Kansas is still cold....

I haven't wanted to bore you with all the go here go there family and friends kind of posts, that would explain what I have been up to....

So other than driving down to the Lake on Saturday, that is all that has happened here in Biscuit and my lives...  

We did have a nice outing going to the lake on a 51 degree day, and found nothing out of place once we arrived.....   The heat was working and the water was off from the last time we were there so no problems were to be reported..

I did go down to the dock and inspect the pontoon boat and its lift, cycling the lift up and down with its air pump...  As the air in the pontoons of the lift contracts with the cool temperatures, the lift rides lower in the lake....  So blowing it up with the cooler air returns it to the correct height...  As the temps warm up, the air is expelled out the bottom of the lift floats as they are open to the water...

We do cycle the water in the pipes of the home, by turning the pressure back on and running every faucet...  This fills the drain traps as they tend to evaporate and refills the toilet bowls as well...  

It was three hours of driving to come back home arriving after dark...

Yesterday, I spent some of the football time with my cycle riding friend Al at his home.  We made hamburgers on the outdoor grill, but it was so cold outside that it took forever to finish them off.....  Al is from Wisconsin, so we were elated that the Packers pulled out the game over Chicago at the very end in a thriller...

Today it was 10 degrees this morning as we woke for the day, so it has been an inside day cleaning up some of the laundry and dishes type chores....

I hope to be able to leave sometime in the near future, but have legal matters to look into before that  can happen....  So for now, I remain cold in Kansas.....

Retired Rod

Its a Robot..!

My Christmas gift from the kids this year is  iRobot Roomba...  A robotic vacuum cleaner...  It is the model that handles pet hair and their messes...

My older son Chris had researched this item as he has a male golden retriever.. Sammy, and he is a shed monster. Most of their floors are wood tongue and groove stained a deep reddish brown.. And Sammy's hair is light almost blonde... Needless to say, it shows up quite easily, since he leaves big globs of it where ever he has been.

So I must have been lamenting or complaining about having to run the vacuum over at my house, cause company was coming...  And the next thing I knew, I was opening up this big box...

Both Chris and Ben chipped in on this present as I thought they were crazy spending too much money....  But, Thankyou thankyou..

I set the thing to do the floors on the lower level of the house this afternoon after the company left for Iowa...  and it went about its business..  I fell asleep in the recliner....  I heard it talking to me and alarming, but I was zonked and didn't get up....

Well when I finally did go see what was wrong, it had gone off completely....  And I couldn't find it....  I searched all over the house....   No Roomba...  It has a cliff sensor, so it didn't fall down the stairs....  So where's Roomba?

I kept asking Biscuit where the roomba went, and remember she really isn't overly fond of this device...  She thinks it is chasing her, but if it bumps her it will turn and then bump her again...    Really this is the feature where it is cleaning against the wall...  It returns to the wall over and over again moving only slightly forward each time....  Biscuit thinks its the devil inside....  She barks at it when it bumps her.  It doesn't seem to listen to her..

So as I was asking, where's Roomba, Biscuit promply ran over to the couch and got down on her paws and barked at it underneath...  Yep, there it was...!

Evidently the couch slopes toward the floor allowing the machine to go under the front but then wedging itself as it pushes up against the fabric underside....  I reset the thing and pushed its dock button...

It beeped making a kind of squealing sound and went right for its corner where the charging stand was plugged in...  It climbs up on this stand and makes contact with the electric elements and turns itself off....  The top light turns orange, meaning it is getting its batteries recharged....

And now Biscuit can go back to her nap...  But she still has one eye open looking at that infernal machine...

We had a wonderful Christmas where the center attraction was the standing rib beef roast on the Ronco set it and forget it oven rotisserie..   I wasn't involved in that part of the cooking, but it came out delectable...   We cut off the ribs and sliced it like prime rib...  We had all the regular side dishes as well and several kinds of pie......     And the mess was all over at Chris' house....   Thanks Melissa for putting up with all of us....

This morning we all went over to a breakfast restaurant called Eggtc..  This is the best brunch in our town here, and we had to wait quite a while for a table....  Obviously we haven't been starving here in KC....

Retired Rod

Company's coming..!

Who are these folks called company...... ? Anyway...  What's the big deal....?

Just because of them, my dad rounded me up right after I had been outside in the awful cold weather and took me upstairs....   It was sooooo cold out there that I couldn't do my thing...  I just sat on the snow and shivered...   He let me back inside so I could warm up..... for a while, but then booted me right back outside screaming at me to go potty...

So that's all I heard about when he tossed me into the bath tub up stairs and made me take a long bath....  I tell ya, he used the soap on me twice, claiming I was gravel to the bone...  Company......... why can't they go somewhere else....?

Then it was the hair dryer...  The dreaded hair dryer... He put a chain on my collar and sat on the leash so I couldn't run away...  And while he was blowing my ears and face, he was talking to some of that "Company" on the phone.... Hey let me talk to em, I'll tell em what I think of this company bit......

But that's when I heard my cousin Lilly Belle's name mentioned, that she is coming along too....  We chase each other all around and around...  Maybe this won't be so bad.......

And tonight I am finally dry, and that's good too, because its almost 8 F outside and its to be 2 by morning.........   I wanna go back to the desert!!!  Its warm there......

So  MERRY  CHRISTMAS To Ya and remember, I'll be dealing with these folks called Company........  who ever they are.......!

Biscuit Doggy...

I do need the Jeep

Oh boy do I need the Jeep....  I would take a picture but its way after dark outside.... Besides there isn't any reason to go stand in Ice Pellet Rain that is freezing on the ground at and alarming rate...

This was supposed to happen last night but somehow it went South of us here in Olathe....  But about noon, as the daughter in laws were having the annual cookie party at my oldest son's home, it began to rain, and since it was 28 outside, that rain coated everything in ice...

I delivered some frosting and other supplies during this time of the afternoon and used 4 x 4 drive to get over there... I'm reasonably certain that the front wheel drive car would have been fine, but my rear wheel drive hobby car is now stored in the garage....

But as it became dark tonight, the temps dropped even further freezing everything up solid...  It is to change to snow here around midnight and we are to have 5 - 7 inches before morning....

I haven't done anything important the last few days other than clean the house and strip the beds and do the laundry....  We really haven't done any of the floors since the last part of the summer....  Given that I have been gone out of here for most of that time.....

I'm sure you aren't interested in my domestic chores so I'll let that info slide...

Some folks have stated that the conventional Jeep is unstable in icy conditions, but today I didn't notice that my 4dr model had any more tendency to slide sideways than any other car I have driven..  Perhaps because it is longer wheel based with its extra doors and length it is more stable...

We had the 4 dr Ford Escape for a number of years, and they seem to be very commensurate...  This Jeep has larger and wider tires than the Escape had, so the contact with the ground seems better....  But that's not to say that if something caused me to make an avoidance maneuver it wouldn't immediately go out of control and into a non recoverable slide....

I do think the shorter 2 dr would be much more unstable that way as well...  Just the same, I think I will wait for the roads to be a lot more clear and clean before returning to the Southwest...

Here's hoping the weather is much more agreeable in your neck of the woods....

Retired Rod

I may need the Jeep!

Carbondale, Kansas not Illinois......

Point B on this map is Carbondale, a community so small that its name only shows on a much larger detail map view...  The restaurant had only been open for four weeks....  The Pepper Patch....  A Mexican place without a Mexican in sight.....

But a Taco Bar with flour and hard shell tacos and all you can eat chips and salsa, is a good thing no matter what.....  They had a big pan of refried beans too, but I stayed away from those...

We Rode out from my home on the Southern most line which was about 68 miles...   The wind was from the Southwest at 15 with gusts to 25...  The temperature was about 50 on the way out.....

