Day 88

We went to the post office just to have something to do.  We also went over to Home Depot so I could get a silver toilet handle.  That way it matches the new toilet seat.  Unlike the seat, the handle bolt was really corroded.  I got it off OK though.

The weather was good, so we decided to run the dog.  But first we went to the Italian restaurant by Tomlinson's.  There lunch special is a really good deal, and really good food.  The waiter we had knew what he was doing, unlike the one we had last time.

After lunch of course we had to stop at Tomlinson's so Lucy could get a treat.  She didn't get to eat it right away because we went over to Circle C.  We walked around to the creek so she could swim.  Of course she did retrieves all the way.

After we got to the creek several other dogs showed up.  One family had a lab on a check cord.  The lab retrieved sticks while Lucy did her bumper.  I wasn't paying attention and hooked the bumper in a tree.  Lucy almost went crazy watching the lab retrieve while I collected rocks so I could knock the bumper down.

After the sun went down the fireworks came out.  It has sounded like the fourth of July for hours.  We went out and shot off the stuff I bought the other day.  We did it at 9.  It was getting cold and we didn't feel like going out at midnight.  I had bought some 4 inch rockets that turned out to be really nice.  They went a long way into the air and then exploded in sparks with a really loud report.  W also had a couple of nice fountains.  It wasn't much, but it was just about right for our little celebration.

We normally stay up past midnight anyway (we live on Pacific time).  So ringing in the new year won't be hard, providing we pay attention to it at all.  It's going to be 2014.  I feel old.

Day 87

I was sick last night.  I spent part of the night on the can.  I also didn't get any real good rest.  At least that's the excuse I have for not getting out of bed until after noon.  I didn't feel all that good when I did.  I sure didn't want to eat.

Ellen needed to go to the grocery store.  I told her to go by herself, but take the dog and run her at Circle C.  So she did.

I started to waste time surfing and then decided that I really should do something.  There's been a partially completed train model on the kitchen counter since before we left last Spring.  So I got it out and started work on it.  I didn't work on it hard, but I did do it consistently.  I managed to get about half of what was left to do done.  It's not that easy to put together.  It looks pretty neat, though.

I feel better this evening.  I ate dinner - the first meal today.  Now it's time to watch football.

Day 86

It's Sunday, so reading the paper took up a large part of the morning.  It was warm, over 60.  So I was going to go over and walk around Circle C with the dog.  But first I decided to hang up the new lights.

Just getting the old lights down was a pain.  I had to move everything away from the wall so I could get the step stool in.  Then I had to pry off all of the staples holding up the lights.  Every one was dead, and they aren't replaceable.

Hanging up the new ones was a bit of a pain also.  I did decide to use new staples.  I think that was a good decision, it made things easier.  Of course then there was the cleanup, putting things back, and throwing away the garbage.

While I was hanging up the new lights I brushed one of the flamingos.  I just barely touched it, but it broke.  The Texas weather sure does a job on things left outside.

The whole job took longer than I thought and made me tired.  So I bagged Circle C and watched football instead.

One interesting thing.  There was a dead dove laying in the yard.  At first it looked like it was just sitting there.  When I picked it up you could see that it had been shot, either with a pellet gun or a single pellet.  It wasn't enough to kill it immediately.  It must have flown off after being shot and laid down in the grass where it died.

Day 85

A few days ago we got an end of year statement from the Aviva thing that Gerry sold us last fall.  It looks to me like it is a lousy deal.  I spent a lot of time this morning on an email to Travis asking that he explain it a little for me.  If it's as bad as I think I'll just cash it in.  It will be a large hit, but there's no use throwing good money after bad.  We'll see what he says.

The toilet seat in the master bath was in bad shape.  The covering had cracked and worn off in several places.  I decided that it annoyed me enough to replace it.  I measured the length, width, and end size of the current one.

So after picking up the mail we went over to Home Depot.  It turns out that there are only about three standard form factors for toilet seats.  It also turns out that they don't cost very much.  So we got a replacement for $20.

We stopped for a late lunch at Cheddar's.  I like that place.  On the way home we stopped at Circle C.  Lucy did another fine job of retrieving.  Then we went to Tomlinson's to get cat and dog food.  Lucy got some treats.

When we got home I put the new seat on.  It took surprisingly little effort.  The old one came off easily - I expected it to be rusted.  The new one fit perfectly.  It doesn't match exactly.  I think that's because the toilet is a little discolored from age and the seat is brand new.

After that I looked for something to watch on TV.  57 channels and nothing's on.  So we watched a Batman movie that I taped awhile back.  It was 2 hours and 45 minutes long.  It was pretty entertaining, but also pretty predictable.  Batman has angst, super criminal threatens Gotham, Batman snaps out of it and beats criminal after being beat up by him first, Batman returns to angst (or disappears). 

Day 84

We had another good day.  We spent most of the morning reading and surfing.  Ellen found out that a Bed, Bath, and Beyond on 183 had a towel warmer in stock.  The place was only a couple of blocks from the Domain, so we decided to leave the dog at home and go there, too.

Our first stop was a place off the freeway call Sam Moon's.  I've always wanted to stop there, but we never have.  The place was amazing.  It was the size of a grocery store and packed with cheap Chinese stuff, mainly for women.  It had belts, handbags, clothes, shoes, etc.  There wasn't anything we wanted though.

We stopped at Bed, Bath, and Beyond next.  That involved a whole bunch of circling around until we found the right street to get us on the frontage road.  We bought the warmer and a food slicer.  We used two 20% off coupons.

Then it was off to the Domain.  The parking lots were packed.  We did manage to park in the far parking structure.  That was OK, we needed to walk.  We walked the whole length of the place, at least half a mile each way.  It was 60, but seemed colder.  We were going into and out of stores, so it wasn't too bad.

The place is full of higher end stores and yuppies.  It was kind of weird.  Now that I'm 60, most of the people are significantly younger than me.  It doesn't make me feel old, but it does make me feel irrelevant.

It's funny.  We'd walk into these places like Neiman Marcus and look at the merchandise.  We could afford it, but it's just not stuff that we'd be comfortable with owning.  The same thing happened at several other stores.  We stopped at California kitchen for a really late lunch.  Most of the other places were too yuppie.  We did splurge on $5 cups of coffee.

When we got home the dog was ecstatic.  I immediately took her to the mailbox.  On the way to the gate she would stop every 50 feet, turn around, and bark at me to hurry up.  On the way back she ran ahead and stood at the get and barked to let her in so she could run to dinner.

I tried out the new warmer.  The switch feels a lot better than the old one.  It also warms towels a lot better.

Day 83

The dog had a good time today.  There's a 4" drain pipe buried along the foundation on one side of the house.  One end opens into a drainage basin alongside the front walk.  The whole thing is about 50 ' long.  The other opens into a basin by the deck.  A squirrel had run inside it.  We could hear it squeaking.  So could the dog.  She was running to each end of the pipe trying to get it to come out.

I decided to flush it out.  Literally.  I got a 5 gallon bucket and filled it with water.  I poured it in one end.  The squirrel didn't come out.  So I unrolled the garden hose.  It was kind of cold, under 50, so the hose was stiff.  I started pushing it down the pipe.  Eventually a very wet squirrel came out the other end.  Lucy chased it across the yard and up a tree.

That wasn't the end.  For the rest of the day Lucy continued to want to be left out so that she could investigate that pipe.

I confirmed last night that the towel warmer had gone tits up.  The switch wouldn't go on anymore.  We went to Barton Creek Mall today to see if they had any towel warmers.  The stupid website wouldn't say.  The mall was packed.  They didn't have one.

There was a package waiting for us at the gate, and we picked up the one at the post office.  We waited in line to pick it up.  Just as we were leaving they decided to open an express window for package pickup only.

The presents were several art things for Ellen and a pair of cool slippers for me.  They are leather with orthotic insoles.  They are really comfortable.

We also stopped at the hobby shop that we could never find.  It was in back of the building fronting the street.  That's why we couldn't find it.  It was a nice little place.  They had some N scale stuff and I bought a flat car with a cool load.  It was a disassembled heavy mining dump truck.

We didn't do anything else the rest of the day.  Ellen tried out a couple of her new presents.  She made pancakes on her new griddle and dog treats with the dehydrator.

Day 82

We had a quiet Christmas.  We stayed in bed late and invited the dog.  We petted the dog and surfed the web.

When we did get up it was garbage/recycle day.  There was also a bunch of stuff from the presents.  Ellen got some cool presents from his sister.  I got some cool books on tape from John and Patty.  We got a WiFi scale from Hooch and Martha.  Unfortunately we don't have WiFi.  Oh well.

They were having a Mel Brooks marathon on TV, so we listened to things like Young Frankenstein and The History of the World.  Ellen also watched a couple of chick flicks.

I put Mom's present on the Rock River.  Then I got on the web and ordered some accessories.  The site had 10% off and free shipping.  I got some good deals.

It's a good Christmas.

Day 81

It was a pretty good Christmas Eve.  We started out doing a little cleanup.  We cleaned up all of the papers that have accumulated on the table.  There was a pile of old junk mail.  We also started the wash.

Then I finally got around to sealing the area in the bathroom where the ants came in.  It only took five minute or so to do.  Then I took a bunch of stuff on the kitchen counter out to the garage.  I put it away and also cleaned up all of the stuff I left out from painting the pole.

Finally I went through the desk looking for business card holders.  I didn't find any, but I did take the opportunity to clean things up a little and organize some of it.  I didn't find any holders.

