MIA

It's odd how people disappear from the internet. I know some people are harassed and leave for that reason but some just seem to disappear without reason or explanation. There are two bloggers that I used to read who have just dropped out of sight.

Cinn from Dead on the Gearshift decided to change the direction of her blog and decided that only certain people would be allowed to access it. I found it odd because she was already very careful about hiding her identity. Her blog was the tale of her trials and tribulations as a single mom.

A guy named Lee wrote THREE blogs, the only one I can remember was The Curate's Egg. He was quite open about his identity but his blogs just disappeared. I enjoyed reading his blogs because the writing was so good. I even exchanged emails with him a few times. But now he's gone.

I guess some people disappear because they get tired; some lose their password (like me!); perhaps some lose computer access. It's up to them, of course, to do as they wish but it does bother me to have an electronic friend go away. Isn't it odd that we can learn to care for people who we know only as bits and bytes.

Have a good one!

The UN-cramp

Good old dumbshit Don managed the impossible, I figured out what I did to my password! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING but I lucked out finally. Please believe me when I tell you it's a bad idea to change your password after a few drinks. LOL I'm totally sober this a.m. but finally got the password typed the right-wrong way if you know what I mean. Whew, what an ordeal.

Went and got the measurements done yesterday for my cataract surgery. What a pain in the ass. I'm going to St Lukes Cataract & Laser Institute in Tarpon Springs, FL. It is probably a fine place but if you don't have to wait 30 minutes to see a nurse they think they are doing something wrong. It's a real factory setting but at least I feel that they have plenty of experience.

I'll see if I can't do this more often. Have a good one!

And remember I'm back to don34685 at Yahoo dot com. Hurray!

Not Dead Yet

Hello all. Yes, I'm getting worse about updating the blog. Well, I only started it so I could leave comments on other blogs so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Haven't been doing much. We keep talking about moving and doing as little as possible however I think that is changing. We sold our little bass boat last week. A nice couple who look like they will use it bought it. Next are the BMW and the spa. The BMW will be difficult. We picked in up in Munich on the European Delivery Plan on May 15, 1993. The first few years my wife commuted in it but then when we lived in New Jersey she worked from home. In Holland she had a company car and I used it around town. Now that we are retired, we mostly use the truck because it fits our needs better. As a result, we have a 14 year old car with around 83,000 original miles. What a shame. But we both LOVE driving the car. It has spoiled us for anything else. It will be tough to sell it.

Otherwise, I am having cararact surgery at the end of the month. I'm only 58 but I guess it's my time. Right eye this time but they say it won't be long before the left requires it. The sad thing is that our insurance covers the operation and a basic lense but won't do anything about the new improved lens they can implant. The new ones have three focusing areas - far, near and close rather than the one distance older lenses. It will cost us $2500 out of our pocket but I really can't see getting the single focus ones. Any advice?

ONE MORE THING! I had a brain cramp and screwed up my yahoo id. I used to be don34685 at yahoo.com - NOW I'm duhdon34685 at yahoo.com. Sorry but I'm just an idiot sometimes.

Take care of yourselves; it's tough out there.

Home Again

Got home last Thursday - a month to the day since we left. Drove 6700+ miles in that time & the truck went over 100,000 miles. About 35,000 of that has been towing our trailer. Had a great time. Learned a lot about the west. We are planning on moving to a little town west of Las Vegas, Nevada as soon as we can sell our house here in Florida. The humidity here is just killing both of us.

We had rain, snow & sleet leaving Colorado Springs; that was fun. Messy too! Then had a dust storm in Nevada. We were in a park in the middle of a valley between two mountain ranges. The valley was probably 40 miles across. We couldn't see the mountains on either side! Then it started misting and turned my nice clean truck into a muddy mess! In Amarillo we stopped at a park and turned on the tv. We saw there was a major storm about an hour away headed for us. The first course would be a tornado; the second was rain, 60mph winds and hail the size of baseballs. We hooked the rig back up & drove away. We only drove about an hour but found a park where we were next to a couple of nice sturdy concrete buildings. We got quite a bit of wind but the buildings blocked it from hitting us directly so all we got was a bunch of rain. Whew!

Kept dropping south into milder weather until we got home. 85 degrees & moderate humidity - Florida at it's best. Unfortunately the real estate market still seems rotten. Well, we'll stay here, fix the house & yard & wait a while. Our next door neighbor is retiring the first of June after 35 years with the Federal government. We should have quite a party!