The gusts went right thru you even though I had three shirts and three pairs of pants on....  The liner was in the cycle jacket as well...  My friend Al's wife had made me a neck wrap out of fleece...  It was a life saver as it covers your chin down into the top of your jacket....  Its very cold under your helmet otherwise...

We left the restaurant a little after noon, and it was in the 60s by now, but with that wind it was still really cold...  Our coffee stop was at the Mc Donalds in the Southern end of Lawrence where I put the dot on the map...

It was almost 4 PM when I got back to let Biscuit out, and she looked at me like "Where have you been?"

Our weather is supposed to go into the tank from here on out, with much colder and rain turning to snow by the weekend..  So the motor bike is put up now....  But we had a couple of good days, even if I was wondering how nuts we were in the cold wind this morning.....

We are all just as nuts, as there were 40 or more cycles outside in the parking lot...

Riding in the cold, and some more thoughts on routers...

It was 26 degrees when I got up this morning, and we were going motorcycling...?   So I put on long sweat pants under my jeans....  And three shirts.....

And it was still darned cold at 50 miles an hour....  The good thing is that we were only going over to Belton, Mo about 15 miles away...  Seemed like we stood around out in the parking lot before they opened for forever...

This was Snead's Bar B Que, and they had quite the turnout...  Many folks brought their wives, as this was the Christmas luncheon...  Pulled Pork Sandwich with overly greasy fries and a diet coke....  The sandwich was good, and I managed to give some of the fries away...

Al and I took a long way around coming home, and sat in a McDonalds until 3 in the afternoon....  By then it was 50 degrees, which is still rather brisk at speed...

We are just nutty enough to take off again tomorrow..  The Eastern Kansas group is meeting in a small town South of Topeka....  This will be a different bunch of our bandits from here in Kansas, so we will get to do Christmas Lunch all over again...  I think there will be a number of the same guys that went today as well.

From there on, the weather is supposed to go to rain and then snow and ice....  That will stretch right up to Christmas day, so the bike will have to be put up for the rest of the time I will be here.......  I got Al to agree to that, for now anyway...

Several folks remarked about neighbor's WIFI routers without security...  I never understand why folks would do that because folks like me can log right onto their access points and change the programming...  I can see when they are loged onto their own routers...  I could even kick them off of their own routers....

I could start up security on their routers with access names and secure passwords that they wouldn't  know....  At that point they wouldn't even understand where their router went to...  It would look like another neighbors machine...

Even if you decide not to make your router secure, please change the SSID to something of your own invention, and set the password to something an intruder couldn't guess....

Here in Kansas, there is a guy that has his SSID set to "I see your files"......  And down in Arizona I find a router called "Free Virus."  What a scream!

I think now days, that most MIFIs come with a unique SSID and a preset pass code...  So you don't have to learn how to program it....  The most compelling reason for this is that intruders can get right on your machines and look at everything you have stored.....

Retired Rod

Butterbean was a kind friend, and an internet connection.....

First of all I would like to mention the passing of James Butterbean Carpenter...  He was an avid blog reader and left comments on almost all of our blogs...  He often used vernacular language in those comments, and at first I wondered who in the heck was this fellow......

But then one day he emailed me with a comment and that vernacular was completely gone....  It was kind of a ruse...   But that was OK with me, as I always knew he had a heart as big as the West end of Texas where he lived...

I haven't been able to find out what happened other than a Traffic Accident, but perhaps it is just as well that I don't know...   But what I do know, is that he sent me some very kind and helpful messages at the time of Loyce's passing and was a true internet friend....  I wished I could have met him, but we never went thru his part of Texas since he introduced himself with emails.....

I can only hope that God has a special place up in Heaven for our brother Butterbean, as he has earned it with his wit and kindness here on earth...

I emailed my friend Al today asking if we were going to the Romeo Christmas lunch at a BarBQue over in Belton, Missouri....  I suggested by car.....  And heck yes he is going, but with his scooter....

Seems he has been awarded the Polar Bear award for showing up on his bike when all others have used 4 wheel protected conveyances, and  now needs to maintain that image....

That meant that I needed to get the charger on the Suzuki Burgman and try to get it started...   It only took about 3 hours and the bike popped right off...  Started much better than the cars did...

So I rode over to Al's home just to see how he was getting along...  And of course we got into another philosophical, technical, and religious discussion...  It was mostly dark by the time we came up from his basement office..

And during that discussion, he showed me how fast his internet connection was...  Almost 18 megabits.....  Wow...  I knew mine was slower than sin over here, but we are connected to the same service provider..............?

So I tested my speed tonight and found that I was at 3 mbps...  What?  I messed and messed around....  Couldn't improve it one bit...  I'm going to have to call and give these folks the what for, I reasoned...

But just a few moments ago I happened to look at my wifi connection in the bottom right of the screen...  I only had one bar....  I'm not ten feet from the router but its on the other side of a wall...  Still....  So loading the connection program yielded that I am connected to a distant neighbors open security wifi, rather than my own....  How did that happen...?

Oh well, I'm back up to 10 mbps now and still scratching my head....

Retired Rod

Weather and the DMV

So what do you talk about once you get back here to the Midwest.....?  Why the weather of course.....  Because of IT, you don't really have much else in your life....

So after a nice day on Thursday where it was sunny and below freezing, then the bottom fell out for Friday...  But back to Thursday....

One of the beauties of having too many real estate properties, is property taxes, and just like out in Arizona, I had to run back to Kansas and go to the county court house to pay the delinquent taxes...  I thought they were due on Friday and I wouldn't have enough time to mail a check......

So after driving to the local county office, I learned that I was a week early... Its next Friday........? dah...  How did I mess that up? I'm always late, but not this year.... LOL..  And yes I paid them while I was there...  I'm not going to wait until next week...  Be my luck I would forget them or something....

And then it was over to the DMV to turn in the Camry License Tag..... Oh Joy.. I  love the DMV....    But get this, I walked in and took a number and there was no one waiting....  Not a single soul..  There were ladies behind windows that weren't doing anything.... but cleaning their nails...

Of course I didn't have the registration, just the plate..  Uh, its back in Arizona, but I didn't say that....  But for only a green dollar bill, she poked a couple of buttons and printed out one... Kansas doesn't miss  trick..  You forgot it, so it will cost ya!

So after filling out a lot of information, and signing in three places, they will mail me a check ......  In six weeks........................................!

Lets see, that was the night that it started to rain and then snow... so Friday was a hang around the house kind of day...

So moving ahead to Saturday, I spent the day with my younger son Ben and his wife and the grandkids...  After all, that's why  I  came back here isn't it...

We went to dinner at the 54th street bar and grill...  A local chain here in KC.. Kansas was playing New Mexico on the TV so the place was packed with game watchers..  The bar was very busy....

The game was slow for the first half, and almost tied at half time, until a run in the second half made the score way too much to not near enough....  With New Mexico on the short end of the stick...  But Kansas lost the first game this week to one of the Florida teams, so perhaps they were making it up to themselves...

Still below freezing outside, and the ice hasn't gone anywhere on the new Jeep..  But the roads have evaporated dry...  Couldn't have been from the sun, since we haven't seen that...  Where does the ice go, when its below freezing....?

Retired Rod

1150 Miles

Al was talking about a grueling 9 hour 450 mile drive over on his site today, and I couldn't help but wonder what he would think of my drive.....

You see, it is 15 degrees outside tonight here and the grass and leaves are all frozen and brown.....    Kansas...... Yep, I'm back in Kansas....

I turned the heat up to 68 when I got here at 7 PM, and it has run on continuously ever since..  And its midnight now....  It was set at 55 when I came in....