Getting holders provided an excuse to get out.  We stopped at the post office.  There was another package there, but they closed at noon.  Therefore we won't be able to pick it up until Thursday.

We stopped at Office Max, Target, and Wally World.  They didn't have holders.  Office Depot did.  There were not as many people around as I expected.  The traffic on Brodie going to William Cannon was backed up, but 290 was completely clear.  I drove from 1826 to William Cannon without even slowing down.  No one was waiting at William Cannon.

After getting the holder we had a late lunch at Happy Panda.  It was actually pretty good food.  The last stop was Circle C where Lucy did a whole bunch of long retrieves.  That pretty much took up the whole afternoon.

This evening I noticed that the washing machine had leaked a little water.  I checked the hose connections, that wasn't the problem.  It seems to be leaking from the bottom.  I am going to see what happens next time we use it.

Day 80

We spent the first part of the morning in bed with the dog.  The cats were not amused.

I didn't feel like doing anything today, so we spent the rest of the morning reading and surfing.  Hooch sent us an email saying that he'd found out that Oregon was holding about $100 of "unclaimed funds" for us.  So Ellen spent some time filling out the forms they require to get the money.

In the afternoon we went to the bank so that a notary public could watch her sign the papers.  We hadn't had lunch, so we asked the lady at the bank about the Mexican restaurant next door.  She said it was OK, but nothing special.

We picked up the mail and then went back to the restaurant to have a really late lunch.  The lady was right.  I don't think we'll go back.  The food wasn't bad, but there's better places around.

Ellen needed a couple of things at HEB, so we went there.  The parking lot, including the bank lot, was absolutely full.  People were parking along the side of the road behind the store.  Inside wasn't really too bad.  There were a lot of people, but you could get around all right.  The checkout didn't take too long.  I talked with the manager while I was waiting.  He said that every checker that worked at the store was there.  He told them that they'd be there for as long as necessary and that they could raid the cookies and candy if they wanted.  There was a large grocery cart full of candy and cookie packaging by the manager station.

We stopped at Circle C on the way home.  Lucy did another fine job.

Day 79

We went to the show today.  The panic is definitely over, but the effects linger.  There was plenty of AR's and ammo available.  The rifles had decent prices.  The ammo not so much.  22 was still fairly scarce and priced way too high.

I didn't see anything that I had to have.  One vendor had powder, but I forgot to write down what types I needed.  We went to lunch at the hamburger place.  We had a nice talk with the daughter of the owner.  She was covering because the owner just had neck surgery.

It was cold and windy when we left, so I didn't put the stuff in the car.  I wish we had.  By the time I got finished with the show it was a fairly nice day.

I had a problem with my phone.  It didn't charge last night.  I don't know why.  I plugged it into the car on the way over.  It said that it was charging, but after a 45 min drive, it hadn't charged at all. When I got home I plugged it in again.  This time it's charging, but really slowly.

We didn't want to go home after the show, so I drove up to Fry's.  We didn't need anything, I just wanted to go some place.  There were a fair number of people there, but it wasn't really overcrowded.  We looked around, but only bought a package to Hot Wheel cars for Hooch.  I'll save them for his birthday.  I did see a demo of the PS4.  The graphics are fantastic.  I would have bought one, except that all they had were Xboxes.

On the way home we stopped at Rudy's.  Dola had some at her party and we were Jonesing for more.  As we drove by the mall we could see that it was packed.  We also stopped at Circle C.  Lucy started out slow, but she did a great job on retrieves.  That earned her a stop at Tomlinson's.  We also stopped at HEB to pick up some food for Christmas dinner.

All in all I thought that it was a pretty good day.

Day 78

We went over to Dola's for her party.  I had a good time.  I talked to a long time to a guy who wanted to hear my life story.  He seemed to find it interesting.  I don't understand why.

Dola's husband likes to go estate saling.  He'd like to go with us.  I told him I would the next time we go. 

We talked to a few more people about things like starting and running a business.  We also talked to a guy who liked fishing and hunting.  Ellen talked to this lady that she said was a conservative as me.

The party lasted until about 6.  After that we went home and watched TV.

Day 77

Absolutely nothing happened today.  There weren't any estate sales, so there was nowhere for us to go.  The dog was getting greasy, so we took the opportunity to hold a spa day for her.  Her nails were really long, so it took quite a while to first clip them and then grind them.  After that it was a wash and cream rinse.  The result is a soft, fluffy, good smelling dog.  Of course she got some treats afterwards.  She was really looking forward to them.

I didn't feel like driving just to the post office, so we just sat around for the rest of the day.  We spent the time surfing and watching reruns of Pawn Stars.  Some of it was kind of entertaining.

I was going to go to the show tomorrow, but it conflicts with Dola's party.  So we'll have to go on Sunday.

Day 76

I really didn't have anything to do today.  So we spent the morning reading and surfing.  After lunch we went to the post office and the yuppie grocery store.  We were really just generating some excuse to get out of the house.

On the way back we stopped at Circle C.  The dog did a great job of retrieving. 

That was about it.  We spent the rest of the afternoon surfing.  I took a nap.

Day 75

We got up this morning to go sort out the car license.  I originally thought we would have to go to San Marcos so we left the dog at home.  I started out going there.  While we were driving Ellen found out that there was a place in Dripping Springs that might do it.  So we took a chance and went there.  They could fix it and did.  At the same time we got the new license sticker.

After that we went to Tractor Supply.  Ellen got some bird seed and I looked at all of the sale items.  There was nothing I needed.  They had some really cool 5 foot lighted windmills.  Unfortunately they were solar powered.  Otherwise I would have bought one.

There's a store in Dripping Springs that I've always wanted to stop at.  It's got 14,000 sq feet of stuff.  There's furniture, toys, fabrics. and misc.  So I stopped there.  We had fun looking at everything.   Ellen bought a metal model of the Millennium Falcon to use a a Christmas ornament.  I bought this cool Star Wars Lego thing.

As we drove back we stopped at the new pet store.  It's really well stocked.  We didn't really need anything, so I just bought a treat for Lucy.

I stopped at Home Depot to get a swivel for the dog seat belt.  We also stopped at HEB.  It was really nice to have them bag things up.

We stopped at Trudy's on the way home.  It was 1:30 and they didn't open until 2.  Oh well.  We went home and ate sandwiches.

A note about the light pole.  Today was sunny and warm.  We finished painting late yesterday.  So today was my first chance to see the pole in all its glory.  It's cool.  It may be a little much, but so what?

When we got home we spent the afternoon building.  Ellen did metal and I did Lego.  It was fun.

In the evening I watched North Carolina play Texas.  They lost.

Day 74

IT'S DONE.  I finished up painting the light pole today.  It was a pain in the ass, just like I thought it would be.  I started out about 10 grinding away the paint and rust.  Because I was using an extension ladder I had to position it, work on the pole, then reposition the ladder and finish the work.  I'm also getting a little to old to horse a ladder like that around.  I won't be able to do that next time it's needed.

I painted the thing after I ground it and then waited for the paint to dry.  It was supposed to take 10 minutes, I gave it an hour.  Then I gave it the second coat.  While it was drying we went to the post office.  We also picked up the business cards.  We stopped at Fireman's for lunch.  As we were leaving the manager walked by on the sidewalk.  She offered to give us coupons, so we went back inside and got some.

We stopped by the pet store next door for a dog treat.  We didn't give it to her because the next stop was Circle C.  It was over 70, but Lucy still did a whole lot of retrieves.  I was tired from horsing the ladder, grinding, and painting, so I didn't want to walk around. 

When we got home I moved the ladder and painted the spots I couldn't reach before.  About an hour later I did the second coat.  I didn't take the ladder down until the light went on in the evening.  I wanted to make sure I hadn't screwed it up.

When we got back, there were two large boxes in the driveway.  Ellen's sister had bought her a whole bunch of Christmas presents.  There's now quite a few under the tree.

Day 73

We spent Sunday morning the way we usually do - reading the paper and surfing.  After that was done, I felt like I needed to do something useful.  It was warm (lower 60's), so I went out and removed the old paint and rust from some more of the light pole.  I did as much as I could using the step ladder - about 6 feet.

I used the electric drill and the buffer that I had bought by mistake.  It worked pretty good, except that the drill didn't really spin fast enough.  On the plus side the buffer didn't wear much.  One of the grinder buffers would have been just about worn out.

Of course after that I painted the pole.  It looks a lot better with that much more painted.  It's supposed to be warm tomorrow, so I'll be able to put on the second coat.  I've got an idea for bungee cording the extension ladder to the pole.  Hopefully that will let me do the rest without killing myself.

After that I went inside and watched football.  The Cowboys blew a 23-3 halftime lead against the Packers.  I was happy.  Ellen used the new pizza cooker in the Traeger.  It worked pretty well.  At least the thing wasn't burnt to a crisp.

Day 72

We got up again today at 8 (2 days in a row!).  We went over to Cabela's.  There were a lot of people there.  Forget Black Friday.  The whole store was full of sale items. They were real sales, too.

We kind of went overboard.  We bought $300 worth of stuff, most of it on sale.  The discounts on the items totaled $170.  I got a couple of sights and a scale.  Ellen got some barbeque tools, pellets, and a decorated sweatshirt.  They had fleece shirts for $20, so I bought one for me and one for three dollar bill.

Apparently we got lucky.  I took a wrong turn when we were driving over there and went through Kyle instead of Buda.  The clerk at Cabela's told us that traffic in Buda was horrible because they were having a festival.  I'm glad we didn't have to deal with it.

