A very full week. Not sure how I got everything done……………………………

As always, first the chronology:

8/8/21 – Sunday – Up at the usual time and ear was really hurting me.  Didn’t go to church.  Got a shower and did the blog.  No lunch.  Kathy went over to help do something with Chloe’s hair before school starts next week.  I went to the Sunday afternoon get together at Gary’s place.  Came home and Kathy and I went to the Mexican restaurant for dinner.  Home and took the bed cover off the truck.  Julie wants me to haul something for her tomorrow.  Also took the front wheel that broke off the lawn tractor.  Inside and played radio awhile.  Then the usual evening routine.

8/9/21 – Monday – Up at the usual time.  Chores and phone calls.  Got the wheel ordered for the lawn tractor.  Should be here Wednesday.  Then over to  Julie’s to go get an exercise machine with the truck.  Out to Shelbyville to look at the new Harbor Freight store.  A quick lunch at Burger King and over to OPS supply to pick up my bow.  They couldn’t find a string so I came home and found a custom place online and ordered it.  Usual evening routine.

8/10/21 – Tuesday – Up a little early this morning.  Kathy was up and out to watch the grand children today.  I did chores around the house.  Putting things away, replacing light bulbs, etc.  Inside and did some computer work.  Upstairs for lunch.  Spent the afternoon working on my pulse generator and getting things together for our trip tomorrow.  Kathy came home and I went to Shelbyville to the HAM club meeting and testing session.  Home and loaded the truck for tomorrow.  Otherwise the usual evening routine.

8/11/21 – Wednesday – Up a little early this morning with a leg cramp.  Kathy and I got cleaned up and went up to Cincinnati to visit relatives.  Got back late with a stop at Bob Evan’s for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/12/21 – Thursday – Up at the usual time this morning.  Washed up and out to Wright’s Implements in Shelbyville for the wheel I ordered for the front of the lawn tractor.  Got wheel bearing and valve stem as well.  Came home and discovered the wheel already had wheel bearings so I have an extra set.  Took the tire off the old wheel.  Put the new valve stem in the new wheel then mounted the tire off the old wheel.  Everything worked as planned.  Put it back on the tractor and rode around a couple minutes and all seems well.  This afternoon I did some banking and checking.  They have a new mortgage plan that might save me a hundered dollars or so a month.  Made arrangements to meet with the banking people next Wednesday.  Worked on my project inside the rest of the afternoon.  Usual evening routine.

8/13/21 – Friday – Up at the usual time.  Out to survey the storm damage from last night.  A few limbs down but nothing to worry about.  Antennas are good.  Worked in the shack finishing up my TDR pulse generator.  Had lunch then worked with Kathy making Don Guazon sandwiches.  She came down and helped me label the pulse generator.  Then cleaned up the work bench and prepared for putting together of the repeater controller.  Out to Walmart and Lowes for shopping.  Stopped at Cattleman’s Roadhouse for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/14/21 – Saturday – Up at the usual time.  Out to clean up the debris from the storm this week.  Knocked a pretty big limb off one of the trees.  Had to use the chain saw to cut it up.  Had burgers, brats and dogs on the grill for lunch.  Worked on the repeater controller awhile then took a nap.  Up for dinner.  Usual evening routine including some work on the longbow I am refurbishing.

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Now the specifics:

Woke up Sunday morning with a worsening ear ache. I went to see the nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office on Friday and he gave me some Amoxicillin. I started that Friday but things seemed to get worse. My doctor came in Tuesday and sent me a referral to an ENT doctor but they couldn’t see me till next month. I wasn’t going to put up with this for a month. I told my regular doctor and he sent in a prescription for prednisone and that seem to clear things up. I’m still debating on whether to go see the ENT guy. I have an appointment with my GP later this month so I’ll ask then.