We are to have a sunny day tomorrow, but cold...  And then on Friday it is to warm up a little which will bring on a snow storm......

I have been watching the weather here, and cursing my bad tooth for not letting me leave Arizona...  I was trying to be good on Monday and sit and bear the remaining pain....  But it was getting better....

So on Tuesday when I determined that I had an envelope of weather all the way from there to here, I tossed the stuff in the Jeep and lit out....  Longer term readers know how I am about these things......   Get a wild hair and I'm outa here...

The sun was shining brightly as I climbed out of Mesa for Payson, but it was suddenly in the 40s..    Over the mountain it was 25 on top...  Gas stop in Holbrook, and then again in Albuquerque...

I stayed Tuesday night in Tucumcari, NM....  The Rodeway Inn accepts dogs, but I never even mentioned Biscuit, cause they like to charge extra...  She sleeps under the covers with you, so I know she isn't messing on the floor... LOL.

Today I was on the road by 8AM, but that turned into 9 the moment I crossed into the pan handle of Texas...  We ate lunch in Liberal, Kansas and drove the rest of the afternoon...

Its about 21 hours all told, and 1150 miles....  The Jeep got about 19 miles per gallon, which is about normal for the four wheel drive vehicle...

My tooth was still causing me to take the tylenol last night, and I think I will take some more here in a few minutes, but for the most part its much better...  Well for now anyway until I have to go back again when I'm back in Arizona.....

I had to go over to Wal Mart a few moments ago, as I have absolutely no groceries in fridge....  Not even a cracker....LOL

Retired Rod

Oh My,

What did I start here..?  I had X Rays of all of my teeth and there were no cysts or abscesses anywhere....  I have used this dentist for 5 years and he is my primary dentist...  I have only had cleanings back in Kansas...

I got this guy when we first came to Mesa and never got a guy in Kansas when we moved there from Iowa...   So I have a good track record with him... He is honest as the day is long....

He does good work, and did a good job on my crown...  Its just that my teeth seem to hurt more than other folks...  Overly sensitive I think he called it...

When they took the temporary plastic cover off of the tooth to put the crown on, the surface of that tooth was overwhelmingly sensitive...  And it wasn't getting any better with the new crown on...  In fact it was getting more and more painful..

This sometimes happens with us sensitive folks...  So the dentist and I had a heart to heart and decided to do the root canal...   And I wondered what I was in for at that time...

The Endodontist agreed that the way to fix this deal was with the root canal..  The tooth was broken too close to the nerve and just the crown wasn't going to do the job...

The endo guy was as professional as I have ever seen a dentist be.... Very careful with excellent technique..  In his defense, he told me it would hurt like holly heck on the second day after the procedure... because the nerve was severed at the bottom of the tooth and removed...

And that was an understatement.....  Oh my, I used the hydrocodone at night and probably should have used more...  The pain isn't just in your tooth, it went all over my jaw and face..

Being completely by myself, and with Biscuit needing to go out every little bit, I didn't want to knock myself totally out with the hydrocodone....

Today things seem to be improving, to the point where I am just using Tylenol and perhaps with one more day, it will be better...  And yes, I wonder what it will cost to fix up the now broken new crown..  But it will be what it will be....

Thank you for all of your caring notes and suggestions, as I appreciate your concern...  But I don't feel that the folks here are leading me astray or taking advantage of me..  Mesa is just as much my home as Kansas is and in some ways the doctors and medical folks here are even better...

 And, after all, I did bite down and break the tooth in the first place..

Retired Rod

Staying Home

Wow, root canals aren't for sissies!!

Retired Rod

The dental trips continue

So this started out to be a normal but painful day, as I had struggled with the crowned tooth all night....  Seems like each night has become more painful...

I took some tylenol and talked to my son for a while on the phone...  But it still was hurting....  So I called the dentist....  They said come on over but  before noon because we close then....  It was already 11 AM...  So after a really quick shower and driving like crazy on the superstition freeway I made it..

The dentist came in and tapped on my newly crowned tooth with a heavy handled tool and sent me to the moon..................!  And then broke the news to me that I needed a root canal....  Oh, eww....

He had made an appointment for me at 4:15 at an Endo dentist.....  Ya like this afternoon at 4:15...

So without much time to dwell on it, I came home and let biscuit out and was back at the Superstition Mall area again where the Endo Doc was located....

They drilled right thru the new crown like it wasn't there......  The procedure took over 2 hours and it was almost 7 when I was back at Wal Mart getting the really strong pain meds filled....

The novacane has now worn off as I type this, and sleep will require those strong pills...

I will have to go back to the dentist and have the crown repaired again...  This is getting expensive...  But this afternoon I learned that I do have some dental coverage, and should not have paid so much for the first crown..

I guess I can apply for some money to replace part of what I spent...  Today would have been twice as much without the delta dental coverage from AARP..

But then I have made the payments every month for the last year,  so that makes it about even...

They keep talking about us freezing here in the next few hours and for the next few days.... So this cold weather is here at the desert as well...  I covered the hibiscus bushes again tonight, as I did last night.... I have heavy plastic grill covers that go over them...  It worked last year, so I hope it will again...  The trees and stuff will all loose their leaves and look bad, but eventually come back ok...

For those that have palm trees, they are usually mostly dead at 25 degrees...  There was a lot of that last winter, so I hope we won't get there again....

Retired Rod

Rainy Day in Arizona

 

The sun was going down and illuminated the face of the mountains for a moment….  These clouds had this mountain obscured all day…

And just like that the sun was gone….

The sun under the clouds…

 

The bougainvillea are blooming like crazy here in Arizona this fall…  It has rained several times in the last couple of weeks and the natural rain causes them to be prolific…

 

 

Spinning around and taking a picture in the golden light of nightfall….

 

I was over at the storage lot where I drained the water from the motorhome’s water heater and the Ice maker..  The last time I was there, I opened the low point drains on the 50 gallon water tank and the water system.  So the largest amount of water is now gone…

 

The internal water lines inside of the coach still contain some water….  It will take a complete and solid freeze for all day long to break those lines….  We did get a freeze like that last year here in Arizona, and I went to the rig that day, and it still wasn’t below freezing inside…  But I wouldn’t like to chance that..

 

There is some chance that I might end up going to Quartzsite in January, so perhaps I might be out and about when it gets cold like that…  But last year I got freaked out and winterized with the pink stuff… So stay tuned, if it gets that cold again this year….

 

Retired Rod

More stories.....

On Tuesday, I awakened way early in the morning with the same sore mouth and gums that I went to bed with...  So several Tylenol later, I went back to sleep...  It was already daylight by then and Biscuit was awake....  She tried her very best to let me sleep, but eventually she just had to go outside..

So up on the bed, and lick my face was her best alarm...  I kind of sat in a stupor for a while.. Eventually getting going on the daily projects around here...  Clothes in the dryer that were neglected yesterday and the dishes in the sink....  Loyce spoiled me by doing all that stuff..

Rather than sit around and keep thinking about my sore gums, I went out for a walk with the dog...  She always likes to do that, and afterward I took the motorcycle out for the rest of the afternoon...  I went over to Trader Joes.....

Biscuit likes the dog biscuits that they sell...  All of them, but today it was Sweet Potato and Chicken roll ups...  Like pigs in a blanket...  And that was where I did a bad thing....

At the cash register, I dropped the bike keys on the floor next to the credit card machine...  Of course it was only a couple of minutes later in the parking lot when I found that they were missing...  After searching all of my pockets and the bike's compartments... They had to be back in the store somewhere...

I looked on the floor around the dog supplies and in front of the two buck chuck wine, but nothing...  I asked the fellow at the elevated desk to see if they had been turned in, but he was annoyed at me bothering him...  Finally, getting down and looking below the checkout counter where a customer was working the credit card machine, I could see the yellow and green plastic braided lanyard that grandchild Ema had given me to put on the ring...

