GONNA NEED MORE CEMENT......

To all of my beloved family and friends.....

I have a love HATE relationship with Face book.   I like the idea of social networks and stuff but the sheer drudgery of it all is exhausting.  I agree with Betty White, who when asked about Face book said, "I think it just looks like a complete waste of time".  Of course she is in her late 80's. 

My main complaint is that when I get those lovely little emails (Today from three relatives) who have modified THEIR pages to say I am their Aunt, Friend, etc and would I CONFIRM that please?

Er okay,  oh doesn't like my pass word.  Looked up Face book password in a special security file I keep separately.  Hmm, that is what I typed in.  Okay try new pass word...several times.  Finally got email saying go here and proceed to change password.  Got message saying I had exceeded the password sign on limits.

Crap!   Please let be known that I adore you all, but I freaking HATE FACE BOOK.

Is that knit one purl two?

The two guys in the bucket are applying long pieces of metal rods up and down and crosswise to the hill side, every five feet or so is a line of black plastic drainage kind of thing.  The schedule is that they will shoot concrete Monday.  That could get messy.  Almost ALL of the dirt has been scooped up by TWO orange Hitachi machines into multiple dump trucks and hauled off to a mill pond somewhere close that is rapidly becoming full of dirt.

Someone had taken a picture of Neuschwanstein Castle (Sleeping Beauty) and pasted it to a picture somewhat similar to above and posted it on the bulletin board in the dining room.  Then written "Update on East parking lot project".  I laughed, someone didn't think it was funny and took it down. 

I love work, I could watch it all day long....

Mud slide slowly being chewed into submission. The blue machine thingy is one of TWO identical blue machines that got driven, pulled up to the second level of help workers reach bits and pieces of stuff.

Freaking straight DOWN view of the dirt removal taking place at creek bed level. 

The wooden forms were pulled off the stair well, looks a bit like an orphan monument at the moment but eventually it will become part of the parking lot etc.

We are hoping the parking lot in back gets finished SOON, as you can see some of us are parked THREE DEEP.  If the person in front wants out, it involves a big tip to the car parking attendant.  Not.  My driver continues to faithfully drag me to work and pick me up promptly about 4 pm-ish.

Oh yes, we have been enjoying SUNSHINE here while the rest of the country shovels snow and dreads travel . We are supposed to get another sunshiny week of this.  Unbelievable.

SLURP WITH PARTIAL SUNSHINE

This is the view currently outside my window at work.  That is a wonderful mudslide out there, when the little tractor tread bobcat drives up mud goes before it in about a foot high wave, strange to see a wave of mud head up hill.   Bob cat busy all day hauling stuff up and hauling stuff down.   Dump trucks taking off several yards of dirt.  I will take a better picture once the level of dirt has dropped about half way, the mud slide will essentially be cut in half.

This is a picture from the parking lot looking down at the clinic.
The wood structure going up is for a stairwell, impressive ain't it?

We enjoyed a half day of sunshine today, weatherman promised another half day tomorrow if we all behaved ourselves. 

General chit chat...

The nice lady is there to help wind him up.

A few items for consideration.  Husband I celebrated out sixteenth wedding anniversary, I think that is stainless steel at this point.  We are both a little amazed and gratified that we are only nine years away from the big old 25th silver etc.  So we went to Bennetti's (they had sent a 30% off coupon!!) and had our favorites Veal Picatta and Steak with Gorgonzola sauce.  We decided against telling them it was our anniversary when the waitstaff sang a rather nice harmonized rendition of Happy Birthday to  the couple at the next table.

I recently received a late Christmas Card from Vickie Valenzuela (Barnes) from Baker City, Oregon.
She included a nice picture of her family, everyone looks wonderful.   She said she didn't get around to sending cards in 2009 because their old family dog died.   Just last year she underwent surgery for CA of the tail of the pancreas and she thinks they got it all.   She is already a breast cancer survivor.  Support the Pink Ribbon Brigade please.

So will someone tell me what Shorty's name is? Roger?  I can't remember but I do remember a fierce sunburn and nearly drowning in the Powder River.  I kept my  Red Cross swimming certificate for years after that.   

Good health to all of your medical endeavors,  keep a stiff upper lip...tissue? 

OH....THAT'S WHERE THE RE BAR WENT....

You may have to click to enlarge but the re bar has been seated around those drill holes looks like they used some 2 x 4's to hold them in place.  There was a big old cement truck parked in back as we left work this afternoon.  I'll take a peek tomorrow to see if it looks any different. 

I don't ordinarily enjoy football.....

