Saturday, June 30, 2012

Not dead; nor is the dog!

I started this blog with the idea it would document our travels; turns out we haven't been traveling much.  However at this moment, we are.  Traveling that is!  With the dog who is actually much better.  True to our nature we've been on some back roads so the quality of the internet access has ranged from poor (here) to nil (most other places).  I'm developing a new way to judge the size of a town.  If TripAdvisor has only three or four comments on a restaurant, you know it's a small town. 

We are currently in Crescent City, CA checking out the local redwood trees.  I've never seen them so am enjoying the new experience.  These are coastal redwoods so are very tall; very impressive.  We both need our tree fix since Joshua trees aren't really all that tree-like. 

I'll submit a trip report with embarrassingly few photos when we get home in a few days.  This internet connection is making our home ISP look very good!  Hope you are having a good one.

Friday, June 08, 2012

Not good news

Our visit with the vet was less than satisfactory.  She basically has no idea why the dog's wound is weeping and the bandage she put on was single use and ineffective and cost $30.  She did take a sample of the material and sent it off to a lab to see if they can figure out if it is an infection or just part of the cancer.  So we are spending the next few days trying to control the weeping.  Fun, NOT!

I listened to part of President Obama's news conference this morning; I was rather surprised.  Everyone knows he is a great orator but he sounded like a bumbling newcomer this morning (or G.W. Bush on a good day).  There were more "and's" in his statement than any other word.  Then someone asked if he was angry about having some news leaked out; instead of saying 'Hell yes I'm angry', he wandered around and around verbally.  It wasn't until there was an implication that the leaks were from the White House as some part of a re-election strategy that he actually got angry.  I just thought it was a weird performance coming from such a fine public speaker.

Speaking of politics, the Republicans are going to have a very interesting summer.  I live in a very Republican area and Ron Paul is the flavor preferred.  Personally I find some of his opinions rather 18th century (a totally non-interventionist foreign policy) but I really like others (like drug decriminalization).  It will be interesting to see how the convention turns out.  If you think the Congress is divided by Democrats vs Republicans, the Republican vs Republican show should be interesting.  It wouldn't surprise me if it was even bloodier!  At our county Republican convention, the county chairman left after receiving threatening phone calls.  She was worried for her safety because " many of the party faithful were packing pistols".  How cool is that?  “I’m beginning to believe they are racist. They are after me because I’m a Filipino,” she said.  Yep, the national convention should be interesting!

Now I support the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution and even own several guns that I inherited from my parents.  I've had Concealed Weapons Permits (CWP) from the states of Washington and Florida.  But Nevada is something else.  First, the CWP process is cumbersome so people don't want to go through it.  Second, open carry is legal in rural Nevada.  (Rural Nevada is basically defined as everywhere except Las Vegas and Reno.)  So it's not unusual to see a man (or a woman) with a pistol strapped to their hip.  Only yesterday I saw an older guy come out of the drug store wearing a shoulder holster.  (Guess his belt wasn't strong enough to hold in his gut and his gun at the same time.)  It can be intimidating and I don't blame our Republican chair for heading for the hills.   

Enough politics.  There will certainly be more interesting news tomorrow!  Have a good one.

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Working ....

Who me?  Work?  Well, kinda.  We have high hopes of doing some traveling this summer so it is time to get the rig looking like someone cares.  Washing, waxing, doing some minor modifications; it sure FEELS like work.  The only thing I really dislike is trying to clean the silicone caulk that rv manufacturers put on the outside where trim pieces join.  That crap gets black then it's almost impossible to clean.  I've been looking for ideas on cleaning it but so far it seems like the only fix is to remove it and replace it.  Not the answer I was hoping to find!  Oh well, if that's all I've got to complain about.....

After working on the rig for a few days I thought my back would like a little time on the inversion table.  Well, I was wrong.  For the past three days I've been barely about to creep about and spending any time on the computer was out of the question.  I'm getting better though, sitting is easier.  Hopefully I can get on with things tomorrow but coughing is still extremely painful. 

Did you hear about the possible security breach at LinkedIn.com?   Some time ago I started using a separate password for every site that I visit.  It's a giant pain in the ass but better than having to worry about 'cross contamination'.  (Of course, Google has it's own ideas so blogger, Google and all it's affiliates are tied together which I do not like!)  I've loaded all these passwords on a thumb drive and keep that with my car keys.  It's one of the Sandisk ones that has it's own security system.  Hopefully if I'm ever stupid enough to lose the thing it will at least give me time to change major passwords. 

On the bad news front, our dog's chest wound from her cancer operation has started weeping fluid again.  She doesn't seem to be in pain or anything but we are taking her in to the vet again in the morning for a check.  We bandaged her up with neosporin, padding and a tee-shirt but she really ought to be over the healing period by now.  We are hoping that she simply injured the wound somehow, maybe lying on some rough rocks, but it's not looking good.

Well, that's most of the news that's fit to print.  Have a good one.