Day 75

We went to the club for a tournament today. Ellen screwed up the first 4 stations, but she did pretty good after that. I won AA. That sounds impressive except that C 1 beat me. I did pretty good on the first 50, but fell apart on the back 50.

We also shot the 50 target side match. I was doing pretty well until the last station where I got 3 out of 10. I thought about shooting the 5-stand, but I was too tired.

We shot with 4 guys from Houston. They drove 170 miles one way for the shoot. That's a short trip for Texans. It was fun, they were a good group.

After the shoot we stopped to pick up the mail. There was two bills and a couple of late Christmas cards. We also stopped at Costco because I thought I might be able to get a hose. They didn't have one. So we bought a couple of other small items and went home.

There's a lot of noise outside tonight. People are shooting off some really loud fireworks. Nothing is flying high enough for us to see it.

I've had two mojitos and I'm ready for new years.

Day 74

It was great weather today, so we decided to go to Zilker park. We stayed in bed until 11 surfing and playing with the dog and cats. Then we went to the park.

There were a lot of people there. There were some parking spaces, but not many. The dog had a great time. She did a lot of retrieves, and there were a lot of dogs to socialize with. Unfortunately I couldn't get her to quit worrying about the bumper and go play with the dogs. We played there for a couple of hours. We even had conversations with a couple of owners about dog stuff.

We stopped by the grocery store on the way home for a few things. When we got home I rolled up the hoses that I had strung to the burn barrel yesterday. I also went out an shot baskets for about half an hour. I think I'll try to do that more often.

Day 73

I'm pooped. We stayed in bed until noon (literally). I felt guilty, so I decided to burn the big pile of dead branches by the entrance.

Before I did that I had to convert the barrel into a burn barrel. I was going to use the grinder, but that wasn't working. So I drilled 4 holes per vent and then connected the dots with a jigsaw. It worked really well.

I set up the barrel and then began moving the pile to the barrel. It took half a dozen loads with the cart to do it. I had to pump up the tires on the cart first.

While I was doing that Ellen was cutting some dead bushes in the back yard. She added them to the pile.

The burning took about an hour and a half. All that stuff had been on the ground for months or years. It burned fast and hot. I'm going to clean up tomorrow if we don't go to a lot of sales.

Day 72

Cabin fever struck again today. We stayed in bed for a long time reading the news on the web. I guess it's not much different than doing so at the kitchen table.

When we got up we ate breakfast and then left for Bee Cave. The idea was to stop at Dick's to look for a dog collar. They didn't have one. So we spent a few hours going through the stores up there. We didn't buy anything, but we had a good time. It was sunny and 70. Just the appropriate weather for the week between Christmas and New Years.

The dog didn't have a very good time. She spent it all in the car.

We did stop at a bar. We had nachos and I had a pint of Guinness.

On the way home I bought some fireworks and we stopped at a gun store on 290. It's a neat little place, and the prices are reasonable.

Day 71

I decided to finish with the speaker stands today. It was a pain in the ass. To start with, I had to crawl all the way to the other side of the attic to loosen the bolts holding on the old speakers. I ended up loosening the ones for the wire plates too.

So I replaced the wire plate screws with plastic anchors. They will work fine.

I was going to attach the stands to the sheet rock, but that wasn't going to work. The speakers were too heavy and the lever arm provided by the stands was too long. So I attached them to the beams instead. Unfortunately I didn't have enough of the right size of screws. After a lot of scrounging I found enough to get the job done.

Figuring out the positioning of the stand was difficult. I had to try a lot of options, and holding up the heavy speaker/stand combination was difficult. I had to call a halt during the process to rest my aching arms.

I finally got the first one positioned and attached to the wall. The second went much faster because I knew how everything needed to be positioned.

The new speakers are up and sound great.

Day 70

Fry's had a good deal on an i7 laptop, so we went to Fry's and bought one. Ellen is spending the entire afternoon getting it initialized. Right now she's having some kind of trouble with the bluetooth printer connection.

I was feeling ambitious, and the weather is significantly warmer today. So I decided to tackle some of the Christmas projects. Those are the projects initiated by the Christmas presents i got. On the way back from Fry's I got some straps and anchors for the new speaker mounts. When I got home I turned the straps into adapters for the mounts. That involved drilling six holes, some hacksaw work, and some grinding.