After Cabela's we went to Steak and Shake for lunch (of course I had coupons).  Then we went across the parking lot to Petco so Lucy could get a treat.  She also got a new toy, they were half price.  We also bought her a new dog bed that was on sale.  She likes it.  She got in to it as soon as we put it on the couch at home.

Ellen wanted to stop at JoAnn's, so she went in and I stayed in the car and surfed.  After that we went home with a stop at Circle C for Lucy to do some retrieves.  She did a good job. 

When we got home I surfed and watched a movie until it was time to take Lucy to the mailbox.  I was logged on to ESPN, so I could watch the status updates for the last bit of the UNC/Kentucky game.  They won.

Day 71

We got up early (8) today.  I wanted to go to a couple of estate sales.  The first one was a bust.  They weren't open.  I could be that they decided not to since it was raining.  The second place didn't have anything that we were really interested in.  The stuff was old and pretty high priced.  I did pick up an old, heavy, fence for my table saw.   They just don't make them like that anymore.

The second place was up on Parmer close to Fry's.  We scored there.  I got a Lee reloader for $15.  It's not really heavy duty, but it's a great price.  I also got a really nice Craftsman socket handle and a neat old wire stripper.  Ellen found a neat lighthouse coffee cup for Pat.

After the sale we went to the half price book place.  I got a book on tape and a blu-ray.  Then we went to Fry's.  We ate lunch at the cafe and spent time looking around.  We ended up only buying a cable and a cover for Ellen's Tab.

The drive home sucked.  The traffic was stop and go from just past Braker until south of 360.  I think it took about 45 minutes to make the trip.

When we got home I took a nap.  Ellen fixed the ham we bought for dinner.  It was really good.  It's also big.  We're going to have ham to eat for quite awhile.

Day 70

Ellen and I considered this another successful day.  We got up a little earlier today, but we still had the dog in the bed for awhile before we did.

We whiled away the morning mainly reading and surfing.  We did get all the paperwork together to get the PEC AC rebate.  Unfortunately the AC we bought doesn't qualify for the federal rebate.

We went to get the mail after lunch.  The flashlight I ordered was there (it's really bright).  So was the check from the AC place.  After the post office we went to the yuppie HEB.  As we drove in the parking lot, Lucy jumped up and acted excited.  We were driving by a doggy bakery.  Of course we stopped and took her in.  She got a couple of cookies.

Then we went to the toy/camping store next to the grocery.  We bought a book and a notepad for Elllen.  Then we bought a few things at the grocery.  One was a box of cornbread mix.

On the way home we stopped at the bank to deposit the check and Circle C to run the dog.  She did a whole bunch of retrieves.  I was happy as it's been awhile since she's done that.  Also there's no sign of a sore leg.

When we got back Ellen fixed the cornbread.  It was really good.  I'm hoping it's one of the things that they sell in the normal HEB.

Day 69

We are really beginning to sleep in.  We let the dog on the bed in the morning and didn't get out of it until 11.  After breakfast (or early lunch) we went over to the post office.

After that we went to Office Max to order business cards.  They cost $20 for 50, but I want something that looks professional.

On the way home we stopped at Circle C.  We walked around a little while Lucy ran.  Then I did a few retrieves.  Her leg seemed to be working fine.  The weather was much better, 60 degrees and sunny.

We went home after stops at HEB and Tomlinson's.

We had bought a pizza at HEB to put on the Traeger.  Apparently the little one doesn't do pizza like the big one does.  The bottom of the pizza was burnt black.  It was like eating a charcoal briquet.  I ate one piece and then told Ellen to throw the rest away.

Day 68

Another day when it was cold, so we spent part of the morning surfing in bed.  When we got up we didn't feel like doing anything.  So we did the wash, read and surfed.

It was sunny, so after lunch I went over to the propane place and filled up the tank.  It was at a fairly reasonable cost.  The guy there that they have been using about a truckload a day.  He said that they got a delivery this morning and he was already down to 12%.

When I got back I did a little work in the garage, but it was a little cold.  So more reading and surfing for the rest of the day.

Day 67

We didn't get up until 10 today.  That meant that we didn't get going anywhere until about 11.  We went over and mailed the last of the Christmas presents.  Then we went to Best Buy so I could show Ellen a computer I really liked.  They still had it, but it was more expensive than it was after Thanksgiving.

We stopped by the phone department to see about upgrading the tablet.  The people there obviously didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground.  So we went to the Verizon store.  There wasn't a good upgrade path, but we did change the plan so that we got more bandwidth for the same money.  We also got a smoking deal on a Tab 2.  It isn't exactly what Ellen wanted, but it's really nice to for the money.

This whole thing took hours.  It was 3 before we were finished.  We went next door to BJ's and ate off their happy hour menu.  It was pretty good, and not very expensive.

Then it was home for surfing and watching TV.  The Cowboys got crushed (yeah).  Just before bedtime Lucy got up.  She's really favoring her back left leg.  We can't see anything wrong and she didn't run today (it was 40 degrees and raining).  We'll have to see what she's like tomorrow.

Day 66

It was significantly warmer today.  It was all the way up to 50 or so.  I turned off the heater in the well house, but I left it there in case it gets cold again.

We spent a lot of the morning in bed with the dog surfing.  After a really late breakfast we went to Costco.  I needed some more pills.  The place was pretty busy.  We had parking Karma though and parked close to the entrance.

After that we went over to Circle C.  We walked over to the creek and Lucy did some swimming.  The water was really cold, but she wanted to do it.  I stopped the proceedings when it looked like she was getting too cold.

While we were there we saw that some asshole had done donuts on ALL of the fields.  Every one of them is messed up.  Of course they will never find him.

After we got home I watched the Seahawks lose to the 49'rs.  Crap.

Day 65

It was cold today.  It was 26 when I got up, and it didn't get above 35 all day.  It's been below freezing since about 6.  It occurred to me that I might want to put some heat in the well house.  So I put one of the little heaters in there.

The good news is that the redone heating/cooling system seems to be working much better in keeping the place warm.  We did have to turn the temp up from 68 to 70.  That did the trick.  It's really comfortable in here, much more than before the upgrade.

I went to check on the trailer this morning.  It hasn't been plugged in, so all of the heat was from the heater.  Of course the tank was empty and the place was cold.  I switched tanks, plugged in the electric, and set up the electric heater.  That should take care of it.  Of course the propane place isn't open on the weekend, so I'll have to wait until Monday to fill the empty tank.

We went to Cabela's to get gift cards for John and Dan.  I bought a couple of other small things, but mainly we just walked around and looked at stuff.

We stopped at Logan's Roadhouse for a late lunch.  It's good food, but unfortunately most of the menu is either burgers or dinner items.  We shared a couple of appetizers.

After that we just went home.  I started to watch the Texas game that was on.  I fell asleep before the half and didn't wake up until the game was ending.  I didn't eat dinner until 8.

I suspect that we'll be mainly staying inside at home until the weather warms up.

Day 64

We went off to do some errands today.  We got some of them done, but a couple are still left to do.

The weather is damn cold.  There was some freezing rain last night and there was ice covering the vehicles this morning.

I called the AC place today.  They are going to refund us $275.  That's cool.  We should get a couple of hundred from the electric company also.  The heating sure seems to work better.

When I got home I decided to try to remove the second choke.  Even with heat it wouldn't loosen.  I have two more of that size, so I took a wrench to it in earnest.  I finally got it to turn, but I bent it a little in the process.  Oh well.

I put new ones in, coating the outside with anti-rust.  I hope that works.  I did the same thing with the other chokes. 

Ellen used the Traeger to cook some pork chops for dinner.  They were good.

Day 63

We spent the whole day at home due to the AC install.  We got up at 7:30 because I thought the lady had said that they would come by a little after 9.  They didn't show up until a little after noon.

It took them until almost 6 to do the install.  The outside unit has the same rating, but is about twice the physical size.  Apparently that is how they get the better efficiency.The inside part of the unit is much better than what was there (surprise, surprise).  The old one was almost rusted through, which would have caused water damage.  The intercooler inside the duct was crusted with mold.  The whole thing looked like crap.

They also put in the air return.  I don't know if that caused the improvement or the new blower, but the new system sure blows a lot more air through the ducts.  It keeps the place nicely warm.

A cold front hit today, it's in the mid thirties.  Apparently a hot day is needed to fill the AC completely.  We'll have to wait until spring for that.

We did get a couple of things accomplished. We got all of the Christmas presents wrapped up.  We can mail off John and Patty's, but we need to get a couple of gift cards for the others.  We also got the Christmas tree and the outside lights put up.  I sure do like that tree.

Day 62

This was a pretty good day.  We went over to the club.  The master course wasn't open, but the main course was.  It had some good targets, but unfortunately several of the machines weren't working.  We still had fun.  So did the dog.  She went non-linear at first, so we tied her up.  After a few stations we let her go and she acted a lot better.  After we were through I threw a whole lot of retrieves for her.

We went to lunch at the barbeque place.  It was good as usual.  Lucy got a few scraps, so that made her happy.

I didn't want to go home, so we went over to McBride's.  The GPS took us through a part of town we hadn't been to before.  It was exactly what I wanted to do.  We're going to have to go to the campus some day and walk around.  We'll have to be sans-a-dog though.

I didn't see anything there that I couldn't live without.  They have a coin dealing section where we bought some quarters for our collection.

The Mopac was jammed because of an accident, so we drove in on Lamar.  It was jammed up on the other side of the river, so we went to Zilker.  Most of it is closed because of the light show.  A lot of the rest is posted with signs that say stay off so the grass can grow.  We let the dog out and she ran and socialized a little.