They had been kicked back under the counter...  Makes me wonder what I would have done if they couldn't have been found....  Its hard to hide a key on a motorcycle......

Retired Rod

The rest of the story...

I wasn't really looking for sympathy when I was explaining the trip to the Dentist, but rather just kind of dreading the experience....  And just like Murphy's law, it all kind of went South...

They fit the crown before putting the cement on it and it seemed to fit over the stub they left remaining of the old tooth....  The gal had to pull kind of hard to get the temporary off, and I jumped quite a bit...

But then when they cemented the new crown in, it didn't go on straight...  It was like I had a marble in my mouth....  So he fairly quick like had to yank that back out....  Again, I jumped rather high...  But by now, they had given me two different shots of the Novacane..  So the pain wasn't as sharp...

He then left the dental assistant to sit and grind down the crown inside where the glue had hardened to near concrete....  While he went off to another room to work on a different patient...

When he came back, he ground down my stub tooth some more carefully fitting the crown in and out several times...  Then he filled it with more cement... a lot more......  Which oozed out all over the place inside my mouth...

Once the tooth had set in place, they had to grind and pick the extra cement out and off of all my adjoining teeth..  This took more than another half an hour...  They had scheduled thirty minutes for this whole thing, and it took an hour and a half...

Tonight, my mouth feels as though a war has taken place inside....  The numbness is now gone, and I'm sure it will take a number of pain meds to get thru the night....

The dentist was upset that it took so long and messed everything up calling it a bad procedure, as if I had done something wrong....  If this was my first time at these folks, it might well have been the last... But I've been going there for 5 years, so everyone has a bad day once in a while... Biscuit has licked me all over since I came home....  She knows things aren't right.....  Tomorrow will be better.. It has to be...

Retired Rod

Back again....

Pausing a few moments to gather my wits and inner strength....  Why? Because in about 15 minutes I have to jump in the truck and head off to that dreaded office up on University Drive..........

The DENTIST!!!  Capital letters means screaming doesn't it....?

Today they have to install that crown that they took the mold of from my now long defunct original molar...  I have one of those plastic caps over the little part they leave behind....  Sore is an understatement....

Anyway I will again have a fat lip and a bad attitude when I get home, and Biscuit is sitting right on top of the keyboard as I type wondering what's so wrong with dad.....

Retired Rod

Last weeks bike ride

On the day that I rode the bike out to Saguaro Lake, I called my friend Al back in Kansas where it was only about 20 degrees, to see if he had driven his car to the Romeo Luncheon, but he hadn't..  Seems that he and another fellow had gone to lunch by themselves...  No wonder I felt my ears itching...

But as I sat there, a fellow on a dark Goldwing and his side kick on a white Burgman rode into the Lake parking lot where I was sitting....  They looked amazingly just like Al and I as we rode around...

Tonight Al sent an email asking about who they were so here is my response.....

The fellow with the Burgman had only had it a couple of weeks...  It was older like an 04 or something... They all look alike, but it had fairly bad rash once you got up closer to it...  He had a Piaggio that was smaller in CCs and had sold it for the Burgman...  This fellow seemed to be on a budget that was limiting his cycle expenditures...  But just the same, he said there was no comparison between the Italian bike and this bigger one...  By the way he said his nickname was Scooter....... LOL

The other fellow had an 07 deep blue metalic Goldwing...  He was 73 years young and was having trouble keeping the thing upright when he maneuvered it with his feet down...  It was just too heavy..  So he spent a bunch of money on it making into a trike...   $15K  to convert it... Probably more than the bike was worth to begin with....  But he loved his bike so money didn't seem to matter... 

I had to hear the complete story, which seemed to bore ole Scooter...   Bet he's heard it a thousand times.. I kept thinking about my friend Al and his people skills...  LOL  

They had ridden from over in the West side of Phoenix and much of it was thru the city streets, so eventually they had to get rolling again and we parted company... 

I came back into the city and got a burger at Wendy's...  They have a free frosty for those of us with a special tag on our key chain....  I can't have them very often with the diabetes..  But they are baby sized...   But I needed my friend Al with me because senior coffee out here is free too...  But alas, I sat there all alone....

Thought you might be interested as well... Note, Al always gets a senior coffee and McDonalds, but they charge 60 cents...  He would really like the free thing at Wendy's...

Retired Rod

Thanksgiving and Friday

Thanksgiving dinner around here was in the form of the Old Country Buffet over at the Superstition Mall complex...  This is where the Fuddruckers hamburger place and the Jeep dealership are located...  Of course there are hundreds of businesses in this area and on the Mall grounds..

They had Steak, Ham, Turkey and Prime rib....  With all the trimmings...  They added dressing and cranberry sauce to the rest of the normal spread...   Pumpkin pie and apple pie were in abundant supply along with the ever present soft serve ice milk machine....

I was in line by 11:15, and had to wait for 30 minutes to get to the desk to purchase a table ticket...  It was about then that they announced that the restaurant was completely full... I and another gentleman teamed up to become a party of two, when a table for two was announced..  Most other groups were much larger, so we slipped in from behind passing about 30 folks all at once..

This fellow turned out to be a mine worker from one of the mines South and East of here..  He seemed to be very mechanical, and I wondered if he was a repair worker.. But he never did offer to much about his job, or why he was alone at the restaurant...  We got along just the same for the duration of our meal, mostly talking about the food and the other folks in the restaurant.

Later in the day, I was back out on the motorcycle on my favorite trip South of the city here...  It never becomes completely rural or desert, but rather an intersperse of all of the above...  I rode thru Queen Creek and then East to Ironwood Crossing...  Some of it at highway speeds, but mostly it is about 45 mph.  Traffic on Thanksgiving was medium to light..  But most of all it was 74 degrees and very pleasant....

The weather man on the 6 PM news reported that we had the warmest and nicest weather in all of the country...  And from the looks of the temperature map, that appeared to be correct...

On black Friday, I was waiting for the Hawkeye football game in the late morning...  I was surprised to find that the game was carried on ABC as a national game..  This increased the coverage of the team exponentially.  

I get so nervous watching these games, I had to continue on my project of writing thank you notes from the funeral.....  Letting the game run in the other room and only checking in on it now and then...  And before anyone wonders, I haven't been able to dig thru the funeral stuff and cards without having grief overwhelm me...

So ever so slowly, I have made a list of the folks that needed to be sent thank you notes...  But today is the first time that I could actually write them without a loss of composure...  I was kind of dual tasking listening to the game and addressing envelopes at the same time...

And while that was happening, my Hawkeyes overwhelmed the Nebraska Cornhuskers.... They stepped away from the start and never looked back.  That makes the team 8 and 4 for the year and should get them a good bowl bid...  Its fun when your school does well....

There was not a bit of black Friday shopping at this address...  I stayed home for the rest of the afternoon once the notes were posted late in the day...

Retired Rod

Happy Thanksgiving!!

What do I have to be Happy For????

Everything!!!!!!    And mostly the wonderful 45 years I was allowed to have with Loyce....

May your day be great in every way....

Retired Rod

Computer fun

I rode the Goldwing out to Saguaro Lake yesterday while the sun was out wall to wall...  Not a cloud in the ski...  As usual, my phone that doesn't take pictures was stalled out in my pocket....

Lately it has been taking photos again.....  I used it the other night at the Eddie Diamond concert to take both the still shot and the video of the too loud music...   And then when I pressed the off button it crashed and said it wasn't working...

Going back to the gallery though proved that the video was there....  The next day was when I updated this computer to W8.1 and I had a dickens of a time getting the stuff off of the phone...  Then when I went to store the You Tube Video I found that the blogger upload didn't work on their client under W8.1...