Putting the first mount on a speaker was easy. Everything bolted together without a problem. Unfortunately the second stand wasn't built to the same specs. I had to grind away half of the nut on a mounting screw to make it work. I'm going to save mounting the mounts and speakers to the wall for another day.

I also put up the solar post lights on the deck. They turned out to be easy because they came with flush mounts. I was thinking that I would have to build mounts. I'll see if they work tomorrow or the next day when they are fully charged.

I'm going to watch the Cowboys tonight. Hopefully they'll lose.

Day 69

Christmas Day. I got up at 8:00 and drove to the store to get a paper. I wanted to make sure I saw the ads. It was good that I did, there's a 1 day sale at Fry's on a computer Ellen wants.

When I got home I went back to bed. We stayed in bed with the dog and the cats until about 11:00. Then we got up, had breakfast, and made the obligatory calls to the relatives. They all seem to be doing fine.

We both got neat stuff for Christmas. I got everything on my list (surprise, surprise). I'll have a couple of projects to do next week.

It's cold and gray, so we didn't do anything else today. Just TV, reading, and pinball.

Day 68

It was the day before Christmas and we didn't do a thing. The paper didn't come again. Apparently they've stopped it because they haven't received payment. They just sent us a bill last week. I'll have to get up early tomorrow to get one at the store.

We did nothing the whole day. I guess that's not really true. Ellen made a really good roast for dinner with mashed potatoes.

Other than that we spent the whole day surfing and watching movies.

Day 67

It was cold today - low to mid 40's. We stayed in bed most of the morning watching movies on our phones.

The paper didn't get delivered today, so I went down to the new store to get one. I didn't want to miss out on the porn. I also got a couple of boxes of matches. I found out yesterday when I couldn't find any in either the house or the trailer. I wanted to light off some firecrackers that we bought yesterday on the way home from Cabela's.

Later on Ellen wanted to go out to get a soap dispenser and some groceries. We also needed to go to the post office. Traffic was brutal. Everywhere we went there were long backups. I was so disgusted that I didn't even stop to run the dog. It was cold anyway.

When we got home we did nothing but veg out.

Day 66

We got up early (for us) and took the truck over to the dealer in San Marcos for an oil change. We had an appointment for 10:00. Even though we were there early, it to until 11:45 to complete. That may be because I had them do the recall work also. Because the recall removed the heated windshield washer, they gave us a check for $100. That just covered the cost of the oil change.

On the way home we stopped at the Hyundai dealership to look at the veloster. It's an OK car with some neat features, but I'm not sure I would buy one.

Because we were near there, we stopped at Cabela's. Ellen got a shirt and some Christmas cards. I got a LED work light from the bargain cave. Unfortunately when I got home it didn't work. I took it apart and found a loose wire. I soldered it on. Unfortunately when I put in batteries, the thing began to smoke. Crap.

After that the pinball machine broke while Ellen was playing it. I debugged it and fixed it (loose/missing screws). It actually works a little better now.

Day 65

I woke up today feeling ambitious. Unfortunately it was less than 50 degrees out, so I wasn't about to cut a hole in the roof.

Instead I went to the garage and finished painting the vent. The Slime seems to have fixed the mower tire, so I put away the compressor and the jack. I also cut down the hook I bought yesterday for the dryer. It works better now.

I was really bored, so we went out to buy a Christmas present for the dog. All the Christmas toys were half price, so we bought several. She'll be playing with them next July. Since it was Wednesday, we picked up a pizza to eat.

On the way home we stopped at the mini mart that they built last summer. It's actually a small (very small) grocery store. It even has a bakery and a hamburger stand. Unfortunately the bakery makes Mexican pastries. The prices are pretty good. I'm going to keep it in mind when we just need something quick.

Day 64

It was a cold morning, so I took the retiree's option to stay in the warm bed. When we did get up I did a couple of short chores (like vacuuming) and then wrote up a shopping list. We needed groceries and I wanted a couple of long sleeve shirts (all of mine are in Oregon). I also discovered when I was moving the subwoofer that its feet were sinking into the carpet I had it setting on. So I needed some casters to put under them.

we went to the post office, Kohl's, the yuppie grocery store, and Home Depot. Of course we also ran the dog. When we got back, there was a package waiting for us. That was a nice surprise.

I put the casters under the subwoofer (it sounds much better) and installed a hook for the hair dryer. That was pretty much the end of the day.

Day 63

It rained pretty hard for all of the morning. So we continued the Spartacus marathon. The rug rat got a chance to see the whole series except for one episode.

