Star tripping

   I thought I might take a little time to update this thing. It seems I always have something else to do lately and this just doesn't get high enough up on the priority list to get done. No joke..... I'm actually waiting for the grass to dry right now. I got the larger part of the yard (A bit over an acre) mown yesterday. Then again I have a 23 HP Hustler ZTR for that task and it just doesn't care if the grass is wet or dry..... needs a short 1" trim or has to have a foot or more brought under control. It just whacks the stuff down to size and doesn't care. 

   The three patches up front I do with an EGo electric mower...... mostly because I like the look better when I use that one. With the heart problems, I opted for the self-propelled model and it makes that task a lot easier. Anyway..... as soon as the grass has dried off enough that little thing comes out and I'm ready for the weekend with everything mown and edged. 

   Now, Star Tripping. Last month (Mars opposition) I decided that since I had wanted a nice telescope for over fifty years I owed it to myself to get one.  I figured if I could manage to afford that darn riding mower so I could work then I could also afford a darn telescope so I could have some fun too. So, as is my habit, I started shopping around. [actually, I'd been shopping for all those fifty plus years but did not then have a desire to buy] for the best combination of size, features and price. I wanted bang for the bucks I was about to spend. 

   I finally settled on Celestron due, in part, to their reputation and universal praise of their optics. I could not justify their biggest system since it has an entry price of just under $10,000 for the super high-end 14" Edge HD version. Optical tube and CGX-L GoTo mount ($3000 just for the mount). Likewise, their smaller 11" SCT (Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope) in the Edge HD version on the same mount was above my budget. Their Advanced VX mount shaved $2200 off the cost though so I put that on my buy list for features. Selecting the standard 11" SCT saved another couple thousand so now I had the two main components identified. 

   With those two top of the list, it was just a matter of fleshing out the rest of the system. Several weeks of searching landed me at the Celestron Factory Outlet store. There I found the Advanced VX mount coupled to the standard 11" SCT with two additional counterweights, computerized hand controller, 9X50 spotter scope, Tripod, SkySync GPS unit, Eyepiece and filter kit in an aluminum carrying case, all for around $3000....... with FREE shipping!!! (normally an additional $150 to $180) Told sweetie what I planned on doing, got her blessing, and pulled the trigger. 

   It seemed that that Mars Opposition thing caused a LOT of interest in large telescopes. The package I wanted was on a National back-order. Oh well. I'd waited fifty years so what's another couple of weeks? Towards the end of September, it arrived in several large boxes. The weather had been pretty nice so far so get that thing put together and balanced then get out there and look at stuff!!! By the time I had everything assembled, balanced, and the rough settings completed....... I hear thunder. Really???? Sure enough, it's now 100% overcast and starting to rain. What timing!!!  No change in that weather for the next 9 days. Oh well. We'd been in a prolonged drought and really needed the rain so no real bitching. I moved the unit to another room and waited. 

   Now then..... the beast. Ready to observe the telescope package weighs in at just a bit over 100 pounds! No. You don't just get an urge to take a quick peek at something. Moving this thing requires taking it partially apart and making several trips to where you want to set it up. Once all the parts are there it has to be put back together, polar aligned and also aligned to several bright stars so the unit knows where it's located well enough to find anything above the horizon. With the legs in the lowest (most stable) position, it takes about 9 square feet of real estate. That is necessary because the SCT moves in some rather odd ways and if you don't give it the room it will hit things. My first set up probably took the better part of an hour to complete. 

   Last night, the 27th of September 2018, was officially "First Light" for the unit. (a term from long ago meaning the first time a telescope is officially put to use to observe)  Of course, being my first time, everything did not go smoothly but, overall, it was an okay experience. Earlier in the day I had selected a spot on the west lawn and put down three concrete pavers for the tripod legs to set on. These had been set in the ground so I could mow over them, and all three had been set so as to all be at the same level as each other. They had also all been oriented, as a group,  towards the north so the Telescope would be placed in roughly the proper polar alignment simply by having the legs near the center of their respective paver. I think when I checked last night the little computer only showed being off by 2 degrees so not bad at all. 

