Day 2591

 I woke up at 8, played games for a little while, and then got up for pet stuff.  Then we went to pick up the truck.

The body shop did a great job on it, except they only put 36 psi in the tire.  We stopped at Jim's afterwards for breakfast and HEB for a few groceries.  I filled the tire to 74 lbs as soon as we got home.

It was about noon when we got back.  Melissa and John showed up from their shopping soon after we got home.  Melissa came over for lunch.  I worked on putting the winch I got for Christmas onto the large power wagon.  It went on pretty easily.  The Ellen made a video and sent it to Hooch.

John came over and we started watching football.  There were three college games today and we watched all of them.  Surprisingly they were all good games.

Ellen fixed BBQ chicken legs for dinner.  John really likes them.  I don't.  She also fixed cornbread, which Melissa really likes.

I didn't get around to gluing the floor back down.  Maybe tomorrow.  I got a new set of tires for the RC jeep today, so maybe I'll do those instead.

Day 2590

 I woke up at 8, played games for a few minutes, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  Then I watched videos until Ellen left with John and Melissa to go to Trader Joe's.

After they left I went out to the trailer to work on the kitchen lights.  I collected all of the tools I needed from the garage and started on one of the lights.  I removed the old light and installed the base for the new one.  Then I put crimp connectors on the ceiling wires.  Finally I cut the wires on the two new lights and stripped them back.  That's all I could do without a second pair of hands.  Everyone was back for Trader Joe's, so I called it a day.

It was lunch time, so we all ate lunch together.  Ellen and Melissa had leftovers.  I had a HEB salad.  After that Melissa went back to the apartment for a while.  Ellen did hobbies and I surfed.  

The water guy showed up early.  He worked on the water softener and then the reverse osmosis system.  He cleaned out the mechanism.  Hopefully that will get rid of the pipe hammering.

John and Melissa went to walk the dog.  They came back immediately with the gate opener power supply.  I installed it while they were gone.  It fixed the problem.

We surfed and watched videos until John and Melissa came over for dinner.  John and I watched a video while Ellen and Melissa made pork chops.

After dinner John and I watched a video and then the football game.  It got boring in the fourth quarter, so we started reading interesting things from our phones to each other.   It was fun.

Day 2589

 I woke up a little after 8 and played games for half an hour.  After that it was pet stuff and breakfast.  Then I went outside to debug the gate problem.

I turned off the power to the gate (and wellhouse) and then removed the power supply.  I took it back to the garage to test it.  It's toast.  I turned the power back on and went to the house.  Ellen ordered a new one, it's due tomorrow.  She noticed that we ordered one 8 years ago.  Apparently they're expendable.

At one point he pipes started hammering.  I opened the cabinet below the sink and it was clear it was coming from the reverse osmosis system.  Ellen called and they'll come out tomorrow to look at it.

After that I surfed for a short time and then got out the small power wagon.  I started using it on the course I'd built.  I had to modify the course structures some. I'd just about got everything fine tuned when John and Melissa showed up.

We got in their car and went to the park on Beckett.  We took the path around it, about a mile.  That was a little too far for John's foot.  After that we went to the donut place on Brodie to buy John sugar donuts.  Then it was mighty fine for hamburgers.  The final stops were Lowe's (floor adhesive and a door seal) and the post office.

I didn't feel like gluing down the floor when we got home, so I played with the power wagon instead.  The new tires are wonderful.  They allow the truck to do some amazing things.  I liked them so much that I ordered some for the jeep.  I even got John to play with it.  He really got interested.

After that John and I watched videos. I showed him the pro RC racing.  He liked it as much as we did.  After that it was restoration videos and rock bouncing.

Dinner was leftovers.  That sounds bad, but there is a lot of good leftovers to choose from.

After dinner was more videos.

Day 2588

 I woke up at 8, played games for a while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After a little surfing I got out the RC stuff.

I decided to put together the 1/24 wheels and tires that I got for Christmas.  The wheels are the first beadlock ones that I've put together.  Each wheel had 6 really small screws.  Of course there were no instructions.  I ended up putting the first one together wrong and had to take it apart and start over again.  After that it was just a slow process because everything was small and there were a lot of screws.

I put the tires on the small power wagon when I was finished.  They are a huge improvement over the stock ones.  I was just going to try them out when John, Melissa, and Daniel came over for lunch.

We had lunch and talked for a while.  Everyone had their favorite leftovers.  A minor disaster struck, the internet went down.  That was OK, the phones still worked.  Ellen and Melissa got out hobbies and I put together a Lego car I got for Christmas.  John and Daniel surfed.

