Day 3015

 I woke up about 8:30, did the pet stuff, and then went back to bed to play games.  It was 42 degrees and the weather report said that it wasn't getting out of the 40's today (it didn't).

Eventually I got up and had breakfast.  Then I surfed for quite a while.  Eventually that got old and I decided to see if I could change the lights on the 1/10 vehicles to use the magnets for connection.  I went to the garage for a couple of things and started work.

I lucked out in that the magnets on the bodies were held on by mounting tape.  That allowed me to pry them off.  I sandwiched the wires from the light leads between the new tape and the magnet.  Then I reattached the magnet.  That worked really well.  I also wired the frame magnets to an output of the receiver.  It took some time, but I got both the Chevy and the Power Wagon modified.  It's really neat to have the lights come on when I attach the body.

After that I didn't feel like doing anything else constructive.  I did check the outside of the trailer for signs of frame damage while I was putting away the stuff from the garage.  All of the places that the videos said to look at are fine.

I did some more surfing after a late lunch.  Ellen started watching videos and I joined her.  That lasted until dinner.  Ellen fixed steak and potatoes.

After dinner was more videos.  Eventually I switched to surfing  because I got bored.

Cooper and Abby actually sat together in my lap for a while tonight.  They had spent the whole day either avoiding each other or battling. 

Day 3014

I woke up about 8 and went back to sleep until 8:30.  Then I got up for pet stuff and breakfast. It was cold, 50 degrees and very windy.  It never got above 53 the whole day.  That meant my plan to take Abby to the creek again wasn't going to happen.

Instead I started surfing  I did that for a while and then decided to see if the rubber bands I'd purchased could actually be used to hold the battery in the FCX.  I cut one of the bands to the right length and used a paper punch to punch holes in both ends.  I had to rearrange a couple of wires, but it worked perfectly.

I've decided to see if I can convert all of my cars to magnetic body connections.  I'd like to use the magnets to power the body lights at the same time.  I've got a problem with the 1/10 scale Chevy and Power wagon because their magnets are already glued to the battery.  I set up an experiment to see if I couple glue the wires to the magnets.  I have to wait until tomorrow to see if it worked.

I went on AliExpress to see if I could find some magnet connectors that would work for the 1/24 cars.  I think I might be able to do the Defender and Gladiator, but I'm not sure about the FCX.  I still have to look to see about the cars in the garage.  After a lot of looking I think I've found some parts that might work.

After that it was more surfing.  That continued through lunch and all the way until time to feed the animals at 5.  Ellen had left to go to the club at four.  Unknown to me she hadn't closed the front door.  I didn't notice that it was open until 5.  Of course Cooper was gone.  I have no idea how long since he got out.

I quickly checked to see that he'd left and then went outside.  I stood a little from the door and called.  I also said "kitty munchy" since it was dinner time.  It was only a couple of minutes, but it seemed like hours.  I turned around to go towards the end of the sidewalk and Cooper came running up from behind me.  He stopped about 10 feet away and waited for me to pick him up.

Remember it was cold and still a little windy.  Also it was dinner time.  I don't know if that mattered, but for the first time he didn't go far and he came when I called.  Of course I was very relieved and happy.  I was also very pissed at Ellen.  She was lucky that she didn't come home for another 90 minutes and I had time to cool off.  Once more I recovered Cooper due to a huge amount of luck, especially since it was getting late and the coyotes have been coming close every night including tonight.

After dinner I switched to videos.  Cooper was very friendly.  He even came up to sit by me while Abby was in my lap.  He got into my lap as soon as Abby left.

Day 3013

 I woke up about 8 and went back to sleep until 8:30.  Then it was up for breakfast.  I was planning to got with Ellen when she went to archery, so I spent the time until then surfing.  I took Abby with us when we left.

After leaving off Ellen I went to Costco to get hearing aids.I turns out they are very busy (baby boomers).  I won't get an appointment for 5 weeks.  Then it will be another two weeks before I get the aids.  That's really close to time to leave.  Oh well.  I got some water and then went to the post office.

The eye doctor is still trying to charge me $50.  I called them again left a message saying take it off.  Then I searched for a place to run Abby.  I ended up at a small soccer field not far from the archery place.  She ran a few bumper retrieves.  Apparently they are boring, so we spent the rest of the time walking around the field.

I picked up Ellen and we went to Waterloo.  I had a mango margarita and a hamburger.  Then we went to the park to run Abby.  We decided to walk to the upper creek.  It had water even though it was dry by the time it got to the bridge.  Abby had a great time running through the water.  I almost got her to swim.  Then we walked around the fields for a while to dry her off.  After that it was home.

I sat to to watch videos.  That turned into a nap.

Ellen fixed chicken, pineapple,and rice for dinner.  After dinner it was more videos.

One of the videos I watched concerned "frame flex" in 5th wheels.  It's really frame failure.  Apparently it's been reported in a significant number of Grand Design trailers.  One showed major frame cracks in  a Grand Design Solitude.  I've noted a couple of possible failure indicators in our trailer.  I'll have to give it a look tomorrow.  Of course my natural tendency to fear the worse is in full steam.

Day 3012

 The power went out a little before 1 this morning.  The beeping of the house alarm woke us up.  I tested the power company.  They said that the power would be out until 3.  I had a really hard time getting back to sleep.  All in all I got maybe 6 hours of sleep.  I still got up about 8:30.

After breakfast and a little surfing I went out to the garage.  I almost completely finished the latest obstacle.  I have some painting and the addition of a little bit of hardware to go.  I had to stop to let some glue dry.

I spent some time planning out the next obstacle.  Unfortunately there's a couple of design questions that I can't seemed to work out.  I decided to give it a rest and sleep on it.  Maybe I'll have some ideas in the morning.

I went back into the house and started surfing.  I really didn't have anything that I was interested in, so I just looked at random videos.  I also went outside and threw retrieves for the dog a couple of times.  That pretty much described the rest of the day.  Absolutely nothing of note happened.

Day 3011

 I woke up before 8, played games or a while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After breakfast I did a little surfing and then went to the garage.  I really wanted to work on the current obstacle in process.

