Do You Wanna Play Some FOOTBALL?

 Oh look .... rain!  More and more rain.  I took a couple of minutes to check the National Weather Forecast for our area.  I should have just eaten an entire carton of ice cream.  There is a storm in Hawaii coming this way called a $om$ cyclone (it rhymes with com).  Type it and you end up in Google Jail.  Yessiree, just like Facebook Jail.  

Why in the world would you give a phenomena a name like that?  Anyway, it's coming this way, as shown by all the pretty colors on their website, THIS weekend.  Lucky for me (not so much for these folks) it's going to hit lower Canada, Washington, Oregon and Northern to Central California.  If I'm really really lucky, I may slip out the back door just in time.

SO ... while trying to keep my mind occupied, I watched the Rose Parade.  In many cases there are over 100,000 flowers on a float.  When you look at them, remember all the frozen fingers that cut the stems.  Since the Elks Lodge has not had a float in awhile, I wanted to get a picture of it.  

For some reason I didn't feel it was as spectacular as previous years, but money is a problem, as is shipping millions of flowers around the world.  This was the most fabulous!!!  All of those pictures of people along the side are made with seeds and flowers.  Absolutely everything must be covered.  Glue comes in 5 gallon buckets and I think it's Elmers!!

If you think the floats look familiar, they try to use the same elements year after year, just change it up a bit to look different.  That way they don't have to pay for a build from the bottom up every year.

A birds eye view of the famous corner, less than 90 degrees, was driven by moi every day to get to the barn where I volunteered.  This is where all the floats get stuck because they are too long to make the turn.  

I only took this picture because this is us old folks.  Oh yeah ... a float about really old people hiking, kayaking, rock climbing (though no one was climbing) and a hang glider ... who WAS suspended above the rocks.  They forgot the lounge chair in the sun.

It ended very abruptly, which I took as a hint to get my butt in gear.  I hauled the really heavy air compressor out to the rig and aired up all the tires.  I hate air compressors ... they make so much noise, I'm always waiting for them to blow up.  

Then I hauled it BACK to the garage and did the Jeep and truck.  I'm all good on that note.  More packing ensued, so I now think I'm down to food, cameras and make-me-look-beautiful stuff.  Is that not a joke?  They tell you to spend all that money on something to make you beautiful and it doesn't work all that great!

Then it was on to football while Cooper slept next to me.  I watched Penn State beat Utah at the Rose Bowl, only because it was the Rose Bowl.  Try as they might, Utah just couldn't seem to catch the ball.

And then it was the Buffalo Bills versus the Cincinnati Bengals.  Not a game I would watch at all, but I was hoping to stay OFF my phone scanning the weather forecasts.  It worked for awhile.  This is 24 year old Damar Hamlin, a Bills player who after making a tackle in the beginning of the first quarter, got up and immediately fell over backwards.  I instantly thought stroke or heart attack.  

The team trainers came out and in a few seconds, called in the EMT's.  They administered CPR for almost ten minutes before loading him up into the ambulance and heading to the trauma center.  It appears he had a massive heart attack ... at 24 years of age.

The players were devastated ... and they actually told them they had 5 minutes to return to the field.  Are you kidding me?  In a surprising move ... the entire team and all the coaches knelt on the field and said a prayer for Damar.  Good for them!!!  

In the end, the coaches agreed to head to the locker rooms where the heads of the NFL came to their senses and suspended the game.  It will be played at a later date.  Damar is in critical condition at this point.  Prayers for this boy and his family.

I'm not going to look at the weather .... I'm not going to look at the weather .... it's now looking good for Friday, Saturday and Sunday ... maybe.  Two hours from now it will change.

It is weird however, if you look at the hourly weather on each day, it shows only rain.  If you look at the WEEK weather, it shows snow.  Weather guessers are guessing I guess.

So today I'll check the oil and put water in the rig.  It looks like our temps will stay above 40 all week, so I'll get her filled up.  Unfortunately I have to go mostly loaded because there is no water in Indio where I 

will be for a week.

AND IT'S BINGO TIME!!!!!  At least I won't be on my phone.