Jul 30

Busy Or Lazy? I’ll Be The Judge! :)

I don’t know if I haven’t posted because I’ve been too busy or just too damned lazy. I kinda sorta think maybe a combination of both! But, that’s life.

We had 3 or 4 days of thunder around here depending on where you live in the greater Seattle area. I got quite a bit of it on video before it petered out in our area. Was really nice except for that time lightning went off right overhead while Poop Dog and I were out playing with antenna’s for my truck! So we quit doing that and just sat back and enjoyed the sound…

Wx has been pretty good for the last week or so. Get naked and lay out kind of wx! I like it! Kind of cloudy and much cooler the last two days but it’s supposed to get warmer by the weekend again. I like it!

SWMBO and I are planning a couple of tanks of gas for a trip to Mt. St. Helen’s sometime in the next couple of weeks. It’s been 25 years of so since we’ve been down that way just to mess around. Should make a great “day trip.”

We’ve been spending a lot more time together since she lost her job and I quit smoking. (Four months and counting!!!) Since we really can’t afford to go out and spend a lot of bucks we’ve been going out for breakfast on Date Night (Every Friday) and watching a movie at home that evening. Actually sitting next to each other and watching a movie. Cool! I like doing things with her! (Even after all these years.)

Found out I can re-encode my movies to .mp4 format and get better resolution in (usually) less space so I’ve been re-encoding my movies for the movie drive. Most of our tv shows you can download in .mp4 format already so that’s cool. (I don’t download movies.)

Friend of mine came over and we took apart the carb in the RV generator, cleaned it up real good, put it back together and it is running like a champ now. Hit the button and it starts right up and runs until you turn it off (just like it’s supposed to).

SWMBO bought some really heavy-duty shelves for the other side of the pantry and I got those in. Would like to get six more sets and replace the (sagging) shelves already in there. And take them all the way up to the ceiling if possible. Moved the (heavy damned) full freezer to under the window in the pantry and it’s starting to look pretty good in there.

My days are spent taking the occasional walk (depending on the wx), listening to the ham radio, listening to the tv in the back ground or otherwise just being lazy. Laundry and house cleaning a bit. Trying to straighten up my hard drives and get all my data in one place. Checking the job hunting sites. Puttering around really.

Our garden is doing great this year! The Peas and Corn are really growing and the “maters” are about to bust the fence I have them behind. No, we don’t grow enough to feed us for any amount of time, but it does add a bit to the annual food and it’s kind of fun to “grow our own.” I suppose if we really *had* to we could clear enough land and set it up for a really big garden; but you’re talking a whole lotta work there!!!

Been reading “

Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead [Paperback] Strong language alert!

” by Robert Brockway. If you haven’t read it, check it out. He covers about everything that’s happening now (real stuff) that could kill all of us. It’s a gloom-n-doom persons book to read! (Then go watch 2012!)

Been trying to keep up with Facebook, Google+ and Tweeter but sometimes it’s just too much to keep up with. Still making time-lapse video’s of the clouds but haven’t “made” any music to go with them so I haven’t been uploading those to YouTube. Have been uploading video of me playing in MSFSX and will probably upload some video of me crashing in X-Plane. Need to get off my ass and upload the pictures I’ve been gathering (taking) to my Gallery, Picassa and Flickr. Haven’t worked on my “Stan For Dictator” site for a couple of weeks now and we really need to defeat Obama.

Been mostly just listening on the Ham Radio lately and not really making many contacts. I’m still interested in doing it but get side-tracked and wind up doing something else. The “North Club” meetings still suck for attendance and am still treasurer of the “South” Club and drive to Shelton at least once a month for meetings. Been thinking of resigning from both…

And, that’s about it from around here. Told you I lead a boring life!

Jul 05

I Guess I Have Been Kinda Busy…

So much so that I completely forgot to blog about my Birthday, Field Day or anything.

Birthday went great. Spent the day at home with SWMBO and it was warm enough for me and the dog to get naked when we walked the back 40. Didn’t do much but cook dinner and chill out. That’s a birthday! I’ll let y’all know how I feel about being 60 years old when I fully realize that I’m 60 years old! (Also been over 2 months without a smoke!)

Quick Field Day Report: What a lot of fun! Friday setup was a hoot what with people traipsing through the woods with the tennis ball gun trying to get their antenna’s up. Most of us got our antenna’s set up with not too much interference with neighboring antenna’s and no injuries. Everyone got soaked from the knees down due to the wet grass and generally wet wx. Pot luck went well.  Several “supervisors”, including Jean (AA7JK) and her grandkids, made sure everything went according to plans.

Saturday started bright and early for most of us. Of course, Field Day itself started right at 1100 with Ray (KE7PHU) on voice/ssb (with occasional assists from others including Brian (NT7Y)), Don (W7WST) and Mark (???) on CW, Omer (AD7DY) on the GOTA station, and Stan (KLF7LTT) on PSK/Digital modes. Radio waves was flying fast and furious all over the world. We’d have all probably set up our radios outside except that it rained most of Saturday well through the night into Sunday about noon.

