gets toned out for a rolled over truck. It was a box truck that had been overloaded. Both of the back passengar side tires blew causing the truck to turn over. We Disconnected the battery, and then stood around while the wrecker crew cleaned up the mess, and turned the truck back up on it's wheels. We were released from the scene around midnight. I got home and in the bed by around 1 but didn't get to sleep until about 2. Got toned out an 4:27 for a bus fire 1/2 mile further down the road from where the truck turned over. The only person on the bus was the driver (who had some burns) After the fire was out, the local fire investigators called for a state investigator because it looked to be a mobile meth lab. We had the interstate shut down for almost 4 hours, and had an 18 miles of traffic backed up. It was a little after 8 when we were released from scene.

the trip home with donor truck

2009-09-13T03:54:53Z

The back story:

A few weeks ago my mom called to tell me that there was a truck similar to mine for sale near where she works. She got the owners info for me and I called about it. The owner told me that it was a 1981 Chevy K10 long bed 4x4 and that it had a small block V8 but he did not know if it was a 305 or 350, it also had almost brand new rims and 33" mud tires, and he was wanting $1k. I told him I would think about it and get back to him. A week later my mom called me back and said that the tires had been stolen off of it, and that the owners dad ( who works with my mom) said that they were thinking about just selling it for scrap. I called the owner and talked to him again, he said to make an offer, so I decided to take check it out when we went to my mom's for Labor day. The owners wife met us at the truck, which had a mismatched collection of tires so that they could move it. I looked the truck over and noticed that the dipstick for the transmission was in the cab behind the seat, and that it was broken, the seat was worn out, there was no covering for the floor, the head liner was sagging, and that the truck has originally been a diesel. I started the truck, which ran good, had a slight tick that went away after a few minutes. The owners wife told us that they were hoping for $500 at this point. i told her that I would have to look at our money and see what we could do and I would get back in touch with them. After talking to alasais about it I decided to call the owner and set up a time to do a test drive. When I done the test drive I found out that the transmission would not shift into 3rd gear, and that the brakes were very spongy. I offered him $300 and he said that he could go below $500. I told him I would see if I could come up with that much, and let him know in a day or so. I called a scrap yard to find out how much scrap metal is bringing now ($7.50 per 100 lbs) as I have 2 scrap blocks (about 600lbs each), 3 heads (at almost 60 lbs each) I will also have a bumper, 2 gas tanks and assorted old car parts ( all at unknown weights), called a junk yard to see how much I could get off the body ($200) and I am expecting a refund from advance auto on the head that trashed the last engine ( depending on if they give me the core deposit it will either be a little over $200 or just shy of $300). so all that added together will cover the cost of the truck, so we decided to go buy it. I called the owner told him we wanted it, and would he let it go for $450, he would not budge from $500, so I agreed to buy it for $500.

The Trip Home:

We left for Alabama on Friday morning and got to Mentone Where the truck was at around 1:30 est. When we got there I took these pictures:

I have not decided if I am going to take the bug deflector, but I am going to see if the grill will fit on Fred (the truck with the trashed engine)

I am taking the back bumper and drop hitch for Fred.

I may pull the roll bars off and sell them on their own as they are for a short bed truck.
Notice the big tires on the front and small tires on the back? So did I. I will get to that in a little bit.

Here is the engine
I am also gonna pull the gas tanks as they are 22 gallon tanks and fred currently has 15 gallon tanks.

nothing really of interest in here.

I had brought the transmission dip stick from Fred with me because the guy I bought the truck from said that he kept the dipstick in the cab because it kept coming out because it was broken. While we were waiting on him to show up I also checked the oil ( needs and oil change), break fluid ( it was almost empty), coolant (full), power steering fluid ( full as well), and transmission fluid ( not even enough in it to get the dipstick wet). After handing over the money, and getting a bill of sale I went to the nearest gas station ( about a mile away) and put about a 1/5 tank of gas in, bought 4 quarts of transmission fluid, and a pint of break fluid. Filled the break resivoir, and put in 2 quarts of transmission fluid and drove down the mountain to where we met my mom for lunch. I checked the transmission fluid level again and I was still not even on the dip stick, so I put in 2 more quarts of fluid. Drove on to my mom's house after lunch ( after stopping at the shop where I worked a few years ago, I was supposed to be able to get in to swap the tires around, but the shop was closed up and I could not get in, and while there I checked the transmission fluid again, and was still low, so I put in another quart and a half to ge to the full mark). I started working on getting the tires swapped around. Getting the truck jacked up in the first place was a chore. All I had was a very small 4 ton bottle jack, and 2 jack stands ( and the jack was just barley long enough to get the tries clear of the ground). Once it was jacked up on one side (front and back) I took off the back tire and rolled it to the front, took the front tire off, rolled it to the back and put it on and tightened down the lug nuts, and went back to the front to put that tire on and the opening in the center of the rim was to small to go over the hub lock, so I had to take the big tire back off move it back to the front and put the small tire back on the back ( which it does not really fit the back either, but it was close enough to work. After doing all of that I went back to the house We used to live in and got the first engine from Fred into the bed of the donor truck ( I am glad that I have a 3 ton chain hoist), and picked up some other assorted scrap metal, and then got a few things from in the house that we needed to pick up.

