My laptop decided to die on me. Stupid Micro-Crap piece of junk. Anyways, I decided to try and give it some extra life and put Ubuntu Linux on it. It has been an experience. Even for a geek like me, I’ve not been completely happy with Linux.
Anyways, this is just a test to see how this blog poster works out. I’ll get some more up soon. Especially about the newly expanding? Hickory Sinkhole.
We’ve just hit our first major milestone. 5000 hits! We’re just a small blog just getting started so 5000 hits is a pretty big deal! I’m very happy and excited. To celebrate I wanted to share my most popular posts in a greatest hits:
1. Sandbag Workouts-The top post is a DIY at home fitness about incorporating sandbags into your workout.
2. Moravian Stars-This Christmas tradition post has been popular all year round. Check out the beautiful Moravian stars and ornaments.
3. Stunning Video of Lions Fighting-Video from the Mara Triangle wilderness preserve in Africa.
4. Confederate Naval Yard in Charlotte, NC-Local history of the Confederate Navy’s supply yard in Charlotte NC.
5. The Cherryville Shooters-A New Years tradition where this North Carolina town has criers that sing in the new year and then fire off their black powder guns. Very cool local culture!
6. Arn the Knight Templar-This post about the Swedish movie which (I hope) will be coming soon to the US.
7. Wilber’s BBQ in Goldsboro, NC-A culinary review of this popular home of Eastern NC BBQ.
8. Ann Arbor Fairy Doors-This post looks at the wonderful and whimsical tradition of putting up fairy doors that started in Ann Arbor MI.
9. Kashwere Robes and Blankets-These soft blankets are the best! They use these for treatments at Rock Barn’s Spa. Very cool!
We finally brought Shirley (Amber’s mom) home from the rehab hospital last night. It’s a relief to have her home, but what an ordeal she’s been through! I’ve always swore that I’d never see my parents in a “con home” (convalescent hospital, the rehab facility was part con home part rehab.) This experience has only reinforced my strong belief.
All Headline News has a story about 94% of Nursing Homes violating Federal safety standards and 17% actually putting patients in danger with safety violations. And after what I have seen over the last month I can definitely believe the veracity of their story. While Shirley did have some health care providers at this facility that she truly fell in love with, the two day shifts left much to be desired. The night shift was very good and took excellent care of her.
I did witness many patients needing to be pulled up in bed, or taken out of wheelchairs and put into beds for hours (8-10); medications were late in coming or sometimes never came. (I’m talking about insulin for diabetics or pain pills for serious injuries.) There were two unfortunate souls who were left in the hallway to call out “Oh Lord” over and over all night long in pain as open sores were untreated and nothing was done for their pain. It was truly a shocking experience to witness all of this.
We are just happy that Shirley survived the experience. She is growing stronger every day and is able to actually walk a little bit on her own now. We are waiting for Home Health Care to deliver a lift chair/bed for her to sleep in. Until then, she is sleeping on the sofa and glad to be home.
Thanks for letting me vent to you here. Please let me just add this: If you or a loved one find yourself in a long term care facility, you must be proactive and fight for your rights as a patient. Look out for your best interests.
(Picture: estherase)
Ok, so if you’ve read my twitter feed you’ll have seen this message: http://twitter.com/jdroepel/statuses/840223867 which said “Strange night at work. Homicide and body dump on the wooded hill of the adjoining property. Police, EMS, SBI, News, all over the place.” Yeah, that was the real deal. No joke.
As you may know, I am working graveyard shift as a security officer. I was doing my patrols, driving around our property when I turn the corner and almost run into a cop car and an ambulance parked with their lights on and driving up with its lights on is a fire engine. I’m totally going ‘Oh crap!’
I jump out of my car just in time to see a paramedic come stumbling off of the wooded hill that adjoins our property. He goes up to the fire engine and waves them off, then walks over and talks to his partner. As soon as I can get a word in I’m asking what happened. (Can’t see any police at this point, just their car.) The paramedic looks at me, and with not so much as a blink he says one word with all the coolness of someone reading out the weather report from the newspaper. “Homicide.” Oh my freaking God! I’m about to jump out of my skin. He’s just looking at me like nothing’s the matter. It’s at this point that I notice the three police officers and their flashlights halfway up the hill, just on the other side of our property line. They are all standing around and looking at the body.
Turns out it was two homeless guys fighting. One clocked the other upside the head with a brick, then stabbed him multiple times and threw his body into the trees down the hill. They had been behind some department stores/stripmall when it all happened, but somehow there had been a witness that had called the police right away. So apparently the suspect was caught right away.
The rest of my shift passed quickly as we watched detective after detective arrive, SBI (I believe) showed up, and then the fire department lowered a stretcher basket from the top of the hill. They loaded the victim into a body bag and then carried him away up the hill.
How awful and scary is this? And to think it happened not more than a couple hundred yards from where I was. Middle of the night. Just gives me goose bumps and scares me. I’m not a former cop, or future cop like a lot of the people I work with, so while maybe this is something they have seen before… I’m a little freaked out by it. Sorry to post such a horrible story, but I just felt like I had to get it off my chest and share it.
Does this shot just not scream it’s 3 AM I’m tired and I want to go home?! Trying not to fall asleep on graveyard is sometimes tough.
Hi there. I know I haven’t posted in a bit. I’ve been working on the graveyard shift as of late and it’s pretty much driven all of my attention in my free time to sleep, Amber, and sleep. :0) But now that I’ve become accustomed to it, I do actually plan on writing, and on exploring the North Carolina neighborhood I find myself living in.
I have to thank Adam Salamon over at Creating Your Name Brand for pushing me into trying out twitter. Even if he doesn’t quite know he did that. I had registered a while ago, but never really used it. Adam sent a notice saying he was “following” me on twitter this morning and announced that he was embracing this new bit of web 2.0. So I decided to follow his lead and plunge down the rabbit hole. Check out an article he just posted about it here and here.
Hey Hey!!! I’ve got a great new job! I’m the newest Security Officer for Allied Barton Security Services here in Hickory North Carolina. As many of you know, I’ve been looking for a job as of late. So this is great news! I’ll put up some pictures of me in uniform asap. Plus I’ll give you the (I’m sure) hilarious play by play from my upcoming Handcuff-Pepper Spray class. Yes that’s right, your friendly neighborhood bookworm is going to get shot with pepper spray… On purpose! Ha! Ok, so at least there won’t be any youtube video to go along with. I’ll keep you up to date.
