HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN.....

The conference is over and yesterday I started home. I do not like to drive in the dark on unfamiliar roads. I especially worry about four legged woodland creatures jumping out on the road.

I left Williamsburg about 12:30 and then drove to Winchester and stayed overnight. I so did want just to keep driving, but I knew that I only had about one hour of daylight left. I watched a bit of mindless TV and then went to sleep.

This morning I awoke at 4 AM, and could not fall asleep again. This time I again watched mindless TV and decided the world has gone crazy.

I departed at 07:30 and it was really cold out there. I have this little icons on my dashboard of a cut away of a tire with an exclamation mark inside of it. This is a indicator that the tire pressure on one of the tires is low. I stopped at Sheetz and checked all four tires, one took larger volume of air than the rest, filled up the tank and was off. The sensor seems to be in the air filling stem and will reset itself after a few minutes. The first time I had to fill up the tires I had expected immediate gratification, but it takes a few minutes to reset. That is a good invention, at least for me.

I was driving thru the mountains of Western Maryland and for a moment could not figure out what was on the grass and trees, DUH in the same second it dawned on me that it was a dusting of snow..... It was a pretty drive thru those mountains. Driving the PA Turnpike is something I do not like to do. So I decided to drive I 68 which runs parallel to the Turnpike. The traffic was light and three lanes where the direction was uphill.

I got off at US 219 and drove North thru Meyersdale and caught the Turnpike at Somerset. I had not been in that direction for about 25 years, and much to my surprise there was a bypass around Meyersdale. This is a town of about 2,800 people, now, why in the world would milions be spent for that by pass? I could imagine if they had made the whole US 219 a four lane, limited access highway but it was only a few miles..... Just another example of the squandering of our tax dollars again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyersdale,_Pennsylvania

MADE IT TO VIRGINIA

I made it to Virginia in eight hours. That is the usual amount of time it takes to drive here, from Pittsburgh that is. The drive was sunny and when I got to Winchester I could see dark clouds to the east, and that was the direction that I was headed. In Fredericksburg it started to rain and was raining all the while I was on I 95.

I do not know how any one else feels about the US Interstate system, but I think I 95 ranks up there being about the WORST to drive. It is three lanes, 75 MPH and bumper to bumper. I feel like I am in a demolition derby all the time.

Then I 64 is very busy too but it is mostly two lanes. Whoa, what did I forget...the damned PA Turnpike which is the absolute worst maintained road in the Interstate System.....and there is no wiggle room what so ever on I76.

I have two days of classes done and two to go. I spent my afternoons doing a little shopping and walking around Williamsburg. Today was nice and sunny so I took a few pictures. Tomorrow I will go to class and then out to dinner with my brother and his family. I think Mexican is on the menu.

I realized this afternoon that there are just so many pictures to be taken of Williamsburg, they really all look alike. With the possible exception of ones with snow.

HALLOWEEN

Well, Halloween is over for this year.....We had about 60 beggars at our doors today. Most of them were little and with their parents. I usually get some teenagers with no costume and a pillow sack. None of them today, guess they grew up and decided not to come....

The toddlers were sooooo cute.. Most of the girls were princesses and the boys were super heros.... There was one kid who had made a costume of one of those machines where you waste money trying to get some cheap stuffed animal. That was really great, it looked good and was so inventive.

Tomorrow I will being on my way to Williamsburg VA to got to my yearly conference. This is such a good meeting. It has all the latest and practical things that I can use in my practice. It is an eight hour drive from my home, and the weather is suppose to be good, although chilly.

I am feeling better. I have had this URI and heavens knows what for the past month. I got a script for Zithromax and am starting to feel bette. I hate being sick, I do not do well with illness. I just want to get better and go on with my daily routine.

I will leave when the sun is up, I do not like driving in the dark, and hopefully have an uneventful drive.

THURSDAY

Just sitting here and I realized that I have not written much for about a week. The week has been uneventful, except for work, work, and more work.

Next week I am going to a conference in Williamsburg VA. This is the third year I have gone to this conference. It is four whole days and the topics are good, and useful in my practice.

The trip will take about eight hours to get there. The leaves will be at peak down in Virginia and I will get to visit my brother and his wife and daughters. One daughter is studying OT in College and his other daughter is a senior in high school, his wife is an RN. That runs in the family of mine.

