A Lot Of Activity Since My Last Post

A lot of things have been going on since my last post 27 days ago. We have survived 3 different tornado warnings with "take shelter now" since then. Twice there were funnel clouds within the 5 mile radius of home. Yet I know unless my "weather dog" Walter shows anxiety we are good. He never did show any signs of anxiety during those tornado warnings, as we watched the local tv weather to keep updated on what was going on and where things were.

Yard Cleanup Is THE Adventure

I've been busy lately and not really in the mood to blog. Even this post was a borderline decision on whether to blog about it or not. The thing is when you don't travel and enjoy retirement living at home, there are not many adventures. Nothing like I had planned on when I started this blog in October 2011. 

Should I change my Blog Title?

Working Clearing The Berm

With the snow/ice storm in early January a fairly large tree limb had fallen on the berm, luckily parallel to the fence and not across any utility or cable lines. Besides that tree limb I also needed to cut back all the overgrown bushes along the berm before they started getting leaves again. I'm talking around 140' of work.

27° Felt Like Summer To Them

When I left you on Sunday, we had some snow on the ground after our rains. It snowed more after midnight Tuesday and this week has been very cold. Like single digits overnight and through mid mornings. I spent my time watching 8 seasons of Dexter while only staying up late one time. I finished that show yesterday a little after 5:30pm. Today was different ... bright sunshine, 7° when we got up but heading towards 30° it felt like it was time to spend outside.

Rain To Snow Instantly

We haven't been real motivated lately. Colder than I like outside plus there were occasional rains a couple of days. Since I am counting time until mid-March with hopes of Spring being here for good, I had to find something to do inside. I pulled off the 8 seasons of Dexter from my dvd case and started watching that.

The Corruption Blog Is Deleted

I remember before I decided to start a new blog about the political corruption, I had said on this blog it was my last post about it. Then from comments and emails I received, readers liking what I was providing, I decided over the weekend(?) to build a blog just for that topic. It was easy to find information and easy to make a blog post so time is not an issue.

The content is.

Butcher Box Delivered

I watched the shipping updates Friday knowing it was going to miss it's adjusted delivery day of February 7th. When I saw it has arrived in the Indianapolis area Friday night I thought there might be a chance for a Saturday delivery.

So the question is ... how long can dry ice keep a box of meet in air sealed packages ... frozen?

It would be much easier if I felt each package I transfer from the box to my freezer ... frozen. I did not expect that to be the case. 

If you remember from my post the other day, I was told my customer service after the shipping label was made, the box would sit in a freezer until UPS picked up the package to ship.

As you see that the box arrived at UPS on Wednesday night at 6:55pm. 

So we are talking from Wednesday at 6:55pm until Saturday morning at 12 noon, being out of a freezer packed in dry ice.

This is not my first time of getting these kinds of beef orders or other food orders shipped to my address here and my previous address a 100 miles north of here five years ago. The difference is, in every shipment I had the box of beef/seafood/chicken delivered within 48 hours after I placed an order.

Birds - Sump Pump - Butcher Box Story

I glanced out my patio door Wednesday afternoon and saw it filled with black birds. I turned my focus back to the movie I was watching. Ten minutes later they were still there, flying from the field behind the house up into my trees and then back down to the field. I grabbed my camera and tried to capture as many as possible.

Spring Day Projects

When February surprises you with ONE day of Spring I had to take advantage and check off two projects on my to do list. It was not even 1pm yet and when I glanced at my watch it was 67° while wearing a t-shirt doing these two projects. It felt great. Henry was loving today's weather.

The Rains Came And Went

 

The forecasted rains showed up late yesterday afternoon. They were not heavy rains but were steady and lasted through the night. By 10pm it had let up enough that all five of the crew ran outside to do what they needed to do. Which is worse ... warmer temps and a flooded backyard or single digit temps and a yard hard as a rock? I'll take the warmer temps.

AT&T Finishes The Job

When I heard Cletus welcoming someone in the yard and the other four following with their loud greetings, I looked out the window and saw an AT&T truck. I knew what he was here for. Scott Johnson (Supervisor/Manager) stopped by yesterday to look at what I was talking about. I recognized him from last June when I spoke to him at length while he was in his truck. He told me when he left yesterday afternoon that he would have someone out here ASAP to get that splice junction box hung back up on he cable.

