Why the title? We were given an extra day for the 4th of July holiday. Yes, we had a four day weekend last week. It was great!

We had the 20th of June off for Juneteenth. The next week was a four day week, nice, then had a two day weekend followed by another four day week because we had the first of July off, very nice. Then we had a four day weekend with the first and fourth of July off, even nicer and followed that up with a four day week. All in all, very sweet middle of the year here in Thomasville.

In Tulsa the fireworks started about the first with a few going off and by the fourth it was almost a war zone. Depending on the weather but usually a lot of fireworks were going off. They usually stopped by the evening of the fifth. Here in Thomasville there were hardly any going off before the fourth. I might have heard four of five pops go off. On the fourth the city put on a show right behind my apartment and it was freaking loud! The end of the show was the loudest fireworks I have heard going off in a long time. It started about 9:20pm when it was dark and ended about 45 minutes later. I might go watch it next year. I could walk there is less than 10 minutes five if I could cut through the green belt but there is a fence there.

All in all a great fourth of July weekend.

Oh, did I mention that Carrie and I announced our engagement? Yep on the 2nd of July we announced it to the world. We got one heck of a response.

Dad went in the hospital on Saturday the 9th. Chris sent a message out to Me, Diane and Tyra that said “Left dad at hospital, they did a scan didn’t have results yet but said he’d probably be spending the night so I am on my way home. Hospital said they’d call me with an update.” That is the exact message and said nothing about why he went to the hospital.

Between then and now, Monday morning there wasn’t any new information other than his tests were coming back negative. He called me Sunday evening and sounded good but tired and said he would probably be going home tomorrow (Monday, today)

Aunt Marion and her partner apparently had a fall the morning of June 29th and she is not doing well. They have both been in the hospital since then. She can’t take much water except by spoon or sponge and does not want to eat or do therapy. They have moved her to an assisted care facility including hospice her late stages of Alzheimer’s is making her confused with all new faces around. Jack her partner is also not doing well.

As I didn’t know this information regarding Marion, most of the posts about her and Jack are paraphrases from Kris on Facebook. As of today Kris’s posts said Marion doesn’t seem to remember Jack.

Today is the 4th of July here in Thomasville, GA. I’m pretty sure I won’t be watching too many fireworks. I haven’t done that is a few years.

Last Friday was first Friday here in Thomasville. There was plenty of fireworks downtown after the rain stopped.

The last few days have been pretty nice. We are back to rain in the afternoons which does a very good job of cooling it down here. It was over 95 degrees for 12 straight days.

Our place has been quite warm the during that time. The air conditioning has a hard time keeping up with the hot days. I purchased a small 8,000btu unit that should cool down a 250 – 350 square foot area. It seems to work fairly good but the living area still gets pretty warm so I also have a little evaporative cooling unit that I have sitting on the coffee table. That seems to work pretty good at keeping me cool.

Last week, Carrie and Rickey came down with COVID-19. Ally had it and she exposed Carrie and Rickey to it but Carrie and Rickey were both vaccinated. With them exposed she probably gave it to Bill who was very sick earlier in the week. With Bill now very sick it was not to likely that Carrie or Rickey would get away without coming down with it. To top it all off, I had some shots Friday night and said some really mean things to her even telling her to shut up at one point. She was laughing and said it was ok (since I had a couple of shots) but I wanted to let her know that was never ok for me to do that.

Here is a picture of Rickey’s COVID-19 test results.

Wee are looking at a new 30yr fixed mortgage for the house in Auburn, WA because Carries current loan is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) and with the current interest rates going up we need to lock it into a consistent rate for the foreseeable future.

Enter the new information the loan company told us about. A reverse mortgage. I’m not totally sure as to what this is but in essence a mortgage is taken out and our payments are nothing. Yes, that is what I said, the payments are nothing. This would in effect give her an additional 1,600.00 per months to use for travel or any other bills and then when I retire and get my social security we will be making pretty solid money for our retirement together.

Since she could do this when she is 62, next year then my retirement could conceivably start next year as well. Leave here after my two years, not owe them for my moving expenses and be retired with the love of my life in a little over a year. That sure sounds fantastic.

I just looked at the calendar and I see we have five paydays in July. I love it when that happens. Now that Angie is no longer an influence This will be an additional 2,239.00 I can put into savings. This next month will look fantastic.

If things work as I anticipate I will be able to use that money to pay for Carries vehicle and not influence our additional savings.

Update: We are not purchasing a vehicle for Carrie when she is here, Daryl is going to rent the Explorer to us for $100.00 per week while she is here and she will be driving me to work and picking me up. This will allow us to put that additional money into savings and also save a little on the trips to and from work.

Also, today is Juneteenth or something like that and we actually get this day off. Strange as it may sound but yep.