   All that work confirmed the need for a permanent location for the telescope. I have several plans from a place called "Sky Shed" already so, eventually, I'll be building a place where it can live full time. The majority of those sheds have roll-off roofs so the telescope can see the sky when in use and be protected from the weather otherwise.  

They also include plans for building a pier for the telescope to rest upon. That makes for a MUCH more stable mount and eliminates the necessity for doing all those alignment steps each time I want to observe since the telescope will never move from session to session. These all have a large concrete element underground with a steel pier bolted to that. The floor of the shed is build so as not to contact either the concrete part or the steel part which eliminates any possible transfer of motion from the floor to the mount. If the telescope shakes..... it will be because of an earthquake. 

   On the first observing session I did get to see Mars, but probably needed some sort of filter on the eyepiece to reduce the glare. It basically looked like Venus last night. Just a VERY bright ball of light with no detail. Jupiter was much the same. So bright that all the detail washed out. I could easily see four of the larger moons, though, so that was exciting. Saturn was washed out too but still was spectacular to see, so I guess I'll try a moon filter to cut the light some. I have some other filters but I think those work best with a camera but I could try them to see if they help visual observing too. 

   I had issues keeping the planets centered in the eyepiece last night and had to keep moving the scope with the hand controller. I found out later that I had to manually go into the telescope guiding program and select a guiding speed for planetary observing. I assumed that, since the telescope "knew" it was pointing at a planet, it should automatically change the tracking rate. Not the case it seems. I know that now, however. I also saw the Andromeda Galaxy. Somewhat disappointing through an eyepiece but may photograph well later. Then again...... it's 2.5 MILLION light years away. One light year is 5,878,625,373,183.6  miles so you do the math...... it's a LONG way away!!!  Okay. I'll save you the trouble. its 14,872,922,194,154.51 trillion miles. At even a penny a mile you're worry free for life. 

      Toward the end of the session, the hand controller did not want to work consistently. It might slew the scope left to right but refuse to move it up and down. Other times it was just the opposite. other times it would suddenly skip to the highest speed even though I hadn't asked for that and was trying to get an object centered in the eyepiece, which is difficult enough because the image in the eyepiece is upside down and reversed. Also the temperature was dropping and dew was starting to form on the optical tube. It took about 20 minutes to break it down and store it in the big empty trailer out back. 

   I got a glass solar filter the other day. A replacement for another Celestron shipped which arrived broken. Can't figure out why that happened. I mean you take a giant piece of glass and put it in a box like a pizza without ANY padding or packing and ship it across the nation and actually expect it to arrive safely? I was amazed when the replacement got here in one piece. Getting ready for the next total eclipse in 2024. Totality will pass through a lot of Texas but I have identified a place dead center of that path in Oklahoma. Until then I can practice doing solar imaging and take no chances of not getting it right at the eclipse. 

   For the nighttime viewing I'm looking at a thing called "StarSense" that replaces the finder scope on the big telescope. It's a little camera that automatically takes several images of the night sky, selects certain stars, then uses them to automatically triangulate the exact position of the telescope and eliminate the need to try to get it aligned manually. It's said to reduce the alignment time to about 3 minutes. I know I spent at least 30 last night trying to get it aligned. 

   Then again I wasn't aware of a few things which might have shortened that a bit. Little stuff like..... even though you just polar aligned using the north star, Polaris, you still have to go into the settings menu and tell the telescope it's in the northern hemisphere. I thought that would be automatic because it's SO obvious.... but it's not. Likewise, I had trouble keeping the planets centered....... well..... even though I told the telescope to go to Jupiter I also have to go into the setting menu and tell the telescope to track at the planetary rate rather than the sidereal rate used for stars. Again so obvious that it should happen automatically but doesn't. 

   Since this is a new adventure I may create another blog just for this hobby. Might even keep the title of this post as the name of that blog. I'll post my viewing adventures there and document the problems I encounter along the way. I'll also post the solutions I've found so others can spare themselves the experimentation and frustration. Likewise, that would be a good venue to document the construction of the sky shed and detail how that project comes off. This will certainly have a learning curve involved so as I master things I'll try to share that in clear, concise terms. 

