Driving day.........

Today was a big driving day as I loaded up the Black scooter and took it to the Lake Cabin....  We needed to go down there and check things out, and hadn't found time to get it done yet....  

And it doesn't look like we will be there now until Mother's day, so now it doesn't matter...  Everything there was just like we left it last fall....  There aren't many folks around down there in the winter, but we are lucky as we have a family that lives full time next door...  So anything way out of line will get reported.....

I left the bike in the garage and walked the house running water in all the drains...   And we won't need any heat any more, so I secured that as well....

The trip home was faster as the trailer was now empty and pulled better...  It was 87 degrees down there on the truck temperature gauge...  Warmer than we had here during the afternoon...

Missouri is now becoming green as the leaves are budded out and the grass is high enough to mow.... In fact my neighbor was out on the rider knocking down the tall weeds along the mail boxes....

It was almost 9 PM when I arrived back here at the house.. The trailer and the car are still out in the street...   Usually I do not do the storage lot after dark....

Retired Rod

Varooom vum vum, Varooom, vum vum..... a clogged jet again....

Loyce was up with the grand kids at the crack of dawn...  Biscuit could hear them talking and began to whine to go be with them....  I put more pillows over my head....

They had breakfast over before I ever came out of hiding...  But we did end up outside mid morning as it was becoming a really nice day for once...

I started to work on the lawn with the battery powered string trimmer....  And then I was on the motorcycles to go get some gas...   I rode the scooter around some of the longer blocks to get it warmed up as it hadn't been run all week...

That was when the grandkids parents arrived to collect the monsters.....  They were in the basement watching Monsters Inc..  After all of the monsters left, I was after the yard again....

We have an older Lawnboy mower that is two cycle... you have to mix oil in its gas....  And it has had a semi clogged jet for the last couple of years...  So again today, I took the jet out of the carburetor and tried to clean it....  Compressed air and soaking it in chemical...   It never works..  The little pin hole is soooo small that I have nothing to force thru it...



I kept on trying different fine wires and needles...  all too big...  Finally I found a piece of stranded copper wire, and cut off one of the little individual strands...  After straightening it with the needle nose pliers, I was able to push it thru the tiny jet....  Adding solvent as I pushed it thru again and again...

This picture is a Honda Jet, but it is almost the same as the Lawnboy..  But they won't interchange..

After the mower carb was reassembled, the mower ran like a new watch...!  Yea!  Lawnboy mowers aren't made any more, and I have no idea where to go buy a new jet...  So that fairly well saved me from having to go buy a new mower...

After the yard was done, it was time to ride out into the country on the big adult sized Honda...

Retired Rod

Two versions of Chrome under W8.... Who knew?

Another thing learned today about Windows 8 and running Chrome on this Operating System...

As most of you are aware, you can run your programs and apps from either the Start Screen or the classic Desktop screen....  But what I didn't know, was that Chrome has a version for the Start Screen and a more classic version for the desktop..

Changing the screen that starts the program does not change which version you are looking at however.....   You either have one or the other installed and that is the one that starts from either place...

But you can toggle back and forth from the App version to the Desktop version with the little setup options button up in the top right of the screen..  The button with the three lines horizontally across it...

On the settings menu that appears after the button is pressed, you find a selection a few lines from the top that says "Relaunch Chrome on the Desktop"  Clicking on this will launch the classic version of Chrome where you have the three buttons back in the upper right to Close, Drop to a window or Minimize....  Also your task bar should re appear across the bottom...

Opening the settings menu from this Desktop mode, will offer "Relaunch Chrome in Windows8 Mode"  which will take you back to the App desktop where your classic upper right buttons are gone, and so is the task bar....  Assuming you will return to the Start menu to move on to further Apps.... This is the cleanest screen, but takes more time to get around and used to.

So run Chrome in App mode or run it in Desktop mode......... Or like I have been doing tonight, switch back and forth... You won't loose your work...

We have had four of the five grand kids over here tonight, for a slumber party...  The oldest boy opted out...  But we all went to Red Robin for burgers and a balloon......  I have ketchup smeared from ear to ear and all over the sleeves of my sweat shirt.......  The kids had two adult chocolate ice cream cake servings, with four spoons...   My son Ben said it was like "hyenas  around a fresh kill!!" Both plates were polished clean, when they were done...  I kind of cringed when he said that, but then laughed my butt off........

As I reported last night, I tried the Start 8 Program to add a Start Button onto the W8 desktop task bar..  I have been using it all day today, and while it doesn't have all the advantages it had in W7, it is close enough that I am not going to take it out.....   So if you are running W8 and want that start button back, you can have it by installing    Start8  ..

I put this here again tonight, as I had very few hits again on the blog yesterday....  Computer tech info and motorcycles means no interest in the blogs........

Retired Rod

Computers and motorcycles......

It would seem that no one is much interested in our old man's luncheons on the motorcycles as we had fewer hits on the blog than the day with the technical computer stuff.....  I just looked and we have only had 65 readers since it was posted last night....

And that was from all sources including Google Plus...   I'm certain that nothing that really happens here is all that interesting, but I do enjoy going out and about on the motorcycle...  The city part on the in town freeways isn't all that fun...  And yesterday we had a bunch of Brown delivery trucks out on the roads....  Being intermingled with them at 65 mph in close quarters is more scary than fun...

But the ride thru the countryside with not too many folks around you, or on the old deserted almost abandoned road next to the riverbank along the stately Missouri river conjures up visions of Huck Finn...  I wouldn't trade it for the world...

Perhaps spending time late at night with photos and writing the story is not in my best interest...  who knows....?

But just as Thursday was sunny and beautiful, today turned back overcast rainy and cold...  We never made the mid 50s all day....  Its in the 40s now...  I spent the day with the computers again..

I installed the programs that I use to sniff out wifi connections....  I used to use this all the time when we were camping, as we had various campgound  hot spots and it would tell me if they were secure and needed a password...  But now days seems like almost everyone uses security and open connections are a thing of the past....  So I probably wouldn't need that anymore...

Its a windows 7 program called Vistumbler...   And it did install, but I had to go back to the classic desktop to agree to the EULA and push the buttons to answer their questions.   But after that, it didn't put an icon on any of the menus...    So it was installed but I couldn't find it to start it...

I had to search the entire C:\ drive to find the dot exe file...    Once I found it, a right click allowed me to pin the file to the start screen...  I can see where folks that were not completely at home with windows and how it works, would be in fairly big trouble right off of the bat....

Perhaps Windows 8.1 can't come fast enough....  This is called Windows Blue, which is probably a project name rather than an official title...  It is rumored that Blue will put back our revered Start Button.......  as users aren't exactly enamored with its demise....  The start button has been around since it was introduced in windows 95..   So it has been common since then...  The people at Microsoft thought that folks were pinning their applications to the task bar, rather than using the start button, but evidently we don't know what we are missing until its gone....

Even though the start button might return, rumors have it that it may not be as powerful as it was in windows7...  And aftermarket programmers are making some plugin utilities to fill in the gap....  I have had start 8 recommended to me, but haven't done that research yet....

