Happy Halloween……………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

10/24/21 – Sunday – Up early today with dogs barking.  Chores around the house, cleaned up and out to church.  Home and lunch.  Down to do the blog.  Over to Gary’s for the afternoon get together. Back to pick up Kathy and over to Bulbs Plus for a memory battery then dinner at Applebee’s.  Home and usual evening routine.

10/25/21 – Monday – Up a little late this morning.  Out to the auto parts store then Wright Implement for John Deere parts.  Stop at the bank and gassed up the truck.  Home and lunch.  Out to the Morton building and did the maintenance on the yard tractor and did some repairs.  Inside and cleaned up. Dinner and usual evening routine.

10/26/21 – Tuesday – Up a little early this morning with dogs barking.  Out to set up the hitch on the truck with a 2″ ball.  Kathy went shopping.  She came back and I helped unload and put things away. Then lunch.  Got a call that Stan wasn’t coming today, maybe tomorrow.  Worked the rest of the day on my audio project.  Need sheet of metal so out to Lowe’s and stopped at Cattleman’s Steakhouse for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

10/27/21 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out for errands.  Went to Kroger for prescriptions, the car wash to get the truck washed and out to Shelbyville for some metal.  Home and picked up Kathy and in to Hometown Pizza for lunch.  Home and out to the shop to do some wood work.  Didn’t have the wood I wanted so Kathy brought her car over and we cleaned the inside of it.  In the house, 45 minute nap.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

10/28/21 – Thursday – Up a little early this morning.  Over to pick up Gary to go for our hair cuts.  Took Gary back home and over to Lowe’s for some wood and hole saw.  Home and lunch.  Played radio and took a nap this afternoon.  Our friend Stan came down from Michigan on his way to Florida.  Spent time with him this evening.

10/29/21 – Friday – Up a little early this morning.  Stan and I went down to the Patton Museum at Fort Knox.  Then up to Hooter’s for lunch, hit a couple watering holes and home around 4:30PM.  Had dinner, socialized and usual evening routine.

10/30/21 – Saturday – Up a little early this morning.  Stan and I went over to Julie’s and helped her with some plumbing issues.  Out to lunch at Yoki Buffet.  Home and a nap.  Out to Texas Roadhouse with Julie and the kids for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

The highlight of the week was our friend Stan coming to visit. He was planing on being here Monday but weather issues and a tire problem delayed his arrival till Thursday. He came in late Thursday afternoon. I met him at the Country Mart parking lot where we disconnected his Sling Shot from his mobile home and hitched it to my truck. He gassed up the mobile home while there then we brought the Sling Shot and his mobile home up to the house. He backed the mobile home down the driveway to the Morton building. Then in for dinner. After dinner we took his Sling Shot off the dolly and put it in the Morton building. Put the dolly behind the motor home and hitched it back up.

Friday we had a nice breakfast then off to visit the Patton Museum. Spent a couple hours there looking at things. Then up to Hooter’s for lunch. Took the long way home and hit a couple watering holes.

This is a little early but today (Sunday) we got Stan’s motor home moved up the driveway and put his Sling Shot back on the dolly behind. He is all set to take off tomorrow (Monday) morning.

Stan and I spend Saturday at Julie’s house helping her with some plumbing issues.

It was great seeing Stan. We haven’t seen him since last year when he stopped on his way through. With any luck next year we’ll get a chance to travel to Florida and stop by and see him.

Last Saturday I fired up my HAM gear to chat with the guys on 2 meters SSB and my radio lost all it’s memory. Bottom line it has a computer like any other device and a lot of memory that holds the various frequencies and modes that I commonly use. There’s a little 3 volt button cell that keeps the memory alive and when it goes dead you lose all the memory. So Sunday after our evening meal we stopped at Bulbs Plus and got a fresh battery. Came home and installed it then reprogrammed everything and all is well.

Last Saturday while mowing the yard the dip stick vibrated out of the filler tube on the lawn tractor and blew oil all over the side of the engine and operating peddle. I thought I had just neglected to lock it down so I topped it off with oil, made sure I locked it down and continued mowing only to have it happen again. So this time I put another rubber ‘O’ ring on it and that allowed me to lock it down solid. So Monday I went to the John Deere dealer and bought material to do a tune up but they didn’t have the oil dipstick or the filler tube. So I’ll try using it as is and see if it’s OK. If not I’ll order the parts I need online. But now it has new oil, fuel and air filters as well as fresh oil. While I had it apart I also replaced some wire loom that protected the wires to the headlights and tie wrapped that down.

Last week I finished building a couple audio power amplifiers. I used a couple IC chips that are normally used in the audio output for car radios. It works on 12 volts DC and has sufficient power to run a speaker. So this week I started working on the enclosure that will house the speaker, the amplifier and associated controls and inputs. I will post a picture when this project is complete.

I am still working on the repeater controller. In waiting for Stan this week I didn’t have time to go try it out again.

Wednesday afternoon we had some down time so Kathy brought her car over to the shop and we gave it a good cleaning inside. Just in time for her to take Rusty to the groomers and have him throw up in the back.

That’s about it for this week. Next week we will be back to the old grind. Hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Stay that way. I’ll blog at you again next week.