Snow? In Tennessee??

Yup, that's right. It started late last night and continued on into this morning. It's stopped at the moment, but we're supposed to be getting more later this afternoon. At the moment we've gotten about 2 inches. There are a couple more pics on my dreammaster1984 flickr account that show the snow.

The above picture is the sight that greeted me when I stepped out on the deck this morning. That's the view of the yard between where D and I live and his Papaw's old house where his brother and sister-in-law live now.

I've been waiting for this for the last year and a half! :-) I just hope we get more.

South Minneapolis visits South Knoxville

D and I were heading to a little diner/gas station here for a bite of dinner before going to Taylor's to bottle the beer. As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw a cop car, but didn't think much of it until I noticed that the only open spot was next to another cop car. Odd, but no big.

We sat there for a minute seeing it was crowded and debating on going somewhere else when a guy that had been standing around came and knocked on the window.

Apparently (and I got the real version later on), an 18 year old guy ran into his girlfriend's ex-husband. Whatever happened it made him come to the diner (where we were going and where the girlfriend works) with a gun. He threatened a customer with the gun, but somehow it was gotten away from him. He then went out to his vehicle, came back in, and cut his own throat. In the version we heard originally, the guy died, but he ended up getting rushed to the hospital and the cut was non-life threatening.

But when we got there, they had the whole place locked down and as we were leaving yet another cop car pulled in.

It's crazy because Taylor's wife never goes there and she just happened to stop there probably an hour or so before this went on.

But, D and I are obviously alright and no one but the kid got hurt.

On another topic, we got the first 5 gallons of beer bottled. We've got 2 more 5 gallon buckets to bottle, but it got too late to finish tonight so we're gonna go back over there tomorrow.

I didn't taste any of what we've made yet, but Taylor found a couple bottles of beer he'd made like a year ago. It does end up going bad so I was a little hesitant to drink any, but I did and it tasted oh so delicious. :-)

Well, that was my night.

P.S. to the previous post

If I told you Lynyrd Skynyrd made me cry, would you believe me?






Cuz they did. :-p

Expanding horizons

Okay so maybe that's a little dramatic, but I couldn't think of anything better for a subject line.

One really awesome thing about D and I is that occasionally we'll get into a particular mood and will end up spending hours just listening to different music. That's how I learned to really like Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, (I already liked The Eagles, but hadn't heard much of them), and Tool (among various other artists).

So anyway, a couple nights ago, D and I had another music session. Mainly it was Metallica and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I'd already heard Metallica a bit and own the Garage Inc. 2 disc set, but I didn't realize just how much I'd missed out on. Mainly, Metallica's Black album. Holy... Did you know they sold around 22 million copies of that cd?

D found a lyrics site online so we were able to read the lyrics as the cd played and oh my word. No wonder parents thought they were a bad influence. *grins* Lars has kickass guitar solos by the way. :-)

So I've found a new appreciation and liking for Metallica's music. Last night I listened to Master of Puppets by them while playing battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. Muy Bueno! Oh so much fun. By the way, Metallica ended up doing a concert using the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Oh. My. God. It's so...just wow. I'm planning on either getting the dvd or the cd for D's birthday. He used to have the dvd, but it got borrowed and never returned. :-(

Oh, and I grew up knowing about the whole deal of people holding up lighters at concerts, but never understood why or what started it. Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird. Very, very good song. Incredible group. Junkie is a pretty interesting song, too and I like Tuesday's Gone.

Anyway, so I'm slowly but surely expanding my musical tastes. It's quite the experience.

In other news, something I forgot to mention back when it started. It's probably been close to a month ago now. D and I got invited over to his friend's (Taylor) house. Taylor and D used to work together and still keep closely in touch with each other. Anyway, D and Taylor also like to brew beer. D and I had done it once back in like August of last year, but haven't really had the means to do it since. Taylor is a brewing fiend so he had a ton of stuff to play around with.

So, D and I went over there and helped with the brewing while Taylor made us and his family homemade pizza (right down to homemade dough). Every time D and I would step outside for a minute and come back in, the house would be filled with the nutty, chocolatey smell of the beer we were making. And, hopefully tonight is when we'll be going over there to bottle it up. Unfortunately I think it's still gotta sit in the bottles for another week or so before it'll be good to drink. And, if I remember correctly, we'll be getting about 80 20oz bottles of the stuff (that's only about 1/3 of what we made). I'm soooooo excited!

We were supposed to go over there last Sunday, but D and I were right in the middle of our icky sicky time and so were Taylor and his kids. Oh well, what can ya do?

I'll let y'all know how the beer tastes. :-)

Ciao

Sickness

It's been going around. One of the girls I work with went home early on tuesday having flu stuff going on. D got sick tuesday night and on into wednesday and a little on thursday. Two more people I work with went home early on Friday. Then I got it Saturday morning. I started feeling nauseous about 20 min. before having to be at work, but it was obviously too late to call in and I didn't really think too much about it, but it just got worse after being there for about an hour.

By the time I got out of there at noon I was seriously out of it. I'd already emptied my stomach once while at work, but there were no extra people so I had to stay. D and I picked up a few things at the grocery store on the way home and then it was straight to bed for me. I'd gotten some gatorade after work to replenish all the fluids and nutrients I was losing and it, and water, were the only things I could keep down.

At the risk of TMI, here's a tip: If you're throw-uppy sick...fruit punch gatorade is the best thing to drink because it makes everything taste like fruit punch on the way back up.

So...yeah. The last few days have been hell for D and me health-wise...oh...and this place is a wreck. But, we had burgers last night and I was able to keep it all down so I think I'm about to kick this thing. Yay...just in time for work tonight. :-p

Tornadoes

In reply to a previous comment about the tornadoes here, D and I are doing just fine. The tornado (was there more than one?) hit in the Memphis area which is on the SW tip of TN...Knoxville, where D and I are is much further NE thankfully so we just got a bit of rain and some pretty wicked winds, but nothing to be concerned about. Heck, it didn't even rain as much as I wanted it to. Guess I shouldn't complain too much considering like 55 people were killed by that tornado.

So...yeah...we're just peachy here.

In other weather news, it's been hovering between about 40 and 50+ degrees here for the past week. It's supposed to get back down to the mid-30s to low 40s I think, but still...not that I'm bragging or anything. :-p

Newer update on the puppy

For those who have inquired, the puppy is doing just fine. We've got her back out using her underground fence again and realized last night that she'd gone off running. Her running off for a while isn't as big of a deal as it was before since now she's updated on her shots and such.

As far as the coon, it didn't fare so well. It ended up dying about a week or so after the fight. Animal Control was supposed to pick it up, but they never came and got it. As far as I know, it's still sitting in the cat carrier out back of the smokehouse. You'd think, if a domestic animal gets in a fight with a wild critter, they'd be all over that.

Anywho, I knew if I didn't get this written now, I'd forget. I'm still half asleep and am gonna go drink coffee now.

Peace out