Rather uneventful week……………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

1/24/21 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Did some chores this morning then down to do the blog.  Kathy went to church.  Lunch and cleaned up.  Over to Gary’s for the afternoon get together.  Home and took Kathy to Bob Evans for dinner.  Stopped at Walmart for some shopping on the way home.  Home and usual evening routine.

1/25/21 – Monday – Up a little late this morning.  Chores and made some phone calls and contacted some people to see how they are doing.  Played radio and had lunch.  Chatted with a guy in Germany using digital modes at 50 watts.  Later today the bands opened up more into Europe.  Made two phone contacts into Spain and chatted with a guy in Portugal for about 30 minutes.  A good day for HAM radio.  Had dinner, usual evening routine.

1/26/21 – Tuesday – Up early this morning with Kathy.  She was getting ready to go watch grand kids.  I played radio for awhile then out to the Morton building and figured out what I needed at the auto parts store. Down for oil and grease fittings.  Got milk and picked up McDonald’s for lunch.  Home, ate and out to the Morton building.  Generator won’t start.  Needs new carburetor.  Was going to fix my grease gun but something told me to head for the house.  Just made it to the bathroom.  Kathy said she had it this morning.  Another bug going around.  Fine now.  Did some chores, took a nap, dinner and usual evening routine.

1/27/21 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine.  Downstairs to play radio and went to do a quick fix on a problem on my server (Megexcel).  Ended up corrupting the MySQL database and had to start reloading everything which took about 6 hours.  Glad I do backups.  Kathy went shopping at Walmart.  Had lunch when she came home.  Finished up the restore on the server around 4PM.  Had dinner, usual evening routine.

1/28/21 – Thursday – Up a little early today.  Kathy was getting ready to go watch the grand kids.  Snowed a couple inches last night.  Not much on the roads or driveways.  Bands were not good so did some reading.  Had lunch.  Snow was completely gone on the cement surfaces.  Back downstairs and put out a CQ and a guy from Ohio answered and we chatted for almost 2 hours on Olivia (An hf digital mode).  Went for a nap.  Kathy came home and we had dinner.  Usual evening routine.

1/29/21 – Friday – Up a little early today.  Usual morning routine.  Downstairs to play radio.  Kathy went to get her hair done so I took a nap.  Up and lunch.  Back downstairs to play radio.  Got taken out for dinner by our son-in-law.  Home, computer updates and bed.

1/30/21 – Saturday – Up a little early and out to fire up the heaters in the shop.  Son-in-law came over around 10AM and we got his project worked on and painted.  In for lunch.  He tried my Jambalya and like it.  Back out and cleaned up.  He took off.  I removed the carburetor from the generator and came inside.  Found one that looks the same, measurements are off but I’m hoping it fits.  Only $20.  Kathy came home from helping Julie.  I took a nap then up and dinner.  Usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

I am keeping a to-do-list in an application so when I can’t remember what to do next I can look at it. If you have the same problem the app is called todoist. Works on cellphone, windows, linux and just about any other device. And you can link them together so if you add something on your cellphone it will show up everywhere else.

So one of the items I had was to run the portable generator I have in the shop. Haven’t done that since early summer. Tuesday I got the oil to change it when I started it but as luck would have it, it didn’t start. Saturday I warmed up the shop to work on another project so while it was warm I took a closer look at . the generator. No gas getting to the carburetor. Took the gas line apart and replaced the fuel filter but still didn’t work. Has to be something in the carburetor. Tried to cross reference the number with not luck. So I matched the pictures up and ordered one. Dimensions are off a little but I can’t believe it looks so close and isn’t the correct one. It cost me $20 plus shipping and I’ll have it Tuesday. We will see then.

Had the shop warmed up Saturday to work on a project for my son-in-law. He put in an exercise room and has a punching bag on a rail that can be slid out to use and slid back to be out of the way. It has a lock on the fixture that the bag hangs on but that’s on the ceiling and no one in their family is tall enough to reach it and lock it in place. So he came up with a fixture on an extension pool that Carter could use to lock and unlock the punching bag. I don’t think it’s going to work very well but I helped him do what he wanted

As a thank you for Kathy’s help with the babysitting and my help with various projects they took us out to Stoney Lodge for dinner on Friday night. It’s a very nice place. They took us there for our anniversary. Very expensive but great food and very nice to visit.

Was a good day for HF propagation on Monday. Had stations from all over the world booming in. I chatted with a guy in Germany on digital for 1/2 hour in the morning. Made several other contacts. In the afternoon made several contacts with Spain and chatted with a guy in Portugal for 1/2 hour. Very happy the bands are starting to come back after a very low cycle of no sun spots. I am looking forward to having even more fun this summer in the evening. Things should pick up and the bands should be great later in the day.

Wednesday morning I decided to fix a little problem with my Megexcel server. I had done an update from 18.04.4 to 18.04.5 which should have been a rather benign upgrade but for some reason it deleted the MySQL database on the server, replace it with Mariahdb and uninstalled my CQRLOG software. Should have been a simple process to restore the MySQL database but I didn’t read the directions and managed to screw it up beyond all recognition. Thus I spent 6 hours the rest of the day rebuilding the server. Thank God for backups. And it gave me something to do for the day.

This was what we woke up to Thursday morning. Very pretty and Bella had a blast playing in it. Those are her footsteps on the deck. This came down last night I suspect before midnight. Ground was just warm enough that very little accumulated on hard surfaces but got perhaps 2 inches on raised surfaces and the grass. By noon on Thursday it had all disappeared on the sidewalks and driveways. That’s the way I like it. Snows enough for be pretty for awhile then gone.

Don’t know about the rest of the world but gas prices are up and stocks are down in this neck of the woods. If you enjoy this please take time to thank a Biden supporter. I have heard rumors that they took down the videos of his inauguration because there were so many negative comments. I also heard that twitter was inundated with people posting how sorry they were for voting for Biden. Of course I saw a couple posts on facebook from idiots claiming how much better they were sleeping and how much safer they felt now that Trump was out of office. Yea, with the Democrats trying to take our gun rights and opening our southern border up to unvetted immigrants, you shouldn’t really feel that much safer. What idiots. And of course the people showing a picture of the idiot from the View holding up a severed head of Biden like she did Trump and asking it was still OK. ROFL.

Well, speaking to people around the country it is obvious that no one is on the same page when it comes to COVID vaccine. Some people say the threshold for phase 1B is 70 years old and others say it’s 75. It is amazing. In my humble opinion, no on has any idea what is happening and thus has no idea how to handle it. I spoke to my friend Stan in southern Florida and he got both his shots. Had to drive up to Miami but said it took less than 1/2 hour and there was little to no waiting line. We are on probably a 1/2 dozen waiting lists here in Kentucky. I don’t know of anyone other then first line workers and nursing home folks that have gotten the vaccine. I think this qualifies for the “Cluster Fuck” award.

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