Hope things are going well for everyone. Take care.

Outta Here!

Hello all. Looks like it's over a month again since I posted anything. I can't imagine how people post daily. I'd be limited to talking about my trip to the hardware store or something. Today I do have something exciting to write about. We are off on our trip starting Thursday! Hurray!

We'll leave here Thursday morning to go up to where we store the trailer in Crystal River. We'll spend the night there; go out to dinner with our relatives, then Friday morning hit the road. We are planning on making it to the Escapees park in Summerdale, Alabama the first day. It's a long drive for us but we need to get started. The first day is usually tough on everyone.

Don't know if I've mentioned it before but we travel with our dog & cat. The dog LOVES going with us; the cat would rather not but when we first got him I said he was either a member of the family and would come or he wouldn't be in our family. That was 4 years and 3 major trips ago. The dog gets the backseat of the truck and the cat gets to be under it. He howls if the road is really rough but otherwise he just hangs out. When we stop for gas he hops out & looks around then goes back under the seat when we start off again. When we stop for the night, he stretches out on the couch & acts like he owns the place. Really he's been a great traveler.

He and the dog have both gotten baths in honor of the trip. They are all fluffy now. Still losing hair like crazy but that's what they do. We cleaned the truck this evening, filled a vacuum bag that was less than half full when we started. Now I need to get the outside cleaned tomorrow. And buy some food items and buy lots of liquor and buy odds & ends and load all this stuff into the truck and take my wife out to dinner and try to keep her from flipping out with excitement. Jeez!

We hope to visit friends in Colorado Springs for a couple of days then go down to Lost Wages for a few days. We are looking for a place to live in the west and Vegas is the first possible place. We may go on to visit Reno or may decide to skip it and just go down into Arizona & New Mexico. We'll spend as much time as we can checking places out then return home. The mail will be held until April 28 so I guess we have to be back then! Maybe I'll post something from the road but..... Gee, more than one post a month would be a new record wouldn't it?

We did finally get the bathroom fixed up. Replaced the faucets too since the old ones were leaking and of a type that cannot really be repaired. It looks pretty good if I do say so. All the same you can bet that we won't be removing the wall paper from the other three walls.

We got the carpet in our bedroom replaced in February by Empire - you know the ones who will install new carpet tomorrow. We had them out here once already to glue down the edge where the carpet butts against the tile - the original guys didn't glue it. Now they are supposed to come out again tomorrow because the seam is totally visible. It just shouldn't be visible after a month but we can't get it to not show. Hopefully they can fix it. What fun.

Hope you all have a good month. I'll write more when we return if not before.

Half a month - better than last time!

Ok, it's been over 2 weeks - so sue me.

We had been expecting visitors in March; now it's looking like neither group will show. That's what I get for trying to figure out what is going to happen in my life ahead of time. Oh well, we don't like visitors all that much anyway!

My wife decided to rip the wallpaper off one wall of the bathroom. THEN we found that the builder (back in 1984!) pasted the wallpaper directly on the drywall; therefore it doesn't really come off. Tore it off, sanded a bunch, vacuumed a bunch and finally put a coat of primer (Kilz if you are interested). Today we sprayed the wall with texture stuff. It comes in a spray can & covers about 50 sq. ft. Pretty cool. You let it dry a bit then knock it down with a trowel. Gives the wall that textured effect. Tomorrow we prime again then can paint. It's been quite a while so I'm looking forward to having a bathroom again.

Got down to 40 degrees F last night. It's the coolest this winter. This will be 3 years without a freeze. Some plants are really loving it but so do pests like fleas. Hopefully this is our last winter here but who knows. Right now we don't know where we want to go. We are currently planning on leaving in mid-April for the west & the northwest. Should be fun; especially if we actually get to go!

Hope everyone is doing ok. Keep on keeping on!

Wow - a whole month!

I've been bad. Haven't been here updating for the whole month. Sorry about that! I've got an excuse or two though. We are renovating like crazy. As my wife says, spending money like we had it. First, have I whined about buying a new heat pump on 27 December? If not, that's the first thing. (The dealer isn't having a good time though, we've had them out here three times getting the thing to work properly. Tomorrow will be their fourth service call; they are promising to send someone tomorrow who actually knows what he or she is doing. That will be nice for a change.) Then paint the house, replacing a couple of rusted exterior doors as well. And replacing all the door hardware with new. Now we've bought a new bed; the last new one was in 1981 so you can't say we don't hang on to things. Finally we are replacing the carpet in both bedrooms. There probably won't be enough left from $15,000 to go to McDonald's. Bah, humbug!

