A bit of a stressful week…………………………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

5/26/24 – Sunday – Up at the usual time. Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy. Julie, Mike and the grand kids came over for lunch to celebrate Memorial day. They left about 3:30PM. I went down to do the blog and check on some things. Kathy played games on the computer then went for a nap. She got up, we had a snack for dinner, usual evening routine.

5/27/24 – Monday – Up at the usual time and made the net. Was extremely tired from staying up with all the weather alerts last night so went back to bed. Up for lunch. Cleaned up and put away the humidifier for the season. Noticed the septic system was backing up so reset the GFI again. Need to change that tomorrow. Went to the shop and got the new hose hung up to straighten it out. Checked the tire pressure on the motorcycle and it went from 44.5 to 41.5 PSI since Wednesday last week. I think that will hold long enough to get it over to the shop. Worked a bunch of POTA CW today. Trying to get my numbers up on that. Had a good dinner. Down to the shack and the bands still suck so up for a shower, some computer work, watched a movie and sleep.

5/28/24 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time and made the net. Dressed and out to put the new GFI receptacle in the outside box for the septic system. Inside and lunch. Kathy took off to give blood. I got my laptop ready for the KY QSO Party this weekend. Then out to get things to put the stone down around the outside AC unit. Finished that up and cleaned up the mess in the Morton building and got the trailer all cleaned off. Inside and dinner. Then out to Lowes for some shopping and a stop at Dairy Queen for desert. Home, put things away and usual evening routine.

5/29/24 – Wednesday – Up late this morning and missed the net. Got dressed and out to start yard work. Was very cloudy around noon so did not stop for lunch. Finished about 2PM. Inside, cleaned up and had a snack. Was informed the GFIC in the family room tripped again. I unplugged everything, reset it and plugged everything back in. All seems well now. Will pick up a new one tomorrow and install it. Took a shower and got cleaned up. Had dinner. Usual evening routine.

5/30/24 – Thursday – Up a little early today. Got cleaned up before breakfast. Made net then out to get my hair cut. Down to Taylorsville to ACE hardware and picked up a couple receptacles. Home and spent the rest of the morning installing them. Kathy took off to take Chloe to a party. I had lunch then outside to put the new hose in the hose rack. Took my hose back to the shop and did some cleaning up. Need to get some workbench room. Back inside and down to the shack for some phone calls and computer work. Ordered some oil and a filter wrench from MAX BMW. Kathy came home and we chatted a bit. Had dinner then usual evening routine.

5/31/24 – Friday – Up at the usual time and made the net. Cleaned up and made some phone calls about taxes, etc. About 11AM went out and got the rear tire on the motorcycle aired up for greater than it should be in preparation for taking it into Louisville to Moto Aria. Kathy came over and I put the tire maintenance stuff in her car. Headed out and made it to Moto Aria without incident. Talked to Dean a couple minutes and gave him the bike. Then Kathy and I came back and got off at Hurstborne Road and stopped at Olive Garden for a late lunch. Had endless soup and salad. Good stuff. Then home. My new torque wrench came so I took it out and checked it over. Then a nap. Up for a snack for dinner. Usual evening routine.

6/1/24 – Saturday – Up at the usual time. Down to the shack to work the KY QSO Party on the radio. Not much happening. Got some motorcycle helmets out and did some cleaning and charged the bluetooth. Kathy took off for Walmart to get some peaches she ordered. I had lunch and took a nap. Kathy came home and took a nap. We had dinner then back to the shack. Bands where much improved. Spent an hour playing radio. Otherwise, usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

We had some really bad weather move through here Sunday night into Monday morning. Weather alert radios were going off all night. Spent about an hour downstairs with Kathy and the dogs at one point when a tornado had been spotted a little southwest of us. Didn’t get much sleep so went back to bed Monday morning and slept all morning.

Spent a lot of time on the radio this week. Mostly chasing POTA stations on CW to get my numbers up.

Saturday was the Kentucky QSO party. That’s when all the folks in Kentucky try to talk to hams in other counties. You get points on how many counties you contact along with number of different states. It’s just a fun thing to do. Some people really compete but most everyone just enjoys the fun. I made around 60+ contacts. Not a lot. Most were in the evening as the bands were dead most of the day. Still a lot of fun.

Apparently this is the season for GFI receptacles to go bad. Well, the one outside to the septic system has been tripping quite often but I wasn’t going out in the cold to change it. So that got done this Tuesday. Kathy advised me that the one in the family room downstairs here had tripped again and she couldn’t reset it. I had a hard time resetting it so I decided it was time to change that one as well. I did that on Thursday. Also had the wrong color receptacle in the kitchen so I fixed that as well. on Thursday.

Wednesday we did yard work. We started around 10AM and by noon it was starting to cloud up like it was going to storm again. So I decided to just keep working through lunch. We finished up around 2PM and it never did storm.

I had two issues really working on me this week. First was the taxes. I thought I had them to the accountant in time but apparently not. He filed an extension and I still hadn’t heard anything from him. So I called on Friday morning and told her I was a little concerned. She said she would leave a note for the guys. Later Friday I got a call that they were done so I’ll have to go pay them, pick up the paper work and see how much I owe or am getting back.

The biggest worry was getting the motorcycle into Louisville to Moto Aria to have the rear tire replaced. I put a plug in it a week ago when it first went flat but it was still leaking a lot. After I got it home I put two plugs in it and it slowed the leak down tremendously. But I was still worried that the plug might come out on my way into the shop. So, I over pressurized it, put the tire plug kit in the car along with extra CO2 canisters and had Kathy follow me. I made it with no problem. But now I have to go back this week after he gets the new tire on it and pick it up. Of course the weather is suppose to suck. But I’ve ridden in shitty weather before. As long as it’s not precipitating and freezing I can handle it.

On the same subject, since repair service is limited here to say the least, I’m going to start doing the servicing myself. I ordered some things awhile ago just never had the motivation to do it. Anyway, I have a couple filters and crush rings for the oil drain plug. Fortunately I checked things this week and found I didn’t have the correct type of oil filter wrench so I ordered one from MAX BMW up in Danbury, CT. Since I was having them send that I decided to have them send the oil as well. It uses 15W50 which is not easy to find in a quality oil. But anyway, I have everything I need now to change the oil and tighten the drain plug and filter to the correct specification.

So that’s the story for this week. Hopefully things will continue to improve. As always, hope this finds everyone well and safe. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.