« March 2004 | Main | May 2004 »

April 27, 2004

Sigh

So much going on...so little time lately. I've been helping my grandma (87 years old) buy a new car. I think she's going to get a little 2000 Ford Escort. She's been driving an 86 Chevy S-10 pickup...it's a 5 speed and she just needs something better.

Today is the 3 year anniversary of my dad's death. So I've been dealing with the feelings that come with that too. :-(

Posted by Pepperguy at 05:50 AM | Comments (2)

April 20, 2004

From the top.

I just realized there's no link to browse from the beginning and read all the way through. Not sure why anyone but me would want to, but I'll make it available anyhow. Click here to hit the first post and start wading through the minutia.

Posted by Pepperguy at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2004

MS Walk

Thanks to everyone who supported us in the MS Walk this season. It was a beautiful morning for the walk and our t-shirts and hats were a big hit.
In the picture below, the men are Ravi, myself and Pete Thompson, and in front the ladies are Dorie, Maryellen (Mellen), and Meegan Thompson. As a team we raised almost $3000 for the National MS Society!! We rock!!

Posted by Pepperguy at 08:11 PM | Comments (1)

April 12, 2004

Driveway

The driveway is done. I've got some pictures, but will post them later. I'm pretty pumped. The area is WAY bigger than it seemed prior to paving. I think it'll make a super basketball court!

Played my trumpet for Easter Sunday service. The solo piece with choir went REALLY well, and the quartet piece with the choir went alright. All-in-all, people loved it!

Pretty crappy weather here.

I've raised over $1000 for the MS walk this year!! That's about $300 more than last year! Thanks to everyone who helped out. If you HAVEN'T and want to, you can pay pal me. Use webmaster@ay-ziggy-zoomba.com for the recipient if you would please. The walk is the 18th.

OH...and I'm pretty pumped. We're going to see Harry Connick Jr. again on 5/12! It's been 4 or 5 years since we last saw him. I can't wait!!

Posted by Pepperguy at 09:39 PM | Comments (3)

April 08, 2004

Blue Lou

Had an amazing evening of jazz last night. Got home, picked up Maryellen and we went to have dinner in BG at El Camino Real...awesome food! Then we went over to the music building on campus for the concert. This is the 14th year I've attended the BGSU Faculty Jazz ensemble concert on Wednesday night of jazz week. I first wandered over as a sophomore in college and have been hooked since.

This year they had a special guest. Blue Lou Marini, who, if you've seen the Bluse Brothers, you've seen. He's an AMAZING sax player. He played tenor and soprano last night and was just hot. The other real treat was an octagenarian vibraphone player who looked so feeble and like he was going to fall over when he wasn't playing...but really got hot when he played.

It was truly one of the best nights of music I've ever been a part of. Plus I got to give Blue Lou a copy of a photo I took of him, his dad, his uncle and his brother from back in October. He was very gracious and seemed to really like the photo!

Posted by Pepperguy at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2004

Brought to you by the letter G

Everyone needs to watch the Sesame Street 35th Anniversary Special airing from 8-9PM this Sunday, April 4, on PBS stations nationwide.

You know, I don't thing Guy Smiley has aged a day in the past 35 years!! ;-)

I understand Norah Jones will be a guest singing "Don't know 'Y'." Yes, really!

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere fishy fishy fishy!!

Posted by Pepperguy at 10:33 AM | Comments (3)

April 03, 2004

Driveway saga...

So...here's the deal. I told you we were getting our little driveway area paved with concrete. Well, the people that are doing it called on Thursday and said, "Hey, we've got some time tomorrow, can we come break up the chunk of concrete that's in there now and leave it smoothed out with just gravel and sand until we can pour the concrete? We'll have it all done by noon." I said sure...why not. SO...the guy showed up at about the same time I was leaving to go to work on Friday AM. He had one of those little bobcat bulldozer things and a trailer.

Well, I get an email from Maryellen at about 9 when she got up saying that the bobcat was there, the trailer was there full of busted up concrete, and everything was blocking her car in the garage, but there was no one there. Sooooooo... I told her maybe the guy went to lunch or for coffee or something. She emailed me back at 2 and said nothing had changed. Hmmmmmmmm....

Then at about 4 she called me and said there was a lady out there who pulled up and crawled into the bobcat thing...then just left again. So I called the couple, got no answer and had to leave a message. No one had called us with a status update, and Maryellen's car was trapped in the garage.

I got home, nothing had changed, so I called them again and left a message...not nasty, but I wanted to make sure they knew that Maryellen had to work on Saturday and needed to be able to get out of the garage. We then went to the local high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and then went over to Genoa and bought a few groceries.

We got home at about 11:30 or so and the the woman and some other guy were in back unloading all the concrete off the trailer. Apparently the guy who had been there in the AM (the woman's husband) hurt himself on the job and was in the hospital. SO she was stuck b/c she didn't know how to drive the bobcat. Apparently she got this other guy to help out, but they couldn't get the trailer out with all the busted up concrete on it because our neighbor had parked poorly and kind of blocked the route in alley. SO...I changed and helped them unload about 4 tons of broken up concrete off of their trailer back into our driveway at midnight in the cold and dark. Then they loaded the bobcat back up on the trailer and left.

THEN...today she called and said her husband is OUT of the hospital now and they're going to come first thing tomorrow and finish what they started and hopefully then be able to pour the concrete one evening this week.

I had to go out there today and smooth out the gravel and move a couple big chunks of concrete out of the way just so I could get Maryellen's car out of the garage.

I guess it'll all be worth it...but it sure isn't going as planned at this point.

Posted by Pepperguy at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)