Record Temps

We are experiencing record temps here in Oregon. It is more than hot it is sweltering. The last couple of nights the lightning storms have moved in. These storms are caused because of the heat and they are responsible for most of the forest fires we experience. Right now most of the lightning strikes are causing small fires. So far the fire crews are able to get to them quickly and get them put out before they gain any real size. If we have a large one get started, it will be difficult to get it under control due to the heat. I do not envy the fire fighters at all. I respect the job they do becasue I have went through the forest fire training camp. It was a mandatory part of one of the jobs I had. (Boy does that bring back memories) As far as I am concerned it is one of the most dangerous and demanding jobs I can think of.
Other than that we are not doing a whole lot. The job is keeping us busy as all get out but after work we just come home and hide out in the air conditioning. It would be nice to get a couple days of cooler weather but it is not in the forecast, at least not this week. Well time to get to work. I will update more of this later.

Keeps getting hotter

It is currently 111 degrees downtown and 113 degrees here on the property. And I thought yesterday was hot ! there is a slight breeze but it sure is not helping much. Laurie just consigned me to the office for the rest of the day. YUK!

108 Degrees here

Yesterday was actually the warmest day of the year so far. It hit 108 on our parking lot. Medford had 105 (official temp). At 4:30 am it was still 70 degrees out. All I know for sure is that it was hot. I kept thinking about a conversation Michelle and I had at one time where she said that she would never move to Oregon because it was to "cold" Everytime I think of that conversation I have to chuckle to myself. Right now we are warmer than Florida is! I do have to admit that the heat effects us here on the west coast more than it does those living in Florida. We just are not used to it here! The predictions are for more high temps this week. And we still are not to the hot part of the year. YUK!
Other than work there has not been a lot going on here. Laurie and I are trying to walk every evening. If the weather cools enough that we can do it safely. We have been walking an average of 2 miles a night. My Mom walks with us. She loves it!
At present it looks like I am going to be on the road a bit this coming month I have got to be in Salem ( 200 miles away) twice in August. It is for a board meeting and training. Then we are hosting a training session here on property later in the month. Hopefully we will be caught up with our unit turnovers by then. So far we have had 11 turnovers in the last month. Ed and I are both getting tired of painting units. It just seems like it has been non-stop.

Hot again

This last week has been a hot one! With temps hitting in excess of 100 degrees it has made work a bit of a sweatbox. We are still trying to get empty apartments rehabbed so we can get them rented. But the heat has taken quite a tole on us. It can be rather interesting trying to paint in this heat.
We are trying to stay inside as much as possible, but like always the tenants wait until it is hotter than hot before they decide they need an air conditioner. And of course they want it installed this instant! The weatherman says we are going to get this for at least another week or so before we get any kind of cooling.
Shorty and Samantha sure are funny in this heat. They like to lay on the table out on the patio and then when they get to hot they come in and flop in front of the air conditioner. But before you know it they are right back out sunbathing again. :) If they are not out on the patio table they are on the window ledge in their room. They sure are silly.

Mom and Laurie planted tomatoes this year. It is amazing how well they are doing. I get a kick out of Mom as every time she walks by them she has to stop and take inventory. She just cannot get over how big they are getting. I have a feeling when they start getting ripe they are going to be able to feed half the complex here with tomatoes. :)

Mom's Suprise.

This last week we heard that an old friend of the family had died. Mom has been a little down by it but we all know it is better for him, as he is no longer suffering. Then this morning I got a call from Mom, and she was very very excited!! An old friend of hers had called her this morning and was on her way over to see Mom. It was really good to hear her be so excited!! Was was like a kid in a toystore that could get anything they wanted. It has been fun watching the two of them. they have really enjoyed the visit. Moms friend (Linda) is going to be in town a few days visiting her family. So they will get some time to visit. We just got back from dinner. They insisted that we go with them, we all had a great time but we all ate to much. Laurie claims she really blew her diet this evening. But she will be right back after it tomorrow.

End of the Week Yaaaa!!!

It's Friday !! Yaaaa!!! Boy what a week this has been, busy busy and hot! Today, the last time I saw a temp it was 103 degrees Tomorrow it will probably seem chilly, as it is only supposed to get to 95 or so. Should make for a nice weekend though.