I did a lot of measuring and cutting of wood.  I turned the two side pieces I'd made into a complete framework.  I also cut half a dozen lengths of old tree branch to make the deck.  Then I had to stop because it was time to paint the framework.  I painted it and called it a day.

I went back to the house and did a little surfing.  A package came.  I took Abby with me to pick it up.  Lee was out and Abby went over to see him.  I came over to talk when Lee called that Abby was with him.  We talked for a while and he mentioned that they were having "bite training" in about an hour.  I told him I'd come watch.

I went back to the house, had lunch, and then Ellen and I went to Lee's to watch the training.  There was a trainer, and three women.  Everyone had bought dogs and one of the women had brought her three kids.  The trainer dressed up in the padded suit and one by one the other dogs had a bite the trainer session.  They were all amazing.  Ellen even got to play "victim" once and Lee's dog attacked to protect her.

After the training was done everyone sat around and socialized for a while.  I couldn't join much because I couldn't hear.  Oh well.

We went home about 4.  We had run out of milk, so we went to HEB.  We got home about 5:30, so the pets were hungry.

Ellen fixed a HEB pizza for dinner.  After dinner I watched videos.

I've gotten 18 messages from AliExpress.  Most of them are order acknowledgements.  5 say the item has "shipped".  That just means it's left the facility.  It still has to go through Chinese customs and get flown to the US.  The final leg is the post office from CA to here.  I figure it will be 10 days before anything begins to show up.

Day 3010

 I woke up a little after 8 and got up to do pet stuff and have breakfast.  As usual afterwards I did a little surfing.  Then I logged onto AliExpress.

I spent the next several hours going through the website constructing an order for the rest of the stuff for the new Jeep build.  I ordered 4 servos, 3 for the jeep and one to try on the Defender.  I got several performance upgrades and also a front bumper.  I also looked at a lot of things that I didn't buy as well as alternatives for everything that I did buy.  The whole thing cost a little under $120.  I saved at least $25 to $30 by not ordering on Amazon.

By the time I was finished it was time to take the dog somewhere.  Also CVS had texted me saying that they had drugs to pick up.  We stopped there first, and then went to the park on Becket.  I threw the bumper for her in the field and then we walked through the woods.  We took different paths today and a longer walk all total.  Abby did great.

It was past lunch time at that point, so we went to Culvers.  I'd forgotten how good their hamburgers are.  After that we stopped at Lowe's to get some spray paint for the obstacles.  After that it was home.  We went North on Brodie because southbound was backed up from William Cannon to Lowe's.

We got home about 4.  I spent some time putting together an outside bed for Abby.  Then Ellen gave me a haircut.  While she was doing that Abby managed to get herself dirty via the pond an crawling under the deck steps.  I was really itchy after the haircut, so I got in the shower with Abby and gave both of us a good cleaning.

After that I sat down to watch videos and fell asleep.  Ellen woke me up for dinner - chicken and noodles.  After that I went back to videos until it was time to go to bed.

Day 3009

 I woke up a little before 8 and played games for a while.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After that was a little surfing before I started to work on installing the parts I got yesterday on the Defender.

The install started out badly.  The tow hooks needed to be spread out to fit.  One of them broke when I tried.  Cheap Chinese shit.  Then next step was more fun.  Installing the brass bottom parts to the shocks was easy and fun.  It also looks really nice.

Mounting the tires on the beadlocks wasn't hard, but it took quite a while.  Each beadlock had 6 screws.  They are small and hard to get into the wheels because the rims are deep dish.  I'm glad I knew the "longer screws first" trick.  It made everything a lot easier.

After that it was time to go outside.  I needed the tools there.  Installing the roof light required drilling hols in the roof.  After that I had to wire in the new light to the existing harness.  That required unsoldering two connections and then resoldering them with the new wires included.  That took a lot of tie and a little bit of hassle.

The final step was installing the side ladder.  That required drilling a really small hole that I didn't have a bit for.  I ended up starting the hole with a regular bit and finishing it by screwing the screw into the divot it made.  Unfortunately the first hole I made was in  the wrong place.  Oh well, you have to look to see the problem.

It was almost 1:30 when I was done.  I went back inside and made a sandwich for lunch.  Then we put up the cats and took the dog to Circle C.  It was a great day, mid 70's.  Unfortunately the creek had dried up.  Abby still had a lot of fun running around as we walked around all of the soccer fields.  She went into the woods a couple of times and we had to zap her once.  I think it was because it was hot and she'd found a pool of water to wade in.  She came back wet.

After the park we went to Waterloo so I could have a drink.  We also had nachos.  It was just too nice outside to sit at home.  They make a great $4 mango margarita.  Abby needs to work on her restaurant manners though.  After that I sat in the car with Abby while Ellen did some grocery shopping.  Then it was home.

When we got home I started looking on AliExpress for stuff I'll need to finish the 1/10 Jeep.  I spent hours looking over stuff.  I'll probably make an order tomorrow.  When that was done I did a little surfing and finished the day with videos.

Day 3008

 I woke up a little after 8 and got up to do the pet stuff and have breakfast.  Ellen took the dog out.  After breakfast I did a little surfing and searched out something that I wanted at Home Depot.

A little after 10 we drove to Dripping Springs to vote.  I didn't recognize any of the candidates, but hey - uninformed voting is better than no voting at all.  Right?

After a short stop at Home Depot we took Abby to the soccer fields.  We walked around the whole park.  Abby did wonderful.  We started going around the fields.  That gave her a chance to run.  As we went around the back she switched for checking out the cover on the other side of the walkway.  I didn't tell her anything.

It was sunny and a little hot out.  Abby started running ahead and waiting in the shade - just like Lucy.  At one point a guy came by with a wiener dog on a lead.  I just told Abby to heal.  She did so and totally ignored the other dog.  I could tell the guy was pissed that she wasn't on a lead.

When we were done walking we went to the pizza place by HEB.  It was really enjoyable sitting there in the shade and eating.  The Mango margarita was great, too.  Ellen stayed there with Abby lwhile I got a couple of things from HEB.  Then we went home.

