ANNOUCEMENTS, NOTICES, ODDS-N-ENDS........

There is no Phillip The Fireman articles this week because it was actually a quiet week. He did not respond to any calls.

Also, thank you Grandpa Richard for your donation. I’m going to use some of my donation money for more rechargeable batteries for mom’s digital camera.

Thank you Aunt Lisa for your help with the back issues page!

On Sunday, mom’s friend Alison came for a visit. She was visiting someone in the area and dropped by for a visit. They hadn’t seen each other since Aunt Lisa’s graduation from Loma Linda back in 1992 (93 or 94 or 95..) She is trying to help mom put together a Disney Land vacation for November.

Mom and Phillip have new cell phone numbers. They are: Mom’s (559) 285-1530 and Phillip’s (559) 285-1482.

WEEKLY POLL

Uncle Paul Stephen Crews

Sorry for the melodrama but it is true we do not know a lot about Stephen (at least I don’t..) Thank you Mary Lou, Grandpa Buzz, Gayle and Phillip for the information.

Uncle Stephen was born on October 31, 1964 in Austin, Texas. He went to 1st grade two times, once in Austin, Texas the other in Germany. When he went to first grade the first time it was kind of early for him because his parents wanted him to have a little bit of education before the family moved to Germany.

When Gayle (Stephen and Phillip’s sister) Stephen and their mother were on a boat going to Germany to meet up with Grandpa Buzz, he made friends with all the crew and he got to help them. Gayle and Grandpa Buzz both commented that it was always easy for him to make friends. Gayle said all Stephen had to do was smile and old ladies would give him stuff like money or candy or whatever they had.

Once when he was living in Germany he and his parents were at a restaurant. He was tired so they told him to go home to the apartment to take a nap. When the rest of the family decided to go home they found that the apartment door was locked. They knocked on the door but Stephen didn’t answer. They started banging on the door (by this time they were getting very worried that something had happened to him). Some of their neighbors came and they got the fire ax off of the wall and chopped a hole in the door. When they went in, they found him sound asleep. He didn’t hear a thing. That night they went to bed with a piece of wood over the hole in the door for privacy. They never let him go home to the apartment alone again.

When Stephen and his family moved back to the United States, he had to learn how to spell in English. He could speak in English and German but had trouble spelling. He would spell in German. Grandpa Buzz says that sometimes he still has problems with spelling.

He was also willing to volunteer for stuff and was always a leader. He received a citizen of the year award in junior high school. He played trombone in the high school marching band and also competed in the State Marching Contest. When he was 16, he was an EMT and had lights and a siren he could put on top of his car.

After high school he was an orderly at the same hospital my Aunt Gayle worked. Mary Lou (Stephen’s wife) made a comment that he thought it was kind of creepy when he had to take bodies downstairs to the morgue. He said it was really dark and scarry looking.

Uncle Stephen was also in the Navy and was a fire chief for a while. I don’t know much about the Navy thing but I do know that he got to visit a lot of interesting places.

On October 26th, 1996, Stephen had part of his right leg amputated due to poor blood circulation but he still remained positive and to this day uses his prosthetic leg to his advantage. For example, he has been known to use his ‘leg’ for a drink holder on long flights, and he has made people laugh when he would be driving and he was remove his leg and scratch his back with it. One time he told a story about when he was golfing. He swung so hard that he fell right out of his leg! Mary Lou said that recently he was sitting on a bar stool at home and he took off his leg because it was getting uncomfortable. He wanted to get down but forgot his leg was off. He fell off the stool when he tried to stand. After Mary Lou asked if he was ok, they both began laughing really hard.

Stephen married Mary Lou French on March 24th, 2002. Our family did not make it to Texas for the wedding because that whole week Paul was sick with an ugly stomach flu.

Right now Uncle Stephen lives in Washington D.C. He is finishing up his internship for his Master's Degree. When he is done he should consider moving to California.

Recipe(s)

1 to 1 ½ pounds boneless beef sirloin steak, cut 1 ½ inches thick
1/3 cup lemon juice
¼ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Place meat in a plastic bag set in a shallow dish. For marinade combine lemon juice, soy sauce, oil, sugar, ginger, and garlic powder in a small bowl. Pour over meat; seal bag. Marinate in refrigerator four 4-24 hours, turning occasionally. Drain meat, reserving marinade.

Grill meat until desired doneness brushing occasionally with marinade.

Phillip Has Gone Postal!

Phillip is only going to do it every other Friday, that way he can work on other stuff at the house. So far, he has been doing it three weeks, but he has to go with the mailguy so he can learn the route. Each Saturday that he is out working, his company gets paged to go to a fire. Since the mail must always go through, he doesn’t respond to the calls and finishes his route. When he learns the route he might even take me to put the mail in the boxes.

Weekly World News--(news from one of the worlds most 'reliable' newspapers)

A man shot off his own foot with a shotgun in order to earn a handicap parking spot at his job.

Vladmier Solobotnick, 43, of Prague, was fed up with the like hike every morning from his assigned parking space at the factory where he worked. "I had to walk almost a mile every day, " Solobtnik said. "It was really wearing me out."

Finally he justs couldn’t take it any more. One day after work he loaded up his sawed off shotgun and blasted his left foot clean off.

"When I drive, I use my right foot, "Slobotnik said., "so it’s no big deal."

Not only did he get the handicap spot at his job, but he is also entitled to the best parking spots at theaters, shops, government buildings, and anywhere else he goes.

Solobotnik is thrilled with his new parking spot, located right by the main entrance to the building where he works. "And best of all, " he added, "now I get to ride around in a wheelchair all day."

Baffled zoologists are probing the case of 60 pigeons that comitted suicide by crashing head on into a brick wall! Astunded onlookers watched as the flock of yellow footed green pigeons deliberately fly straight into the side of a three story army building in Sukna, India.

Experts don’t know what drove the despondent birds to take the chicken’s way out, but some of the carcasses have been sent to Calcutta for post mortem, according to a report in Times of India.

A hungry Japanese woman found herself biting off a little more htan she could chew when she discovered a human finger in a rice ball.

The woman told police that she found the digit tip in the rice ball after biting into it and sensing something unusual in her mouth.

An investigation revealed that the snack manufacturer apparently failed to recover the finger after a plant worker accidentally cut it off and that it was packaged in the rice ball.

This was one meal that was defintely not finger licking good.

Wild Kingdom

Last month while Paul and I were sleeping Phillip went upstairs to get something to drink. When he opened the door, a bat was flying around. He managed to catch it--after it tried to hide under our pellet stove--and took it outside.

Yesterday mom was cleaning cobwebs out of the stairwell (we have tons of spiders too. Mom is beginning to develop a phobia she says) when she saw a bat roosting above her head. This time she managed to get pictures!!

Bat picture #1 (roosting)
Bat picture #2 (Phillip is holding it inside a glass)