Write About My Life From Time To Time

Bad Car Accident On Christmas.

Charmaine and I were in a bad car accident on Christmas, luckily we are both okay though.

We were headed to Appleton to visit Charmaine’s relatives, and were leaving from Rhinelander. The weather was pretty bad with advisories and warnings all over the state, so we really should not have attempted it.

We just got past Antigo, and out of Langlade County, and into Shawano County, and at first we didn’t even know what town we were in, I had just saw a sign that said Shawano County, and we knew we were getting close to Birnamwood, but weren’t sure if we were there yet. We found out that we were in Aniwa.

The weather changed from mist with a little sleet, to rain, and then to snow, leaving the roads slushy.

Charmaine was driving, I was in the front passenger seat. We started sliding, first the back wheels slid to the left, and then to the right, I think this happened two times that she was able to correct. Then I think the back wheels went left and then right again, and then the car started sliding and spinning and it seems like it spun around twice but somehow we didn’t get hit. Then we were in the other lane but slanted away from the oncoming cars, she tried to move to the ditch to get off the road and then we wonder if we wouldn’t get killed. Somehow we knew we’d be hit. And then it happened, BAM!!!! A pick-up hit the car, right by the door, right by where I was sitting!

Thank God, we both were okay. Charmaine got out without a scratch. I just got a small cut on my nose, and my hand was a little sore, but is okay now, my knee hurts just a little if I press my hand by it, but otherwise I’m fine.

The front passenger door got smacked up pretty bad, and the windshield on that side burst, and the window on that door was knocked out and ripped to bits. The body of the rest of the car looks okay, except some wheels got bent up.

The air bags didn’t go off, the one on my side just popped up a bit. The glove compartment couldn’t be opened.

There was glass everywhere. My hat, jacket and pants were covered with tiny beads of glass.

We were both wearing seat belts.

Charmaine called 911 from her cell phone.

In the other vehicle were A man, his wife, their child, and their dog. They were all okay.

A tow truck driver who just happened to be coming down the road stopped and helped us. About 4 other people pulled over to see if we were okay.

A Sherriff’s deputy and an ambulance came.

Charmaine was able to get out of the car from the driver’s side. I tried to get out her side, but it was too cramped, and her seat wouldn’t go back, so an EMT pulled me out of the car. They checked us over, and since we seemed to be okay, we didn’t go to the hospital.

We spent Xmas night at a hotel in Antigo.

Marty the tow truck driver, gave us a choice of driving us to Birnamwood or to Antigo, so we decided to go to a hotel in Antigo, since it’s closer to Rhinelander.

The EMT guys were really nice.

The Sherriff’s deputy showed a pleasant amount of concern at first, but then said that Charmaine would probably be cited. He felt that she should have been driving slower and should have been able to control her car. Which is strange because the speed limit was 55, and she was only doing about 35, and it was pretty hard to control her car when it was sliding on slush. He said it “wasn’t a problem area until now, and other cars were able to drive on it without sliding.” Huh??? That pretty much contradicts what both the 911 dispatcher and the tow truck guy said about there being a lot of accidents. We even saw cars in the ditch coming back towards Antigo. Gee, so is it the policy of The Shawano County Sherriff’s Dept. to cite every first vehicle that begins a “problem area”??? And how many square miles is a “problem area” equal to????? Charmaine says she doesn’t want to try to fight the citation because she’d have to go all the way to Shawano to do it.

So we were at a hotel in Antigo on Christmas, everything was closed as far as food goes, so we had to make do with eating vending machine food. The vendos gave me an extra bottle of water, and a free bag of microwave popcorn. I guess the vendo Gods had some sympathy. And they had exactly 2 Hormel dinners left for us to nuke up. The day after Christmas we were able to eat breakfast at the hotel.

Charmaine decided she will either mail the gifts to her relatives or give them to them when she sees them (Maybe in April ?)

So at the hotel we tried to do some stuff to take our mind off of things. There was a hot tub there, and we had it all to ourselves, so we had some nice fun while in there. ;) And of course the site of Charmaine in her Leopard Bikini, made me feel a little better. ;)

We played a few games of Foozball (sp.?) and I won all 3 games. Yay!

The Day after Christmas we were able to get our friends Dewey and Colleen to drive us back home to Rhinelander.

