Sunday, September 18, 2016

Signs of fall are in the air.

The weather has turned cooler, especially in the morning when I walk but warms up nicely by mid morning. Working outside during the day has been quit warm. I need to take frequent breaks from the heat or is because I’m old and need breaks! Probably both.

I got a call this week from the RV shop and they think the hydraulic ram for the living room slide is bad. If they can get it out it will be replaced or rebuilt if it isn’t replaceable. With an older RV, the possibility of finding replacement parts is a crap shoot.

I also had the water softener people out to check why the softer is recycling every other day and they couldn’t reset the timer. It is mechanically shot. I guess for being 28 years old, that isn’t too bad. It was only serviced once in 2003. The real bad news is the cost for a new one. PRICEY! They will install it on Wednesday.

This week I started my fall yard trimming by attacking all of the front yard plants first followed by 2 days of trimming in the back yard. I also cut down the dead orange tree. That one is a real loss but it was also 50 years old. I shredded all the trimmings on Friday which amounted to two garbage cans full which I will let compost in the cans for a few months. That is the lazy mans way of composting.

Poor orange tree.

Shredding orange tree.

I am still finding things that are missing from my new computer but have slowly worked my way around them. Painful in the least but doable.

I am working on food lists for the upcoming desert trip as well as shore excursions for our November Panama Canal cruise. All of this takes lots of time of course.

Monday, September 12, 2016

Things are moving along.


Finally, after more than a week of trying to fix the problem with my email, I got it to work on Saturday. It seems I neglected to check one box in the email server panel. After checking that box and trying a couple of password possibilities, it downloaded my email.

I spent much of today continuing with the setup of more software, etc. It is a never ending process it seems.

Last Saturday we had a nice family get together at the beach. The weather was just perfect and it was really nice to spend time with family who we sometimes only see at Christmas time.

On Wednesday we took the RV to a repair facility in Arroyo Grande. Friends had highly recommended this place so we shall see. I need the rig much earlier than I had planned because of some changes to the desert trip. More on that at a later date as the plans get firmed up.

Saturday night we attended a wedding reception for Clyda’s second cousin. They actually were married a year ago in New York State but decided to have a reception locally for friends and relatives who didn’t attend the wedding. It was a very nice party held at a local restaurant.

Sunday we drove to Nipomo with friends Don and Bev to celebrate Don’s and my birthday with friends Budd and Brenda and their daughter Kori and her daughter Jessica. We had a nice lunch at Figueroa Mountain Brewing CO.

The weather has turned cooler today. I don’t think the sun even came out at all. I may need to resort to Levi’s instead of short pants. I’ll see what tomorrow looks like before I get that drastic.

I thought I would add this photo of this trumpet plant in our side yard. It really has put on a lot of flowers this summer.
 

Friday, September 2, 2016

Frustation!

Total frustration the past 2 weeks with our internet. It has been up and down and almost useless. I have called so many times to the help desk that I think they cringe when they hear who it is.

They finally came yesterday and replaced my modem with a high speed modem and router combined and thought they had corrected all the problems. So, the same thing today, up and down, like a yo-yo.

A speed test shows speeds less than I had with the old modem. I called again and was cut off part way through the call. I gave up and went on to something else more productive.

I am slowwwly cleaning up some things around here. I worked on the shed behind the garage for two days, then moved on to the workbench in the garage. Two days barely made a dent in it.

One of the things I have been doing is getting rid of all those boxes you save from computers, printers, etc which I have kept "just in case". I took a bunch of those I had flattened to the recycle center today but my recycle bin is filling up again.

I have given up on trying to fix the slides out on the RV after putting them in and out several times and changing the fluid each time the slides were in. The bedroom slide works fine but the living room slide will go out just fine but won't budge coming in.

I have made an appointment to take it in next Wednesday. I suspect it needs a new pump. Pricey!

Adding to my frustration has been the failure of my desktop computer. It just wouldn’t turn on. All of my trouble shooting efforts and Google help did no good. I eventually went to Costco and bought a unit similar to the one that quit only more powerful and with the Windows 10 operating system. This of course has it’s own frustrations. I have managed to get most things working except for my Verizon email. It rejects my password and Frontier who took over for Verizon can’t seem to figure out what I want.

Frustrating.

I am not without email as I have my laptop and Microsoft does have Outlook with Windows 10 as email which I HATE!

Anyway. On to better things for now.

Tomorrow we will meet some of the relatives for a small get together at the beach. I am sure it will be crowded because of the Labor Day weekend. I hope the weather stays nice. It has cooled off in the evenings now. Days are still nice.

It is time to start thinking about the desert trip. I need to work on meal planning and cooking assignments. I usually get that done before October so everyone can plan meals.