The day of the refrigerators

This morning I got a call at about 8:00am telling me that the 5 refrigerators I had ordered would be here sometime between 9:00 am and 11:00 am. At a couple minutes after 9:00 the Sears truck pulled in with our load of refrigerators. I had to laugh because they had a refrigerator strapped onto the lift gate. They looked like a gypsy wagon gone awry. :) Ed and I made short work getting the things unloaded and ready to install. On several of them we had to reverse the doors so that they swing open the proper way. This is much easier for us to do before moving them into the apartment. By the time we got done with changing the doors we were dripping in sweat. Thankfully we only had one that had to go upstairs. Anyway we hurried up and got them all installed in 2 1/2 hours. Pretty good for a couple of old men. :) By this afternoon the temp was getting to the point of just plain hot. we actually reached 102 today! Right now it is still 99 degree hot out and it is 8:30 pm. Thankfully we have good air conditioning in our apartment. So we will be able to sleep tonight. Tomorrow we have our monthly breakfast in the rec room for our tenants

100 degrees today

The weatherman was right and we did reach 100 degrees here today. Right now it is 97 degrees at 6:00pm. But there is slight breeze so it is actually very nice out. Not much happening here today other than the same old stuff. We have been having an increase in crime around here lately. The other night we had someone get stabbed by his cousin just down the block from us. And the night before that there was a ruckus at a bar about a mile down the road and a guy shot off a pistol into the air. The police chased him, his getaway vehicle was a BMX type bike. He ended up at the old trailer court across the highway behind us. When the police asked his girlfriend if he was there she told them no. But they found him hiding behind the fence. The police turned loose a police dog on him and he hit the dog. They ended up apprehending him and he is now in the county jail on charges of assaulting a police officer ( the dog) and his girlfriend is also in jail for lying to the cops. It was also the girls 25th birthday. Bet she does not forget this one, wow what a birthday present A trip to jail!! This has all happened within the week and just a couple of blocks from us. Guess it is just another sign of how bad the economy really is here.

Sure is quiet

I was sitting her this morning doing my daily log when I realised just how quiet it is around here. I guess I started getting used to the controlled chaos that was always present when kids are around while we were at Michelles. I really do not know how she does it day, after day, after day. My hat is off to you Michelle!! I find it interesting that I actually sort of miss that chaos. It is so quiet around here that I feel like something is missing.

The weather is going to be a hot one today, we are supposed to be up to 100 today, 101 tomorrow, and then back to 100 on Friday. At least we do not have the humidity that Florida does. That is a good thing.

Work Work And More Work

This week has started out with a bang!! So far in the last 5 days I have had several refrigerators fail on me. Last thursday I had 2 of them fail, At that point it was very inconvenient but nothing out of the ordinary. I ordered 3 replacements so I would have an extra one on hand just in case. Then over the weekend I had 2 more refrigerators fail. So it was back to the store to get a couple more ordered. At this point all 5 of them will be delivered on thursday. At this point I am thankful that we had a couple of empty apartments that I could steal the refrigerators out of until the new ones arrive. Sure hurt the budget though. I actually found myself wondering why I came back from vacation. I think I needed a few more days.

Dolphins at Clearwater, Florida

After starting to recover from the jetlag and dealing with some issues here on the property I finally got a chance to go back and review some of the video that was taken during our vacation. I find myself coming back to view this segment of video over and over. It is totally amazing to me that the dolphins come this close to land and people. They are a beautiful sight. I also loved how excited Michelle becomes whenever she sees them. I will have a lot of great memories of this trip for years to come. Taking a vacation in Florida with our family has to be one of the biggest highlights of my life. Thank you so much Michelle and family for allowing this to happen. I love all of you!!

While the Managers away ........

I found myself wondering if I should have stayed in Florida reather than coming home. When we got home we knew we were going to be busy with catching up and all but having to take care of some of these other issues makes me wonder if coming home was the best choice :) ( just kidding)
We had a tenants son and girlfriend start a fight wheile we were gone and they threw around some flower pots and such tried to intimidate Ed our worker, etc. I knew this had happened before I left Florida and knew I would have to take care of it when we got home. So yesterday and today I have been dealing with that issue and throwing people off property issueing no tresspass orders on them etc. Today I also found out that I had 2 refrigerators die on me, So off to Sears, on the way I talked to the boss and she decided that I had better order a third refrigerator, and an extra water heater. She figures that by the time we get these delivered we will have another one to replace. And she is probably right. Anyway today was extremely busy for both Laurie and I trying to get things taken care of and get things back to normal around here. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little better.

Back Home

We arrived back home last night a little after 6:00pm It was a mixed blessing. Part of us wants to be home yet part of us wants to be back with the family. The trip home was really something, the flights were packed like sardines and then we hit a little rough weather. The pilots were great and did everything they could to avert the rough spots but it still reminded me of being a sardine in a can that had been tossed into a blender. LAX was a joke. Those people that work there have to be the most unfriendly people I have ever met. When I asked them a question I was looked at and treated like I was a total "idiot that fell off the planet turnip". It was hard but I kept my cool as best as I could. I found myself getting frustrated alot.

