Sleep Apnea

I had a Dr. appointment today to get the results of my sleep apnea test. I have mild sleep apnea and what he called mild oxygen depervation.(probably misspelled)It took me 30 minutes to fall asleep, 2 hrs. to reach REM sleep. I think he said 39 or 49 times I almost woke up and actually woke up 6 times. The longest I went without breathing was 22 seconds. The sleep center is suppose to call me and let me know when my appointment is to set pressures on the CPAP. He also said if I lost weight it might correct the problem. I can't see that happening as I really love food. I'm glad it's not a severe case. Doc said it should be an easy fix. Take care everybody!

Lukewarm

Today when Betty and I walked into the Everything's A Dollar store in Bismarck "Smooth" by Santana, with Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, was playing on the PA system. I don't know why but sometimes when I hear the lyrics of a song they take on a Christian context or meaning. What really struck me in this song were the words "Give me your heart make it real or else forget about it." Also "And if you said this life ain't good enough I would give my world to lift you up." And the words "In every breath and every word I hear your name calling me out." Ya'll listen to it and see if the lyrics can take on a different meaning. Maybe I'm going crazy!! hehe




"You are my reason for reason".
"Give me your heart make it real or else forget about it".

Feels Like Rain

Buddy Guy

I couldn't find a video of this I liked so this one is audio only.

Fade Into Blue

Bill Perry

Harmonica player

Cement Pumper Truck

Last week Thursday Harlow and I took the day off to watch Derry Pool fill his styrofoam basement forms with cement. Dad and I went together. He had a pumper truck come from Bismarck to fill the forms. Derry recently lost his home to fire. Anyway, I don't think the pumper truck pumped a wheelbarrow amount of cement and it blew a pipe. He didn't have another one along and it didn't sound like his boss would let anybody weld it. Liability isues I would imagine. By this time there was a cement truck backed up to the pumper and another one in the driveway. Derry called the cement plant right away and cancelled the third and fourth truck. I don't know what they ended up doing with all that cement.

Well, they decided to try it again today so Harlow and I took the day off again, not only to watch them pump cement, but I had my sleep test last night. I didn't know if I would be tired today or not.

It took me awhile to get to sleep but sleep I must have because the next thing I knew it was 5:30 and somebody was waking me up to take the wires off. I won't know anything until the Doc looks at the results. They didn't wake me during the night to put a mask on.

Back to the pumper. The cement truck arrives and guess what, the pumper truck has elecrical problems and won't pump. I bet it took him half an hour but he got it going. While he was fixing and making phone calls they decided to back one of the trucks up to the forms and start unloading it that way. Before his truck was empty the pumper was going. It was quite interesting. They kept walking around the forms to fill them. They built a walk way just for that. I guess they can't fill them unevenly or the forms will break out. The guy operating the pumper said it runs around 5000 psi to pump the cement up that high and then it just gravity flows down. I have never seen one work before. Here are some pictures.
Duane

I just got off work and since Duane was blogging I thought I'd add a little of what I've been up to. This week I'm on the 10:30 am-7:00 pm shift (5 days). That only happens a couple of times a year.
We've been working on our Haunted House at work. Every Year they put on a haunted house for all the kids in the area.

We have kids come from Hazelton, Linton, Strasburg, Bakker and I think even Napolean and possibly Wishek. I've never really helped with it because last year we had only been out on the floor for a little bit when they started. I'm not sure how it happened but I keep getting told I'm in charge of the decorating. We all really work together, whenever anyone can go back and work on it, but I guess someone has to know whats going on, and what the plans are. But I know there are others that have worked as hard on it as I have. I have really enjoyed it.
We've had a lot of fun coming up with ideas, and some of the girls that have come through say it's the biggest and the best one yet. It is a non profit, just for the kids so we are a little limited on funds but we have a lot of stuff from the past years to use so that helps and a lot of employees bring their stuff in so we can use it. I know one of the guys is bringing his fogger in tomorrow. I can't wait to see how it looks with that running.
I'll maybe try to get some pictures and post them.
Well, have a GREAT Weekend !
Betty

Pictures

Casey's Shooting Bench

Last week or so.

