It comes in no specific order this week…………………………………..

As always, first the chronology:

8/27/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy.  Home and lunch.  Down to do the blog.  Out to Gary’s for the Sunday afternoon get together.  Back to the house and picked up Kathy and down to Taylorsville for Mexican.  Home and usual evening routine.

8/28/23 – Monday – Up a little late today.  The Mexican food kept me awake most of the night.  Got cleaned up.  Spent the morning and some time in the afternoon doing maintenance on my TARPN node.  Kathy took off after lunch to go take Chloe to the Orthodonist.  I took a short nap.  Chores around the house.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/29/23 – Tuesday – Up a little early today.  Cleaned up and down to practice CW at 9AM.  Then down to the church to revisit the PA system issue.  This time with success.  Back to the house and lunch.  Helped Kathy set up Roku on her TV in the family room.  Cleaned up the stuff from the efforts at church.  Then a nap.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/30/23 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and over to the farm to reposition the AllStar link node.  Took the power meter out of line as it wasn’t showing anything again.  Then over to Gary’s old house to pick up some information on his call sign with the FCC.  Then up to Walmart to look for another light for my HAM desk.  No luck.  So up to Westport Road and to Office Max and got what I was looking for.  Over to Bob Evans for a big lunch.  Down to Kroger for some grocery shopping.  Home and unloaded the truck.  Went for gas then put it away.  Another cup of coffee and did the computer work to change Gary’s mailing address with the FCC.  A nap and up for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/31/23 – Thursday – Up late this morning.  Out to get gas in the cans for the lawn mowers.  Back and helped Kathy with some chores around the house.  Had lunch.  Down to the shack to do some administrative things.  Up and cleaned up and out to dinner with the Craycrofts.  Home and usual evening routine.

9/1/23 – Friday – Up a little early this morning.  Cleaned up and a friend, RIck, came over to play radio.  Got here around 10AM and stayed till 1PM.  Had a good time.  Had lunch then a nap.  Up and chores then dinner and usual evening routine.

9/2/23 – Saturday – Up at the usual time.  Did the usual Saturday morning chores.  Down to the shack to practice with the straight key.  Up for lunch.  Back to the shack to practice some more CW.  Spent the rest of the afternoon playing radio and giving points to the folks in Colorado.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

Last Sunday we decided to go out to the Mexican restaurant for dinner. I wanted something different so I ordered a couple enchiladas with beans and rice. The picture looked good and they had beef in them. The waiter asked if I wanted some kind of sauce and since I didn’t understand the question I just said yes. Well, apparently it was the red sauce over the enchiladas and it was F’in hot. But it tasted good so I ate it anyway. Well, it let me know I should not have done that all night Sunday night. So, I didn’t get off to an early start Monday morning. Spent a lot of time in the bathroom and let me tell you, that stuff burns going down and coming out. Glad I tried them but won’t make that mistake again.

Monday I spent most of the day doing maintenance on my TARPN node. That’s the system that replaces the internet for HAM radio. Anyway, I had to update a lot of software in the Raspberry Pi and upgrade the firmware in the TNCs. But that is all done and now I’m running the latest and greatest.

We have been having issues streaming TV with the Amazon Fire Stick. I read online that the reviews on the various devices to do that indicated the Roku device was superior to the Amazon device. So I ordered one for the bedroom and was very pleased with the improved performance. So, I order another one for Kathy and helped her get that up and running on her TV downstairs. I bit of a learning curve but not a steep one.

Wednesday we were out and about running errands so I went over to Gary’s old place and retrieved a folder with the particulars on his HAM licenses. I have been telling him he needed to change the address on his HAM license. That’s suppose to be done within 30 days of moving. Needless to say he procrastinated. Last Sunday he mentioned that he would like me to do that. I asked him for the password and he told me it was in this folder. Of course it was up to me to go get the folder. Anyway, I had nightmares about trying to find it in the mess but it was right where he told me it would be. So other than making a trip out of our way, it was rather painless to retrieve. After we were done with errands I got online and filed the actual paperwork to change the address. That part was painless. It was approved so I printed out all the information the later part of this week and will take that over to him this weekend.

Tuesday, Kathy went to the church with me and I started all over with out project there. I started from scratch and set the mixing console up the way it should be set. Then I added the FM transmitter and it all worked very well. Shows you how an amateur can really hose things up. Anyway, today in church the lady we were doing this for tried it out and said it worked great. So another success story.

Thursday evening we went out to dinner with the Craycrofts. It’s nice to get out socially with them once in awhile. I think Gloria needs to get out as she doesn’t have much of anyone at home to talk to. But it was a nice dinner. We went to a Cattleman’s over on Hurstborne Lane. A good evening out.

Been back to the CW efforts.

Here’s the new straight key I bought. It’s rather interesting but much easier to use than the old junkers I was working with. Of course on my zoom class Friday the instructor told me I had to work a lot on being more consistent with my sending. So, I’ve been practicing more on that.

Last month at the HAM club meeting we had a testing session before the meeting. A gentleman came in and wanted to take the Technician test which he passed with a perfect score. So he toke the General license exam and passed that. The following weekend was the KY state POTA exercise. I took my stuff to do digital and Rick came up to see what it was all about. He spent a good bit of time with me and we ended up exchanging information. He then texted me some questions and was looking for my opinion on some things. I suggested perhaps he might want to come over to my shack and at least turn some knobs on an HF radio before he decided which one to buy. In the mean time someone mentioned that they thought he was a Pastor. So, for whatever reason I looked him up and sure enough he is a lead pastor at a rather larger Baptist church here in the area. Anyway, he came over Friday to do as I suggested and was having fun. Wouldn’t know he was a Pastor. Very down to earth and overall a very nice guy.

They came to mow and bail our field this week. It looks very nice. Almost like an extension to our back yard. They didn’t get much hay out of it so I doubt they will do it again this year. Kathy suggested she might just start mowing it with the zero turn mower.

My friend in PA is back in the hospital. Apparently his sodium levels took a nose dive. No wonder with all the stuff he’s been going through these last several months. Not much more to say about that.

Well, as always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.