There I go again, talking about motorcycles and computers....... well that fairly much so sums up my life here in cold Kansas....

I wrote this a while ago, but since then I downloaded Start 8 and installed it on the first button of the task bar on the traditional W8 desktop........  Do it!!!!  Its just like old times are back..................!!!!!

Retired Rod

Another Romeo Ride

I must have been excited to go on the longer bike ride today because I awakened at 6:30 and couldn't get back to sleep....

That was just as well because the tablet computer reported 38 degrees and I had to take some time to get a number of layers of clothes on....

I left the house about 9 AM and it was up over 40 by then......   On the way to Lexington I took mostly interstates and well traveled highways....    They were to start the lunches at 10:30 and it was 70 miles away...

But I made it in good time...

This place is kind of a hole in the wall...  I is next to a large old hotel building but is only the small building where everyone is standing...

We went right in and had minimal room to sit down..  Just a few booths along the wall and the long bar......  I opted for a table in the back with some of the other fellows....

I'm not sure what we had to talk about but it was past noon, when we came back out to the street...  Everyone was sitting along the vacant lot's wall next to the restaurant, chewing the fat...  By now it was in the 60s..

I only took these shots with the cell phone, but I did find that I had the camera in the back of the bike after I got back home.....  You know how that works out....

From the Romeo web site I grabbed a shot inside...




It was really tight inside, which means you can't talk to many folks other than the ones sitting at your table...





So much of the conversation was outside along this wall and bench....

I followed a couple of the riders back along the road next to the Missouri River for a number of miles, but they were on a mission to get back to KC...  I tagged along just to see how they planned to make the ride....

They were going to the Engle's Motorcycle shop where they sell BMWs, and I guessed that from where they went...  I had never been there so I continued to tag along....  Seems that one of them had a service appointment and they were leaving a bike there...

They headed off down into the lower floors of the bike shop, while I just browsed the new machines and clothes upstairs....  But by now it was 2 in the afternoon and I was still 20 miles from home, so I headed on out....

Never did see them again, but that was OK because I had just tagged along anyway...   They had business to attend to...

Once back home it became a routine day again but the sun was nice and the day brightened my spirits a bunch....  Over 140 miles ridden but in three segments...  So it didn't seem long at all....

Romeo Web Site for the day

Retired Rod

Still below freezing and planning for the Cycle luncheon tomorrow...

It was 29 degrees this morning, and I am wondering if my pipes are still OK in the motorhome...?   But most likely they are...  It was only below freezing for about 4 hours, but that is about all I like to see for an exposure when we aren't there and running some kind of heat...

It is to warm up again later in the week, but then they have said that over and over here and winter refuses to go away....

Tomorrow is the rescheduled motorcycle luncheon...   The day is forecast to be in the low 60s, but that is in the afternoon...   The low overnight is to be 36... And since we need to leave by 9 AM, it might be still in the lower 40s as I depart....  My son just looked at me and said that is nuts...

The ride back home in the afternoon could be quite nice however....  if I can just stand it to go....

On the computer front, Rick suggested that I use Windows Easy Transfer System to move my files....  which is a good idea, But!  When starting out with a new system, there is whole lot of stuff on the older machine that has been drug in over the past bunch of time...  I always want to leave that kind of thing behind..  To start all over again...  With a clean slate.....

I like to re install all of the packages again from scratch, in order to get the latest versions and appropriate versions for the new operating system...  And as far as personal stuff, I again leave a lot of old things behind....  pictures and downloads that I used on the blogs and stuff... I found them once, so they will be there again if I need them....  Out on the web that is...

So I go thru it the slow and dedicated way, deciding what to use and what to leave behind...  Besides, I'm retired and it gives me something to do as an accomplishment for the day....  Did I just admit that?

Man we need the weather to straighten up out side.  I want to go to the Hamfest over in Dayton again this year, and freezing to death while doing it doesn't sound fun.....

We had the youngest grand child here this afternoon, so that doesn't give us much to write about other than a fun playful afternoon...

And just for everyone's information, I didn't have half as many people read the computer backup info blog as I have been averaging for the last several weeks....  People don't want to know about techie things so much....

Retired Rod

Backing up W7 Live Mail emails......

I never know if when I write a fairly technical blog about the computers, that it causes folks eyes to glaze over and they just change the page....  But on these cold days here in our April winter time of Kansas City, there isn't much else to do besides the computer...

Again I was working on Windows 8, and my transfer from the older windows 7 machine, that still works...  Unless the cord shorts out and everything goes dark...  But that's why the new computer was purchased.....  The problem is inside the computer where the power socket is soldered onto the mother board, so a new cord won't fix it....

The time to get your stuff off of the old machine is while you still can... don't put off getting a newer machine until you have catastrophic failure...  and remember I had just that, as the hard drive has already gone kaput, and we are working on drive number two...

The project for today was to recover the eMails from the hard drive on the old machine and put them on the new one...



First off, I have an old mail system from my email provider...  called POP3..  That's post office protocol.. And  windows 8 uses the newer IMAP protocol..   So unless I get a new cable company and email accounts, I can't use W8's mail system...  Well that's OK because we want Windows Live anyway for live writer..  So I use live mail as well...  It still works just fine....

But where does it store those emails...?

C:\users\yourlogon\appdata\local\microsoft\windowslivemail\Yourprovidername\inbox.........   Or drafts, deleted and so forth.....

Well heck yes we can find that ...... its only 8 directories deep....  But messing around with explorer killed me right after my logon name as I couldn't find appdata....  On further study and messing around, I determined the directory name is hidden.....!  Microsoft doesn't want you in there...!

So with highlighting the show hidden files check box on explorer, they all became visible..  And once visible they were copied onto my backup removable hard drive...   Once the same boxes were checked in Explorer on the W8 machine, the history files were copied to their respective directories on the new machine....   And it Worked!!!  Well kind of.......

When I had installed the Windows Live programs on W8 and entered the email account stuff, it had pulled the emails still left on the remote server...  And of course those same emails were on the older machine too...  So now I had two copies of them on the new system....

With that, I spent about an hour going thru the inbox deleting emails with the same name and date using Live Mail....  But they sorted right beside each other and were easy to see...  But still highlighting and deleting took a bit of time...

I'm sure there are easier ways to do this, but this is what worked for me....  Maybe just the hard drive crash and resignation that everything is gone, would be easier...  But hey my email is fully populated..

Maybe it would be easier if I changed cable companies and found one that supported IMAP...  Our town council picks our cable company, so that would necessitate selling our house and moving...

Are your eyes glazed over, or is this stuff interesting..?

Retired Rod

I liked Big Lake......!

Now that I have read Al's post about how Aunt Jean went to Florida, it time for me to write the blog....  It seems like I never get too fired up to write something until I go read Al's post for the day..    Not sure why that is, but perhaps old habits are hard to break....

Today was mostly spent reading Nick Russell's novel Big Lake...  I started it last night late and went upstairs to read the tablet computer until I fell asleep...  But the trouble is I didn't fall asleep...  He was keeping my interest up rather nicely...