The trip to the airport was uneventful, and they got off even though there's a storm moving through to the north.

We stopped to buy some cat food on the way home. When we got home we just watched recorded movies and TV shows for the rest of the day.

I'm finally caught up on the entries. Yeah.

Day 62

It was another lousy weather day. It was cloudy, but not raining. It's Sunday, so we all spent some time with the paper. Then we decided to go to the movies and watch Sherlock Holmes. It was a fine movie. Maybe not quite as good as the first one, but pretty good anyway.

I gave my watch to the watch repair place to get the band shortened. It took about half an hour and $20. We walked around the mall while we waited. It was a mad house.

The whole day turned into a movie day. When we got home we watched the Italian Job on TV. I had to sit through the entire movie to see the car chase. After that we watched a blu-ray called Inception. The movie didn't make any sense at all, but the CGI was incredible.

The rug rat has become fond of Spartacus, so we spent the rest of the evening watching episodes that I've recorded.

Day 61

The weather is much improved. Sunny with some light clouds. The temperature got up into the mid 60's.

We started out by going shooting. The rug rat is pretty good. Ellen got him hitting targets well after two rounds of skeet. Then we took him on the corporate course. He hit at least 50%, and some of the targets were a little challenging. Lucy was disappointed. Because it was the weekend, we couldn't let her off lead.

After that we went to the gun show. Ellen and her sister sat in the car while I took the rug rat in. He was interested at first, but I think he was bored by the time we were finished. The problem was he didn't know what he was looking at. There were a couple of guns that I didn't recognize at all. There was even a Johnson rifle and two artillery Lugers for sale.

After that we went to Zilker park. Traffic was a mess. It too half an hour to get through Austin on I35. Then we couldn't take 360. It was backed up from the off ramp to loop 1. The Brodie exit was backed up onto 290 also. We finally ended up going to the post office and then getting on loop 1 from east bound 290.

Melissa enjoyed the park. We went to Barton Springs and then walked down the river to the lake. On the way back we walked through the dog park so that Lucy could have a run. After that we went home - the rug rat was tired.

Day 60

This is another late post.

The weather is still lousy. It's a little warmer, but still raining a little.

We went to San Marcos to the Aquarena. The glass bottom boats were as cool as usual, although the cloudy weather cut visibility some. Unfortunately they've torn down the rest of the place. The museum and aquarium are piles of rubble. You can't even go on the boardwalk. That was a disappointment.

The university was having their graduation, so it was hard to find a place to eat. We ended up at a sports bar. The food was pretty good, and they had Guinness on tap.

After that we just went home again because the weather was still lousy.

Day 59

This is being written on Sunday. I haven't been updating because of Ellen's sister being here.

We picked up her sister and the rug rat about noon. The cell phone parking lot at the airport is screwed up. You have to drive all the way through the airport to get to it. The real way to get to it is by entering the cargo entrance. Of course they don't have any signs to tell you that.

On the way home we stopped at HEB and told them to buy what they wanted to eat. It's not like we keep a lot here.

Then we went home an basically chilled. They were tired and it was cold and raining. Just like Oregon.

Day 58

We got a lot of presents today. Three boxes worth. We took the presents out of the boxes and put them under the tree. A Christmas tree should have presents under it.

I took the truck to north Austin to get the EGT probe replaced. One hour and $80 later it was done. It seems to work fine.

On the way home we stopped at this neat toy store. It had some really cool and unusual toys in it. Ellen wouldn't let me buy any for the nieces.

We didn't do anything else today except clean up the house and give the dog a bath in preparation for Ellen's sister coming in tomorrow.

Day 57

We cleaned up the apartment for the nephew today. We also rolled out the carpet that we bought in Spokane. I hung a picture that we got in Spokane on the living room wall.

It was warm (60's) so I put the slime in the tractor tire. We'll know in a few days if it worked.

That pretty much puts an end to the niggling little tasks that I had on my todo list.

I put a third coat of paint on the vent. It's going to need a fourth coat, but that may do it.

My new watch came today. It's very good looking. I'm not going to wear it for a few days until I know that it works.

We went out to get the mail, more for something to do than anything else. Other than that it was a pretty lazy day.

Day 56

We started out the day going to Home Depot (where else?). I picked up some paint for the vent, a u clamp for the cart, and a couple of hoses for the hose reels. We also stopped for a couple of things at HEB and to run the dog. The dog didn't seem to want to run much even though it was a cool day.

