Today we are officially moved out of our house. Last night we left a few things in the garage but had the house all cleaned up and empty. We went back today, and cleaned the garage out and moved it to our storage unit. Our 8×15 storage unit is pretty full right now, but I’m sure more room could be made if we were a little more efficient with space. We did leave our sweet 2 wheeled wheel barrow, gas grill, mini fridge, and some things in the house. With all the drives too and from the storage unit, we have noticed that we have been spending a lot of time thinking about Mozart. We both miss him so much, and would give anything in the world to have him back. Tomorrow I will be waking up early so that I can drop off our blue vase that we will be keeping his ashes in at the animal clinic. We have been looking for a suitable plug for the vase, and found a few things that will work. I am looking forward to getting his ashes back, and getting some closure on this.
Well, not exactly we have a few things to pick up at the house still. But it’s just a few things in the garage. I have noticed that it gets a little easier every day missing Mozart. It’s something that has finally hit me as a reality the past couple days. When we would leave the house and come back it would suck because Mozart wasn’t there to greet us. We both still miss him dearly, and he will remain in our hearts as “The sweetest bastard that ever lived”. Friday, Katy and I both went to pay the cremation bill. We are getting it done at the Roseland Animal Clinic in South Bend, which Oz’s wife Anne works at. The total cost is like $95 for the cremation and $70 for the ugly plastic urn they give you. Katy found a Beautiful blue vase at a pottery shop, which only cost $50, that we will be using instead. I hope they give us our money back for the ugly urn, since we already paid for it. Today, Brian came over and helped me caulk the bath tub, and put the knobs on the new cabinet that we recently had built for us in the dining room. I hooked up the baseboard heater in the kitchen, which was a bit tricky, but I got it done. Katy cleaned up the rest of the house and we moved everything out of it. it’s kinda sad to think that we won’t be living in the house for over a year. We put a lot of blood and sweat into the house, and we can’t enjoy it anymore. It’s crazy that everything is happening so fast. Last night we hung out at Devin’s house and had our Thanksgiving dinner with our family. Katy and I ended up spending the night there. Oh speaking of which, I found my wedding ring!! I lost it like 2 weeks ago, and was hoping that it would turn up some time. Well it never did, and last night I called Rick to see if he could bring his metal detectors over. He did, and I found my ring buried in the soft ground in front of our back deck. I would have never found it, if it hadn’t been for the metal detectors. I’m pretty happy about that. Well, right now I’m sitting in our new bed at Eva’s. I hope it won’t be too hard adjusting to living in someone elses house. I sure am going to miss ours. Cheers everyone! Time for bed.
These last 4 days have been an emotional roller coaster for us, and is a week that is burned into our memories. This weekend Emily and Ian came to town and brought there two other family members with them, Gus and Ilias (sp). Well Saturday night Cory left all the dogs out to, there were four at our house, and Gus ran away. We spent 2 hours looking for him to no avail, and with Gus being a minature pincer, we weren’t real confident that he would make it through the night. Saturday night it dipped into the lower teens, and Sunday came with us printing out some 300 colored flyers and handing the out in Pheasant Ridge with Emily and Ian. Emily and Ian had to leave for their home in Pittsburgh Sunday night, but we were determined to find him. Katy put a post on Craigslist for Gus, and a couple hours later we got a call from a gentlmen in Michigan that said he saw a min-pin crossing SR12 in Michigan just north of our house about 7 miles.
We then put an ad in the Elkhart Truth for Gus and waited. Monday came and went, and Eva ended up taking Tuesday off to go look for the pup. Eva began the day handing out fliers around the area, and headed into Michigan. While Cory was at work he got a phone call from a women who works for the Zion Lutheren Church, which is just down the road. She said she spotted Gus in the area, so I promptly called Eva who then scoped out the area. Gus was there and was so afraid that she had to coerce him with lots of ham to get him to come to her. GUS WAS SAVED! We are all so happy that Gus is back with us! But the story doesn’t end there. Gus spend Tuesday night at our house and got along with Mozart pretty well. They both were battling for the attention, while we were home. Well, today Emily and Ian were on there way to our house after work. Cory was in the garage getting stuff ready to pack up, and had just come in and sat down to eat some pizza. There was a knock on the door and under the porch light, Cory could see a women with a concerned look on her face. He answered the door and she said “I think I just might have hit your dog” Cory said “Is he black and white”? She replied “yes” and Katy bolted out the door before I had a chance to put my shoes on. Through the vehicle lights I could see Katy running towards a body lying in the road that looked like Mozart. I ran as fast as I could to the motionless body, kneeling beside him see if he had a response. I could hear the lady in the back ground saying how sorry she was, but I didn’t care. She had killed our dog. Tonight has been a difficult night for us both. We have shed more tears tonight, than ever. I can’t remember the last time I really cried like this. It hurts inside soo much, we will miss him.