This morning We left my mom's house, stopped for gas ( I filled one tank up) and hit the road. It is about 180 miles from my mom's house to our house, and 3rd gear does not work. Going down the mountain, and then across lookout top speed was about 45 mph. When we hit the interstate I was actually able to push it to about 60 mph. Had to make a pit stop in decature to pick up our IKEA doors from a friends house, also had to put in another 1/2 tank of gas. Had to make another gas stop in Social Circle ( put in about 3.5 more gallons of gas). By the time we got off the interstate at our exit the transmission was very hot, but the engine had not missed a lick the entire trip.

I am glad that I decided to keep Fred and use this truck as a donor truck before selling off what is left of it.

My new used truck

2009-09-09T19:47:15Z

I am buying a 1981 Chevy K10 Silverado long bed 4x4 with either a 3 or 6 inch lift kit. The truck has transmission problems, and has 2 33" Buckshot tires, and 2 16" street tires. The rims for the street tires and mud tires do not match, the guy I am buying the truck from had a new set of 33" Buckshot tires and new rims, but they got stolen while the truck was sitting on the side of the road with a for sale sign on it, so he just got what tires he could from some people he knew and put them on the truck to move it. All that said I am getting the truck for $500.

Here is what I have planned:

Friday Alasais and I will go to Alabama and pick up the truck. From there we will go to my mom's house and spend the night ( it is almost a 4 hour drive to get from our house to her house). Saturday morning I am going to go to our old house in Alabama and get the block that was in Fred when I first got him, the we are going to drive home ( with a stop at Jadi and Alec's house to pick up our doors from IKEA).

Either Sunday or Monday I am going to pull the engine out of the new truck and put it in Fred. As soon as the engine is out, I am calling a guy that I have lined up to come buy the body for $200. I am going to take the 2 busted engines to a scrap yard that is buying scrap iron for $7.50 a hundred ( both blocks together will weigh about 1200 Lbs.) so that will give me another $100 roughly. I am Supposed to get my stuff from American Cylinder Head back on Friday as well, and Advance sent me a letter saying that they will wither replace or refund the part, so I am hopeing that they will refund me the $200 for the head and the $85 core charge, which will give me enough to cover buying the truck and gas to go get it and bring it back.

I am also going to swap out the back bumpers, the drivers side gas tank, take the tank selecting valve, and the drop hitch off the K10 and put on Fred. I may also put the grill from the K10 on Fred as well, don't know yet.

horse fall

2009-07-19T20:03:25Z

So last summer I came into possession of a 4 year old untrained quarter horse. I have been working with him off and on over the last year and have him mostly halter broke. Last summer I had a saddle on him a few times and tried to get on once and he spooked and took off bucking and kicking. After that I kept working with leading and catching. Today I caught him, led him around a bit, then put a saddle on him and led him around some more. When I saw he was ok with the saddle, I had Katie hold him and put a foot in the stirrup, when I saw he was ok with that, I put some weight in the stirrup, then stood in the stirrup, then put a leg across his back and sat down. Had Katie lead him around a little. He was doing ok, not great because he was pushing into Katie's personal space, until the neighbor's radio changed songs to one with a lot of bass. With the heavy hitting bass Dex spooked and took off, Katie let go of the lead rope, and I was off balance because I had just shifted to get off, I saw the car comming up, and decided to use it as a landing pad and ditched. Dex ran straight to pasture fence, Katie grabbed the baby out of the swing and ran inside, and I took off after the horse. I caught him, and brought him back to the house and unsaddled him, and then put him back in the pasture. Katie said I was not allowed to get back on Dex until I have a job and health insurance, and an enclosed traning space.

