Sirius Radio / Ham Club

Things are back to normal today as the new road is already old hat to the neighbors.  To me it still smells like curing tar.  Hope that goes away fairly quickly.

The big garbage truck came this morning, and made divot marks everywhere it went.  So the road is already on its way to destruction and it isn't 24 hours old.

This morning I went over to the RV and fired up the generator.  Next I set up the aircard and router to connect to Verizon.  Once that was running, I set up the laptop and it began to boot.  All of this was so I could press the button on the serius website to download the subscription I ordered last night for the rig's serius radio.

Normally they ask you to go turn on the radio, which is in your car in the driveway.  Since the motorhome was at the storage lot 8 miles away, it was hard to turn on the radio for the customer service rep.

She spent a moment teaching me how to send the signal from their web site.  It took about three minutes before the code came thru, and I was holding my breath that it would actually work.  But it did and I now have serius radio in the rig.

The Allegro has all sorts of electronic gadgets, and they take time to get set up.  Mostly they have subscriptions, and that means working with the associated companies to get it going.  They all have web sites, with user names I can't remember, and passwords to guess at.  The serius account has been in use since 2001, now what username was I using eight years ago?

Happily the direct tv and serius folks are now up to date.

We have our almost three year old grand daughter Delaney here for this weekend, as her parents and older siblings have a funeral in a distant city.  So not much was accomplished during the day except play with her.  I did sneak off for a long scooter ride while she took a nap.

Tonight was ham club night for me, so I just came home from GodFathers Pizza, where a mini personal pan and lemonade found their way onto my tray.

Now its late and everyone went to bed, all except the old blogger....

Retired Rod

Street Resurface

The street was blocked off early, but they were letting folks out to go to work.  At exactly 8 AM they oiled the existing pavement, and blocked it totally.
At 10 AM this monster showed up.



Then the dump trucks came.  They had chip gravel in the hopper, water in the far tank, and hot tar in this side tank.  A conveyor began to dump the gravel at once.  A set of grabbers latched onto the truck by the back wheels and they moved as one unit, until the truck was empty.



This is a mixture of gravel, tar, water, and a hardener, that was in the bags up on top of the machine.  The guy up top breaks a bag every now and then when that hopper becomes empty.



Waiting for a new dump truck, the guys on the ground running the squeegees worked like dogs, leveling the mix into areas that the machine couldn’t reach in the round cul-de-sac.




The guy in the front of the machine hooks up the hoses to the water and tar. Then he shovels the last of the gravel out.



The supervisor seemed not to be nearly as dirty as the other folks, I wonder if he actually does anything but bark out orders.



The batch was never rolled with a roller machine, as it was wet like wet cement, and dried in about 3 hours.  It is quite hard tonight, as it did begin to rain on the new road about 5 PM.  There was not a drop of black run off.  We were allowed back into the drive at about the same time.

Not much else to report, other than I reached a milestone today.  I called and signed up for Social Security.  I would guess that makes me an official old Far!.

It was relatively painless, and the person in New York was very thorough asking why my income came and went during the years that I worked.  Of course, that is simple, because we worked for ourselves as accountants in a group of CPA’s, some years made a lot more money than others. 
I rode the motor scooter down the sidewalk, and out past the barricades to freedom in the afternoon, to the motor home storage place.  I needed the electronic serial number from the Sirius radio in the rig. 

After firing up the dash electronics, copying the number from the display, and locking the rig all back up, I rode the 8 miles or so back home.  That was just in time to have the street opened again.  I was skeptical that it was dry, so I rode on the sidewalk back to the house.  Let somebody else track tar into their place!!!

I’d be killed for sure, if I did it here!!!!

Retired Rod

Friends come to town

Life is kind of non exciting down here in KC! But, I had a good day with old friends today, and enjoyed it very much.

While I was working in Des Moines, I had the opportunity to work with our corporate pilot, Jack, and the purchase of the new company airplane.  Also a personal friend and a ham, Rich, was a pilot for another company in Des Moines.  Rich and I went  to a ham  luncheon together and I invited Jack to go along,  so Rich became friends with Jack.

Well, now they both work for Rich's company, and fly a Cessna Jet.   Today they brought their executives to Kansas City.  I knew they were coming, and received the call they were in town about 9:30.

The downtown airport is about 20 miles from us here on the South side, but I headed there almost at once.  We hung around the pilot's lounge renewing our acquaintance, and then headed for the luncheon.

Since we all like Bar Be Cue, I took them to the Jack Stack Bar Be Cue in the South side of Overland Park.  Man were we getting fat there.

I had the burnt ends luncheon, with the cheesy corn casserole, and the home made cole slaw.  I was stuffed all afternoon.  The cheesy corn has cheddar cheese, cream cheese, ham, onion,and other non disclosed seasoning. Its baked in individual dishes, and compliments the meat nicely.

Jack is a RVer, and has a motorhome, so we have much in common.  Rich is a ham as well as a pilot, and we circled from subject to subject.  It was never quiet.  I had to explain the scooter, and getting the full motorcycle license.  The hour passed quickly.

Once the guys were back at the airport, I traded the car for the pickup and hauled the lawn mower back to the hardware store where the tune up was done two weeks ago.  As I mowed last night the mower surged, varoooom va va va, varoooom, va va va.  Darned annoying for a $100 tune up, so I communicated this to the fellow.  I was nice, but tactfully made my point.

He said it needed an new carb jet, and installed it on the spot.  They normally clean out the old one, but evidentally mine didn't clean correctly.  No charge!  That was good too, since I had about 10 miles each way and two hours invested in the return trip.

Tomorrow is our day to have our street closed in front of the house for resealing.  Loyce parked her car over a block behind us so she can cut thru the houses.  I figure I will ride the scooter, and will just use the sidewalk for the block it takes to get to the new pavement.  It should only be closed for one day.  Time will tell, but rain may slow them up too.

Retired Rod

No repair schedule on the RV/D Star study/Fuddruckers

I had to call the RV dealer today myself, as I would never have a response from them otherwise.  "Oh, ya I was gonna  call ya."  "Our parts guy is out today and he has to recall Tiffin to see if they sent the parts."  "I'll get after him first thing in the morning."

And if I hadn't called, it would be next week when they realized the parts were not arriving.  Out of sight, out of mind.

So much for Shorewood RV.

I took the utility trailer back to the non secure storage lot this morning, and parked it on its spot, in the mud.  Well sort of gravel, mud and weeds.  It will move to Arizona this winter, and that should slow its deterioration some.  Our midwest winters are really hard on equipment.  Especially when it sits in a snowdrift for months on end.

I have been re energized by the purchase of the D Star ham radio.  It is something new to learn about, without a lot of help on the subject available.  I have studied the internet listings on google, and the instruction book.  It spends a lot of time on the 10 ghz backbone operation, that ordinary folks cannot afford.

This means the implementation of the radios in practice is not what is in the instruction book.  I studied for a good part of the afternoon, until it put me to sleep.

This evening, I went out and mowed the yard even though it was still quite wet in the grass.  More rain is forecasted in the next several days, so it had to be knocked down.

They are resurfacing our neighborhood streets here before winter.  They almost had us blocked in today, except for one small lane thru the construction.  I hope we will be notified before they completely block us off.  Time will tell on that.

 Tonight we went back to Fuddruckers, yet again for their fresh burger, and more sweet potato fries.  We do that too much, but can't help ourselves.

Retired Rod