An interesting week………………………………………………………………………………..
As always, first the chronology:
9/1/24 – Sunday – Up a little after 8AM. Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy. Home, lunch and down to do the blog. Out to Gary’s for the afternoon get together. Back to pick up Kathy and over to Shelbyville to the Mexican restaurant over there we like. Stopped at Lowes for some wood. Home, put the truck away and inside to dress down. Had dessert. Otherwise, usual evening routine.
8/2/24 – Monday – Up a little late today. Mexican food did not set well with me. Got cleaned up and connectorized the new coax I installed Saturday and got that hooked up to the bulkhead. In for lunch. Back down and checked all the antennas and coax runs with the VNA. They are not perfect but close enough. John came over with the other three radios I need so I got them set up and paired with TNCs and set the deviation. All ready now to start setting up the Raspberry Pi. Did some more painting on the flower benches and got the tops on. Kathy is helping me. Took the truck down to the service center. Otherwise, usual evening routine.
8/3/24 – Tuesday – UP at 6AM and off to work. Court started at 8:30AM so we had to open the court room at 8AM. Court was over by 11AM. Home and dressed down. Kathy took me to the shop to pick up the truck. Home and did some chores and took a nap. Then out with Kathy to my doctor’s appointment. Then we went to Bob Evans for dinner. Stop at the office supply store. Then to a couple places shopping for T-Mobile service. Got switched over at the second place we stopped at. Finally got home a little after 9PM. Bed and usual evening routine.
8/4/24 – Wednesday – Up a little late today perhaps 9AM. Discovered major issues with the phone migration. Spent about 6 hours today fighting with Godaddy and finally resolving the issue my self by manual updating information. Went to get my hair cut at 1:30PM. Home and finished the migration job. Took a nap. Up for dinner. Down to the shack and the usual evening routine.
8/5/24 – Thursday – Up a 6AM and out to work. Worked the door from 7:30AM to 4PM. Home, dressed down, dinner and usual evening routine.
8/6/24 – Friday – Up at 6AM and off to work. Court started at 8AM and we didn’t finish till 2PM. Home, got comfortable and did some chores. The Rice family invited us to Olive Garden for dinner. Stopped at the bank on the way home. Usual evening routine.
8/7/24 – Saturday – Up at 6AM and off to help test at the Great Louisville HAM Fest. Got done at 10AM and looked around awhile. Saw some people I knew. Home before noon. Had lunch. Kathy went shopping and I went to bed. Napped till 3PM. UP and started working on the TARPN node. Kathy came home and I helped her unload things and put them away. Had dinner and usual evening routine.
Now the particulars:
The major saga of the week. With the new job, my use of my cell phone changed dramatically. I was running out of data by the third week of my billing cycle. I called AT&T and they could not offer me a plan for less than $150 that had unlimited data. So, I looked at T-Mobile and they have some great plans and the people I talked to at work were very pleased. So, Tuesday after we had dinner at Bob Evans, we went shopping. We first stopped at a franchise store and they didn’t offer all the plans. So I went to a T-Mobile company store and of course they had everything and anything. So, I settled on a plan for around $110 per month which is only $20 more than I was paying with AT&T and I get unlimited data. Easy process, just give them our phones and let them switch them over. Then the guy mentioned that they had a deal were if we wanted to upgrade our phones from 13 to 15, T-Mobile would make the payments for us over the next two years. Well, now we have problems. But, the boss wanted to do that so we did it. Well, all kind of ugly things reared their head. The biggest problem was that our dandydan.org email did not port over. Well, no problem. I go to Godaddy who hosts everything and get into Cpanel, download the script on the cell phone and it gets set up. I guess Godaddy really doesn’t want to support Linux anymore so the scripts didn’t work. I fought with Godaddy for several hours to no avail so I bit the bullet and started the configuration manually. That took an hour for the three email accounts on the two phones. And I really don’t see any glaring improvement in the iphone 15 over the 13. So that was my time Tuesday evening and most of the day Wednesday.
