This week

Didn't do too much out of the ordinary. Just our regular schedules. Amy works Monday 9:00-7:00, has Tuesdays off (that's the day she uses to shop and clean), and works Wed-Fri 9:00-5:00. I work every day app 7:00-5:00, though I set my own hours and sometimes go in early and often stay late. Neither of us work Saturday, but I go in a couple times a year when I have had a particularly busy week. So anyway, that's our typical weekly schedule. Thursday night is praise team at church for me, that is from 6:30-9:30. When I came home Thurday night from that, there was a bride standing in our house. She's a friend of Amy's who is getting married in the spring, and came over to try her dress on. Amy seems to have become the official bride advisor here lately.

Forgot to mention, last Saturday Dale and I took down a tree close to where Carol used to live. A guy at work lives on Bleeker St, and had a pretty good-sized maple in his front yard. He had to have it taken down cuz it was dropping branches on people's cars. You can't just cut a tree down and let it fall in the street, so we took it down from the top. I got a scissors lift at work that took us up about 25 feet (a scissors lift is a buggy with a platform that a couple of guys can go up in the air and do work safely and comfortably, and drive around up in the air), but there was still branches 20 feet above that yet. It was a lot of work, a lot more than I bargained for anyway. I will hesitate to volunteer for that again. Dale got a month's worth of heat from it, and it saved my buddy about $1800. That job took all day, I got home about 8:00.

Yesterday I went back to CMTS in Bernville. They are an organization that provides technical support to mission organizations. They take cars and furniture and clothing and just about anything you can imagine and give it to a mission or missionary who requests it. A couple times a year, they pack up some school buses with stuff and drive them nonstop to Mexico. They have a huge house that missionaries who are home for a short time can stay in, a large shop to work on the cars, and a couple of smaller houses for VS'ers to stay in. ANyway, I went back to do some door work for them on some box trucks that they have.

Jet propulsion

The last day or two I have been fascinated by jet propulsion. Too bad I don't have an engineering degree, 'cuz I would pursue some of these projects if I did.

http://www.ronpatrickstuff.com/

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ZSartell/HLonGoKart1.gif&imgrefurl=http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ZSartell/jetkart.htm&h=375&w=500&sz=164&hl=en&start=11&tbnid=QiXY3RDxMhO5GM:&tbnh=98&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djet%2Bgo%2Bkart%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff

Enjoy!

This week

This week went by much too quickly. Wednesday afternoon felt like Monday, and Friday felt like Tuesday. Made an engine stand this week from 1" square box tube. Now there's a stand to set a complete engine on and roll it around the garage, and even fire it up if necessary (which it will be) without it tipping over. A fella from church gave me a bunch of used engine parts for cheap, so there should be a motor in the works soon here.

Today we went to the Farm Show. Looked at the sheep and pigs and cows and chickens and ducks and geese and goats and old John Deeres. Shore was fun. Watched a chick hatch. That was neat, too.

Praise Team

I (Gene) have been asked to join the praise team at church. That is the group that stands up front and leads the singing on Sunday morning. They had a practice last night; they talked about how they want to do things in 2008 now that the play is over and done. They have not had any new people for a couple of years and really needed some more help.
Amy has been selected for jury duty. The trial is in February and will last four days. Her boss (again, a great guy) graciously is paying her anyway.

New Year's Day 2008

Monday night we laid around & watched a movie. We got Evan Almighty, a story about a guy who God tells to build an ark cuz its gonna flood. In the end, a dam breaks, and they are all swept away (on the ark) with the reporters and neighbors who were making fun of them.
We slept until after 8:00, then Amy cleaned and did laundry (all day) while Gene got the snow plow for the tractor working and messed around in the garage.
Still feeling sick. . .