About 3 they left to go to the airport.  I took my work chair back to the garage.  I also turned off the heat in the well house and put up the light that was in the well head.

When John and Melissa got back they said that the gate wasn't working.  I went out to check on it.  It was beeping a "low battery" error.  I measured the battery, it was at 13.4V.  I put it on a charger anyway.  I couldn't really measure the charger, but it seemed to not be working.  I'm going to take things apart tomorrow.

Ellen fixed steaks and leftovers for dinner.  After dinner we talked, Ellen surfed, and Melissa worked on her hobby.  

Just as they were leaving I discovered that the ice chest had leaked water under the floor.  I squeezed out all that I could.  I'll have to glue down some of the floor edging tomorrow.

We spent the rest of the evening watching videos.

Day 2587

 I woke up at 8 and got up to do pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast I went to Central Market to pick up Melissa's cake.  Ellen gave me a few other items to pick up.  When that was done I went back home.

Everyone went to Circle C to walk the dogs.  I installed the shocks that I gave Ellen for Christmas on her mini-b.  They look like they'll work great.  I finished about the time everyone got back.  We left immediately to go to Salt Lick.  We stood in line for a while.  When we got to the front they said it would be a 1.5 hour wait.  Screw that.

We went to the takeout desk and ordered there.  They said it would be 20 minutes.  Sounds better.  We went across the street to the winery.  We drank until the food was ready.  Then we went back (Isaac and his girlfriend stayed at the winery).  We got the food and ate in the picnic area.  It's essentially the same as eating in the dining area.

Then it was back to the winery for more drinking.  Eventually we went home for cake.  John and I watched Die Hard while the others talked.  Ellen and Melissa did crafts.  Hooch called and we had a good talk.

There really wasn't any dinner.  When the movie was over we watched the football game.  It was on ESPN, so we had to stream it though John's phone.

When the game was done everyone went to bed.

Day 2586

 I woke up about 8:15, played games briefly, and then got up for pet stuff.  I did some cleanup, took out the garbage, and then left to get some groceries.

I thought I'd seen that HEB was open until noon.  It wasn't.  I ended up buying the ice at the gas station.  Nothing else I was looking for was available.

When I got back home I took out the recycle and set up the ice chest with ice.  After that I turned on the TV and watched some videos until the football game came on.  John came over and helped me watch it.

The nephews showed up about 2.  We all got drinks and then opened presents.  I think everyone got what they wanted.  Then we sat around watching football until time for dinner.  Ellen fixed both smoked turkey and ham.

After dinner everyone watch a NBA game that Daniel had money on.  He won.  After that everyone except me went back to the kitchen to play UNO.  I hate that game.  I watched videos and then more football.

When the UNO game broke up everyone went back to football for a while.  Then the kids went to the apartment.  John and Melissa are sleeping in the guest room.

John and I watched the rest of the football game.  It went into overtime and didn't end until almost 11.  Then it was off to bed.

Day 2585

 I woke up a little after 8 and played games for a while.  Then it wa up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast I decided to program the Fireteam.

I got on the web and printed out the instructions for binding and setting up the ESC.  Then I got out the rig and batteries.  The batteries didn't fit, so it was off to the garage for the Dremel.  Then I took off the battery box (8 screws) and carefully removed enough from it to make the batteries fit.  Then I put it back together.

When I tried to bind the receiver and transmitter it didn't work.  The instructions I had were for a different receiver/transmitter pair.  That's when I noticed that the transmitter was really primitive.  I decided to use my extra receiver that goes with my other good transmitters.  That was another trip out to the garage.

I got the receiver and transmitter paired and the ESC programmed pretty easily.  Setting the steering servo was a different matter.  I couldn't get it to act reliably.  I acted almost as if it didn't have enough power.  I was about to remove it and send it back when I noticed that I hadn't tightened the servo horn.  I had to remove the servo to do that.  When I reinstalled it everything worked fine and I finished programming its settings.

That's how a 30 minute job turned into a 4 hour marathon.

John and Melissa showed up while I was working.  I turned on the football game for John.  When I was finished I joined him.  We watched another game when that one was finished.

Ellen fixed salmon for dinner.

After dinner John and I watched Roadkill.

Day 2584

 I woke up at 8, played games for a short while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.

After breakfast I got out the RC stuff and put away the things that were delivered yesterday.  That didn't take ling, so then it was time to go to do errands.  We called John and Melissa and they wanted to come also.

We stopped at the post office and got the mail.  Then it was off to Central Market.  I ordered a cake for Melissa while everyone else shopped.  The place was packed of course.  It really didn't take that long to get checked out though.

The last stop was Walgreen's so Melissa could pick up some photographs.