I could have gone out to the garage to work on the obstacles.  Instead I surfed.  I did take a few minutes to measure out how the inside part of the obstacle I'm working on will need to look.

About 5 it was package day.  The new RC kit and motor came from Amain.  Also both packages from China came in the mail.  It's pretty amazing.  It only took 10 days from the order to get the parts.  I put everything away to work on tomorrow and watched videos for the rest of the day instead.

Day 3007

 I woke up about 8 and played games for half an hour.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After some surfing I started work on the Defender's steering.  I couldn't get it right.  Fixing it will involve moving the servo horn I didn't feel like doing that.

I followed Ellen outside to play with the dog in the yard.  Abby had a great time retrieving the ball.  At one point I tried to open the hose valve so she could get a drink.  Only a trickle came out.  Worse yet it wouldn't shut off.  I searched the garage for a plug, but I didn't have one.  Fortunately the leak was down to only a few drops a minute.

We put the cats in the cat room, Abby in the car, and left for Ace.  I bought two plugs, one for the leak and one for the next valve failure.  Then we went to the BBQ place for lunch.  It was good, but expensive.  They had a place for Abby though and we bought enough that I'd have some for dinner.  We also stopped at HEB for gas and orange juice.

It was time for Ellen to go to the club for a lesson before coaching.  I surfed for a while and then switched to designing a new obstacle.  When I had it roughed out I went out to the garage to work on it.  I got part of it done before it was time to feed the animals.

After that it was videos for te rest of the day.  I got into a bunch of new topics.  I was getting tired of sci fi and RC.

Day 3006

 I woke up a little before 8 (the dog started whining early).  I ignored her and went back to sleep until a little before 8:30.  Then it was up fro breakfast (Ellen had gotten up earlier).  After that I surfed for a while waiting for it to get a little warmer.  When it got to 60 I went outside to replace the woodpile.

Abby had drug about half the woodpile in the backyard all around the back yard.  I had picked up the big logs yesterday.  I got out the garden cart and used it to take the pile out near the back fence.  The wood was rotten and almost fell apart in my hands.  It took three loads to remove it all.  While I was doing that Ellen picked up all of the little sticks that Abby had scattered around the yard.

With the woodpile gone we went to the back fence to get some rocks.  We went to a place level with the pink house.  We hadn't gotten rock from there before and it was pretty easy to find ones that would work.  We filled up the cart and I pulled it back to the fence and placed the rocks along the bottom of the fence.

I was tired when that was done.  It's only been a year since we put rocks all around the back yard fence.  I'm not sure if I could survive that this year.  I'm getting old fast.

Ellen played with the dog while I was doing the rock hauling and placement.  I sat down on the deck and Abby got me involved.  We went in after a while because it was time for Ellen to go to archery.

I started working on the design of a new obstacle and had lunch while Ellen was gone.  I didn't get far because I needed to measure the turning radius for the Defender.  I ran out of battery trying to get the steering set.  I put the battery on the charger and sat down in the recliner with the dog.  She keeps trying to sit on my lap when I'm at the computer just like Cooper does.

Abby and I ended up taking a nap.  When I woke up I watched some videos while Ellen fixed steak for dinner.  Abby likes steak night as much as Lucy did.  Devon got a piece, too.

The rest of the evening was videos.

Day 3005

 I woke up at 8, turned over,and went back to sleep until 8:30.  Then it was up for breakfast.  I did a little surfing but that got boring.  It had warmed up a little so I went out to the garage.

It took quite a while, but I finally finished the flex obstacle.  It doesn't look very good, but hopefully it will work.  I screwed up when I first made it.  I overlapped the ends of the triangles when they should have been consecutive.  That meant that the roadway pieces didn't fit right at the bottom of the inclines.  I just nailed everything haphazardly anyway.

When I was finished I spent some time working out a couple of other things to build.  I think that they will be simpler.

It was a little after noon when I finished.  The weather had warmed up considerably.  I took one of the plastic balls out of the garage and put it into the car.  Then I got Ellen and Abby and we went to the park on Becker.  It has a big field where Abby could chase the ball.

Abby had a great time chasing the ball.  It lasted quite a while.  She finally killed it because it was starting to run out of air - cheap Chinese shit.  We let her prance around with the carcass.  When she was done we put the carcass in the garbage and walked through the woods.  Once again Abby did a great job of checking in with us.

When we were finished we went to Wally World and I bought the last 5 balls that they had.  Apparently they are being replaced with soccer balls.  Then we went to Dave's pizza for lunch.  We have two discount cards that we bought a while back.

When we got home there were some RC parts that had been delivered.  They are brass pieces for the 10th scale car I ordered. They are very heavy.

Ellen left for the club shortly after we got home.  I did some surfing and then switched to videos.  I let the dog out and went to investigate the wood she'd scattered around the yard.  I cleaned it all up.  Tomorrow I'll have to haul it away and replace it with rocks.

The rest of the evening was videos.  I found some interesting things to watch as well as some of the standard sci fi and RC stuff.

Day 3004

 I woke up about 8 and decided to stay in bed and play games.  I finally got up a little before 10.  Then I started surfing.

I ended up pricing out a complete set of brass weights for the SCX10.  With the current discounts the price for everything was only a little bit more than the AliExpress prices, so I ordered them from Amazon.  There were a lot of different parts and combinations to look at, so it took a couple of hours to make the choices and do the orders.

By then it was 1 and time for lunch.  Abby chewed up her kennel bed so we needed to get her a new one.  We decided to got to lunch at the place across from Harbor Freight and then stop at one of the pet stores on Brodie.  Unfortunately the place we used to go to has gone tits up.  We ended up sitting outside at In-n-Out.  It was actually pretty nice in the sun.  Although it was almost 2, the drive up line always had at least 5 cars in it the whole time that we were there.

After that we stopped at Pet Smart ad bought Abby a new bed.  She did a fantastic job when we were there obeying me rather than paying attention to the other dogs around.  It sort of made up for her less than stellar performance while we were having lunch.  She kept jumping up on the table seats.

