Hello on Thursday

Dear Friends,

The pitter patter of rain drops hitting the bedroom air conditioner was enough to wake me up. Should we think about building an Ark like the Biblical character Noah did? You know that you have had too much rain when you see mushrooms growing in our lush lawn. I am guessing that people who normally get water in their basements are going through another round of cleanup. I know that some friends who have sump pumps installed in their basements can here the pumps running 24 / 7. By chance I checked on the basement for a friend who is out of town yesterday afternoon. I left after removing 6 or 7 wet vacuum buckets, and the water was still trickling in as I departed. Oh Darn!

Our golf course sent out a newsletter yesterday saying that a women's golf tournament has been cancelled, and it won't be rescheduled. The course has so much water on it right now that they are not letting out golf carts. Our Dalton friend's golf course is usually worse off than my golf course because there is a brook that meanders through the whole golf course. Well, the meandering creek shut down the course for several days when Hurricane Irene passed through. I am guessing that it is shut down for sure right now.

Speaking of this golf course, UNICO will be cooking hotdogs and hamburgers for a Big Brother's and Big Sisters Golf tournament next Wednesday at the Dalton course. I volunteered to help out. I am not sure what happens if the course gets shut down next Wednesday.

It does seem that we are in a pattern where the recent rash of Hurricanes head right for the Northeast and Western Pennsylvania and Western New York, and deposit a whole bunch of rain.

Our day did go as planned on Wednesday. I made the pick up of our friend from Therapy at 9 AM. While I was in the same complex, I went next door to Orthopedics, and made an appointment with the Physician's Assistant. I have a 9:15 PM appointment this morning. Linda is socially engaged this morning too. Linda did do some recreational shopping with the friend that I picked up.

Social Calendar -- Linda has a Red Hat Breakfast at 9:30 AM at a place called "On a Roll" in downtown Pittsfield. She also has a luncheon meeting with some girlfriends who meet every couple of months to catch up on what all of our children, and grandchildren are doing. She better eat a light breakfast.

My strained Achilles has been feeling great since we came back from the Dominican Republic several weeks ago. Well, today it is aching quite a bit.
It is like when you have had an injury, and your body can detect a change in the weather. I hurt enough right now that I might be back wearing the boot for a while. I didn't do anything over the past few days to strain it, but it feels like I have to pay attention to it right now which hasn't been the case for several weeks. Oh Darn!

Sports -- I couldn't bear to watch the Red Sox go down to defeat last night after squandering an 8 to 5 lead in the later innings of the game. The Red Sox had a chance to pick up a game on the Yankees who lost an extra inning game earlier in the day.

The first professional football game of the season takes place this evening.
It will be broadcast on a NFL Network Channel which I refuse to pay extra for. Oh Darn! The two teams who will be battling each other are some of the best teams in professional football.

Politics -- Our President is ready to announce a jobs / economic recovery initiative tonight. Yes, my conservative friends are already saying why hasn't he done this several months ago? I repeat that I didn't know that the government was responsible for creating jobs. Well, with all the damage done by the recent hurricanes, and the fires in Texas, the construction industry should be looking up. The problem is the people in the flood ravaged areas won't be getting insurance money to rebuild unless they had purchased flood insurance. Oh Darn!

I put out the garbage last evening when it wasn't raining. This week "Paper"
is the recycling object. I wouldn't want to lift the paper recycling bucket after all the rain which has fallen overnight.

A mosquito was just flying around my body with the hope of getting some delicious blood. When the rain stops, I would bet that sitting out on the deck would be impossible. Our city decided to stop spending money on spraying for Mosquitoes this year. We citizens will be paying for this cost savings measure.

Speaking about cost cutting, our county jail and the head Sheriff, Tom Bowler, who was a former student of mine, was informed that they are cutting his budget. The bad guys haven't stopped committing crimes so that it doesn't make sense for the State of Massachusetts to cut County Jail budgets. Is the Liberal State of Massachusetts hoping that crime has gone away?

Speaking of crime, I heard that they found the bodies of three men, one of which, were going to testify against a Hells Angel member. I will have to wait until the local newspaper comes out today to see if this rumor is true.
The Hells Angel guy was arraigned the other day on multiple charges of a whole bunch of not so nice things that he did. With respect to one of the charges, there are no witnesses if the rumor I heard was true. Oh Darn!

Have a great day at work or play!
I was going to say that I hope that you stay dry, but that won't happen for several days.
Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad