Another busy week. Hope this settles down a little soon …………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

3/03/24 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy.  Home and lunch.  Down to do the blog and make an appointment for my RSV shot on Tuesday.  Up for a short nap.  Out to see Gary.  Home, picked up Kathy and into J-town to the Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

3/04/24 – Monday – Up a little early today and got cleaned up before breakfast.  Made the “Over the Hill” net while eating breakfast.  Then Kathy and I took Julie’s car down to Daugherty’s.  She has it scheduled for brake work tomorrow.  Then to the County Clerks office and got my motorcycle and trailer registered.  Can’t do the Vibe now as Julie has it while her car is being serviced.  The truck won’t come due till December since it has the HAM vanity plates.  Stopped at the auto parts store for some gas tubing and a gas filter.  To my surprise I had $20 credit so I got my stuff free and still have over $7 in credits.  Then to County Mart.  Picked up water for my coffee downstairs, along with some other things.  Home and unloaded the truck.  Kathy scheduled her Covid booster and was off to do that.  I went to the shop and put the stickers on the license plates of the trailer and motorcycle.  Kathy picked up Jimmy John’s for lunch and we ate about 1PM.  I got dressed and out on the motorcycle for an hour and a half.  Came in and dressed down.  A nap, up for a light dinner.  Usual evening routine.

3/05/24 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  Made the “Over the Hill” net.  Then cleaned up and out to Kroger for my RSV vaccine.  Got gas in the truck while out.  Had an early lunch then out to the shop to put the new carburetor on the portable generator.  Hit a snag when I couldn’t figure out the choke linkage.  In and snack.  Some radio play.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

3/06/24 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine.  Cleaned up and out to retrieve Julie’s car from the service center.  Home and did some banking.  Then spent a couple hours doing research to try and figure out the choke configuration on the portable generator.  Lunch, some chores around the house.  A nap.  More chores then to church for the soup supper before services at 7PM.

3/07/24 – Thursday – Up a little early today.  Cleaned up before breakfast.  Made the “Over the Hill” net while eating then out to get my hair cut.  Home and changed clothes.  Outside to clean up the stone that washed out of the front bushes area.  Then cleaned up the driveway some more since there were no cars out there.  Kathy took Julie’s car up to do her VA volunteer thing then brought the Vibe back.  Checked out the new canopy frame I got and the old canopy will not fit it. Did some more work on the choke linkage on the portable generator.  Think I have it scoped out now.  Inside and lunch.  A short nap then downstairs to do some computer work.  Got on my Zoom class at 3PM.  Kathy came home about the same time.  After class got dressed and out to the new Mexican restaurant in Elk Creek.  Down to Dairy Queen for dessert.  Home and usual evening routine.

3/08/24 – Friday – Up late this morning.  I guess the food at the new Mexican restaurant didn’t agree with me as I was awake most of the night with heart burn.  Of course I took so much antacid stuff that I got the runs today.  Spent most of the morning running back and forth to the bathroom.  Finally lamented and took some Imodium.  We had a light lunch then down to the shack to assemble my new 49:1 Unun transformer for my new end fed antenna.  Finished that up and started testing with less than satisfactory results.  Discovered a loose test equipment connection just before going up for dinner.  Had a rather bland dinner then usual evening routine.

3/09/24 – Saturday – Up at the usual time. Washed up and down to the church for cleaning.  Down to McDonald’s for a quick lunch.  Home and Kathy took off grocery shopping and I went out to the shop and finished most of the work on the portable generator.  Got the new carburetor on it, rebuilt the choke linkage and fuel line.  And new spark plug.  Runs much better now.  Will have to adjust speed a little as voltage and frequency is a little high and change the oil.  Inside and helped Kathy unload the car and put things away.  Then a nap.  Up and dinner then usual evening routine. 

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Now the specifics:

Julie had brake issues with her car so she got an appointment with Daugherty’s here in Taylorsville. They have found that they are the most reasonable and do honest work. So she came over last weekend to get her mother to color her hair, left her Toyota here and took the Vibe home. We took the Toyota down to Daugherty’s Monday morning, picked it up Wednesday morning and Kathy drove it up to do her VA volunteer stuff and swapped vehicles with Julie at the VA on Thursday.

Monday I stopped at Autozone to pick up some gas hose and a filter. When I went to check out the guy asked me if I wanted to use my credits. Credits? I guess that’s why I keep giving them my phone number every time I buy something there. Of course the last thing I bought was the new battery for Kathy’s car which was a significant purchase. So, the hose and filter cost over $10 which I got free and they said I had another $7+ credit. Not bad. I think I’ll keep doing my business at Autozone.

It was an extremely nice day Monday so I went down in the morning and got the motorcycle and my trailer re-registered. You don’t really have to register the size of trailer I have as long as I stay in Kentucky but if I got out of the state I need it registered. Since I haul my motorcycle around to other states and do some moving for friends that includes out of state travel, I bite the bullet for the $7 to register it. So then I took the motorcycle for a ride. Rode down to Taylorsville and had to stop to blow my nose. So I turn off the motorcycle and it started just fine. I rode it for about an hour and stopped it again. Still started fine. So, I think I figured out what was happening. Actually I think it was a combination of a new battery that was bad and my charging stuff for my phone and GPS navigation system pulling the battery down. I have that stuff powered from a receptacle that stays powered on for 5 minutes after I turn off the key. With the weak battery I think that was enough for the bike not to start. But after the 5 minutes, if I let it set, it would start after the battery recovered. I’ll be looking for feedback on what you think of my logic. lol

Last weekend I scheduled my RSV vaccination. The doctor told me I should do that but at the time I wasn’t feeling well with those cardiac issues so I wanted to wait. And of course I forgot all about it. Something over the weekend jogged my memory so I got it scheduled for Tuesday this week. Knock on wood I’ve had no adverse reaction from this one.

Started on the portable generator Tuesday as the new carburetor arrive Monday. Tore it all down and it was obvious I never got the choke linkage put back together correctly the last time I worked on it. So, I did some looking after getting the new carburetor on it and really could not figure it out. So, Wednesday I spent a lot of time trying to find some information on it. Nothing to be found specifically for that generator. So I started looking for some generic information and learned how the automatic choke is suppose to work. That seemed to make a lot of sense. Thursday I tore down the diaphragm and essentially rebuilt that. Then Saturday I put the mechanism all back together. I put a new spark plug in it and started it up. It runs much better now. Don’t have to keep it partially choked to keep it running. I checked the voltage and frequency and they are a little high so I’ll have to set that the next time I get it running. Otherwise, a success.

Wednesday we went to the soup supper at church before the service. It’s good to get together with that group. I usually sit next to or near Jim. He’s a wiz at automobiles. He’s going to help me get all the dashboard lights out on the Vibe since the mechanics can’t figure it out or just don’t want to be bothered.

Thursday was a relatively nice day. Well, it wasn’t raining but was chilly. So I took the opportunity to get out and do some outside work. Some stone had washed out from in front of the house were we have some bushes so I raked those up and put them back. The driveway had a muddy patch from the rain washing stuff under the Chrysler when it was parked there. So I scrapped some of that off and washed it down a little. I also tried putting the old canopy (The one that I bent the frame on) on the frame of the new one I got. It doesn’t fit. So that plan didn’t work. But I have a good canopy to go POTA anyway.

Friday was a washout. After Kathy got home from her volunteer work at the VA we went to the new Mexican restaurant that opened right around the corner here (About 2 miles from us) in Elk Creek. It was very nicely done inside and we thought the food was great. A little pricey but well worth the money. Only thing that caught my eye that wasn’t great was all the grease from the meat in the burrito. Well, things were not as good as they appeared at first. I was up all night with the heart burn. And of course I over did it with the antacid and ended up with a case of the runs on Friday. Needless to say I stayed upstairs most of the morning.

Friday afternoon I put together the new 49:1 Unun for my new antenna. I was going to simply use the same transformer for both the antenna the went down to 40 meters and the one that went down to 80 meters. However, that got a little tricky in trying to tune them correctly. So I order another transformer kit from the Netherlands. After I got it together I started testing and it didn’t look very good at all. I’m not sure what difference it makes but just by luck I decided to try it with the cover on and it performed fine. So now I just have to wait till it dries up outside and I’ll be able to do the finally tuning.

This is our week to clean the church. Usually we do it on Friday but with my adverse reaction to the food on Thursday evening we decided to wait till Saturday. So we did that Saturday morning. It’s not such a bad job these days since the home school people clean up everything they use and we really only have to do the sanctuary.

Haven’t done much with CW other then attend my Zoom class on Thursday afternoon and I am checking in on the CW traffic net nightly.

Kathy and I started planning our trip to the north east in September. Kathy has her nurse’s class reunion at the Pine Barn inn in Danville, PA. So we plan on traveling on up to see Todd and make a quick trip to Carmel to see a few people.

Wow, well that’s about it for this week. Still busy as hell. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.