And then today when I finished the business part of the morning, I was back at the book...  Until I finished the thing around supper time...  Seemed like I needed to know what was on the next page.....

I read some of the reviews on Amazon afterwards and they range all over the place from very complimentary to down right nasty....    Some reviewers call him amateuristic, but then he is retired and does this as a hobby.....  But that seemed cruel to me....  True he isn't as polished as some of the novelists that can charge $14.95 for their works and get it.... And maybe the story line is a little choppy at times....  But I for one enjoyed the work, for the entire afternoon....!

I must report that there were many more positive reviews than negative ones, but those that go negative are almost nasty....  But hey, he is only charging $2.95...  And that price is up, as it used to be $.99.   Amazon Big Lake

Go read it and report back to me....  

Anyway after the book was done, I started to continue to configure the newest laptop....  Downloading and installing many of the things that were present on the old machine...  But I have been looking at each program (not APP this is a PC) and asking myself, "do I really use that?"

So a bunch of stuff will be loaded if and when I realize that it is not here....

We are to have bad weather tomorrow with a high temperature in the early 40s with snow and sleet rain....  Obviously the motorcycle meeting has been rescheduled to Thursday when they hope for 61 and sunny...  Some of the hard core guys are meeting with their cars and trucks here in KC.... tomorrow anyway, but I have decided to just wait for the biker day...

Nothing much else going on here...

Retired Rod

A good read and other stuff you didn't know....

Absolutely nothing happened today!  Well, it was sunny in the morning, but the wind was blowing the 36 degree wind all over the place...  I decided that the yard had to be mowed because it is to rain for the next several days...

But I don't like to go out and make too much noise before someone else breaks the silence...  So when the neighbor's hired people brought out their riding mower, then it was fair game for me too....

That took about an hour and a half....  But then the Black scooter had to be moved to put the John Deere tractor back in the garage...  That became kind of an excuse, as I rode the scooter around about an 8 mile square block...

It needed some fresh gas you see...  And it was warmed up completely in the process.. And its tires needed air.....  It still starts sort of sluggish on its original 2009 battery...  It had a tender all winter, but then I ran it flat accidentally...  Its straight lead acid, and while some folks get 7 years or more, its never been my luck...

With all that put back away, I came in and read the blogs....  And the sun had gone completely under...  Until I decided that the wind was gone....  and checked the temperature to find it was in the 60s..

That was too good to be true, so it was back out on the big cycle...  This time I rode quite the distance to the small town of Spring Hill South of here....  Where the sports apparel store used to be that sponsored the June rides...  They moved away and my friend is now working for a big MC shop over in Missouri...   So much for that annual ride....  I assume no shop, no ride this year.... At least not as it was anyway...

At the end of that ride I stopped at Wendy's for my burger....  And tonight I have been reading Nick Russell's first book called Big Lake...  Its available on Amazon for $2.98...  I don't have a Kindle, but saved the book to the Cloud Reader..  Using the App on Google Chrome here.. I think that will let me check in and read it no matter if  I am using the Linux desktop, the windows laptops, or the android tablet...  Since you can't run Chrome on an Apple, I'm not certain how to get to the Google Cloud reader from there...

Nick has four of these books, and I'm only on the first few chapters of book one...  Its fiction, but he is as accomplished as any author I have read anywhere else...  Its a murder mystery, and takes place right in Arizona where things are very familiar....  It will be well worth the $2.98...

I think most everyone is familiar with Nick and the Gypsy Journal....  And of course his opinion blog called Bad Nick...    Man can he pack in the comments on that journal....

Retired Rod

Closing programs in Windows 8

Its gone.... in Windows 8....  The start button at the bottom of the screen...  But I can deal with that because I have learned how to find the buttons on the first window... With all the menu buttons...

And if you want different buttons you just go look in the Apps screen and pin the app to the start menu...   That blue screen is your start button now....

But that's not whats gone...........................!  Its the little x in a box in the upper right hand corner that turns off your program...  How do you turn off your program????  Your mother taught you to turn the light off when you left the room didn't she?

And like the Apple tablets, there really isn't any back button some of the time...  If there is, it will be at the top left of the screen with and arrow pointing left.. in a circle...  But just sliding your mouse down to the bottom left corner and bringing up the start menu opens yet another window...  But it doesn't close out the last one..  Its left to do what ever work it was doing... or just sit there suspended in time....

Don't believe me?  Use your alt tab buttons at the same time and all the open windows will show up in a row... and each time you push that combo, your page will change to the next program  uh, I mean App...  Have to rethink this computer as we have changed to descriptions that go with the phone side of the world...  Its easier to understand.....  if you don't have any experience with the way things used to be......  For us old timers is is mostly just wrong...

I have determined that if you move your mouse to the upper left corner, one of the windows will appear..  Then if you right click on that little window icon a close button will come up that you can click on...  That closes the app...

Also if you go to one of the left corners and make the little icon window appear, and then swipe away from the icon, a strip of windows will appear along the left edge with all your open programs...  Then right clicking on a program will give you a close option...

But why make it so difficult?  Because they don't care if you close a program.....!  Go ahead, leave the light on... your mom won't know....  Loading programs takes time and this is about instant gratification... quick!  You have 8 or more gigs of core...  its assigned to lots of tasks....  you can leave them open.... go ahead, waste it...  its there to fill up...

We used to have to close things because we needed to use that core for the next program...  But now, leave it all running...  They don't really even shut the computer off at the end of a session now either...  It just suspends, so it will come back really quick..

Its like we used to live in a one room house..  We had to put away all the kitchen stuff before we could use the room for a living room...  But now we live in a mansion with hundreds of rooms.... So go ahead and leave your toys out on the floor...  Just go to the next room...

But in my mind, every once in a while it would be a good thing to go close all this stuff.....  What has been your experience??  Didn't your mom teach you to put away your toys...   and turn the light out......!

Retired Rod

Tulips in the Sun

Hey its morning and the sun is out….  Grab that camera and lets go get a picture of the tulips….

These are on the corner of the next housing development to our North…  We can’t afford such nice flowers, only boring old bushes here…

This year the bulbs are yellow white and orange…  I think this bed gets reset to different flowers several times in the course of a year, so the bulbs must be dug up and tossed….

This is about the same picture as the header… but the header was taken in the afternoon..

I did increase the contrast some here with Picasa as the green part was under exposed compared to the flowers… I did not mess with the colors in any way however…

The other end of this first bed….

 

Up the street at the next corner is the entrance to the sub division… These are different  beds completely..

This guy kept jabbering at me that I was messing in his flowers and bushes…  I wonder if he had started a nest somewhere and I was too darned close….

I thought I had better get these for this year as it is supposed to be a few degrees below freezing again tonight…  Wouldn’t want to miss them and have them be frozen off one of these nights….