More Mozart Pics
Mozart’s website
Photo from Ben
Another Photo From Ben
Yup, that’s right we have 13 days left to go in our house, and I’m sure it’s going to be hectic. We have some things already moved into our storage unit, but we still have a lot more to do. Our renters are coming over Thursday evening to let us know what they want us to leave in the house, and what they won’t be wanting. Tonight, I got home and noticed that Katy has a flat on her passenger side front. So, I pulled it into the garage and realized we didn’t have a jack in her truck. Since we don’t own a floor jack, I had to make some phone calls and luckily Uncle Rick who lives just down the road had one. I changed the front tire and replaced it with a space saver spare. I noticed the space saver spare was low, and decided we should take it down the road to the gas station even though it’s snowing like hell. Well, pulling it out of the garage and I noticed the truck now had 2 flats not including the one I just took off. So now we have THREE flat tires, two of which are on the truck. So we decided that tomorrow we will wake up super early and drive to work in the same vehicle. Luckily, I work at The Tire Rack so I can get the flats fixed while I’m at work, but I will still have to pick Katy up on the way home and install them tomorrow night after working at the car lot. Oh what a fun day I’m looking forward too 
Well, I’m off to bed. Must wake up in 6 hours. Cheers!
I found the story of this town very interesting, and felt the need to write a little about it. Centralia was established as a mining town and was originally named Centreville until 1865. Centralia was incorporated in 1866 and it’s main business 
was Coal Mining until the 1960s when most of the mining companies went out of business. During that time, the town would burn their trash they would dispose in empty mining pits. The town would get a couple of volunteer firefighters to monitor the fire, and make sure it doesn’t get out of control. Well, this fire was never extinguished and had spread from the lower depths of the pit to a hole that led to an abandoned mine shaft. This fire was started in May of 1962 and burned throughout the 1960s and 1970s despite attempts to extinguish the fire. Throughout this time, locals almost forgot about the problem until 1979 when a refueling station owner lowered his wooden measuring stick into his underground tanks to measure the fuel. When he pulled the stick out, it felt extremely hot and after taking temperature readings, found the temperature of his underground gasoline to be 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Word 
spread quickly throughout the town of the seriousness of this problem that was thought to have been contained. State officials were notified and in 1981 a 12 year old boy was playing in his backyard The boy would have likely died if it hadn’t been for his cousin who pulled him to safety. Ironically that same day a state representative, state senator, and a mine safety director was in town doing some investigative work on the mine fire problem. Through out the next few years, people were evacuated because of safety concerns, and in 1992 Pennsylvania claimed eminent domain over the town and revoked their zipcode. Some families still stayed in the town despite having their properties condemned, and the apparent safety concerns. Since then, homes have been demolished and more recently in 2007 the Moyer residence was shredded but remained occupied until this time. You can still see smoke pillowing from the ground because of this almost 50 year old fire that was the death of this town. It is believed that the fire could burn for another 250 years with the amount of coal that is estimated to be below the town of Centralia.
This town is extremely fascinating to me, and I hope that I can one day visit this almost empty town. It’s crazy to think that just one minor misjudgment caused many people to have to leave what was once their home town.
You can see more more photos on Flickr
And Read more on Wikipedia
Well, this weekend I decided to do a redesign my blog. My old theme was a modified Green Marinee Wordpress theme that I found 3 years ago and was looking pretty out dated. I hope everyone likes this new theme and feel free to leave comments. I can’t seem to figure out how to get rid of the underline styling on my Flickr images in the sidebar. I’m no CSS master and after tinkering for 10 minutes, became frustrated and said screw it. I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween, I know I did. Katy and I went to Goshen friday night and brought some friends with us to a Goshen College party. Besides having to break up a fight due to my dumb ass friend, it was a pretty good time. Note to self: Do not allow a friend to pee on a stranger. Cheers!
Ninja Blogging