When we got home we went our separate ways to put everything away.  I started watching videos on the TV.  Eventually John and Melissa came over.  Ellen and Melissa did crafts while John and I watched videos.

Ellen fixed shrimp from Central Market for dinner.  After dinner it was back to crafts and videos.  I showed John the Fireteam and then some videos of it in action.  He was amazed.

It was cold today, never getting above freezing.  It's supposed to be a little warmer tomorrow.

Day 2583

 I got up at 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast I took a few more things over to the apartment.

I went back to the house and watched videos.  I couldn't get motivated to do anything.  A little after lunch the cold wave started to hit.  The temperature dropped from 50+ to below freezing in less than an hour.  There was a really strong wind also.

One interesting thing.  Years ago Devon dumped a Baby Yoda Lego off the desk and it shattered.  I found all by one part.  It was fairly big, but I couldn't find it after looking high and low.  Today I moved the bench next to the door and it was underneath there.  I reassembled the Lego

When it got down to the low 20's I went outside again.  I opened the gate for John and Melissa.  I also turned on the heater in the well house and put the trouble light in the well head enclosure.  I was glad I did.  By the time we went to bed the temperature was 15.

John and Melissa got here in the middle of the afternoon.  They came over once they were settled in.  We talked for a while and I demonstrated all the channels we have now.  We ended up watching a movie until dinner - leftover chili (they didn't know it was leftover).

After dinner I had to go pick up a package at the mailbox.  It was 19 degrees with a 12 mph wind.  I took the car.  On the way back the battery on the gate gave out.  I had to push it shut.

After dinner Melissa went back to the apartment to unpack and John and I watched football.

Day 2582

 I woke up at 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.

It was cold out today and I had nothing to do, so the whole morning was videos.  A little after lunch Melissa called to say that they'd be here tomorrow.  That sparked a flurry of activity.

I cleaned off my part of the kitchen table while Ellen did some unnecessary cleaning of the apartment.  Then I came over with some stuff for the refrigerator.  I plugged it in and turned on the water heater.  Then we both went back to the house.

I vacuumed the whole house except for the pinball room.  Ellen scrubbed the kitchen floor and counters.  When we were done the place was presentable.

We left for the post office and HEB.  We also stopped at Goodwill and dumped off the garbage sack full of stuff that we'd been collecting.  We got a whole lot of food at HEB.

When we got home it was feed the cats an videos.  Ellen fixed chili for dinner.  Bradley called just as I was finishing.  We had a great talk.  He suggested that the hammering could be a valve.  I suspect either the reverse osmosis system or one of the toilets.  I happened to walk in while the guest toilet was reloading itself.  That's probably the culprit.

I'd gotten a bunch of stuff from Amain today.  It included a really nice tool holder.  I spent quite a while putting the stuff away and loading up the tool holder.

After that it was videos for the rest of the evening.

Day 2581

 I woke up at 7:30 and played games until 10.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After a little surfing we left for the Armadillo Bazaar.

Traffic was a little lighter than I thought it would be.  The Bazaar was really neat.  We bought a couple of things - a Damascus paring knife and a cool glass thing for the light box.  Then we went across the street to Black's for BBQ.  It was really good.

We made another short stop at the Bazaar and then drove to Trader Joe's.  It was packed.  The checkout line went to the back of the store.  We decided it wasn't worth the wait and left.

The last stop was HEB.  We bought a bunch of groceries so we wouldn't have to stop again.

When we got home it was videos.  I found some neat non-Ukraine ones to watch.

Ellen fixed loaded baked potatoes for dinner.  After dinner we watched videos together.  Usually she's on her computer.

Day 2580

A thunderstorm woke us up about 6.  There was a lot of thunder and it was LOUD.  Some of the thunderclaps shook the house.  It was raining hard also.  

I went back to sleep when the thunder stopped and woke up at 8.

I got up immediately and did the pet stuff.  Then we left to take the truck to the body shop.  It was still raining really heavily.  Luckily the traffic was pretty light.

After that we went to Jim's for breakfast - they were closed.  We stopped at Waterloo instead.  When we were finished I went to the coffee place because it was45 degrees and raining.

There was really nothing to do today, so I spent most of the day watching videos.  Eventually I just had to do something, so I rearranged the plastic boxes that hold my RC parts.  There are several of them.  The result is a lot more organize containers.

Ellen fixed clam chowder for dinner.  After dinner I surfed while I watched the football game.  It was two under .500 teams, but at least they were evenly matched.

The pipes were hammering several times today.  It wasn't loud, but a couple of times it was fairly long.

Day 2579

 I woke up a little before 8, played games, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.

Today was a designated "don't do much" day.  Most of the day was spent watching videos.

