Crutches for the Gimp

Well now I've really done it. I was carrying a big box out the back door and I came down on one of the steps just a little bit funny and the next thing I know, the box is up in the air and I'm flat on my face in the dirt. (Now where is that delicious bit of Swiss cheese that was in my mouth?). Clearly my ankle is totally f*#ked up. I'm writhing in pain, the pit bulls are barking, VHS tapes are scattered around me and I keep wondering where the cheese ended up. When the cursing subsided in about 5 minutes, I resumed inventory. My brand new chinos now have a hole in the knee and blood stains too. My elbows are scraped up but the real story is hidden beneath my sock. Not only is my ankle already swollen up double, the top of my foot has a large bump with the skin peeling off. I must have scraped it as I fell. It all looks and feels so nasty that I'm sure there is a possibility it is fractured.

Luckily, I have my cell phone and I call Mary. She is stuck at work in a deadline crisis. OK, I'll just lie here in the dirt a while longer. Slowly I attempt to get to my feet. There's that cheese! Completely covered with dirt. I throw it to the pit bulls.

Finally I drag myself in the house and attempt to put some weight on it. Ouch, yes, but I don't think it is broken. I call Dr. Hazle's office and describe what I see. They say "get thee to an emergency care facility". I call Bill. He's on a photo shoot. I call Margi and she is about to start a lesson. It is Grandpa Harold who comes through for me.

Shifting to the past tense, When we reached the hospital, Andy Willey, Mary's brother was the one opening the door and finding wheel chairs for people. (He works there.) They got me into x-ray fairly quickly and then it was back into the waiting room. Margi and Abby showed up to wait with me. Eventually, they called me into the inner sanctum so I could wait on a gurney for an available doctor. A drunken Indian dude on another gurney asked me the time. He was itching to get to work but the nurses kept telling him he needed to wait around and see the results of his expensive tests. He came over and gave me a packet of cheese crackers with peanut butter for some reason.

Finally a doctor and a physician's assistant pulled up my x-rays. They could see no broken bones but were quite surprised at the amount of calcification in my foot. That's arthritis. That explains why my feet hurt so bad every morning.

I was fitted with a splint and crutches and sent on my way with some ibuprofen and instructions to stay off my feet for a week. Sucky timing indeed. Although is there ever a good time to lay around and have people wait on you for everything? Don't answer that.

Tonight Michigan was inundated with thunderstorms and tornado watches. We finally got our downpour in Kent County around 9:00. I hobbled to the porch to watch the rushing torrents wash the garbage down Grove Street hill. There was a kind of beauty in it.

Seriously, It's October?

Holy crap! Seems like it was just summer. What happened to September? The hot humid weather really throws off the internal calendar.

The last two weeks have been all about getting the house at 44 Grove Street ready for the market. So here is the culmination of these efforts. Not all that impressive. I could have written a more attractive narrative. But the porch is painted, trees are trimmed and garage is gilded with wood putty in all the rotten places. From the outside, it all looks real nice. Compared to the other properties in this price range, seems like a real deal.

The real work is now inside. The idea is that when a buyer steps into the house they will gasp and think, "this place is so nice and roomy". This means all of our quasi-unnecessary crap has to go. I rented a storage space about 10 miles from here with the idea that it will be a holding spot until we move. My mom and Dad (and Jon) came on Saturday to make trips to this storage facility with boxes of books, shelves and other unnecessary furniture. At one point, Grandpa almost bagged a buck with his pickup truck. We were leaving the storage compound and I saw this dear about to bound into the road. I yelled and grandpa slammed on the brakes just in time to miss (by inches) this 6-point buck running at full-tilt.

So now my computer work station is back upstairs in the old location but a bit tidier. I've been working on a piece for the Children's Museum which I just finished. I realized that for the price of a DVD duplication job I coulld probably run out and buy a DVD inkjet printer for my own labels. If I can find a good price locally, I might just do that. it seems to come up more and more often.

I took Bill Hebert too see the new house and he was thoroughly impressed. I sort of needed that. There is much anxiety surrounding the funding of such an endeavor.

