Not a really exciting week………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

11/10/19 – Sunday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine. Downstairs to do the blog. Upstairs and cleaned up. Lunch. Back downstairs to cleanup the work bench till time to continue with CQWE contest. Then over to Gary’s for a short time. Back home and continued with CQWE. Kathy came home from shopping so I quit the contest and went out to eat at the Cattleman’s Steakhouse. Back home and dessert. Downstairs to print out some things for gun permit renewal and do computer updates. To bed, Big Bang and sleep

11/11/19 – Monday – Up late and the usual morning routine. Didn’t sleep well last night. Cleaned up and out to the Morton Building. Made a quick trip to Taylorsville for some fresh 10W30 oil. Then started work on the lawn tractor. Took the mower deck off and did all the annual maintenance. Put the plow blade on it and brought it over to the house. Put it and the golf cart on battery tenders so everything is ready for winter. Inside and did dogs and burgers on the grill. Took a nap then helped Kathy put pumpkin up in freezer bags. Downstairs to chat with Mike on 2 meters. Upstairs for a bite of dinner, bed, TV, reading, research and sleep.

11/12/19 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine. We were suppose to go shopping but Julie called to have Kathy come help her. Needless to say Julie won and I was on my own for the day. Got cleaned up and downstairs to do the paperwork on the CQWE contest. Did some additional research and played radio. Then upstairs for a quick lunch. Back down and worked on my Arduino the rest of the afternoon. Went upstairs around 3:30 for a nap. Kathy came home and that was the end of that. Had dinner, downstairs to chat with the guys on 2 meters. Upstairs to bed, computer updates, TV, other computer work and sleep.

11/13/19 – Wednesday – Up a little late today and usual morning routine. Cleaned up and out shopping with the wife. Went to Harbor Freight to pick up some gifts for the son-in-law. Then to Homedepot to pick up locks for replacement. Stopped at Bob Evans for a late lunch then to Meijer for some shopping for Kathy. Home and replaced the dead bolt lock on the Morton building and the door latch on the door from the kitchen out to the deck. Did computer work then dinner. Chatted with Gary on 2 meters. More computer work, upstairs to bed, Big Bang and sleep.

11/14/19 – Thursday – Up early and usual morning routine. Chores around the house then out for hair cut and stop at veterinary. Home and lunch. Over to Gary’s to look at some issues he’s having. Home and to my room to work on the Arduino project. Up for a light dinner. Back downstairs to chat with the guys on 2 meters. Computer updates. Upstairs, dessert, bed, Big Bang and sleep.

11/15/19 – Friday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine. Chores around the house in the morning. Lunch and downstairs to work on the garage project. Kathy went up to watch the grand kids this evening so Mike and Julie could go out for Mike’s birthday. I had Chile for dinner then downstairs and chatted with the guys on 2 meters. Computer updates and upstairs to bed. TV, some reading and sleep.

11/16/19 – Saturday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine. Kathy departed early to go take Julie, Mike and the grand kids downtown to a Christmas light show at Slugger field. I did chores around the house and down to play radio awhile. Back upstairs and had lunch. Downstairs and worked on my garage door project. I went up to Mike and Julie’s around 4:30PM to go out to dinner with everyone. Back to the house and had cake to celebrate Mike’s birthday and open presents. Home and bed, computer updates, Big Bang and sleep.

---

Now the particulars:

It really does snow in Kentucky.  Here is a picture of our back yard and the field when we got up Tuesday morning.  Of course the weather forecasters were predicting a blizzard as they usually do when we are about to get some winter precipitation.   We got about an inch but it only accumulated on the grass and raised surfaces.  The roads and driveways were just wet and they were dry by late morning.

I was ready however. For whatever reason I did the annual routine work on the garden tractor on Monday.  Not that I was worried about snow.  It has fresh filters and oil and was well lubricated.  I keep it in the garage at the house in the winter so in the unlikely event of a large accumulation I can just put the snow chains on the rear wheels and drive it out the garage door to start plowing.  The reason the hood is up is to remind me that it is connected to the battery tender and I shouldn’t just drive off until I disconnect it.

Well it’s the holiday season.  Things are starting to get tense.  I’ve had complaints about more than the usual this last week.  I shouldn’t sleep in till 9AM then take a nap during the day and many more issues to numerous to mention.  All trivial but after awhile they wear me down.  I keep reminding myself it will all be over in a couple months and be back to normal.  In the mean time I have enough things to work on that I can stay downstairs in my room or over in the Morton building till the Christmas Nazis reverts back to being human. God I hope she doesn’t read this.

I want to thank my friend Lynn for all the comments.  I really do appreciate it as it makes me feel like this is worthwhile.  I see numbers on my statistics page but they really don’t mean anything other than someone clicked on a page.  The comments show me that someone is actually reading it regardless of how boring it is.

This week was my son-in-law’s birthday.  It’s always hard for him as his twin brother died of cancer a few years ago.  So everyone tries to do something good for him.  His birthday was Friday so Kathy went over and watched the grand kids while Julie took him out to eat.  Then yesterday everyone went with him to the Chinese buffet.  After dinner we went back to the house and he opened presents.  Then he wanted to watch the ball game so I left.  He will be OK for another year now.

I didn’t score a lot of points this year in the CQWE contest.  It’s more or less a chance for ex-bell employees to just chat awhile on the air.  Of course you score points for people you talk with and get multipliers for the number of different entities.  I didn’t work hard at it.  Only got on three times for a few hours.  But it was fun chatting with people briefly about where they worked and what they did.  Anyway, I sent my logs in to the coordinators and they will be compiled and a list published of how everyone did.

The Arduino project I’m working on is driving me up a wall.  I’ve got all the wiring and sensors done but the coding of the microprocessor is giving me fits.  But I’ll keep at it.  At this point I think I need to do same raw analysis and stop depending on the documentation.  I don’t think things are working like the documentation says it should.

Well, that’s it for this week.  Hope this finds everyone well and I’ll blog at you again next week.