I did do two things.  I changed the connectors on the batteries I bought for the Fireteam.  The process was one of those "fight me all the way" things.  It took a log longer, and a lot more effort, than it should have.  I also had to order some convertors from the XT90 connectors I use to the weird ones that ARRMA uses.

The second effort was to clean up all the stuff I had scattered on the bed in the guest room.  When I was finished everything was put away and the room is ready for use if necessary.  That took some time, too.

Ellen fixed a frozen bag dinner for dinner.  It was really good.

After dinner was football.  I read some old magazines while it was on.

Day 2578

 I got up at 7:30, played games for awhile, and then did the pet stuff and had breakfast.  After that it was out to the garage.

I started by cleaning out the garage.  Some stuff went to the well house and some to the garbage can.  Then I went out to the truck and cleaned off the back of the damaged wheel well.  That allowed me to put up a duct tape patch showing where the sheet metal crack was.  Finally I went back to the house and installed the new toilet seat.

When that was done we went on errands.  We stopped at Belterra for cat food, some blue loctite, and to return the Murphy's Oil Soap.  Then it was into town for the post office, more cat food (they were out), and Walgreen's.  After that it was home for lunch.

After that it was videos for a while.  Just like yesterday that got boring.  I decided to install a latch on one of the kitchen cabinet doors.  Cooper has been jumping up and opening it to get at the bread items we store inside.  That simple job took longer than it should have because of the cheap Chinesium screws that came with the latches.  They kept stripping, and one broke.  I ended up going back out to the garage and getting better ones.

While I was at the garage I decided to improve the ramp.  I took apart the front stand and reassembled it so that I could fold it flat underneath the ramp.  I'm really pleased with the result.

After that I went back to more videos, interspersed with a nap.

Ellen fixed stir fry for dinner.

After dinner was all videos until I got bored and went back to surfing.

One disturbing thing today.  The pipes were chattering several time today, both in the bathroom and the kitchen.  I may have even heard it once in the wellhouse.  Also, the pressure was down to 40 both times I checked.  I'm worried that the well is running dry.

Day 2577

 I got up at 8, did the pet stuff and had breakfast.  After that it was time to leave to take Ellen to the doctor.

The doctor's office was two exits north of Parmer.  We took the truck because it needed to do a regen.  The load was 100%, but because it was cold, 40 degrees, it didn't start the regen until we were on Mopac.  It was still doing a regen when we got to the doctor's exit.  We ended up having to drive several more miles, on toll roads, to get back to the doctor's office.

I sat in the truck and played games while Ellen was at the doctor's.  I also used the new earphones I got during black Friday.  They work great.  I took her about two hours for the appointment.  When it was done we drove back south.

We stopped at Home Depot on the way back to get a light bulb for the refrigerator.  We also got a new toilet seat for the master bath.  We stopped at the donut shop to buy lunch and then went home to eat it.

After lunch I didn't have much in the way of motivation.  I watched videos, but eventually got bored.  That lead to me building a couple of more obstacles for the RC vehicles.  It will be interesting to see if they work out.

Dinner was frozen pizza.  It was a new type and was as good as a restaurant one. 

After dinner the long awaited Murphy's Oil Soap came.  It was the wrong stuff.  Instead of the older stuff advertised (at $12) it was the new stuff - $3 at Wally World.  I'm sending it back.

After dinner was a movie and some more videos.

Day 2576

 I woke up at 8, played games for a while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast I went out to the garage to finish the ramp.

I took quite a while to finish it.  Nothing really went wrong, but everything took more time than I thought.  I also had to take the stand apart and modify it slightly.  I'm pretty happy with the result though.  It isn't bad for not knowing what I was doing, how to build it, and making it up as I went.

When I was finished I put all of the tools away.  I still have to clean up, but I'll do that tomorrow.

I went into the house and had lunch.  After lunch it was videos.  Eventually that got old.  I decided to put together the new trailer lamps.  There was multiple ways to assemble them and the instructions sucked.  I did figure it out eventually.  The new lamps look nice, but they are bigger than the old ones.  They should work OK though.  I'll install them later.

I took some of the packing material and made some obstacles for driving the 1/24 RC trucks.  I'll see how they work after the glue dries.

Dinner was frozen stuff.  After dinner I started watching the football game.  The Seahawks sucked so bad that I turned it off.  I started watching fail videos.  Ellen likes them and started watching them with me.

Day 2575

 I woke up about 8, played games for a while, and then got up with plans to work on the ramp.  The plans lasted until I was almost dressed.  Then the toilet started leaking violently.