Our heat is grinding away as I write this.. It’s a heat pump, and it runs for long periods of time as the air that comes out is only marginally warmer than the room…

To change the subject, I have needed to purchase a new computer since before Christmas, because the socket where you plug the power cord in on the older HP is broken inside electrically..  When you wiggle the cord unnecessarily the whole machine dies…  My battery has been kaput for several years, so loss of power for only a second causes a complete shutdown and then reboot..  This is happening almost constantly now, as I have nursed the computer along most of the winter…

This is the second HP that I have had, and both of them have failed in this exact same way..  Each one lasts about three years…  and gone…  Remember I had to put a hard drive in it last summer… And the older one had its drive replaced as well….  Like batches of cookies… Burn them and they all taste alike..

So I ordered a new Dell…  Largely because Rick up in Vancouver Island has had much better luck with his laptop which has outlasted both of these HPs…

The machine arrived today, so I have spent a large amount of time copying stuff from one machine to the other….  I  started to do it thru the network connection, but I was having to make the files public and then back to private……….. Which was a pain..  But then I remembered that thumb drive I bought for the update of the Ford car…

It was cleared off and 16 Gb of stuff was copied and reinstalled…  Still that even took time because I had to clear it several times, to get the next 16 Gb.  I think I have way too many pictures and stuff on the hard drive….  But writing these blogs you never know what you will go looking for…  I bought a portable hard drive last summer, but I didn’t go looking for it…  You know, its around here somewhere.

And the keyboard is just slightly different on this new machine…. so I make typos…  But it will all come around in time…

 

Retired Rod

Back to the Doctors

Things around here are rather slow tonight, as earlier in the day Loyce had a dental procedure that I won't describe...  But it always makes me cringe because I am chicken at the dentist...

So that was our day here...  Getting ready in the morning to go, and collecting ourselves afterward  to return home...

Our weather here wasn't favorable again all day...  It was raining and 40 when we left for the dentist..  Making our windows wet and the car muddy as we drove across town...

As we were coming back home it was becoming colder...   Tonight it is to get down to freezing or very nearly.   We don't seem to be able to break out of this pattern..  I thought for sure I was seeing snow in the wind this afternoon, but Loyce thought it was blossoms in the wind from the trees..

I did notice that the tulips featured on our blog header from a couple of years ago, are back up and flowering again this year....  But before I can go take pictures of them, we need some sun one of these mornings...   But it might be that they will be frozen from their stems in the next couple of nights...

The poor motorcycles are nestled in their corners of the garage looking all forlorn that we aren't interested in them...   But at 35 degrees, I am too much of a sissy...

This weekend we are to have one of our annual Ham Radio flea markets at the local shriner palace... My friends from Des Moines are to come down to KC and we will meet over at the show..

I am looking forward to that event...

Retired Rod

Working with the computers....

It was overcast and barely 50 again today... By about noon it began to rain heavily and we wondered if it would stop...  The weather service was warning about flooding....

But it did stop and get a tad cooler..  Right against the dew point of 48.........  Fog!!!

So I busied myself all afternoon on the Linux computer....  Seems I had some configuration issues as Adobe has stopped supporting flash player as a plugin for Chrome....   Uh, wonder who has the burr under their saddle.....  All of this is because Linux is a free distribution.  They don't want to be part of something that is totally free....

So while they have drivers that will work, which ones do you need to replace and with what..?  So you read and read forums to learn what others have done...  And there goes your time...

I got to the point where I thought I understood what needed to happen and went for the install.  I got lucky as it worked well right after I changed the version to the newer one....

So as boring as that is, the flash player works right away now in Linux Chrome and doesn't pop up a bunch of error messages....

Oh, and I was having trouble with the optical mouse jitter bugging all over the screen...  I cleaned it and looked it over....  The led seemed bright enough, but then again after reading a bunch of forums, they told me to change out the batteries.....  Boom! Fixed.......

So if you are using a wireless mouse with optical red leds rather than the older ball, the batteries have to be almost brand new....  I thought it was the fault of linux, but after installing the mouse on the windows 7 machine and having it act just the same, I knew it was the mouse itself...

I like the challenge of messing around with the linux machine, as it has various desktop distribution programs that overlay the actual operating system...  You get so you have used several of them, and know how they all work and what is different between them... Then you can choose a favorite and run with it...  I am using Linux Mint with the Mate desktop...

I downloaded a different desktop today xFce..  It is cast as a much simpler system...  And it was when I tried it....  It reminded me of a cross between windows 5.1 and XP..  And that is all these newer versions of windows are....  redone desktops over the same old programs....  Make it look more colorful and flashy with heavier integrations  of complicated menus...  Add lots of parameter dialog boxes to change options...  And sell the same programs all over again because they don't look the same on the screen....

One of the most simple linux distributions is designed to run in very old computers that have really old processors...  Or for people that can't run much of a system.. and kids....  Its called Puppy!!

But with that said, I loaded Windows 8 on the laptop that Loyce uses, last winter...  And I'm about ready to replace my W7 laptop as well...  You can mess around with Linux all you want when you have a nice fully functional production machine setting by your side...  Doesn't matter how many versions of the programs you play with when you can always fall back to your computer you don't screw around with....

Sorry if this is boring because it is too technical....  Its just where I end up on rainy days......

Retired Rod

Chicken........ Me...?

Winter woolly mittens..........?  Not so much....  I chickened out this morning and took the truck...  But I was among the few that did so.. The place was packed with riders that had braved the elements....  Which were 43 degrees and overcast at the time I left about 10:30..

And like these events go, most of the riders must have been there a the time they opened, because by 11 they were all done eating....  I grabbed a quick cheese burger and some tater tots to be different... Since they were on the menu...  They were good with catsup...  or is that ketchup...??  LOL

Some of the fellows went on to one of the members garage that collects Dodge cars..  I didn't go along, but from the looks of the pictures that was a mistake...    Romeo web site and Jerry's cars......

I'm not sure what else happened today, as I was waiting for an oil change to be performed at our local Wal Mart...  I wandered the store but didn't buy anything...

I have been looking for a different laptop to replace this three years plus old model I am typing on...  I have the linux box here that I built some years ago, but the laptop takes the lions share of our work..  It goes to the lake and to Arizona...

I did buy a tablet, and its nice, but not a serious enough machine to do ones work on...  But then windows 8 is out, and it is mostly made to be used on a touch screen....  I'm lost as to what the next platform should be...

Anyway I was messing around with the various computers that Wal Mart sells...  It's mostly low end stuff, and though some of the models had W8 on them, they weren't capable of touch screen..

If you put the words Ultra Book on the offering, it becomes rather expensive quite quickly....   But then these Hewlett Packard machines that I have been buying seem to break rather easily too, and that would mean I haven't spent enough money on them...  The old adage that you get what you pay for.....

But where is the middle?  Sony Vaio looks nice until you see the price tag...........!

I see we don't know much more about the Boston terrorism tonight than we did last night...  But the news seems to be in a 24/7 coverage frame of mind....  I changed the channel... Surely something else happened in the world today..

Retired Rod

April 15's of the past..... and now today...

We struggled to make 50 degrees again today and finally made it about noon, for a couple of hours....  The rain during the previous night had soaked the ground and our driveways so with the cold, it didn't dry up very well during the day..

