People lining up with gas cans to get gas.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
God things
We arrived back here at 5 am on Wed morning. I slept from 6 am until 1pm yesterday, ran some errands and crashed again at 9:30pm and got up again at 4am. My body just can not seem to stay in a horizontal position for longer than 6 hours at a time. I woke up at 4 am and wound up having a chest cold and sore throat. JOY!!!!! I stayed up until about 10:30 am, went to breakfast with my friend Chuck and then crashed and burned until around 1:30 pm when I got up , checked my e-mail and then took Justin and two of his buddies over to Fran's house to rake leaves. The boys did such a good job the lady gave them an extra five bucks on top of the ten that I gave them. We ran out of daylight so tomorrow we will go back and finish the job. Good job boys!!
While I was out and about I had something neat happen to me. So neat in fact I want to write about it. I had two of my male friends call me to find out how I was doing. The first thing that goes through my mind when someone calls is to wonder what they want from me. You know the type, the friend that calls you friend especially when they want something from you. Well, my friends Rick and Jorge helped me to renew my faith in my friends because they both called me just to chat and see how I am doing. I can not tell you what a blessing that is to me. I know that neither one of them will read this blog but I want to go on record and say THANK YOU my friends for checking on me. It means so much to me.
I forgot that I have a praise report to give you. You might be saying to yourself, what the heck is a praise report. Well, simply put a praise report is a positive situation where I feel that God intervened in my life and I want to give God the praise, honor and glory. Anyway, we left Ft Lauderdale Florida last night around 4:45 pm and arrived in Charleston around 5 am. We stopped in Daytona Beach at exit 261 around 9pm and ate at Cracker Barrell and waited for the other van in our caravan to catch up with us so we could use their gas card to fuel up both vans. I drove the first leg of the journey from Ft Lauderdale to Daytona Beach which was about 400 miles in four hours. Mr Morris took the wheel from there and we hit the road again around 10:30pm. On I-95 North on our way to Georgia around 1:30 am I was asleep in the front passenger seat when I was awakened by Mr. Morris saying OH SH** and swerving the van around the left side in traffic. I woke up in time to see this white mini van sitting in the middle lane with no lights and just sitting still. We probably missed it by inches. There was another car that did not manage to miss the car without losing control and spinning into the ditch. All in all I dont think anyone got hurt badly out of this incident. The God Thing in all of this is that we were able to get around this car without hitting it and staying on the road.
The scary thing is that this happened so quickly that none of us had any time to do anything other than just react to what we were seeing. It reminds me of our mortality and that we are all appointed a time to die. None of us know when this moment will happen but rest assured, it will. The question is, are we ready or do we think that just because we are young (in our minds) that we have plenty of time to get our lives in order? Where will we spend etermity? When we step out of this life into eternity will God say "well done my faithful servant" or will God say " go away from me you wicked person, I know you not". If you have not given this thought please think about it and be sure that you know that you know without a shadow of a doubt that you will enter into heaven and not hell. God loves you so much and his desire is that you will spend eternity in heaven with Him for eternity.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his ONLY begotten son that whomsoever belives on Him will not perish but have everlasting life".
That is all you need to know. God loves you and HE has made arrangements for you to spend eternity in heaven. All you have to do is to repent of yoru sins (Romans says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God) and accept the gift of Grace (Christ hanging on the cross for the sins of man past present and future) and ask God to come into your life and be your Lord and Savour.
My prayer is that you will chose to accept Christ into your life, repent of your sins and receive the grace of God, forgiveness of sins and a new purpose for your life for now and eternity.
God bless
While I was out and about I had something neat happen to me. So neat in fact I want to write about it. I had two of my male friends call me to find out how I was doing. The first thing that goes through my mind when someone calls is to wonder what they want from me. You know the type, the friend that calls you friend especially when they want something from you. Well, my friends Rick and Jorge helped me to renew my faith in my friends because they both called me just to chat and see how I am doing. I can not tell you what a blessing that is to me. I know that neither one of them will read this blog but I want to go on record and say THANK YOU my friends for checking on me. It means so much to me.