What is Juneteenth? Well I wondered the same thing and this is what I found.

“Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans. It is also often observed for celebrating African-American culture. Originating in Galveston, Texas, it has been celebrated annually on June 19 in various parts of the United States since 1865.“

It just became a federal holiday June 17, 2021. No wonder I had never heard of it. I wonder what they took away from the employees at the bank I used to work for when they introduced this new holiday. If they do I’m sure it would seriously piss some people off. When they introduced Martin Luther King Jr. day as a federal holiday the bank where I worked then took away our birthday holiday instead of added the additional day off. With the possibility of being labeled racist why the hell are we adding all these holidays for other races and taking others away????

I love surprise three day weekends!

Time sure flies. I is the second week of the month of June with the year being almost half over.

Work has been fantastic. When I put my heart into it and work like I used to when I was at The Boeing Co. and of course, my favorite, Gulfstream years ago it is fun.

Also, to be mentioned is the student version of NX I was able to obtain, learn and have a great time with. This program is the same as the version we are using at work and has a perpetual license. It is also fun to learn. I purchased three books, one on the use of the program, two two hundred exercises on part modeling and the third with exercises on assemblies. These totaled just over 90.00 dollars and are well worth it. I am also using these books to make parts in all my other modeling packages.

Decided to take it very easy this weekend. BBQ some steaks and have baked potato and corn on the cob. That was the perfect dinner for a Memorial Day Weekend.

** Picture here **

I think that my efforts to change my ways here at work for my supervisor has paid off. He assigned me an intern for the summer to learn the processes and the paperwork involved with Manufacturing Engineering. This is a process I am very good at. I wasn’t sure what to do at first but when I found out about his experience (not much) I decided to let him write the process sheets for all the broach, finish mill and polish operations where we are lacking. This is very true with the broach and polish operations for Pratt Canada. When I communicated this to my supervisor he thought it was a great idea.

Memorial day was always just before school ended for the year and we would head to the cabin for the next three months. Greg Anderson, Glenn Jenkins, Bill McEwen, Brian Helgeson, Barbara Jenkins, Lori Hudson, Sandy Earl, Pam Hofer, Anne Peterson were among friends we would have up with us at the cabin.

Joining us up there were the Remeley’s, Roy and Marion with Kris their youngest daughter. Kris would at times bring friends with her, one of which was Clarise who I always had a serious crush on. They, Kris and Clarise were older than us but we spent a lot of time in the water swimming together.

This past week Carrie and I were talking about purchasing a vehicle for her to drive when she is out here. I told her I would ask Daryl to look out for an everyday drive type of vehicle which would be relatively inexpensive. Right away he told me he had a Ford Explorer, Eddie Bauer edition (2001) that he said was valued at $3,500.00 and he would sell it to me for $2,000.00. Thank you Lord for answering my prayers.

Everything is going great.

Carrie is doing good but needs to focus on getting small things done around the house and not the entire picture all at once.

Getting some new things to work on for tooling which I love to do. It will keep me busy but also keeps me from doing other things I’m supposed to be working on.

Yes I stumbled very badly a week ago. I did not miss any work but when I went in I was not in tip top shape. I was very hung over but managed to get in before 8:00am, missed the morning 7:30 meeting but that isn’t much. I can fix this and I will. Having Carrie proud is of the highest importance to me.

When she came out here it did not take long for me to realize how much I love her. I knew it when we first met but when you are young like that the feeling seemed strange, particularly since I saw her for about two or three minutes and I already knew that I loved her.

Last week I gave one of my reports on the tooling audit Pratt & Whitney did regarding our US Government Owned tools and Hans told me I was going to own that. This made my day because it is exactly what I wanted to do. I do enjoy tooling and like fixing those type of problems. This will be fun!

Now time has passed. I would call her a few times a year and we would talk for a very long time each time. That was before her husband took his own life. After that happened I did not speak to her for quite a few months. Not until Larry told me that Carrie wants me to call her, now. It took me a few days, Larry had to keep telling me but when I called her and we talked she explained what had happened that he had done in front of her. This really pissed me off.

I called her on and off for the next couple of years and every time, before she would hang up she would say those fateful words “I love you”. She had never known how I felt and would say the same back but she did not know that when I said it I meant something completely different.

On Christmas eve on 2020 I call her knowing I needed to talk to her. I was feeling depressed because of my job (lack of) and everything. I don’t completely remember the conversation but a the end she knew I wanted to tell her something. She pestered me into it and I ended up telling her that I loved her and had since the day I first saw her. Needless to say she was in shock.

After that initial shock it did not take long for her to cling on tight and fall in love with me. It has been a wonderful God sent trip ever since.

We have also dedicated the Rascal Flatts song “Bless The Broken Road” as our song.