Boom

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Top: Close up image of the Harbor Drive Hilton minutes after the explosion. Used with permission. Copyright: Stan Pinck, 2008. Middle, Copyright Stan Pinck, 2008. Bottom: Two images the first copyright Stan Pinck, and the second taken by GSR Mark with my camera, Used with permission, Copyright Mark, 2008.

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G: Images: Snapfish, my usual photo host is down. At the moment, I am using Photobucket, and don’t know the tricks of the program. I apologize for the not well posted images, and I will replace them with better copies when I can. One of our GSR’s kindly took my camera to the third tier and took pictures for me. Another, Sophie’s owner Stan, emailed me images this morning. Thank you all. Me: Proved totally incompetent at using my new cell phone. Imagine, I need practice using it. Where I grab it turns the sound off. I never heard the ring, and I was unable to enter a phone number. Imagine how much the fool I felt unable to respond in the middle of a real emergency. I came home and practiced with it before bed. I did mention to the boss that I was wearing out….again, and mentioned MRI and Ex-Rays. They checked on me often yesterday. I was grateful. I emailed the “Man” about money and retiring listing sums. Blogging Notes: ”Carnival’s “Man” ” says an MSMBC article. John Heald’s blog has been a huge hit. Work: Padre’s 2008 Schedule. Beginning a 20 day homestand stretch.

Yes, it was warm and sticky though many degrees cooler yesterday. The sun seemed relentless, and I appeared to have lost one of my bottles of water by the time I arrived at the ballpark. I arrived at my gate without a radio but with a cell phone number for emergencies. After everything was set up and dusted down, I moved under the ramp into the shade.

The air was filled with a giant boom. Much like a large scale artillery firing, the sound was very loud…a very clear sound echoing in between glass walled, downtown buildings. I thought it might be a bomb, but I was talking to a fan and pretended all was normal until she left.

Then I dithered while watching the crowds evacuate buildings and fill the sidewalks. When the engineering staff was evacuated, I used my cell phone to call and tell them this. Then, after half an hour of cell phone incompetence, they sent our roving expert over to me with news and a radio.



He had been up on the top deck inspecting an elevator that faced the Hilton. When the blast happened, not only did he see it but he was, “blown back” by it. Others rushed from their buildings to stand on the sidewalks. Some took photographs from their condos, and quickly crowds followed the ambulances and fire apparatus to over the Hilton.

At first word came that only three were injured. Then as the hours passed and more news came my way. Not a bomb, electrical….not electrical but a boiler explosion…the news changed by the minute. This morning the Union Tribune has more details. A gas explosion in the machinery space is what they are saying now with four floors damaged. Fourteen injured.

The game went on. We lost. Today we play again, and we will know more today about the Hilton. We certainly keep those 14 construction workers in our minds today.

Keep Your Eye On The Prize

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Elation, Cabo San Lucas, 2008.

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I found myself talking with MB last night with my best “Poor me” attitude right out there in front like a flag.

“Oh, Poor me has to go work ten days, three off then ten again. Oh poor me I can’t do it. Oh, poor me, I’m wearing out.”

Well, that may be true, but I don’t have to start out with that attitude. Yes, It’s really hard for me. Yes, I’m not holding up well…….as usual. Yes, the heat has gotten to me……as usual, and yes, the long hours have thrown my body and soul askew. Lastly, yes too, I absolutely, positively need to bestir my thinking out of the dark hole of Calcutta into which it’s fallen.

Right now, this second, I am fine. My problem is that I’m anticipating misery, sickness, ugliness, and a daily increasing physical tiredness that will lead to more of all of the above. Ugly thinking. Ugly anticipation leading to depression.

Financially I want to get through the season. We are rapidly heading into the plus column monetarily, and anything I earn can be turned to savings for things like trips, trips, a new computer, trips. Laughter and smiles too. What I don’t’ want is more trips to the doc stirred by my overly rapid wearing out en re standing so many hours. I need to talk to my money person about retiring too.

Does anticipation and depression lead to conversations comprised of, “Yeah buts….?” Yes. After an hour being kindly poked by Bee this morning, I’m laughing again.

We shared art. I delighted in introducing her to Studio Ruthe’s weekend of contemporary art…..she says not together. The fiber art of YINKA SHONIBARE stirred me to smiles, and the dramatic dip-ditch photography of Mitchell Gosar carried us beyond ourselves.

It’s just what I needed right then. And it’s just what I need right now. Bee reminds me that I need to dangle a prize in front of my nose. As in today I will: Buy that lace bra, eat that brownie, go to a bookstore before work. A prize. A bribe.

She assures me that prizes do help too. So do friends. “Call any time,” she says. And so I will.

Si! Muy Caliente!

One of those before and after moments. 2008.

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Why, in almost ninety degree heat did I take to moving furniture around yesterday? I know. It’s a rhetorical question. I couldn’t stand the crowded bedroom, and the heat seemed to make it even smaller.

We live in a tiny condo. After dear G had made me a wonderful rolling sewing table, and increased the size of the computer desks then banished the big, brown bookcase to the downstairs hall. We found ourselves with one homeless dresser wandering loose among the computers.

Rather than take it to the garage, I put it in front of the bedroom bookcase. It shrank the room. Even moving the little wicker table out left the room feeling compressed. I have hated it.

So yesterday, first we made another run to Frye’s for a fan to cool my processor chip, then at home while he was taking things apart and cursing, I started taking the old dresser downstairs. I’d sew a quilt block, take a drawer down, console G, sew another block, and take a drawer down.

After final round of expletives, he took pictures of my Gateway innards, and departed a third time, off into the heat, to Frye’s. I gratefully put the bedroom back into order. By the time he returned with the bad news, I had two more blocks cut and sewn correctly….which didn’t match the four wrong size blocks.

Rule number one: don’t take up quilting if you cannot measure. Don’t expect instant success if you do….or find a way to adapt what you have sewn. And laugh.

Rule number two: Five year old computers may be proprietary and cooling fans may have to be custom made to fit. Dear G spent most of his afternoon reinventing the cooling system on my proprietary computer. G found a way that one fan could adapt. I now have three fans in my computer.

Dinner with Carrie was more than delightful. What a special woman. I learn from her every time we meet. After dinner when she drove home to her delightfully quiet home, I went to Ross and bought a pair of Fat-Lady, elasticized shorts for these muy caliente days.

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