Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Cool......

8:10 am - Tuesday - July 3rd - Southwest Harbor, ME - 62º F, 99% humidity (glad I'm not working today!), wind 7 mph out of the south........foggy with a forecast high of 75º F.  The 14 day forecast shows we will have our highest temperature of the season, 85º F, tomorrow, July 4th.....again, glad I am not working on the 4th!  Then it will cool slowly over three days back into the high 60's......


.......and then stay mostly in the 70's for the next week.  Looks like rain again this Friday, July 6th.....it says 100% chance of rain, but we shall see what we shall see.


As I have reported previously, in addition to my normal 8-5 workday 5 days per week I am the night manager on Sunday and Monday nights.  As such I am in possession of the office golf cart on those two nights and on Monday mornings I drive it to work.......



.......I took a short video of my drive to work for your viewing pleasure....we are probably less than the length of a football field 'as the crow flies' from the office and it takes less than 3 minutes to walk the distance.....to drive it is a little bit longer.  It's probably about 7:52 am at this time and Todd, Alex and Tony have been working on the pool for almost an hour now.....I like my 8 am start time as I know it will probably be another 1/2 hour before I begin my work day even though I will punch the clock in just a couple of minutes.  They have a very relaxed routine at the beginning and end of each work day, but once you begin work its pretty much non-stop, except for lunch, all day until about 30 minutes before quitting time.  So, out of an 8 hour work day I actually work about 7 hours.....that's just the routine here.  I do have a difficult time sitting around waiting to begin my day, but I am getting used to it slowly but surely.

On Monday's I am paired with my buddy Tony who is a retired correctional officer.  Tony and his family moved to Southwest Harbor about 14 years ago, and he then commuted back to Massachusetts where he worked at the prison 3 days per week (two 16 hour days, and one 8 hour day) for the last 13 years of his workaday life.  He is only 51......just 5 years older than my oldest son, Chris.  Seems kind of weird that he is so close in age to my son as he is my peer here at Smuggler's Den.  Tony, like me, doesn't like to be retired 7 days a week so he works here at Smuggler's Den in the summers 3 days per week.

Anyway, on Mondays we begin our day by restocking the 'wood box', which holds about 60 bundles of wood.  On a typical day (typical meaning from now until Labor Day) we will bring up over 30 bundles of wood each morning of the week. Smuggler's Den sells over 4,000 bundles of wood each summer.   

Once the 'wood box' is restocked we clean the outdoor triple sink behind the restroom where folks clean their pots, pans, dishes and utensils each morning.  We probably clean that sink 5, or 6 times per day.  Then, about 9:30, we begin to collect the trash, recyclables and returnables.  It takes about 45 minutes in all, sometimes longer.  On this day I was stung by a yellow jacket on my achilles tendon my right leg.....ouch!  It felt like someone was sticking an ice pick in my leg!  We delivered the effluent to the transfer station and then headed in to the local hardware store to buy a new 'Shop Vac' to replace the 5 year old one we use to vacuum out the restrooms each day.  We were back at SDC just before 11 am......ahhhhh....lunch time!

Since TLE does not go to work until 2 pm on Sundays and Mondays she makes me a fresh lunch....on this day it was a grilled cheese sandwich......a great lunch on a cold day.....oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Monday it only got up to 62 degrees and it was chilly.  I managed, however, to avoid donning my jacket.....maybe I'm becoming a 'Mainer'.....maybe.

Tony only works a six hour shift, so he is off directly after we finish the restrooms leaving me 3 more hours to the end of my day at 5 pm.   I went up to the 'garage' to fetch my Stihl string trimmer and spent the next two hours trimming grass in the 70's and 80's as well as around the cabins. I have learned that in northeast Maine there are three things that are immutably true.....death, taxes and fast growing grass......lol.

I clocked out at 5 pm and headed for home where I did not pass 'GO', or collect a $100, but did get immediately into the shower to soak away another weeks worth of aches and pains.....they are, to be sure, good aches and pains, and the very long, hot shower is my reward each day.

Oh, by the way, the morning World Cup match saw Brazil eliminate Mexico 2-nil, and the afternoon match which I watched after my long, hot shower saw Belgium come from behind to win 3-2 over Japan.  Japan had a 2-nil lead going into the 70th minute when Belgium finally broke through, and then a few minutes later tied the game 2-2.  It remained that way until the 94th, and last minute when Belgium scored the winning goal with 15 second left in added time......another nail biter!

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