Well, alot has happened since I last posted. I don't know where
to start.

Casey got his senior pictures back and they turned out really good. Now we just have the task of picking out a few of the best.

I finally went and got my car home. Duane and I took the seats out shampooed the floor. Then we decided to put Alex's old seats in. His were in like new condition, where the ones that were in this car were really worn. So we shampooed them and got them all in. Duane ordered a new speedometer for it too (off Ebay), because the old one didn't work. I don't know what it was with those cars, we had to replace the speedometers in both Brandon and Alex's cars when they had them too. I think the boys really miss their Neon's when they see this one. I know Alex sat in it for awhile when he was here and he said he really missed his car. And when I told Brandon Duane had said there is just something about those little red Neons that he really likes. Brandon said Shh. I think he misses his as well. This one isn't in near as good of shape as theres were. It has bad hail damage (baseball size). The clutch was also going out. Brandon fixed it in his spare time. It will really save a lot of money on gas. My Jeep gets a little over 16 mpg and the Neon gets 30mpg. Quite a savings when you drive at least 30 miles a day.

Alex and Nicole were here this weekend. They just came Friday night and spent the day on Saturday. I made homemade pizza for dinner it was just Alex, Nicole,Casey and I. Because Duane went to a sale up by Bismarck with his Dad.

Casey built a really nice shooting bench in shop. He brought it home on Friday so him and Alex and Nicole went and set that up and shot clay pigeons in the afternoon.
They said it worked really good. I'll post a few pictures later today.

Duane, Casey and I had dentist appointments on Wednesday. I just had my teeth cleaned and a check up, no cavities. Duane and Casey both had fillings. Casey said he could'nt feel his mouth for 5 hours. You could really tell it too, it was just puffed out.

The week before on Wednesday Duane had a doctor appointment. He was referred by his heart doctor to consult with a sleep apnea specialist. He has an appointment for a sleep study on November 1st.

It seems like every Wednesday is an appointment for something.

My mom fell a while back. She fell so hard (right on her face) that she scratched the bifocals off of her glasses. She was outside at the time it happened and her neighbor saw her fall and called my sister( she works right in town). Fortunately she never broke anything but she was really scratched and bruised. We had discussed putting her in assisted living last time she fell, but decided to wait. Well now after this time, one of my sisters checked into the assisted living again and it seems they have 1 private room available. So I think my oldest sister is going to come home this week and we are going to get her settled in there. Mom really doesn't sound like she is too sure of it, but the one thing she requested was a private room and I am so glad they were able to get her one. It's really hard to see her have to move in there but I really feel it is necessary with winter coming on. I know I'll feel better if she's there where there is someone looking out for her all of the time. There they have their privacy but they also have people checking up on them to see if they need help with anything, and making sure they take their meds. It takes a special type of person to care for the elderly when they don't remember things real well, etc. I've seen what a difference a persons attitude can make towards their mental health just having someone upbeat and cheerful seems to raise their spirits. In assisted living the staff goes home and has a break, plus they are trained not only in how to deal with the elderly but in how to recognize if and when they have any medical problems. Anyway, I'm hoping my mother will like it once she gets settled. I know she loves to visit and there are people there that she knows, so since she has her own room she can go to when she wants privacy I think she will adjust well. We'll just all have to go and take her out often, and also spend time with her there especially at first until she feels comfortable. Please keep her in your prayers.

Well, you all have a Great rest of the weekend!

The Undefended City

The Undefended City
No despair.

