Doc’s Blog

That’s supposed to come in tonight. Winds. Rain. Maybe Thunderstorms. Cool! Except for the colder temperatures. SWMBO wanted me to make sure that the house was ready for the storm so I went out back, tipped over the garbage/recycle cans and spread papers & cans all over the back yard. Figured why wait for the storm to do it…

Look! Our two deer are back. And they bought a friend. Cool. It’s nice having a yard where the wild deer can congregate. Is it deer season yet?

Not much going on around here. Went to Home Depot (40 miles one way) and got SWMBO a couple of blinds for her room. Picked up a board to make me another shelf for my bookcase. Put the shades in when I got home while SWMBO was at the service for her friend that died last week. They look almost like they were made for her windows.

The shelf I made, on the other hand, didn’t fit at all. Sometimes I feel like the 2nd stupidest man alive! I cut the damned thing 2 inches too wide and didn’t even notice until I tried putting it in the bookcase. I do this kind of stuff because I either a) get in too much of a rush, or b) try to do too many things at the same time. Or I ought not to try "winging" it

Been "playing" with a program called Vue. It lets you make 3D landscapes and I am having a ball! Am using the laptop and the last 15 second animation I rendered took 30 hours! Daymn! And it still doesn’t look quite realistic. But it is a lot of fun to play with.

That’s about it from here for now.

Didn’t get the wall built in my basement yesterday. Did run out for some additional track for my 25-30 year old N-Gauge train. Drove all the way to Port Orchard, in traffic, to the Hobby store. Except it hasn’t been a Hobby store for two years now. I knew that but HAD ANOTHER DAMNED SENIOR MOMENT! Wound up driving to East Bremerton, in traffic (I Hate Traffic!) and by the time I got home (fighting Traffice all the way) I was too bummed out and tired that I just stayed lazy the rest of the evening.
Did get it as done as I’m going to today. It’ll block wood dust but it ain’t pretty. I’ll make it pretty when I figure out what I’m really going to do with the basement. If I move my woodshop to a steel building outside then I have different plans for the basement. We’ll see.
Just Not Much Else Going On Around Here

Wow, another 5 days has gone by. Wow. Where does the time go?

But, I have been fairly busy doing things around the house. Got out on the digger the other day and made a couple more piles of stuff to burn when the burn-ban is over. Gonna have a big fire. Maybe I should invite SWMBO down with a bag of hot dogs and some buns. Or maybe marshmallows.

Getting the wall up in the "Man Cave" to stop the dust from the woodshop side going into the computer side. I’ve got it framed in and will get out and pick up a couple sheets of drywall tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have it finished by tomorrow night. Hopefully.

Pulled my old "N" Gauge train set out and kinda sorta put enough track together to check out the engines. Really surprised that the power converter worked! And even more surprised that 2 of the 3 engines still work. Doesn’t sound the least bit exciting, does it? But, the last time any of those were plugged in was 25-30 years ago. Really. I put them in a big plastic box for moving and never pulled them out until a couple days ago. Now I’m trying to figure out how to make a "train board." Think I’ll need my FIL’s help. He’s really into "HO" gauge trains.

SWMBO and I went out to El Sombrero’s over in Port Orchard for our date last Friday then to Albertson’s for our usual Friday shopping. We picked up some extra things for her brother, Bob, and his current, Michelle, to take home with them cause they can use some help now. That’s one thing our pantry (and our canning things) is good for; when someone (family or not) really needs help getting something to eat we’ll let them "shop" from our pantry. SWMBO’s brother does it. Our Son does it.

So, Bob & Michelle (I sure hope I’m spelling her name right) came over for dinner yesterday. Made BBQ’d steaks, mashed taters & veggies and it was all good if I do say so myself. Michelle doesn’t eat meat so I made her a BIG baked tater. They seemed to like dinner.

Today was a pretty regular Sunday for me. To be honest, I mostly played with Vue7 on the computer while watching the season premier of "Fringe" and the first two episodes of this seasons "Supernatural" that I downloaded Saturday over at my friends house. Oh, I wrestled the dog around some too.

Oh, speaking of Poop Dog; No sooner had SWMBO left the house for church this morning when I heard Poop Dog barking out back. It was his "This is MY yard!" bark with a little bit of..Panic? I’m not sure but it sounded strange. So I went out to check. Stuck my head out the back door and there was a large Coyote by the tree that’s about 10 feet from Poop Dog’s fence. It ran off but it was pretty cool to see. I guess from now on when I hear that bark I’ll take my camera with me!

Just not much going on around here. Been checking in at Facebook every once in awhile. Trying to get back into reading the news online but it’s almost always disappointing; Fire, famine, flood & war most everywhere. There was even a story about a woman dieing after catching fire during surgery! Damn!

