At the Lake on Friday

We arrived here at the lake about 5:30 Friday night. All was just as we left it three weekends ago. That's good too. Sometimes stuff happens while you are gone, that is not too good. Or bad for that matter.

But I will not get into all the old problems that we have encountered with absentee ownership of a distant home.

Tonight the lake has come alive with folks boating up and down the lake. Going to see their friends or to the local drinking establishment. Too late now to be eating supper. I usually try to stay off of the water after 10 PM. Nothing is going on out there that will not wait until tomorrow.

It has really cooled down here as it was 100 or so earlier in the week, and now it was 81 when we arrived. Of course it was 90 inside as the A/C was set to that temp and the windows were all closed. We opened up and ran the whole house attic fan for about an hour and then set the A/C down in the mid 70's.

Now that it is 11 at night it is beginning to get back to the 80 degree mark. Everything in the house is still hot though. And our bed will be hot until morning. Even though the air is cooler from the A/C it seems that the mattress stays hot forever.

I have lost my Wifi benefactor. Big tears!! They have turned on WPA security, to keep their neighbors out. Imagine that! So we are back to using the random wifi that we might pick up from who knows where. The laptop doesn't see any of these access points, but the repeater router does, if you put it outside. So it is sitting on the gas grill on the back deck.

This makes browsing a real pain as it is slower than mollasses. But I never have put in my own system, as it is cable tv as the only source, out here on the North Shore. We are miles away from any DSL, and we have never had a land line phone since we built this place in 2003.

We use satellite tv and have a local antenna to see if we can pick up the local weather and stuff. We are 60 miles from Columbia/Jefferson City stations that are out in the country between those cities. They want more for the cable here than in KC, and we are not here that much.

So without the cable tv then no cable modem for internet either. You have to pay for TV just to be eligble for the internet, which makes the whole deal too high priced.

All is well here, but I am falling asleep as I type, so tomorrow will be here already if I don't sign off!

Work at home

Today was another work at home day. The yard needed mowing and I started on it about 9 AM. It was much cooler today than it has been earlier in the week.

We do not have much grass that is growing, but the quack grass and crab grass is taking over the place. I'll need to address this as it cools down more this fall. Right now with it being so hot, it does not seem to be the right time to put any kind of weed or unwanted grass killer on the yard. We are seeing stress in the grass as it is turning brown even though it is being watered on most days that it doesn't rain.

We had the three year old again today, and we spent some of the morning with Chris, her dad talking about his trip to Colorado last year.

I have proposed that we take the RV and go West to Colorado, once the kids are back in school next week. This should take some of the pressure off of the campgrounds as the family campers are back at home for the rest of the summer. Oh sure they will have the weekend outings but I don't think they will be heading off to Colorado over a weekend. We had earlier in the year talked about fall in Florida, and then we talked about Michigan. Yata Yata Yata.

So to give this conversation some time to grow, we think we will go to the Lake and do some dock settin. Maybe get in the mood to head on out to parts distant!

So we may leave tomorrow or then maybe it will be Saturday as these plans are not set in anything solid. I did drain the kiddy swimming pool on our back patio, so we could depart without worry about it being an attractive nuisance.

So lets see, yard mowed-Check, bills paid-Check, pool drained-Check, Ya were about ready to get out of here for the lake.

After the auctions

On the second day of the auctions, I usually miss bloging all together. But tonight, I am back with the awake, after an afternoon nap and an evening of reading junk on the computer.

Well, not junk, but a bunch of blogs, that I normally do not read on a daily basis. I got hooked up in reading one from last winter, and went day by day and wasted the rest of my day. I won't post the name for fear of offending the folks that write it, but I found it interesting just the same.

We didn't get any cars again today, as there seemed to be a fellow that was always ready to pay the next $100 over the price that I was willing to pay. I had eight or ten vehicles chosen to bid on, but never came close to getting one.

If you decide that the highest you will pay is 10,500 and then they are back on every bid immediately, like you have no idea what you are doing, and then it goes to 10,900. Now it is up to you to go 11,000. You are already 500 over, and where will the other guy decide that you are nuts? So give in and hope you get the next one.

If you were using the vehicle for yourself, you could justify that you will get the additional use and pleasure out of ownership. But as a financial decision, where you will only own the car for 15 minutes while you drive it home, giving away money isn't prudent. Make a donation to the Red Cross or something.

But when you get to the end of the day, and you couldn't find even one normal priced car, something is wrong.

Actually, there are very few new car trades, as new cars are not selling. This creates a shortage of used cars, that folks would normally bring to the auction. Dealers almost never keep a car to put back on their own lot. Customers do not want to know what the dealer is asking for the car that he got so little for on trade.

So that was our day here, mostly boring with a nap in the middle. Tomorrow is another grandkid day for grandma Loyce. I would bet that I sneak away before noon. LOL

More Car Auctions

It was the usual Tuesday routine. Up early, over to the first auction, to see how much the Camry and some other cars we were looking at would go for. Way way too much! Within 2 thousand of new price. Beyond what retail used would cost.

There are very few used cars that are decent right now, so the ones that are, cost as much as new ones.

So after Mexican lunch at our favorite cantina in Belton, it was off to the big auction to look at this weeks offering. It was beyond Hot out on that asphalt lot. I was driving a Ford Fusion, to check it out and drive by others we wanted to see. It was showing 102 on the dash thermometer. It didn't go there for a brief moment, it stayed there for the whole time we were in the car.

We walked some too but it was more than this fat old guy could take. We came home. Not a day to remember, but then it isn't winter either.

Tomorrow morning, it is back out to this larger auction for the days proceedings. We always go the day before, to look and drive some of the cars that we might potentially bid on. This is called previewing, and it keeps us from making a mistake by bidding on a potential wolf in sheep's clothing.

All the grand kids were here with Loyce and out in the little pool, when I got home. Ema had been here all day, and they are all looking forward to going to the Lake next week.