« Posts under Rare Events

2am Car Fire

October 1, 2011 / Paul posted in Rare Events / No Comments

I haven’t posted in ages, however current events dictate that I write about them.
At approx. 2:30am Thursday morning Alexis and I were sound asleep when we heard two loud pops from outside that sounded like firecrackers or a car back firing. I sat up in bed half awake while Alexis went and peeked out of the window. She quickly called me to the window and what I saw woke me up faster than any cup of coffee could, not that I drink coffee. A car two spaces away from mine was engulfed in fire. Honestly, my first thought was to move my car, but this fire was way too advanced to get anywhere near it. Instead I called 911. The conversation went something like this:

Dispatcher: What is your location.
Me: (my address minus the apartment number>)
Dispatcher: Is that the _____ Apartments
Me: Yes
Dispatcher: What’s your emergency?
Me: There is a car on fire in the parking lot. (probably a little shaky)
Dispatcher: Is anyone inside?
Me: I sure hope not.
Dispatcher: I’m connecting you to the fire department
Me: Thanks

Not sure if I didn’t tell them my apartment number because I didn’t feel like I needed to or I couldn’t remember it at the time. After I got off of the phone, I picked up the camera and took this video:


The fire truck arrived about 5 to 7 minutes later, but it felt like an eternity. As it pulled up, there was a pop from the fire and something shot in the direction of the truck. The firemen/firewomen started putting out the fire and I decided I needed to go outside in case they needed to talk to someone. There were only a few people that were outside. I don’t know if the others were asleep or didn’t want to leave their apartments. The owner of the vehicle did not show up and I don’t know what caused the fire. It was about 4:30am when Alexis and I attempted to catch some sleep.
Here are pictures of the aftermath:

There was no damage to my car or anything else that I know of. I will post if I find out anything else.

Bye Texas, Hello Alabama

July 24, 2010 / Paul posted in My Work, Rare Events, Travels / 2 Comments

It was a hard decision to make, leaving family, friends, and home for a promising new job in a city 600+ miles away. The job was exactly the type of work I want to be doing. It’s new, challenging, and cutting-edge. The town is certainly smaller, about twice the size/population of Lubbock. We miss visiting family on a regular basis, our favorite restaurants, and our comfortable home. We moved into an apartment close to where I work and once the house sells we will look into buying a house in Madison. A few of the restaurants we desperately miss are Pot Belly’s, Free Birds, Genghis Grill, and a number of Tex-Mex places. We’ve tried about five Mexican food places and only two of them were good. A few of the things I’ve learned so far are:
1. They don’t serve hot sauce and chips, they serve salsa and chips.
2. Use any available bottled hot sauce to mix into the salsa.
3. Mexican food and Tex-Mex isn’t the same thing (pay attention to what they say they serve).
4. A buffet of Mexican food is just gross.

First Geocache Find

January 3, 2010 / Paul posted in Hobbies, Rare Events / 2 Comments

Alexis and I found or first geocache on New Years Day, which was only a half a mile away. The hiding spot was near a park surrounded mostly by trees with a bridge across a babbling brook. The GPS receiver led us to the approximate location near a steep drop off to the brook. There wasn’t much cover from possible onlookers as the leafs had all fallen from the trees, but luckily no one was around. I told Alexis that we should consider passing this one up after I slipped in the leafs and nearly fell on my butt. She decided to take one last look near the edge of the drop off which is when she noticed it on a bit of an incline. It was a pill bottle with rolled up paper which listed the previous people to find it.

GPS showing coords to first geocacheThe next day we went with Tyler and Max to the Cottonwood Creek trail in Allen where we found five geocaches. Each one was just off the trail in the brush and a couple we returned to after not finding them the first time. It took us roughly an hour and a half to find them.

Alexis is keeping a journal/scrap book and I’m updating the online logs to document our little adventures. We created a team name for ourselves because it seemed appropriate and we needed a user name for the website so that we could claim our finds. We settled on the name “Hat Tricksters”. To keep track of us you can go to the profile page on Geocaching.com by clicking on the link below.

Profile for hat_tricksters

« Older Posts