Doc's Blog

It’s not that I’ve been overly busy. I just haven’t felt like posting. Haven’t even felt like logging in to Facebook and getting involved there. Haven’t even answered many e-mails lately. Can hardly work up the gumption to curse Obama anymore. Not even much interested in watching my usual tv shows. Well, except for NCIS. I could be on my deathbed and would tell the thousands of crying, soon to be grieving folks to hold the noise down.

Was looking through my bookmarks and found that I’m a full fledged member of Google+. Damn. Forgot all about it. So I played around there for awhile. The only person I have on my “circles” is Will Wheaton. He can be interesting. Then I was reminded that I have a blog on “blogger” and should be updating it when I update this one. Easy enough to do with Windows Live Writer.

Spent a good part of yesterday helping my friend Adrian (up the hill from us) move dirt around in his driveway to make the drainage better. In the rain. All it cost him was 5 gallons of diesel. Hope what we did works! Damned near froze my fingers off though. It was cold out there!

Had a few high wind storms this past week. Really whipping things around. Most didn’t start until late at night and would be pretty well finished by morning. Still hasn’t been cold enough to snow around here. Then when it did get almost cold enough the rain went away. Everything is still soggy out there though.

Let’s see. What else has been going on? Hmmmm.

Still playing on the radio. Have made a few contacts. Been listening more than talking though. It’s about time! Built a small shelf to hold my radio above the tuner so I can have more room on my radio desk. That new (to me) AT-300 tuner is working great!

Almost through building my new computer. What I mean by “building” is reinstalling all the stuff I usually use with some exceptions. Installing all my flight sims, combat flight sims and 3D graphics programs that I want to learn to use. And my mail program and that’s about it. Oh, and VMWare player so I can load and play with other OS’.

Rebuilt my “old” computer and took everything off except for the stuff to convert my dvd’s to .avi files and Bitcomet; to download our favorite tv shows. It’s working better than when I had everything installed to do everything I did.

Did that make any sense?

Anywho, there is just not much going on around here at all. Dog and I still walk as much as we can during the day when it ain’t raining. Still getting housework done and dinners cooked. Still looking at all the “junk” I’ve collected and wondering what I can get rid of; that I won’t *need* later. You know how that works.

But not until after the Grandkids got here after noon. And then it was mostly the youngest (Kylie) who just HAS to yell to be heard.

Anywho, our Christmas: I was up early but waited until SWMBO got up before opening my new computer. It’s an Acer Aspire M3970; has an Intel Core i3-2100 CPU @ 3.1 GHz and 6 Gig of RAM. Came with Windows 7 Home 64-bit. Been setting it up off and on all day.

So far, I’ve installed X-Plane 9 and Lock-On. Lock-on seems to look and work okay. X-Plane doesn’t run worth crap! Slow, jerky video. I just don’t think this Intel HD graphics built into the mb is any good. Still gonna have to buy a better video card to use my flight sims. Ah well. Not like it’s news or anything.

SWMBO seemed to like getting her Nook Color but has been too busy with the Grandkids to really play with it. She’ll get into it though.

Youngest Daughter and her kids came over for the day. Had a great time opening presents and having dinner. Lexi (11) and Rachel (9) even talked on the radio for the 2-meter rag chew at 1930. Cool! All of them seemed to enjoy the presents they got. They should! Grandma (SWMBO) went hog wild getting them iPod-Nano’s and WII’s and such!

Got to show Lexi Jupiter through the telescope also. She took a look, said “Cool” then went back in cause it was COLD outside! Wimp!

Not much else going on. SWMBO is keeping our youngest Grand-daughter, Kylie, for the night and they’re in the kitchen finding a snack before trying to get Kylie settled down for the night.

Oh yeah, We had a sudden gust of wind come up that blew a lot of things around outside and had a momentary glitch in the electricity. Rebooted my ham radio! Really. Turned it back on and it was like I just got it from the factory. Had to reprogram everything! Guess it’s time to buy a couple more ups units…

Maybe SWMBO will look for a book to download!