The Tree Is Gone

First of all I'd like to apologize to any readers that have possibly had a hard time reading my blog due to the "gray" color font. I have no idea when that changed. I have no idea if I made the change and if I did, how long ago? So this morning I changed the font color to black. The blog posts should be easier to read now.

As it warmed up on Saturday, into the 40s ... I grabbed my rake, trash can and pruning saw to get that tree limb out of my side yard. If found out not only were two of the limbs were buried deep into the ground after falling around 50' ... but after cutting off limbs, the trunk of the limb was heavy. So heavy I could barely drag it to the back berm. 

Yet, within 45 minutes the yard look like this instead of the photo below. 

Still Cold 12° & Political Ranting

Political ranting at the end of the post. This is a LONG post. 

It's cold everywhere. My friend sent this yesterday from Southport NC. She found out late yesterday afternoon she had close call catching her house on fire. Her heater had stopped working a few days ago and was finally able to get someone to come out and look at it. Her house had cooled to 49° inside with no heat and freezing temps outside. Something that town is not use to.

A plastic junction box in her attic had melted. It connected to the air handler/return but her circuit breaker did not flip off to stop the current. Thus her heater quit working. I know I have one of those in the attic. Too cold today but with a high of 47° tomorrow I plan on getting up in my attic to look around.

You Won't Believe It !!! AT&T You SUCK!!!

This photo is used only for blog purposes. It was the truck that came to fix my neighbors fiber last week after "I called my friend for a favor to get my internet hooked back up and repaired". The neighbor was born and raised here, knows many people.

This post will be short. This is an email I received at 1:04pm today from AT&T Maintenance Request center and is just UNBELIEVABLE. This was their reply to my email on January 21 when I let them know they may have closed the work order as complete but the work was never done.

Hi Mr. Floyd, 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We basically just do validation of the issue and escalating them to the right department. Since we have verified in our system that this ticket is already completed by the technician.  What we could recommend is for you to contact Care at 1800-288-2020 regarding this one. 

Thank you,

AT&T Maintenance Request Center

 "We basically just do validation of the issue and escalating them to the right department"

Then they tell me to call that number ... what happened to their stupid "escalating to the right department"??? Why do I have to call if they have escalated it to the RIGHT Department???

That 800 number they recommended I call is the same number I called when they assigned the work order in question. That number assigns work orders. I have called that number and received FOUR different worker order on the different times I have called since May 26. 

Luckily the last time I called that 800 number the other day, like my last post said, the man on the phone said there was no reason to issue a new work order again, just write these two phone numbers down that I give you for your local repair center supervisor. Which I did.

But that clock is ticking and something tells me Scott Johnson isn't going to get anything done either no matter how long or recent he has been on that job. Was he just promoted? Don't know.

Do me a favor and spread this post out far and wide ... share it everywhere.

July 17 .... January 23 --- Work never completed --- Lied to numerous times. 

My reply to their email was not approved for blog content. Too much cussing but I did tell them I rated AT&T right up there on my list with Verizon and that I would never return to use their services EVER!!!

Pissed off in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana. 

At&T Saga Continues

The AT&T saga started May 26th. I know that because it became so bad back in June trying to get repairs completed that I started a spreadsheet to track my calls, the work orders issued and what was or was not done by AT&T, BOi, Astound, and CenterPoint Energy.

Cletus Was Missing For An Hour

Yesterday around 12:15pm, and 11° outside, I had the fear unlike any other I have experienced hit me. It was my fault that Cletus had escaped. I will have to explain the latest AT&T story later but it was because of that story I was going outside in freezing weather so I could move their box with the spliced wires out from the fallen tree branches and tree on the berm. The fallen tree on the berm was from the ice/snow storm a couple of weeks ago.

I thought I had all the clothes I needed to stay warm in 11° weather with a chill factor around 0°. But I didn't and that led to the problem for my mistake. 

