Unattended.......

5:46 am - Wednesday - 34º F, 92% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the south southeast.....partly cloudy with clearing skies.....forecast high is 52º F, but.....but, we are in a warming trend.....here come the 60's and 70's again!

After being 'off' for two days I felt sort of disoriented going back to work Tuesday especially when I arrived in the maintenance yard to find my Ranger Cart, Lucky 13, had broken down Monday, however, it didn't take long to get back into the flow of the work which still needs to be completed before the Memorial Day weekend.  It was another bitter cold morning, that stayed bitterly cold for my entire shift....it seemed as if my hands were always cold.  Monday's and Tuesday's are pretty slow this time of year, but I still had 4 Rangers on duty to continue the deep cleaning of Section F......the last of the four sections, and also the hardest hit by winter.  

I began my day doing site checks, and for the first time since we arrived April 23rd there were only a couple of issues as opposed to the 8-10 issues I was finding every day then.  As I was finishing my first round I noticed a dog in site 342 (tent site) had been left unattended......she was leashed, however the owner and his vehicle were gone.  I had received a couple of reports the prior week of the same thing, so I wasn't too surprised, but now that I had observed the unattended dog I had to take action. About an hour later the owner returned to the site so I approached him to remind him of our rule regarding unattended dogs.  He seemed put out that I was bothering him, and told me his dog was well behaved, and, therefore, could be left unattended.  I calmly told him there were no exceptions to this rule, and to please not leave the dog unattended anymore......he answered 'WHATEVER!', and turned away.  I got back in my cart and continued back to the office to turn in my site check report.

After dropping off my report I returned to the Group Area to continue working on the fence knowing that at some point rain would probably interrupt my work.  I did manage to get four rails installed when it began to sprinkle.  By this time it was 2 pm, and getting close to my quitting time (2:30 pm).  As I was beginning to put my tools back in the cart I heard a call come over the 2-way radio looking for a maintenance guy to check on an electrical problem in site 199.  No one seemed to be responding, but I noticed that Adam, head of maintenance, was parked about 100 yards away talking to a customer, so I left my cart and walked over to see why he wasn't responding.  As I rounded his truck I realized he was talking to the customer from site 342, and that the customer was complaining to Adam about me 'jacking him up' over leaving his dog unattended.  Adam turned to me to ask what happened and I related my earlier conversation with the customer, and the customer became agitated, and began yelling that I had it in for him......when I replied I did not have it in for him he said something under his breath like "....okay, I'll take care of you" and began to exit his vehicle.  Adam stuck out his hand to keep the door of the customer's vehicle from opening, thereby avoiding what appeared to be a physical confrontation from occurring.  I advised Adam I was going to report the customer's behavior to Miguel, and then walked back to my cart.  As I was getting into my cart Adam drove up in his truck with Pete, another maintenance guy and said "Clarke, that guy wanted to fight you.....I could tell....that's why I stopped him from getting out of his Jeep".....I said, "I know, and thank you!"....he said he would back me up with Miguel.

After returning my personal tools to my trailer, I was on my way back to maintenance to drop off the cart when I found Miguel (our manager) walking back to the office.  I picked him up and related the events from 30 minutes earlier.  He wasn't too surprised as they had a few issues with this long term customer this past winter and promised to permanently evict him over this 'final straw'.  Never a dull moment at TVC, right?  

I dropped Miguel off to continue his walk, dropped off my cart, and then punched the clock just before 3 pm to end another work day at TVC.  TLE is working 9 am to 3:30 pm right now to spend more time training the afternoon/evening crew, and she was home by 4 pm.  

In my continuing effort to shed excess pounds I managed to get in another workout on my bicycle trainer, and then did my bi-weekly 'weigh-in' to find I had once again gotten below 200 lbs......199.2.....I had kind of leveled off at 200 for the last 10 days, but seem to finally be moving the needle again.....I'm going for 187, so 12 more pounds to go!  I've shed over 16 pounds since February.

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