Memories of my dad

2009-06-21T05:48:41Z

Today is Fathers day, my first as a father, and the 8th since my dad passed away. For a long time my dad and I had a very strained relationship. He left when I was 3 and did not come back until I was 8, there were a lot of reasons that I still do not know all the details of.

My earliest memories of my dad are looking at his pictures ( the photos I remember looking at the most were the one of him and my mom taken when she was pregnant with me, one of the 3 of us, and one of my dad standing in the door of a Wabco dump truck) in the photo albums and crying because I missed him so much.

The next memory of my dad is, around the time I must have been 5 or 6, when he brought me my first 2 wheel bike. It was a yellow and red "Flying-O" with training wheels. It was in December, because the Christmas tree was up but I am not sure if the bike was for my birthday or Christmas. It was dark out when he got there, so I got to ride the bike in the house that night. I also remember that Grandma and Grandpa Stephenson came as well ( this is my first memory of them) but stayed outside and smoked.

I remember that he brought my mom a "Strawberry Shortcake" cake for her birthday on year, and showed up at church a few times.
Then one day in 2nd grade (when I was 8) he was in the car when my mom came to pick me up from school. up to this point when I had to ride in the back seat I would always sit in the middle and use crisscross the seat belts so that I would have a seat belt in the middle, so when I got in I went to get in the middle and he made me move to one side and use just one seat belt, and when I started getting car sick he had his window down a little bit and told me to stick my fingers out so that I could feel the wind and I would not get car sick. It worked then, and still does to this day.

I remember me, mom and dad going to the Smokey mountains either that summer or the next.

The only camping trip that I can remember me and my dad going on together was the summer between 3rd and 4th grade, we went on a weekend camping trip through the Cub Scouts at Camp Comer, the local Boy Scout camp.

Listening to stories of all the things he had done in his life ( working for a traveling carnival, hitch hiking to Ca and back, and a whole lot of things that I can not remember)

When I was probably 10 or 11 years old the started on my mom's Mustang went out, so we made a trip to the parts store, got a new starter, and when we got home he got out his tool box, opened the hood pointed out the starter, and said there it is, change it out and went inside ( I will add he done that because I was always taking things apart to see how they worked and then putting them back together).

I can remember him riding me around the yard on the Triumph Trident that he had chopped out, and getting to go on a few rides to the end of the road and back where we lived. I can remember having to go to work with him in the summers as a young teenager , installing central heating and air units (the first 2 summers I got $10 a day just to help clean up, and fetch and tote things, and then getting paid by the hour the summers after that and was actually having to help install).

The next major memory I have of my dad is from when I was around 16 or so and him getting so bad off that he was on disability and unable to work. Then him getting worse over the years, having to go on breathing treatments, then on oxygen all the time, getting to the point that he could not walk and having to have a powered wheelchair to get around the house.

The first time my mom called and said that she was following the ambulance to the hospital because she had come home and found my dad passed out across the snack bar because his oxygen machine had stopped working. After this I started calling every day to check on him.

the 2nd and 3rd ER trips and then living in the ICU waiting room for about a month as the end was drawing near. then on September the 9th 2001 at about 6:30 he finally slipped away.

Even though we got off to a rocky start, and for a long time I carried a lot of resentment for the years that he was not around, as I got older I learned to live with the fact that we could never get that time back, and I tried to make the best of the time we had left together.

I wish my dad would have been well enough that he could have lived to have seen and hold his granddaughter, and watch her grow up.

I miss my dad more than I know how to express. I think about him almost every day.

Happy Fathers day

truck has died yet again!

2009-05-30T03:42:22Z

Well, engine number 2 has had a fatal mishap. If you remember a few weeks ago I posted about blowing the head gasket on the truck, well it got worse on my way home from work yesterday. I had just gotten onto the interstate when the motor went to ticking and knocking, then started blowing white smoke, so I hit the next exit ramp I came to hoping to make it to a parking lot close by, but the truck started running hot, so I pulled of onto the shoulder and shut it off. When I did there was a puddle of scummy water and oil on the pavement under the truck and running out of the exhaust pipe. Someone stopped and asked if I needed help, and I said yeah, I need a good cheap tow truck drive, and he gave me a business card. Called wrecker #1 and the driver told me it would cost about $120 to get the truck to the house, and it would take him about 20 minutes to get there, so I said "ok, see you when you get here". While waiting for wrecker # 1 wrecker #2 pulled up asked me if I needed a tow, I said "well I have a tow truck on the way but what would you charge to tow me to my house" . He said a $100 even, so I told him to load it up, call wrecker #1 and told him that I had found a cheaper tow and that he was there now. So now the truck is home. Today after we got home from Miriam to the doctor for her 6 month check up ( she is now 11 lbs 7 ozs) I started taking the engine apart to see how much damage there was going to be.