When we got home I put the hoses on the reels. I sure like that better than having them coiled on the ground. Then I went to the garage and painted the vent. I also installed the u clamp on the cart. It's now very sturdy.

The first coat of paint on the vent didn't cover well at all. So later on in the day I put on a second coat. That was much better, but I'll still need a third coat tomorrow.

Other than that it was mainly a day of reading magazines and surfing.

Day 55

I went out to the garage this morning to do a few small tasks. I vacuumed up some debris from earlier projects. Then I hung up the two shelve that I bought on Friday. I had to relocate the wire dispenser to do it.

I attached the reducer to the vent that I bought. I've decided to paint the vent white before I install it. I had to cut tabs in both ends of the reducer to make it fit. Apparently vent component manufacturers don't understand the concept of inside and outside diameters.

I also moved some stuff from the garage to the back shed. That cleared up some working area. Finally I spent a little bit of time cleaning up the living room in the apartment. It no longer looks like a dumping ground.

All that didn't take more than a couple of hours. I thought I might go get some stuff at Home Depot, but I just didn't want to fight traffic. So I'll go tomorrow. So the rest of the day was spent watching football.

Day 54

We didn't get out of bed until 11:30. Ellen was surfing, I was playing games, and the dog was sleeping between us.

We just spent the early afternoon surfing and reading the paper. We settled on a possible phone for Mom and went over to Best Buy to look at it. They didn't have exactly the same model, but they had a similar one. It looks like it will do the job. One interesting thing. The on-line price for the phone is $5 cheaper than they wanted in the store.

On the way back we stopped at Home Depot and Lowe's to get the rest of the parts for the vent. A guy told us that Lowe's won't allow dogs after the first of the year. I guess we'll be buying more stuff at Home Depot.

We ran the dog before we went home. She ran a long time, and now she's very tired. We just watched TV and surfed for the rest of the day.

Day 53

Another estate sale day. It started out bad. The first place was north of Bee Caves. When we got there, they decided to cancel it on Friday. We're not going back. The next two places were OK, but nothing special. We bought a couple of small items.

I decided to stop at the surplus place. They had two hose reels for me that I bought. I'll probably go back next week to see about measuring their power supply.

We stopped for lunch at a place called "Patsy's Place". I took a picture of the front to send to Patsy. The food was OK.

We went to a final place, but by then it was 2:00 and they were shut. What is it with these people?

On the way home we stopped to run the dog. She didn't go nearly as long as she did at Zilker.

Day 52

I decided that I was tired today, so we didn't go anywhere and didn't do much.

We were woken up by the sound of jackhammers in the back yard. It turns out that one of our neighbors in the back is putting in a new fence. Apparently it's going to be built right up against the existing one.

I took the opportunity to walk the entire perimeter of the property. The good news is that the fence is in good shape.

I did a couple of small jobs. I reinstalled the Edge. I called up a place that will install the new probe for $80. They will do it next Wednesday. I also tightened up some screws on the cart, which should take care of the weight carrying problem. Finally, I did some research on gifts for Mom. I think that we'll probably order something tomorrow.

Day 51

We went over to the club today to pick up the shipment and shoot a round. The temperature was in the 40's with no wind. It was perfectly comfortable.

The dog had a great time. There was no one else there, so she got to run around as much as she wanted. She was a tired doggy by the time we were finished. I'm going to have to beef up the new cart. It doesn't handle the weight well.

Before we left I had to inflate the tires on the truck. They were low to begin with and the cold weather took the pressures down into the 50's. While doing that, I tore my pants. So on the way home we stopped at Kohl's. I bought two pairs of off brand jeans for the price of one pair of Levi's.

When we got home a package containing my Edge was in the driveway. They totally redid it and sent me a new EGT probe. I'm going to have to find someone to put it in.

Day 50

I got a call in the morning that my watch was ready. So we drove over and picked it up. $160 is a lot to pay for replacing a watch battery.

Then we went over to Zilker park to run the dog. She only did a little bit of socializing, but she did a whole lot of retrieves. She just didn't want to stop. I think being cooped up for four days and a 40 degree temperature had something to do with it.

We finally went over to the mall and picked up my other watch. They said it would have to go to Citizen for repair. Crap. We walked all through the mall looking for presents. I got a couple of good ones for Tony - a keep Austin weird t-shirt and a box of "armadillo droppings" candy. We also got Ellen some tit holders.