But the Oregon Ducks qualified for the BCS game against Auburn and their Heisman Trophy winner, Cal Newton, and beautiful 6 foot 6 Cal did not have it easy, he keep tripping over Ducks everywhere he went.
I watched the game yesterday, given how little I know about the game (two sets of men wrestling over territory and a ball)  I enjoyed it.   The Tigers outweighed the Ducks for FORTY pounds EACH.  That alone should have carried some weight and it did mostly named Fairly, HUGE guy keep picking Ducks out of his teeth.  The Ducks fought for a 19 to 19 score, went into over time and during second over time with two seconds left on the clock, Auburn kicked a field goal and that was that.  There is mourning in Mudville today.  But not too much mourning after all the Ducks are a class act.  PS;  BCS stands for Bowl Championship Series. There are far more acronyms out there at the moment but we don't want to go postal here. 

SIGNAGE AND EROSION CONTROL

Here's yer sign...

This is not snow, it is several hundred yards of plastic sheeting held in place by sandbags, it has been raining a lot being Oregon, winter etc and there was some worry that we need to keep the parking lot where it is for a couple more months.  You should have seen the two guys suiting up in straps and rappelling down the cliff deploying the plastic sheeting.   They were stoutly secured to a largish forklift boom truck.  All got done in one afternoon.

This is a whole bunch of re bar, it will go somewhere in the project.

John Henry was a steel drivin' man.....

and his momma probably made sour dough pancakes for him.
The machine you see above is a steam powered device that is
drilling/pounding those 40 feet worth of pipe into the bank.
There is a series of green spray painted circles about five feet apart where each of the next set of drill holes will go.  This is only the first layer of holes.  Once those holes are filled, they will massage more dirt to make a lower layer and drill another line of holes.  I figure out about three to four levels of holes will get them down to level with the back of the hospital. 

I put the sour dough starter to work last night by adding two cups of milk and two cups of flour and let it sit in the oven over night.  This morning I took one cup each in two quart jars. One jar is ear marked for one of husband's friends who has made it known that he would like a starter.  There ya go.   I also discovered from an older blog of First Nation that she has a starter that she also drags out and feeds every once in a while.  She puts a tablespoon or so of honey in her starter and lets it sit in the window for the day.  I tried that about a month ago because shamefully the last time I made sour dough pancakes was back in 09-17-10.  So a tablespoon of honey saved it.  Now it tastes just as sour as I remember Mom's tasting. 
Too bad blogger does not have smell-o-vision.   My pancakes were very tasty this morning.  Now I need a nap. ...yawn.....

AND NOW BACK TO THE REMODELING PROJECT

The white pipe things on the far right side of the picture are indeed large plastic pipes each twenty feet long.   They will be drilled into the slopes 40 feet deep.

Then they will be filled with shotcrete or gunite used for swimming pools and this will stabilize the slopes.  The shotcrete is resting on
those pallets over there next to the portable biffy.

The orange Hitachi machine continues to spit chunks of dirt into the dump trucks at an amazing rate, there is some nice terracing going on down slope.   The weather the last couple of days has been amazingly clear and cold, very crispy here on the Southern Oregon coast, we don't do well in bright sunshine, we get distracted, disoriented and grumpy....must have clouds.

TODAY WAS ONE OF THOSE DAYS WHERE YOU MUST RUN AWAY...

So I did, left work about 1 pm went shopping for ingredients to make meatloaf and tootled home.

I diced an onion, diced half a Bell pepper, diced a couple ribs of celery, sliced a couple small carrots.  Mixed in couple pounds ground beef, one egg, half cup bread crumbs, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, cumin, garlic, tomato sauce.  Mix well.
Pat into loaves and put on top of sliced oiled quartered potatoes.
Bake 90 minutes at 350 degrees.  Tasty!  Next time if I use the holy trinity of veggies I believe I will saute everything until soft before mixing with the meat.  

I also should just start down load pictures of food porn rather than rely on my digital camera which is quite often out of focus and brown is the predominant color of the food.   Oh well....

I'm having meat loaf, slice of potato and a pear for lunch tomorrow, what are you having?

SATURDAY, January 1, 2011

I was called back to work today about 10 am to transcribe a stat ultrasound on a patient.  On my way out of the building, I paused to take a picture of the bright sunshiny scenery.  All that blue water you see?  (Click to enlarge) it the Coquille River at flood stage and known locally as "Winter Lake".  Flood stage is at 21 feet, water is 21.5 feet.  Later husband and I took a country drive to the small town of Arago for a visit with some friends.  It was gorgeous.  Our hostess prepared gingerbread and apple cake.  Easy recipe, slice fresh apples on bottom of pan, stir up gingerbread cake mix, bake, top with spiced whipped cream.  Delicious! 

HAPPY NEW YEARS!