The supply hose had come off the toilet tank and was rapidly flooding the bathroom.  Fortunately I got to it quickly and the shutoff valve broke.  Ellen an d I used most of the old towels to mop up the water.  When I looked at the hose the plastic coupler on the tank end had broken.

I finished dressing, did the pet stuff, and had breakfast.  Then I tried to remove the refrigerator bulb that was starting to burn out.  I couldn't get it out.  Eventually I had to get the strap wrench from the garage to loosen it.

I'd been planning to get some drugs at CVS, so we just left to do errands.  First stop was CVS to order the drugs because they were in Salem.  Then we stopped at the bank to put the Audi title in the safe deposit box.  After that it was the post office followed by Home Depot to get a new hose and a bulb.  The last stop was CVS to pick up the drugs.  The icing on the cake was I had to wait for them.

When we got home I replaced the hose.  It was an unpleasant job laying down under the toilet.  It seems to be working well.  Unfortunately the bulb we got was too big.  Ellen ordered the right size on Amazon.

After that I had leftover Calzone for lunch and then started watching videos.  I was too bummed out to work on the ramp.  Eventually that turned into watching Godzilla on the TV.

Ellen fixed pancakes and bacon for dinner.  After dinner I went back to watching movies.

Day 2574

 I woke up about 8 today and played games until 10.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I hung up the heron picture.  Of course the place we picked had a 2x4 in the wall.  I had a sheetrock mount and had to go get the drill to mount the picture.

After that I went out to the garage to work on the ramp.  The first thing I did was mount the front brace mounts that I made yesterday.  That was a little difficult because I couldn't access one of the holes I needed with the drill.  Instead I drilled it blind (it worked).

Then I started cutting the pieces for the brace.  I had to flatten the ends of some of them in the vice.  All of the holes were drilled with the drill press.  I called it quits at 1:30 for lunch.  I ate and then surfed for a while.  Eventually I went back to the garage and finished the brace.  That took until 4:30.

I should be able to finish the ramp tomorrow.  All I have left to do is cut the side pieces down, install the front brace, and install the chains.  Hopefully it all goes well.

Ellen went to a party for the shooters at five.  I had leftover calzone for dinner.  After dinner I watched videos.

One depressing thing happened.  After dinner there was a pipe hammer session that lasted 10 seconds or so.  It's the first I've heard in a long time.  I thought the problem had cured itself.  Silly me.

Day 2573

 I woke up at 7:30 and played games until a little after 8.  Then I got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I got out the tools and tried to do the last work on the Fireteam.  I got everything apart and then found out that the "high density" foam I'd purchased wasn't.  I put everything back together and away.  I've decided the foam isn't necessary, so the Fireteam is officially finished.

 After that it was out to the garage to work on the ramp.  It was one of those days where everything went really well.  I had the pieces I needed to put wire on the Heron picture.  My Gorilla Glue repair worked great.  I had all the screws I needed in the right sizes.  All of the assembly went easily.  I ended up with the ramp surface attached to the frame.

I sat for a while and worked out how I'm going to do the front support.  I fabricated a couple of parts for it, but that was as far as I could go.  I need a whole bunch of hardware that I don't have.

I went back into the house and did a little surfing.  Then we left for hardware and groceries.  It was really foggy and misting - like Oregon.  I bought the hardware at ACE and we went to Dripping Springs for the groceries.  We also stopped at the pizza place there for a late lunch.

It was after 3 when we got home.  I still had the Heron picture to hang, but I'll do that tomorrow.  I did a little video watching and then had a nap.  I blame the mango margarita at the pizza place.  When I woke up I started a movie.

Dinner was leftovers.  After dinner the lamps for the trailer showed up.  They look like they'll fit really well.

Day 2572

 I woke up a little before 8 and played games until about 8:30.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  When that was finished I went out to the garage.

I measured and cut two of the 1x2's.  I also measured and cut the decking material.  When that was done I started screwing the 1x2/s to the side frames.  I got two done.  Unfortunately on the third I broke the "tail on one of the side frames.  I glued it with Gorilla glue.

That was the end of today's work.  I was going to fabricate the front brace, but I decided to wait until I have the ramp finished.  That way I'm not guessing on measurements.

When I got back to the house Ellen and I sat down to order new lights for the trailer kitchen.  After some searching we found some that will fit and look pretty good.  I ordered the last set Amazon had.  It wasn't easy to find what we were looking for.

Ellen got out the vacuum.  While she was doing that I used the carpet tape I'd bought a while back to tape down the cowhide rugs.  We'll see if they hold.  I was going to hang the heron picture, but I need to put a string on the back of it first.

After taking out two bags of garbage I called it quits for the day.  I felt a little guilty about not finishing the last thing on the Fireteam, but there's always tomorrow.