I started by taking the exhaust manifolds off to get them out of the way, then the carbuerator. Then I enlisted Katie's help in getting the #1 piston to TDC (top dead center) so that getting the distributior back in correctly would not be a pain in the butt, then I removed said distributior, and then the intake manifold. When the intake came off, I had a sinking feeling because I saw bits of shiney metal in the valley between the heads. Then I took off the valve covers and saw that the exhaust valve on the #5 cyclindar was missing and that the spring ang collar was laying loose on the top of the head, tot a real bad feeling. At this point I stopped and called Advanced auto parts, the part store I had bought the head from a few weeks agao) and explain what has happened and that it looks like the valve stem had broken and that I was going to have to get the head exchanged on warrenty. The manager says not a problem that he will have me a new cylindar head in the morning and that they would also give me a new head gasket set. Not to bad, so I go back out and takethe head off and this is what I saw:

At this point I stopped and called the parts store back and say well it looks like when the valve messed up it took out the piston as well. manager says not a problem that he could cover a piston in the warrenty as well. I asked about getting things like the cylindar bored and honed if it was messed up, or even worse if it was messed up beyond repair, what would I need to do. He said that anything like that would have to go through the vendor that supplied the head. So I decide to see how bad the damage is and with Katies help ( as a spotter), I start turning the motor by the fly wheel, and she told me that the busted piston was not moving, so I rolled it back to #1 TDC again and got back out from under the truck, and just for giggles crawled into the engine compartment and bumped the piston with my hand and it slid most of the way back down the cylindar, and I was able to see this:

Called the parts store once again and told the manager that the block was bead and o\would need to be replaced, and asked what kind of info I would need to bring in with the head to get everything covered. He said that I would need a written estimate from a shop on what it would cost to swap out the engine. I called a local shop that I have used a few times explained the sitution and got a price just for the labor, $1428.00! Took the pictures, and went to the shop picked up the labor quote, went to Wal-mart printed the pictures, then went to the parts store. Droped everything off, KAtie and I went back to wal-mart to do some grocery shopping. While we were shopping the manager from the parts store calls back and says that since I had installed the head myself that the vendor was not wanting to cover all of the damage done, he gave me their number and I call them. After about 10 mintues of some lady telling me that there was no way that a vale stem could just break I finally told her that yes they could, they do, and I had one that did. I also told her that while I did not know what cause the valve stem and the spring to seperate that they did, and that I had installed the head properly. She told me that I would have to take the head, all of the rocker arms, push rods and what ever pieces of the valve assembly that I had found to the store and submit a claim through the store. I told her that I had alreay removed the rocker arms from the head and taken the head to the store, but that I knew which rocker arm and puch rod were on the bad valve and that I would bag those seperat from the rest and take them to the store. When Katie and I got home I bagged up the requested parts and went back to the parts store to drop them off. I also talked to the manager for a bit about when the head would get sent back, and how long it would take for me to hear back about if they would pay to cover all of the damage or not. he told me that it would be Monday before he would be able to ship the head back to the vendor, and it would probably take a few weeks. I hope that when the vendor sees the head they will say that yes it was a faulty head that caused all of the damage ( because the truck was running fine until yesterday), and that they will cover the cost of a new short block (this is just the block, crank and cam shaft and 8 pistons) and replace the faulty head and all of the parts that I had to send back with it , or hopefully a new long block ( short block plus heads, timing gears and chain, lifters, push rods and rocker arms), or even better a new turn key engine ( this is a complete engine ready to drop in bolt up, wire and crank). I will most likely end up getting either option 1 or option 2, which I would be happy with either.

General, mostly non truck related, update

2009-05-13T08:42:18Z

Fire department related:
I have been taking a MOD-1 class through the fire department, this is the Georgia volunteer certification class, last night was the last night of class and we test on Thursday. The class has been a good review for me because the 160 class, Alabama volunteer certification class, was the same class as fire fighter 1 that paid departments have to have. Last night's class was review night and the instructors were throwing out some stuff that was not gone over in class and I was the only person able to answer.

Truck related:
I got the new head on, and everything is working good, I have a transmission leak, and still have an oil leak somewhere, need to find that soon, as I am going through a quart of oil with every tank of gas (of course with a 37 year old engine that is not to terribly bad).

