Not a remarkable week…………………….

As always, first the chronology:

9/17/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up, loaded food in the car and off to church with Kathy.  Had lunch there after service since Kathy was providing the food.  Home and unloaded the car.  Did the blog then over to Gary’s for the Sunday afternoon get together.  Home, picked up Kathy and off to Applebee’s for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

9/18/23 – Monday – Up at the usual time.  Down to practice my code for awhile.  Up and cleaned up.  Lunch then out to the Morton building to work on the shelf for the audio booth at church.  In and made some phone calls.  Did a bunch of computer work.  A short nap then dinner.  Usual evening routine.

9/19/23 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  Down to practice code.  Out to the Morton building to finish building the shelf for church.  Needed wood filler so went to ACE Hardware.  Kathy was off to a woman’s group meeting at church by the time I got back.  I had lunch then went out and finished the building process.  In and a short nap.  Had dinner then a Zoom class.  Otherwise, the usual evening routine.

9/20/23 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time.  Down to practice code.  Over to the Morton building to finish up the work on the shelf I’m building.  Kathy was off to get her hair done.  I went back to the house just before Kathy got back.  We had lunch.  Down to the shack to play radio awhile.  Over to the Morton building and brought the shelf back to the house to put felt on the bottom.  Up for dinner.  Had burgers on the grill.  Usual evening routine.

9/21/23 – Thursday – Up at the usual time.  Out to get my hair cut on the motorcycle.  Home and put it in the Morton building.  In and practiced CW till lunch time.  Helped Kathy do some things in the afternoon and played radio.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

9/22/23 – Friday – Up at the usual time.  Down to practice code.  Then cleaned up and out for some shopping at Harbor Freight, dinner at Marimba Mexican restaurant, shopping at Walmart and a quick stop for gas in the truck.  Home and unloaded things.  Over to the Morton building and got the deer feeder out and tested.  Loaded the gas cans in the truck and went down to fill them.  Home and put things away.  Over to the house and setup for my Zoom meeting.  Did that then upstairs for a light dinner.  Usual evening routine.

9/23/23 – Saturday – Up at the usual time.  Down to practice code.  On the computer to make Echolink work on my Allstar node.  Up for lunch.  Over to the Morton building and put the deer feeder back together.  Inside and did some research on the timing issues associated with the repeater.  Up for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

In no specific order –

Sunday we fed the church for lunch. Not many people showed up. Perhaps a couple dozen. Kathy made a casserole with ground beef, corn, tomatoes and some sauce. Made coleslaw but it didn’t taste very good. And she had Oatmeal Cake for desert. No one complained but then again, why would they. It was a free meal.

I finished up the shelf for the audio booth at church. It will get some boxes off the table and lift the FM transmitter and the receiver for the Pastor’s wireless microphone up to a point that there will be line of site with things. I finished it Wednesday but didn’t have time the rest of the week. That will be a project for this coming week.

Kathy was bored one day this week so she went out with the zero turn mower and mowed the field again.

Now you can’t tell where our yard ends and the field starts. It looks nice. Still rather dry. Didn’t do any other mowing this week but I suspect we’ll have to do it this week one day.

Harbor Freight had a big clearance sale on Friday so Kathy and I went over to see if there was anything we couldn’t live without the rest of our lives. I got a couple clamps, some rags and a magnetic hardware dish to hold things when I’m working on them. Kathy got some cable ties and a flashlight for Shelby.

I took the motorcycle over to get my hair cut on Thursday. Came out of the salon and it was dead. Took several tries turning the key off and on again to get it to light up so I could start it. Seems to be fine after it’s running. In any event, it’s not reliable the way it is so I took it over to the Morton building and started taking it apart. I’ll check all the connectors and do a close visual inspection. Hope something obvious turns up.

Kathy will be taking a trip with the Rice family to some resort in the Dominican Republic. Not a place I’d like to go. They claim it’s a walled in resort but I still don’t think the political climate there is conducive for a safe vacation. But that’s what she wants to do. I heard rumor that Todd will be joining them. I’m going to stay home and take care of the dogs.

She will be leaving on Saturday, October 21st and returning Thursday, October 26th. I was going to post an online reservation form for people to fill out if they wanted to come take care of me anytime but I was afraid no one would sign up and then I’d be depressed.

I have been very diligent about the code practice. At least twice a day for a minimum of 15 minutes each. I think I’m at what they call a plateau. I’m seeing very slow progress but they say once you get over the hump you start accelerating. Hopefully that’s the case. I am making some contacts but it’s very rough and not elegant at all. I think I’ll be taking some additional classes online this coming week and of course I’ll keep up with the Friday afternoon classes.

Last week we moved the Allstar node into Leeta’s office so it would be out of the heat. But it’s still acting flaky. I did some research on the various configuration files and have an idea about some of the things we can try. But I have to email those changes to Alex who has access to the node as I can’t get passed their firewall.

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