I didn't feel like accomplishing anything, so I started watching videos.  Abby kept jumping on and off my lap.  It hurt when she stepped on my balls.  Eventually I evicted her and let Cooper take her place.

The videos changed to a movie.  I tried to watch another movie after the first, but got bored and went back to videos for the rest of the night.

Day 3003

 We got up a little before 8.  lI got dressed while Ellen fed the animals.  Then I had breakfast and finished loading the car.  After that it was off to the club.  The temperature was 42 and the wind was blowing pretty hard.

The weather didn't change the whole time we were shooting.  Luckily we were able to get a cart.  I'm not sure I would have made it without one. The wind made the targets difficult and the cold made some stations reapply hard.  There were a couple of stations where I was so cold that I missed half the targets because I couldn't move.  Ellen said I won B class with the great score of 70.

The shoot included lunch - hamburger and chips.  We sat, ate, and tried to warm up.  We also had a good talk with some of the people from Hog heaven.  After that we made a stop at the post office and went home.

I did a little surfing and Ellen went to the garage to clean her gun.  It had failed the second shot several times during the shoot.  It was also insanely dirty.

Eventually I changed to videos.

Dinner was a sandwich from QT that we'd bought on the way home along with coffee.

The rest of the evening was videos.

Day 3002

 I woke up about 6 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I played games until a little before 8 instead.  Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.

After breakfast I did some surfing.   finally felt like working on RC stuff  so I put oil in the shocks that I'd bought for the Defender.  They work pretty well.  I didn't install them though because I'd just have to take them off again to install some other parts that I have on order.

I went back to surfing until lunch time.  We went to the pizza place in Dripping Springs.  It was 73 degrees so it was a good day to eat outside.  After that we took Abby to the sports complex there and let her run around.  There's a path that goes around the whole thing that we hadn't seen before.  We walked around it.  Abby had a good time running all over.  She always came back occasionally to see where we were.

We stopped at HEB after the walk and bought a bunch of groceries and got gas.  Then we went home.  It was about 4:30.  When I got home I loaded the cart and some ammunition into the car.

I felt like doing some more RC stuff so I went to the garage.  I spent about an hour working on obstacles.  I added a couple of barriers to an existing obstacle to make it harder.  Then I added some more planks to the flexing obstacle.  I got it about half done before I got tired of working on it and went back to the house.

I watched videos until dinner.  Ellen fixed pork chops.  After dinner was more videos for the rest of the night.

The high temperature tomorrow is supposed to be 42.  Crap.

Day 3001

 I woke up about 8 when Ellen got up to let the dog out and feed everyone.  I stayed in bed and played games.  Ellen came back to bed.  Eventually I got up a little before 10 and had breakfast.

I surfed for a while and then packed up everything so that we could go to the club.  A lot of the stations were closed because they were setting up for the shoot on Saturday.  Today the temperature was in the high 60's.  On Saturday it's supposed to be a high of 49.  Ellen wants to go badly, so shit.

None of the open stations were really hard, so we shot a lot of true pairs.  I shot well except for one target on one station.  I did have a few mental lapses though.  The gun shoots pretty high, probably because I'm so fat.

The dog did pretty well.  There's weren't many people there, so she got to run along side us as we drove.  She's really dumb about the cart though.  I almost ran over her once.

When we were finished I stopped at the Mexican grocery and bought some more Mango pop.  We also stopped at the QT for lunch.  It was really good and there was enough for dinner.

It was a little after 3 when we got home.  I went to surfing because I didn't feel like doing RC stuff.  Of course the surfing turned into videos.  Later videos turned back into surfing.

Day 3000

 I woke up at 8 again today.  Ellen finished letting the dog out and feeding the animals.  Then she came back to bed.That gave me an excuse to stay in bed and play games.  I did that until after 9.  Then it was up for breakfast.

After breakfast i did a little surfing.  It was pretty warm, so I went out to fix the hole in the fence that Abby used to get into Lee's yard.  I wasn't sure where it was, so I just headed out past the playhouse.  As I got near the house the going got tough.  There was a lot of dead branches and close packed trees.  When I got to the fence I was by the place behind Lee's.  I started walking towards his place.

Just before I got there I found a place where two wooden fence posts had rotted through at ground level.  They weren't much of a barrier.  I fought my way out of the woods to the garage.  I got a hammer, staples, and the pruning shears.  I used the shears several times to cut a path through the underbrush.  I got back to the fence posts and stapled them to the fence.  It's kind of temporary, but it's all I could do.  Then I resumed walking towards Lee's part of the fence.

I found a place where there was a little gap under the fence, but not enough for a dog to get through.  I piled some rocks along it to prevent future problems.  A little farther on I found the real hole.  It was directly across from Kai's kennel.  It was big enough for Abby to get through, but just barely.  Luckily there were a lot of rocks on the surface nearby.

I spent quite a while lining about 12 to 15 feet of the fence line with rocks.  I piled them high enough to deter more digging.  I was tired and sweating by the time I was done.  I finished walking the line over to the gate. There weren't any other potential trouble spots.  Then I returned everything to the garage and went back inside.

I was tired.  I surfed until lunch and then surfed some more after lunch.  I just didn't have the inclination to work on the Defender shocks.  I did take Abby out to the garbage with me.  She immediately headed for the fence with Lee as soon as I started up the driveway.  She came back when I was at the gate.  She had obviously been searching for a way through the fence.

Ellen left for the club and I went back to surfing.  After dinner (frozen) I switched to videos for the rest of the evening.

Day 2999

 I woke up at 8.  Ellen got up a little before me and fed the animals.  I got up and had breakfast.  After a little surfing I decided to finish installing the electronics on the FCX.

It took me some time to figure out how to position the wires, ESC, and receiver  There isn't a lot of room on the FCX frame.  I finally figured it all out and installed it.  Then I programmed the ESC and set the servo.  It's now ready to go.  I put everything away and went out to the garage to get the stuff to build the Defender shocks.

That's when I ran out of ambition.  I wasn't tired, I just didn't feel like doing anything.  I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon surfing.  I'm kind of guilty about that because I should have gone out and fixed the hole in the fence.