I forgot that I have a praise report to give you. You might be saying to yourself, what the heck is a praise report. Well, simply put a praise report is a positive situation where I feel that God intervened in my life and I want to give God the praise, honor and glory. Anyway, we left Ft Lauderdale Florida last night around 4:45 pm and arrived in Charleston around 5 am. We stopped in Daytona Beach at exit 261 around 9pm and ate at Cracker Barrell and waited for the other van in our caravan to catch up with us so we could use their gas card to fuel up both vans. I drove the first leg of the journey from Ft Lauderdale to Daytona Beach which was about 400 miles in four hours. Mr Morris took the wheel from there and we hit the road again around 10:30pm. On I-95 North on our way to Georgia around 1:30 am I was asleep in the front passenger seat when I was awakened by Mr. Morris saying OH SH** and swerving the van around the left side in traffic. I woke up in time to see this white mini van sitting in the middle lane with no lights and just sitting still. We probably missed it by inches. There was another car that did not manage to miss the car without losing control and spinning into the ditch. All in all I dont think anyone got hurt badly out of this incident. The God Thing in all of this is that we were able to get around this car without hitting it and staying on the road.
The scary thing is that this happened so quickly that none of us had any time to do anything other than just react to what we were seeing. It reminds me of our mortality and that we are all appointed a time to die. None of us know when this moment will happen but rest assured, it will. The question is, are we ready or do we think that just because we are young (in our minds) that we have plenty of time to get our lives in order? Where will we spend etermity? When we step out of this life into eternity will God say "well done my faithful servant" or will God say " go away from me you wicked person, I know you not". If you have not given this thought please think about it and be sure that you know that you know without a shadow of a doubt that you will enter into heaven and not hell. God loves you so much and his desire is that you will spend eternity in heaven with Him for eternity.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his ONLY begotten son that whomsoever belives on Him will not perish but have everlasting life".
That is all you need to know. God loves you and HE has made arrangements for you to spend eternity in heaven. All you have to do is to repent of yoru sins (Romans says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God) and accept the gift of Grace (Christ hanging on the cross for the sins of man past present and future) and ask God to come into your life and be your Lord and Savour.
My prayer is that you will chose to accept Christ into your life, repent of your sins and receive the grace of God, forgiveness of sins and a new purpose for your life for now and eternity.
God bless
9 days for Hurricane Wilma relief
I expected to stay longer but it turns out that I only had to stay 9 days in Ft. Lauderdale Florida. Our clients, CVS Pharmacy, Eckards, Home Depot and Bell South used us for that period of time and as of Monday afternoon they decided that they no longer needed us. As of Monday evening when we left to come home Bellsouth was the only client still needing us on their property. Mostly we watched the portable power generators to make sure no one walked off with them. CVS Pharmacy had several ice trucks that were giving out free ice that we had to monitor. Home Depot had a need for five officers during the day and two at night.
Home Depot was nice enough to obtain several gas trucks and allowed US Security vehicles and several vendors to bring their vehicles in to be refueled.
Ft Lauderdale has 30 counties that are still without power. Most of the businesses in Broward County where we were staying had power and you had a nice selection of restaurants to visit between 8 am and 10pm. There was still a curfew from 11pm to 6 am when we left in that county. We stayed at Inverrary Suites in Lauderhill Florida which is one of many municipalities withink Ft Lauderdale Florida.
My primary task turned out to be a driver since I was the only one with a laptop with GPS attachment. Even with the technology sometimes it was hard to find the right address since each street seems to be duplicated in every single town within Ft Lauderdale Fl. Towards the end of the week one of the operations managers, Jack, went out to Office Depot and bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 with GPS and he loved it. Jack used this to print out maps for the other drives so they could find their locations easier.
I took lots and lots of pictures that I will be uploading to my blog here and to my main photoalbum website. There was not as much apparent damage in Ft Lauderdale as there was in Mississippi and Louisiana however the residents in Ft Lauderdale and beyond did feel the effects of Hurricane Wilma. The water in several counties had to be boiled before consumption. Gas stations were all closed and the ones that were open were rationing gas and there were very long lines lasting for hours just to get 20.00 worth. Traffic in and around Ft lauderdale was a nightmare (daymare) because there were no traffic lights. Everyone's patience was almost non exisstant and I have not heard as many car horns in all my life. All left hand turns were blocked by police baracades which meant I had to take "Mother Goose" on a million U Turns which was so much fun. Mother Goose is the name for the 15 passenger Chevy Van that I wound up driving on many trips. Ice, dairy products and lunch meat or meat of any kind were not available since all the grocery stores lost everything when the electricity went out. CVS Pharmacy was nice enough to truck in several trucks of ice bags that were given out to anyone that wanted to come and pick it up.