After that I went and got a haircut. It's a little shorter than I might have wanted, but it's OK. It only cost $17.

Tonight I'm trying to buy a watch online. The connection is so crappy that it's almost impossible.

Day 49

Today was a day to tie up some loose ends. We wrapped up all of the presents that we bought and mailed them off. The only people left are Mom and Tony. I don't have a clue what to get either of them.

I also took out some stuff for the trailer and took some boxes up to the storage shed. After that I collected stuff for Goodwill. By the time I was finished the whole trunk was filled.

When we were out mailing and Goodwilling I decided to go to the mall. I looked at every jewelry store, but couldn't find a watch I liked. We ran across a watch repair place and they fixed Ellen's watchband. I left my watch with them because they said they could fix it by replacing the battery. We'll see.

It was cold (40's) all day today. We turned the furnace on for the first time since we got back. At least it worked, therefore avoiding yet another repair bill.

Day 48

Today sucked. We drove up to the club and they were closed. That was even though I called yesterday to see if we could pick up the shipment. That's $16 worth of fuel wasted.

Then we went to a "green" building supply store. It sucked. Only a limited supply of building supplies and a lot of crap.

The store was in a shopping center that we hadn't been in before. It had a yuppie HEB in it. We had fun going through it and bought a few things.

I had a Michael's coupon that wouldn't work before 4 (go figure). So we killed time at Best Buy and bought a moon pie baking sheet at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (w/a coupon).

We got to Michael's a little before 4. The coupon was for 20% off a sale item. The display case I wanted was 40% off yesterday. It wasn't on sale today. Shit.

Of course everywhere we went was packed. I like shopping on weekdays a lot better.

I guess it was good that it rained all day. It's supposed to continue to rain until tomorrow afternoon.

Day 47

We got up early (7:30) today because I wanted to see if I could buy some stuff that I saw yesterday at a bigger discount. Unfortunately it was sold when we got there. I drove down to the sale that was closed yesterday. It was a great sale, but I only bought a ruler and a couple of CD's.

After yesterday I didn't feel like doing anymore driving around so we went home. I just bummed around surfing and reading the paper. Ellen took her new mat cutter and made up another frame full of pictures. It looks really good. Now I have to figure out where to hang it.

We called the club. The shipment is in, so we'll go pick it up tomorrow. It rained most of the day today, so I hope that it's a little dryer tomorrow.

Day 46

All in all it was a pretty good day. It rained all day. It looked like Oregon, rainy and foggy. Only it was about 10 degrees warmer. It's supposed to do the same thing for the next couple of days. That's fine with us. I didn't think I'd ever say that.

We stopped at 4 estate sales and a surplus store. One of the sales was cancelled due to rain. It looks like it was just a garage sale anyway. The other closed for the day before 2:30. Assholes.

We scored things at the other two. We got a cool garden rabbit for Patty. It's very heavy. We also got a cow skull complete with horns. Both were good deals. At the other sale we got a couple of Star Trek Christmas ornaments. At the surplus store I got some laser levels for John and a nice pair of hedge clippers for myself. All of the things were at good prices.

On the way home we stopped at Tuesday Morning and Costco. We managed to find some nice presents for the nieces. Again, the prices were very good.

Day 45

I went up into the attic to see what I would need to finish venting the fan. There's only a couple of inches clearance between the top of the wall and the roof. There's no way to get a duct to the soffit. I'll have to go through the roof.

We went to Lowe's and Home Depot. Neither one had a roof vent that I could use. So for the time being it will vent into the attic.

Ellen's watch has worn out, so we bought her a new one. We got it on sale at Kohl's with an additional 20% off coupon.

My watch is dying too (we bought both at the same time). Unfortunately Citizen doesn't make one that I like anymore. I found an older one on the web, but it's really expensive.

Day 44

I spent at least 6 hours today installing the new oven vent. The new vent was kind of a pain to unpack and get set up. Removing the old one was easy. The real pain in the ass was cutting the two holes in the cabinet. I couldn't use the jigsaw to to the whole cut because there wasn't enough clearance. That meant that I had to cut about half of each hole by hand with the hacksaw blade holder. I used it to cut all of the hole in the ceiling. That wasn't as bad because it was just sheetrock.

At least the joist turned out not to be in the way.

Putting the new vent in was a pain. It was one of those jobs that required three hands. Ellen helped and I got it done.

After that I was tired, so the evening was just surfing and watching TV.