Monday October 4, 2010

"The weekend in review" - Some Good News, Some Better News, and some challenges

Friday night was a pre-birthday evening with my lovely and talented bride. We cleaned the house, did some shopping and went out to dinner.

Saturday morning was very relaxing. We did go visit my sister to get some delicious chocolate desserts for the evening's Poker Progressive Party.

We watched the first half of the Michigan game (GO BLUE!!!!) and then went to the Shrine Center. This was the 2nd Poker Progressive Party of the year. We had about 5 Unit Rooms open, and over 150 People in attendance. We saw a 100% increase in participation and everything went back in prizes and unit participation. Great food, Great commradarie, great music, GREAT NIGHT. We left around 11:30 P.M. and there were still people partying. This type of affordable, casual fun-filled event is exactly what the Shrine needs in order to bring people our membership out to bond and increase interest. I believe that we have proven that there is a large part of our membership that wants more events like this, where there is no pressure to purchase expensive tickets, wear formal attire, or attend boring meetings. There are other opportunities to do all that, and there is a need for those type of events. However, in order to survive and flourish you have to provide a reason why our members should come out, along with their wives and friends and enjoy themselves. I am so proud of our Chairman of this event and his wife for organizing a successful event. I am grateful to my wife and her co-general chairlady for bringing this event to our attention. If you missed it, I believe that there will be more next year, keep your eyes open.


Sunday: "Challenges" we were about to leave the house to meet Carrie's family, to celebrate her birthday weekend, when I heard her say, in a very loud manner, that the dryer was on fire, then the fire alarm went off. I ran into the laundry room and saw smoke coming out of the bottom of the dryer. I grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and went to work. There were no flames, but a lot of smoke and heat. We unplugged everything and removed the dryer from the house. We decided that since the dryer was over 11 years old, it was probably worth looking at a new dryer. We ended up with a great deal at a local depot that sells home products and after a couple of hours of connnecting new gas lines, cleaning out the vents and testing the new dryer, we finally were able to relax. (From the wife: There were flames. I saw them. And I quickly ran away from them-- thinking to myself: This is a job for the Potentate!).

I have to tell you, Carrie and I handled the situation very well, knew what to do and accomplished a lot on a Sunday afternoon. Of course, we bought another fire extinguisher and changed the batteries in the fire alarms. We feel very lucky, because we always run the washer and dryer and leave the house on errands/events. If we left, as we were planning, we can only imagine what may have happenned.

We know that our Treasurer's son's family had a similiar trajedy this weekend, involving their dishwasher, with more extreme damages and some hospitilazation, however, thank the Supreme Architect that everyone turned out to be well, eventhough the house was damaged. Weekend lessons: have Fire alarms, change their batteries regularly, have fire extinguishers, and make sure you have insurance.

Ready for the week.