Dad to Receive 25-year Library Volunteer Recognition

 A few months ago Dad told me he'd been asked, along with a few other volunteers, to pose for photos to be used in Library posters. I've seen a couple at my local branch, but not him. Last week he learned he's to be recognized for his 25 years of volunteer service serving on boards, teaching computer and genealogy classes, etc. . BTW, he's 89! Please read the article to see what he's done over the years.

Rather than stitching the past couple of weeks I've been reading cozy mysteries (it's stitch or read - read or stitch), am working on certification in Auxiliary Emergency Communications (ham radio operators to assist in disaster situations where most or all public service, relief agency and general communications are down), working on a couple of FEMA Independent Study courses, and MAY be taking a 3-day Train the Trainer class the end of this month. By the time I found out the dates registration had closed, but there may still be a couple of openings.  I go from plenty of time to stitch or read to a LOT of things I need to get done in a short time frame, and back again! What I REALLY should be doing is cleaning house!

Another new start

White Santa is still not finished. I've done very little stitching since that post. Just the past week I started stitching on a Dimentions kit I acquired from a fellow stitcher selling stash (which is what *I* should be doing!) with thoughts of my wine aficionado sister and BIL for Christmas - some year anyway.   The fabric is 14-count khaki aida, making the completed piece 10 x 14 (much bigger than I really want to ever frame), is horribly stiff even after I tried to rinse the sizing out, and which I do NOT like. I searched for something 32 count in my stash, but have started stitching on the aida anyway.  I'm normally a "stitcher" but this is so stiff I'm having to do the jab and pull method, which takes me twice as long. I'm hoping after it's been handled a while it'll soften up.

After applying for 2 part-time positions in the past month let me observe that being over 60 and instantly deemed vastly over-qualified for the types of positions that I'd even want to take on at this stage of life equates with being 16 and experienced at nothing - totally pointless.  Everyone is very happy and pleased with the knowledge and breadth of experience I bring to my volunteer activities, but no one will hire or pay me. It's very demoralizing.

Upgraded My Ham Radio License

Haven't been stitching lately, but I have been doing a lot of recent volunteer work and just passed the exam to upgrade my amateur ("ham") radio license from Technician to General. That required I learn a bit about circuits and electricity and electronics and antennas, etc. Absolutely NO background in any of those and wasn't sure my old brain would appreciate the tough work out!  I didn't really expect to pass the first time, but YEAH!!! I actually didn't need to upgrade my license because nothing I do requires it, but after 6 years I thought it was about time - and to hopefully give me a bit more credibility with the radio guys I'm frequently around. But here is the most amazing part: When the husband of my BFF heard I'd passed it, he personally emailed to offer me his father's shortwave receiver. I was stunned, humbled and honored. After checking out what it was he wanted to send me I said; YES, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! It's on it's way. I met my BFF on a prodigy BB in the late 80's and we've been friends and "sisters" ever since. She had her husband have been kind, caring and very generous over the past 25 years. (Wow, 25 years!!) Whoever alleges that you can not possibly meet and make lifelong friends via the internet just doesn't understand the real connections that bring people together in true friendship.  I'll probably need help getting an antenna set up properly, but I know a bunch of radio guys ... :D  One doesn't NEED a radio license just to listen, but it's a start on something I NEVER EVER thought about EVER doing.

As I've gotten older and my younger professional life is long behind me I've truly pondered to the point of worry about what I'm supposed to do with the rest of it. Guess volunteerism and radio stuff is going to be it - for now anyway. 

In the meantime, I put in 32 volunteer hours last weekend between handling radio traffic at the March for Babies and assisting at the Emergency Operations Center, which ramped up for a couple of public events because of the tragedy at the Boston Marathon. Will be doing similar this weekend as well. I'd like to officially report that other than meeting and talking with a bunch of very nice other volunteers and with some great police and fire officers, it was pretty boring. Which is a really good thing!  Next time I'm taking some stitching with me!

Another Volunteer of the Year Award!

Tarrant County RACES* 2013 Jan and Ulis Hair Volunteer of the Year Award received at NWS SKYWARN (storm spotter training)  program today in Fort Worth. My goodness gracious! Thank you Tarrant County Office of Emergency Management and RACES!!

*Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service

Videos of Endeavor Landing at LAX - with Music!

NASA TV's edited video:

The 24-piece brass/percussion ensemble, in which my brother plays trombone,  sounded the first trumpet note exactly when the 747's wheels hit the runway. They timed Copland's "Fanfare to the Common Man" to end as the 747 and Shuttle came to a stop directly behind them. The video and sound are excellent!

Vocalist's unedited video of landing and taxi with full version of Fanfare, wind, cheering and jet noises - also excellent! Like and leave a comment for Steve.

