July 1, 2001
After a long hard week at work this weekend has ended on a relaxing note. On Friday I ended at 57,000 envelopes that had been counted. The spoiled envelopes have added up so far to 25,500. Well enough on that; I have to start on that tomorrow anyway. At least I'm getting a little more help now.
Saturday was a really hot day. After May and 99% of June was by it finally reached ninety degress. Even though I wasn't thrilled by it. Instead of working outside my dad and I went over to the plant and worked on touching up the floor with paint. Weren't getting ready to put down yellow painted aisles to indicated fire lanes. After that we had to get ready for a party at my aunt and uncles house in Kenosha. We were having a get together because my cousin Joan was down here from Milwaukee. We only get to see her every 3 or so. I had a good time. Most of the night we sat around telling funny stories and jokes and playing with the cat "Button's". A thunderstorm that rolled on in at about 9:30 forced inside after being outside for a few hours. It was a late night too. We all left around 12:15am. But nobody minded, we all had a good time. That's what parties are about.
Today I woke up to a mountain blue sky with a few clouds wisking by on a northeast wind. It was a spectacular day, alot different then the day before. Today we only made it too 68 degress at that was at 1am or so. During the day temperatures stayed right around 63 degress. I love this weather. Tonight it will probably go down to about 46 for a low.
I took advantage of the good weather and finished almost all the bush trimming. What stopped me from finishing it was that I ran into a few white faced hornets in the bush and almost got stung. That's when I stopped for the day and decided to go inside at around 4:30 and play Myst III for awhile. My parents got home late from shopping because they had gotten a flat tire. My dad said all he did was turn a sharp right and hit the curb and the tire went flat. It took him a solid 45 minutes to fix it out in Antioch.
According to the national weather service and NOAA were supposed to have tempertures below 75 for the next 10 ten days. So no more 80's and 90 degree weather for a while.
11:13pm
July 5, 2001
Sorry I haven't updated in almost a week. I've been busy as well as just lazy this week. Well after counting over 101,000 envelopes, I found that 58,500 were bad. Now that company is going to have to pay me 20 hours worth of labor time sorting through THEIR mistakes. Were not to happy with them right at the moment. My dad said He never seen a shipment with so many defects. Yesterday was an exciting day being the fourth of July and all. During the day me and my dad did a little shopping in the morning. After lunch I washed my car; finally. I've been meaning to get it done for the past month. It hasn't rained in such a long time that it hasn't needed it. The grass is sure getting brown though. We were supposed to go to a party last night for a fellow employee that's moving to Arizona in a few weeks but we couldn't even find the place. I found out today that it was in front of a place that we had walked into thinking that was the place. It turns out it was like right on the water (Lake Michigan) literally, and it's hard to miss because it's so small. Even though we didn't go to the city fireworks like we usually do. We all sat in the backyard and watched our neighbor, "John" shoot off about a 1000 dollars worth of fireworks in about an hour and fifteen minutes. Yeah he really puts on a show and it lasts longer then the ones at the lakefront. He must have had about 30 different kinds of fireworks out in the street. After the smoke had all cleared you could see countless canisters in the street. Rockets were raining down in our yard especially, even though we don't care. It's always fun watching his shows. He even set of one M-80!
Today was a very slow day at work, being after the holiday and all. Only 62 packages went out today. I think tomorrow will be slow as well. Probably the most exciting thing was the weather, which was worth writing home about. It was really sunny today with a mountain-like blue sky with a cool sixty degree wind blowing off the lake. I wouldn't mind it staying like this all summer. I hate the heat that is supossed to return Saturday. More then anything we need rain.
11:50pm
July 11, 2001
Sorry I haven't updated this section in a little while. I was going to yesterday but something came up at the last minute and I had to do an errand. Plus the heat yesterday just wore me out.
Well today was a very nice day and pleasant in all aspects. Cool temperatures in the low 70's with a nice breeze kept things at work cool. Today at work I worked on stuffing envelopes with newsletters and product add's. That toke about 3 hours to do. Then the remander of the afternoon I worked in the shipping department. Today was a fairly busy day especially towards the end. Before I went to lunch today I helped out a pine tree that was being over taken by a wild grape vine. I hate seeing trees over taken by these monster plant, so I sawed all the vine connectors that were going up the tree. And then at five 0'clock you could see the leaves start to droop on the vine.