I did a little surfing and then switched to a movie.

Ellen fixed steak and tater tots for dinner.  It was really good.  After dinner was football and some more videos.  I only lasted until the third quarter again tonight.

Day 2571

 I woke up a little before 9 and played games until 10.  Then I got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast I got out the stuff to finish the lights on the Fireteam.

I took off one of the lights so I could match the screws for the last two.  They went together pretty easily.  Better yet, when I tested them everything worked.  The 8 total LEDs in front are really bright.  I routed all of the wires and then ran into a problem.  The screws for the roof sides didn't line up.  I had to put pressure on the roll cage to make them line up.  It was a three handed job.  I ended up with a flashlight in my mouth and the screw taped to the screwdriver.  I got them in though.

After that it was a little soldering and plugging a lead into the receiver.  At least this time I didn't have to file down the connector.  After that the lights were FINISHED.  I'll probably install some foam tomorrow.  At that point the Fireteam will be ready to run.

It was a little after 1 by the time I got everything put away.  I put the license stickers on the flatbed and the car and then we left for the Christmas craft show on Nutty Brown Road.  It was entertaining like last year.  We didn't find anything we wanted to buy except some Scottish short bread.  We'd bought it last year.  It's great.

We stopped at the BBQ place in Belterra for lunch.  For $17 i got enough food for two full meals.  I thought that was a bargain.

The car was low on fuel, so we stopped at the new gas station at Nutty Brown Road and 290.  It wasn't overly expensive.  Then it was home.

It was after 3:30 when we got home.  I decided to just watch videos.  At first it was Ukraine, but then it was a whole bunch of random stuff from tree cutting to flood damaged trailers.

Day 2570

 I woke up at 7:30 and played games for a while.  Then I got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After a little surfing I went out to the garage to work on the RC ramp.

I worked on the ramp until after 11.  By then it was getting hot and muggy.  I managed to measure out and cut the two side pieces.  That doesn't sound like much, but it took time and effort.  I couldn't do much more because I needed some 1x2's to use for bracing.

I went back into the house and did some more surfing.  About 1 we decided to do errands.  I had to go to CVS.  Actually it turned out I didn't.  The stuff Dr. Cox recommended is over the counter.  Unfortunately CVS didn't have it.

The car and flatbed licenses were at the post office, so we stopped there.  We also stopped at the hamburger place for lunch.  The next stops were Lowe's for the 1x2's and HEB for bananas.

I was sweating a regen on the truck.  I didn't want to drive all over today.  The damn thing started to regen just as I drove through the gate at home.  Crap.

The screws for the Fireteam light were there, but I didn't feel like working on it.  Instead I watched videos.  That turned into a movie.  The web recommended it, but I thought it sucked.  I chose another one instead.

Dinner was frozen food partway through the movie.  Movies are long now days.  The all seem to be 2 to 2.5 hours long.  It takes a lot to keep my attention that long.

Day 2569

 I got up a 9.  The auto body shop called saying that fixing the truck will be delayed by a week.  After that I got up for pet stuff and breakfast.

After breakfast I started work on the Fireteam lights.  Putting the lights together involved screwing 4 very tiny screws into each of the 4 lights.  Without my fine locking tweezers and Ellen's magnifying head band it would have been impossible.  With them it wasn't too bad.

Unfortunately the new lights didn't fit the holes I'd made for the lightbar in the roof.  I had to fill the holes with screws and punch new ones.  I also had to stagger the holes.  Everything was looking good until the last light.  The mounting screw stripped out.  It was the only one I had.  I had to pack everything up and order more from Amazon.  Crap.

That was the end of work on the Fireteam lights.  I put everything away and started watching videos.  That lasted through lunch and into the afternoon.  Then I decided to look into building a jump ramp for the RC vehicles.  I looked at some videos and got ideas on a design.  Then I went outside to the garage, wellhouse, and back storage.  I found enough materials to do everything except the 1x2 bracing.  I went back inside and did some refining of the design.  I might start to put some of the pieces together tomorrow while I wait for the screws from Amazon.

Dinner was frozen stuff.  After dinner I surfed while the football game was on.  I got bored with that in the 3rd quarter and went back to videos.

Day 2568

 I woke up at 8 and played games for a short time.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I took out the garbage and put out the can.

I spent the morning surfing and watching videos on how to build a car ramp.  I also tried to run the drone I got.  After crashing into the walls a couple of times I decided it was an outdoor endeavor.  I was basically waiting until it was time to go to the doctor.  Ellen has a cold, so she didn't come with me. 