Next I had to download live writer, which doesn't like w8.1 too well either...   Windows live is now older software as well, and I wonder how long that will be supported...  But once I made a new account on You Tube under my real name and uploaded the 30 second video, I succeeded at running live writer, and finally made the blog posting it...  That took most of Sunday afternoon...

It would seem that 8.1 is yet a further step away from the older and more compatible windows of old..  And also Skype didn't work either...  Rick made a comment to get Skype for 8.1, but I couldn't get the old version to uninstall...  It was their companion program Click to Call that wouldn't go away...

Finally I had to completely remove Chrome and old Skype, then repair Click to Call and then remove it..  What a mess...!  Click to call is an extension that resides in Chrome and somehow was messed up on this old HP machine..

So with a clean install of Chrome and Skype................... it still didn't work!!  I threw my hands up in despair.....

So later that night, I was sitting here watching TV and suddenly out of the clear blue, I hear the computer make that tell tale sound that means skype has logged on.....  WHAT?

And yes you guessed it, it was there and running.....

By now I was completely out of monthly gigs on the verizon mifi...  Today starts another month on that...

So see why I was out riding that motorcycle on the sunny 71 degree afternoon up in the desert... Sometimes one has had about enough of the computer for one day...

Retired Rod

Windows 8.1

Moving on to Windows 8.1....  This was 3.6 gig to down load...  Since I only have 4 gig for the entire month on the verizon mifi, something different had to happen.....

So I found an open wifi...  And looked at it to see if it was unlimited access....  And yes the router was connected to the local cable company...  So I connected and downloaded our really big file...  It took quite a while but it was a done deal after a while....

So now I have my smaller HP up and running on W 8.1....  But all is not well...  Seems as though Skype doesn't like the new operating system....  It just crashes...  Says it is trying to resolve the problem...  But then goes away and doesn't come back...

And I use the blogger interface to write the blogs...  Never did like the MS Live Writer program, found it too involved..  The blogger client doesn't like W8.1 much though..  It seems to get along on text ok, but if you try to add a picture or a video....  You just get a blank screen..

I haven't decided why that is yet either...

And then when I was reading Rick's blog tonight, it didn't like the fact that he was using google + for his comment format...  It just wasn't there....  I messed and messed with that one, and just a mysteriously as it was gone, it came back and started to work...

So while I didn't have a bit of trouble downloading or installing the W8.1 programs, on my 18 month old HP, a number of the features that normally used to work, seem to be gone...  This computer started life as a W7 machine, so perhaps changing it over twice might be an issue....

Who knows..

Retired Rod

Eddie Diamond from Saturday Night

He lacks a little but got to singing better once he got into it more…

Birthday over retirement age….

Yesterday was my birthday, and I celebrated by completing that restaurant dinner that Sandi Dixon and I planned out earlier in the week.....  Well not exactly like that, as she had Jim call me and we learned that they had tickets to a show over in the main part of Mesa..

I and another friend of theirs were invited to go along to see Eddie Diamond...  A Neil Diamond impersonator and his band the Az Daimonds....   It was a one night stand at the Arizona Event center...

So tonight we went to Texas Road house for a nice sit down diner and out to the show...  Its not exactly like going to Neil himself, but it was quite fun and a tad loud...  My ears are still ringing, but hey it really beat sitting here pouting about things.... LOL

 

It does appear that these fellows are in demand and most of their shows are for private events, but they will be appearing at a couple of big RV parks after the first of the year...

Retired Rod

Clean trailers and friends...

I was again on my way to another boring day around here, but convinced myself to get into the Jeep and head for the storage lot...

The hitch that I purchased before I left Kansas needed to be transferred to the Jeep and the trailer needed to come home....  The driver's side was covered with the grease from the bad axle bearing... Biscuit was with me as well, as we had gone on a nice walk down the green grassy area here in the center of our housing development..

It took a minute to get the locking pin into the back of the Jeep, but after that was done, the trailer pulled back over to the house without incident..   I had to stop at Wal Mart for a big can of engine degreaser..

So I spent a couple of hours with the pressure washer and the foaming cleaner...  It didn't come very clean, but mostly its not black anymore...

When I went back with the trailer, I put it in front of the motorhome since it won't be used much this winter....  That will let me get the coach out to go on a trip if need be...  I'm not sure how that will all work as the car that can be pulled is still in KC...  Will probably need to make a few changes in that program....

Once I had the storage lot all locked up, I went over to Sandie Dixon's RV park on the off chance that I might catch her or Jim at home.....  I needed to get on their appointment calendar  for a restaurant trip...

They seem to be busy all the time, being in much demand  socially...  Jim was fishing and had taken the truck and boat...  But the door to the RV was open, meaning she was at home...  We sat outside for a while catching up since last season...  While it threatened rain with nasty clouds...

We ignored that and talked on...  She was gracious and realized my pent up need to talk and talk...  Perhaps we will get that restaurant meal in one of these days too...

Retired Rod

A story...

I went to Wal Mart this afternoon, out in the South part of the area at San Tan Village Mall..  It was just a different area of the city to go see....  Nothing too important, but I got the idea that I would purchase a George Foreman grill..

So after picking out the groceries, I went over into the aisle where the household appliances were kept..  And picked out the small little two burger unit...   About $20 worth...

Biscuit and I went thru the gas pumps outside of Sam's club and came on home...  That saved about a dime a gallon over our prices out here in the far end of the valley....

But as I was putting the supplies away, I got a weird kind of a feeling that I was doing something wrong...  Maybe my wife was telling me something from the land beyond....  About that grill...  So I started to dig thru the bottom cupboards.....

Ya, you guessed it.. I found the exact same grill, brand new in the box....  Just a small story, but I thought it was interesting how I had no idea about this, but yet somehow I knew......

Retired Rod

Property tax.... What property tax?

Part of the problem of having property in a state that you are not familiar with such as Arizona, is that you don't know when things come due....  Case in point, the property tax around here...

I kept wondering when I would get a billing for that tax...  And the truth is that I must have gotten it while the post office decided that all my mail needed to be returned to its sender back in KC. During the funeral in Des Moines, I didn't get the mail box emptied... Let's face it, I wasn't doing anything rational or correctly then..

Loyce had always been more worried about the mail than I was...  And she had been sick for several days, so the box was probably jammed before she passed...  Well anyway my taxes here are delinquent...  Since November 1st..  It took me most of the morning to determine that fact using the internet and parsing the governments web sites...

Then mid day I decided to wash Biscuit... She ran and hid under the big bed...  Where I couldn't reach her..  So I crawled on hands and knees and grabbed her tail.....  A scuffle ensued...  But she went thru the shower with lots of doggy soap...

She is so soft and clean... and she hates it...  Rolling on the carpeted part of the floors..  And I had to watch her outside as she will roll in the dirt given any chance at all.. I thought of taking her picture...

Somehow this computer I am using has a broken SD card slot...  Not physically, but rather its software drivers...  I tried and tried to reload it, but have failed... So my cell phone has a bad camera, and my HP can't read the camera cards...  The Dell laptop, does read these cards, but I have tried to keep it for more special occasions..

That therefore causes me to get out the good computer in order to upload just one picture from one of the cameras....  Maybe I need to get a USB dongle that accepts SD cards... Probably get that at Wal Mart.....

Well anyway I was feeling downhearted last night after the Chiefs lost and I probably shouldn't have been going thru the cards from the funeral while that was happening on TV...  So today I decided to ride the Motorcycle over to the mailbox and then way out South to see if I could remember where Gordon and Juanita's RV park was located.....