Mary's credit check from one of the three bureaus looked stallar. But evidently, the other two both had record of a delinquent account. About 5 and a half years ago, Mary was enjoying taking a karate class in Cedar Springs. The thing was, they required an expensive "membership". She was feeling so good about the class that she signed up for a multi-year commitment. Then all of a sudden, her husband died unexpectedly and she found herself a single parent. She could no longer make the classes. She asked to get out of the contract but the owner said that she had signed the paper and it was beyond his control. He said that something could be worked out through the company in Pennsylvania that handled these iron-clad membership contracts. They told her that she could get out of her contract by paying $480. Seeing no other way out she resolved to pay the penalty. Instead of writing a personal check, Mary went to the bank and purchased a money order to make it more official and easily cashed. Problem was, the bank does not fill in the "pay to" line for money orders less than $500. Mary just stuck the money order in the envelope and sent it off to Philadelphia in first class mail. A week later, the health-club-membership-scamming organization called to tell her that time was up and since she did not send the $480, she would have to pay the entire $1500. Puzzled, she went to the bank and discovered the Money Order had been cashed but not by the company she had sent it to. They traced it to a bank account in Philly and got the name and address of the guy who had signed his name in the "pay to" line. Unfortunately, the police were unwilling to investigate for this "small" amount and the company pretended they never received the payment. The $1500 went to collections and there it sits as a blemish on her credit score. Of course, she would not pay a second time for services that she had not received.

The bank for our home loan said that she would need to arrange to pay off the $1500 before we could get the loan. We told them that that was a "deal breaker" and I just got word yesterday that they would overlook that particular requirement. Whew!

The weather has turned gorgeous again and the autumn colors are starting to come out. I'd go take a picture but the battery charger for my old camcorder is in the storage unit 10 miles away.

To Paint, or Write of Painting

That is the question! I've been busy with the work of improving curb appeal for the house while we have this stroke of warm weather that will allow for painting, See the picture below shot at dusk. The Front door is now gray (rather than green) and the rail and cement pedestal are now dark gray as opposed to green and purple.

The deck still needs washing and painting as do some of the white rails. I also scraped primed and painted the downstairs windows that were flaking and looking like they were falling apart. A little cosmetic work goes a long way!

But the physical punishment is not insignificant. To paint the side of the rail by the rosebush first required pruning... or really removing about 80 percent of the bush. My forearms show the scratches pokes and thorn splinters of wrestling branches into two large yard waste bags.
And then there is the ladder incident... I fell off the ladder as I was descending. I stepped on the bottom rung in a funny way and twisted my ankle. I was surprised how quickly I was lying on the ground. It took me right down, I started feeling nauseous and dizzy and it was immediately clear that I had either sprained or broken my ankle. I wiggled my toes and found that that was no problem. I lay there for about 5 minutes and then cautiously stood up. A sprain. And a mild one. Can you tell which ankle is swollen?

See the smallish bruising below my ankle?

Awww... Poor me!!

Another project this week was was solving a technical problem for the CMC; my former employer. They had installed robotic cameras in the Wealthy Theatre auditorium but they were just plain not working. It took two days of troubleshooting and down to the last possible alternative theory but it turned out to be the correct one. Shazzaam!! Everything works. They were nice enough to write a little thank you blurb on their website.

In other CMC news, the Capital Campaign that busted my butt and caused great stress for a tear and a half of my life is officially over. They reached their goal which kicks in the Kresge challenge grant award of $300,000. This grant is tough to get and co-writing and submitting it was the last thing I did before handing the Executive Director job over to Laurie. You have to reach your fundraising goal to get the award. I'm pleased she was able to make it pay off.

Tonight, Abby is away at her birthday party with her girlfriends at Craig's Cruisers and I am entertaining Marlee and her pal Karlee as Mary is out with her girlfriends.

I need to get started editing the Children's Museum video. The deadline will be here before I know it. I was going to put it on the portable hard drive but apparently it is dead. I have nothing recent on it, just old projects.

