%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Being Retired now, I thought that it was time for a new name to this Blog |
|
Talk about perks, my career had one of the best I can think of! I traveled in the course of business, delivering classes for my employer. I was a Senior Training Specialist for Motorola Solutions, and taught classes on a wide variety of subjects centered around 2-way radio communications. I knew that when the time arrived that I would retire, and I have. I've always said that if you can't stand the heat in the kitchen, get out! I can't handle the heat anymore. I was qualified to deliver approximately 32 different classes, but about half of those were 'Legacy' classes, and were not in demand anymore. My students were technicians, those who maintained, programmed, calibrated, and repaired large 2-way radio systems. Some of these systems are statewide, and use TCP-IP networking to allow sites to communicate with others. Some are small, traditional type radio sites. The size doesn't matter, in each case the systems must be kept operational at all times, since many of them are Public Safety Systems. So I traveled, sometimes frequently, 3-4 weeks in a row.... where have I been? Some of the places I've been (I can't list them all here, the list would be toio long) are pretty interesting. 1. Hawaii - Four times, Oahu, Maui (twice), and the Big Island 2. BangkokThailand, twice 3. Frankfurt Germany, twice 4. Algiers, Algeria 5. Melbourne Australia 6. Bismarck North Dakota, Summer & Winter 7. Los Angeles, Too many times to count 8. Washington DC, Too many times to count 9. Seattle three or four times 10. Texas, all over the state 11. Florida, all over the state 12. New Mexico, HOME! Several times  Best Cultural And Regional Honorable Mention |
Storm Damage, Workers Clearing Tree 7/17/25 After yesterday's storm, today was a cleaning up day. Not for us necessarily, but for our neighbor. The sad thing is, our neighbor is moving to the St. Louis area soon, he was down there when the storm hit yesterday. Today Four Seasons Tree and Landscaping Service showed up (after lunch), and proceeded to remove the tree! There were a couple of things that I was impressed by right away. First, I was impressed by their approach to safety. Seriously, everything they did was safe, at least in my somewhat inexperienced eye. One of the men was a little crazy too, he had no fear of heights it seemed. He was in a lift bucket, and up about 25-30 feet above the ground. I will say that he didn't have a lanyard on that would save him should he fall, however there was no place for him to tie off either. He also left the lift bucket to get on the roof at times, and never had a safety harness on. Again, no place to tie off. Still, their work was quick and safe (it still took over 3 hours to get that branch cleared off the roof). Secondly, their teamwork was something else. These men knew what their job was, as a team they were efficient. Being as old as I am, I was impressed by their strength and workmanship. I got tired watching them too!   Four Seasons Lawn & Tree Service didn't have a crane to use in the tree removal, so one was leased for the afternoon from Litwiler Tree Service. Of course Litwiler provided their own crane crew, no surprise there. As I was typing this, they started working on the part of the tree that was still upright. We watched for a couple of minutes, then an accident occurred. At least no one injured, but we lost about 10 feet of our fence. The crane lost its grip on the tree trunk it was lifting and it crashed to the ground, taking out part of our fence, and part of the neighbors fence. There's a large area (about 8 feet long) where the wooden fence was just removed by the falling tree. We'll see where we go from here! I will be uploading my photos to Google Drive should anyone want to view them.  Jim Dorrell |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
