QMB

I was part of the Quaker Marching Band in high school in the '95 - '98 seasons. We'd compete and all the smaller competitions would lead to the big New York State Field Band Conference championship. When I was in it we won our division one year however we were never in the highest "national" class. After I graduated they moved up to that division and this year jumped up and beat the once untouchable West Genesee to win 1st! That is awesome.

Anniversary

Happy 2 year anniversary to Michele and Drew!

Buying houses and burning houses

Michele and Drew have officially got the house now. They will move in November. That is neat. Little by little they'll work on it and fix the things that need repairs.

The fires are much more under control now. People are now checking out the aftermath. Many houses burned down. When people talk about what they took when they had to evacuate, they always say "we grabbed our pictures and some clothes". They always say pictures. I know pictures are cherished things that people have to remember good times, but is that really what you would take when you literally have 2 minutes to grab stuff and get out? I think I'd take my important documents, pets, our coin collection, maybe some clothes,. Pictures if I had time.

Fires still going

Here's an update of the fires 24 hours since my last post

The news said that 17 fires have popped up since this all began. If you are wondering where we live, we live approximately where the "N" in Newhall is on the map. The closest fire is about a 20 min drive from where we live. Santa Clarita valley is getting the brunt of it now. We have some friends that live right by one of the fires. We tried calling them but they didn't answer. Maybe they may have had to evacuate. The heat and wind is still high but should settle down tomorrow.Disturbing but very pretty picture that was posted on one of the news websites.

Fires

There are fires everywhere right now. The weather is dry and very windy. The wind is not letting firefighters get control of several of them. The fire in Malibu is the worst. The news was covering it pretty much 24/7 all weekend. I was just watching the news and saw a huge flame coming closer and closer to a house in Malibu. Other shots of houses in flames. I don't think there are enough firefighters to fight everything so houses are just burning. Real nice big houses too.

The award goes to...

My boss could win the award for the worst boss ever. He thinks nothing of his employees, runs the place based on threats, never a pat on the back, takes away our benefits without notice, is cheeeaaap, etc etc. I like my job and my immediate boss is good but the CEO is an idiot who doesn't know how to run a business.

Raise

Congrats to Rob and getting his raise! He's come a long way in 3 years.

Stuff

We decided we were in need of a really good carpet cleaning so yesterday we had Stanley Steemer come. Now the carpet is so clean and fluffy and nice. I don't even want to walk on it.
You can go up to most people here in LA and ask them where they originally came from. Most of them will tell you another state. Today at work I was talking to a patient and learned he originally came Buffalo. Not only that but Hamburg, and drove across country at the age of 23 to make it in the entertainment business. He is like the us of the future. Funny.

NBC leaves

NBC is leaving Burbank. Thats a bummer. I like living so close to NBC and seeing that long line of people waiting for the Jay Leno show everyday. It is fun to see the tourists walking around. Now they'll be gone. That'll take Burbank off the map a little bit. They're relocating across from Universal Studios which a town over from Burbank. (I can see the Universal Studios theme park from my parking ramp at work.) Well, at least we still have the Warner Brothers, Disney, and Nickelodeon studios here.

Mailbox

Our mailbox door won't open. It is totally jammed somehow. The landlord took my mailbox key and they are going to try to fix it somehow. If they don't fix it by tomorrow we'll have to find some other way to get our mail. No big deal but still an annoyance.

House

Michele and Drew bought a house! It is in Springfield PA. 4 bed 1.5 bath. Pretty nice. Great potential to fix up the nice size backyard. Michele put some pictures on her website.

Work blah

Work has been rather stressful lately. The girl who works in the back is going to be gone for at least 6 weeks because of surgery. That means my fellow front desk receptionist is now covering that job leaving me to do everything up there myself. That is a lot of work which sometimes gets waaay too busy for one person to handle. (it's multi-multi tasking) She has been in the back training for the past two weeks and they are getting all uppity with me about every little thing. Very annoying. And to top it off, management and billing are making these changes at work which would not be a big deal except that they don't tell me about them. Then they get upset when I don't do the new things because I didn't know they exist in the first place. So I just gotta get by these 6 weeks and all should be good again.

Little post

We decorated our apartment for Halloween yesterday. It is neat. That's really all I have to say. Weekends always go by so fast.