Its out to our Southeast almost as far as roads go into the desert... paved ones anyway..  And after driving around thru several missed turns, I did in fact find the place....  And they weren't home..  It was a spur of the moment deal, so they didn't know I was coming, and it wouldn't have been fair to just stop by anyway...

But it was such a nice afternoon with the temperature reported by the bike of 81 that I was out tooling all over the place just to be out...  That was before I found that Ironwood Road was closed coming back into Apache Junction.. and had to backtrack all the way down to Combs because of an accident on Octillo...    But hey it was a nice afternoon... And the property tax is now paid.....

Retired Rod

Weekend activities

Kansas City is unbeaten no more.....  It seems like I was waiting all day for this game to get under way....  And I'm not so sure what I was excited about, because I knew in my heart there was no way that Peyton Manning was going to let a game at home get away from him..

It was a really nice day here with the temperature reaching 75 in the middle of the afternoon..  Wall to wall sunshine as well...  Biscuit and I were out in the back yard and since it was so nice decided to go get some dog food..

That is over in Pet Club by the Superstition Springs Mall... Biscuit knows she can go into the store there and gets so excited... She fairly jumped out of the car by herself, but her leash was around the gear shift...

And they were out of the 15# bag of her taste of the wild bison mix....  Drat.. I had given up selecting the 5# sack which costs half as much for 1/3 as much product, when an assistant came from the back room with the bigger bag...  She also got one of her expensive bully sticks to chew on...  Loyce routinely spoiled her with those...

She was carrying it all over the house when we got home..

Tonight I was going thru the cards from the funeral, which is the first time I have been able to even look at the bag sent with me from Des Moines...  The words from everyone are very kind, but still remind me of how alone it is around here...  Tough on me....

Retired Rod

Pictures from Al and Kelly's

As most of you know, I was out to Congress, Arizona on Wednesday and stopped in to see Al and Kelly..   I'm not sure that I am all that likable, but Biscuit is a big hit, so I always take her along....

Anyway this afternoon I took the memory chip out of the camera and transferred the pictures onto the blog....

Al finally suggested that I turn on the flash to get a better picture...  I had to fiddle with the camera for quite a while... Long enough for Al to shut his eyes when I pressed on the presser...

Al calls this Cactus Man...  He's out in the farthest corner from the porch along the road...

Speaking of the porch......  Lots of problems solved here...

The law of the land..  The two big cactus are probably over 200 years old, kind of like they are the judges around here..

Its really peaceful out on Ghost Town Road.....

Retired Rod

The Jeep rattle..

From my service ticket at Jeep Chrysler.......

Customer States that vehicle has rattle coming from drivers rear area while driving at speeds of around 45-50 mph going down rough roads...
Extra clip left from factory behind fender flare rattling..  Road test and verified rattle at 45 mph.  Noise coming from left rear area of vehicle.. Aligned left rear door for tighter fit and road test and noise still present.. Road test with assistant, and found noise coming from outside vehicle. Raised vehicle on hoist and tightened all under body bolts on left side..  Road test and noise still present..
Remove and replace left running board and noise still present..  Found noise coming from left fender..  Removed inner fender liner and noise still present.. R & R left fender flare..  Found extra clip rattling behind flare.  Removed clip and road test,   NOISE GONE!!

The service lady called mid afternoon and said she was sending the shuttle driver to get me from my home to come and pick up the Jeep...   And as promised above, the noise seems to be gone...

It only took all day, while I was here at the house without the car...  I could have ridden the motorcycle out into the country on a joy ride, but then I wouldn't have been sitting right here to be picked back up by their shuttle driver...  And since missing the driver would have put the onus back on me...

So I wouldn't take the chance of missing their drivers...  I guess I could have called a cab..

But hey, at least its fixed...  Ford has never acknowledged that I even have a rattle in the back of the Explorer... They just state that the customer complaint is un demonstrated..  I drive the car with the back seat unlatched and pulled forward so it won't rattle..

You know that a lot of this is how individual car dealerships decide to service their customers...

But today, it became my entire day.  Something us older folks don't have an unending stock of..

Retired Rod

Rattling down the road and ending up at Al's

I got up this morning to a sore mouth....  All of the novacane was by now long gone and all that remained was that beat up feeling in there like I had been thru a prize fight...  Biscuit licked me on the chin, like she knew exactly what was wrong with me....  How do they seem to know these things..?

The Jeep has a rattle somewhere in the back seat...  It was there the night I drove it home.... Seems worse at 45 to 50 miles an hour...  After that the vehicle makes enough more noise that you can't hear it as well...  I made an appointment for tomorrow on Tuesday...  But it seemed to have stopped...

So I started to drive around on the interstates.... Sitting home just let me think about my mouth hurting... I hadn't determined that going fast covered up the noise... Yet...!  I drove to the North side of Phoenix on the 101...  So I thought I would go on up to Wickenburg, and maybe see what Al was up to on Ghost Town Road...

It was when I was going slower on the two lane that I noticed the nasty rattle wasn't gone but rather a lot more noticeable at slower speeds....

From the time I arrived until I left, Al has numerous pictures of my every weird gesture and Biscuit playing with Phoebes....  So see his blog for today

Its farther up there than I realized, as it was after 7 PM when we finally arrived back out here in East Mesa....

I took a few pictures but the good ones were all on Al's camera...  He did take a few pictures of me and my camera, but you will notice that it still has its lens cap on it, so you already know how my shots turned out...

Retired Rod

Dental office fun....

Last week Tuesday, I was eating breakfast which included a chewy plain bagel....   The plain ones contain less sugar for diabetes...  But they seem to be more rubbery from their time in the boiling bath....

And as luck would have it, a piece of one of my back molars broke away...   I fished it from my mouth and inspected the damage....  which wasn't good at all....  Its temperature sensitive and will hurt if you bite down wrong.....

So yesterday, I drove over to the dentist I use here in the valley....  Of course they wouldn't let me leave until they had the look see.....  And wanted to fix it right away that afternoon.... But another scheduled fellow came in after all....

So this afternoon I will be  back over in the chair again to have a crown made...  You probably know the drill.... (pun)  Grind off the rest of the bad tooth, and make impressions...  Then cap the tooth with a temporary crown while the real one is made...

Then go back next week once you are healed up enough and get the new one glued in place...  I dread all of this.....  But it is not to be avoided since letting it go will just bring on big tooth ache when its least expected....  Like in the middle of Christmas or something..

So I won't check back in until I get the drool that will be running down my already numb chin washed off of the front of my spattered and stained shirt....

But Biscuit will sit in my lap and look at me in wonderment, trying to figure out what's wrong with her daddy....

Retired Rod

Veterans Celebration Apache Junction..

On Sunday morning, I participated in the Goldwing Road Riders motorcycle club as it joined the Harley Owners Group local chapter in riding to the local chamber of commerce in Apache Junction.

They were kicking off their Veterans Day celebration and wanted a big entrance of the Flags..  Again the Motorcycle Color Guard on their Goldwings lead the entrance of about 80 bikes...  We aligned ourselves along the road in front of the main chamber office and flag pole...  All of us were given a flag on a PVC pole which we held on the side of our handlebars...

The local VFW had several mounted horse color guard members that rode in in parade fashion with the main large flag....  We all stood at attention as the main flag was raised...  And then in complete silence as the black POW flag was raised....  There were tears in the crowd.....



Again since I was in the middle of this display, I couldn't take any pictures...  I did have my black US Navy Vietnam Veteran hat on along with the large Vietnam service patch that is on the shoulder of my mesh riding jacket...  Several people walked the row of bikes, thanking the Vets....  It was humbling...

They were having another parade again this morning, but since it was almost 90 during this activity yesterday, I decided against participating.   You stand there for what seems forever, in the sun while they get things coordinated...  With that many folks, it is kind of like herding...

