Officially Fall

End of the season....  With the passing of Labor day, it is the official end of the boating season in Lake Ozark....  That doesn't mean that there will not be folks out on the lake for the next 6 weeks, as there will be every day, but with kids back in schools and fall weather approaching it will be much slimmer...

And every year, we end up thinking we will use the jet ski again and leave it out on the dock for that upcoming event......  But it never happens.....

So the last couple of years, we have been storing the ski on Labor Day, and today was not an exception.... Chris and his daughter Claire took the ski out for an hour or so this morning and ran the gas down until the low fuel light came on.  Then we met over at the public take out ramp.

This is back on a gravel road to the East of our place, but the locals know about its location and it was busy...  I waited in line until it was my turn....  The actual ramp is concrete where it goes into the water...

Of course we have done this a million times, so I backed the trailer into the water until just the tops of the fenders disappeared, and Chris was on the bunks instantly...  He hopped off and secured the front strap on the wench and I pulled up enough to settle the ski onto the rails...

Back when the ski was new in the showroom...

He hopped into the car and we were off...  We never worry about tie down straps because it is less than a mile back to the house and most of it is 30 mph speed limit.

This new ski needs to have some RV pink stuff poured down its water inlet after you blow out the induction by reving the engine...  Varooom,,,,, just like my neighbor with the big boat... Only it doesn't make enough noise to be heard next door............  Oh well....

We put some fresh gas in the tank that was loaded with Sta Bil and that's a wrap...  Later as the weather becomes colder, we will add a trickle charger to the battery, but since it is stored in the garage, it usually doesn't even see freezing temperatures.

Everyone packed up and cleared out mid afternoon, so we were on the road by 5 PM....  We arrived here in KC at about dusk.....

For our family, it is now officially Fall!!!

Retired Rod

Changing out the laundry room ceiling light...

After the family breakfast this morning we all had projects to look after....  For Chris and I we headed to the local lumberyard super store, where I purchased a simple light fixture to replace the laundry room light.

That light was a high intensity model that had the little tube bulb that costs $20 or more and puts out 300 watts or so, and every bit that much heat as well....

The fixture has cooked itself over the last several years and needed replaced, even before you thought about purchasing a new bulb...  I took the old fixture down before we left....  May as well toss out the burned out one so I don't get an attack of the cheap, and just purchase a bulb...

Well I did get an attack of the cheap, and purchased a fairly inexpensive fixture with a couple of compact fluorescent bulbs that equaled 100 Watts each for a total of 46 Watts in electrical draw..  We went on and shopped for most of the morning, farther into town and at Wal Mart....

But back at home I started into the installation of the fixture... No big deal it went right up and the bulbs screwed in and lit right up.....  But that was where the fly was in the ointment...

The bigger CF bulbs wouldn't allow the glass defuser  to go over the center bolt....  I had quite the time with this fixture, as the center bolt needed to be a bunch longer..  It looked easy but I couldn't get the short one out.

I took the whole fixture back down and ended up in the vise with it..   Taking parts off and apart..  The kids left to go for more shopping, and grandma put the little ones down for a nap...

I took the old center bolt out of the fixture that I had taken down in the new one, but then realized that part of the little nuts had been lost as I was disassembling the fixture....... Gone!  As I was down on my knees looking everywhere..........

Back into town, I wasn't able to find the little 4-40 sized nuts...  But that size wasn't really right... Based on the fact that the fixture was made in China, it must be in metric..   But I managed to find a bolt and nut to put back in...... Even though it was obviously wrong........!

So tonight the fixture is installed with its bigger CF bulbs, and as long as no one takes it down and looks with the critical eye, it will do.....  And it lights right up!!

We had the sun come back out mid afternoon, and the kids got to swim too.  Then we bar b cued some burgers here at home, and stuffed ourselves again....

Boy I hate these holiday weekends!!!  Not.........

Retired Rod

Fun with Computer Security Systems...

Today I was trying to use the laptop computer, surfing the blog sites that I follow every day, and the AVG software automatically came up for the umpteenth time pressuring me to pay the money for the subscription, because the free trial runs out in 6 days.....!

Well it was a mistake that I had installed the paid version of AVG in the first place, because I was trying to install the freebe version instead....

But the fact remains that this was the pro version, and they wanted to be paid.....  But remember that Incredibar business?  I was using the uninstall program and found still more incredibar programs that had been forced onto my laptop...  Over the working professional version of AVG....

I used Revo Uninstaller to remove some more of incredibar....  And then tried to uninstall AVG.....  Nope not even on Revo's list of installed programs.............  How do they do that?  Its obviously on the computer because it runs all the time with these scans......  that don't find incredibar....  And what else is it missing....?

I ran the uninstaller that is part of AVG, but even after the uninstall, the program came up and wanted money again.......?  What?  So after some searching on the net, I managed to find a page where they said they could uninstall the software....  The program errored out.......

Finally after downloading and reinstalling the AVG again and then using another uninstall program directly from AVG's web site, it appears to be gone.....

Seems nothing can find and uninstall AVG except their own programs, and even then it may not be completely gone...  Had this same problem with Norton security once before...  Once its on there, you can't get rid of it either....

So I went back to Rick and Paulette's RV web site and searched for his Microsoft program instructions for Microsoft Security Essentials...  He linked the download, so I copied the link above for anyone else wanting to try official free security...

Once the computer was clean of the other companies software, the program downloaded and installed rather quickly........  It didn't put any take over web search engines in place of what was already programmed, or do anything else to my configurations....  I thought sure it would dump chrome as my default browser in favor of IE, but nope it didn't...

Well in just a little while, my son arrived here with his newest little Toshiba laptop...  Like brand new, and we worked on it for a while too.  It had Norton on it, and he had managed to get it removed, loading AVG in its place...  But it had overwritten his search engines with a AVG web search page...  After he had checked no to this option...

One thing led to another and we went thru this entire process again removing AVG free from his new computer....  He had two different security programs in about two hours time....  So we stuck the MS Security Essentials program on his new machine too...

And it didn't change any of his configuration either..  It did run a scan, but his machine is brand new, so it didn't find anything.......

I'm not sure that MS SE is scanning incoming emails like the other programs do, and I think that it doesn't have the spy bot features either, but for a simple and free program, it seems to be the ticket...
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It rained here almost all day, so Isaac isn't gone yet..   The storm seems to be moved farther East, but Chris said that KC had about 5 inches of rain since we left...

Tonight, we went back to my favorite Bar B Cue here in Osage Beach, Bandana's.  I've written about this place numerous times, but it will suffice to say that my belly, is rather full, and I smell like wood fire smoke, even though it is well after midnight now......

It was still raining when we came home after dark, so I'm not sure how long this system will last, but I understand why Louisiana is flooded...

Retired Rod

Holiday at the lake

So tonight I am messing around with the picture skills that are listed on that instruction page I found on the picasa help site.

The reason that I put this up is this is our weather tonight here in Central Missouri....  It's called Isaac and the remnants of the hurricane that flooded Louisiana..   It rained all day starting in KC, and all while we drove coming down here to the Lake...  Which is the red push pin in the middle of the weather display...

The forecast is for rain all weekend making this an inside kind of a holiday...  But we have the grand kids coming from one of the son's families, oh ya, and their parents too...  LOL...

So using the instructions from the post on web albums, lets see if I can embed a slide show of random shots around the lake here...



Yup, that works.....

Retired Rod