Buzzed

Fireworks

Celebration on the Grand was this weekend and with it the Hispanic Festival and the local Native American Pow Wow. We pretty much stayed away from downtown this time around because there is so much damned road construction that it is near impossible to get there from here anymore when there is a traffic event. Instead, Mary and I dropped in at Bill's house which has a view of the downtown skyline from a high bluff at the end of his cul-de-sac. He had some friends over and was making pina coladas. They were delicious but I started thinking they were a little too delicious. Sure enough. He forgot to put in the rum. At 9:20pm, we suddenly heard the booming of fireworks. They were started early. We later intuited and much later confirmed that they were trying to beat this big rain cloud that was coming. They were not quick enough. It started pouring about halfway through. But it was not bad for us beneath a great big tree. here are some crappy photos from my camera phone.




Saturday we went for a bike ride to Riverside park. We stumbled on the Indian PowWow which seemed like an excellet destination for the trip. We locked up our bikes and checked out the craft and food vendors. We bought some stuff like blue lemonade and cheap jewelry and ran into all of our Native American Friends. One lady was selling fur items. Since I had neglected to bring vials of blood to throw at them, I decided to just see what they had. My favorite was a skunk that had been made into a handbag. It occurred to me that though fur is politically incorrect, in the Indian crowd it is a tradition. Hard to find fault with that. We stayed a bit longer to watch a hand drum/singing competition. Totally cool.
Last night we decided to watch Dream Girls on DVD. I guess you need to see it on the big screen because we were mostly bored.

Today we were going to go to Mary's sister Margaret's house in Grand Haven for a beach visit to make up for the lack of beach time at our last couple of beach trips. Turns out there is a cold water mass sitting there at Grand Haven. (click to enlarge)



Drat! foiled again.

Delinquent Correspondent

Wow, it just hit me that I've been slacking on my obligations to keep this blog current. It's the humidity... THAT's IT! If we could only have a DRY heat. Kidding aside, It has been freaking hot and humid these last couple of days.

Quick update that will be of interest for Alice in the category of "brush with fame". Her former babysitter and dance company cohort will be dancing with Britney Spears to open Sunday's MTV Awards show. And to think... we knew him when!

I think I am honing in on the final version of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation underwriting spot for Ken Burns' "The War". It is a lot to squeeze in 15 seconds but my client seems to be happy. The images, by the way, are Bill Hebert photographs. I really enjoyed learning the "Ken Burns effect" with slow zooms on photos. It's real easy in Final Cut.

As promised, a conclusion to the story on the garage door disaster from my first blog entry.

We finally gave up on the repair guy who came and measured about a month ago. How many phone messages can you leave for a guy? And now what? Who repairs garage doors?

The answer came in the form of a wrong number. I dialed a number of a client from a brochure but no sooner had I punched in the last number than I realized that I had mis-dialed. I quickly hung up and called my client with the correct series of seven digits. Thirty seconds after I hung up from that call, my phone rang. It was the wrong number I had first dialed. The guy identified himself as working for a roofing company. I explained the SNAFU but then asked him if he did garage doors. He replied, "NO, for that you should call Bouma Brothers". They're great guys."

I looked up the number and scheduled a site visit for the following morning. Bright and early, a big black pickup truck showed up just as I was leaving for a breakfast meeting. I showed him the door mand explained that repair would be great but I fully expected to replace the whole thing. When I returned from the meeting, the door was fixed. Not only was it back on track, but it has NEVER worked that good. I can raise and lower the door with my pinky finger! Inside, there on the counter, was the bill. Drumroll, please... a whopping $67 dollars. He also quoted that he could put in a power door for an extra $350. I think we are going to do that. Bouma Brothers ROCK.

An Excellent Cinema Experience

Here's proof that a movie doesn't have to be high budget or high production values to tell a simple but good story. I'm speaking of Once which Mary and I went to see last night. It is not quite a musical as much as it is a movie with a plot advanced by music. It actually has the look of a documentary with scenes shot in public places and non-star actors pretty much playing characters not unlike themselves. The music is good and the characters generate genuine warmth within a very sweet story arc. When the movie got out there was a warm breeze at 11:00 pm which supplemented the high spirits that were generated within the theater. Can't get this film out of my head.

Today's project was creating a draft of a 15 second promo for the Grand Rapids Community Foundation who is underwriting a local presentation of Ken Burns new documentary, The War. I had some guidelines and needed to create something to start a conversation of where to go with the client. Here is my first draft of a 15-second solution.

Tomorrow I will take Marlee up to Pentwater and Abby up to Glen Arbor. Ill be back on Saturday.