FOX News video of the event.

http://www.myfoxla.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=7752536

Commentary over "Fanfare," then you can hear the stirring version of "America the Beautiful" sung by Steve Amerson, who captured the above on his IPad, accompanied by the ensemble starting at 4:15. Very moving. All of it.

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As for my volunteering at Cowboys Stadium: I had to leave home just before the Shuttle landed in LA, sat around and did NOTHING for the next 2 hours, then folded over the tops of hot dogs in sleeve and stacked them on a tray. (I have a post grad so it was relatively simple to learn and do.) Thursday I volunteered with a different group preparing 3,000 sacks with chips, condiments and napkins for the Staff Rally on Friday - only about 1/3 to 1/2 of which were necessary/used. A LARGE group of 20-something stadium employees (I assume being paid) dropped hot dogs into a sacks just before handing them out as other employees walked past. I sat around and did little or nothing for another hour or two, then helped take the 120 or so left over dogs down to the field. I was pretty sure I'd get lost trying to find my way back to the freight elevator, so I was told I could climb what turned out to be more than a couple of flights of stairs through the lower section of seats to where I could exit out and find an elevator to take me back to street level. Instead I had to climb yet another 3 extra long flights, by which time my legs were rubber. To my surprise, I didn't drop dead before I got to the car.

Brother to Play at LAX Space Shuttle Endeavour Landing!

Endeavour Space Shuttle is scheduled to land about 12:45 PT (2:45 CT) at LAX, and should be broadcast LIVE on some stations. The brass and percussion ensemble Jim will be playing with will perform "Fanfare to the Common Man" by Aaron Copland with the first note at "wheels down" and "America the Beautiful" as dignitaries disembark at the hanger. Aaron Copeland's classic "Fanfare" is recognizable and  very moving. It was featured in "Saving Private Ryan," and other films and on TV. You can hear the Marine Band version here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib /ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.100010429/default.html

 
I'd already volunteered to assist at a Cowboys Stadium Staff Kick-Off Rally today from 2:50 to 10pm and won't be home. Given my druthers, I'd be in LA with Jim!  SO WISH I COULD BE THERE (or at least see it on TV! - maybe the landing WITH MUSIC will be repeated later on the news.)

Another unexpected honor

Arlington Volunteer of the Month

Was just made aware by the Office of Emergency Management, in a simple "FYI" email with the just the link. Not complaining, mind you, but, uh, don't they let people know in advance or at least with a phone call? I wonder what, if anything, comes next, and wish I had a decent "publicity" photo. What an emotional roller coaster this past month has been.

Wow! Nominated for Award

I just found out I've been nominated by the the Arlington OEM for the 2012 Jack Colley Citizen Corps Award, the highest honor awarded to a Texas Citizen Corps volunteer and only the second year it is to be awarded. The recipient will be announced June 15th at the Texas Unites Conference in San Antonio.  Because there are so many other volunteers serving various disaster relief agencies throughout the state who have put in so much more time and effort, I have no expectation whatsoever of "winning," nonetheless: Wow!  BTW, last year's recipient was later invited to the White House as a "Champion of Change." Hmmmm.

Arlington tornado

UPDATE:  ARRL (American Radio Relay League - a nation-wide organization for amateur radio operators) has an article about the North Texas tornadoes that mentions me - but didn't bother to see if they'd spelled my name right.  http://www.arrl.org/news/north-texas-hams-respond-when-tornados-strike

Not only did my hard drive crash AGAIN a couple of weeks ago, I've been very busy helping out at the Office of Emergency Management as the result of the tornado in SW Arlington on 4/3. I was called to come in to handle emergency radio traffic on the 4th because of the severe weather. I was sitting at the intersection next to the Administration Building when the sirens went off. My Dad was going to drive my car home to the garage he'd cleaned out (because of predicted large hail), but I told him FORGET THE CAR, YOU'RE COMING UP WITH ME!  (As I'm looking up to make sure something wasn't about to drop on top of us.) Very interesting experience. No time to be frightened, even when a spotter reported the circulation was right on top of our location. Circulation is rotation in the clouds, NOT a funnel or tornado. HOWEVER, someone took a photo of a funnel only 1/4 mile from our location. It's not a tornado unless the circulation actually reaches the ground. I left the EOC about 6:30pm. Because I sit in a windowless office with a screen way above my head showing radar, and was so busy listening to radio traffic and reporting emergency events to staff, I was unaware there had been a tornado in Lancaster at the same time. The whole area was EXTREMELY fortunate. No deaths, only 2 or 3 serious injuries, the Arlington tornado missed 2 elementary schools and a huge high school by as little as 250 feet. Had it continued on it's original path and not dissipated, it would have hit my neighborhood 2 or 3 minutes later. There has been an over-abundance of volunteers (leaving hundreds of good hearted citizens disappointed that there was nothing they were needed to do.) Nor were donations originally accepted, then later referred to Mission Arlington once a distribution plan was set up. The areas hit by the Arlington tornado were almost exclusively upper middle income and higher, thus most, if not all, are covered by insurance and though FEMA has been in to assess the damages, the likelihood of getting funds from FEMA is small. (They only cover non-insured expenses.)

