$50 now $60..................

We went to the Cattle Sale Auction on Tuesday, and there is no way I can do a good job of reporting this like the folks did on the Romeo web site...  So to see numerous pictures and one not too becoming photo of me taking a bite out of my hamburger......   Go here   !

The phone bill came in on my cell phone, and the amount charged was in fact what they promised the second time I cut the deal....  I did get a $75 credit and a $10 a month promotion on my data bill....   So the phone turned out to be $225 on the bill this month and then the $10 off for then next twelve months which will reduce that by $120....  Provided I live that long.... LOL  So I guess that makes the phone cost back to the $100 deal that I was trying to get... Just a round about way of getting there.

The Galaxy 5 is considerably bigger than the old Galaxy 3 and is a big brick in my pocket... But it is much faster and has oodles of features that weren't on the old phone either...  For starters, it has a 16MP camera...

This is the Cattle Auction from the parking lot...  It was over 5 megabytes before I used Picasa to shrink it for the blog....  It still looks fairly good even it its small size here...  Still the camera is looking thru a ordinary piece of window glass and doesn't have much of a lens...  But it is amazing how well it does do...

All the motorcycles were parked behind me, as we were trying not to overtake the regular patrons that were actually buying cattle...

Retired Rod

Rides and Phones......

We've had many a slow day here in KC other than our weekly rides out and about on the motor cycles...

Laast Tuesday we traveled up to Platt City, a town North of the KCI airport.... Its about 40 miles up there but mostly on the beltway interstate, so it went really rapidly....   We arrived ahead of most of the crew at about 9:30 but even then there is always several guys that are already done eating....

That day was really hot!!  We kept seeing 103 and hotter numbers on the motorcycle dash thermometers...  When we came back into the city, following cars at 30 mph about killed us off....  Stopping at the traffic lights was hottest of all....

But then on Wednesday it cooled down as a rain front came thru overnight... Still it was 87 that afternoon, but that seemed so much better.....  The trip that day was over West to Topeka and then North to a small community about 20 miles North on US 75... Mayetta, Ks...  I had to go look on the map for that name...

The place was just a main street of old buildings which were mostly vacant...  The restaurant was an older storefront as well, but had been cleaned up a bunch inside....  They had advertised fried chicken, but didn't have any...  Seems that they didn't understand or perhaps believe that we were going to bring 50 people to their little town..

They only had 4 people in the entire restaurant, and simply couldn't stop long enough to fry any chicken....  I had a burger and chips with a diet coke....  Kind of hard to mess that up...  But even then we waited a long time... But we were gabbing it up with a long table pulled up on the end of a 4 person booth... Lots of BS...

On the way back, we struck out cross country trying to make the next North South highway and get out of going thru Topeka...   But every road we tried turned to rocky gravel....  We turned around three different times..  If you get on deep gravel, you can't keep the bikes upright, so you don't take that chance...

Eventually we ended up back in the East end of Topeka but did miss most of the town...  Next we were at a Burger King in Lawrence for their 99 cent ice cream cones.....  I didn't get back until 4 PM that day....

Oh, I did get a new cell phone.... A Samsung Galaxy S5...  My old phone had been wet a couple of times and was beginning to run its battery down in only a few hours..  The new phone turned out to be a fiasco...  I had to beg and plead for an early upgrade as I had 5 months left on the old contract...  There is no more graduated buy out of the contracts...   They wanted $350 to buy my way out or I could purchase a new phone for $599...

They would finance it over 20 months for $30 per month... But the phone service  bill would be the same..  plus the 30....  Or go up 30 depending on how you look at it...  Not a deal, anyway...

I finally got another customer service gal on the phone and she got a waiver from corporate for my old contract.  Then she had me lined up for a $99 new phone...  That was the new subscriber price....  I thought I had cut a heck of a deal and signed the new two year contract...

But a couple of hours later, I received a confirmation that the good deal price was now $300 for the upgrade....   That meant I spent a lot more time talking to them trying to get it back down...  I finally got a $75 credit to my bill for accessories and $10 per month off of my data plan for another year...  And even those numbers aren't proven out yet until I get the bill to see what they actually charged me..

If it works, I may still have a good deal, but it will take a long time to realize it.. And I still have to pay the $300 right now...    But that is half of the $599 outright price...  They have you coming and going...   At least the new phone is nice..

This is getting too long, perhaps I can tell you about the phone next time...

Retired Rod

Kids and their kids on the family vacation......

My son Chris and DIL Melissa are on their annual trip to Colorado, but the first day was a bit dicey.....  Check them out and make their hit count go up a bit....


http://daddys3girls.wordpress.com/

Always fun when you loose a trailer tire as the day ends.......

Retired Rod

The big ride..

As I mentioned the in the last post, we went on a bigger ride on Wednesday...  It was South out of KC to Joplin, Missouri and then onto Neosho...  This is a little town out in the rural part of the state...

But they have a factory that makes those little trailers like is attached to the back of Al's scooter...  The scooter is a 650 cc machine, so it has no trouble with the trailer...

Backing up some with the story, we have been researching a trailer for Al and his wife to take to Colorado next month and he decided to have this one built...  We ordered it from Hub Cycle in Independence about a month ago..  It was finished, so we road tripped to get it...