Garage door is open. I walked back inside to get my ski gloves to replace the ones I was wearing due to my hands freezing within minutes.

As I walked into the mudroom from the garage, I closed the door behind me, evidently it did not close all the way for whatever reason. I am on the other side of the house, getting those gloves from a closet and notice the electrical power cord is pulled out of my router and is laying on the floor.

Watson likes to sleep under my desk sometimes so the wire must have gotten tangled in his foot and was pulled out when he got up from under the desk. Like any hound or dog, if he felt any resistance or that cord on his foot ... he would have ran to break free, thus pulling out the electrical cord. 

I plug the cord back in the router, grab my gloves and head back outside the way I came, through the kitchen. Just as I get to the middle of the kitchen I see a wide open door in the mudroom that leads to the garage and one of the garage doors are open. Instant panic and adrenaline overwhelmed me. 

It's COLD !!!!

I said in my last post that I would take a photo of this area of the yard after the night and day of rain that was in the forecast this past weekend, before dropping to single digit temperatures for our highs. So there it is ... higher ground, snow was gone and hard as a rock. It was 7° when I took this photo on Monday morning with a "feels like" -11. That was yesterday morning, not today.

So I am sitting here the morning to start this post around 8:40am CT, with a hot cup of coffee, 5° outside and a "feels like" -5°. This is the last day of single temps before it slightly warms up tomorrow with a high of 15° and moves back up to our normal winter averages of 30/40s ... it will feel like a heat wave.

Rain Before Single Digit Weather ???

It has gradually warmed up this week and it is forecasted to rain tonight after midnight. Then almost a 100% chance of rain on Saturday. Does that mean all the snow that is covering everybody's yards will disappear? Then to top that off, the paper this morning was warning everybody of "dangerously cold" weather that will start when I get up on Sunday with windchill's below 0°. That's a drastic movement in weather after a day of rain. Sounds like fun but those kind of changes in weather are typical of Indiana weather.

Snow & Ice Removal

Two things I wanted to get done on Saturday morning was shoveling the snow off the ice on the front porch, sidewalk and driveway. I would let the sun do its own work on what was left on the driveway because as you can see, I had no trouble before cleaning it getting in and out with my car. The snow was wet and heavy. The other day the snow I shoveled on the porch and sidewalk was light as powder.

The Snow Never Stopped

When I left you Friday morning it was still snowing but only later did it turn into larger flakes and and a heavier fall. It looked like were were going to get the amount of snow predicted for today. It was supposed to stop around 5pm-7pm.

Thursday Afternoon - Power On !!

After five great hours on Tuesday where we had power for some reason, we woke up Wednesday morning to 11° outside and 51° inside. The old sleeping bag I found worked great since it is rated for cold temperatures and I had a good night of sleep. That bag was not in with my camping stuff but I found later in a closet. I must have put it in there when I moved in.

The Snow & Ice Storm Hit Us Hard

About 10 minutes after I posted this today, my power went out again and it is still out three hours later. They now have a standard text that says everybody will have their power restored by Friday, although many of those people will have it before then. 

For the first time in a long time the storms in the forecast included us where there was hope it would stay south of the Ohio River and North of I-64. It did not and it was worse than I expected. This photo was taken at 8:38pm Sunday night ... we had lost all power eight minutes earlier. It turned out to be an experience and a new list of things I need the next time it happens.

The Storm Has Arrived Early !!

This is Ava's first snow storm and as you can see she is pretty excited about it. The storm was supposed to start after midnight tonight. Most of the heavy snow was to be north of us by 10 miles, I-64. We were to get sleet with an ice storm. So when I turned on the patio light at 6:30am to let the hounds out I was a little surprised that my patio deck was all white.

We Survived New Year's Eve

We did not make any resolutions for 2025 because I found out over the years I never kept them. But Fred out at Out West Bassets looks like he did. Some of you might remember that Fred is Henry's dad. If you go to that link and scroll toward the bottom of the page you might recognize a photo of Henry as a puppy. I sent Michelle a photo of Henry soon after getting him in August 2020, of him sitting in the doorway to the patio in Sierra Vista, AZ.