I called the next morning to find out if our CERT volunteers had been activated, and instead was asked to come in to secure and schedule volunteers for both the Emergency Operations Center and the Tornado Recovery Center. Subsequently, I have been at the EOC pretty much from 7am to 11pm (or later) every night through Sunday. Went home at 8pm on Monday. Now I'm preparing documentation for the OEM/EOC to determine how many different people and how many hours they've put in. So far I've got a total of 215 volunteer hours for the EOC (not including the 3+ I spent today trying to figure out how Excell and Word 2007 work - I HATE THEM - way too overly complicated and far too many unnecessary graphics - I wish they'd leave what works perfectly well ALONE!). I don't have the total hours for volunteers working at the TRC yet, but it was operational from 8am to 8pm Tuesday through 6pm this past Monday. Close to 100 more I suspect. UPDATE:  CERT volunteers logged 185 hours at the Tornado Recovery Center. Altogether, in less than a week, volunteers totaled over 400 hours assisting at the Office of Emergency Management, the TRC, Fire, Police and citizens of Arlington.

One interesting story that I haven't seen published is that when the tornado hit St. Barnabas church, it sucked up or blew away hundreds of plastic Easter eggs, meaning some folks found unexpected plastic eggs hidden in their yards this year. Thankfully, my daughter was working at home. Straight line winds or a small spin up hit her office and blew in windows where she would otherwise have been sitting. God is good!

www.arlingtontx.gov/tornado
http://pd.dfw.com/sp?aff=1100&keywords=+arlington+tornado&submit=Search

Not Stitching Again, Rain at Last, Wills & Probate

No Mojo: The PS Santa I need to finish is sitting there in a Ziplock bag with various threads - only some of which are necessary for this design. I THINK about stitching, but I'm once more totally mojoless. Instead I've been avidly reading the Agatha Raisin mystery series and only have the newest of the 22 novels to read. But after Agatha, THEN what will I read? Don't know yet. Maybe I'll get some sewing done.

Rain: Like all of Texas, we've been in moderate to severe drought conditions for the past 18 months. I finally received 4.83" over the last 2-1/2 days. That goes on top of the 1.10" earlier this month making this the rainiest January on record. But I have to wonder how many more weeks and months it will be before we get more.

Mom: My mother died 7 months ago tomorrow. Can it have already been that long? Dad is ready to probate her Will. As the "family attorney" it will be my job to prepare the paperwork and appear in court with him. He may be ready to probate her Will, but I'm not sure that I am. I'll have to put brain on auto-pilot and just do it. If only I didn't have to ...

Teaching in Thailand - Not: After much research, crunching the $$ numbers (especially taking into account the fact that neither my expensive private health insurance - which I would have to keep paying just in case - nor Medicare would pay a cent for medical services rendered or drug purchases outside the US), as much as the idea of living abroad intrigues me (I'd love to actually) and the fact that I probably SHOULD do it, it's a no go. Even if there were no other factors (believe me, there are many), I can't afford it. But keeping an open mind to that end, I've recently been doing a bit of volunteer work with the church sponsored ELS classes, and have discovered that I'm not that interested in being an ESL teacher in the first place.

Volunteer Stuff: In 2011 I logged over 200 volunteer hours, not including prep or travel time. Felt like a lot more. I sure wish I got paid for any of this. January has been a busy month. First I helped with ESL registration (3 days / twice a day / 3 hours per shift). Then the 14th I helped with RACES training in Fort Worth. On the 21st I took an all day formal FEMA Damage Assessment course at the behest and request of the Arlington Office of Emergency Management. The 28th is the all day NWS SKYWARN storm spotter training. Next month is a POD (Point of Distribution) course in conjunction with the Tarrant County Health Department. IF we ever have a large scale emergency or disaster, I'll at least be trained to help - provided I can get my car started.

So now what do I do with the rest of my life?  I've been trying to figure this one out for the past 5 years. I honestly have no answers.

Assisted with Alzheimer's Walk

... as a radio volunteer, yesterday morning in Fort Worth's Trinity Park. The weather was perfect!. To read about the event and what I did, see my Adventures of an Emergency Management Volunteer blog. Since I'd been awake all night, when I got home I ate and went to bed, sleeping through the first 6 innings of the Rangers vs Tigers game.Rangers won! Woo-hooooo!