While on my way home form work yesterday I caught a fresh 'gator with the grill of the truck. Transfer a few cars in front of me had a blow-out and a piece of the tread came up from underneath the car in front of me and hit the grill of the truck. Busted the plastic grill, that was on it's last leg anyway, but did not do any other damage.

other:
I have a very bad case of posion oak. After 2 days of bendryl doing nothing but spreading it around I started bleaching it. So far I have done 4 doses of bleach, and it dries it out during the day but it comes back at night. It is covering the back of my neck, my right arm from the shoulder to wrist and on the inside of my left arm around my elbow.

Munchkin related:
She is still cute, and gets cuter by the day.

Work Related:
Work Sucks! We are working 50 hours a week right now. We have been on overtime since early last fall, it was spotty until around Christmas, but since it has been W.A.O.. We have been working any where from 44 hours a week to 55 hours (some people have been working 4-10's, an 8 and 5 on Saturday). I am all about helping the company out, but unlike some people I work with, I have a life away form work, and money is not the most important thing to me.

I was put on a group of 5 machines ( this machine takes about 2 1/2 days to wire each machine) after lunch yesterday and they have to be finished by the 22nd of this month. It is going to be a rough 2 weeks. I wish they would hire a few more electricians. Right now we are out numbered almost 5-1.

Well, it's almost time to leave for another 10 hour torture session, I mean work.

yet more truck work

2009-04-26T00:00:24Z

Tuesday, 4-21-09, while on my way to work one of the head gaskets blew out on the truck. This morning I tore down the top end of the motor to see how much damage had been done. The good news is that the block is still ok, and so is one of the heads. The bad news is I cracked a heed. The crack runs all the way from the #3 intake valve to the water port just above it.

the blown head gasket:

the cracked head:

hear i am working on the truck:

And here is the part That Katie does not want to know about:
New head : 192.99
head gasket set:37.99
water pump gasket(x2): .99
head bolt set (x2): 21.99
oil: 9.50
oil filter:3.57
intake bolts (x6): 1.27
exhaust manifold bolts (x12): 1.39
water pump bolts (x4): 1.04
lock washers (x7): 1.04
fan bolt set: 3.79
RTV: 6.29
never seize: 6.49
scraper: 3.68
valve spring compressor: 22.96
torque wrench: 24.99
canvas drop cloth(to put down under the truck so I would not loose any dropped bolts: 8.97
parts and tools total: 402.92
tax: 28.21
total: 431.12
At least I am able to do my own mechanical work and am not having to pay a mechanic labor to do the work for me.

On the bright side I have a really cute kid and Katie got some good pictures of her today:

Craptastic Monday on a Tuesday

2009-04-21T23:58:25Z

This morning on the way to work the head gaskets on the truck went out while I was on the inter state. I pulled off and tried to call Katie, she did not hear her phone so I called one of my co workers who lives out close to where the truck made it to.He was just getting on the interstate so he said he would stop and pick me up. Made it to work, and shortly after starting time my boss started harassing me about leaving after only working 9 hours yesterday. Now overtime is not posted as being mandatory, but because I am working on a prototype machine that is goingto a trade show over seas I am expected to work 10 hour days until it is finished. The reason I left after 9 hours yesterday is we had found a problem, and were waiting on the engineer to come out and tell us how he wanted us to work around it, the engineer did not show up until 4:15 which is 15 minutes before I would have been leaving if I had stayed, which means I would have been sitting there for 45 minutes with nothing to do. But according to my supervisor I "abondened the job". Long story short, I got written up. After working 10 hours I got a ride back to the truck and was able to get the truck 7 miles closer to the house. So now I have to get the truck towed home tomorrow, and then I get to figure out what is going on with it. I hope it is just head gaskets, and not a cracked head or block.

more truck repairs

2009-03-15T13:25:56Z

After 4 trips to the parts store the truck how has working power steering for the first time since I have owned it. The first trip was to buy the steering gear, the 2nd trip was to get a puller to remove the Pitman arm from the old gear, the 3rd trip was to return the core, and get a belt for the pump and power steering fluid, the 4th trip was for a new pressure hose and more power steering fluid. All in all it was an fairly easy project except for the 4th trip for the hose as I had to pull the pump off in the parking lot of the parts store to get the hose changed so I could get home.
On the way home from the last trip I stopped at the car was and used the degreaser on everything in the engine compartment because when the pressure hose blew out on the was home from the 3rd trip everything got a good thick coating of power steering fluid. Now the next thing I need to do is pull off the intake manifold and replace the gaskets and gasket sealer there as I am leaking oil out from under my intake manifold, amazing what you find when you clean the engine.