   The plus side is that it's a wonderful hobby and keeping the mind active in the later years is crucial. I guess I could think of it as an Alzheimer's preventative. I think once I get into imaging it will be a lot more interesting because the camera can capture details that the human eye misses. There are image processing programs out there that will automatically take just the top 20 or 30% of all the photos you have taken then stack them together, correct for alignment drift caused by time, then generate one final image that can be corrected for color, contrast and all those other things. It should be a lot of fun and the first step is behind me already!

Charting a new course

It seems that I have been involved in writing my entire adult life. Whether that was something as simple as checking tasks on a list of things my bosses wanted me to accomplish or generating Engineering proposals and multi-view drawings for submission to Fortune 500 Companies, or various governments or US government agencies, I've always been involved in writing. I've discovered proposals decades later and read them. While doing so I'm amazed by what was written and all the complexities and details covered. I get to the last page and am shocked to discover that -= I =- had written it and simply didn't remember. (I surprised myself with my own ability)

As the title of this blog suggests I am intrigued by almost everything. I gobble up information like your garbage disposal devours dinner scraps and, like that device, my appetite for knowledge seems to be endless. At nearly age 70, service in two branches of the military and experience in over 120 different jobs from farming to hot tar roofing to auto mechanics to pneumatic Engineering, my brain is packed full of information and hard earned knowledge. I've done computer programming back when you had to sit at a keypunch machine and transfer your program onto punch cards then run those through a compiler to generate input the computer could work with. I majored in Psychology in college and am an Ordained Minister and a former OTR truck driver.  On a daily basis, the two things that always get my attention and comments are politics and science of some sort. 

With various age and military-related health issues, working a "normal" job, even part-time, is not something that is possible anymore. With my wife creeping up on her retirement from the State of Texas we will soon be "dependent" upon only our retirement income. While we should be able to get by on that without much trouble neither of us simply wants to "get by" in our retirement years. We have too many hopes and dreams we've waited a lifetime to realize. 

We both love traveling and seeing new things. We dream of having a camper of some sort, bumper pull or 5th wheel so we can be closer to those places and things that interest us, rather than staying in a hotel somewhere. She enjoys fishing so waking up with a lake outside our front door is something that will make her look forward to waking up in the morning. I love to read. Granted I can do that anywhere, but why not be reading under the awning of our camper while peeking over the top of my current book to watch her fishing down by the lake? That's a win-win. 

We watch all these "House Hunter International" shows on TV and we note how young most of the people are. The real estate agent says rent (RENT!!) is $2500 or $3500 a MONTH and they don't choke or bat an eye! They look at homes that range from a couple hundred thousand you to several million and are unphased by those numbers. (We'd need emergency bathroom facilities or a medic!) Our question to each other is always...... "What the heck do these KIDS do to have that sort of money to spend?" Of course, there are a few who are transferred by a corporation and have a stipend that covers housing expenses. But almost all the rest seem to use their computers to generate an income of some sort. 

It seems, therefore, that I needed some computer-based method of augmenting what will be our retirement income. My "work" must be 100% portable so that I can do it where ever we happen to find ourselves. If we're in a camper trailer at Glacier National park or we are fortunate enough to be enjoying the beach in Belize I need to be able to pull out a laptop and do some sort of "work" to generate a level of income that could permit us the financial freedom to genuinely enjoy our retirement years. To that end, I have undertaken a course on writing. 

The endgame of the course is to not only become better at writing but also to learn how to self-publish via the internet. It doesn't matter if I publish a little 10-page pamphlet on building a backyard project that sells for 99 cents or if I write something grander, it's a source of income that is portable. Several news-related websites advertise for contributors too. The opportunities are out there which makes it a matter of identifying topics that are of current interest and organizing my thoughts so I can put something together on electronic "paper". And if people will pay you for doing what you enjoy doing anyway....... is that not the definition of the perfect job? 

With our current timeline, I have roughly 5 years to get a handle on this project. It's something that needs to be already in place and working by the time my wife reaches retirement age. It basically means the difference between being able to enjoy our senior years together and simply existing from retirement check to retirement check. Doing that is NOT a life to look forward to living month after month. I want us to have the option to pick up and go where we want, when we want and NOT worry about anything. Retirement should be about freedom....... not more years spend fretting over bills and other such matters. We've done that our entire lives. We have earned the right to enjoy what life has to offer. 

He's back!

Yep! I'm still alive!