April 15, is kind of a somber day,as not only is it Tax day when hoards of tax stragglers lay siege to the post office lobbies....  Just to sign a tax form and mail it with their w2s...  But I also think about 1865 when Lincoln lay in the rooming house across the street from Ford's Theater dying from his head shot wound...

And remember that the Titanic sank in the early morning hours of this day in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg before midnight... 1,502 people lost their lives in that incident.

 

But not everything was bad on 4/15...  In 1945 the Nazi concentration camp Bergen Belsen was liberated... And Ray Kroc acquired McDonalds and opened his first restaurant in Des Plaines, Ill.  That was 1955....

And now after the bombing that occurred in Boston, during the end of its Spring Marathon today, another well remembered event will be forever associated with this Tax Day....

So we offer a prayer for those who were hurt or killed in today's tragic events...  And I'm sure we will determine who was behind this cowardly act....

And for one, I have my fingers crossed that it won't drag us into any more serious conflicts...   Seems like we have enough problems with leaders threatening to do us, or our allies in....

Maybe the sun will shine tomorrow..... but it doesn't look like it as the forecast is for 48 degrees with a 40 percent chance of rain...

That will take some winter woolly mittens if I plan to ride the motorcycle to the luncheon over in Gardner, Kansas....  We'll see.........

Retired Rod

I was wrong......

First off, to answer Phil's question about staying Mesa....  I would stay there until May 1st in a heartbeat....  And I could always have the mail sent to me from Kansas by one of my son's, to do the taxes....  But!!!

Loyce simply cannot be away from the grand kids that long....  I would be there in Arizona by myself....  Sooo that's why we come home...

And now I must correct something I said about the taxes....  By saying that I couldn't extend Kansas...  Sandie Dixon commented that her home state of Montana grants and extension if you have a federal extension....   So I pressed it by looking on the internet to find how Kansas can be extended.....

There is no Kansas extension form....  But like Montana, if you have a federal extension... And you pay all the money, they will honor the Federal extension...  But here comes the thing I didn't know....

On the payment form usually called a 1040V form, in Kansas there is a box down on the bottom to make an X in, that says this payment is an extension payment.....

So just to see if this really works, I marked that box with an X and sent a copy of my federal 4868 to them along with the additional amount that I owed for last year...  This is kind of a test to see what trouble comes next....   And if, like last year I need to amend again, it can be done before its sent in...

Maybe that is too technical of an explanation but I just wanted to clear the air over my previous statement that was Wrong....!

So yes, today all the extensions and estimates and so forth were mailed off....   Done for now....!  I'm certain as an accountant, I spend too much time messing with these returns.. But when you know they are prepared in error, you just have to go fix them...  A lot of times the Service doesn't even catch things, but I can't live with it....  I know, its weird, like scraping off those license stickers before putting on the new ones....

And yes I did that when I put the new truck tags on last week..... Guilty as charged....

We had really gusty winds here this morning... Liked to blow us away..  At least our bare dirt fields are wet and muddy so they won't blow up dust storms...  But as I was watching the Masters this afternoon, I hadn't noticed that the winds subsided...  But my son Ben had...

He was over here in a flash, and we off on the bikes....  But by then it was really overcast and you could smell the rain in the air...  We got in about an hour of riding, before the sprinkles turned into bigger drops....  I left his house and buzzed into the garage here just as the downpour came for real...

That turned out to be just in time to watch the play off holes of the Masters....  And it was pouring there as well....

Tonight it is to get much colder again....  As one of my neighbors said, " We've had a cold winter this spring."

Darned good thing that yard was mowed, as there isn't a dry day for the next week.....

Retired Rod

60 degrees and a bike ride....

The morning around here was drab and overcast with cool temps right up until noon...  I sat inside and moped around....    But then in the afternoon it happened.......!

The sun came out and it Warmed Up!!!  Well above 60 anyway.....  That would still be a cold wave down in Mesa....

Soo, I backed the bike out of the garage and put on that bright day glo yellow jacket and went for a ride.....!!!!

Just over to the motorhome, looking for a wall charger that has somehow become lost in the move from Arizona to the RV and then to the house here in KC......  I'm sure its around here somewhere, and its not in the coach....  Then I just aimlessly wandered on the bike....  Back past my two son's houses to see what's up...

I missed my older son completely as they were gone with their car.... But I found my younger son had his RV over to his house where he was supposedly working on it for the spring season...... only he was inside the big house watching the Masters tournament......

Eventually I came back home and got out all the lawn mowing equipment...  Working on a yard that was full of junk from all winter and cutting it for the first time of the year is a rotten way to enjoy a sunny afternoon, but that was what had to happen....

We are to have some early sun tomorrow, but by 3 in the afternoon the rains are to return for most of next week..........  And it is to get much colder again and on Tuesday we may never make 50 degrees......


Color me underwhelmed....

Retired Rod

Updating Mr Ford, and a shredder......

For about three hours last night it was below freezing.....!  Yikes.. and the heater in the house was running full boar on the gas side of its furnace....  When it shifts to gas, you know its below freezing outside...  You don't even need to wake up much...

But it didn't last long, so perhaps things in the motorhome were relatively safe without heat...  But looking at the forecast again calls for 34 tonight...  That is above that danger point, but not by very much, so if they are at all wrong......

But from there on the forecast night time temps seem to turn a corner...  And I certainly hope so..  Enough with this cold stuff.. We never really had any worse weather in Arizona all winter...  And never had any freezing rain...  But with the warmer conditions, we are scheduled to have some rain almost every day next week....   April showers.....  May flowers.....  Well maybe anyway.

And mid morning I backed that car out of the garage and plugged in the new USB strip under the radio....  With the motor running like the instructions said....  I had to answer several OKs in the process..   The shall we proceed from here questions...  But also the screen goes completely black in reboot periods...  That's scary, as in "will it come back...?"

Since this is Microsoft, they call the application of new program changes a Service Pak.  And after the service pak was done, it rebooted and took about 2 minutes to come back around.........  The instructions warned that this took some time and to be patient...  Me?  Not so much..

Well eventually they asked for the new SD card to be installed for the maps...  and then wrote some info back on the USB strip...  The a message was displayed while they spoke it on the screen to go back to your computer and install the USB strip and transmit the update information back to mother Ford...

And of course this wouldn't work on Chrome running under windows 7..  Something about Java not being correct...  So I loaded IE8...  But no go there either as it didn't like my version of active X..  So  I attempted to change the parameters of active X and enable all of its functions...   After several tries, I must have changed the right stuff, as it went on to the Ford gods....

Of course all of my radio presets are gone, and my phone is no longer paired...   And the Navigation favorites that I had stored were Poof!!   So I sat in the car for another good hour setting all that stuff back up.....   What ever happened to a car that just had an ignition key and a AM radio.?

We knew where we were going, and didn't have to call anyone either...  And we had the clear channel AM stations to listen to...  Didn't channel hop either, except for those clunky push buttons that moved the dial mechanically to its memorized spot....