And the ongoing sage with my tractor wheel. A few weeks ago I noticed the inside part of the wheel that houses the inside wheel bearing had separated from the wheel. I tried to weld that in place but that failed and apparently caused further damage to the wheel and both side broke. So I bit the bullet and ordered the new wheel from the local John Deere dealer to the tune of $91 on Monday. They said it would probably be in Wednesday but to call before coming over. So on our way back from Cincinnati I had Kathy call and they said it was in. So I went over Thursday morning and picked it up along with a set of wheel bearings and a new valve stem. Got home and discovered the wheel came with bearings so now I have a spare set of those. I put the new valve stem in the new wheel. Took the tire off the old wheel as I replaced those last year and they are in very good shape. Then put the wheel back on the tractor and everything works great. Closure on an other issue.

My cousin and his wife (Kathy’s sister) came in from Pennsylvania to visit my brother-in-law (Kathy’s brother) up in Cincinnati this week so Kathy and I decided to go up to see everyone. We got on the road around 8:30AM and got up there around 10:30AM. Got to see a lot of people including my niece (Terry and Mary’s) daughter and her three kids.

So here’s the group. From left to right. First my cousin and brother-in-law Lee. Our dad’s were brothers. Then his wife Judy who is also Kathy’s sister. Next is Terry, my brother-in-law (Kathy’s brother) then his wife Mary. Then Debbie (Terry and Mary’s daughter). Then Kathy and me.

Debbie has not had a lot of luck in life. Many years ago she was walking her dog through a community park and a very large tree branch fell on her and did major damage to her pelvic girdle. For many years she was unable to walk normally. At one point she was refusing to take pain medication for fear she would be come addicted. They invited me up to talk to her as I had just gone through all the rehabilitation with my motorcycle accident. Then she had a rather smart doctor tell her he could fix her up. Other doctors refuted the idea. She took a chance and today you wouldn’t know she ever had a problem. She also had her three kids there. Two of which are in college and the youngest is a senior in high school.

Debbie and her family departed after lunch and the rest of us went to a place called Entertrainment Junction. It is the largest indoor model train layout in the world. A very interesting place to visit if you are ever in the Cincinnati area.

Here’s Kathy and I getting our picture taken as though we are in the display. You can see by that little guy to my left the approximate scale. Or perhaps you can’t. Anyway, as you go through the display, you pass through period accurate modeling. The detail is unreal. And from what I know about steam and diesel locomotives, they are technically accurate as well. Definitely a place I would like to go back to.

Kathy and I got started on the road around 4:30PM and made it home by 7PM. Had a stop at Bob Evan’s for dinner on the way back. A great day indeed.

We had a little bit of a storm pass through the area here on Thursday night. It knocked down some rather large branches in our yard. The antennas were OK. Saturday morning we got out and cut that stuff up and hauled it over to the burn pile.

Here’s a picture of the pulse generator to setup a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer) test. This simply generates a pulse of energy that you send down a piece of coax cable and feed the reflected wave back into a oscilloscope. You can determine both the electrical and physical length of the coax and also determine it here are any faults in it and where. It’s a pretty nifty gadget if you are into gadgets.

Next project on the work bench is the new repeater controller for the UHF HAM repeater here in Spencer County.

I made mention of my longbow a few times here so I guess it is time to explain. A couple months ago we went up to Crestwood, KY to the Kentucky State Renaissance Fair. Julie wanted to see what it was like so we all went up. There was the usual marketing scam stuff but some other interesting things like jousting competitions, knife throwing, hatching throwing and archer contests. They also had places you could try some of these fun things for yourself. So the grand kids wanted to try the archery and of course wanted me to join in which I did. I was the only one that got all 6 arrows in the target. So now the grand kids think I’m going to teach them archery. Well that got me motivated and I found my old longbow from when I was a kid. It had no string so I took it to a local place and they couldn’t help me. I found a place online and gave them a call. They took the needed information and made me a string for it. So I put the sting on, pulled it back and the hand grip popped off. It seems the glue they used to secure it had probably dried up and caused the malfunction. So, I’m now getting all the old felt and stuff off the pieces and will re-glue it and hopefully make if functional again. I’ll keep you posted on the progress here. If you are interested you might want to keep you eyes open for a special blog on English Longbow’s and how they relate to other types of bows and a little history.

Also might want to keep you eyes open for my special blog on COVID vaccine and shot records. You might be surprised.

OK, that’s it for this week. Hope this finds everyone well and safe. Blog at you again next week.