   I'm pretty sure the department of veterans affairs will be really pissed to know that too. I believe their agenda is secretly to hope that all us vets die off so they can all get a huge pay increase by redistributing what we've earned the hard way. 

   SO! What's been going on up in the wild and woolly far north of the great state of Texas? Obviously not a whole hell of a lot if I haven't posted in well over a year now. One really wonderful and long-awaited event did happen almost a year ago though. Due to a variety of circumstances, the lady I fell in love with at first sight over 40 years ago and I were finally able to get married. 

   She had a dream of getting married in Las-Vegas so we mapped out a vacation road trip and headed west. Visited Monument Valley, Canyon De Chelly, Painted Desert, petrified forest, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam and, of course, Las-Vegas itself. 

   We actually stayed down in Laughlin which is still a LOT of fun but not nearly the mass of crazy people. You feel perfectly comfortable walking from casino to casino any time of night. Vegas is just entirely too freaking insane for me. We made two trips into the madness though. One was to just see the strip and the other trip was to get married. 

   Officially hitch now we blasted back through the desert to Laughlin again. No one on the highway at close to midnight so I let the Genesis off the chain for a bit. Speedometer passed 100 like it wasn't even a strain and kept accelerating as if it were child's play. The car stayed quiet enough for normal conversation and absolutely rock steady. I took my foot off the gas well before we were anywhere close to top speed.  Not sure what that number is but I have no doubt the car would have no trouble reaching it since I still had about 2500 RPM before hitting redline. 

   Back in Laughlin (somewhat ahead of schedule), we celebrated with a steak dinner before playing some one-armed bandits and heading to our room to sleep because the trip back to Texas started early the next morning.  While it was a nice trip the best part was the bit without any schedule. I much prefer fairly unstructured vacations where there might be one ultimate destination in mind but otherwise, it's just open for any spur of the moment destination choices that might present themselves. 

   With the "stop living in sin" box not checked off honey and I began the process of getting all that married people stuff figured out. nearly a year later we're still working on legal stuff and other details. Everything will fall into place eventually. :-)

   Around the house, I had royal fits with my Troy Bilt self-propelled mower. Darn thing just refused to freaking run for more than a couple seconds. Parked it forever and bought a little cheap Murray from Wally World. That worked okay until I started having chest pains while mowing....... or anything else that required much effort. Found out that blood flow to my heart muscle was restricted by some blockages. Got some Nitro for that and it helped. 

   Problems with gas-powered lawn equipment persisted. Weedeater refused to run.... as did the blower. Decided that I had had quite enough frustration with stuff not wanting to work when I need it to so I retired all the gas stuff and bought all EGO battery powered stuff. 

21"self-propelled electric mower, weed eater, and blower so far. Love the stuff!! I put the mower through a torture test and mowed 1/4 acre of 6" tall grass with it before the 7.5 amp hour battery gave out. Might have cut more but I was using the self-propelled feature as well as mowing. Needless to say, it has no problem at all with the little bit of front yard we have. Weedeater? Same thing.... I weed whack over 1000 feet of fence plus cleaning the corners and getting around the perimeter of the house and around trees. The battery (a smaller 2.5 amp hour unit) goes strong the whole time. Never going back to gas lawn equipment. 

Oh.... the mower even has LED headlights that are really bright..... so for grins, I mowed the front yard one night starting at about 9:45. Had no problem seeing where I had been or where I was going and no one even knew I had mowed...... it's quieter than the string trimmer!!! 

   Had the water pump on the big Excursion finally get to the point where it had to be replaced. It lasted for over 14 years so I really couldn't complain. Even with getting new upper and lower hoses installed plus a new serpentine belt and thermostat it was under $500 and ready in half a day. This shop gets all my business so, because I was between my military retirement check and social security,  he said "Just stop in and pay me when you get your check." Handshake and it's a done deal. I like doing business like that. 

   Well..... even though this is the first post in over a year we're already all caught up on stuff. I guess it's a good thing that very little is going on at this point in my life..... makes getting by day to day all that much easier.  I still spend a few hours a week investigating retirement south of the border. Panama is still at the top of my list but I still haven't totally ruled out Belize and Mexico. Caribbean storms are the biggest issue with those last two and I'm not all that sold on the western coast of Mexico yet. Costa Rica is on the list as well but I'm looking for higher elevations and more spring-like low humidity climate year round and not sure Costa Rica will work for that. Sweetie and I don't want to just sit here in Texas and scrape by when she retires when we could move south and genuinely enjoy retirement. 