I had a really nice 6 2/3 mile bike ride today after dinner. I decided to go and take a look at the land that's going to be developed by Cambridge homes just south of us. I might as well take the chance now to see it as farmland, before the bulldozers come on in. They just put up the sign for the development and they already have a few temperary roads that I rode on. After about 30 minutes of looking around I toke off to the north across Adams road to another area where I remembered there was another trail. I found it; it starts at the end of my street goes north for about 100 feet and then travels west about a mile to the railroad tracks and then across to a dead end road. It was kind of nice just being the only person out there. It was almost peaceful, except I could here airplanes and a little bit of traffic in the distance. While I was working my way back I came across hundereds of fire flies, that kept on flying into me; or I was probably running into them instead. I got back home at 9:10 about; an hour ride did me some good.
Well that's it for tonight. I have to start getting better sleep schedule.
11:58pm
July 14, 2001
Today I woke up really sore and I thought to myself, that I didn't want to get up, but I did anyway at 10:15. I rarely sleep past ten anymore. Yesterday was one of the busiest days since I 've been working at Friend's. We sent out 130 packages and the UPS man just, I mean just got them into the truck. Let's just say if there would have been another package that it would have to have gone on the roof!
Today went well. I woke up to sunshine again. It's been a really long time since I've woken up to cloudy skies. We need rain really bad. The earth is starting to crack all over. We can't use alot of water because were on a well and we can't dry that up. Rain isn't in the forecast at least till Tuesday night, even then it's a 30% chance. I made breakfast today as I usually do on Saturday's. In the afternoon after the heat of the day was fading off me and my dad went over to the plant and finished painting the firelanes in the warehouse. Now most of the painting is done; finally. We finally headed home to make dinner at 7:30pm. We had b-qued Chicken on the grill and ate a little late at 8:45. I only had two meals today, but I'm not complaining. Other than that it was a quiet day. Alot of people out I will say that. I went to see A.I. the day before and it was really good. I give it a eight and a quarter rating. One of a kind movie I tell you that. I've never seen anything like it. It's a Steven Speilberg movie so you can expect that.
Well that all I'll write for now.
11:17pm
July 20, 2001
Sorry I didn't write yesterday like I siad. I got caught up in another computer project. I made a huge picture of Lake Louise, Alberta Canada. Rated as one of the most prettiest spots in the world. Shown right here>V .
I blew this picture up to 2 feet by three feet and stuck it on my wall at work. Looks really good; little fuzzy up close, due to the scanner. Decent though. Today was a scorcher here. It reached 91 degress with peak heat index of 98. Cumulus clouds moved about in the humid air. The dewpoint is worth mentioning too. The dewpoint was and still is at 75. It's still 80 as of 10:50pm. Even though we got .90 inches of rain on Monday, the grass is still burning up. Everything else is really getting stressed out and now that the heat is here it's evaporating more and more moisture. Each time it was time to leave the air conditioning, I really looked forward to getting into a hot car, NOT!!! When I can park in the shade of a tree or a building it's not so bad. Work was slow today for most everyone. I did a combination of job today. Filling order to boxing envelopes, too making another product letter to send out to our customers. I felt sorry for the UPS truck drivers that came in today. Having to work in the heat and lifting boxes. I helped them with the stuff the best I could.
Tomorrow is going to be even HOTTER, around 95 degress with a heat index between 100-105. I'll probably get up earlier than usual to get a few chores done outside. The city just put water restrictions out, so I won't be watering. My friend Kathleen from New York e-mailed me after two months from the last message. It was a nice surprise too. E-mail back this weekend Kat!
I wish my other friend Jason would reply to me or call. Haven't heard from you Jason, what are you doing? It's like you disappeared off the face of the earth.
Also... I was going home for lunch down 173 in Zion by a place called Central auto body and all of a sudden a deer jumps out into the road in front of me and another truck, I missed hitting the doe by only 20 feet. The other guy had to really slam on the brakes. Ver fortunate situation. My heart was pounding after that. Whew!