snow day report

2009-03-06T15:46:43Z

So it snowed here on Sunday March 1. We probably got around 3 or 4 inches. it was enough to cause problems for the power company. Our power went out at a little after 5 pm on Sunday, and i went out to the shed and got out the Coleman lanterns and heater and also started bringing in fire wood. At around 7 we heard some trees falling so I grabbed a flash light and went out to see where they fell. They fell across the drop going from the power pole to the house and pulled it loose from the transformer. Monday afternoon everyone on our street,except us,had power. We did not get our power back on until about 10 am on Wednesday.

logansilveraxe @ 2009-01-25T07:19:00

2009-01-25T12:20:11Z

logansilveraxe @ 2009-01-14T22:50:00

2009-01-15T03:55:00Z

Katie has reawakened my thirst for puzzles. She bout me blacksmith puzzles for Christmas (Big Shot, Double Trouble, and Sneaky Pete), since then I have bought 3 more ( Self-Restraint, Wise Guy, and Big Kahuna) and a large display carousel. I already owned Lyon's Loop and Iron Maiden, although these are of lesser quality than the 6 of the new ones. My goal is to eventually get the whole collection of 30. You can see all of them here: tavern puzzles.

Of the puzzles that Katie got me it took me probably about 30 minutes each to figure out Big Shot and Double Trouble. Sneaky Pete took me a day to figure out, and when it came apart, I had no clue as to how I had done it because I had gotten it tangled up and was trying to untangle it. I had to read the directions to put it back together.

Of the puzzles that I bought for my self, none of them have taken me more than about 5 minutes to figure out.

Playing in the Rain

2008-12-21T18:12:24Z

it was not as much fun as it sounds like. I was taking down all of my fencing in Alabama so that I can put up a fence at the new place here in Ga.

Left work Friday afternoon, and drove to my mom's house in Alabama. I had to stop to have a friend do some welding for me. I had him build me a fence post puller, it is made from bar stock, round stock, and square tubing and chain, so that I could take out all of my fence posts without having to do the wiggle the in circles for 10 minutes, and then strain to pull them out. Got to my mom's about 6:30 centeral, had dinner sat and talked a while, and then opened christmas presents, sat and talked for a while and got in bed around midnight, centeral, so I had been up for about 21 hours. Woke up at about 6:30 am got dressed, rummaged up some breakfast, and then went out to start working on the fence. It was a nice fine steady mist, no big deal, I had on a duster. Well, the steady mist turned into oscassional showers, needless to say by the end of the day I looked and felt like a drowned rat! It took me until about 3 or 4 pm to get it all done, but I got all of my wire, and all of my posts.

i think I am turning into a "hum bug"

2008-12-16T00:29:07Z

I talked to my momon the phone tho night trying to figure out our christmas schedule. Katie's family is going to come to the house the day after christmas, Katie wants to go to church on Christmas eve, and us to have a quite Christmas at home. SO I was trying to talk my mom into coming for the day after Christmas, which she asiad she would not be comfortable doing Christmas with Katies faimly because she could not compete with the gifts that they would be giving. So I suggested that we do Christmas this weekend while Katie and I were at her house. and she siad that she had not gotten her bonus yet and would not have any presents. Now, the whole reason I am going up there this weekend was to get all of my fence wire and fence posts so that I can get a fence up on the larger section of land that still needs to be fenced. I had planned to go up on Friday after work spend the day Saturday taking down the fence, and come back when I got the fence down so that I could see the baby on my way home. I told my mom this and she said "well, it sounds like you just dont want to have christmas with me this year!" She knows how to push my buttons sometimes!!!!!!

quick baby update

2008-11-26T03:01:54Z

miriam got moved from NICU to the Special Care Nursery tonight. She is being given 1cc of breast milk every 8 hours, and she is tolerating them well. To date she has pulled out her IV 3 times, and her feeding tube once.