On the way home we stopped at HEB and got bacon wrapped scallops and pineapple upside down cake (both on sale) for dinner.  When we got home Ellen cooked the scallops on the Treager.  They were really good.

I went out and tried to get the chokes out of the barrel.  The LM came out without damage.  The IC is still stuck.  I have two extras, so I'm going to try to take it out, destroying it if necessary.

Time for cake for me and a Kong for the dog.

Day 61

I did the wash and cleaned up the kitchen and bathroom this morning.  I had to go to pick up Ellen a little after noon.  That meant that I didn't have much time to do anything else.  So I just sat on the deck and read.

After I picked up Ellen we went to lunch and the post office.  It was 85 when we got home.  I decided it was too hot to do anything, so I stayed inside and surfed.

When it cooled of I went out on the deck and took apart the old barbeque that the previous owners had left.  It was just too rusty to even take to Goodwill.  I thought it would be hard to disassemble, but it wasn't.  There was so much grease on all of the bolts that they came off easily.  I did get really dirty hands taking it apart though.

All the pieces went into the garbage can.  It's garbage day tomorrow.

Day 60

Wow.  Two months since we left.

I put the second coat on the post and pole that I painted the other day.  I took the step ladder out to do more, but it's a little unstable on the uneven ground.  I'm going to wait until Ellen is back to hold it.

I was getting really saggy, so I went and got a haircut.  I stopped by Best Buy afterwards.  They have a really neat laptop that turns into a tablet.  I'm thinking of getting one, but I don't really need it.

I stopped by Bed, Bath, and Beyond with a coupon.  They had a really cool coffee cup holder that was much better than the one at Ruby Tuesday's.  With the coupon it was only $2 more.  I bought it.

On the way home I stopped at Circle C for the dog.  She refused to do more than 2 retrieves.  I was pissed.  It was near 85 degrees, but that's no excuse.

When I got home I went out on the deck in the warm and read.  This is how December weather should be.

Day 59

I stayed up late last night and got up late this morning.  There were quite a few ads in the paper, but only one thing of interest.  It was a present for John and Patty at Ruby Tuesday.  I went over there about noon.  The traffic on 290 and 71 was crap.  When I finally got there, they said that they had sold out of it early that morning.  Go figure.

After picking up the mail I stopped at Target on the way to Home Depot.  They had a similar product to the Ruby Tuesday one, so I'll be able to get one if I want.  I got paint and a new paint removal wheel.  Lucy scored a treat from a clerk and some heavy petting from another.

Then I took Lucy to Circle C.  We walked all around the park.  I just let Lucy run.  There weren't any soccer rugrats.  The damage on the west side is just as bad as on the east side.  The fence across the creek is history.

Because of the high water we crossed the creek using the Escarpment bridge.  It's amazing.  The water was at least 15 feet high there.  It left rocks up on a ledge on the bridge. 

I stopped at HEB before I went home to pick up a few things.

When I got home I didn't do a second coat on the stuff I painted yesterday because the forecast called for thunder storms (they didn't happen).  Instead I figured it was warm enough to season the Traeger.  That took an hour and a half of screwing around, turning it on and off as directed.  It's now ready to go.

The late afternoon and evening is football.

Day 58

So I got semi-ambitious today. 

The first task was to figure out what had gone wrong with the rear channel amplifier.  Yesterday evening it had go into protect mode.  I unplugged the power strip it was connected to, but that didn't do any good.  It was bed time, so I left it for this morning.  I pulled the amp out of the rack and looked at the back.  I didn't see anything wrong, so I pulled the power cord out.  When I plugged it back in, it worked.  I like easy fixes.

I took the barrel out and started it soaking in Kroil.  I'll leave it there for 5 days.  Then I decided to put out those solar lights that we have so many of.  I put three by the end of the sidewalk.  I put two fireflies by the flamingos in the back.  I put the flamingo in the middle of the sawed off trees in the back.  Finally I put two color change spheres by the windmills in the back.

When it got dark, one of the fireflies and one of the color change spheres didn't work.  The sphere didn't have a block in the battery, so it might be dead.  That would piss me off, it was expensive.

Lucy went out just before dark when the new lights were on.  She was barking at one of them, I'm not sure which.

After I finished the lights I decided to try the new abrasive wheel on the last of the driveway posts.  It worked really well.  It worked so well that after I was finished with the post I started on the light pole.  I went up as far as I could comfortably reach.  By that time I was tired and I'd worn out the wheel.

Of course I painted everything then.  It took a whole can of paint to do the pole and post.  It will actually take more, since I need to put on a second coat.  I'll need to buy at least two more cans of paint and another wheel.

Doing the rest of the light pole is going to be a pain.  I'll have to have Ellen help by holding the ladder when I try to do the top of the pole.

By the time I was finished with all of that I felt I'd done all that I needed to today.  So I went into the house and watched movies and surfed for the rest of the day.  I didn't seem worthwhile to go anywhere.

Day 57

Welcome to Black Friday.  I celebrated it by painting another of the driveway posts.  I have one more to go and then the light pole.  Grinding those things is such a pain in the ass that I only want to do one per day.

After painting the pole I took the dog to Circle C.  My toe is feeling a lot better so we walked over to the creek and I let her swim.  Of course several people showed up and watched her.  There was one beagle that I tried to get to swim, but I think the water was too cold.  By the time we got back my toe was giving me twinges.  I think that was right on the edge of overdoing it.

I went to lunch at Fireman's.  When i was finished I took the dog to the pet store so she could get a treat.  She earned it as she worked really hard when we were at Circle C.

After the pet store I stopped at Costco to see if they had any more cider.  They didn't.  It was surprising.  There weren't any more people there than on a normal weekday.  They weather was nice, so I walked over to Whole Paycheck.  I bought a loaf of bread (it was on sale) and a yuppie frozen dinner (Pad Thai).  Then it was home.

I watched football in the afternoon.  WSU lost of course.  The rest of the time was reading and surfing.

Day 56

So today is Thanksgiving.  Lucy, the cats, and I spent a quiet day.  They slept.  I read the Black Friday ads, surfed, and watched movies and football.  The cats didn't eat their breakfast, so they didn't get anything special.  Lucy got a couple of extra treats during the day.  I had soup for lunch and a turkey frozen dinner for dinner.

It's getting warmer.  It was up to about 65 in the afternoon.  It's down to 37 at 10 pm.  My foot feels a little better.  I might try to walk with Lucy tomorrow.

Day 55

I spent the morning cleaning the house.  I vacuumed the whole place, including the floor boards.  After that I felt I'd done all the work that was necessary for the day.  So I just surfed until after lunch.  I found a website that had every black Friday ad known to man.  So I went through a whole lot of them.  I didn't really find anything that I thought was worth fighting the crowds for.

In the early afternoon i went to pick up the mail.  Then I took the dog to Circle C.  She pissed me off.  She only did two half hearted retrieves before she refused to bring the bumper back.  I put her back in the car and we went home.

I would have liked to go for a walk because it was in the 50's.  The problem is that I cut my toe a few day ago when cutting a toe nail.  It hurts to walk, or even wear a shoe.

When I got home I finished some work in the garage.  Then I just watched movies and surfed the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Day 54

We got up at 6:10 today to get Ellen to the airport.  I was leaving the airport at 7:05.  That's not bad timing.  Of course if we had left half an hour later we might not have made it.  There wasn't any traffic at the airport.  I guess their aren't too many flights that early.

I stopped at a donut shop on the way home for breakfast.  Lucy got part of one.  Then I went home to do a little stuff.  It took three trips to take the garbage and recycling to the cans.  Then I took the two big boxes to the far building.  There were at least 5 deer in the yard.  One was the four point buck and another was a spike.

Then I tried to work in the garage.  It was too cold.  So I swept the front walk and left it at that.

After lunch I left to pick up the mail and stop at Academy.  The I went to lunch at MickeyD's.  I stopped at Ruby Tuesday's and got Lucy a new toy.  It has three squeakers in it, so it should take her some time to tear up. 

On the way home I stopped at Circle C so Lucy could do some retrieves.  She didn't really want to do any, she wanted to go swimming instead.  After three or four lousy retrieves I told her to get in the car.  She didn't want to go, so I threw it again.  Apparently she figured out that she wasn't going swimming, so she started retrieving. 

By the time we went home the temp was 53.  It should be nice tomorrow.

Day 53

After three days in the house it was time to go do some errands.  We went to the post office, pet store, Costco, and HEB.  Costco and HEB were packed.  I'm not used to that during the week.  By the time we were finished I was glad to get home.

That's all we did, but it took several hours.  When we got home I found out that DirecTV is giving us HBO for the next five days.  So I went through and set up recording a whole bunch of movies.  Then I watched a couple before the football game.

Ellen is leaving for her sister's tomorrow.  I can't say I'm thrilled.

Day 52

So little happened that I forgot to do and entry.  It's cold (below 40), windy and raining.  The most strenuous thing I did today was go get the paper.  The rest of the day was spent reading, surfing, and watching football.

The dog is going crazy.  She really wants to do something, but she doesn't want to go out in the cold and rain.

Day 51

We had resigned ourselves to waiting all day for the Traeger to show up.  So It was surfing and reading until it showed up around 1.  It came in two boxes, weighing a total of 140 lbs.

It took awhile to get everything out of the boxes.  I had to cut one of the boxes apart to get the stuff out.  Then it was just a case of putting it all together.  There were a couple of pain in the ass steps, but nothing really bad.  Fletcher managed to disappear one of the rubber feet for a leg.  That pissed me off.