Oh, and in the afternoon my broker sent me the last 1099 that I knew was missing............   Yep ran the whole deal thru the shredder...  Started over printing stuff out again...  I hate doing taxes!!!  Used to hate it when we were at the accounting firm way back when.... Nothing has changed...  We used to sit and review each other's work...  Writing out exception lists... But we called them "Chew Notes".  As in chew you out for making such an obvious error...  And even then some of the most obvious stuff would be caught by our clients.....   That's embarrassing.....  Of course they knew their own work better than we did...

It should be warmer here tomorrow, and maybe not rain...  Months we spent in Arizona and it never rained...  We've seen more rain in a week here than all last winter.....

Retired Rod

Downloading Ford Software...

I am sitting here waiting on downloads of software for the computer in the Ford car....  Seems that I needed to update it..  First I had to order a new SD card to plug into its slot...  The old one won't work when the software is updated...

I just ordered it yesterday and figured it would take a while...  Uh, surprise, it came in an overnight FedEx envelope before noon today...  Well now, how that for service....?  So now the next step, which is downloading the actual update...  

I had to check in under my car's vin number, and of course I couldn't remember what its password was..  And it asked security questions that I didn't know how I answered....  So I had to reregister...

Of course it knew right off that I had already used that phone number and VIN number before and wouldn't let me...  Eventually it sent me a text message on my phone...  Then by typing that info back into the computer it changed everything and let me back into it....

So I am watching the bits and bytes as they are down loading to a spare empty thumb usb drive...  Everyone has one of those don't they?  Well of course I didn't, so I had to go to Wal Mart and buy one...  It had to be completely empty, and that meant I had to remove the junk that came from the factory before it would use it...

Its really been a long time, and its only up to 55%...  All of this then needs taken to the car and with the motor running, plugged into the sockets under the radio...  And then follow on screen instructions...

And when you are done, they want you to come back to the computer and tell them how it all went.....  And if it doesn't go well??  Perhaps you have to take it all over to your Ford dealer....  Cross your fingers for me..

I again spent my day working on taxes, but it was barely 40 outside, so what else was there to do...?  I think I have most of it done, but then I always find something to change stuff, so I am holding my breath that the printed copies I made this afternoon won't go into the paper shredder..

Eventually it will be April 15 and what ever I have will have to be sent in..  Right or Wrong.....  That is why I usually extend, because it is always wrong...

Retired Rod

Sitting in the rain..........

Our high temperature here came at 4 AM this morning at 48 degrees, and it has struggled all day to stay above 40...  Rain rain and more rain...  Good thing the bike ride was yesterday...

Actually there was one for today too, but it is the Eastern Kansas group rather than the KC group...  I didn't look where they were going because of the forecast...  

And I must not get sidetracked as it is the 10th of April and those darned taxes need to be filed by the 15th..  I will only file an extension, but you have to know how much to pay......  And Kansas can't be extended...  File now and amend later..

So that was my task all day in the rain...  Actually I had to start the heat by mid afternoon, and find a sweatshirt too...

I did make some progress on the project too, as my broker called back with the information he was supposed to provide..  And as usual, I had it all wrong...

That is how these things go, and why extending until several people tell you the same thing is the proper approach...

Any way the rain is greening up the grass, since it was sprayed with fertilizer last Friday...  Oh, gotta remember to pay that dude too...

Tonight it is to be down to very nearly freezing, and I am watching that temp carefully as we have fresh water in the RV tank...  And that could cause a lot of trouble should it freeze again...

Nothing more to report from here, other than it is too darned cold to ride anything but in a car with a heater....... LOL

Retired Rod

Lunch in Peculiar....... Missouri.........

Well I did turn out to be just a bit crazy...  I got up today and looked outside.....  heavily overcast..!!  But the streets were dry....  So I went down and looked at the radar on the computer screen.....  Not a rain cloud in sight...

It was so overcast...  but the weather service was only calling for 20 percent chance of rain, so what the heck lets go motorcycling...

The Romeo lunch destination today was Peculiar, Missouri...  That's about 12 miles South of Kansas City on US 71... Or now Interstate 49.    I have always stopped at the Casey's gas station there in town, but have never done any other business there....

So today was Katie's Cafe....  in Peculiar........  Its more on the road going  into town from the highway..  I almost rode right past the place as I was expecting the uptown scenario..




This was taken on a sunny day, but today was dark and dreary, and there were motorcycles all along this parking..



Our leader Roger took this picture  of us as we were ordering...  I had the old person's breakfast of one egg and one biscuit....  But it was almost lunch time so that was all I needed.

We hung around out in the parking lot looking at everyone's bike and discussing our latest mods..  These guys see each other every week, still they have to catch up....

Official Romeo site for today's ride.....

But even more interesting is the fact that ten of these fellow decided to ride all four corners of the state of Kansas over the weekend..  1500 miles...

Ride around Kansas  Romeo site....   This site has hundreds of pictures that were taken as they rode from corner to corner of our state...  They are embedded within the links from the ride around Kansas site.....  I'm still looking at all of them myself, as I have never been to a lot of these places....

Retired Rod

Starting Taxes

I am neck deep in papers and forms, trying to understand and complete this years tax return....  So far I have only installed the software on the computer and opened all the mail...

But then I realized that a bunch of computing was going to be needed to determine a basis value for a stock that was inherited 20 years ago..  So I had to dig out 20 years of tax returns and review and recap each year's change in value......   A Big Pain!

So that was my day...  Only left for that small burger late in the afternoon, but it was overcast and almost raining anyway....

Tomorrow is another day, but perhaps I will go on the Romeo ride instead of taxes....  But it is supposed to rain like crazy and I am not.... crazy........ LOL

Retired Rod

Springtime in Kansas!

Our day here started with some sunshine, which was just a way of tantalizing us into thinking the storms might somehow pass us by....  Huh!

The sky became overcast by mid morning, as I was out to the Office Depot purchasing my yearly copy of Turbo Tax....  I only purchase the basic as it has all the forms necessary to do almost any tax return...  And if you know where to override the inputs, the return will compute itself completely... and correctly..

So since I do not use the interview part anyway, it doesn't matter which copy I purchase...  But anyway I went over to my son Ben's house for a while as he was polishing his Honda VTX..  He and my grandson Caden were telling a few stories and I had to chime in too...

Later back at our house I was installing the tax software when the entire family decided to come here for a visit...  So we spent the afternoon inside as it began to sprinkle and then rain....  Biscuit and the kids ran all over the place and didn't care a bit what it was doing outside.....

Tonight I had the project to get things arranged in the garage so both motorcycles and the riding mower would fit on the small side...  Needed to have both cars in as well as they were predicting hail...........!

We tend to have some hum dingers around here in the spring, and two years ago we damaged the roof and both cars that were out at the time... So we take these forecasts very seriously...........

It did rain heavily for about an hour, but no hail this time....  At least yet anyway, as I wouldn't want to jinx myself...  The older pickup sits outside  all the time, so hail is bad on it no matter what we do...

Ah, springtime in Kansas........  

Retired Rod

Washing up for Rain!