I a off tomorrow and have a list of things to do and the first one is to go to Med Express. This is the fifth week I have been sick. At first I thought it was just a cold and then I had a sinus infection. But the runny nose, sniffing and chronic, hacking non productive cough is making me crazy……I am suspicious that I have bronchitis. I am sick of feeling sick.

THOUGHTS WHILE AT THE PHIPPS

I took a trip to the Phipps Conservatory yesterday, my aim was to take pictures of the Fall Flower show.   I was disappointed because there weren’t too many fall flowers.   But I did walk around taking pictures.

The one above gave me a thought.   Not the glass clowns, but the date on the brick was behind.   It say 1892, it started me thinking.   I wondered if my ancestors came here to enjoy the flower 107 years ago????

PHIPPS CONSERVATORY   This link shows some of the Conservatory but not too much in the way of history.   Guess I will have to search deeper for that information.

The next show will be Christmas and it will be spectacular with the flowers and colors of the season.

Olive Stephens still eludes me,  I posted a question of Roots Web and someone sent me the link for WV marriages, seems they have an index that you can peruse.   With the twenty five year difference in their ages I feel fairly certain that Robert Stephens and Olive eloped.

 

IRKED AGAIN

Today I decided to look for a annuity from a hosptial which I had worked for 10 years and had, sort of, lost track of. (I know never to end a sentence with a preposition, but could not think of anything but "of which I had lost track???")

The last correspondence was a change of address when I had moved to Texas in 1984 (WOW). So, my being off today I decided to track that annuity. The main reason was the fact that the hospital was to be closed as of January 31, 2010. That prompted me to look for the money.

The paper work I had stated that it was with CIGNA. I called CIGNA and they no longer had the annuity but it had been sold to Prudential. I called Prudential and had had to jump thru 20 hoops with the mechanical bitch telling me to enter my SSN and pin. She did not understand my SSN, and I would have liked to rip out her throat at that point in time..... I must have entered my SSN five times, and she told me she did not understand it five time. After arguing with her, telling her I wanted to talk to a human, the voice said she would connect me to help.

I REALLY HATE THE FREAKING MESSAGES TELLING ME TO PRESS ONE OR WHAT EVER...WHAT I WANTED TO DO WAS TALK TO A HUMAN, PREFERABLY ONE WHOSE NATIVE LANGUAGE WAS ENGLISH.

Honestly, I was on the damn phone and using up my minutes for 45 of them.....After much aggravation I talked to Peter who was able to send me to Melissa who helped me with the problem.....As it goes the fund was sent to Prudential and they had no record of my annuity, but they did have the records of the hospital in question. They called them and no one answered the phone (NO BIG SURPRISE THERE), but Melissa followed thru, took my information, and they have to research it and it will take 20 days.

How in the world did CIGNA miss sending me the information that it was sold to Prudential??? If I had not followed up on this, they would have written it off and the money lost......How do they lose track of someone???

My Alma Matter from college never loses track of me. AHA perhaps only the people who want to collect money from you are really on the ball with your latest address.....what a surprise that is no doubt. Well, I gave Melissa my address, two phone numbers and I did receive a Case Number of this so I can follow up. The money is not great, I worked 10 years for this organization and hopefully it will be enough to pay the taxes on my house when I retire.

Never the less I feel there is more aggravation to follow. Will keep posted here.

BIRTHDAY

This past week has gone by slowly....Today is my birthday....What is your most far back memory that you have??? I do not know.....I can remember being at my grandmothers and playing with some kid with a metal toy car. This was large enought to sit in and it was a dark reddish brown color. I saw pictures of it and did I really remember it or did I formulate memories of this car?

I have pictures of this car but can not find it at this time. I also remember the blizzard of 1950. I was four at the time; it began to snow and I was watching for my father to come home from work. The bus service had stopped and he had walked about 3 to 4 miles home because of that. It was dark and we kept looking out the window for him. I think it was a Friday and the next few days it still snowed. It was so deep, I wondered if it was really deep or it seemed so because I was a child. It was much taller than I, I read later that it had snowed about three feet that weekend. My mother told me later that it had snowed about three feet, I suppose this was not my imagination after all.

I remember a pot bellied stove in the basement of our house. My parents were building a house and I remember sleeping there. I remember all the work but not actually when it was finished.