A very eventful and busy week…………………………………………………………..

As always, first the chronology:

6/16/24 – Sunday – Up at the usual time. Had the social obligatory things to do today. Julie wanted us to go to Mission Barbecue for lunch. So we missed church and were over at the Barbecue place by 11:30AM. Had a good lunch then over to Mike and Julie’s for cake and exchanging cards. Home, put things away and did the blog. Some additional computer stuff then a snack for dinner and usual evening routine.

6/17/24 – Monday – Up at the usual time and made the net. Worked around the house getting things ready for Field Day. Practiced my CW a couple times. Need to be ready to copy 12 to 13 WPM on Friday to copy the Field Day Bulletin. Kathy had her wellness visit from United Health Care. After that we got ready and went over to Shelbyville and bought a new dehumidifier at Lowes. Then to Walmart to pick up some things for Field Day this coming weekend. Then to the Mexican restaurant we like over their for dinner. Home and usual evening routine.

6/18/24 – Tuesday – Wow, that Mexican food kept me tossing and turning all night. Didn’t sleep for shit. Did manage to get up at the usual time and made the net. Spent a lot of time in the bathroom this morning. Kathy got cleaned up and went into J-town for pool supplies and to pick up some medication for me. Then she went to her ladies group at church for lunch. I got cleaned up and went to bed for a nap while she was gone. She came home and I got up and had lunch. Spent more time practicing CW. Kathy went outside to cleanup some stuff under the trees so I fired up the grill and did burgers for dinner with left over vegetables. Usual evening routine.

6/19/24 – Wednesday – Up a little early and cleaned up before breakfast. My friend Dave, KO4TUP, came over a little before 10AM. We spent some time working on getting his FT818 working with his laptop on FT8. He didn’t leave till around 2PM. I had some trail mix and cheese crackers with peanut butter for a snack. Then outside and cleaned the mold off the hand rails on the steps to the front porch. Kathy came home about the time I was finishing up. We socialized awhile then downstairs to work on the defective dehumidifier. Discovered the compressor was bad. Tried looking for one online but the unit is rather old so I had no luck. Emailed the manufacturer of the compressor to see if they have some old stock laying around. Kathy made Swiss steak for dinner. Very good with left over cheese cake for desert. Usual evening routine.

6/20/24 – Thursday – Up at the usual time and made net. Downstairs to put the dehumidifier back together and clean things up. Back upstairs and talked to Kathy awhile. Decided to go to Hometown Pizza for Grilled Chicken Salad for lunch. Then to Country Mart for some shopping. Spent the rest of the afternoon getting things together for this weekend and getting things in the truck or in the garage ready to be loaded tomorrow evening. Grilled some dogs for dinner. Usual evening routine.

6/21/24 – Friday – Up early this morning, 6AM. Got dressed and off to work. Spent the morning in court observing what security measures they perform. Over to Lynda’s for one of her famous burgers and fries. Spent the afternoon with a guy on physical facility security. Got done at 3PM and headed home. Did some paper work. Kathy was up to spend the day with the grand kids. She came home and we had dinner. Finished packing for field day tomorrow. Downstairs and usual evening routine.

6/22/24 – Saturday – Up a little early again today. Loaded the truck and off to field day with a stop at Dollar General for ice. Got to the site and started setting up. I was ready by about lunch time. Pitched in and helped some other people. Worked the digital station and helped educate others till mid evening. Then worked my self till around 3AM.

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Now the specifics:

Sunday was Father’s day and of course my daughter had things planned.

Here we all are in front of the deuce and a half that they drive around to advertise the place. Needless to say it’s all run and managed by veterans. So, we got good food at an extremely reasonable price. And enjoyed the trip as well.

Kathy had her home wellness visit on Monday. She finally relented to getting it done for the $50 gift card. It wasn’t bad this year as the guy that came has been around for awhile and could tell we knew what we were doing and just wanted the gift card.

The dehumidifier that we brought down from New York finally bit the dust. Kept tripping the GFI when it would try to dehumidify. I tore it apart and found it was the compressor. No surprise on that. Spent a good hour searching for a replacement with no luck. Again, no surprise as this things is old as dirt. So, After Kathy’s home wellness visit, we went over to Shelbyville and picked up a new one at Lowes. It’s an off brand but has good ratings. Has a much larger capacity so it doesn’t need emptied so often. All good I think.

My friend Dave came over Wednesday with his laptop and portable radio he uses for POTA. He has never worked digital modes so we got him up and running on that. Of course he likes to talk a lot so he never got out of here till 2PM. Still a good time.

The railings on the front porch have mold all over them so I went out and cleaned the rails up the stairs on Wednesday. Used simple green and it took the mold off and restored the shine. A little hot to do the rest. That will wait for another day.

Didn’t get anywhere with finding a new compressor for the dehumidifier so I put that back together to get it out of the way. By Thursday I decided just to throw it away so I hauled it out to the curb for pick up Friday morning.

Wednesday I got a call from the SO. They wanted me to come in for training this Friday. So apparently I got the job. Spent Friday morning in traffic court observing and Friday afternoon spent time with one of the guys on facility security (That’s screening people coming into the court building). Learned a lot in one day. Got part of our uniform. This coming Tuesday we go to the range to qualify and since we were sworn in on Friday we’ll start actually doing security this coming Wednesday.

This weekend was the annual Field Day when we take all our portable equipment out in the field and compete with other like organizations in making contacts in various ways. Spent a lot of time this week getting my stuff ready and stocking up on things. We started at 9AM on Saturday and started operating at 2PM. The actual exercise continued till 2PM today (Sunday) but we had all our bonus points by 5AM this morning and all we were doing is getting contact points which is a very small part of the competition. So we decided to wrap it up early today and I was home by around 7:30AM and in bed by 9AM. A very busy and fun weekend. And the family came out to help us get our bonus points for having community involvement.

All the grand kids made it out to talk on the radio. Even Kathy made a contact.

Here I am over seeing some new guys working the digital station.

Well that’s about all the news from here. As always, hope this finds you well and safe. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.