Well that's all the words for tonight. Other sections of this site are updated so I'll mark the new stuff on the home page.
11:13pm
July 21 & 22, 2001
Both today and yesterday were the same weatherwise. Everyone is talking about the heat. Yesterday it was a steamy 94 degress and 95 in Libertyville, which is just to the west. Lake Michigan isn't helping at all to cool us down even though from time to time a breeze comes in from the southeast but usually is cut off by west winds. Heat Index's have reached the low one hundreds for two day now and probably will tomorrow also. The only real exciting thing that happened so far this weekend was that my friend Jason contacted me and came over finally. It was nice to see him again. (Thanks for coming over Jason!) After bible study yesterday I got into somewhat of a traffic jam and had to reroute about 5 miles out of my way through Libertyville. After Jason left I watched some TV and worked on some computer work for awhile. The other day my mom called Grand Rapids, MI to see what the upcoming log home show in September is going to have. Since were interested in building a log home the right thing to do is go to a show and this is the nearest one. It turns out that this one is the biggest one in the eastern United States being hosted this year. 75 vendors and 35 log home companies are going to be there including dozens of woodworking businesses with there products. I'm really looking forward to it now.
Today has been a slow day with the heat, same as yesterday. The heat makes the day go by slower it seems. Right now I just looked and it's 94 with a heat index of 104 and there's a few storms to the west. Once the day is over I put the final report down.
G'day everyone!
2:36pm
July 27, 2001
Today started out good. I finally got to have the window open after two weeks of air conditioner. It finally got down to 60 degress after a few weeks being above 70 most of the time. I heard next week it could hit 100 degress actual temperature, not including heat index. I got to work a little earlier today. Work was nothing special today. But I did finally get through 1000 order forms that I got two days ago. I helped out in the shipping department for awhile. I skip to the highlight of the day. At six-thirty tonight. My mom and dad and I met my aunt and uncle and cousin for dinner at Apple Holler. (You guessed it Apple Holler is a apple farm!) It's a very good restaurant that sits right next to I-94 in Kenosha County. We all had a really good ol'time. After the fish fry and buffet we all sat around telling stories and telling jokes and so forth. Then we moved out to the parking lot and talked for about thirty minutes. By the entrance to the restaurant there was two chickens sitting on the railing trying to get some sleep, but when we came out they woke up! And then just across the way there was this peacock sitting on top of the Coke machine outside! We were joking that he probably wanted a buck to get a coke because of all the racquet he was making. lol
After that we stopped at the grocery store and went home. O and also one thing I saw today that I usually don't was a buck deer in the woods behind the plant by the river. I was walking along quite like and all of a sudden this deer jumps up and bounds away. It shocked me!
July 31, 2001
The last two days have been scorchers here. And after a day of work inside and out, I';m really tired. So that's why I haven't updated recently. Tonight be AWARE of the code red computer worm. News stations have told everyone that it's supposed to hit at 8 EST, just under an hour. Work was slow today. The most I did today was look through some 75 order forms, determined what samples our customers might want to see and then help the UPS man load his truck at the dock at four pm. Yesterday I let my dozen crayfish go that I caught some two months ago or should I say adpoted. lol I put them in the pond three houses down. First I had to walk through 50 feet of dense cattails and long grass to get there. I almost ended up in the pond because the ground was so unstable and the mosquitoes were buzzing all over. It drove me nuts. In a little while my mom, dad, & I are going to go over to our neighbors house and see there new dog. We bought some dog treats and a toy for the new five month old puppy.
Our chipmunks haven't been out because it's been so hot. You know it's hot when they don't come to get there breakfast of peanuts and sunflower seeds. The birds don't chatter as much either atleast not till 8:30 or so. My friend Mike at work came back today after being in a accident on Sunday. He was ridding in a pick-up truck; in the back, when the driver made a sharp turn and he fell out at 30 mph. He wasn't seriously hurt though. Just a bump on the head a scatched up elbow and about 2 weeks of whiplash. He shall recover though.
Well that all I know for now. Tomorrow is August 1st so entries will be on another page.
6:35pm