Part #106

Updates

The Chest: I had an appointment with a pulmonary specialist on May 27. His conclusion is that I have Adult Acquired Asthma. So there it is. I now have medical proof that…I’m an adult! At the time of the tests, after a month on medication and a few days off, I was only getting 60% oxygen out of every breath. I’ll be on inhalers from now on. But he couldn’t explain the constant cough or why I breathe like its through a snorkel with water in it. We’ll see what happens.

The Neck: I had a doctor’s appointment in Louisville, Ky, on June 11. They are going to do surgery 7:30 AM on July 22. They will be fusing C4-C7. I have cancelled all meetings to the middle of September and the New Zealand meetings. We are heading for Louisville where we will rent an apartment while we’re there.

The IRS: After we saw the doctor on Wed. morning, we drove 400 miles to Massillon to get our tax records. Thursday morning we spent 31/2 hours with the IRS auditor. We had everything she asked for and she still said the audit would take six months. The H&R Block lady has called to tell us she has seen many audits but none like this. They are going over everything hoping to find something they can get us for.

Locked In!

We had a unique experience while parked at a real dive of a campground in Denver, CO. You could only pick up wireless Internet if you went into the main office building. The building was split-level; up went into the office and down went into a recreation room that was not used anymore. Kathy & I went up into the office but Kathy couldn’t see her screen so I told the lady in the office we were going downstairs. We were there until about 2:30 PM. When we came up to leave we found that the lady had left and locked us in. The door had a deadbolt that needed a key on the inside. The downstairs exit had a hasp & padlock. We couldn’t get out and the only phone number we had rang in the empty office beside us!

Up stairs there was a window that was about 8 feet above the ground. I took out the screen and dropped out. I fell, but I was out! Then I found a maintenance guy who didn’t have a key to the building. I boosted him up into the window. He went downstairs to a locked storage room and got a ladder and we helped Kathy out the window.

The Blizzard of 2008

We left Denver on May 1 to drive 760 miles to Bismarck, ND. It was 80o on April 30 and 32o the next day. We drove into a bad snow storm. We planned on making 460 miles to Spearfish, SD for the night. The closer we got to South Dakota the worse the weather turned. For awhile we drove in a literal “White Out.” The snow was blowing so hard it blew the right outside mirror sideways. Everything was white with blowing snow. The road was a dark shadow so I kept going. If I stopped I might get rearended and there was nowhere to pull off the road. It wasn’t until we got into Black Hills National Park (with no way to turn around) that we heard we were in the beginning of a blizzard. We made it through O’neill Pass (6795 feet) and got to our campground. There wasn’t even an inch of snow on the ground yet, but I heard they had closed O’neill Pass a half hour after we got through it. I didn’t know it at the time but we swung around into a parking space that faced right straight back out of the campground.

Kathy & I went to bed and woke up to find that 18 inches of “Global Warming” had fallen during the night! Everything was shutdown. This was Friday. I would spend the entire day preparing to leave the following day.

First, I cleaned off the truck and put it in 4-wheel drive and broke a trail out to the road. I pushed snow with the front bumper but made it. I fought my way around the park several times to clear a narrow path.

Then I climbed up onto the roof of our motor home with the long-handled brush I wash it with and began to shove 18″ of snow off of it. It took about four hours. There was so much snow that our slideouts would never have retracted.

Then where I had pulled up to the coach the snow was really packed so I had to dig the packed snow from in front of it or it wouldn’t be able to drive out over it.

Finally I backed up to the coach and drove straight out, busting the inside of the only turn I would have to make so the bus wouldn’t bog down the next day.

Morning came and Kathy pulled out with the truck. Then I dropped the bus into gear and let it roll! It slid right on out to the road in one fluid motion. A day of preparation had paid off.

Recently, as I was hooking the truck to the bus, I found cracks in our towbar. The company replaced the part and Bro. Tim Haveman graciously fixed it for us.

We now have a clothing line!

I had planned to put some of the posters on T-shirts but got even more than I had hoped for. We now have hoodies, T-shirts, men & women’s shirts, baseball hats, women’s shopping totes, messenger bags, coffee cups and mouse pads. We even have barbeque aprons! You won’t believe it. Go to daystarpublishing.org and check “Apparel.”

In Christ’s Service,
Sameul C. Gipp, Ph. D.

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