I have been slowly feeling better this week. I think I’m almost back to normal. I have an appointment with the podiatrist on Monday so I’ll tell him the saga. At this point I think it was a viral thing I had but I’m not going to try the medication till after we get back from our trip to Pennsylvania and New York. Then perhaps I’ll give it another try.
As you may remember from last week, I got the three new antennas up for my TARPN node. Got the connectors on the ends of the coax Monday and got that all hooked up. VNA said everything is OK. Not great but OK. I finally got the raspberry Pi setup Saturday this week but it won’t talk to anyone. I think I need to check the setting on the TNC. I’ll keep you posted on that.
Had an interesting experience this week. While Kathy and I were having dinner at Bob Evan’s up off Westport road I thought the guy that came in and set next to us in the restaurant was one of the lawyers from Taylorsville. I didn’t say anything as I couldn’t figure out why he was up there having dinner. So, when I was working Thursday, I asked him and he said it was him. Now I could kick myself in the ass for not saying something to him. Oh well, next time.
The Greater Louisville HAM Fest was this Saturday. I was up and down to Shepardsville by 8AM to help with the testing. Got relieved at 10AM and went out on the floor and looked around awhile. Then to the tail gate area. Didn’t find anything I was looking for so the good news is, I came back with the same money I left the house with.
We finished the flower benches for the grand daughters. We will get them up there this weekend. Then I can clean up the Morton building and get the truck cleaned up for our trip to PA and NY.
Work wasn’t bad this past week. Had Monday and Wednesday off. Worked a half day Tuesday, a full day Thursday and from 8AM to 2PM on Friday. Next week will be much busier.
Well that’s about it from here. Haven’t heard from Lynn yet and really didn’t have time to call. Perhaps I’ll give that another try this week. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Blog at you again next week.
Dandy Dan's Web Log 
I have to apologize for not commenting earlier….
As you noted Denise passed away on August 5th. I headed out to Florida on the 8th and drove straight through. My sister’s passing was not something anyone was expecting. She had medical issues most of her life, but was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer just after I returned back to Texas after being there for the winter/spring months. To make the story short…she had a spot on her lung and one in her brain. They also found some issues in her liver but not sure it was cancer since she had existing liver issues. Anyway, she had radiation for her brain spot and started chemo for the lungs. She had two treatments and was so weak along with diabetic issues due to steroids they give you, that they put her in the hospital. Things got worse and she was put in ICU. She developed sepsis and eventually arrested. They tried CPR but it didn’t work. I obviously was not there when she passed away. The hospital stay was happening while there was a tropical storm/Hurricane happening in Florida, so my other sister Diana, her husband Allen and Denise’s husband Earl had to travel to the hospital during the storm.
I got to Florida. Diana and Earl took care of arrangements with the funeral home. I then started taking care of the necessary items for closing things out, etc. Things were a little slow because someone hacked the system in Florida and the process for getting the death certificate all needed to be done by hand. We had many things set up in advance so I had access to accounts, etc. Dealing with Social Security is SOOOO much fun! We won’t go there in this discussion. Filed paperwork for insurance.
While doing all of arrangements and paperwork, the yard needed to be cleaned up from the storm. That took quite a few days and some blisters on my hands. But, got that done.
Then I cooked up various meals for Earl and put them in the freezer. He has two freezers full of various dinners so that should hold him until I go back to Florida in December.
I miss Denise big time. Lots of tears shed. She was only 61 years old, which was too young. It will be a big adjustment for Earl since they were married 33 years. I am sure my Mom met her at the Heavenly Gates and together they are now watching over the rest of us. We will all get through it.
Got back home to Texas and needed to continue the clean up and repairs from Hurricane Beryl. Now today, Sunday 9/8, we are watching the Gulf since we are in the cone for what will be storm/Hurricane Francine. Just get things “back to normal” and here comes another storm! The joys of living along the Texas Gulf Coast!
I hope they figure out your medical issue. I have neuropathy in my feet. It drives me nuts. I had the test to see if mine was a circulation problem and my circulation is good. Mine is nerve related. Has really gotten worse since I had my knees replaced. My toes are numb and tingly 99% of the time. Compression socks are useless for me.
Thanks for the thoughts and prayers for my family. Much appreciated. Stay healthy and safe!
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