The list of her nurses so far:
Delivery: Sheri
11-22 night: Shirley
11-23 Day: Sheri
11-23 night: Shirley
11-24 day: Sheri
11-24 night: Anna
11-25 day: Amanda
11-25 night: Deborah

The first 2 days I was down in the NICU quite a bit, and Sheri kept telling me that I would have a job there by the end of the week, and then after finding out that I am a fireman and a first responder, that I should become an EMT, because everything that she would tell me I was repeating back to other people later on. I think it surprised her that I was asking some of the questions that I was, like what was in each of the IV drips and over what period of time they were going in and things like that. And it also seemed to impress her that I was as calm in the room when alarms and buzzers and things that were attached to Miriam started going off.
It is getting close to time for me to go to bed!

baby pics

2008-11-23T14:34:39Z

I go to go see the baby a little while ago, and here are the first pictures I got of her.

that is my hand beside her head, and her foot is the length of my thumb

my hand started shaking here. the big thing in the bed with her is her very first tebby bear. baby bear came from the Smokey Mountain visitors center when we went up for her Aunt Kelly's graduation.

nuff said, she had pulled the cpap mask down off of her nose, she is not on a respirator.

baby update

2008-11-23T10:51:40Z

We just got to talk to the NICU nurse, and Miriam is breathing room air, no extra oxygen, but she is wearing a cpap to help keep her lungs from sticking together when she exhales. The nurse told us that when we come over to nicu later today that the baby is can be held.

Welcome to the world Miriam Claire Sadler-Stephenson

2008-11-23T05:23:21Z

Mine and Katie's daughter, Miriam Claire Sadler-Stephenson was born at 19:14 on 11-22-08 via c-section. And weighing it at 2 lbs 13.2 oz and measureing 15 inches long. She was 9 weeks and a few days early. Even coming into the world, she is taking after her old man, has to be insanley early!

So here is the full story, from my point of view, of the last 2 days anyway:

Friday started off as any other normal day, got up at 3am, got ready went to work, came home. I was supposed to help
a friend move and had promised to provide a trailer. Due to tag peoblems on the Horse trailer, I had to rent a trailer from U-haul, and had to pick it up in Athens. So after work, I head over, stop at the church that Katie works at and picked her up, we went and got the trailer, then went back to the church where she was working on stuff for a big Saturday get together. We stayed at the church until around 6 or 7 then headed home. When we got home Katie still had a few projects to finish at the house and we stayed up til about midnight working on them.

At about 2 am on Saturday Katie wakes me up and says either my water just broke or i wet the bed. It takes a minute for this to sink in but then I am in motion. Katie is stressing and crying and worried because every time she tries to move more liquid comes out. I called the OB's on call doctor explain what is going on and he says "hie thee on to the hospital now", well he actually said come on in to the Labor and delivery unit, not the ER, so Katie has me start packing, while she worries that it is to soon, and that we are not ready, and a whole list of other things. I get us packed and ready to go, get dressed, help her to the bathroom, and then get her dressed, and we are out the door to the hospital. During all of this we called the parental units to let them know what was going on. We got to the hospital about 10 til 4. Spent the next 4 hours in an ob assement room. They monitored the baby and Katie, done an ultrasound, and then eventually put her in a labor and delivery room. All of the docs said that they would try to keep Katie from going into labor for as long as possible just to give the baby as muck time inside as possible to finish growing. Around 3 pm we had some friends come in and Katie's mom and little brother also came in. I figured it was a good time to run to the house, 50 miles away, to take care of the horses and dogs, and to take the uhaul back since I no longer needed it, and did not want to have to pay for the extra days. After I got the trailer dropped off, and back to the house, Katie's mom called and said that things were starting to happen, and that I needed to get back asap. I got back in the car and headed for the hospital. I get another call from Katie's mom saying that they were taking her for an emergency c section, and where was I at? I was still on the inerstate about 20-30 miles away. I made it back to the hospital in time to see them roll the baby out of the er, get my arm band and walk with the NICU doc and nurse to the NICU where they worked on the baby. I heard them saying things like, she was breathing on her own, she was crying a little, and I could see her moving her arms and legs on her own. I also heard them say that she was holding body heat well. So here I sit in the hospital post partum room writing about my daughter's birth while my wife sleeps off the drugs from the c-section. Our daughter has been in the world for about 5 hours now at this point and neither one of us has gotten to hold her yet. But come morning time I am headed over to the nicu to see her. It is getting close to time for me to crash as I have now been up for 45 hours with about 3 hours of sleep thrown in there.