And I can’t figure out *why*. I will, but it may take some time. Ah well.

Not much going on around here. Getting ready for the Grandkids to come over for Christmas day. Gonna make a turkey for Christmas Dinner and open some presents and have some fun.

Got SWMBO a  Nook (and some accessories) for her present. I think she’ll like it being the reader that she is. She got me a new computer. Cool!

Started using the Kindle  that I had originally got for her last April for this Christmas. I like it! I’ve downloaded and read a dozen books already. Decided to “replace” any paperback books I have (that I will read again) with Kindle versions.

Got her a Nook mostly because it doesn’t require that the lights be on like the Kindle does. Doesn’t sound important; until we’re laying in bed reading after a long day and I finish reading but lay there awake cause the lights are still on *forever* until she’s through reading. At least now I can turn the lights off and she can still read if she so desires. Cool!

We’ve already spent WAY too much money for Christmas presents for my youngest daughter and her kids; with more being spent tomorrow. But, that’s what you have Grandkids for, ain’t it?

Wx has been too damned cold for me. Not wet; barely any rain at all. Just too cold. And yesterday was only the first day of winter. Seems like Winter most of the time around here to me. I have several “stages” of my definition of Winter. First stage is anything below 75 degrees; it’s still cold. Anything below about 65 or so; it’s damned cold. Below 55; I’m *really* cold. Anything below 45; I’M FUCKING FREEZZING!!!!! Today it “warmed” up to 30 degrees. You don’t want to hear about it!

Been doing a small bit of woodworking mostly finishing things up around the house. Made a shelf for my radio desk to hold the radio on top and the new AT-300 tuner I got underneath it. Looks okay and really does free up some space on my desk.

Radio stuff has been going okay. I’ve worked South Korea several times the past couple of days and Argentina once; both on PSK31. I’ve started making more voice contacts and talked to a guy in Norman, Ok yesterday. Weekly nets have been going okay. Finally moved the 10-meter segment of my antenna around so the Tuesday evening 10-meter net comes in better. Now I can hear mostly everybody.

Got a meeting of the NMARES club at 1900 tonight. Finger foods for Christmas. I’m about ready to give up on this club; can’t really get anyone interested in actually *doing* anything. Then, at the last meeting, N7YGE reamed me out for encouraging one of our older members to experiment on his computer. Kept on about how “older” guys don’t want to have to figure anything out but to be able to click here, click there, and be doing whatever it was they wanted to do. Wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d just said it once; but he kept on for a couple of minutes. I was ready to walk out.

Anywho, guess I’ve been more depressed than busy these past couple of months and I don’t really know why. Part of it is some years between 15 Oct and Christmas is just plain out a bummer for me since our son, Patrick, died 20 years ago. Some if it is because I get up every morning and check out the job ads and there isn’t really anything I can do. Can’t handle those “young man” jobs anymore; I went out and tried to stack hay for a day for a buddy and damned near died! Sometimes it’s because of that damned Maid outfit SWMBO makes me wear when I do housework! Well, okay, that last part was a lie. She doesn’t *make* me wear anything.

But that’s about it for now. I’m going to make myself sit down and post at least every other day to continue to educate the non-American world about just how boring the everyday life of an everyday American can be. Especially if you’re getting “older” and semi-retired! And, who knows, maybe it’ll make me feel better.

To continue the reunion: Got up late (for me) Friday morning. Didn’t sleep very well Thursday night: Danged air conditioner kept turning on and off. Not used to any noise when I’m sleeping.

Aunt Betty fixed a nice breakfast and then it was off to visit with whoever else had showed up. I’ve never been hugged so much in my life! (Which was cool!) I re-met a bunch of people that I hadn’t seen in 50+ years and several of them mentioned they used to change my diapers when I was a baby. Too many names to remember…

About noon we had a BBQ at Cousin Claude’s cabin (Hi Marilyn!) and I ate way too many burgers. Lots of remembering going on among the family. It was nice.