When Ellen came back from archery we packed up the dog and went to the Italian place for lunch.  Abby disappointed a little because she wouldn't stop trying to interact with a couple of dogs that were there.  Also it was a little cold because we couldn't sit in the sun.

After lunch we went to Circle C.  The first stop was the creek.  There were several other dogs there and Abby had a great time splashing with them.  The dogs eventually left and I threw some sticks for her.  She almost got to swimming, but not quite.  We started walking when she got tired of the water.

We walked around almost all of the fields.  I wanted to keep Abby running in the sunshine to keep her warm rather than walking on the paths.  When we were over on the bunchball fields another dog showed up.  It was a little smaller than Abby and really wanted to run.  They spent quite a while running around and wrestling.  The owner showed up and we talked until the dogs got tired.

We walked back to the car.  I tried to get Abby to run some retrieves, but she really wasn't interested.  She'd covered a lot of ground.  Then we went home.

I surfed a little and then fed everyone at 5.  After that it was leftovers for dinner followed by videos, followed by surfing.

Day 2998

 I woke up at 6 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I ended up playing games until after 7. Then it was up for pet stuff and breakfast.

It was cold today - in the 40's and windy.  It was too cold to go outside.  I decided to work on the FCX, but my heart wasn't really into it.  I spent a lot of time figuring out how to place the electronics and the wiring - there's not a lot of room.  Then I just lost interest.  I'll have to finish it later.

After that I just wasted time surfing.  Then I got a text from Lee.  Abby was in his yard playing with Kai.  Ellen had taken her to the garbage and she'd found a hole in the fence.  I went out to retrieve her.  That developed in a fairly long conversation with Lee while we watched the dogs play.  Abby got in a lot of good running.  Unfortunately Kai was tired from training yesterday, so it was kind of limited.

Eventually we took Abby back home.  I went back to wasting time surfing.  After a little while we took Abby to the vet to get here heart medicine.  She needed to be weighed to set the dosage.  She weighs 35.4 pounds.  I hope that she doesn't get any bigger.  That's still at least 23 pounds lighter than Lucy.  I never considered Lucy to be that big a dog.

After the vet we took Abby to Tomlinson's for treats.  Then we went to Mighty Fine for lunch.  They had a nice enclosed area to sit with Abby.  Then it was a short trip to HEB for bananas and then home.

About 3 Tony called.  He was absolutely unhinged.  He started to ask for advice and then veered into a shouted tirade about being alone because everyone thinks he's crazy.  I got him calmed down and determined that he was worried about a credit card payment that had been returned by the company.  Apparently he paid by a certified check, the company had returned it, and the bank had mailed the check to him.  The check hadn't been delivered yet.

I gave him advice- talk to the credit card company and the bank.  After that he went on a rambling tirade about everybody and everything being out to get him.   It covered the "hacking", his car crash, the success of his self designed rehab, the bleeding (it was really the food he was eating), his hate of the Catholic church, and how he was going to be a writer to earn money.  I also found out that he has $18K in credit card debt.  There was more, but I quit listening.  Eventually I got him to terminate the conversation after 45 minutes.  I honestly think he's going to end up dead.

 After that Ellen went off to the club.  I'd gotten new shocks for the Defender, but I didn't feel like working on them.  I'm just not motivated today.  I did play with Abby for a little while.  Here session with Kai only tired her out for part of the day.

Surfing and videos took up the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Day 2997

 I woke up at 8, it seems to be Abby's preferred time.  Ellen is dong the pet stuff no days, so I just get dressed and have breakfast.  It was cold and windy today, so no real chance to run the dog.  Instead I went out to the garage to work on obstacles.

I finished the bridge obstacle.  It took quite a bit of time to do it.  Nothing was hard, there was just a lot to do  I had to cut another 9 dowel pieces and attach the L brackets to the closet rod pieces.  Then I marked out 1 inch intervals on the ropes and attached the dowels and closet rods.  That used a total of 52 cable ties.  The final steps were to cut an nail top pieces over the ends and screw in the ramp mounting eyes.  It all came out pretty good.

I also wanted to add some difficulty to two of the obstacles I made last summer.  I added a couple of short "logs" to the log obstacle.  They are at angles which will make things a lot more difficult.  I was going to add a couple of logs to the stump obstacle, but I need to fine the right sized branches first.

That was all for the garage.  I brought back another ball for Abby.  I took her out to the back yard so that she could play with it.  It was still cold, but not as windy.  Abby had a great time chasing it around the yard - for about 12 minutes.  Then she killed it.  She drug the carcass around for a little while, but we took it away from her when she started breaking it apart.

Then it was back inside.  Abby was tired enough lay down and rest for a while.  I did some surfing and then had a frozen Mexican thing for lunch.  After lunch there was a whole bunch of garbage to take out.  I took Abby with me  She ran all over the place at Mach speed.  She made sure to check back with me every once in a while.  I think she would have stayed out running for quite a while, but it was cold.

You called to thank me for saving Tony's life.  Apparently he'd been bleeding enough over the last 4 days to lose half his blood supply.  The cause is internal bleeding probably caused by his falls and the blood thinners.

A little after that it was time for the Super Bowl.  I watched the first half.  It was a close, but not very exciting game.  I started watching videos.

Apparently the second half was very exciting.  The game ended in a tie and the Chiefs won in overtime.  I just wanted SF to lose.

I continued surfing until it was time to go to bed.

Day 2996

 I  woke up at 8 and played games for a little bit.  Then it was up for breakfast (pets had been fed).  After breakfast I got back to soldering.

All in all the rest of the soldering wasn't hard.  It was a fairly long process and tiring.  A thunderstorm hit while I was working.  It dumped 1.13 inches in two stages.  I had to wait out the second stage so I could get some more heat shrink from the garage.  When I was finished I put everything else away.  I didn't feel like organizing the wiring and programming up the FCX, so that's tomorrow maybe.

I ordered some more Defendr parts from Amazon and AliExpress.  We'll see how AliExpress does.  I was disappointed that the prices they list on the descriptions are less than what they charge at checkout.  I only ordered things that weren't available on Amazon, or still cost less. 