The instructions call for quite an involved burn in process.  I think we should wait until it's warmer to do it.

It was 4 before I was done.  I decided to reward myself with some eggnog.  That put me to sleep, and when I woke up it was dinner time.  Now it's football.

Day 50

Today's weather really sucked.  I don't think it got above 40 all day.  It was windy all day and at times it rained really hard.  I just didn't feel like going estate sailing.  This week's sales weren't that attractive anyway.

So we decided to act like all good Texans and stay home because of the weather.  I read and surfed.  Ellen sewed and surfed.

I did get a couple of things accomplished.  I finally got around to putting away all of the clothes that we had brought down.  As part of that I packed away some other clothes and set aside some for Goodwill.  I also cleaned the barrel I got yesterday and put it away.

It was really too cold to work in the garage.  Hey, I wonder if the cold weather will kill off the mosquitoes?

One thing I should mention.  The board meeting was still going on when I wrote up yesterday's entry.  After it was over Ellen told me that Ted isn't going to run for reelection.  That's half the battle.

Day 49

I woke up this morning with big intentions to get something accomplished.  I ended up doing not so much.  In the morning I decided to fill out the wish list that Hooch wanted.  I had been putting it off.  However, today I got in to surfing for items and spent hours on it.

After a late lunch we went over to pick up the mail.  The packages I was waiting for were there.  Then we went to Circle C to run the dog.  She had been trying to get us to go somewhere all day.  We went the other way around the park.  The path on that side is heavily damaged.  You could see that in places it was at least 4 feet underwater.

When we got to the creek it was still dammed up.  I wonder when they are going to clear out the culverts.  Lucy had a good time swimming.  It was almost 80, so she was hot and thirsty by the time we got there.

I could have done some stuff when we got back, but I didn't feel like it.  So I didn't.  Instead I surfed and watched TV.  Maybe there's a pattern here.

Day 48

We went to Barton Creek Mall today.  We spent most of the day there walking around and looking at stuff.  The place was dead, very few people.  That was good for shopping, but bad for the economy.

We picked up some Christmas presents for John and Patty and Ellen's sister.  We also brought a small Traeger from a kiosk.  It was more expensive than Cabela's, but it came with a lot of extras.  They said we should get it within about a week.

There isn't a lot more to say.  I mean shopping isn't something that's really exciting.

We got home about 5:00.  So except for taking the dog to the mailbox nothing else happened.

Day 47

I decided to do a few small things today.  I finished painting the second post and put up the railroad sign.  I put it next to the apartment door because that way I can see it every time I leave the house.

I also resized all of the brass.

A guy came by to give us an estimate on a new AC.  He's also going to quote a heat pump.  We should get a quote tomorrow.  He seems very knowledgeable and straightforward.  If the quote's reasonable I probably won't bother with anyone else.

"We went off to get the mail just because I wanted something to do.  On the way back we stopped at Best Buy and got the Avengers.  We also got some stuff at Steck's.  The final stop was the pet store by Fireman's Subs.  They didn't have the pad stuff we were looking for, but Lucy got a treat.

When we got home I finished with the brass and then just surfed.  In the evening we watched the Avengers.  It's a good movie, much better than that Thor movie we saw awhile back.

Day 46

The morning was spent surfing and reading the paper.  That may not be interesting, but it is relaxing.

A little before noon I decided I should get something accomplished.  So I went out to the garage and started up the brass cleaner.  After that was started I went out and ground the rust off another driveway post.  I wore ear protectors, which made the job somewhat nicer.  Then I taped it and painted it.  The new paint works much better than the old stuff.

After that I went in for a late lunch.  I called someone about replacing the AC.  Ellen said we needed to got to the post office, so we did.  She mailed some letters and a package of Christmas presents.  On the way home we stopped for some groceries and to run the dog.  She had been getting really antsy and did a good job running.

When we got home I emptied the cleaner.  The mosquitoes were out and ate me alive.

Day 45

We got up late today and spent the morning reading the Sunday paper and watching football.  The new housing development at the curve on 45 was hosting an open house.  They had food and music.  I had cabin fever so we went.

It was actually very nice.  The model house was cool, and we were able to go through it without being hassled by salesmen.  We took Lucy and one of the realtors took care of her while we were in the house.  When we got out the realtor was all gushing about how well behaved Lucy was.  I guess she hadn't had much experience with well trained dogs.

We had a nice lunch - hotdog, pulled pork, kettle chips, lemonade and ice cream.  It was all really good.  The only downside was that it was hot - 90 degrees.  I really didn't feel like doing anything in the heat, so we just went home to watch more football.

All in all I think it was a pretty good Sunday.

Day 44

Today we went to New Braunfels for the train show.  I had a good time, Ellen was bored.  It was hot, so we didn't take the dog.  There wasn't a whole lot of n-scale stuff.  Some people had pretty good prices and others were smoking dope.  I only bought one car and a couple of tools.

There was a really cool Lego setup.  They even had a Shay.  One guy had built a really accurate WhataBurger.

After that we stopped at a fish place we liked and had lunch.  The food there is really good, just like we remembered.

I gassed up in New Braunfels.  I got 38 mpg driving 30 miles back up to Buda.  I didn't go less than 70 the whole way.  Some times I was near 80.  I'd thought that the new car got less gass mileage than the old, but that's not true - at least for highway.

We stopped in at Cabela's.  We looked at a lot of stuff, but all I bought was a couple of boxes of bullets for reloading.

After we got home I took the dog up to the mailbox.  She deserved it after being locked up all day.

Day 43

I went estate sailing today while Ellen went with a neighbor woman to the F1 thing downtown.

I only stopped at two places.  They were both busts.  Everything was old and in a lot of cases overpriced.  There were two other sales, but they were at Far West and Steck and I didn't feel like driving that far.

I did stop at Harbor Freight and got some wheels for stripping the paint off the poles.  I also stopped at Home Depot and got some spray paint for the poles and some sealant.  I'll use the sealant to keep the ants out of the bathroom.  The paint is both a primer and paint together so maybe it will work better than the stuff we used yesterday.  It's also a lot cheaper.

I had lunch at Golden Corral.  I'm old enough to get a discount there now.

The last stop was Circle C.  I walked over to the creek so Lucy could swim.  She did a whole lot of work.  I'm not sure she was tired out when we got back to the car.

When I got home I got out the blower and blew the leaves off of the deck.  They were really deep in the corner.  It was really wet under them, which wasn't doing the deck any good at all.  The blower is another thing that Lucy doesn't like at all.

After that I read the paper out on the deck.  It was a really nice, 80 degree afternoon with almost no wind.

Ellen brought home some Baklava from the F1 thing.  It was really good.  Good enough to qualify as the real thing.  It was from a roach coach.

Day 42

I finally faced up to it and fixed the trim on the trailer that Ellen had ripped up.  It was a pain in the ass to remove the two screws, just like I thought it would be.  I did get them out and the result isn't perfect, but it does look a lot better.

After that I decided to try repainting one of the posts in the driveway.  The thing I bought for the drill would work, but it would have taken a lot of battery recharges.  I noticed that I had acquired an angle grinder at some point.  It worked really well.  Unfortunately the paint acts like it really need a primer.  I'll have to get some before doing the next post.

We needed to go to the grocery store.  So we went there and the post office.  First we took the dog to Circle C and threw the bumper.  She had a whole lot of energy.

When we got home I sat down to watch TV.  The chair put me to sleep instead.

Just before dinner Ellen called me into the bathroom.  There were a bunch of really small ants crawling up the frame of her closet door.  I think their what people call crazy ants.  We mopped them all up.  They appeared to be coming from the molding at the bottom of the door.  So I sealed it with super glue.  Tomorrow I'll get something better and do a better job.  What I did seems to be working.

I can see why people call them crazy ants.  They run around like crazy when the perceive a threat.  Also there's a million of them and they are very small.  They could drive you crazy.  We seem to have lucked out and found them just as they were starting to get into the house.  I hope we can keep them at bay.

Day 41

We finished the unpacking today.  There were still 4 boxes of stuff by the printer.  I opened them all up and put them away.  There were some Christmas presents also.  So I got some paper from the apartment and Ellen wrapped them up.  We even put them in shipping boxes.

After that I was feeling ambitious so I signed up for Good Sam's roadside assistance.  It's better for us with a trailer than AAA.  They referred us to their insurance company.  It's got better coverage than State Farm and costs half as much.  So we signed up for it to start when the current insurance ends.

That pretty much finished what got accomplished today.  I read and watched TV for the rest of the day.  I did get a chance to talk to Beaver and his wife a little bit when I went out to get the garbage cans.

Day 40

We got up late (10) today because we stayed up to watch a late movie.  I don't think we got to sleep until after 1.

When we got up all I did was some surfing.  At 12 we went over to Alamo Drafthouse and watched Thor.  It had amazing special effects, but the plot and acting weren't anything to write home about.  I was disappointed that Loki didn't get the shit beat out of him.

After the movie we went over to the post office and then checked autozone for Kroil.  They didn't have any, so I gave up the search.  When we got home I just ordered some on the web.  It's supposed to be shipped on Thursday or Friday.

I probably should have done something when we got home, but I didn't.  I just surfed.  I'll do something tomorrow.  At least the washing got done.

Day 39

I didn't really feel like doing anything useful today.  So I got up and surfed the web.  I did start the paper again.  That's about all I accomplished today.

We went back over to Costco and got Ellen some allergy medicine.  Then we went over to Home
Depot so that I could get an abrasive wheel to remove the rust on the light pole.  I looked for Kroil at an auto parts store, but they didn't have any.

