There are millions of funny stories told by members of the Beck family in our times together. One of my favorites told by Weldon Beck. He worked with Beau Webb at the Fire Department and at Beau's 2nd job. Beau was an electrician. There was a conversation struck up with an old man about electrical work. The old man told Weldon, "It know two things about electricity". "It will light a light bulb....and it will kill you ass!" Truer words have not been spoken. One of my favorite sayings.
Monday August 29, 2011
So it was an extremely busy day at work again. It always is and I'm not complaining!! Strong work ethic plus hard work is happy but tired person! :)
The one redeeming item to the day....***MY LIGHTS ARE BACK ON!!!!******
So, it's 5:30 and I'm on my way home. I drive 60 minutes round trip to work, and I'd stopped for some Wendy's because I was too tired to cook. I received some texts from my college friend who lives in Wake Forest NC. Lynn told me that storms had just rolled through there and had plenty of straight line winds, hail and was just plain nasty! GREAT! I can't tell you how excited I was after this past week..... Sunday Week - Power out, lines down, and trees down in my neighborhood...couldn't even get in the neighborhood...stayed at my sisters house, that night I twisted my ankle and was hobbling around for the better part of a week, then Tuesday week - Earthquake that shook the East Coast from Ontario, Canada to Alabama. Saturday, Hurricane Irene and power out from 9AM Saturday to 4pm Tuesday....so coming home to a storm was not my idea of fun.
I pulled into the driveway where my neighbor Steve met me. He helped me get the generator in the garage. I had to pull the motorcycle out so it could be placed in there, and then we both pushed the bike in. He grabbed the almost empty gas cans and put them away for me and we both ran for our respective houses.
I was in the house moments before the sharpest lightning I think I've ever seen hit. Immediate thunder and that hot electric feeling in the air. Another 4 or 5 close lightning strikes and the real fun began.
The teens were watching a movie so I had them turn it off so we could view the cable (YAY it was back on!) to see news concerning the storm. One of the channels we found had live coverage. The weatherman told us the time to expect the storm to hit us. It was 10 miles away, then Joyners Cross Rds, 5 miles away, then it was right on top of us. Golf Ball sized hail hitting the house....I felt like I was in an ice machine. The teens and me, the puppy and the cat sitting in the hallway waiting it out. I then had conversations via phone with several people who were trying to see how we were. Zack called and he was stuck under an overpass just a mile down the road waiting for the storm to subside. The storm was actively over us for about 10 minutes. When it left, there was water running down the driveway, down the street (looked like a creek) and the ditch was full and appeared to be 5 or 6 feet wide and about 3 feet deep.
Now before all this happened, I'd run in and tried to close all the windows. I had trouble with one old storm window closing so I forced it. Bad move on my part. When it released it slammed 4 of my fingers (Middle and Index on both hands) under it. I was screaming I was in so much pain and so pissed that I did that. So I was sitting in the hallway with ice in a baggie wrapped around my hands. It just doesn't get better than that. In case this drama wasn't sufficient, the storm then headed for the farmhouse in Macclesfield...so I had to call Dad and get him to get out of his trailer and into the farmhouse. It's not finished yet, (remodeling) but it's liveable and being built in 1879, it's a lot sturdier than being in a trailer, under 2 HUGE 200 year old Oak trees..... He was okay and the storm went North of him. Unfortunately, the storm caused more damage for already hard hit Pinetops...where now there is even more fresh damage to power lines, trees, houses, etc. They are under a state of emergency. I was there on Sunday and the clerk couldn't sell beer and people were getting ticked. Yeah....glad I don't drink....
So - Now it's Tuesday evening and I've come home to realize that instead of turning on the air conditioner when the lights came back on....I turned on the heat. It was 80 degrees in here when I got here. I apologized to the pets and turned it on air and turned it back so it would cool off.
I have to run some errands and then I'm going to try to get a good nights sleep. Tomorrow is the last day of the month and my status report is due. Excellent news....my Project Plan (how I try to stay organized for work) is completely updated and I'm adding tasks so things don't get dropped. Here's hoping things will be better....
I'm praying for all of you on the East Coast still without power. May you be safe and have power, air conditioning and everything straight very soon.
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