Sunday, February 24, 2013

Bad Don!

Ok, been AWOL again.  My only excuse is that I'm on vacation.  (How do I go on vacation from no job?)  We are visiting San Diego.  It's not really that great of weather (high 64F - 18C & breezy) but the views are pretty good.  This is from the picture window at the back of our trailer.
This park is on Mission Bay so we are fairly close to downtown and the ocean beaches.  We've stayed here one other time.  It's expensive but quiet for a park so close to everything in a big city.  It has Wifi but it isn't terribly reliable; this morning (07:00 on Sunday) it's fine.  My wife grew up in San Diego so we have fun visiting some of her old haunts.  And we get to see Number One Son & his SO.  I must say we won't be losing any weight on this trip!

One of the old time scenic stops is Mt. Soledad.  There are nice views of the surrounding area - this is of the beaches to the north.

The monument itself is a giant cross intended to honor veterans of the U.S. military forces.  There were some legal actions some years ago in connection with having a religious symbol on public land.  This has been addressed; there are now several plaques mentioning that this is now private property!  It is a nice thought but sometimes I fear we take political correctness too far.
 


The cross is surrounded by low walls displaying plaques honoring various members of the military.  It is kind of strange; all crammed together with no apparent organization.  WWI is next to Vietnam which is next to Korea; there are plaques to the famous and to the unknown; there are quite a number of couples where both served.  Very interesting; I don't even know if they are all from this area!


We'll continue visiting.  Hopefully I'll continue to use the camera!


The traffic in San Diego is pretty awful.  They have plenty of stopages and the roads themselves were built with a special something that sets up a rocking motion for our truck.  I would estimate that approximately 20% of drivers on the freeways (including myself) go the speed limit of 65 mph (100 kph).  The remainder are from 10mph to 20 mph faster.  Needless to say there is absolutely NO lane discipline; fast cars are slaloming between lanes like a skier in the Olympics.  Most people flip on their signal light and change lanes without checking to see if there is anyone there; some omit the signal light.  It sucks during the day and is quite a bit worse at night.  I'm hardly surprised a the stopages; the accident rate must be impressive.  Last night the police found a drunk waving the U.S. flag in the middle of one of the freeways.

Anyway we are planning on being here until next Wednesday when we will return home.  Gotta go for now; have a good one.

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Feeling Better


My back problem seems to have gone away - it was a long week but I'm doing much better.  Just in time too because yesterday we went in to Las Vegas to visit the World of Concrete.  Number One Daughter works in the concrete industry so gets us into their annual show.  It is always fascinating.  The show is huge and this year we didn't really have time to check much of it out.  I doubt if we saw 5% of all the exhibits and didn't see any of the fun stuff.   They have contests to build the best brick wall, drive some machine around a course, stuff like that.  We just had a bunch of errands we wanted to get done as well so had to miss out on the excitement.  We ended up walking three or four miles all the same!  I didn’t get any photos; the small stuff isn’t very exciting and the large stuff is too big to photograph.

We got home about 16:00 yesterday then discovered there is a Dark Sky Program over in Death Valley on yesterday and Saturday evenings.  We just didn’t have the get up and go to make the trip yesterday but we are hoping to get over there this evening.  The drive takes a bit more than an hour; the road is a bit twisty in places but it is basically fine.  The park wants to be designated an International Dark Sky Park; I’m expecting the star viewing to be excellent.  I’ll try to report tomorrow.

We got snow in the mountains last night.  We are at an altitude of about 2,600 ft (790m) here in the valley; I’m guessing the snow came down to 3,000 ft (910m).  I know it’s only a couple of inches deep if that much but it makes it feel a lot more like winter and it adds to the aquifer.  Plus all those wild horses, burros and big horn sheep up there need every break they can get - photo courtesy of the Nevada State Parks website.

Gotta go.  Have a good one.

Friday, February 01, 2013

Exciting stuff - well, not THAT exciting...

I actually have something to blog about!  I don't know what to do with myself.  How does this work?  I guess I'll just plunge in somewhere and hope it makes sense.  We got a new internet service.  This one is talking about speeds in megabytes rather then kilobytes so that is a good thing.  The two guys who installed our new antenna were just on a whole different planet from me when it comes to heights.  They were zooming up that ladder like they were walking down the street.  It made my hands sweat just to watch them.  Here's one of the guys programming the receiver.
Just another day at the office for him. 

I did something that put my back out.  I've no idea what it is but while sitting doesn't hurt getting into a chair or out of it sure does.  Go buy some stock in ibuprofen because use is skyrocketing.  To manage my computer addiction during this time I've installed a new desk.
Yep, I'm in the closet.  I know all those celebrities are coming out of the closet, I just had to be different.  I can't stand here for long periods of time but for ten minutes at a shot it works really well.  The view sucks but.....  (Comments about the crap stored in the closet will not be accepted unless they are accompanied by a photo of your own neat and tidy closet!)

Anyway, aside from all that excitement, things are pretty normal.  We are having some nice 60's (17C) high temps and not too much wind so being outside is nice.  We are doing our walk mid-day rather than at 06:00 as we do in the summer.  We walk around the neighborhood and check out what the neighbors have done with their yards and houses.  We figure we have some very strange neighbors!  I'll talk about them another time.  Right now it's getting time to go find another position.  Standing in my closet is getting painful.

Have a good one!