It's a gopher come day, so we couldn't go to the bank or the post office.

On the way home we took the dog to Circle C to swim.  It was a lot different than yesterday.  She did retrieves all the way there and back.  She also did a whole bunch of water retrieves.  A couple of other people came by with dogs and they (the dogs) swam, too.  One rug rat also waded in up to his waist to play with the dogs.

Lucy earned a treat, so we stopped at Tomlinson's and bought her one.  She got a Zuky in the evening also.

At 7:00 we went to the home owner's meeting.  There were at least 20 people there.  They had a presentation about native plantings.  The current officers tried to get someone else to join the board.  It was a fun meeting.  It ended early enough that I got to watch the second half of the football game.

Day 38

We really slept in today, until after 10.  When we did get up all we did was eat breakfast and surf for awhile.  Then I decided to go out and finish the drawer.  I thought it might take some work, but it was really pretty simple.  The drawer guides are designed to fit flush with the front and bottom of the drawer.  So you don't even need to measure.  Your thumb is all you need to fit them.

I put the drawer into the trailer and it fits and functions perfectly.  Not bad for having never done that sort of thing before.  I wonder what we'll put in it.

Then I got a wild desire to go to Costco.  So we did.  The place was mobbed.  There weren't any parking spaces and people were parking in the aisles and sidewalks.  Some of this might have been due to the "vegetarian chilli cookoff" they were having in the green area.  Only in Austin.

They might have been having some sort of doggy thing also.  Unfortunately we didn't notice it until after we went to Costco.  We had some frozen stuff, so we couldn't stop.

We did stop on the way home so Lucy could do some retrieves.  She only did three grudging retrieves.  She really wanted to walk over to go swimming, but we couldn't do that.  So we went home without buying her a treat at Tomlinson's like I had planned to.

When we got home I just watched football for most of the rest of the day.  I did call Denny like he requested.  Apparently Suzanne is acting her IQ.  I think that the club will have to take some drastic action if they want to get rid of her.

Day 37

I was going to install the drawer today.  When I got up this morning I just didn't feel like it.  I was saved when the club called up and said the delivery was here.  So we took the truck up there to pick it up.

When we got up there we loaded the truck and Lucy did some retrieves.  Then we left in search of the elusive BBQ.

We drove half way across Austin to a place that sold a competitor to Traeger.  It was $900.  That's a grand with tax, which is more than I want to spend on a BBQ.  So we continued the rest of the way across Austin and all the way to 620 to the second place.  They had a small Traeger for $450.  That's $500 with tax.  That seems a lot for the same thing that we saw at Academy for $150.  I think it's time to check the internet.  The tax should easily cover shipping.

On the way home we stopped at the Bee Cave HEB for some groceries.  All in all it was an 80 mile trip.

When we got back I unloaded the truck.  After that I was too tired to do anything else.  So it's TV and surfing for the rest of the night.

Day 36

We went on a truncated estate sale trip today.  I wanted to go all the way to Buda, but Ellen had a doctor appointment.  We did go to two places.  The first was interesting.  The husband was sort of a sportsman.  I actually got a pound of Universal Clays.  The prices were very reasonable. 

The second place was a bust.  The stuff wasn't high quality and the prices were way out of line.  I was surprised that a professional service would set prices like that.  A lot of them were very near retail.  Some were above it.

After the second place we ate a quick lunch at A&W, stopped at the post office, and then went home.  Ellen immediately left for the doctor.

I went out and finished assembling the drawer.  I had to cut out the bottom piece.  That new jigsaw sure works good.

That only took a few minutes, so I decided to cut the grass.  The weather was pretty good - mid 60's.  The grass was dry and the ground was fairly dry.  It took a couple of hours to do, but I'm sure glad it's done.

I was finished by a little after 3:00.  The rest of the day was watching movies and surfing.

Day 35

I got up a little late this morning and went out to assemble another piece on the drawer.  The first two pieces seemed to glue together well.  I also measured out the size of the bottom piece, but I didn't cut it out because I wanted to wait until the next piece dries.

That only took a little amount of time, so I decided to hang up the thermometer that Ellen painted just before we left last spring.  That only took a few minute also.

The morning was pretty cool, so I decided to finish up the edging.  It seemed dry enough and I was getting sick of seeing the edger and cord on the back porch.  It took awhile but I got it all done.  Now all that needs to be done is mow it.  It was getting warm, so I decided to put that off.

I went inside for a late lunch.  There wasn't anything on the tube, so I looked at what was recorded.  The disk is over 2/3 full.  So I watched a couple of movies and a comedy special.  That freed up 4 or 5 % of the disk.

While I was doing the edging and watching TV Ellen went to the women's lunch.  Apparently she had fun and came back with some gossip.  Dola is talking about leaving again.  A nearby neighbor pulled a gun on her and her husband.  Details were sketchy.

Tonight is football.  Tomorrow is estate sales.

Day 34

We left in the morning to go to Harbor Freight to get some clamps to finish the drawer.  I lucked out - they were on sale.  Ellen went to the sewing shop next door and bought a small sewing machine for the trailer.

We went across the street and had lunch at the Chinese restaurant.  It was really crowded because we wne at about 11:50.  The food was good though, and service was fast.

On the way home we stopped at the yuppie grocery store so that Ellen could get some stuff to take to the women's thing tomorrow.  We also stopped at the post office.

When I got home I used the clamps to glue the first two pieces of the drawer together.  We'll see how it went tomorrow.

The rest of the day was surfing and TV (there's a pattern there).

Day 33

Of course it was washing day.  That's a lot easier when using the washer and dryer doesn't require driving somewhere.  It was also the first "put out the garbage can day" since we got back.

It was also voting day.  At least we didn't have to drive to San Marcos.  The voting place was in Belterra.  Unfortunately we didn't get to vote against that Democrat POS that's running for governor.  Apparently that isn't until next year.

When we got back I decided to build the drawer for the trailer.  It took awhile to set up the miter saw.   I actually had to RTFM.  It worked great though.  I even had the right router bit.  I got all the pieces fabricated, but I couldn't assemble them because I didn't have big enough clamps.  Off to Harbor freight tomorrow.

While I was in the garage the mosquitoes were eating me alive.  That's a bad side to the rain.

I spent the afternoon and evening watching TV and surfing.  I think I've been doing entirely too much work since we got back.

Day 32

It was raining in the morning, so no mowing.  Instead we went to Red's.  It was fun.  They had a Solo there.  It's really nice, but I have a little problem with the price.  We'll see.

After that we drove up to Round Rock to see Gander Mountain.  It looks like it's in an old Sportsman's Warehouse building.  They had a nice selection of stuff, but it was all at list price or higher.  There were absolutely no bargains at all.

After that we went to a Chinese place for lunch.  They were having a lunch buffet.  It was pretty good as long as you like hot food.  Every dish was spicy.

On the way back we stopped at Half Price Books and Fry's.  They didn't really have much that we were interested in.  We wanted a copy of the Avengers, but they didn't have one.  On the way back we stopped at Target, Best Buy, and Wally World.  None of them had it.

When we got home we watched the latest Star Trek that we had bought at Fry's.  It was OK, but very predictable.  Also it was nothing but a rehash of ideas from previous ones like the Wrath of Khan.

Day 31

I finished up most of the work on the trailer.  I put up the partition in the cupboard and put the shelf in the closet.  The shelf gives a surprising amount of storage.  I used the new saw, it worked much better than the last one.  I also used this new magnetic screw holder on the hammer drill.  It made things a lot easier.

I also put the new hinges on the bed.  The old ones were light and starting to rip out.

The only things left to do on the trailer is to fix the trim Ellen ripped off and make the drawer.  I need to mow first if it doesn't rain tonight.

After that we went to HEB.  It was time to get some stuff.  The place was packed.  We almost couldn't find a place in the parking lot.

When we got home I decided to just watch football.  Unfortunately the Cowboys won.

Day 30

I decided it wasn't dry enough yet to mow, so I went out and worked on the trailer shelf some more.  I got it done.  It looks nice and I think it will make that cupboard a lot better to use.  Unfortunately I couldn't put up a partition or finish the closet shelf because I didn't have the material.

So we went out.  We got the mail and then went to Home Depot to get the shelf.  I decided to buy the material for the drawer also.  I also wanted to buy a fan for the garage, but they didn't have one.  So we stopped at Lowe's also.  They had a fan, as well as a couple of "stocking stuffer" tools that I picked up.  They also had a Dewalt jig saw on sale.  So I bought it.  I also got 120 lbs of water softener salt.

We brought Lucy with us because she could go into the stores.  On the way back we stopped at the park.  We wanted to see the creek.  It was high enough to flow over the sidewalk.  So Lucy got a chance to swim.  All in all she swam and did retrieves all the time we were walking.  She was a tired doggy when we got home.

It was 4 when we got home.  I just unloaded the car and put the fan together.  It's amazing that they can acquire the materials, build it in China, ship it to Austin, sell it for $18 and still make a profit. 

Day 29

When we got up, we had to open the gate for the water softener guy.  When we walked up there it was nice and cool.  I decided that it was a good opportunity to fill in the rut the water had dug in the driveway.  It took about 6 loads of gravel.  I was tired by the time I was done, but it looks good now.

The water softener guy was supposed to come here in the late morning.  So I went out to the garage to work on the shelving.  I anchored the metal shelf that we already had.  Then I cut the end piece for the upper shelf.  That's as far as I got because the guy had come early and finished up without too much trouble.