The weather forecast is for rain and storms...  So I had to get everything washed up for them......  That doesn't make much sense now does it... ?   But that is exactly what I did...  But most of these vehicles won't be moving during the rain, so they will stay relatively clean even when wet...

I spent the most time today going after and cleaning up the utility trailer....  I had to hand wash it as well as power wash it..  The trip thru the ice behind the big motorhome... ground in the sandy grime beyond normal washing...

Some folks carry their motorcycles on lifts on the back of their motorhomes... but I have always wondered if there would be any way to get the bikes clean again if the weather went really bad and covered them with road grime..  That is why I have always used an enclosed trailer..

I also power washed the Burgman scooter...  It was driven in the late fall or early winter around here and was nasty as well....  Not a very exciting day....

Our neighbors were out doing all of that yard work making their lots look really good...  Mowing and raking and all the like...   Of course our place needs all of this work, so it may be a while before I can spend time enjoying myself on the goldwing...... I knew coming back here would mean a lot of work and no play.....!

Retired Rod

More DMV's

Of course the tulips aren't out yet here in Kansas, but they will be in a matter of weeks..  And I thought this header picture would be a thoughtful reminder that spring is right around the corner....

And every year as I get home, I have to do battle with the various DMV's to get license tags renewed.  Our pickup truck is licensed in Missouri as it pulls Missouri trailers...  So it has Missouri Insurance...  And we do purchase two year tags, but this is the year...

And Missouri has one of those pesky inspection laws...   They go over your entire vehicle while jacked in the air on a rack..  Holes in your exhaust.... no license..... bad brakes......  no license...  You get the idea...

And Missouri is stuck in yesteryear so they allow the inspection station a whopping $12 to do this work...  And require that it takes 15 minutes to do it as well....  The form has a start and stop time right on the top...

This requires that a shop not make much money for its troubles, so it is hard to get anyone to do inspections....  But I know the place over in Belton, Mo where they will take you without an appointment...   They have a full time guy, that does these all day every day....

I gave them a $20 and told them to keep the change....  I was feeling guilty..  It would cost $50 in Arizona and take about five minutes...

Then over to the local DMV office in the same town... Again they are contractors for the state..  Private Folks...  A line for about 15 minutes and maybe 5 minutes at the window..  It took longer than that to drive back home.  So that's the Missouri experience...

Now on to Kansas....  I have that enclosed trailer that the motorcycle rode home in...  Trailers in Kansas are all done in January... Its their only month...  We are in Arizona in January...  I tried one year to do it after Christmas.......  Nope, not January yet...!

So every year we end up driving the trailer back into Kansas with its expired license...  Just hoping no cop will catch us..  So later in the afternoon, I got a computer appointment to get in line to pay this tag... You can do this from home or anywhere....

Wait was listed at 51 minutes...  So I went ahead and left the house on the cycle...  And when I got there about 15 minutes later, the wait on the schedule TV showed an hour and a half...  Then I got a message on my phone that said 2 1/2 hours...  Which proved to be the correct amount of time... The place closed at 4:30.... and I got out of there about 10 minutes before they closed...  With my little sticker to put on the plate and $36 poorer...  There were still over 100 numbers listed on the screen when I left, so they must stay until everyone is served.....

Kansas has soo many people here in the KC area that these government ran boiler room offices are overwhelmed...  They have 19 windows in Olathe, and 17 of them were staffed...  The people hardly took any breaks..  So I keep thinking, look at the bright side... you don't have to work there every day..!

Our whole big stack of plates will be due in June, but this year I will mail them...........  I Promise!

Retired Rod

A brighter day for Kansas

The thing about Kansas here is that it can be completely different as far as the weather goes from day to day...

So today it was sunny and in the 60s...   Really a nice day, and I did ride the Honda around some late in the afternoon or evening as the sun was retiring...  I did have the liner in my cycle jacket, but only had blue jeans on for pants...

I did have the full face helmet on as my skid lid has the ear flaps zipped out for those 85- 90 degree Arizona days...  Uh, gonna be a while before that will fly here...

I did work most of the afternoon in the garage, getting the cars started and the Black Scooter going as well.....  The motorhome was a disaster of mud and sand, so I used the pressure washer to rinse it off some ...  Needed to be suds and brushed, but it was too late in the day to do a full blown wash like that...

So we ran it over to storage kind of rinsed off...  Perhaps one day next week we can work on getting it cleaned up correctly...



Kansas has an all Blue Flag which is because we have so many sunny days here... So like the flag, it was wall to wall sunshine... Wonder how long that will last........?  Spring is always rainy in the midwest isn't it?

Oh, Loyce made it to her medical appointment, so all was well...  and we worked in the house for a long while as well putting things away...  You have quite the mess when you have been gone for three months.....

Retired Rod

In KC

With all the people on the road as Phil points out, I think that folks reserve their RV spaces for the month....  Like February and March...  So on April first, its get out or pay the high single night charges...  And in many of Phoenix's destination parks that can be in excess of $50...

So we left too, but more on deadlines that we have back here in Kansas.. as the house costs aren't going to stop whether we are there or not....

It seemed warmer in Wichita last night, as the wind wasn't blowing and it was in the high 30s rather than the below freezing stuff...  Our heaters kept up and the heavy, noisy fan blower propane jobs stayed off...  I never did connect the blue flame up to the propane, but it was under the table ready to go if necessary...

Loyce doesn't trust Biscuit around the radiant open flame heater...  It has big feet, so I don't think she could knock it over but neither of us think she would respect the flame part...

It was overcast and really dark skied this morning as we looked South toward Oklahoma and the forecast was for snow...  We didn't even bother to make much breakfast...  Just put your hat on and go..............  Got our coffee at the Mc Donalds in the toll road service plaza...

The sky lightened as we drove North...  It was almost pleasant as we arrived here at the house, but it was barely 50...  The rest of the day was spent unpacking all our stuff from being away for three months...  And there is still more to go, but for tonight the rig will sit at the curb out front of the house...

That will pee off the neighbors, but hey they haven't even been bothered by us for the last 3 months.......  But to our surprise, some of them are upset that we leave for those months......  Go figure....

I just checked, and it is only to get down to 36 tonight......  So no pink stuff required yet....  Forecasts are to stay above freezing for the next several days.......  could we get lucky...........?

I'm rather tired tonight, so more blather will have to come tomorrow...... LOL...

Retired Rod

Ice.........

Wichita, Kansas    Temperature 42....

Tonight we are in the Air Capital RV Park.. in the South end of Wichita..  We stayed here on the way out last November...  The place is brand new.. and mostly concrete and grass...  Full hook ups with cable tv.

Its rather expensive if you don't have a camping club affiliation and try to use a credit card...  But show up after the office closes and have cash to put in the envelope and its $30.....  Makes me wonder what happens to the cash....

Last night turned out just like I was describing...  cold and freezing rain.. I got out of bed around 3 AM and it was 29 with ice all over our windshield..  One of our electric heaters had completely given up, so I was plugging it in all over the coach...   Flipping all the switches..  Finally it came on...  I have no idea what I did...