Gotta scoot! As always..... Y'all be good and take care of each other!

Updates to the old house

   Due to the dining habits of an assortment of insects we're having new main entry doors installed today. Seems the critters got into the framing and had an extended banquet. Then, a few months ago we opened the front doors and the one on the west side dang near fell completely off. Two of the three hinges came totally out of the framing leaving only the bottom hinge really doing anything. We ordered new doors that week through a local mill work company.

   Lanita's brother, Jimmy, has been a carpenter all his adult life and actually had installed that door and all the windows in this house back in 2000 when Lanita's step father bought the property. We called him to handle hanging the replacement door and shepherd the one we ordered through the mill work shop too. Jimmy and the new doors both show up this morning with only one minor hitch. Even though a pair of 28 inch doors were specified what we got as a pair of 30 inch doors. 

   That dimensional difference means the entire opening has to be expanded to accommodate the bigger doors. Once we started tearing the old doors out we found the culprits still at work eating the framing for the old door.  Called a pest control company to come out and treat the entire area so the new door stays put a good long while. Much dust is flying while he cuts through the concrete to enlarge the opening accompanied by a lot of high pitched noise too....... concrete doesn't like to be cut. 

   Once installed it will make a major difference to both the outside appearance of the house and the inside look as well. The old doors were solid and the new ones have leaded glass oval windows sandwiched between two additional panes of glass so that they are insulated. That will also add more natural light to that front room on the house. The doors are steel over high density foam insulation. The weather cooperated and it's a beautiful day to work with temperatures in the low 70's and almost no wind as opposed to our usual 20+ MPH wind out of either the south or the north.

   I've also managed to get perhaps 1/4th of the windows on the ground floor scraped, repaired, caulked and repainted so far. All of the ones on ground floor on the front of the house are done. Average is about 4 days per window mostly due to the amount of wood rot that has to be repaired and the time involved in chipping off the stucco that was sprayed on everything. While a pain in the butt it does look much nicer now and will hopefully help with the utility bills this winter. 

   Otherwise I'm still waiting to have my combination workshop and storage building on the property. I was hoping to have something by November...... but then our wonderful government said that they were not going to pay anything for my moms nursing home stay...... leaving my brother and I to figure out where to come up with roughly $15,000 to cover the bill. My thought is that since the government isn't going to pay.... then they need to refund all the money they took from mom over the years to pay for the insurance to pay for her care! Seems simple enough.... but here is the thing to remember...... never play poker with someone who makes up the rules as the game progresses. Government TELLS you one thing... then makes you pay in the belief that you will be taken care of in your old age....... then changes the rules just when you need that coverage you had no choice but to pay for all those years. Everyone would be far better off if that money paid for a private policy that had no connection at all with government.

Gotta scoot!  I need to see how this door is going in just in case I have to work on it later on. As always..... be good and y'all take care of each other!

Good-Bye to Mom & other news

Hey, Gang! This update gets to start off with the news that Mom left this earthly plane to go be with her husband in heaven on August 9th at 10:29 PM CST. Mom was 85 at the time of her passing which was quite peaceful. Between staff at the home and hospice she was being checked every 10 minutes to make sure she was comfortable. She simply went to sleep forever between those checks. 

My brother, his daughter and husband and their son, made it up here that Saturday morning and had a chance to visit with her for a good hour before she got too tired and fell asleep. When they were out here visiting later Jerry commented that they had all gotten to say good-bye. Since I had told her on the previous Tuesday that they were coming I honestly think she waited to depart until she got the chance to see them all one final time. 

Mom was preceded in death by her only husband, Joe (aged 57), in 1981. She will be interred beside him at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Forney, Texas. This will be a family only event. Exact location is Section #1, Lot #54, spaces # 1 & 2.  She is survived by two sons, two granddaughters, six great-granddaughters and one great-grandson. 