Dr. Cox used the nitrogen on me again.  He hit my head, face, and both arms.  It hurt a lot.  He also gave me a prescription for some anti-skin cancer medicine.  

When I was done there I went to the post office and Lowe's.  I bought 160 lbs of water softener salt.  I also priced out lumber.  It's incredibly expensive.

I stopped at the donut place on the way hoe for lunch for both of us.  I also stopped at HEB for a couple of items.

The Fireteam lights weren't here when I got home, so I started to play with the small power wagon.  It's really a fun vehicle and I had a great time chasing the cats with it.  It can now be considered complete.  It's a much better vehicle than the scx24.

Ellen fixed ham with macaroni and cheese for dinner.  I started watching movies because I was tired of videos.  I watched two.

Day 2567

 I woke up at 8 and played games for a short time.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I went back to work on the lights for the Fireteam.  By then the new power supply was here.

I hooked up the new power supply and the lightbar still didn't work.  I fooled around with it some and determined that the lightbar is intermittent.  I put all of the stuff involved the the lights away and went on Amazon to order something else.  I found a set of four lights that i really liked the look of, so I ordered them.  They should be here tomorrow.

I got out the stuff needed to install the new parts on the Fireteam and got to work.  I probably started somewhere between 10 and 11.  I didn't get finished until almost 5.  I thought putting in the diff mount would be hard.  It turned out to be straightforward.  The back chassis brace went in quickly.  The front took a little time, but wasn't a pain.

The big problem was the servo, which I thought was going to be easy.  Putting the new mount together was easy, but took some time because of the number of parts.  Mounting the new servo was a real pain.  There are rubber servo mounts that had to be removed from the old servo and put on the new.  This took me over an hour.

The final pain was plugging in the new servo.  Arrma followed it's normal method of making standard things non-standard.  The receiver plugin slot was too small.  I had to go out to the garage and get a small file so I could file down the edges of the new servo's plug.  It was still a tight fit.

I also moved the battery box to the rear.  That's supposed to help balance.  We'll see.  After that it was just bolting the top brace back on and putting the tires back on.

The Fireteam is now ready to go except for putting foam in the rear bumper and putting on the chassis shield.  I may not put on the shield until I've run it.

Ellen fixed orange chicken for dinner.  After dinner it was a few videos and a movie.

Day 2566

I woke up at 8 and played games for a short time.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that I went back to work on the lights for the Fireteam.

I did some prefitting of parts to determine what size screws I needed.  Then we went over to ACE to get them.  We also stopped at Tomlinson's to get some cat food.  After that it was back home.

I got out the soldering iron and turned it on.  I forgot to remove the plastic tip guard.  That lead to turning it off and scraping off a bunch of melted plastic.  When I got it cleaned off I soldered the front light to the back lights to make one harness.  The front lights worked fine by themselves, but didn't work when connect to the back.  I cut the harness and retested the front lights.  They worked.

My theory was that the power supply wasn't powerful enough.  I went outside to get another from the well house.  I tried two, they both were bad.  One had worked before, so I'm confused.  I went inside and ordered a new one from Amazon.  Then I put everything away.  The power supply will be here tomorrow.  Hopefully it will work.

There was a package at the post office, so we went there.  We also stopped at Walgreen's to get double sided tape.  We also stopped at the park on the other side of HEB.  It looks like a good place to run the Fireteam and Kraton.  We stopped at Dominos on the way home to pick up sandwiches.

When we got home I fixed myself a drink.  I'm not sure why except that two days of problems with projects has depressed me.  Of course that made me sleepy.  I sat down to watch TV and just fell in and out of napping.

Dinner was the Dominos sandwich.  After that it was more videos until I got tired of them and went to bed early.

Day 2565

 I woke up at 8, played games for a while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After a brief stint of surfing I went out to the garage to complete some tasks.

The first was installing the new shower head holder in the trailer.  This should have been a simple job, but it turned into a nightmare.  First, the holes for the new holder weren't' the same as those of the old.  Pretty simple, drill a new hole.  Then the new holder's arm wouldn't hold up the shower head.  Crap.

I spent the next two hours trying various ways of tightening up the holder arm so that it would hold up the shower head.  Nothing worked.  Finally I said screw it.  I drilled a hole in the ball end of the holder arm and inserted a pin.  The arm can't move like it did before, but it holds the shower head straight.

After that I did a bunch of little things.  I put magnetic tape on one of the RC assembly stands.  I put a lot of stuff that I'd dumped on the bench away.  I also sorted a bunch of screw bits that were thoroughly mixed up.  Finally I drilled holes in the Fireteam lightbar mounts so that I could mount it to the body.