Charmaine is without a car at the moment. Her car is still in Antigo, and the insurance claims are being processed, and she is waiting to find out if the car can be fixed, and whether or not it would be worth it to get it fixed. She may get a rental car in a few days, but she says she isn’t in a hurry to drive again right now. She says she doesn’t want to make any more Winter trips to Appleton. The Cab took her to work and back today. Her friend Tina will drive her to work tomorrow.

I actually never saw the truck that hit us, I was looking at Charmaine during most of the accident, hoping she’d be alright.

For Xmas, I bought some gifts that were kind of for both of us. I got the 4th and 5th season Saturday Night Live (1978-79 and 1979-80) set for her. So we now have all the SNLs featuring members of The Original Cast. I also got her some American Idol CDs and Adam Lambert’s new CD. She got me some chocolate covered cherries with dark chocolate, yum! The Michael Jackson, “This Is It” CD, and a DVD of Christmas Vacation 2.

I also got her some Adam and Eve stuff to torture and please her with (or is it please and torture her with?) ;-)

In other news my ebay stuff has been selling well. And The Packers will be in the play-offs. :-)

The Water Incident

Well, this is why I had been fairly silent on here for a few days, because I was having to deal with all of this.

On Thursday Nov. 19th Charmaine said she felt some water on the carpet, but at that time it was just a small amount, we didn’t know why it was there, and we just hoped it wouldn’t get worse and maybe we could just keep an eye on it, and hopefully clean it up fairly easily.

But then at about 2:30 a.m. on Friday Nov. 20th, all of the sudden I saw water gushing onto the carpet. The toilet was running, overflowing over the tank (which the plumber said was very unusual.) I couldn’t shut it off from the valve because it was very tight (in fact the plumber couldn’t even get it with his instruments.) I had to loosen the chain from in the tank, to get it to stop running.

So, I leave a message at the liquor store for the landlord, he sends over a plumber the following afternoon to fix the toilet. So, we got the toilet fixed, but then later that day, more water on the carpet! And this time it’s the hot water heater! Aaaargh!!!!!!

So that happens later in the day, so the landlord isn’t at the store (this was around 4 p.m.), but we leave a message for him, and find out that he will be in at 5 p.m., and work until closing 9 p.m.

So, he doesn’t call back or stop by, so I wait until 9 o’clock to call him, he seems like he’s mad at me for some reason. First, he says in an angry tone, “I can’t talk right now, I’ll call you back, click!” then 2 minutes later he calls back, and there’s this blap like he hung up on me (but that may have been accidental?) then a few minutes later he calls back and sounds like he’s pissed at me ? And says, “I don’t know what you want me to do, you had a plumber over here!, and I’m not going to pay triple time to have someone come on a weekend!” Geez!!!! But after he calms down a bit he says he’ll have some one over on Monday. So, luckily the plumber came and replaced the thermostat on the hot water heater. Let’s hope this works, because a friend of ours had a problem with her hot water heater awhile back, and they replaced the whole hot water and said they could just replace the thermostat, but that would only extend the life of the hot water heater for about another 2 months and would only be “putting a bandaid on it.” , so we’ll see.

But man, I’m glad this ordeal is over, because this has put me behind on working on my goals, and my to do list, and so forth. Gosh, I had just been sweating, and my back and shoulder were sore from just shop-vacing my ass off during that time, trying to get the water soaked up, and it’s no picnic when every few hours the shit just comes back again. Man, I’m glad that nightmare is over!

Well, I called the CMWD web person, like the church wanted me to, even though I was never crazy about this odd plan of theirs anyway.

It turns out this lady from CMWD wants to temporarily take over the site, and have me learn a new computer language to do the site with.

I’ve been the webmaster for this site, for years now. The church pays me $50 a month to work on it. I sometimes wind up spending hours on it, and I bend over backwards for this website. And I had to re-do the whole site twice. Once when the previous webmaster left it all way out of date. And another time when the same person who was our web host at the time, lost all our files.

Then I’m told of this plan with CMWD, that no one will bother to get into any real specifics about. And then when I call this woman from CMWD, and she wants to take over the site for awhile, and have me learn a new computer language, well, that I have to draw the line with. That’s not going to happen.

Now, the President of the church says the board will have to vote on it. Geez!!!! What the hell for!!!! I mean really, if they go with this plan, they do it with out me, And then they’ll have no one else to do it!!!!!