I did a little surfing and then had lunch- leftovers.  The surfing turned into videos, which turned into a nap.  The cats weren't happy because I didn't wake up until 5:30.

Yo called to ask "what should I do?".  Apparently Tony has been bleeding out his ass for the last 4 days.  I said take him to the ER now.

I had leftovers for dinner, too.  Then it was videos until I got bored and went to shopping for parts for the SCX10 I just bought.  I'm not buying anything until the kit shows up though.

Day 2995

 I woke up about 8.  Ellen was already up and feeding the pets.  I got up and she went back to bed while  was brushing my teeth.  I decided to stay up.

I got an email for a HobbyTown coupon.  They didn't have the SCX10 iii kit in stock.  I checked Amain for the hell of it and they now have the kit on sale.  I ordered it and an ESC/motor combo.  I got $30 off with their coupon.

After breakfast I decided to start soldering.  I got 4 of the 12 wires soldered.  Then a suspension link fell off the FCX.  I thought it was a stripped mounting place.  I put blue locktite on it and went searching for a replacement axle.  I couldn't do anymore soldering because I needed to let the locktite set.

When I was cleaning up papers so there was a place to solder I found an add I'd cut out for a dog park.  It's 3 or 4 miles north of the Y.  We decided to take Abby there.  The park is really nice, but it's also really small.  The parking lot is huge though because it serves a church and an amphitheater.  I threw the bumper for Abby in the grassy areas there.

Before we left we drove to the far end.  There was a jogging trail there that wound through the woods.  We let Abby out and walked the trail.  It's at least a mile.  Abby did great again - always checking in and coming when we called.  Ellen is working on whistle training her.  The training is making good progress.

Both Abby and us were tired at the end of the walk.  We stopped for gas and then at Sonic for lunch.  Yo called and I told him to call back at 4:30.  It was just too hard to hear him over the traffic on 71.  After that we went home.

There were three parts for the Defender when we got home.  The first was a new servo.  It works MUCH better than the other one.  There was also a front bumper and some skid plates.  The skid plates went in easy, the bumper was somewhat of a challenge.

Yo called while I was working.  He's back living with Tony.  Tony is being an ass.  Who would have thought.  I let him vent.  I think he's really looking for my permission to throw Tony out, preferably with me taking responsibility for him.  Neither of those are going to happen.  I'd found some phone numbers for Medicare in the papers I'd cleaned up in the morning.  I texted him the numbers.

After that I finished the work on the Defender and then it was dinner time.  Ellen fixed Pad Thai.  When she got it out of the refrigerator she jammed a full glass bottle of juice against the refrigerator door.  When I opened the door it fell on the floor and broke.  I had to postpone dinner while I mopped up the juice and glass with paper towels.  It's amazing how far some of the glass flew.

After dinner was some surfing.  I got bored again and switched to surfing.

Day 2994

 I woke up at 8 when Ellen did.  She did the pet stuff while I got dressed.  After breakfast I decided to set up the Defender electronics.

Setting up the ESC went well.  Setting the steering endpoints didn't.  For some reason the servo wouldn't return to center when turning right.  It did fine turning left.  I pulled the servo and set up an Amazon return.  I also ordered another one from another company.

By then it was 11 and I decided to go shooting (and exercise the dog).  We were at the club by noon.  That included getting sandwiches at the new Quik Stop.  They were good and also inexpensive.  It was 0 degrees when we got there, so it was comfortable in a t-shirt.

We let Abby off lead after the first 3 stations.  She quickly learned to "stay" while we shot.  Then she ran as we moved.  We always made sure that she was at least 30 feet back from the station.  It was great that there wasn't any one else shooting - no distractions.  Once again her obedience knocked it out of the park.

We stopped at Whole Paycheck on the way back to drop off the bad servo and get a couple of items.  we also stopped at the pet store for some cat food and a dog treat.  Abby recognized the place immediately.

When we got home I put everything away and then installed the brass portal housings that came in yesterday.  I didn't feel like doing any soldering.  Then it was a little video.  I quickly got bored and switched to surfing.

Ellen fixed sloppy Joe's for dinner.  A rear bumper for the Defender came, so I install it.  It looks great.

I went back to surfing.  I spent a lot of time on Amazon looking for tires and wheels for the Defender.  Then I discovered Ali Express.  There's 33 pages of discounted Injora stuff.  I have to go through it by hand though because the search function sucks.  I spent the rest of the evening doing that, but didn't get finished.

Day 2993

 I woke up a little before 8, turned over, and went back to sleep for about half an hour.  Then it was up for breakfast.  Ellen had the animals again.  After breakfast it was a little surfing and then out to the garage.

The Bronco guy sent me a non-blank invoice.  It's for $6,000.  That covers the dash fixes and installing the alarm, power windows, and door locks.  I think it's about time to quit putting money into it.  It's now over a $15K vehicle.

I took the Defender and its electronics with me.  Last night I thought I'd need to use the Dremel to mount the electronics.  I looked a t it a little more and determined that I didn't.  I took everything back to the house along with a new connector for the ESC battery lead.  I soldered on the lead and then mounted the electronics.  I bound the receiver to the transmitter and tested everything out.  I didn't feel like programming everything, I'll do it tomorrow.

I wet back to the garage to work on obstacles.  I didn't feel like fight with the flex obstacle, so I worked on the bridge.  I strung the rope.  When I did  it bent the ends inward so I installed a dowel as a brace.  By then it was noon, so I went in to get Ellen and the dog so we could go to the park.

Ellen's asshole was giving her problems, so no park today.  Instead I ended up on the phone to Charles Schwab.  I needed an online account for Grant's program.  It took a while, but I got one.  The person on the phone was VERY good.  After that I had a salad for lunch.

After lunch I decided to install the electronics on the FCX.  I installed the motor.  It was easier than the Defender.  I also removed the old electronics.  Then I quit.  Because the FCX wiring used all non-standard connectors I have a lot of soldering to do - battery lead, ESC lead, lights, and two servos.  That's a total of 5 connectors and 12 wires.  I didn't feel like going that.