That evening there was a gather at one of the other cabins; mostly the “older” folks sitting around gabbing and some picking and singing going on. Bobby (Hollie?) had a device that allowed him to accompany himself (He sounded better without it), Uncle Herman and Cousin James played and sang a bit and it was a lot of fun.

But I got tired of the noise (these folks are some of the loudest people I’ve ever met! Which I should have expected remembering Mom’s loudness.) and walked on down to the “younger” folks cabin (Cousin Claude’s). The “younger” crowd was around my age!

I don’t know what I was thinking! There was Marilyn (I sure hope I spelt her name right), Cousin’s Claude & Billie and a friend of Claude’s named Walt (who talks like Ozzie Osborn). With the five of us in the room there was four (4) different conversations going on each at the top of the respective person’s voice! It was LOUD!

But it was damned fun too! Each of them are as red-necked as I am! And it was really great to re-acquaint myself with Claude and Billie and get to know Marilyn & Walt. I really enjoyed hanging around with them. Stayed up way too late!

Still felt like a welcomed stranger at times though. Which I guess I’ll be until I’ve attended 20 or 30 reunions and gotten to know everybody.

Saturday, the actual reunion, in the next post.

Not much going on around here. “Babysat” a couple of the grandkids yesterday and that was a lot of fun. When it wasn’t being not-fun. Rainy weather has really kicked in here and it’s been raining (sometimes hard) off and on for the past couple of days. Not doing too much on the radio; mostly listening in on 12 & 15 meters. Doing my regular housework and cooking and such. Pretty SSDD if  you ask me!

The Hollie Family Reunion was pretty cool!

Got up early and got ready for the Kitsap Airporter ride to Seatac. Arrived at the 76 Station in Gorst at 0715; in plenty of time. Airporter didn’t show up. Pulled out my ticket for their number, gave a call, and found out I was scheduled for the 7:55 PM shuttle. Damn! How in the HELL did that happen? Luckily SWMBO was still up and willing to drive me to Seatac Airport! (What a schweetie!!!)

Got to the Airport and it took me only about 10 minutes to get through the TSA Security check. Had plenty of time to sit around waiting for my 1155 flight. Walked around some. Bought a couple of cokes for the flight.

Plane boarded and took off late, but arrived 15 minutes early. Flight was okay. Tried watching an episode of SG1 on my Superpad but it was way too noisy. Wound up spending $15 for a crappy lunch cause I was really hungry. Really enjoy flying though. Took a couple of pictures that I eventually got to send SWMBO and she now uses one of them for her desktop. Cool.

Arrived in Memphis early. Sat around smelling some of the best smelling BBQ I’ve smelt in awhile until we got to board the plane for Greenville. It was a much smaller jet than I flew to Memphis on. The take-off and landing almost reminded me of flying backseat in the Navy! Take-off G’s and landing G’s were so cool!

Uncle Herman (whom I hadn’t actually seen in 50+ years) picked me up at the Greenville airport. Took me to a casino on Lake Ferguson (I think) to pick up Aunt Betty (whom I’d never actually met) and we went from there to the Leroy Percy State Park down near Hollandale. The Greenville we drove through (after dark) didn’t look anything like the Greenville I remember as a kid; but it has been 40+ years since I was last there.

From there on it’s kind of a blur. I think I remember going to one of the cabins for a pre-reunion let’s-see-who’s-already-here gather; but I won’t swear to it as I was pretty tired. I do remember Uncle Herman and I sitting up late talking. Sure was great to see him.

Re-met my Cousin’s Kathy, Claude & Billie. We all used to hang together a lot when we were 7-9 years old and we all lived in the same area (Las Vegas mostly). Of course, we’ve all grown much taller, and older, but I still recognized each of them. Really really great getting back together with them.

And that’s it for now. I’ve caught a cold in the past couple of days and just don’t feel like doing anything. Too much concentration required right now! I’ll cover Friday and Saturday in the next post.