What a bunch of bullshit!!!!! I want to continue to be their webmaster, but some people obviously need to learn the meaning of “it’s not broken, don’t fix it!”

I’m just sick of all this nonsense.

A few weeks ago, when Charmaine and I were having lunch with my Mom, my Mom wanted to ride out by Mrs. Jacobsen’s house for old time’s sake I guess. She said she had went out there recently but couldn’t find where the house was on the road.

So, we rode out there, and this time we found the house. We drove up the drive way, and my Mom wanted me to knock on the door. She said in the phone book their number was listed under a W. Jacobsen. W. was the father in the family, and I had remembered that even after he died, it was still listed in the book under W.

So, I knocked on the door, not really knowing what to expect, or if maybe the house had been sold to someone else. And then M. answered the door. I explained who I was, and why we were there, and she actually remembered me, even though I didn’t remember her, but still can remember the rest of her family quite well.

It turned out that M. is the wife of W. jr. So I guess W. sr., and F. had left them the house. I knew W. jr. was one of their sons, but I think he was the only Jacobsen that I don’t recall meeting, although I would have been very young at the time. She remembered my Mother, and that she taught Art. She said she remembered one time when I was very young, and there was a leak in the roof, and I had said, “It’s raining inside!”.

She went outside and I introduced her to Charmaine and to my Mom.

I said I had remembered that they had a sauna. She asked if I wanted to see the sauna room, and I said, “Well, if it’s okay with you.” So, she showed me the sauna room, and they had added another part to the sauna where you could sit in there on wooden lounge chairs. Kind of a neat idea!:-)

Later Charmaine had said that my Mom had gotten a little worried when I was by their door, and I hadn’t came back for awhile. But, I was just enjoying recalling stuff about Mrs. Jacobsen. She used to take care of me sometimes when I was a little kid.

I’ve got a lot of stuff do with errands, getting ready for our trip, church website stuff, and other things that need to be done around here.

Let’s see a few weeks ago Charmaine’s parents and her 2 sisters came up. We celebrated her Mom’s birthday, and her parents’ anniversary falls around the same time. I think next year is their 60th anniversary.

We ate lunch and supper with them, and went out to eat at The Friendship House another night.

We also went to Pioneer Park, and looked at the museums. The Train museum was especially interesting.

Me and Charmaine and her sisters went swimming and used the hot tub at the hotel they stayed at. (No, we weren’t nude)

And later we played Apples To Apples. Her sister C.G. won, and I got slaughtered.

C.G. stayed another night at our place. We were sitting around playing The Game Of Life. This time I won big, even though I had never played the game before. There was a big storm that night, and the bad news is that lightning struck our cable box, and made our TV all snowy. The good news is the cable guy gave me a new TV set for free. :-)

I think the sports should be on soon, and then the pre-game, and then Football, Yay!

I did at least try to get some One Hour Plan stuff done today, more on that later (maybe around halftime.) :-)

I need to have a bit more of a 43T fix for the day, but I’ve got the news on waiting for The sports to come on, so I can get my other fix (b.s.’ing about The Packers.) I need to write more on this goal.

Now on to The Gelato goal…..

Pissed off at my Sister-n-law.

Not happy with my Brother either, but not to the same extent as my Sister-n-law. (I think she has him slightly brainwashed though, but that’s a story I don’t feel like getting into.)

I miss Charmaine, who will be gone until tomorrow night.

I wish Titus would be more active.

I’m having good times with Jumper and Teddy.

My friendships couldn’t be better.

I’ve got a lot to do, and I’m feeling good when I get something done, but I just feel like I need to do more in order to be satisfied.

I have a meeting with someone from Social Security in a few weeks, I have a little anxiety about that.

Charmaine and I have been worried about Titus (our pet turtle.) he just isn’t as active as him normally is this time of year. He’s about 16 years old. He’s somewhat active, but not like he usually is in the summer. The other day we noticed a white spot on his arm, and he’s never had that before. He’s just not as energetic this year, and we worry that his vision might be going. :-(
He’s about 16 years old. He’s a painted turtle.

Charmaine’s Mom, Dad and 2 Sisters will be up on July 21 and July 22.

Charmaine will be out of town visiting her friend Billie on the 8th and 9th of July.

On July 2nd, I have to go to a board meeting at my church regarding the website. I’m their webmaster. It’s important that I be there, but the whole situation is a lot of confusing and very unnecessary bullshit, to be quite honest about it though.