Ellen left for the club and I started surfing.  I also ordered some more parts for the Defender - bumpers and skid plates.  That puts its cost at almost $400.  For a mini crawler.

I had frozen pizza for dinner.  After dinner was videos.

Day 2992

 I woke up at 7 and couldn't go back to sleep.  I played games for about an hour and then got up for breakfast.  Ellen got up a little earlier.  I thought she was coming back to bed, but she got up instead.

After breakfast and a little surfing I went out to the garage.  I finished painting the bridge obstacle.  Then I went back to work on the flex obstacle.  I installed the first 6 boards on the top of the triangles, two per triangle.  That involved cutting the boards, finding the right screws, and pilot holes to avoid splitting the wood.

When that was done I started installing the rest of the boards.  That's when the trouble started.  It just l wasn't going to work with the nail gun.  The nails didn't hold or they split the wood, or both.  I finally decided to go buy some screws to use instead.  I didn't help that the tablet wouldn't work in the garage, so I couldn't reference the YouTube video.

I decided to cut some large "dowels", actually pieces of closet rod, to add more difficulty to the bridge obstacle.  They should work out well, but I needed some angle braces.  I went back to the house and reviewed the flex obstacle video.  It turns out I was using the nail gun incorrectly, so hopefully no screws will be necessary.

Ellen had gone to archery, so I loaded Abby into the truck and we went to ACE.  I got what I needed including some more 3/16 dowels.  Then I took Abby to Tomlinson's and bought her a duck foot.  That's the last time for one of those.  She didn't eat it in the truck, and when she got home she played with it for a long time before eating it.

When I got home I fixed lunch.  After that I was too disgusted to work on obstacles any more.  I took Abby for a walk through the woods instead.  She went zooming all over as I walked.  She always came back to check every couple of minutes though.  I only had to call her once.  I cut a couple of dead branches for future obstacles while we walked.

I did a little surfing after the walk.  Ellen came home and I continued surfing.  The electronics I'd ordered from Amain came just before Grant called at 4.  He and Ellen spent about an hour setting up the investment reporting app.  Ellen missed a couple of things, so there will need to be another short session.  I just watched.

When the call was finished I started to install the electronics on the Traaxas.  I got the motor installed.  I couldn't install the ESC and receiver because I'm going to have to do a little work with the Dremel.  I started watching videos.  Ellen fixed sausage and hash browns for dinner.  After dinner it was more videos.

Day 2991

 The dog got up at 8 and so did Ellen.  I got up a little later.  After breakfast I did a little surfing and then went out to the garage.  

I did a little work on the first obstacle, but couldn't do much because I had to wait for the glue to dry.  I decided to start a second one instead.  It took some time to find the appropriate scrap wood.  Then there was the typical measuring and cutting of wood.  This time there was a lot of it.  Finally I did the assembly.  That's as far as I got before it was noon and time to walk the dog.

When I got back to the house Ellen took me outside with the dog.  Apparently Abby is no longer afraid of the large ball.  We watched chase it around for quite a while.  Eventually she cornered it against the fence and popped it.  Then she ran all around the yard carrying it in triumph.  We took it away from her when she started eating it.

There was no need to take Abby to the park.  She had done a whole lot of running with the ball.  We'd planned on going to Costco to get water and some sale items.  We added Wally World to the list.

We bought 4 more balls at Wally World.  They only cost $2.50 a piece.  We also got a few groceries.  We stopped at Mickey D's for lunch and then went to Costco.  The final stop was Whole Paycheck for whatever was on sale.

When we got home I put everything away and then went back out to the garage.  I painted the second obstacle.  I couldn't do that before because I didn't have any masking paper.  I also cut up some dowels for the bridge.  Unfortunately I'm going to need more.  It was time to feed the animals by the time I was done.

After feeding the animals I started watching videos.  Eventually I got hungry and had leftovers for dinner.  Then it was some more videos until I got bored and started surfing.

Day 2990

 I woke up a little before 8, played games for a while, and then got up for pet stuff and breakfast.  After a little surfing I went out to the garage to work.

I didn't get any work done on any obstacles because I decided to convert the Traxxas battery to a standard connector.  That involved a lot of wiring.  I cut an extension wire in half to use its connectors.  Then I cut the connector off the Traxxas battery.  All of the connectors were three wire connectors.  I wired one of the extension connectors to the Traxxas battery connector.  That gives me an adapter that allows me to use batteries with a standard connector on the Traxxas ESC/receiver.

Then I got a two wire connector out of my parts box.  I twisted its leads to the power leads on the other extension wire connector.  Then I wired the extension connector to the battery.  That gives me a battery with a standard power connector and a standard balance connector.  Finally I cut the Traxxas connector off the Traxxas battery charger and wired on a connector from another extension lead.  That allows me to use it as a standard charger.  The left over Traaxas went in my miscellaneous parts box.

By then it was about noon.  The weather was warm enough, but very windy.  A sweatshirt was in order.  We took Abby to the park on Becker.  I didn't want her wet because she'd get cold and I don't want being wet to be unpleasant.  The Becker park was a good choice.  We started out with the bumper on the baseball field.  Then we started walking around the bike paths that go through the wooded area.  There weren't any people and Abby was able to explore all around.

We ended up back on the concrete path near the tennis course.  I through the bumper a couple of more times, but Abby wasn't really interested.  Then we went back to the car.  Abby was great the whole way.

From there we went to Lowe's so that I could get a few things for the obstacle build.  Then we stopped at Doc's Backyard for lunch.  We needed a place where we could sit outside, but be out of the wind.  The last stop was the post office.

When we got home I read the emails from the Bronco guy.  He sent an invoice, but it was blank.  He also had some questions that I answered.

It was really too late to go out and work in the garage, so I started watching videos.  That lasted for the rest of the evening.

As a side note Devon and Abby spent quite a bit of time playing together today.  I think Devon has fun, but of course he gets tired before Abby does.  Then he just jumps up where she can't get him.