work tools

2008-11-20T01:13:19Z

The company that I work for allows the employees to buy tools through the company, up to $700 including shipping, and pay for them with money withheld from their check every week. I have made good use of this. I had the company buy me about $500 worth of stuff, a nice roll around tool chest, and a lot of hand tools. I had to wait for the really big ticket item that I wanted to get, a new multimeter. The reason I want to get my own is because the company provided ones are about worn out, and if I ever move on to another job I will most likely need my own meter anyway. So while I have been waiting on ,y balance to be paid down enough to get the meter that I want I have been doing some price checking. The prices that I have found ranging from $348.85 at www.metersuperstore.com to $441.00 at Grainger. And they are all the exact same thing, and all have the same product photo, Showing here:

I guess I find it odd that there can be almost a hundred dollar difference in something that is packaged by the manufacturer shipped to the middle man and then shipped to the customer.

truck repair and pepper

2008-11-19T22:40:46Z

SO, this is something I have done several times in my life, and was just wondering who else has resorted to this form of jury-rigging. The truck had developed a small leak where the water pump bolts to the engine block, so I checked to make sure all of the bolts were tight, and they were. So with the engine running, I refilled the radiator with water and started pouring in the ground black pepper. within about 5 seconds the leak had stopped, the engine has cooled off to normal operating temp, and the heater was blowing hot air again. It is amazing that something we eat on a regular basis can stop a high pressure water leak!

Frustrations at work

2008-11-15T10:39:39Z

SO yesterday at work every thing was rocking along good. Then my lead man cam to me and said that his boss just jumped him wanting to know why he, the lead man, had not told him, the shop supervisor, that I was having problems with quality of work, to which my lead man replied that the only problems I was having was that I did not always know how things were done here, and that when I was told to do things differently I changed what I was doing. So what happened was the mechanic that I worked on a machine with 2 weeks ago went to the supervisor's boss' boss, and told him that I done shitty work on this machine. I am making assumptions right now, because the mechanic that I was working with is known to go to the person at the top and tel lies about other people. What pisses me off about it is that when it came back down to the shop supervisor there was no specifics, so it was a vague thing when it came to me. I told the lead man that if it was a real problem how was I supposed to fix it if no one could tell me what the problem was. he just kinda laughed and said I know and that was it. Later in the day my lead man came back to me and said that I needed to be careful with my absences because I was getting close to being written up. At this point I will point out that I have either missed or had to leave work early lose to 13 times since I have been there, but I have doctors notes for most of them. I also turned in an FMLA request to be able to take Katie to the prenatal appointments. I found out yesterday that the way the paperwork got filled out it was only good for when she goes into labor and after the baby is born. So I called the OB and asked if they would do the paperwork again do it so that I could use it for the appointments, and they said sure. When we got there the lady that does their FMLA paper work said that the HR lady from my job had called and was asking if it was necessary for me to go to all of the appointments to which the OB lady said yes! so that was my day yesterday.

Anniversary

2008-10-28T08:27:11Z

today is Mine and Katie's second wedding anniversary!!!!!

aquired the use of.....

2008-10-28T07:36:27Z

a little over 6.5 acres of the 10 acre lot that adjoins the property where we are now living. I have been talking to the owner for a while now trying to work things out, and we came to an agreement last night. I will have the use of 6.678 acres at thew cost of fencing and land management for the term of 24 months, with a renewal clause that as long as both parties are happy it keep renewing perpetually. He also said that I could use his well for watering the horses as there is no water on the land. He said his well was 465 feet deep with 3 resivoirs, and all but the first 38 feet were through solid granite! Now I just have to come up with the money to fence it so that I can get the horses over on it as it has arm pit tall grass on the entire lot!

How I spent my sunday

2008-10-27T08:37:12Z

I spent most of the day outside working on fences, and stuff. Las week I had to put a drive through gate up in so that I could drive into the pasture to unload hay. Well one of the posts was starting to lean from the pressuer of the fence pulling against it, so I my 3 ton chain hoist, and some other chains, and pulled the post back straight, and then took some rope and anchored it a high limb on the far side of the gate, post is now mostly straight again. I then moved several fence posts so that the fence was straighter. When Katie got home I drug her through the woods measuring out our property line to put up a fence around the back of our property. We have also been talking to the guy that owns the 10 acre fallow field next to us trying to work out a deal to lease about 1/2 of his property. He had marked out what he would be willing to let us use, and we measured that as well. when we can in I sat down and drew it all out on a piece of graph paper, and then found an online tool for converting measurements to acreage. We have a little over 5 3/4 acres in pasture, once we fence in the back of our property, and if we get this other land that will add a little over 6.5 acres.

Then last night while messing with Katie's belly I got to fell the baby move. When i would press my face against Katie's belly I could fell the baby kicking and punching. I could not feel anything with just my hand though.