By Bill Whittle


When I first got to college, back in the last few weeks of the Seventies, I finally got a chance to see an ordinary game of Dungeons and Dragons. My immediate inclination was to play as a Paladin: the pinnacle of Lawful Good, a character required to dash in and fight overwhelmingly powerful evil forces anywhere and at whatever odds. These contests were short, depressing and hilarious, but all D&D really came down to in the end was slaying small monsters, taking their gold, buying slightly better gear and then slaying slightly larger monsters. Why not just save some time and become a Vorpal Sword distributor? Then you get the weapons and the gold, and people bring them both to you. And so a larval conservative was born. And I never played again.

That was the attitude I took into The Lord of the Rings when the first of the trilogy appeared in 2001, just a few months after the Two Towers actually did fall and the idea of good and evil suddenly became — to me and no doubt to you too — a great deal less ironic and a great deal more real.

And there, in the darkness, staring up at that screen, I marveled at this monumental font of deep and eternal ideas: the aversion to facing danger, even when it is right in front of us; the value of old and true allies; the corrosive force of addiction; responsibility forsaken, then reclaimed… and through it all the fear that we may be lesser sons of greater fathers, and that we may no longer have the courage or the will to defend the City entrusted to our care.

This, and more, what was what John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was trying to teach me, down that dark river of the future — and he ought to know. The Lord of the Rings was written between 1937 through 1949… years of dark waters, indeed.

A few years before Tolkien put pen to paper, an event took place that a man of his education would have undoubtedly been aware. On February 9th, 1933, the ruling elite of the world’s great Civilization held a debate in the Oxford Union. With thunderclouds growing dark across the English Channel, at a time when resolute action could still have averted the worst catastrophe the world has ever known, these elites resolved that “This House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”

The Resolution passed by a vote of 275 to 153. Needless to say, this vote did not avert the fight. It guaranteed it.

How much of the weight of that, I wonder, sat along side him as he penned page after page about the decline of the Men of the West. For taken in its entirety, The Lord of the Rings is about the collective regeneration of the will and courage of a previous age, and ends with the hope that the greatest days of the City lie yet ahead.

I live a few miles from Santa Monica High School, in California. There, young men and women are taught that America is “a terrorist nation,” “one of the worst regimes in history,” that it’s twice-elected leader is “the son of the devil,” and dictator of this “fascist” country. Further, “patriotism” is taught by dragging an American flag across the classroom floor, because the nation’s truest patriots, as we should know by now, are those who are most able to despise it.

This is only high school, remember: in college things get much, much worse.

Two generations, now, are being raised on this poison, and the reason for that is this: the enemies of this city cannot come out and simply say, “Do not defend the city.” Even the smartest among us can see that is simple treason. But they can say, “The City is not worth defending.” So they say that, and they say that all the time and in as many different ways as they are able.

If you step far enough back to look at the whole of human history, you will begin to see a very plain rhythm: a heartbeat of civilization. Steep climbs out of disease and ignorance into the light of medicine and learning — and then a sudden collapse back into darkness. And it is in that darkness that most humans have lived their lives: poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

The pattern is always the same: at the height of a civilization’s powers something catastrophic seems to occur — a loss of will, a failure of nerve, and above all an unwillingness to identify with the values and customs that have produced such wonders.

The Russians say a fish rots from the head down. They ought to know. It may not be factually true that Nero fiddled while Rome burned, the saying has passed into common usage because the image as the ring of truth to it: time and time again, the good and decent common people have manned the walls of the city, and have been ready to give their lives in its defense, only to discover too late that some silk-robed traitor has snuck out of the palace at midnight and thrown open the gates to the barbarians outside.

And how is this done, this “throwing open of the gates?” How are defenders taken off the walls?

Well, most of what I learned about Vietnam I learned from men like Oliver Stone. This self-loathing narcissist has repeatedly tried to inculcate in me a sense of despair and outrage at my own government, my own culture, my own people and ultimately myself. He tried to convince me — and he is a skillfull man — that my own government murdered my own President for political gain. I am told daily in those darkened temples that rogue CIA elements run a puppet government, that the real threat to the nation comes from the generals that defend it, or from the businessmen that provide the prosperity we take for granted.