There was an interesting article about maybe everyone moving to a 4 day work week and how much energy we’d all save. I did that for a couple of years and really enjoyed those 3 day weekends. It would have been better if I hadn’t been working graveyards!

And came across a box of cassette tapes. Y’all remember cassette tapes? Sort of small enclosed reel-to-reel tapes. I was one of the first people in Yuma to switch over to cassette tapes from 8-track (not that I had that many 8-tracks). There really wasn’t that good of a selection of music just because there weren’t that many people buying them in Yuma. My first cassette player was about 1.5f wide, 1f deep and about 5 or 6 inches high. Mono. (Sound out of one speaker only.) And I got it second hand.

Anywho, cassettes saved a lot of space when I was stationed aboard ship in San Diego. I could store probably 3 times as many tapes in the same locker as someone that had all 8-tracks. (Believe it or not there were guys that had Albums stuffed in their lockers! Really!) Cassettes were ’the thing’ right up until 1984 when I got my first cd player.

But, back to this box of cassette tapes: I was going through them (the tapes) and had the thought "I’m older than cassette tapes." Bummer! Then I got to checking around and, yep, I’m older than 8-tracks. Bummer!

So, I showed this box of cassette tapes to SWMBO. She picked out quite a few that she wants me to convert to mp3 and put on our music drive. I guess if I don’t already have the album on cd, and I can’t find them cheap on e-bay, I may add them to the list of thing I want to do… (I should have just thrown the things away!)

Not much else going on.

I have a cousin Kathy whose been after me to send her my Mom’s old pictures. I guess waiting 10 years is long enough. Spent this afternoon, when I wasn’t sitting out enjoying one of the last days of summer sun, going through all my pictures and separating out Mom’s to send to Kathy. Think I’ll wrap them in a plastic bag, Just In Case, and mail them off to her tomorrow. Or the day after. Soon anyway. Still, it’s nice to have all my pictures at least partially organized by family…

Finished my bookcase but it’s still sitting in the basement cause I’m just not strong enough to get it upstairs by myself anymore. All you young folks take heed cause I’m only going to say this once: Do Not Get Old! As little as 10 years ago I could have thrown this thing up on a shoulder and carried it up the hill and into the house and looked for more. Not now. Oh no. Now if it weighs over 50 lbs I get help. Even if I have to wait for it.

Grilled burgers for dinner as SWMBO likes them and it was nice enough outside to grill this evening. Supposed to rain tomorrow. I think we’ve started our long slide into winter this week. Everyday will get cooler and cooler and wetter and, pretty soon, it’ll be winter. Crap! Last week we had a storm and the weather person said the "S" word. Luckily it stayed above 6000 feet (if they got any at all). But, it rains so much around here I don’t mind seeing a little "S" sometimes!

Anywho, that’s it from our part of the country. Time to check in with the Hollies…

In Al Jubail for Desert Storm 1990

With not much going on around here. I know you’ve heard it before, but, can you spell SSDD?

Been working on my bookcase and I think it’s coming along just fine. Have the "box" pretty much done and am starting to work on the shelves. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to stain the shelves like I did the outside. Honey Oak. Looks good. Truth be told, though, it looks like some of the best "unfinished furniture" you can buy and stain yourself. The hard part will be getting the BIG thing upstairs. I’m not sure SWMBO can lift one end of it to walk it out the back door, up the hill and into the front.

Let’s see: Last Saturday I went over to my friends house and updated all my drivers and anti-stuff on his high speed internet. Sunday was a normal day for me just hanging around the house. Who knows what the hell happened the rest of the week. Oh, one of SWMBO’s 90 year old friends died but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. Nice lady.

Oh, did get out to our old property yesterday after SWMBO and I went out for breakfast. Spent a couple of hours just sitting and reading and enjoying the quiet. Damn chair broke. All I did was shift positions and the damned plastic thingy on it broke. And, NO, I’m not getting too fat. I’m the same fat as I have been so it had to be a structural failure.

Went over to my friends house again today and downloaded the latest episode of "Supernatural" for SWMBO. Took only about 20 minutes. Cool! Wound up helping them stack their wood while waiting. Oh Joy. Oh Fun. Oh Crap; I thought I was through with handling wood for heating.

Not having regular tv (we only get 5 channels way out here. Q13 and some religious channels) nor the always-on Internet we get kind of isolated as far as the news goes. Was looking up things about the Health Care Reform thing while over at my friends house. I’m not sure I’ve vote for this thing. I don’t want a committee deciding if I need health care. I don’t want anyone to have the ability/right to go through my medical records (except my doc) and I definitely don’t want to pay for illegal aliens to get free medical coverage.

Which is another thing I just don’t understand: it’s so damned easy to get into this country legally, why do they come in illegally? There’s just no excuse. But don’t get me started. I am a redneck.