Most motorcyclists have participated in these kinds of events before and fall right in line, but still seems to take a long time...

So I stand at attention  today with my right arm raised in Salute to the many Veterans that have given their time and lives in order that we might continue to be a Free Nation!!

Retired Rod

Burgers and Goldwing Road Riders...

I've been sitting here trying to remember what I have done in the last two days.... And the short answer is not too much....  Didn't start the Jeep at all on Friday, but rather relied upon the motor cycle to take me out for supper on Friday night...

One of the favorite spots to go out for supper for Loyce and I was Fuddruckers over at the Superstition Springs Mall...  I've been sort of avoiding going over there because of all the memories it would bring up, but gave in when I rode the cycle past last night...

And while they have raised all of the pricing structure, the food was as good as I remembered...  The burger and sweet potato fries with all the trimmings filled me up to medium bloat... And I sat in front of one of the many TVs along the wall, to keep my mind busy and not over think the experience...  A couple at another table were interested in the fact that I was riding a Goldwing and related that they had ridden one for several years...

And then this morning early, I went back over to the area to meet with the Goldwing Road Riders Association chapter from Mesa..  They meet at the Old Country Buffet which is about a block away from Fudd's.  There were about 40 folks there this morning at 7:30...

We waited outside until they opened the restaurant, so the food in the steam tables was completely fresh..  They have a program during the meal, and it included several raffle ticket drawings..  Buying these tickets is how they support the cost of the activities...

That seemed to work out fairly well for me as I won the Holiday door prize....  A 12 pound frozen turkey...  It was rock solid... And then I managed to win a lesser prize from the purchased tickets...  A sewing kit in a decorator tin box...  Just what I needed, some more sewing stuff...

Later this afternoon, some of the Flag presentation team did a colors presentation with their motorcycles at the Mesa Swap Meet..  And since that is only a couple of miles North of me here, I went up to watch and see what that is all about...

It was an interesting tribute to prior service members, with each branch of the Armed Forces Flags mounted on the back of their Goldwings... I didn't think to take a camera...  It was in the mid 80s and the desert sun was bearing down, so I rode back home without spending any time at the swap meet...  I've been all thru those booths time and again...

I have enough of that stuff around here now.....

So that catches me back up to the present...

Retired Rod

Just who I am....

Loyce always told me that without her to do the cleaning and organizing, our house would become a pig sty....   And with that thought in the back of my mind, I have been religiously spending each morning attempting to clean myself back up from yesterday's activities.

Of course I always shirked any of these responsibilities in my former life as the husband of the house...  Partially because she would always  seem to come behind me and do most of the stuff over again should I become domestic....  I didn't have her ability to care for every little spot....

So my days are increasingly domestic..!  And it seems as though I am loosing the battle.. But my sheets are clean and the guest room is back ready for its next visitor...

I spent yesterday afternoon driving around looking for the specific type of dog treat that Biscuit is used to eating....  We visited several pet stores..   Never finding the exact brand...  It must be a local thing in Missouri or Kansas....

Loyce always used Pet Land back in the Midwest...  I think because they did sell pets...  Of course that has become a big no no..  She didn't see it that way, as long as the animals were cared for and sold in a timely fashion...  But that is another debate.  I know we got Biscuit on the second day that she was in the store....  But yes she was bread for the pet market as a designer puppy..

Because of their selling of pets, Petland was drummed out of the business out here in fashionable Arizona...  Screams of puppy mill supporter and the like were amplified into a law suit that stained the companies reputation beyond their ability to come back...  So they went broke...

That is a long winded explanation for why I can't find certain branded dog treats....  But at Pet Club, I found something that was reported as popular and a good seller...  Baked with peanut butter of all things....  And nothing healthy, but then they aren't her food, just treats....

Once we got out in the car, I gave her one of the biscuits.....  And..... she hated it...!  Broke it all up in her teeth and spit it back out in the cushion...  She did eat some of it in the 20 minute ride home...

Today I mixed some of the new treats in with the old ones and put them on the top of her food bowl... She ate them all, so perhaps........

My friend Roger was in a toot to get on the highway Tuesday morning, and tossed his stuff into the car early in the morning..  Thanking me for letting him stay here, he was out the door...   Of course he knew that I would talk his ear off and not let him leave otherwise...

But in that hurried departure, he left his tennis shoes and ball cap out in the garage... We had gone on a morning walk the day before and they were right where he had removed them...

So today I was looking for a box and the tape to seal it up....  Again this required digging thru the myriad of stuff in the sewing room..  But I found things right away and got myself off to the UPS store...

And on the Jeep subject,  Roger and I had decided that the carpet fabric floor mats that came with the vehicle were not appropriate for the Arizona desert..  The gravel just gets ground into the fabric almost immediately...

I had searched the computer web sites but didn't find anything made specifically for the vehicle unless they were $150 plus shipping....  Toooooo much...  So I stopped at local auto parts stores....  Where the solution was to cut generic mats to match the oddball shape....

But the guy at O'Reiley suggested going back to Jeep...  Saying that they weren't all that expensive and would be made exactly for the application.....

So after the UPS store, I went back to Jeep..  Where I found that the row of 20 Jeeps from last week had been reduced to 4....  That was amazing... But the parts counter guy knew exactly what I wanted and said they had them in stock for $85...  Sold!!!

That included the longer one piece for the back, and both front mats...  They are rubber and curve up to catch the spills of a bouncy bad road.....    I saved the carpet ones for the day that the vehicle is sold on to its next owner....  And you know that I will get a wild hair, sooner rather than later and trade it on down the road......  Its just who I am....

Retired Rod

Coming Clean

Ok, what has really taken place since arriving in Arizona...?    Long long term readers of this blog will remember that back in the spring of 2009, Loyce and I were out on a drive to Gila Bend and had a bad day...

We ended up rolling over a Toyota Corolla when a roll of  reinforcement wire came off of the back of a truck we were following....  We were banged up but survived.... At that time we purchased a Toyota Camry mostly with the insurance settlement...  Car Accident  Pictures

Last winter, that car still served us well but became 4 plus years old...  We had used it as a chase vehicle on countless RV trips... and it has been all over the country...   In short, it was getting long in the tooth and needed traded...

With too much windshield time on the trip out here, I made the decision that it should go now while it was still desirable enough to bring a decent trade...  So, during much of last week I was attempting to trade off that car...

Going to dealerships, getting bids and arguing for a better deal..  Using the last bid to get a better one.

And while I know that Loyce would not approve, I decided to replace it with a Jeep...  A traditional Jeep, not a new trendy SUV kind of a Jeep..

On October 31, and Halloween there were Sales for end of the month numbers and I managed to make it all work...  So, meet the new Arizona Car....

My friend Roger arrived just as I was taking delivery of the vehicle and closing the money application part of the deal..  He had to stop off at another friends house while I got things all settled...  That night, I couldn't even find the electric window switches or the mirror adjuster knob in the dark..

So now you understand why we were out driving up and down Fish Creek Canyon...  Just had to try out the new toy...  Roger asked if I was really going to take a two day old new car on this overwhelmingly dusty gravel road....???  Why heck yes!!  Its a Jeep Thang..!

We even had the front half of the hard tops out....  Remember that new pressure washer?  And with a commercial car wash up at the local station, it was clean as new...

And before anyone says it, yes I know I have toooo many vehicles...  It is my intent to make this Jeep the new Toad!  That will require selling Loyce's CRV, which has a base plate and the additional tail light bulbs installed....

Getting rid of her things is hard for me right now, but leaving a perfectly good Honda in the garage for ever because it is sentimental doesn't seem prudent either..  Do you need a 2011 Toad?

