Worked hard this week, hope it pays off………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

8/27/17 – Sunday – Up and out to pick up Gary for church. Home and had coffee and another bagel while reading the paper. Kathy came home from Church to I went to bed for a nap. Must have slept well as I didn’t wake up till almost 2PM. Had a couple soft pretzels for lunch then gathered things up to go over to Gary’s. Came home and ordered some HAM license plates and name badges. Did the Blog. Then upstairs and Kathy and I went to Moby Dick’s and had fish for dinner. Then over to the Mexican restaurant to pick up Kathy’s sweat shirt she left there. Stopped at Dairy Queen for desert. Home and gathered the garbage and took it out. Back to my room for some computer work. To bed and sleep. No Big Bang tonight.

8/28/17 – Monday – Crappy weather so my objective was to stay inside and study for my test. Kathy went out to do some things including giving blood, shopping and stopping at Julie’s place. She was gone most of the day. I ended up doing work on the Megexcel server instead of studying. Kathy got home late afternoon and was tired. So I made dinner while she napped. Then she was off to her church group meeting. I did a little more computer work, then to bed and some research and to bed.

8/29/17 – Tuesday – Got serious and spent the entire day studying for my test. Nothing else exciting today. To bed some Big Bang and sleep.

8/30/17 – Wednesday – More studying. Made the retiree net at 10AM. Got cleaned up and went over to pick up Gary for dinner. Had dinner at church. Home, some Big Bang and sleep.

8/31/17 – Thursday – Suppose to rain the next couple days so we did the lawn today. Finished up around 3PM. Worked on changing the carburetor on the leaf blower I inherited. Got cleaned up and out to drop off some things at Gary’s, dinner at Fiesta Mexicana, some shopping and home to bed and sleep.

9/1/17 – Friday – Kathy canned all day. I studied more for my test. Bed early, watch a little of Predator. Took a couple practice tests and sleep.

9/2/17 – Saturday – Kathy went with Julie to Mike’s Dad’s place to continue the clean out process. I stayed home and studied more. I am trying to get through the book completely this weekend so I can start taking sample tests this coming week. Kathy came home and we had dinner. I took a break awhile then to bed and some more practice tests and to sleep.

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Now the particulars:

This HAM test is much more intensive than I thought.  Getting into some really hard theory stuff that I haven’t used since tech school and some in my Air Force training.  The objective is to finish the study guide this weekend then spend the rest of the week working on practice tests.  The problem is, there are 716 questions in the pool of questions and they only pull 50 for the test.  And of course you don’t know which 50 they will pull.  If they happen to pull a lot from an area that I’m weak on, I could be in trouble.  Lately my practice tests have been in the lower 80s which should be good as I only need 74 to pass.  But I’m going to strive for the 90s to give me some room in case they ask me all difficult questions.

Last weekend when I was over to Gary’s, our mutual friend Mike wasn’t there.  So, Gary and I decided on some license plates with our call sign and some name tags to wear.  I ordered them and discovered that the guy that runs the business is one of the guys I chatted with during the 13 colonies contest.  It turns out he is a really nice guy.  He makes all kind of things related to HAM radio.  Anyway, there were some questions about what I wanted on the back of our name tags as he had several options.  Ends up he sent me all three for each name tag just to be sure.  Anyway, if you want some good stuff at reasonable prices you might try him at http://kb3ifh.homestead.com.  I’m sure he could do almost anything you want.  And he is reasonable and great to work with.  Ordered the stuff Monday and got it in the mail Thursday.  Took Gary’s stuff over to him before we went to dinner Thursday.

Megexcel is reconfigured.  I have almost everything but the email up and running.  So, I will wait to get it back online after that’s done.

After the test is over and I get caught up some things I’ll try to get that going again and finish up my blog entry on Rolling Thunder.  Hell if I don’t do it soon I’ll have to do two years at once.

The neighbor across the street called this week.  He had a bunch of stuff in his garden that had to be used.  Asked us if we wanted it.  Of course we agreed so he showed up a short time later with a big 5 gallon bucket of pole beans and another bucket full of tomatoes and yellow squash.  So, Kathy spent one day this week snipping beans and canning them.  I think her plan is to freeze the tomatoes.  Anyway, we have some great neighbors around here.  Nothing like the place we came from.

I am invited to the changing of the guard at Fort Knox this month.  The current Adjutant General is retiring and a new Brigadier General is taking over.  The outgoing Brigadier General is a member of our church and is retiring.  So, he invited Kathy and me to attend the formal ceremony at Fort Knox and then to a party at his house that evening.  Quite an honor.  Don’t know that I would ever have an opportunity like this again.  So, if possible, we will attend.

The usual things are still getting under my skin.  Bicyclist and people at church are the main problems.  I really do try hard to ignore these people but they just won’t go away and leave me in peace.  Seems like they go out of their way to aggravate me.  Although I know better than that.  They are just stupid people.  Anyway, I’m working on it and not ranting about it like I used to.  At least I get a gold star or sticker of a kitty saying “Mee Wow”.

OK, enough for this week.  Hope all is well with everyone and wish you all a good week to come.