       *************************************************************************

Here on the home front we have had a couple of weeks of fairly hot weather but in general it's been a pretty mild summer overall. Here it is August 13th at almost noon and it's only 82 outside right now! It was in the very low 70's when we woke up today.... so really nice out. Everyone in this household is of the opinion that this winter is going to be a real booger! I have bought extra Kerosene lanterns plus we have a good stock of candles too. I have, I think, 4 big 20lb propane tanks that I need to get filled yet and I need to stock more lamp oil and get a few 5 gallon cans of kerosene for my big space heaters.

As the weather starts to transition to colder the rule of thumb for the vehicles will be that 1/2 tank of gas is your new empty! As soon as it gets close to 1/2 tank.... fill up!! I top my big diesel truck off at 3/4 tank..... mostly to keep my wallet from imploding. You do the math.... 44 gallons at almost $3.90 a gallon........ YEP! It's a large number. 15 to 18 gallons is a lot easier to manage. I've taken other steps to be prepared too but there is always more to do and refinements to make to whatever plans one has in place. 

Prices and availability of ammo is pretty good right now so more is always a good idea. (Beatles...... Happiness is a warm gun) Some method for either storing or filtering water is good too as is a good stock of dehydrated food. Remember the old biblical adage..... The Lord helps those who help themselves. God gives us the tools and resources we need to make it through most difficulties..... it's up to US to put those tools and resources to good use for the benefit of ourselves and those we love and are responsible for. Do not do so is a fail in our obligations as parents and Christians. 

I still need to motivate myself to get out back and get the Town Car ready to sell on Craig's list.  Every bird in north Texas has used it for target practice and I still have items in the trunk I need to clear out too. I have the current registration sticker to put in the window and following that I need to have it inspected as proof that it is road worthy. It has interior problems with the leather seating and the heater core leaks but it starts and runs great and gets over 24 mpg out on the highway.  I have the Genesis, my big Excursion and the bike...... I don't need a 4th vehicle.

I also need to get serious about finding a combination shop/storage building for this lot too. I spend nearly $100 a month for rent so how much more would it really cost me to be making payments on something I'd own? Probably not that much. $200 a month would be reasonable in my books. Much of the reason to have everything HERE is #1 access to my tools and shop equipment and #2 the ability to go out there and sort through all the stuff so we can eliminate everything we absolutely do not need. (which is probably most of that stuff in reality) 

Final item before I hit the post button. I have been calling the VA up in Oklahoma City since January trying to get to speak to a real human so I could transfer my records and get an appointment up there. Still no luck on that front. However...... I got into the local outreach clinic yesterday and DO have an appointment there on September the 10th @ 1pm. Of course once I get seen there.... THEY have a direct line to the VA in OKC and can schedule whatever follow-up appointments I might need. I suspect a full cardio workup will be needed so they can figure out why I suddenly have all these angina issues. Since that has really only been a problem for the past 6 months or so I attributed it to stress..... which it might be. But the effects of stress don't vanish overnight so I'm pretty sure some sort of remediation measures will have to be put into place and some additional protocols followed so I can look back on my 100th birthday from farther down the road. ;-) 

As always.... be good and y'all take care of each other!

Mid-July Update

   Hey gang..... Update time from "The Falls." July is half gone and we still have only had about 3 days above the century mark temperature wise. Next week we have a couple of days where the projected high doesn't get out of the 70's!! If this is "global warming" then I'll take another heaping helping.

   Lanita and I are planning a "flying ass road trip" for late August. She is taking three vacation days from work so we plan to tear out of here after she gets home and changes Tuesday afternoon. She prefers to take advantage of the coolness of the night and just drive straight through to St. Louis so we should be at our hotel between 4 and 5am with any kind of luck. Shower and grab a few hours of sleep then go see the kids and grand-kids early afternoon on Wednesday.

   I have reserved a room for us at a very nice hotel about 5 miles from my oldest daughter and her family so we're close but not too close. The hotel has both an indoor and an outdoor pool (I think) so we'll probably have the grand-kids come out to play in one of those while we're there. We're planning on two days there and this will mark the first time I have even seen two of my grandchildren. Of course Lanita has never seen any of them so it's all brand new for her. As far as both of my daughters are concerned Lanita was like a second mother when they were little and her daughters have always been considered "sisters" to my kids. 