Retired Rod

Tourist stuff

Ok, lets be clear here, my friend Roger is looking at the real estate in the Tucson area....  I do NOT need another home to try and take care of....  It was bad enough with both of us doing the maintenance stuff and cleaning....

Other than that, we have been doing tourist things, driving out to Fish Creek Canyon thru Tortilla Flat.  And then again today driving out to Roosevelt Reservoir around thru Globe...  And no we did not drive the gravel between the Canyon and the Roosevelt dam... We went North out of the lake area and came back around on the road from Payson.

That was farther, but didn't require any backtracking.... We are kind of sight seeing anyway so why turn around....?

I'm not sure what else we have done, other than attending the Lutheran Church this morning here North of our home on Signal Butte...  And then needing some brunch, I surprised Roger by taking him to the Iowa Cafe up on North Higley...

This restaurant is themed with Iowa Universities sports memorabilia..    Both Iowa State and Iowa are represented with a smattering of other schools from within the state as well...  The menu is hard working farmer or farm hand all the way...

The main offering for breakfast was a 4 egg omelette.... with hash browns, sausage, toast and coffee...  I had grits and an egg over easy...  Yep, just like library paste....!

We were aware that it was time change weekend, but of course that doesn't happen here in Arizona. So it only means that changing back to central time when I go home for the Holidays will only be one hour.

Otherwise, we have no new news....

Retired Rod

Head Count....

Nothing has gone wrong here in Arizona, but rather my old friend from when we lived in Urbandale, Iowa has come to visit me here in Mesa....

Of course we are like a couple of old magpies yaking and yaking about our cell phones, (androids) and BMW cars and the like.   Roger has worked at the dealership in Des Moines off and on for years, so he really knows his cars...

Today we were off down to the North side of Tucson looking at new spec homes that are available for sale in the Twin Peaks area....  We are not serious customers, but perhaps if all the ducks fell in a row....

Biscuit went with us today and she had to stay out in the car and bark at all of the construction workers around the new homes...  I'm not certain she is really mad at those workers, but rather just can't understand why they won't come over and play with her while dad and Roger are inside looking at all those houses....

I just didn't want to be missing in action for too many days, so I am checking in for the head count...

Retired Rod

Trailer is repaired...

Ok, when I wrote the post yesterday, the thought that weed police might somehow refer to wacky tobacky never even occurred to me...  And we don't live in a gated community either...  We live on an ordinary city street, in an ordinary neighborhood of families of every nature...

But this big housing development does have a homeowners association to keep the common grounds up and what ever else they do for over $100 a month from each of us.... But they do have some form of enforcement if you step too far out of line.....  Just let me put up a 60 foot tower with a ham radio antenna on it, and I will hear from them in a heartbeat.

I waited well past noon for the call from the trailer repair place.......   No call forthcoming... What to do.....?  I decided to go and deal with them face to face....

Seems that I got lucky again...  The axle spindle was not damaged, but they had a dickens of a time getting the heated outside bearing off of the shaft...   This is just like commenter Tom suggested in his comment of a couple of days ago...  Evidently the hub was damaged as well, either in the process of getting the outer race off of the axle or from running so long without bearings..  But a lot of torch heating and pounding was required....  I don't have a torch here, and after about so long, frustration would have set in on my part as well...  So it turns out best that I simply hired this work done...

It was over $200 for parts and labor, but at $85 an hour, that seems fair in the big city....  They even took the other side apart and re packed it with grease as well...  The trailer is now back in storage with a very greasy wheel to atest to the experience...  Degreaser and a power washer will be in order when it gets back here to the house...

Speaking of a power washer, I went to Home Depot and purchased their cheapest power washer...  $99...  The birds have roosted on our wrought iron dining set in the patio during the summer...  They have Pooed all over it and the concrete patio...  The black table is mostly bird poo white...  And using a broom and the hose was ineffective...

So I spent much of the late afternoon power washing the back patio and table and chairs...  I would wash things up and let them dry for a while, only to find out it still turned white with poo again as it dried..  The sun finally went down, so perhaps tomorrow I will be back at it again.... But it is much cleaner tonight than it was before I started...

I will also use this washer to clean the outside of the motorhome when I get it back over here in the next few days....  The trip out here covered the front with bugs, and the rain coming out of Albuquerque on Friday made the entire rig a sloppy mess...

Not much else to report from here...

Retired Rod

Weed Police

After writing last nights blog, my neighbor came over and knocked on the door offering to help me return the motorhome to storage...  Since it is in front of his house too, I do feel that he wanted it gone from out front as well.

So we chased each other over to the storage lot about ten  miles away... He has a new camero with a big engine, so I got to ride home in a a very legitimate muscle car..  With its 6.2 liter V8, it just rolled as easy as pie...  I wonder how fast that fellow will go......

Anyway this morning I drove over to the trailer repair place in Apache Junction, where they agreed to take in my axle repair but they had no way to come and get the trailer...  Citing insurance problems, they wanted me to cripple the thing on over there.... in his words......

I had no choice, without a truck or any way to pull it besides the Arizona car, I hitched it up and stayed under 25 mph..  I used the cruise control to stay at the slow speed so I wouldn't get the urge to go faster...  The back wheel wobbled back and forth from side to side scaring me to death but I made it.....

They were to call me back when they found out something....  I didn't receive a call yet today...  Maybe they couldn't get to it today..  I didn't call them back either, perhaps scared of the outcome..

Mid morning, the landscapers that work for our home management company that looks after our place while we are in the Midwest arrived to clean up the weeds and trim all the trees and bushes... There were two of these fellows and they worked for over two hours...

They did more work in that time than I would have accomplished in all of the next week...!  Plus they had a trailer and hauled away all of the clippings...  This will cost me when the bill comes, but it will be worth it not to have all of this clean up hanging over me..

I can now concentrate on replacing the bushes that didn't make it over the summer...  And that would be several that I purchased and replanted last spring..  Desert plantings can be really hit and miss...

So both the Motorhome and the trailer are gone from in front of the house and the weed patrol will be happy that the place is cleaned up...

And yes, the home owners association does have inspectors that will contact you if your place isn't kept free of unwanted weeds.... I gathered from talking with the main landscaper fellow, that I was very near that point in June when he first came to our house....  We, the neighbors and I, laughingly call them the weed police....

Retired Rod

Lucky !

Yesterday I dropped the back ramp door on the utility trailer and unloaded the motorcycle..  I was concerned about the storage lot and whether I remembered the code to get into the lot....

I rode directly there and recorded the phone number from the sign on the gate ino my cell phone...  I couldn't find the number on the internet..  Absolutely no recognition of the business anywhere.. They have only been in business for a little over a year but still no listing..

And I did check out what I thought the code was on the combo lock..  Nope!!  So I gave up and rode back to Wal Mart for some swiffer pads and some new shorts....

I never did get back to the storage lot like I had planned, as the interior house work trumped the outside things....   Dirt from the summer dust storms cannot be kept out no matter how tight things are closed up..

This morning though I was determined to go put that trailer away...  So I unhitched it from the motorhome thinking I would use the car to move it...    That was when I walked around to the driver's side of the trailer.... and looked in disbelief..  The bearings from that wheel are completely gone and the hub is riding directly on the axle spindle....

It wasn't that way when I was at McDonalds in Holbrook... So somewhere as I was driving up over the mountain on Friday, the wheel got hot and the bearings self destroyed... It remains to be seen if the axle spindle isn't also wrecked...   And perhaps the entire axle in the process...

The cost of this repair will exceed the price of the trailer....  Decisions....

So the motorhome is still in front of the house as the trailer place is closed on Sunday..  And I was lucky that the wheel didn't come completely off of the trailer as I was coming down the mountain on 6 % grades...  Always seems like something gives out on these long mileage trips...

Retired Rod