I know I have been really lax – or maybe Relaxed about staying up to date here… I get no comments so I doubt anyone cares.
Anyway, the past few days I have been a little busy but in this heat, it is tuff to do much of anything constructive. On the short list.
Thursday – I made a quick trip to OKC for a ? quasi- interview. Since I am not officially terminated from my old job I could not commit to what they wanted but it sounded interesting. I also suspect they are not yet ready to move forward on all those ideas yet either but together we hit on several possibilities for them to grow and me to have some work. Time will tell on this one.
Friday – I worked a little on some stained glass project that my Dad started many years ago. I hope to finish it and give it to him this fall. Also the kids got back from their “overly active” 2 week see everything, do everything vacation” You can read about it here – The Mega Roadtrip. They said they had fun, good thing they are young… I would have dropped dead at about day 7. Them coming in to stay a day was nice as I got to visit with THE grandson. At 5 he is full of more stuff and remembers everything. I hate to say it but he knows more now than I did by 12. My excuse, life was slower back then…. ha!
Saturday – I took off early and made it to the OKC hamfest – Ham Holiday. I took a load of my stuff to either sell or donate. I think I did some of both… sold an HF am that I had not used more than an hour in the past 9 years. I had a box full of old stuff that I marked – FREE with donation. Surprisingly I got several donations for stuff that I could not sell. I also gave away a newer radio that was broke – would not turn on? and an old TNC that caused the radio failure. I don’t need either one anymore so someone else might get them fixed or use them for parts? I met several old friends and a few newer friends and made a few new friends. The Ham Holiday gets smaller every year. One older ham friend and I discussed the very topic and he confirmed that he and his wife had talked about that. He had asked if she remembered when they started going to hamfests and that when they started (maybe 50 years ago) everyone was in their 20’s and 30’s – the crowd was younger and active. Now when we all go to these we see very few young people, although I did see several it was not enough to expand the ranks. Now the average age of these things is maybe late 50’s or early 60’s. There are a lot of reasons for that, internet, cell phones, ease of communications and diversity of technology. It is really difficult to garner interest in the younger crowd, especially when you tack on a test but I do feel the tests are necessary as well as the tiered license. Somehow you have to find a way to get them around that into the hobby.
I got home from that fairly early and we had a few fun things to do and mostly tried to stay cool. Took THE grandson for a jeep ride… he said it was noisy as I have the soft-top on. I offered to take the windows out and the top down but we all agreed it was too hot…
Sunday – was a lazy day and I must say no big accomplishment other than sending off THE Grandson. They went on home and I suspect he is now hitting his swimming pool every evening, if not twice a day in this heat…
Monday (today) – Again I got up early and took the motor home to OKC to hopefully get that damn air conditioner fixed for real this time. I have posted on that problem before. Even thought I left at 7:45 am it was damn hot driving the bus to OKC with no air up front and all that windshield up there. I got it to the repair shop in Dell City, went over the problems, the work that had already been done, the things we think may be causing some of it, left the keys and showed them which were for what part and the warranty paperwork and was off and back in Stillwater by about 11:00 AM.
Today the landscape guys got the bottom part of the ditch smoothed out and laid out the fabric that will be under the “boulders” that are to arrive tomorrow. I sure hope this makes it look nice and quits any washing out. Although I sure hope we get some rain soon to test it. This is what it looked like before
See in the bottom the ditch in the grass. that thing was about 2 or 3 feet deep toward the end…
The cost has gone up from the estimate done last winter by about double, but it needs to be done so we do it anyway.
After all that I spent a little time repairing some breaks in the drip hoses, I guess the ground is shrinking up so much that it is pulling some of the connections apart and I have hit a few with the weed trimmer and other things that are giving away. I also found the problem – I hope – with my sprinkler. It is not low pressure at all, but the flex-hose I put on the faucet has ballooned and the inside has folded over – I noticed it was pushed about and there was water in the jackets of the hose. Wonder it had not popped and sent water everywhere and flooded things out, again. I replaced it and figure I better get some more to replace later as they all seem to only last about one summer or a little less. Wish they made some better quality one for that. I also got the “wild-hair” and dug up some of the bulbs that had spread to take over the entire area here:
I still have some digging out of the other flower bed and put some new topsoil back in to these with some new mulch. Maybe tomorrow, maybe later?
And that catches things up to now… WD0AJG