Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Tonight's Sun Set from my porch:

Today started out pretty good I guess... lazy to get out of bed, but we went to sleep early last night, so at least I'm not sleepy. Took the pups out and the weather is just beautiful out! Clear, just the sounds of rock ducks, sea gulls, and the occasional 4-wheeler riding around in town. Faint sounds from Trident - forklifts beeping. It's about 37F out. The snow on the ground is still there, the boardwalks are iced over.

I got to work and entered in the charge slips from the yesterday. Called the City and asked for how much 5 gal of gas was, $22.00 is what they told me. So I went and got the jerry jug and took it down to the City's fuel storage, by the City garage. I didn't make it back down to the City office to pay for the gas until after lunch hour.

We had taco snacks, again, for lunch today. Tyra was a re-run, so we watched the Semi-Home Made with Sandra Lee and Everyday Italian with Giada on Food Network.

I have to make signs for the office, we're closed on Monday in observance of President's Day. So that will be something to do. I downloaded a couple songs from iTunes, some of the new ones that I don't have yet. I hear them on the radio all the time, so I figured time to get them :)

We ended up eating at the cafe again last night, got the usual of french dip for me and chicken nuggets for the hubby. We were going to have halibut chowder, then I wanted kielbasa. So I got everything for kielbasa, but I got lazy and didn't want to cook (even though it only takes like what, 30 mins total :P). So we ordered quarter after 8, they close at 8:30PM. So we'll cook that kielbasa up tonight.

I left Dante home today with my hubby, or daddy as we say to the pups. Dante is really opening up to my hubby finally, a week later! He'll go up to him now, and sleep next to him and beg for attention. So I figured I'd let Dante stay home with him so they can bond more! He's getting to be such a good little boy! Eating good, according to the dog food bag he's almost ready to move up to adult food for his age and size! Roscoe can eat puppy food for up to a year and a half. We were just about to change him to adult food then we got Dante, so we're going to wait until they finish up this 8lb bag of puppy food, then we'll rip open the 20lb bag of adult food. They are eating Purina Pro Plan - Small Breed Formula. Tug has the Large Breed formula. I love how my dog's coats look, and they have nice muscle definition! I love that food for my dogs! I was happy to hear that Dante's breeder was feeding him the same food I was feeding my dogs! I was scared to change his diet so drastically, I don't want to deal with doggy runs....

We got one plane in so far, came just before lunch time. Not sure what all came in, but at least I know mail got out. When I went to drop the jerry jug off, I noticed a good amount of mail on the ATV trailer. Only car on the island belongs to Trident. They use it to go to the Post Office to drop off/pick up mail, and to take their workers too and from the plane when they are arriving and leaving. Other than that, there are mostly just 4-wheeler ATVs and the city has a couple John Deere 6 wheeler's (gators I believe), and the Clinic has one that is decked out as their "ambulance". The VSPO has a UTV, I believe it's a Yamaha Rhino 650. Pretty cool how it's set up kinda like a car, with seat belts and a steering wheel. 2 passenger, with like a small truck like bed. They should put a light bar on it... LMAO!!!

The second plane should be back by 4:30PM today. The weather got kinda hazy like over the day. It's overcast, but you can still see the sun through it. Looks like bad weather is coming, but that's my opinion. Still 37F out, feels colder than that though. I sent back one of the Video Professor cd rom, they said I could keep the rest. So that's cool, I'll let my mom go through them if she needs to. I set it up to do daily backups to the hard drive, but we do weekly backups to a disc all the time anyways, have too just in case!

I hear Trident people walking around going in and out of the store. I heard that people up there have the flu and colds. I hope I don't get sick... at least not while my mom isn't here. I can't afford to stay home, no one else to take care of the office. So I'm hoping not to get sick, I'm cleaning up my office and washing my hands a lot.

I had one check out for the hotel and I'm going to get hotel billing done today. We had all those people who filled us up left on boats the other night. So I have to get someone up to clean those rooms in case we have people come in unexpectedly. Gives me something to do I guess... I'll go to the Post Office later and see what kind of mail came in...

Ok let me explain a bit about how our City works: with buying fuel, gas, electric and our cable tv:
The City has I believe 2 CAT generators located between the church and the dock. All the power cables are buried here, and all the houses are hard wired to the city's main power. We all have power meters on our houses(pic posted) that get read and recorded every month by a city employee, but inside we have these like electric meters that keep track of how much power we have bought from the city: it keep track of our how much money we have left, power usage, how much we spend in a day, per kilowatt hour, per month, and how many days the current amount of money left on it has. If you run out of money, you will accumulate debit on your machine, and the power will go out at 9:30AM the next business day. So, we have to go to the City office with our power card that you insert into the machine once you get money refilled on it, and it will transfer what ever amount you bought from your card to your machine. Any debit on the machine will be taken out of the amount you just bought.
The City also has a couple satellite dishes that get Direct TV cable. They have cables run through out town, and we pay $40/month + 10/per extra TV for a max of $50 a month for cable. Our cable isn't too bad, better than what we had before. We used to have only 13 channels before the city transferred to Direct TV, now we get like 37 channels. Anyone who wants cable contacts the city and they pay a $15 hook up fee. Cable payments are due by the 7th of each month for that month, if you don't pay your cable is cut off and you'll have to pay the hook up fee again.
Fuel and gas is paid for at the City office. They have a couple people who work for the city who will come by and delivery your fuel to your house or boat for you. With gas purchases we have to take our jerry jugs down to the City's gas storage near which is down by where the generators are. Once paid for the city will let someone know and they will go fill it for us.

GCI provides internet for everyone. You call them and order a $300 receiver kit that gets installed on your house and points to the main tower next to the store. Internet is $49.99 a month, and I know there are limits on how much you down load, it used to be limitless. But now it's like 10 cents a MB if you go over 70MB a month or something like that. Internet reception is pretty good, way better than dial up! GCI has been providing us wireless internet now since 2002. I like that it's fast enough for my Wii and Xbox 360 to get online! :D

ACS provides telephone service here. You call them to put a work order in for a new phone line. They will send a tech here who will put your phone line in for you. I forget what the connection fee is, but regular phone charges with call waiting is just under $30 a month with no long distance. I got with GCI and their anywhere plan. It's like 6-7 dollars a month for 60 free minutes and 14cents a min after that. And I get Alaska Air Miles for all my GCI phone/internet bills. I usually never use up my whole 60 free min a month, so it works great for me! I know AT&T also has a long distance program, but I don't go through them so I don't know prices for them. Phone prefixes here start with : 698- cell phones: 381-.

Pix posted:
The power stat machine located inside our house and the cards used to buy power. It slides right into where I'm holding it to transfer the money on the card to the machine.

Looking to the left (East) from my front door at lunch.