Day 2989

 I woke up at 7 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I played games until 8.  Ellen still ended up feeding the animals.

We had planned on going shooting today, but last night's deluge insured that both Marble Falls and Capital would be seas of mud.  The Nationals provided me with all the mud experience I need for a very long time.

After breakfast I did some surfing and then went out to the garage to build a new RC car obstacle.  I don't have anything more to do on the vehicles until some parts come in.  That won't happen until late next week.

I'm building something I saw on YouTube.  I found a couple of pieces of scrap wood for the obstacle foundation.  Then I cut out three wooden triangles and attached them to the foundation pieces.  That's as far as I got.  It was noon and I wanted to take Abby to Circle C.  After the rain there would be a lot of water in the creek.

We put the collar on Abby when we got to the park.  Ellen had her heal on the lead over to the West end of the creek.  We let her off lead and she splashed some in the water.  I got a stick and threw it into the creek.  She was perfectly happy running into the shallow area retrieving it.  I through the stick once in the deep end.  Abby got about two strokes in before she scrambled back.  That was all the introduction to swimming I had her do.

After that we walked around the West soccer field.  Abby payed attention to us and came every time we called.  At one point she ran over to some people.  It's the only time we had to zap her to get her back.  We continued to walk around the park.  Most of the time Abby stayed within 100 yds of us without being called.  She always came or stopped when we called.

At one point she went around a curve in the path and we couldn't see her.  She'd run across a soccer field and was playing with another dog.  She came running back as soon as I called.  The only other time she got zapped was when I told her to heal and she went over to great a passerby instead.

All in all Abby did fantastic.  If the weather is good we'll go again tomorrow.  I didn't do as good.  By the time we were finished I was stiff, sore, and very tired.

We went over to the Italian place for lunch.  The weather was nice - high 60's.  Abby was a little too rambunctious there.  She needs some more practice at eating out.  When we were finished we took her to Tomlinson's and bought her a treat.

I'd planned on working in the garage some more, but I was too tired.  I surfed instead while Ellen watched a chick flick.  When she was done I switched to videos, but I kept falling asleep.

Dinner was leftovers.  After that it was more videos.

I'm mildly curious about how Tony is doing, but not enough to call him.

Day 2988

 Ellen got up before 8 and did the pet stuff.  I stayed in bed and played games for a while.  When I got up I had breakfast and then surfed.  There wasn't anything on the plate for today.  I did plan on taking Abby to Circle C in the afternoon.

The stuff I ordered yesterday was delivered mid-morning.  I decided to install the new servo, because it was a "quick, easy, task".  Of course it turned out to be a bit of a pain.  The new servo is a millimeter or so longer than the old one.  Unfortunately the brass servo mount was very tight.  It took a little elbow grease to get the new servo to fit.

When that was done I decided I might as well install the gears and gearbox bearings.  getting the gearbox out of the rig wasn't very hard and neither was getting the gearbox apart.  I made sure to take a picture of the inside of the gearbox before I took the gears out.  Removing the bushings was a bitch.  There are 6.  Two came out with a little effort, two took a lot of work to remove, and two didn't want to come out at all.  I ended up taking the gearbox end out to the garage and using a heavy hex wrench to lever them out.

Putting everything back together took some effort, too.  The pinion was press on.  I had to remove the motor, lever the old pinion off, and press the new one on.  Pressing the bearings in also took some effort.  I reinstalled the motor and swapped the gear shafts to the new gears.  I unknowingly mixed up one gear.  It took a while to figure that out.  After that I had trouble closing the gear box because the gear shafts wouldn't fit into the bearings.  I had to tap them gently to get them to seat.

I installed heat shrink over the o-rings in all four universal joints.  That worked out well because I had the heat gun to shrink the tubing.  Putting the gearbox back in the frame was relatively easy also.

With that done I tested everything.  It all worked.  That's when I discovered that the servo wasn't the source of the limited steering.  It's the transmitter.  It's a piece of crap.  You can't set the end points and it limits the servo movement so the servo doesn't bind up.  It had to go.

That meant ordering at least an ESC.  I spent a long time analyzing different options.  Should I buy stuff for both the FMS and Traaxas, or only one?  Should I buy the Furitek transmissions to go with them?  Should I buy the "cheap" FMS motor/ESC combo or the expensive one.  I learned that I can buy good quality metal transmissions for both vehicles from Amazon for much less than the Furitek price.  I decided to get the higher cost motor/ESC combos for both vehicles.

I also spent a lot of time finding a 3S battery that would fit all three vehicles.  There aren't a lot that fit the criteria because all three vehicles have very different battery compartments.  

I ordered everything from Amain.  Unfortunately I only got $10 off rather than $20.  They changed their discounts for February.

Ellen fixed General Tso's chicken for dinner.  The weather alarm went off warning of heavy thunderstorms with high winds and hail.  I put the car in the garage, had dinner, and started watching videos.

Later on the storm came through.  It rained heavily, but luckily there wasn't high winds and hail.  We got .83 inch of rain in under an hour.

Day 2987

 A new pattern is emerging.  Ellen gets up first now to let the dog out (I don't hear her whining).  She does the pet stuff and I end up staying in bed for a while sleeping or playing games.  Eventually I get up and have breakfast.

I really didn't want to work on the Traaxas today, but I also didn't want to do nothing.  I ended up getting out the FMS and the Jeep.  I used the wire clips I'd bought to clean up the wires on both vehicles.  The results were really good.

When I was doing that I noticed that the servo on the Traaxas doesn't turn the wheels as far as they go.  I thought it was the servo, so I ordered another.  I also ordered a couple of things that Ellen wanted and some heat shrink so I can put it on the Traaxas drive shafts. 

We really needed to go to the grocery store.  Also Ellen needed to get drugs at Walgreen's.  Walgreen's was first.  Then we stopped at Wendy's for lunch because it was close.  HEB was the last stop.

We got home and surfed until it was time to take the cats to the vet.  They both checked out OK, but Devon needs his teeth cleaned.  After that it was back home.  There was a little more surfing before dinner - leftovers again.

After dinner was more videos.