   We'll probably rip out of there Friday around mid morning and head south to Shreveport La. to visit my youngest daughter and her family. I've already booked us into Diamond Jacks Casino & Resort there which should be pretty nice and make Lanita happy. (Jacuzzi tub AND gambling? She's all about that!) :-) 

   Like at St. Louis this hotel is roughly 5 miles from the kids so we'll not be imposing on anyone at either location. I think the last time Lanita got to see Joann was when Lanita's youngest daughter got married here in Texas. I can't remember if Joann brought either of her daughters with her that day or not..... so this may be the first time she's seen any of them too. We will probably stay there until Sunday and then head the Genesis north west and slide back into The Falls late afternoon. We are both really looking forward to the trip!

   Here in The Falls I had to put my mom into a care facility as she became too much for me to manage on my own here at the house. Between increasing dementia and Alzheimer's and becoming completely incontinent it was beginning to affect my health too both physically and emotionally. The facility we finally placed her with specializes in both dementia and Alzheimer's so they are used to dealing with all the different stages of those items. Mom seems to be fairly happy there and the staff thinks she's a sweet lady....... except when they try to get her to do physical exercise. She *refuses* to do *anything* which requires either physical or mental exertion and will yell at the staff if they try to get her to do either! As a result she is back to spending 18 to 20 hours a day sleeping. 

   Lab results kept indicating a steady decline in her kidney function too so the facility recommended we contact a hospice agency. At this stage what they basically do is provide a second set of eyes and a second opinion on both diagnostic and medication issues. If both doctors agree on matters then they proceed. If not then they consult until they do agree on what is best for mom. While it's easy for one person to make a judgement or a clerical error it's much more difficult for two people to make the exact same mistake. 

   Otherwise we are gradually making progress on things around the house. We still really need to focus on getting my storage/workshop building built on the lot though. Much of the stuff around here that requires maintenance also requires access to much of the shop equipment which is buried in the storage space that I'm paying rent on but which is off site. Several window frames require much of the wood to be replaced but that wood needs to be cut to the proper length, width and shape so it matches what is there now. At this point in time I lack the ability to do that due to lack of facilities and equipment. Also we have a door sill on the second floor which leads to the outside that needs to be reworked completely before winter arrives. Some of the concrete scratch coat will also need to be repaired too. 

   Today was "kill all the stinging things" day. Lanita was up on a ladder at the front porch while I was still thinking about getting out of bed this morning. Several *huge* wasp nests were on second floor window ledges above our primary entry point to the house. The proximity to the main entrance alone was a hazard since they would occasionally swoop down on folks trying to enter or depart. In Lanita's own words.... "Sorry! You must DIE!"  (she's somewhat allergic to their sting too so they really did have to go) I think between the two of us we went through three cans of that extended reach spray this morning. While checking for additional nests we found two more but they were so high up on the building that we could not reach them. We'll need to get a ladder back there to get them. 

   On other fronts (and honestly I can't remember if I wrote about this previously or not) Lanita and I managed to get up to Fort Sill right after my 65'th birthday so I could update my 1980's vintage retired military ID card. I was shocked in that we were leaving the administrative building with my new card just a couple of minutes after my scheduled appointment. 

   From there we scooted on over to Oklahoma City and spent a night there and paid a visit to the Riverwind Casino..... which we pretty nice. We plotted a course to the Choctaw Casino in Durant Oklahoma next via back roads so we had a relaxing drive. That was also a pretty nice place and we'll probably make a few trips a year back there. She still loves Winstar and wants to make some overnight stays there. 

   I think the last thing for this update is that I got a recall notice from Ford on my big Excursion truck. Some sort of electrical problem had been found with the Cruise Control Deactivation Switch which could cause a fire at ANY time. Didn't matter if the vehicle was running or not! (scary) I made an appointment with the local Ford dealer and had the repair made that afternoon. While there I also ordered the bracket that holds the "Power Stroke" decor piece at the top front of the engine. The Ford place in Mesquite had broke off both screws which held that piece on the engine when they were replacing a fuel filter. When I replace the bracket I'll put some grease on the threads to ensure that the hold down nuts will come off without incident next time. 

   That's it from the wild and wooly far northern Texas border!  As always..... y'all be good and take care of each other!

