Furlough Weekend

Welcome to the humdrum life of a state employee. Come with me on a journey of enlightenment where we explore what its like to spend a day out of work on our own dime, because the powers that be in state guv'ment decreed that (at least for me) the other eighteen thousand three hundred ninety-nine dimes and one nickel with three cents should be given back so as to help COUGH! COUGH! balance the budget.

Anywho, this entire series of posts, which will be spanning five weeks, was taken over the course of the July 4th weekend. Scratch that, it was taken on July 2nd through July 6th (which is when I got back to work). So we shall begin at the beginning.

Oh, did I mention that I was stupidly carrying a folder of blank paper and a notebook filled with my latest story that day? So not only was I carrying the camera, I was prior to the squirrel pics, carrying a folder of blank paper, a notebook, a bottle water and a bag of chips.

This and the following pics were taken on Friday morning during my now legendary 8+ mile walk to the credit union (which I started at around 8:30) and back (mapquest stated that the driving route was 2.3 miles but the walking route that I took was at least an extra .8 of a mile). Anyways, this little statue of a fireman (with a functional fire hose I might add), is located directly behind the old firehouse that was featured in this post. The main reason as to why I took this picture is simple: I needed to find out once and for all, which picture was numero uno once my disposable camera got developed. Turns out that number 27 on the picture disc is numero uno.

You'll have to enlarge this picture to see the squirrel standing on the hill just to the right of the tree. He was gathering nuts (I think) and was taking a breather underneath the shady portion of the tree (it was in the lo 90's I believe). Very rarely do I get the opportunity to get this up close and personal to a squirrel, so of the opportunity did I take advantage thereof.

Another view of the same squirrel, and let me tell you, I took full advantage of that particular section of shade. As a matter of fact, I was very fortunate that my entire route of Main Street was shady that day, because it got to be hotter than frying pan that day.

Traffic was incredibly heavy that Friday morning (trust me, the phrase "playing in traffic" was the topic of choice that day), so after dodging all kinds of cars, I crossed the street to the local firehouse to take this picture of a old fashioned fire hose/fire truck memorial.

If you enlarge the picture, you'll see that its a memorial dedicated to those volunteer firemen who made the supreme sacrifice. And yes, that shadow at the bottom is me, which is due to the fact that I wanted to get a detailed shot of the memorial plaque, thus I had to get up close and personal.