Sunday, May 29, 2011

More pix

5-27-11
Look what is parked in the middle of the street in front of our house.

5-28-11
The temporary cast put on Fran's ankle after her surgery.
Dr. Blint signed her toe "B".
The water shutdown notice and boil order. The water was off the 27th while they tied in a replacement main.
Rescinding the boil order.
5-29-11
Today's grocery list.

View from Fran's window at the rehab place. Gloomy and rainy day.

It was rainy and windy today. Several of the barricades in the street blew over.

Rock Cut State Park 5-28-11

Wilma and I walked on the bike trails. It was probably pretty muddy in the woods after all the mud. It is the same route we walked once before.

99 minutes, probably closer to 3 miles than to the 4 miles I reported it as last time.

We saw a couple mallards and a deer, and many birds. Very exciting. The very blurry deer video starts at about 4:50.

For some reason the GPS log did not work all the way along the trail. It missed the first segment somehow. The display says the batteries are low so maybe that is what happened. Odd that it missed the first segment rather than one toward the end though.

The topo map shows Perryville Road going into the park. It really doesn't. It is the western border of the park. I looks like the topo map shows the park boundaries correctly along the western edge, but the road is just not shown where it really is.



Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Diet Royal Crown (RC) Cola

Previous diet soda reviews

I have always liked diet RC, but it is not always easy to get around here. Sometimes it has been in the stores and sometimes not. I think it was bought sometime ago by some other drink manufacturer and they are better at getting it placed in stores, so I have been seeing it more often of late. It is not like I drink a lot of cola, but diet RC is probably my favorite of the diet cola family. I rate it an A-. I would probably drink it more often if it was more readily available.



More random pix

5-22-11
Wilma and I take a nap. Wilma is the beagle in the picture.

Wilma visits Fran at the rehab place.

5-23-11
Seen on our morning walk.
Fran's new temporary splint they put on her last Thursday.

Monday, May 23, 2011

5-22-11 Storm damage

I took these pictures around the neighborhood this morning on my normal walk with the beagle. We had quite a storm pass through yesterday. Sorry for the blurriness of some of them. I have a new cell phone and I am not used to taking pictures with it yet. It appears that I accidentally deleted several that I took of stuff around the porch. I have not cleaned up yet so I will try to remember to take pictures first and add them to the end of the post.

Yesterday after lunch, Wilma and I went to visit my wife at the rehab place. We stayed until supper time and then I brought Wilma home. As I was getting home, it started to sprinkle. I made myself some supper and while I was eating it, it started to rain quite hard. I got 6 text messages from the weather channel warning of a severe thunderstorm. All six came after the heavy rain started and two came after it had stopped. It only rained hard for maybe 10 minutes, so I took the opportunity to go visit my wife in the rehab place where she is staying. On the way there I received three more severe thunderstorm warning text messages.

While I was there, my wife was watching local weather. The stations are all physically located to the west of town so they saw it first. The weather people on several of the stations went and hid in the basements of the stations as the storm passed over. The worst of it only lasted a few minutes as the storm was moving at 60+ mph. I did not count them up, but while I was there I got at least five more messages of severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings.

The rehab place got all the patients out of their rooms and put them in the hallway when their weather radio indicated a tornado warning. The lights blinked a few times, and there was marble size hail for about 30 seconds, but that was about it.

I left later on and went home. More text messages on the way home including a flash flood warning. On the way I saw a neighborhood adjacent to ours with no power, but our power was still on. There was some small branches down in our yard, and part of a tree blew over across the road in front of the house. Part of the fence belonging to the cemetery next door blew over, as did our decorative windmill. Oddly, a very heavy planter (maybe 40 pounds) full of dirt blew off the porch railing.

I went out with my mag light and looked around. Did not appear to be any serious damage. It had been lightly raining since I left the rehab place and while I was outside it started raining a little heavier so I went inside. Later a police car came and sat in front of our house with his lights on by the downed tree. He did not stay long. A ComEd truck and a fire truck were also out there for a short time.

I was awakened at 3:55 this morning by an explosion outside my bedroom window. The power went out so I guess the explosion was related to the power lines running by the house. I went and got my cell phone and set the alarm on it for 4:30 and went back to sleep. The cell phone only allows a snooze time of 5 minutes. My clock radio allows 7 minutes. It seems like a big difference somehow.

Anyway we got up eventually and went for our walk. I took some pictures of the storm damage along the way. Lots of small branches down, a few big limbs, and some good size trees that blew over down the street, along with the one across the street from us. I couldn't make breakfast due to the lack of power. Had to unhook the garage door to open it up - no power for the garage door opener. Stopped at McDonalds on the way to get a couple biscuit and sausage sandwiches. They were quite busy. I guess lots of people were stopping to get breakfast there due to lack of power.







At Logli supermarket.





















These are from in front of our house.





Look close and you can see a wire in there.

The fence in our side yard. the fence belongs to someone else.

E.T.A.
I took these after I got home today. These first photos are of the tree still in the road in front of the house.


Note the electric wire under the fallen tree going to the house across the street. I wonder if he has power. It's laying on the ground part way.

The windmill blew over.

This planter full of dirt blew off the railing on our front porch.

[added - these pix were taken on our morning walk of 5-24-11. Wilma selected a different route this morning, so these pictures are from another area in the neighborhood.]







I took this in the evening of 5-24-11. This is the tree that was in the road in front of our house. Someone has cut up the part that was in the road and moved it off the road.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

More stuff

5-16-11
Frans temporary splint from the ER just before it was removed.

After it was removed.

The construction people have barricaded the street.

5-17-11
Plants at CVS.

More construction pix.

They dug up some of the pavers they put in last year.

Note clever use of duct tape.

5-19-11
Something Wilma and I saw on our morning walk.
Sewer pipe waiting to be put in.

The new electric poles are being put to use.

The electric company doing more work on the new electric poles.

5-20-11
I guess they did not have time to put this transformer up yesterday when they were here.


The transformer is now installed on the pole.

5-21-11
Water store party! Wilma got two weiners, a hot dog bun, and 1 and a half donut holes. I was only going to give her half of my donut hole but the water store lady insisted Wilma get another hole and a hot dog. The hot dog lady gave me an extra weiner for her too. They must think she is starving.

Grocery list.