It was 1:30 when I went back to the house for lunch (leftovers).  The parts for the Fireteam arrived, but I was too tired and discouraged to work on anything else.  I watched videos instead.

Ellen fixed steak for dinner.  After dinner I watched the first half of the football game.  At halftime I decided to mount the lightbar.  That turned into a cluster fuck as bad as the shower head holder.  I ended up having to take the back lights off as well as the roof or the car.  Then it turned out that I don't have the right size of screw to mount the lightbar.  I gave up and went to bed.

Day 2564

 I wok at 7, went back to sleep until 7:30  Then it was up to feed the cats and leave for the club.  The weather was a little cold and very cloudy.

We got to the club on time (8:30).  By 9 I was throwing targets.  The shoot lasted about 2 hours.  By the time we were were finished it was sunny and almost warm.

We left the club and went to the pizza place by HEB.  Traffic was heavy because they were having the Christmas festival.  After that we drove all the way to Walmart to get a Elf on the shelf.  I'm doing to use pieces of it to make it look like Baby Yoda ate it.

By the time we got home I was too tired to do anything.  I just watched videos on bothe the computer and the TV.  I may have napped a little.

Dinner was leftovers from the pizza place.  After dinner was some videos and shopping for parts for the Fireteam.

Day 2563

 I woke up at 7:30, played games for a long time, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.

The hammering of the water pipes really has me worried.   I called up a guy that fixed our water tank, but he didn't call back.  I'll call someone else on Monday.  The water pressure dropped to 40 today.  That's the lowest I've ever seen it.  It was over 50 yesterday.  Later in the day it rose to about 42.

After a little surfing we left to go for our annual pilgrimage to the mall.  I actually enjoyed walking through it.  We walked all the way around it.  The Lego store didn't have anything interesting.  Hallmark had a cool animated baby Yoda ornament.  Ellen bought it even though it was $40.

We had lunch at Cheesecake Factory.  It was really good and I brought enough home for dinner.  Then we made a brief stop at HEB before going home.  The traffic was building up even though it wasn't 2 yet.

I was tired because of all of the walking we did, so I spent most of the rest of the afternoon on videos.  I started working on the mini drone that John and Patty got me.  I didn't get far because the battery needed hours to charge.  Ellen worked on her new metal art thing - Notre Dame cathedral.

Dinner was the stuff from Cheesecake Factory.

After dinner I watched some more videos and then started putting lights on the Fireteam.  I completed the rear lights using leftover parts from my parts collection.  I'll do the same with the front lights.  I would have worked on them, but I needed a drill and I didn't feel like going to the garage.

I really like the new solder iron I got on Black Friday.  I also got a phone charger I ordered today.  It works really well.

Day 2562

 I woke up a couple of times in the early morning, but succeeded in turning over and going back to sleep until about 8.  Then it was some games before getting up for pet stuff and breakfast.

My original plan was to go to the mall today.  That changed when I saw that the Fireteam was going to be delivered today.  Plan B was to do a bunch of the little activities that have been piling up.  The first was to take out the garbage.  Then it was to clean up the paper on the kitchen table and clean the table itself.  That involved taking the trailer paperwork back to the truck and putting my new license in my wallet.

After that I started to work on the RC stuff covering the table.  I washed the two RC bodies and used steel wool to scratch them up.  Then I installed the rear bumper on the Power Wagon chassis.  Finally I installed a front bumper on Ellen's mini-b.  Ellen put the window masking on the RC bodies and I put them away.  The end result was a clean table and a lot of little things accomplished.

It was after 1 when I finished and had lunch.  The Fireteam still hadn't been delivered.  I'd been checking about every half an hour and continued to do so.  I'd run out of little things to do and didn't want to start anything big.  I surfed and watched videos instead.

Ellen left for the club before 4.  She called me from the gate to say that the Fireteam had been delivered.  I hadn't got a notification because it was shipped FedEx.  It came in a large heavy box which was in a lightly larger box.  The shipping box didn't make it into the house.  I broke it down at the gate.

I carried the box inside and finished some surfing.  Then I fed the cats before opening the Fireteam.  It is huge and heavy.  According to the web it's about the same size as the Kraton.  If seems bigger though.  It is certainly much higher.

Another package came.  I went out and got it.  It contained a present for Ellen, so I wrapped the present.  I didn't put it under the tree because I don't want her to know what it is.  I'll add it in a few days.

I started going over the car to see what improved parts I'll need.  It was basically what I thought.  I got dinner (leftovers) and started to look for parts.  I wanted to use Amain, but all of their prices were higher than Amazon.  I ended up ordering everything from Amazon.

After that I sat down in the recliner and started watching videos.  Ellen got a new metal model thing today and she started working on it.