Neosho was 175 miles each way from our home here in Olathe, so I wasn't sure I could make that much as a round trip...  So we packed a small bag in case I needed to stay overnight...

And then I also discovered I had a Doctor's appointment on Wednesday morning as well.. That set us back until after noon for a departure...  But once we left, we made a very fast trip down there...

The trailer place turned out to be a very old warehouse cement block building that had more junk in it that actual factory...  And they only assembled the trailers there ordering most of the parts from other vendors..  But right in the doorway was Al's new little toy waiting patiently...

We hung around for a while as they showed us around and then we got the trailer connected...  I was holding my breath as I had wired the scooter without having the trailer to prove the lights worked as I did it...  But it all came on and worked correctly....

At about 4:30 we headed out for home...  I was feeling fine...  Sometimes my cancer surgery will get to causing me trouble on these longer trips, so I really never know which Rod will show up on what day...

We ate supper at a Subway in Nevada, Mo which was halfway back..  We discussed if we should get a room, but then thought heck lets go for it!!

It was twilight as we arrived back at Al's home with the new toy....  The lights on the back are newer style LEDs and they lit up like a Christmas tree...

Wow a 350 mile day, after a doctors visit in the morning...  I was done........

And for Biscuit fans, she was safely staying with the grandkids at Ben's home.. She was able to spend two nights there sleeping on their beds and playing ball in the back yard...  She didn't want to come home..

Retired Rod

Summer slow down....

I haven't given up blogging, but we seem to go out on the motorcycles to yet another restaurant 40 miles away...  And I think you are tired of me reporting that all the time....

Biscuit had her hair cut and acted all goofy for several days, but now she is back to not remembering her longer hair...  And that is good because we have broken into the 90s for every day this last week....  Not that she stays outside very long, but at least it is a summer cut for her....

I have been again fighting with financial institutions as they learn of Loyce's passing....  They immediately shut my accounts down and make me go without a bank account....  The brokerage shut down one of my credit cards and the bill paying service right over the 4th of July.......  Grumble........ Grumble........

The local folks make a big deal of it, but the national people in their company could care less, if some little guy is without his money.....  It will get fixed when it gets fixed...................

So that gets me into a bad mood, and then I don't feel like writing, in case that attitude leaks out.....  Or pours out......  I don't like to write a rant...

We have a large motorcycle trip planned next week, so that should be fun.... But then when I went to look on the calendar, it is the same day as the trip to the doctor's office.......

Hope that goes well and I get out of there timely...   Need to be on the road before noon.....  I'll report how that one goes when the time comes.....

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer...

Retired Rod

Why is it so hot in here?

Just a quick little story to let you know I am still alive and well.....  As you know, we rode the motorcycles down to the lake of the Ozarks...  It was a really nice day...

But of course on the way back it was raining all morning and then the storm split into two blobs on the radar and we rode right thru the middle of them.... Nary a drop...  But it was in the high 80s with both the humidity and the temps....  So it wasn't all that nice....

We rode on just like it was 65..  But in the process, it takes over three hours to make the trip... I was a tad dehydrated when we got home....

When Biscuit and I retired to our bedroom, it was hot up there.  We had turned up the AC while we were gone..  And even though we turned it back down, you know how two story houses never catch up in the upper story...

Well I have the portable AC that we often put in the motorhome...  In the bedroom, just to help out...  When we left, I opened the window and pulled in the hot air hose..  Then locked the window...

And of course last night in the dark, I forgot that fact...  Turned the unit on and went to bed...  I awoke at about 2:30 AM, only to find my room at about 130 degrees.....  Seems the hot air going out the exit hose is way more than the cool air coming thru the louvers...

So in the middle of the night, I am standing in the open window trying to center the hose and its window plugs and get the window back down on it just so....  In my underwear to boot...  Not sure anyone would have been watching at that dark hour...   But hey who knows.....?

It did cool off fairly quickly once the hot air was on the outside of the house.....  I guess that hot motorcycle ride effected me more than I originally thought.....  LOL

Retired Rod

Its the mid summer holidays!!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

We are at Lake Ozark celebrating the holiday....   It seems somewhat empty without Loyce, but we have to move along and accept reality...

My son Ben and I rode the motorcycles down here on Wednesday after loading our suitcases into the back of his SUV... His wife Danielle and the grandkids came with that SUV... oh and Biscuit the dog as well...

It was a cool day in the mid 70s which made for nice riding...  And we thought we rode right along, but Dani was here waiting for us when we got here...  We took the two lane back roads, while she drove the divided highway for most of the trip...

We thought it might be safer on the two lane roads, but even then we came around a corner to find some workers driving a Bob Cat bucket loader with rubber tracked wheels at about 3 miles an hour down the center of the road...  It was being followed by a single pickup with its flashers on....  

Your mind does a double take, as you realize that the truck is going sooooo slow.....

It was about 80 this afternoon, and the kids were out in the lake... I rode up town for a sandwich while they played....

I hope you are enjoying your holiday, where ever you may be this week end....

Retired Rod

Canada Day

Happy Canada Day  !!!


To all of my Canadian Friends and readers that I haven't had the opportunity to meet........

Retired Rod