Laurie was frustrated because she could not find anywhere to have a cigarette. She would have to go outside and then come back through security ech time she had to have one. I have no idea why she did not take some nicorette or something with her, we had talked about it before we left home. Anyway it sure makes me glad I quit that nasty habit long ago.We really enjoyed ourselves while in Florida. I found everyone that I had contact with pleasant, they have a tendency to treat everyone with diginity and respect. It was a nice change of pace for me.

Florida is a Beautiful State I am quite impressed with the cleanliness of it. I do not know what I expected but with the very large population in that area I guess I expected it to be more like Southern California. Boy was I wrong. I was also surprised to find highways that are layed out in a way that really makes sense. And I only came across a couple of places where the road was under construction, unlike Oregon where you cannot drive anywhere without the roads being under construction. Our highway engineers could learn alot from Florida.

The beach was interesting to me. I am used to the grainy sand we have here but in Florida it was more like a talcum powder. It actually supported your weight when you walked across it. And the beach was clean. Everywhere you looked there were people but I saw very little trash scattered around. When we walked on the beach we all left our shoes in a pile up by a grandstand where they preform music ( something you do not see in Oregon) I expected to come back to nothing. But when we came back, to my surprise the shoes were exactly as we had left them.

I had to laugh when I heard the news announcer warning everyone that the temp of the water had dropped by one degree and that the water temp was now 83 degrees. I know it had to do with the weather and the possibility of storms caused by the changes in water temp but the thought that crossed my mind was " what is this, is he afraid they might get a chill?" Our water temp here in Oregon never seems to get above 56 degrees, even in the hotest of summers. It was a nice treat to be able to walk in the water without freezing your toes off.

I think I can speak for both of us when I say that we are going to be making the trip again. Now that Laurie "knows" that she can do it.

The smell good shirt

Erin was really funny. Every time I turned around she was coming over and smelling my shirt. When I asked her what she was doing she told me she loved the smell of my clothes. I told her that she needed to thank Grandma Laurie because she was the one who did the laundry. Erin immediatly went over and told Grandma Laurie thanks for doing the laundry Grandpa's clothes smell good.

I was surprised at all the brightly colored umbrellas on the beach. These were placed on a wall to protect venders from the breeze.
The sand is totally different from that on the West Coast. Here in Florida it is a fine white powder instead of the yellow course sandd we have in Oregon. I rolled up the old pant legs and went for a walk in the surf and was amazed at how warm the water is. The water is 84 degrees here. Sure a lot different than at home. I had to laugh today when there was a warning on the radio that because of heavy rains this last week the temp of the water is down to 83 degrees. Now that sure is somenthing we do not hear at home.

The front of one of the motels downtown Clearwater.

Laurie and Tony

Thoughts

I am sitting here enjoying the peace and quiet this morning. It is hard to believe that there are nine people in this house. I know that it will not be long before it becomes very hectic around here. But for the moment I am enjoying the peace and quiet.

I really enjoyed watching Zaye get a baking lesson from Michelle yesterday. It was quite obvious that they were both enjoying themselves. It was really cool to watch the interaction between them. He is very eager to learn.

The flight across country was very beautiful and I enjoyed it alot. I found that most of the time I was looking out the window watching all the beauty go past. I was amazed when I was able to see the windmills that dotted the land in the midwest. Very surprised when I realized that I was actually able to see the blades turning in the wind. I am sure that in the next decade there will be more of these magnificant giants than we can even emagine now. I see them as the wave of the future for electricity generation.
I am so used to living in an area where your neighbors are right next door that I was very surprised when we flew over an area where you would see farm sitting out in the middle of a vast area of nothing, except fields and the closest neighbor was at least a mile away. I guess I expected that everywhere in the country was as populated as we are in Oregon.
Then when we landed here in Florida I discovered that we are in an area where it is a carpet of people for as far as you can see. One guy told me that the greater Tampa Bay area has a population of 2.2 million people. I believe it. Laurie told me that I would find it hard to believe how clean it is in Florida and she is right! We went to Clearwater Beach yesterday and the first thing I noticed was the lack of garbage. Sure there were a few things here and there but everything is amazingly clean. Even the public restrooms at the beach were clean. I guess I expected to see all sorts of graphiti and such but you do not see that here. I have not seen even one building defaced with graphiti the way they are in Oregon.

We are in Florida

Although I still cannot believe it we are actually on Florida!!!!
Laurie really surprised me and seemed to enjoy the flight, At least the first part of them. The plane we were on from Atlanta to Tampa made a lot of weird noises and that unsettled her a little. But other than that the flights went very smooth.

this is my first visit ever to Florida actually to the East coast period. It is a beautiful place from what I have seen so far but I don't know if I could ever get used to the flat ground. Sure a lot different than I am used to.

Looking forward to what this week has to offer. I am sure we will both enjoy every minute of it.