Lots of visitors from both clubs Saturday when it wasn’t raining. Lots of interest in the various stations and lots going on even with the rain.

Sunday, IF you had slept some, everyone got up to start at trying to make contacts again. At the last minute there was a pretty much even spread between those that said “73 and see ya next year” and those really trying to make those last minute down to the second contacts. Breaking down our “camp” started almost immediately; we was all tired and in need of a place to lay our heads for awhile.

But, I have to tell you; the absolute STAR of the weekend was Omer’s better half, Annie (hope I got your name right). She took over the cooking/grilling/general food prep and serving and did a simply outstanding job. Thank you, Annie! You made the weekend a lot better for us “old guys.”

And thanks to everyone that took part in this year’s Field Day. Thanks to Don (W7WST) for taking the reins and getting everything organized. Hope to see y’all there again next year!

I apologize to those that were there, either helping or supervising or participating, that I haven’t given a personal mention to. I’m an aged individual and have trouble remembering names/calls. Your efforts were deeply appreciated also.

BTW, you can see the pictures I took here. The Video here.

Finally getting warm enough to be called Summer around here. Was about 80 today and projected to be in the mid-80’s for the rest of the week. FANTASTIC! Course, I won’t be much good for getting anything done around here!…

And that’s it from Western Warshington!

Jun 10

I Worked At A Book Bindery Once When I Was About 15…

A place where we assembled books/magazines/catalogs page by page then ran them through a machine that put glue on the correct edge and put the cover on it. Assembling the books/magazines/catalogs involved sitting at a large round table that rotated. You’d pull off the pages, in order, into stacks for the binder. The guy that had to run everything through the cutter had the hard part: edging all the books/magazines/catalogs without cutting a finger off with the guillotine blade that did the cuts! Do “they” even do books/magazines/catalogs that way anymore?

Not much going on around here. Pretty much SSDD. SWMBO is still looking for a job and taking on additional training for additional certifications to make her more desirable for hiring. I’m thinking about going down to the local community college and taking the “Flagger” course and seeing if I can get some work that way. Hard business to get in; but  once you do you can make a lot of money. We’ll see…

Just finished running the Mason County Sunday Evening 2-meter Chat Net. Had 9 people check in tonight. Not bad. The Net lasted the whole hour we allot for it. A couple of the guys want to learn more about PSK and other digital modes on the radio so I invited them over sometime to see how I do it. Heck, I may just set my laptop up to play a recorded session of psk31 and show everyone at the next club meeting. We won’t be able to actually transmit anything but they’d get the gist of what’s going on. Hmmm. I could even do the same thing with easypal to show them how to send pictures back and forth.

SWMBO got out and did some mowing this afternoon. I watched her from the deck out back. She also made fried chicken for dinner for us and it was yummy!

An older friend brought his new laptop and monitor over so I could show him how to spread his desktop over the two monitors. He likes to have his genealogy program running on the laptop screen and wants Firefox on the other so he can cut and paste without minimizing screens. So we took an hour for that and to install a couple of other programs he likes to use. He does pretty good for a guy that didn’t even want to use “one of them computer things.”

 

And that’s it from the Not-So-Great North West! 73

Jun 04

I Guess I’m Just Getting Old…

Believe it or not, I used to “Type Set".” Dad taught me how when I was a kid and he worked for the Yuma Daily Sun newspaper in Yuma. Occasionally I’d go in and “help” him out in the afternoon before I got interested in other things. It was okay but not something I wanted to do the rest of my life. Even if it was replaced by “offset printing” (which I also learned how to do). Kids nowadays just wouldn’t believe you had to type on a machine that put out a bunch of heavy lead letters that you had to arrange into a holder the size and shape of a page of newsprint.  But I also knew how to read upside down and backwards!

Not much going on around here. Weather sucks for June. Even for the “great” Northwest. I hear these other Hams talking about how it’s 80+ degrees wherever they are, heading up to 90 degrees or more, then walk outside into 58 degrees and raining. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

On the other hand, I’ve been smoke free since April 17th. Not too shabby! This Volcano Inferno e-cig is working just great to keep me off “analogs” and, so far, has been cheaper also. And nowadays I’m into cheaper everything.

SWMBO is still looking for work while studying for her certification. Her test is the end of the month in Yakima of all places. She’ll have to head over the day before and spend the night in a motel but it’ll be worth it when she passes the test. I’ve been debating going with her but probably won’t. Someone’s got to stay and take care of the animals.

Playing on the radio more lately. Talked (voice) to a guy in Australia and another guy in Slovenia. Too cool!

Speaking of radio stuff: trying to figure out a way to do Field Day with the RV for a couple of days. Have to rent a small generator also as the one in the RV won’t run longer than 10 minutes. I’ll just raid the pantry for food for 2 days. That’s the easy part. Gotta figure out which antenna to use and how to raise it. Good thing I have an antenna gun!

Otherwise, we’re not doing too bad. Have the RV, Dump Truck and Digger up for sale. Have a guy coming by Wednesday to look at the dump truck and an e-mail expressing interest in the Digger. Hate to get rid of either but the bucks will help. Ah well.

More later!

 

My Radio