And we certainly are NOT going to Ireland. At least not right now. We got in the middle of all this renovation and just couldn't stop & go have fun. Besides, since we are paying to have others do all this work, my wife decided to rip the wallpaper off one wall of the bathroom. Of course, then we discover that the builder put the wallpaper directly over the sheetrock so it doesn't come off nicely at all. We've got it mostly sanded off so now we can start priming, adding texture, priming and painting. Doesn't it all sound like fun.

To make it a totally fun month, yesterday I went & had my eyes checked and the doctor says I have cataracts. One eye is bothering me quite a bit; the other isn't as advanced but will be ready in a year or two. Hmmm. Life in the fast lane is sounding tame compared to this retirement thing.

Have a good one - I'll try to be back before the end of February. I promise.

1 January 2007

Happy New Year everyone! And what a year it is going to be. At least I'm thinking it will be interesting. For starters, we are getting our house cleaned up so it will be salable. No, the market isn't in good shape so we aren't putting it on the market but we are working towards that end.

January: we just got a new heat pump installed $5500. We are having the exterior of the house painted and some minor work done $3000. I have permission to sell our bed whereupon we will have the bed rooms recarpeted and buy a new bed.

February: we hope to visit Ireland for a couple of weeks. We just have to get out of Dodge(i.e. the USA) for a few days.

March: we hope to have visitors; #1 Son who lives in California and, later, some old friends who live in Colorado.

April: we will write a HUGE check to Uncle Sam.

May or June: take a trailer trip out to the Pacific Northwest to visit relatives. Spend some time on the trip checking out various places we've heard about that we might consider for our new home. Will this house be on the market? Who knows!

In the background for this half year you should hear us going through boxes & getting rid of things we no longer want or need. Like do I really need that PL/I textbook?

The rest of the year is downright dull: hope like everything that there aren't any hurricanes! That will be the big thing. Maybe another trailer trip somewhere either here in the East (like Washington, DC) or back out west.

We'll just have to see what happens. Here's wishing you & yours a happy and prosperous 2007. Best of luck, folks.

Tuesday, December 19

I'm driving around town looking for Xmas presents. It is 83 degrees and I've got the A/C running. What the devil is this? I know people visit here in the winter so they can enjoy this kind of thing but, frankly, I'm tired of it. We have a propane fireplace in our home(no, I didn't install the thing). We are out of propane & can't get any until after the holiday. I was all bothered until I figured out that it would be too warm to run the darn thing anyway. We are actively thinking of places we'd rather live. We've replaced the fence around the yard, replaced the roof, tore out the carpet & replaced it with hardwood, rebuilt the lawn sprinkler system and refinished the pool and deck. We are taking bids to paint the house & have decided on replacing the heat pump. The house is in a LOT better shape than it was when we bought it. If the housing market revives a bit, we'll be ready.

Right now the west is calling to us. Go somewhere and find four seasons but not 30 feet of snow in the winter. Well, actually, being retired we can pretty much wait out a snowfall as long as the power isn't interrupted. The state of Washington is definitely OUT of contention. We've lived there and I need more sunlight. Ditto Oregon. So we'll work on finding places that seem feasible. California is also out but because of prices and taxation. Parts of Colorado, Nevada, Arizona & New Mexico are the current favorites but I wouldn't bet much on any of them.

To change subjects radically, I read people's blogs to learn about them, their problems and their ability to deal with them. Recently I've been reading about having a written set of values and goals. It sounds to me like a good idea and I'm going to try to implement something like that in my life. One list I saw included: consideration, integrity, the Ten Commandments, character, health, order, time, communications, honesty, charity, prudence, and goals. Whew! It made me tired to simply read the list. Besides, I don't really feel that I need to work on some of those values; it's a very long time since I've worried about my integrity or honesty.

Order is certainly something I need to work on! We have lived in this house for almost 6 years; TODAY I emptied some boxes that have been cluttering our spare room all this time. Procrastination is another thing. I have at least 20 or 30 items that I've earmarked for sale on eBay. I've actually sold 2. Health - now there is a problem. I'm basically in excellent health but I'm 58 and 30 pounds overweight and obviously that isn't the start of a good news story. We'll see if I can do something about that problem.