Memorial Day update

Good morning everyone! Lots of hot dogs..... hamburgers....... perhaps even steaks...... potato salad and likely a good quantity of beer is going to be consumed this weekend. Enjoy every bite of the food and every drop of the beverages too! With liberals in power it's a LOT easier to forget that this weekend has meaning FAR beyond the feasting. In graves both marked and unmarked all around the globe are the bodies of the hero's of an almost forgotten generation. 

More than half were still in their teens when evil threatened the world and they responded to that threat. Most made it home and quietly went about making a life for themselves and their families. They didn't talk much about what they experienced....... that's not the kind of people that generation was. The old man in the house on your right could have earned several purple hearts..... a bronze of silver star for bravery...... even a Medal of Honor...... and you might never know. The widow to your left might have that neat triangle of a flag tucked away safely....... all she has left of the brave man who threw himself atop a grenade to save his buddies in a muddy trench on some long forgotten field in Europe.

These brave men and women made up the last generation of true Americans. Their backgrounds were American Indian...... Italian...... German...... English...... French..... Polish..... Greek..... and dozens of other nationalities...... all made one in that great melting pot called America. "Yes.... I came from Greece..... but I am AMERICAN now!" People came from all over the world for the opportunity to *become* an American. Sure they kept traditions from their home nations..... but back then we did not have hyphenated Americans. Just like a big pot of stew.... everyone who desired to be an American added their own unique flavor to the pot as they assimilated into being one people in their new homeland.

That is how it used to be..... before liberalism..... multiculturalism.... and whatever other "ism" you can toss into the mix. Liberals now tell us we are wrong to be proud to be Americans. It's better to come here..... refuse to assimilate into the American culture...... keep your own culture and language... wave your own flag...... all the while living like newborns suckling at the teat of big government..... dependent upon it for everything. Now we have very few Americans left. What we are now is a bunch of sub-categories with labels so that we can all be easily typed and divided into government approved groups. It all started with African-Americans...... then Mexican-Americans.... and so it followed that you could not BE just an American any more.... you HAD to be a hyphenated American now. Being a hyphenated American makes it far easier for government to target you and pander to you so as to assure themselves that you vote for the right party in the next election. If there are only Americans..... then government is in the tough position of having to do what is right for the whole country! We can't have something like that happening in this country now..... can we?

As usual I sort of twisted off a bit..... deal with it. I am not a hyphenated anything. I'm an American. Period. My ancestry might have been German or English many generations removed..... but I was born here..... reared here...... educated (rather than indoctrinated) here...... put on two different uniforms for this nation and served its interests on several continents..... all with pride and honor.... just like that last generation of TRUE Americans. 

At some point between the burgers and the beers...... the jokes and games...... please be sure to pause for a moment and reflect upon the fact that without the brave men and women that our Veterans hospitals are ignoring...... and who are buried in countless marked and unknown graves around the world...... you would NOT be able to party this weekend. Quite possibly you'd be speaking German, Japanese, Russian or Chinese.  The Stars and Stripes would have been banished from the rewritten history books as would the very founding of this nation. The Ten Commandments would have been forbidden as would the celebration of ANY religion which the state did not approve of. Our freedom of speech would be gone...... our right to keep and bear arms.... GONE....... freedom to be secure in both our person and our papers and our homes..... GONE. 

While you're reflecting on all the freedoms those before us fought, bled and died to insure that WE get to have today........ also reflect honestly upon the actions of those in government today. Our history is being rewritten by the left..... our education system has been hi-jacked by the left and starts indoctrinating our children in pre-school and never lets up. Our media.... which was intended to serve the people as their watchdog and guardian of freedom has been taken over by the leftists and only feeds us that which supports the agenda of the left. The secular left fights daily to ban our religious freedom and our right to believe and worship as WE choose...... they demonize us for our faith in "fairy tales" of Jesus and his Resurrection. They so hate the symbol of His suffering for us that they ban it from public display and view..... removed it from memorials. They say that God's Commandments for us to live by are unconstitutional and cannot be displayed in public...... even though the Constitution and the 1st amendment to it guaranteed that we were to be FREE of  an oppressive government interfering with our right to practice religion as we choose. 

I'll leave you with a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes. The verse is 10:2    "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."