Hot until the rain came!

It was threatening rain all afternoon, but we went out on the pontoon boat anyway.  Of course when we got about 12 miles away, a cool wind came boiling down over the lake and blew my hat off into the drink.

We circled and fished it out with the telescoping pole that we have had and used forever.  Had my sunny clip ons  on the bill, couldn't loose those!  But it was apparent that we were about to get dumped on, so I scurried off to the West up a side cove.

The wind blew but we were out of the main cell of the storm.  We ducked into a new dock that someone was building in front of a new building.  But the dock didn't have a roof yet.  We were able to tie up for a few minutes as the wind passed by.

After a while we headed back East but quickly turned North away from the back side of the cell.  We had a leisurely ride after that, but the temperature went down suddenly by about 15 degrees.

By about 5 PM we were back at our own dock, but it was obvious that the wind had blown and it had rained here as well.  We went on about our day even though it was now no longer hot.

Tonight we split two big chickens in half and grilled them on the gas grill for about 50 minutes.  The top racks had skewers of fresh vegetables to go with them.  Not a bad meal, and as we were finishing , we did contemplate taking the pontoon over to see the fireworks at the big Lodge of the Four Seasons for a while.

But the clouds didn't look friendly, so we decided to skip it on the chance of a cold rain.  Our oldest grandson objected!!  So hanging here at home we watched quite a show put on by our neighbor in the North end of our own cove.  But as he was finishing, the sky decided to put on fireworks of its own with many bright flashes and loud bangs from mother nature.

Then the rain came down in a deluge.  Darned good thing we weren't out in the boat as we would have been soaked in cold heavy rain. Caden didn't say too much after that about not being out in the boat!

Our screen porch seemed dry and friendly as the rain came driving down.  The wind was pushing it along for quite a while, and the neighbors scurried to cover the rest of the fireworks show.  But with a 15 minute intermission, they began again and finished the display.


Its late at night now, but I can still hear folks off in the distance booming away at their stash of goodies.  Missouri has always allowed fireworks, as this is a fairly permissive state.  They assume that if you are dumb enough to burn up yourself and your property with fireworks, go for it!  Not too many blue laws in the Show Me State!

So with the kids in bed and the dishwasher running in the kitchen, it is all quiet here at the lake place for another day!  But a fun day it was at that.

Happy Fourth of July!!

Retired Rod

Lakeside Laughter

My only trip out of the lake home today was about 4 miles West to a quick shop gas station with three 5 gallon jugs.  The jet ski needs fuel to play the game!!  The newer jet ski that I purchased last fall is actually more fuel efficient than the old one.

But it is 1500 cc engine and 4 cylinder 4 cycle, where as the old one was 750 cc 2 cycle.  It is not twice as powerful, and does not use twice the fuel, but it does use more than the old one.  All of this means you take more jugs with you to the gas station.

And when my younger son and daughter in law arrived with their youngest daughter, the dock and swimming and jet skiing went into full force.  We already had the older two kids here, so there are 7 of us and Biscuit.  She has three kids to follow and doesn't know who to chase first.

The older kids had been swimming since early morning, so naps were in order late in the afternoon. By late evening we were bar be cuing bacon wrapped turkey breast fillets.  It was awful, but somebody had to eat it!

So a day with the family at the lake has come to an end, and all the tired kids are off to bed.  But grandpa snuck in a nap  late in the afternoon, so I am blogging away.

Hope you had fun at your Holiday party as well!

Retired Rod

Holliday at the Lake begins

An hour by hour replay of today would be the most boring thing you ever read!   So it will suffice to say that I am now at the Lake cabin in Lake Ozark, Missouri.

I did go over to Harbor Freight this morning looking for a box of staples for the air nail brad gun.  And of course I found a much bigger half inch drill.  But since the project is mostly complete in the basement, I didn't buy it. And I hope it will be quite a while before I get myself into wiring about half a house again.........  Or at least until my spouse decides we are starting on another of these projects.....

Again the trip down here to the lake is over roads that I have traveled repeatedly and I actually see very little.  I think you only notice things that have changed, when you have taken the same roads repeatedly. Things in the back country of Missouri change very slowly.  And I didn't go thru any of the tornado ravaged areas either, so there is not much to report.

Once here tonight, the smoke detectors were beeping away non stop.  This house has six of them.  And if one beeps they are all wired together so they all beep.  Loyce has been putting up with that all day and thru the night last night too.  Two of the detectors are up in the top of a 12 foot ceiling so I headed over to Home Depot and purchased Lithium batteries for them.  It is advertised that those will last 10 years.  The other four are on 8 foot ceilings and easily reached with a step ladder, so they just got ordinary energizers.  Since we are never here on January first, we change the batteries on July 1.....

We have the grand kids here with us tonight, the two oldest ones, and Loyce is played out.  And of course I played hooky all day by not getting here until after supper.  But one thing is for sure, I didn't go down into the basement and start working on stuff again either..

Tomorrow the holiday weekend actually begins!!!!

Retired Rod

Just endorse the check to us!

You run into the wildest stuff these days.  There is no more trust in anything you do, because folks will take advantage of anything at any time.  And so it was with the final payment on our roofing bill.

The folks that did the roof have been hounding us about the final payment check from the insurance company.  We have full replacement coverage, but they withhold the depreciation portion of the payment until you submit a final completion certificate.

That went in within a day of the completion of the job, but the check hasn't arrived.  The roofers called almost every day, "Is it there yet?"  But finally it came in last Saturday, and I told them, yes it was here now.  They were here at 9 AM on Monday to get the check........

I was going to endorse it and deposit it and then give them one of our personal checks, but that wasn't fast enough, so they had me sign the check over to them.  So I signed the check on the back and made it "pay to the order of The Roofing Company."

That made the guy go away for  a while, but yesterday they were back on the phone because the bank would not accept a two party check.  Heck, I told you so!  But the problem was they had stamped their company name and for deposit only on the back of the check, so technically the check wasn't mine any more.  But they brought it back to me to correct!  What the heck can I do about it now?

So I went over to my bank and they told me there was no way they could deposit it for me with all those endorsements on the back.  I had to sit and wait for the lady that was official to tell what I already knew.

So out of a wild chance, I went to the claims office of the insurance company.  After explaining the problem to three different folks there, the last lady said she would reissue the check!  That works...... and she did it right on the spot after voiding the original one.

So after depositing the new check back into my bank, I went to the roofing company office and wrote them a personal check.  This fiasco took all morning.

Loyce was ready to leave for the lake cabin with the two older grand kids, and I hadn't even packed a tooth brush.  So tonight I am still in KC and she is at the lake.  Evidentally they swam for most of the late afternoon once they arrived.  And I missed out on Pizza at Emo's too.

But I had another productive day in the basement wiring in the ground fault circuit for the bathroom and bar counter outlets.  Also I re wired the celing lights in two rooms adding switches at the doors.  Formerly there were no rooms or doors in this area and all the lights came on with one switch at the bottom of the main stairs.

Adding the switches would not be much of a task except that there are no hot power runs to that part of the room, so I had to add these legs first before I could have something to switch on.

I think I am mostly done with the electrical, other than adding a cable TV wire to the bedroom/office.  But at least I can turn on the light in there with a switch now.

Oh, the Harbor Freight drill is beginning to heat up now when it is used for only a minute or two.  This project has probably rendered it useless, much like my sore hands and arms from running the poor thing.

And Happy Canada Day for my Canadian readers!

Retired Rod