I decided I'd worked enough this week, so we went estate sailing.  Two of the places were really close to home - Belterra and Slaughter.  I picked up a few tools and a VCR so we could view some tapes I found when we were packing up the big trailer. 

The third place was on Barton Skyline.  When we were finished there we went over to Rudy's for a late lunch.  Lucy really liked it because she got some, too.

Then it was a quick stop at the grocery store and then home.  I decided to relax instead of working, so I did some reading and napping.

Day 28

Last night was interesting.  There was heavy rain with thunder and lightning for much of the night.  The weather radio was going off all night - thunderstorm and flooding warnings.  The septic alarm went off about 3 AM.  All I could do was turn it off.

When we got up in the morning everything was very wet - standing water all over.  There was a new gully running down the driveway.  It's amazing how much rock the water moved.

Ellen called the septic people.  They said they'd come out, but we never saw them.  The alarm started making a funny noise about 9.  Then it quit and the light went out.  I'm not sure if there is a problem or not.

The storm had plugged the driveway drain and the one in the front of the house.  I cleaned them off.  I also checked the gutters - they were clean.

Then I went out and finished the garage cabinet.  They included two bags of parts, so I put two locks on it just for grins.  After I finished it I loaded it up with stuff we brought down.  Then I trimmed back the trellis plant and cut up a tree that had fallen in the back yard.  I just threw all of the debris over the fence.  Finally I started to make the closet shelf for the trailer.  The saw fucked up and I'll have to buy another piece of shelving.  That disgusted me, so I cut off the screws under the bed.

Cigna is planning on charging us $22K next year.  I hate that socialist, Muslim, son of a bitch.  So Ellen spent the day looking for another vendor.  It's still going to cost us a lot more than last year for less coverage.

I finished up the day putting away some more stuff we brought down.  We only have three more boxes and the photos to go.

Day 27

There won't be any mowing or edging for awhile.  It rained last night and a little this morning.  About dinner time we had a really wet thunderstorm.  The AC was out last night, so the temp in the house was 77 and it was raining.  Thank god for the ceiling fan.

We left in the morning to do some errands.  It was in the low 80's and humidity was in the 90's.  Miserable.  The forwarding is off, so there was mail in the PO box.  We went to Centex and set up shipping the 790.  I also bought a shield.  We went to the yuppie grocery store and bought a few items.  We stopped at Lowe's and Home Depot to get stuff to make shelves in the trailer and a cabinet in the garage.  On the way home we stopped at Tomlinson's for cat food and Wells Cargo to cash some checks.

When we got home we washed the dog.  She got in bed with us this morning and she was way too stinky to do that without a bath.

Then I went out to hang the garage cabinet.  The heat and humidity made it miserable.  I mad it worse be assembling it while it was attached to the wall.  I spent a couple of hours on it and I'm not finished yet.  I tried to go out after dinner at 7:30, but it was just too ugly.

The tech came back to fix the AC.  Apparently he left one of the wires loose, it vibrated off, and then it cooked the capacitor.  He fixed it and it seems to be working now.

Day 26

I got started on the yard work today.  I used the weedeater to clear the area from the trailer to the play house.  I also cleared out the area around the pump house.  Then I started weed eating around the rocks so that I could mow the areas in front of the house.  Finally I weed eated the area around the septic tanks.

That took a little over three hours.  By that time my back was killing me.  So I quit.  I still have to do the back yard and the side yard, probably tomorrow.  I might mow everything first.

The charger charged the car battery last night.  So I moved it to the mower battery.  It's charged tonight, but I'll need to get some gas before I can mow.

The guy came out to fix the AC.  He replaced a capacitor to the tune of $300.  The AC still isn't cooling the house, though.  I think it's probably time for a new system.

We went out in the evening to do a couple of errands.  We ate really late (8:30) at Cheddar's.  It was just as good as always.

Day 25

We're home.  The drive up was OK except for the intersection of 1604 and I35.  The northbound exit was closed.  The detour was badly marked, but we made it through.

Of course the pump didn't work when we got back.  The switch wouldn't close, so I turned off the power and messed with it.  Eventually I got it to close.  The pump still didn't work.  It blew the circuit breaker at the top of the well.  Fortunately I spent $150 last year to learn about that.  I reset it and everything seems to work now.

The AC isn't working very good either.  I'll probably call someone out tomorrow to deal with it.  The car battery was dead.  I guess it wasn't like the other one which really turned off when you turned it off.  I've had the battery charger on it since about 1:00 and it still isn't charged.  One of the railroad ties that braces the dirt by the garage ramp came apart.  It was filled with ants.  Since it's the lowest one, the fix is probably a rebuild.  That seems to be the total extent of the fixit problems.

The place is overgrown.  It's going to take days to get it all cut.  Surprisingly the plant on the deck didn't grow near as much as it has in the other years.

All in all we spent 4 hours unloading the trailer.  It's amazing how much stuff we brought down.  It's all in the house now, but it will be awhile before it is all put away.  After that I was plain tired.  I collapsed in a chair for about an hour and then we went to an early dinner.  A stop at HEB for some items and then home to watch Monday night football.

Day 24

I got up relatively early so that I would have time to drain the tanks before going to the club.

We didn't shoot today, so we just hung around the vendors a little bit.  I left my barrel with Briley.  I think it's going to be expensive to fix because they are going to have to reblue it.  It was good that we got there fairly early.  By 11:00 most of the vendors were beginning to pack up.

It was boring up above, so we went down and talked to Dave for awhile.  Then we went to Steak and Shake and brought him back a milkshake. 

His five stand was done about the time we got back, so I helped him pack it up.  He wanted to help take down the Fitasc, so we drove over there.  It turned out that Fitasc was running late, so the take down didn't happen.  Instead we spent a couple of pleasant hours sitting under a tree at the middle skeet fields.  About 5:00 we went back up to the stadium.  Dave was helping set up the shoot off targets.

We waited until Dave was done and then we went to dinner at the Longhorn.  The food was really good, and we had a fun time talking.  Of course the club was a lot of the conversation.

Day 23

We shot the K cup today at 3:30.  That gave us most of the day to screw around.  We basically just walked around.  I talked a little w/Jason. 

We did talk to Ted.  He sounds like he wants to get a deal done w/Suzanne really soon.  We'll see.  I doubt that she'll come down to earth on the price.  Apparently she really didn't like the numbers that Jason gave her.

We went down and talked to Dave.  Same old same old, but at least he wasn't quite as bored.

I asked Briley if they could fix my barrel.  They said they could, so I'll probably leave it with them tomorrow.

I shot OK at the K cup.  I hit a lot of hard targets that I didn't think I could.  Unfortunately I missed a lot that I should have hit.  If I'd hit them I would have had a pretty good score.

Dinner was prime rib a long with an open bar.  It was pretty good.  Lucy got a small slice for herself.

They were having a bunch of shoot offs, but we didn't attend.  We didn't win one of the vendor signup prizes either.

Day 22

I shot the 28 ga today.  I started out doing really well, but I faded in the second half.  I ended up w/a 90, which was middle of the pack for AA.

We spent the rest of the day talking with different people.  We talked with Dory and Dave.  Nothing notable was said, but we had fun talking to them.  We also met some people from Oregon and talked to them.

We did some more shopping, but not a lot.  I got a case of the Italian shells that I wanted to try and a 28 ga choke.

They had an open bar starting at 5:30.  I had a couple of drinks.  Dinner was kind of finger food.  It was good, though and Lucy had her share.

We watched the stuff in the stadium with Dee and John.  The shooters put on a pretty good show.  Each person was supposed to put a ticket in the bucket of the shooter the y thought would win.  I picked Scotty and he won.  Not many people picked Scotty.  I should have had a good chance at a $500 drawing.  Unfortunately, since there weren't many people in the bucket, the combined it with the 2nd and 3rd place buckets.  I didn't win the money, but I did win a case of shells.

After the shooting they had a fireworks show.  It was really nice, with the shells going off really close to the stadium.

Day 21

Wow.  It's been 3 weeks since we left Salem.

We slept in a little bit this morning because it was only 70 miles to San Antonio.  The drive was fine, with only a little bit of traffic on 1604.

We set up and went to the club.  We saw Jason almost immediately.  We talked to him for awhile and then went off to find Dave.  We couldn't register until we found out his plans.  I won't go into details, but the search was heinous fuckery.  We finally found him at the ass end of the club, but he isn't going to be able to shoot with us.  Of course we talked for a bit about the stupidity of the business owner.

So we went back up and registered.  We got numbers 2263 and 2264.  Then we hit the vendors.  We bought shirts, a gun case, some lenses for Ellen's glasses, ear plugs for Ellen, and some gun cleaning fluid.  We also got those vendor signup forms signed. Along the way we talked to several of the people that we knew.  I saw Ted, but he didn't see me and I ignored him.

Somehow we forgot to get lunch.  So by 4 o'clock Ellen was really hungry.  So we went home and had an early dinner.  Then we sort of vegg'ed out for the rest of the evening.

Day 20

We had a fun time today walking around Fredericksburg.  We didn't get any presents for anyone except Patsy, but we had fun looking at things.  We did get a couple of things for ourselves, including the pizza stone we've been looking for for awhile.

We had lunch at one patio restaurant and later had a drink at another.  I'm sure happy we're back where things are sunny and warm.

We spent the whole day in town.  When I got home I fixed the kitchen fan that failed a few days ago.  I took it apart then and figured out that this weird inline fuse had blown.  Of course it wasn't replaceable.  So I bought a fuse holder yesterday.  Today I cut out the blown fuse and put in the fuse holder.  It's all working good tonight.