I sit with others in darkened rooms, watching films like Redacted, Stop-Loss, and In the Valley of Elah, and see our brave young soldiers depicted as murderers, rapists, broken psychotics or ignorant dupes –visions foisted upon me by bitter and isolated millionaires such as Brian de Palma and Paul Haggis and all the rest.

I’ve been told this story in some form or another, every day of every week of the past 30 years of my life. It wasn’t always so.

But it is certainly so today. And standing against all this hypnotic power — the power of the mythmakers in Hollywood, the power of the information peddlers in the media, the corrosive power of America-hating professors on every campus in America… against all that we find an old warrior — a paladin if ever there was one — an old, beat-up warhorse standing up in defense of his city one last time. And beside him: a wonder. A common person… just a regular mom who goes to work, does a difficult job with intelligence and energy and grace and every-day competence and then puts it away to go home and have dinner with the family.

Against all of that stand these two.

No wonder they must be destroyed. Because — Sarah Palin especially — presents a mortal threat to these people who have determined over cocktails who the next President should be and who now clearly mean to grind into metal shards the transaxle of their credibility in order to get the result they must have. Truly, they are before our eyes destroying the machine they have built in order to get their victory. What the hell is so threatening to be worth that?

Only this: the living proof that they are not needed. Not needed to govern, not needed to influence and guide, not needed to lecture us on our intellectual and moral failings which are visible only from the heights of Manhattan skyscrapers or the palaces up on Mulholland Drive. Not needed. We can do it — and do it better — without all of them.

When all is said and done, Civilizations do not fall because of the barbarians at the gates. Nor does a great city fall from the death wish of bored and morally bankrupt stewards presumably sworn to its defense. Civilizations fall only because each citizen of the city comes to accept that nothing can be done to rally and rebuild broken walls; that ground lost may never be recovered; and that greatness lived in our grandparents but not our grandchildren. Yes, our betters tell us these things daily. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe it.

Ask the common people of all politics and persuasions aboard Flight 93 whether greatness and courage has deserted America.

It is the small-town virtues of self-reliance, hard work, personal responsibility, and common-sense ingenuity — and not those of the preening cosmopolitans that gape at them in mixed contempt and bafflement — that have made us the inheritors of the most magnificent, noble, decent and free society ever to appear on this earth. This Western Civilization… this American City… has earned the right to greet each sunrise with a blast of silver trumpets that can bring down mountains.

And what, really, is a Legion of Narcissists and a Confederacy of Despair against that?

— Bill Whittle lives and works in Los Angeles.


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Tomorrow is Friday !!

It seemed like a long week this week.Probably because I worked 5 days.Even though they are shorter days I really missed my Wednesday off.
It's been a busy week,couldn't really say what I've been busy with. I guess just the usual, making meals,cleaning house and washing clothes.Thats another reason I missed my day off.I didn't get any big projects done this week.I never really do to much in the evening other than keep the washer running,misc picking up ect. Because by the time I get home and we're done with supper I just don't feel like starting anything much.

Next week I'll be back to 4 days. Duane has an appointment in Bismarck on Wednesday for a consultation with a sleep apnea specialist.He has been waking up in the night for no apparent reason. I said I bet you wake yourself up snoring. I know he use to really snore bad, and sometimes he would do a big gasp thing and then roll over. I really don't notice it much now because I'm usually asleep by the time he comes to bed, and I sleep like the dead.

Duane has today and tomorrow off, so he's been working on stuff around the yard.Right now they are on the other farm(Compaan farm), they went over to bring the sprayer over and see about geting some spraying done tonight, but Duane just called for Casey to come and get them so they must be going to wait until morning.

Casey had career fair on Wednesday. He came home talking about the college in Madison,South Dakota. He is thinking he would like to go into computer game design, but not really sure yet. Later he said maybe go to college in Bismarck for 2 years and then transfer to Madison for a B.S. in computer Game Design.

Well take care,
Have a Good Weekend,

Betty