Winter Olympics 2002

Watching the Olympics tonight, specifically the Women's Bobsled, reminded me to an amazing experience I had while working at Verizon.  Verizon was an Olympic sponsor for the 2002 games and offered lunch with four Olympic athletes to employees via a drawing.  I was one of the lucky winners and sat next to Jill Bakken, winner of a gold medal with Vonetta  Flowers in the bobsled.  Jill was friendly, humble, blonde, athletic (obviously) and let me hold her gold medal.  How often do you get to hold an Olympic gold medal?!!

Here is some additional information about Jill:

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=43926

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Bakken

Dangerous Days

I stopped at an RV lot in town while doing errands today.  Found a used (2009) North Trail that I really liked the layout of:

http://www.heartlandrvs.com/models.html?model_id=74&id=7&name=&type=

I wouldn't have a bed of my own but the living area would be awesome.  I also like the windows in this one ... great view of the outside.  And instead of a regular gas over, there is a microwave.  Someone actually realized that people don't use the oven in their RV!  This model also has more storage than usual.

I can't wait until mother and I can start looking at RV's!

In the meantime I've got to get to work on this house.  Here's a short list of the things that have to be done before I can put the house on the market:

1. Texture dining room walls  3/15/2010 
2. Texture kitchen walls
3. Prime dining room walls
4. Paint dining room walls
5. Prime kitchen walls
6. Paint kitchen walls
7. Paint interior of kitchen cabinets
8. Install metal pull out shelves/drawers in two kitchen cabinets
9. Paint exterior of kitchen cabinets
10. Install hinges, door knobs and drawer pulls
11. Hang cabinet doors
12. New baseboards in living room
13. Wood flooring in dining room
14. Paint upstairs bathroom ceiling
15. Paint wood work in upstairs bathroom
16. Touch up blue paint in upstairs bathroom
17. Paint back door
18. Install new sink and faucets in downstairs kitchen
19. Sand and paint fence
20. Install fence on other side of house
21. Spruce up flower beds

Things I should do:

1. Strip wallpaper in blue bedroom, texture and paint
2. Strip wallpaper in mother's room, texture and paint
3. Strip wallpaper in hallway, texture and paint
4. Paint all woodwork
5. Paint downstairs

I'm tired and need to rest now.

A Winter Day in the Life of ...

I'm not proud of it but this morning I put on shoes, threw a coat over my pajamas and went to Sonic (Rt 44 Diet Dr Pepper and bacon/egg/cheese burrito for me) and Hardee's (egg and cheese bisquit for mother). The temp was 20 degrees and it was snowing slightly. On the way home I snapped a few pictures to illustrate my current world.


This picture was taken on Kansas Street and shows a church with snow piled in front. The sidewalks are clean but there's no place to put the accumulated snow.






This is the corner of Mt Rushmore and Kansas. Note the pile of snow in the corner of the parking lot. Again no other place to put the snow. There are piles of snow like this in virtually every parking lot in town.





This picture shows West Blvd, the main street in our neighborhood. I walk the dogs in the esplanade in the center.







These are just a couple of houses in the neighborhood. Did I mention that we live in an historical district? Probably 20% of this houses are single family converted into multi family dwellings. I've only seen the inside of one and it was very well done.