Fast forward to about 8 AM and still 29..  Ice all over everything.. we were bummed out....  I went out and hooked up the water hose and sewers..  The neighbor next to us was dealing with his frozen hose...

Slowly the park emptied, and we were about the last ones to leave...  The road was wet but not overly slick..  The ice was freezing on the windshield...  For the next hour the temperature was right at 32...

We filled the diesel tank again at Guymon, Ok...  More to take advantage of the $3.78 price, as we know that Southwest Kansas is out of sight...

Lunch was in a city park in Meade, Kansas...  This is where the Dalton Gang had their hideout many years ago..  Today there is a museum to celebrate this fact...  Otherwise it is just another small town in the West end of Kansas....

But the great thing that happened while we were eating lunch was that it stopped raining...  The temperature also went up to 36...

We stopped at Pratt, Ks for a Wal Mart rest stop...  It was after 6 when we finally came to the RV park in Wichita...  I wasn't sure how to get here thru the streets, and the park is so new, that I couldn't find it in the GPS...  So I guessed which exit to use and luckily was right...  As when I reached the surface street the park was right where it should have been..

Its about 190 miles into the home front tomorrow, so we will make the deadline for the medical folks.......  But it will still be cold.. and the RV is a disaster as far as its wash job..  Its still very much so winter here in Kansas..

Retired Rod

Spring will be here........ some day.... !

Dalhart, Texas   Travel today 404 miles...

Loyce made a call to her medical professionals this morning and found out that she needs to be in KC on Thursday, nothing serious  ........... uh, so much for our leisurely trip back to Kansas.......

Better get a move on it!!  But my head still wasn't thinking in daylight saving time, so we weren't up very early... or the clock kept on telling us it was already late...... depending on your point of view.

We did manage to roll before 11, but not very much before...  We had left the park, but had to wait in line at the truck stop to fill with diesel..  I like to start the day with a full tank...  Besides, buying $400 worth of fuel all at once is painful..

Its a little over two hours into Albuquerque, and as usual we stopped along side the Route 66 Casino in the truck parking west of town...  This is a large truck stop along with the casino and they have a lot to the East side that is mostly unused...  We have had lunch there several times, and today it was sunny and about 69 degrees with a light breeze...

Albuquerque was reasonable with its Monday afternoon traffic as we never were slowed from highway speed..  We only stopped at rest areas to make potty breaks, and I was pushing fairly heavily as we were making about 70 in the afternoon...

New Mexico high country East of Albuquerque.

That is until we went thru an obvious front...  All of a sudden the rig was buffeted with wind and I was all over the road...  The curtain next to me was sucked out the window which was only open about 2 inches...

Had to slow it down in a hurry from then on as we descended into Tucumcari...  The temperature seemed to nose dive as well...  We stopped at a favorite station and filled the tanks again...  $125..  But the wind was rather cool as I waited behind the rig for the pump...

We had decided to push on to Dalhart, Texas since it was only about 5PM... but realized that that would be 6 PM the second we crossed the Texas line...  The wind was whipping the rig around at 65 mph as I headed Northeast..

That was when I noticed that the thermometer was taking a nose dive...  First in the low 50s and then right thru the 40s...  It was in the high 30s when we got here about 8 PM Central....

The sign out in front here just says RV Park.....  Perhaps it has a more formal name, but for $22 cash, I have never inquired...  That's for full hookups including cable...

Rigs are mostly just parked in a row facing the center street, with the park wiring strung between telephone poles overhead...  A few trees, but none with leaves yet..  The satellite dish locked right onto its bird.

But the temperature when I checked a moment ago was listed as 33 degrees...  I never bothered with our water or sewer lines as it may freeze before morning...

The forecast for cities to our North along our path is for a freezing mix of snow and drizzling rain...  It could get slick..  And if it gets too bad, Loyce's appointment in KC for Thursday might be in jeopardy...

We are travelling on US 54 Eastbound for Wichita, and we will take it town by town...  I will fill the water tank in the morning and drain the sewers, so if Wally Docking it becomes necessary, hey what the heck!!

Yep, spring is way behind this year, and for those of you still in Arizona, wanting to come this way,  wait a couple of more days............!

Retired Rod

We're off !!

Let see, Rick asked about the Goldwing and if I am taking it back to Kansas.....???  Well, heck yes...........  Its my new baby you know....

Yesterday I went to the storage lot and hooked our enclosed trailer onto the back of the motorhome...  I used this trailer to bring our bedroom set from Kansas back in November...  We had purchased it at Nebraska Furniture Mart at one of their super wham dammy sales...

I have to admit that I had it in my mind to trade off the white Suzuki for a Goldwing back then...  I had spotted the very bike that I eventually purchased on the internet..  Cycle trader I think..

So it was somewhat of a master plan from early last fall...  And yesterday when it was so overcast, I wasn't tempted to go riding, when the plan was to load up the bike...  So load it up I did..  Strapped it down with six ratchet straps.  Tossed the cover over it and proceeded to fill the trailer with bags and bags of Loyce's acquired fabric..   Seems we have enough to pack the trailer on both sides of the bike...

Tonight I am reporting from the USA Campground in Gallup, Nm...  as this morning we had a flurry of energy and finished all the packing..  We left the coach in the street overnight and got a lot done after dark..

The fridge was started on LP and battery to get cold before morning.... so we packed out the food all at once...  Our Arizona watches said 10 AM when we locked the house....  Its turned over to the security company and our house management company..  They check it fairly often...

On Easter, it was really busy as we left Mesa on the Usery Mountain Pass road and the Bush Highway...  There were thousands of bikes... and motorcycles as everyone was out enjoying the wonderful warm holiday...

People were wading in the Salt River as we went over the bridge..  I have never seen that many people in the picnic area along its banks...   Saguaro Lake was swamped with folks as well....  We just rolled along fairly slowly with lots of folks behind us...  The trailer with the motorcycle is fairly heavy, but not as bad as the boxed furniture was coming down last fall...

The snow was still around as we topped the mountain East of Payson..  We climb rather slowly with such a big load, but I never saw a bit of extra temperature in the engine..  A roadside park that we always stop in to cool things down was closed and locked as the snow drift was almost over the top of the visitor center....

We ate our lunch at a pull off along the highway.. Barely enough room to get away from the traffic, but as we left, I noticed there was another motorhome behind us taking their break as well....

We rolled thru Holbrook and took the Interstate here to Gallup...  Of course we had to set our watches ahead for day light saving time when we crossed into New Mexico...  So suddenly it was 5PM.  We aren't in any particular hurry, so this is all the farther we had planned for today...

The Phoenix sign on Usery Pass as we climbed out of Mesa..

For a while this morning the desert North of Mesa was overwhelmingly beautiful...  A carpet of purple sage bush flowers and a sea of yellow blossoms..  Cassia I think, but I'm not good with plants...  But I was suddenly sad.......   Sad that I had to leave all the gorgeous desert flora behind......

But it is to get into the 90s seriously next week, with highs every day...  Time to go mow that yard in Kansas.....

Retired Rod