One of the things that I have learned about these types of trips is that there is a lot of negativity and living conditions are less than optimal. As someone said these types of situations (natural disasters) will bring out the best of the best and the worse of the worse. Due to the living conditions being less than optimal and having to work long hours with very little food or breaks that led to folks being less than patient and perhaps more verbal about their complaints that they might have been normally. I kept finding myself wishing that the folks would just suck it up and quit the whining. LOL...
Having to deliver 40+ security officers to multiple sites in a strange city with no power turned into a logistical nightmare to say the least. For some reason the law enforcement officials in Ft Lauderdale were NOT receptive to our arrival and/or attempts of assistance to our clients. On more han one occasion we had the city police and county police to harrass our security personell who were on site at night doing their jobs. That did not make our jobs any easier.
One of the things that added to the confusion logistically speaking is that our company had way too many chiefs and not enough indians. Lack of communications and the inability to provide the security officers with much needed perdiem money caused a huge moral problem within the ranks.
Home Depot was nice enough to obtain several gas trucks and allowed US Security vehicles and several vendors to bring their vehicles in to be refueled.
Ft Lauderdale has 30 counties that are still without power. Most of the businesses in Broward County where we were staying had power and you had a nice selection of restaurants to visit between 8 am and 10pm. There was still a curfew from 11pm to 6 am when we left in that county. We stayed at Inverrary Suites in Lauderhill Florida which is one of many municipalities withink Ft Lauderdale Florida.
My primary task turned out to be a driver since I was the only one with a laptop with GPS attachment. Even with the technology sometimes it was hard to find the right address since each street seems to be duplicated in every single town within Ft Lauderdale Fl. Towards the end of the week one of the operations managers, Jack, went out to Office Depot and bought Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 with GPS and he loved it. Jack used this to print out maps for the other drives so they could find their locations easier.
I took lots and lots of pictures that I will be uploading to my blog here and to my main photoalbum website. There was not as much apparent damage in Ft Lauderdale as there was in Mississippi and Louisiana however the residents in Ft Lauderdale and beyond did feel the effects of Hurricane Wilma. The water in several counties had to be boiled before consumption. Gas stations were all closed and the ones that were open were rationing gas and there were very long lines lasting for hours just to get 20.00 worth. Traffic in and around Ft lauderdale was a nightmare (daymare) because there were no traffic lights. Everyone's patience was almost non exisstant and I have not heard as many car horns in all my life. All left hand turns were blocked by police baracades which meant I had to take "Mother Goose" on a million U Turns which was so much fun. Mother Goose is the name for the 15 passenger Chevy Van that I wound up driving on many trips. Ice, dairy products and lunch meat or meat of any kind were not available since all the grocery stores lost everything when the electricity went out. CVS Pharmacy was nice enough to truck in several trucks of ice bags that were given out to anyone that wanted to come and pick it up.
One of the things that I have learned about these types of trips is that there is a lot of negativity and living conditions are less than optimal. As someone said these types of situations (natural disasters) will bring out the best of the best and the worse of the worse. Due to the living conditions being less than optimal and having to work long hours with very little food or breaks that led to folks being less than patient and perhaps more verbal about their complaints that they might have been normally. I kept finding myself wishing that the folks would just suck it up and quit the whining. LOL...
Having to deliver 40+ security officers to multiple sites in a strange city with no power turned into a logistical nightmare to say the least. For some reason the law enforcement officials in Ft Lauderdale were NOT receptive to our arrival and/or attempts of assistance to our clients. On more han one occasion we had the city police and county police to harrass our security personell who were on site at night doing their jobs. That did not make our jobs any easier.
One of the things that added to the confusion logistically speaking is that our company had way too many chiefs and not enough indians. Lack of communications and the inability to provide the security officers with much needed perdiem money caused a huge moral problem within the ranks.
Friday, October 28, 2005
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