Two other things broke when we were traveling.  One was the trim ring on the cat box entry and the other was the bottom of the magazine rack (go figure).  I glued both of them together with glue I bought today.  We'll see if it works over the next couple of days.

I'm going to have Ellen cut off the screws that were pulled out when she wrecked the slideout trim.  Hopefully that will allow me to pound it back into place.  Then I'll get some black screws and reattach it.  It won't look good, but at least it will look better than it does now.

Day 19

This is the last long drive day.  I'm really glad because today seemed really, really long.

There was one exciting point.  A deer ran across the highway on a collision course with us.  I had to come to almost a complete stop to miss it.

There was a lot of truck traffic, but almost no cars.  In places the right lane was so torn up that I drove in the left lane.

When we got to the park, we did the laundry (it's Tuesday).  Then we went over to AutoZone to get a fuse for the fan.  We stopped at a restaurant for dinner.  They were out of potatoes and some meat.  I ended up spending $8 for a hamburger and fries that I could have gotten for half as much down the street at Sonic.  We won't be back.

The last stop was HEB.  I'm glad we're back.  We replenished our food before going to Nationals.

Day 18

This was another long day on the road.  Southern New Mexico and west Texas have nothing to recommend themselves.  We did pretty good on the mileage, even with the gain in altitude.  The lowest was 11.

When we were setting up, Ellen decided to channel her inner dumbass and wrecked the trim on one of the slideouts.  I'd told her that she was going to have to check carefully before opening them, but of course she didn't.  The trim is truly wrecked and can't be fixed, only replaced.

Day 17

Today was an 8 hour, 440 mile, drive to Benson AZ.  Mileage wasn't spectacular, because there was a lot of up and down.  In the first leg we got 10.8.  That wasn't bad considering that there was a 2500 foot gain in elevation.

The other two legs were over 12, even though one had a regen.

We went around Phoenix on loop 303.  It was much improved over what we saw last time.  Most of it is now freeway except for a couple of miles of construction.  Getting on to I10 was a bit of a pain because the intersection isn't finished yet.  It still beat hell out of going in to Phoenix.  We'll go this way from now on.

The park that we are staying at is really nice.

Day 16

We went to the breakfast buffet with Dee and John.  Then we went to Pro Gun Club and shot sporting clays.  We had a lot of fun shooting the targets the way we wanted to.

After we were finished shooting we went over to their house.  It's really nice, with a great view and four decks.  We spent the afternoon talking and watching football.  John had money on the game, and he won.

We then went back to the Station Casino for dinner.  After dinner they went off to gamble.  We drove towards Las Vegas to the Fiesta Casino.  At first we were disappointed.  We lost $15 on two machines  that provided absolutely no entertainment.  We were going to leave when we played two others that paid back about half of what we had lost.

We found a couple of new fun machines - John Wayne and a fishing machine.

Then we went home about 7.  I watched TV for a couple of hours and then took the antenna down.  Getting the stakes out was quite a bit of work.

Day 15

We got up this morning and went to Las Vegas.  We had breakfast at the Station.  There was lots more than I could eat, so the dog got a big carton of ham steak and eggs.  We decided to park at the Aria and ride the tram up and down the strip.  It was a very good decision.

We toured the Aria looking at all of the sites.  The garden was really cool, with an animated display and a cool fountain that shot 1/2 inch in diameter, 10 foot, water arcs.  I wish I'd brought my camera.  We also spent some time gazing at the chocolate fountain.

Over the day we won over $50 in slot machines at the Aria and other casinos.  That was our best day ever.

We ate a late lunch at the Cheescake Factory.  Again it was more than I could eat.  I was planning on a dessert, but I was just too full.

We also went to the Monte Carlo, Belagio, and Cesare's Palace.  We had fun and saw cool things at all of them.  At one point I bought a 20 oz Mojito for $15.  It was OK.  Of course I was drunk when I finished it.


About 5:00 we were ready to go home.  Only it was rush hour so we found a Starbucks and surfed for about an hour before going home.  The dog was very glad to see us.  She was also glad about the ham and eggs.

Day 14

We spent the morning on the 150 mile trip to Boulder City.  Boulder City and ST. George are at about the same elevation.  However, the road between then transitions fro 1600 to 2500 ft. at least twice.  Even at that we got 13.4 mpg.

Yesterday I read on a plaque that Jedidiah Smith went down the Virgin River (along I-15) once, and then went out of his way to avoid it a second time.  I can see why.  Back in those days it would have been so rough as to be almost impassable.  Walking along the rocky, twisting river bed would have been about the only way.

After we got set up in Boulder we went over to Fiocchi.  Jackie was the only one there.  We talked with her for awhile.  Then we fueled up, got a new TV cable ($32 !), and another dowel to prop up the bed.  Then we took the dog swimming.  The place was open (the Republicans caved), and it was free.  The dog had a great time doing water retrieves for an hour.

After that we took the dog home and went back to Fiocchi to see Dee.  We talked with her for awhile and made a date to go shooting on Sat.  Then we went over to a casino.  We played a couple of machines for an hour and broke even.

Then it was home because Ellen needed to dial into a board meeting.  Apparently it went well.  The judge read Ted the riot act.  Apparently his use of an executive meeting is questionable and his use of an out of state attorney is illegal.  I wish I'd been there.

Day 13

We went to Purgatory today.  There were lots of people there because the Senior Games were still going on.  There weren't any people on the sporting clays course, though. 

The course was really nice.  There weren't any menus, so we shot things the way we wanted to.  It was fun.  The targets were pretty good.  The dog had fun because she was off lead.

We didn't see the folks that run it.  One was working in Las Vegas.  The other was playing grandmother.

After shooting we went to the second old style hamburger joint.  It was just as good as the first.  When we were finished eating we went to the grocery store and then filled up the truck for tomorrow.  On the way back we stopped at a Halloween store and picked up a prisoner's costume for the Western.

We spent the late afternoon and the evening just chilling out.

Day 12

We decided to make today a dog day.  We would have gone to Zion, except that national parks don't like dogs.

There are two dog parks in St. George.  We decided to go to the bigger one.  We looked it up on Google and found a back way from the trailer park to the dog park.  The route was a good choice.  It wound around the red rock to the north of St. George.

As we got near the dog park we saw a trailhead just off the road.  We stopped there and let the dog out.  She had to be on a leash, but there was plenty of lizards to keep her attention.  We climbed the rocks near the trailhead and walked around on top for quite awhile.  There were people down below using ropes to rock climb up the steep faces.  There was even one guy taking his little rug rat climbing up some pretty steep rocks.

After the trailhead we went to the dog park.  It was a bust.  It was a relatively small fenced area.  Lucy wouldn't do any retrieves.  I think she thought it was too hot.

After that we went to one of the old style hamburger joints we saw yesterday.  It's been there since 1960.  The burgers were really good.  I ordered a shake.  When I got it it was more a blizzard than a shake.  I had to eat it with a spoon, not a straw.  It was so big I couldn't eat all of it.

After that it was more dog stuff.  We went to a park by the Virgin river.  We would have let the dog swim, but the water seemed very dirty.  After a short walk we got back in the car and went up the road to a visitor center.  The center was in an expo center.  That's when we found out that the Senior Games was going on.  We hung around there for awhile looking at the exhibits.  They had a sporting clays, trap, and skeet competition, but it was over today.

There was another trailhead near the visitor center.  We stopped and took the dog for a walk along the river.  Again the water was too dirty for her to swim.  I only got about 1/2 mile out before my ankle started hurting so much that I couldn't put much weight on it.  So we turned around.

As the final thing we finally found a PetSmart.  We stopped and took Lucy in.  Of course we bought her a treat.

Then it was home for the rest of the evening.

Day 11

Today was another long drive day.  It was about 8 hours.  About 100 miles of it was through Salt Lake traffic.  Some of the traffic was quite a pain.  There was almost no construction, so that was nice.

The gas mileage was great.  On the flat through SLC we got 13.8.  It would have been 14, but I had to idle while I waited to fill up.  Going up the passes (4700 to 6100, 6500, and 5800) we got 12.1.  Going down to St. George (6000 to 2800) we got 15.6.  That's as good as I get in town.

When we got to St. George we set up and then hit the road.  We went to Camping World, another RV parts place, the Grocery store, and ACE hardware.  When we were finished we had new tire chocks, a sink strainer, some velcro, and a bunch of groceries.  We got some fish for tonight, which was really good.

I forgot to mention something about yesterday.  While I was in the car, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't taken the fitbit out of my jeans when they were washed last week.  In the evening when I looked, it was still there.  Even better, it still worked.  It even gave me credit for 1000 steps while it was hanging in the shower.

Day 10

Today was a travel day.  We got up at 7 and were on the road by 8.  The trip was totally uneventful.  That's the way I like it.

The one notable thing was the gas mileage.  All the way from Baker to Twin Falls I averaged over 13 mpg.  Of course there was a significant tail wind.  The mileage went down to 12 coming up the hill from Twin Falls to Snowville, but that's still damn good.  I'm happy.

I took 7.5 hours to get to Snowville.  It would have been a little shorter except for two unscheduled stops.  One was to check a slideout (no problem) and the other was to piss.  With the gas mileage we were getting I could have cut out one fuel stop and made it even faster.

Its cold and raining in Snowville.  I hope the rain doesn't turn into snow.  After dinner Lucy was really antsy.  So I took her out for retrieves.  She did a whole bunch, almost like the old days.

We lost an hour today, so getting up is going to be difficult.  I left the truck hooked up.  That should save us some time tomorrow.