Finally, two sites I'd like to recommend. The first is written my a woman whose husband is a career officer in the Army and is scheduled to be shipped to Iraq. Her blog is: http://blogs.tampabay.com/standingby/

The other is a bit different. I read many sites put up by RVers who want to let their family & friends (& others) know about their travels. Recently they added a page about a man currently in Iraq. He writes some things & the RVers add a bit here and there to put things in prospective. The page is: http://www.1tree.net/adventure/soldier_story.htm

If I haven't said before, I think this war in Iraq is beyond stupid. The invasion of Afghanistan MIGHT be explainable though I'm not sure our continued presence there is but invading Iraq was stupid beyond belief. But shit happens. Even intelligent people make mistakes. But we are still there. I'd leave in a New York minute. I know the country would go immediately into civil war mode but they will anyway whenever we leave unless we install another dictator who is so powerful that his enemies simply cannot afford the fight. Sounds like Saddam to me.

HOWEVER, the men and women of the armed forces deserve our complete support. I'm a veteran but I didn't have to do much. Some of our soldiers have to do and give so much. They go places and do things because they are ordered to do so. Sometimes things go wrong and they get a little crazy and hurt people they shouldn't. So what? They are in the middle of a war and in war bad things happen to good people. These two sites approach the soldiers life from two angles: the family left at home and the soldier himself. They are really very good.

Have a good week and if I don't make it back until after Xmas - Happy Holidays!

Back to normal

My back finally got more or less normal so I've been out and about again. Yesterday we drove up to Citrus Springs, Florida to visit some relatives & go to a Xmas party. That whole area is mostly retired folks so the average age at the party was probably 70. The stories I was hearing just reinforced my desire to go places & do things as soon as you are able.

There was a couple where the guy just retired & they find that his wife has breast cancer. Another is a lady undergoing chemo while caring for her half-crazy husband. The hostess can barely move from back pain; yesterday she was taking drugs that would knock out an ordinary person. You just have to go early, go young, go poor but go!

We are planning on taking our own advice after the new year and visiting Ireland. We've been in Western Europe quite a bit but never made it to the Emerald Isle. We even have ancestors from Ireland but haven't made the trek. Now we figure that we'll just go for a couple of weeks & enjoy ourselves. We have friends who will keep the dog & cat; it certainly isn't the 'high' season so it shouldn't be crowded; & we both love Guinness. What's not to like! If anyone has any advice about places to go & things to see, please either leave a comment or email me.

Have a good week!

Life goes on.....

Hi,

On the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, I developed what is sometimes referred to as a muscle spasm. The definition is a one time muscular contraction that is soon forgotten. The reality, for me, is something that it continues for some time. Several years ago I was prescribed SOMA, a muscle relaxant, for the condition. I've been taking leftover SOMA for three days trying to get things back to normal. Today, Saturday, I finally went out to a couple of stores. I wasn't great but I wasn't taking drugs either! The point is that shit like this happens more often as you age so get out there & have fun while you can.

I have to tell you folks; you're dumb if you don't retire as soon as you can. Have your fun while you can; your income is less important than your ability to have fun. As one ages, the things that would have been minor aches become things that keep you in bed; the things that would have meant a day off work become something that no one understands. I have a history of muscle spasms that started about 10 years ago. I'm 58 now. Do you really think I'll be more healthy next year? Are you really that foolish? These things will lay me low for 1 or 2 weeks a year. What if it happens to you while you are having that once in a lifetime vacation?

If you have visited me before you know that my attitude is that THIS IS my once in a lifetime vacation; my next lifetime starts tomorrow! The only way my last vacation will be my best is if I die before I take another! Join me in enjoying the present; remembering the past and hoping for the future!

Best regards,

Don

The Thanksgiving that was....

We had a very nice Thanksgiving; quiet, peaceful & we all ate too much. Daughter brought a guy from work; just a colleague we are told. The local couple who are relatives showed; & us. Just 6 but, for us, a nice number. Daughter noted that her mother was much calmer this year than in the past. When I asked MrsD about it she said "no more mother to worry about". Amazing that her mother weighed so on her. But now, she's been gone for about 10 months and things are calmer for MrsD.

The bad thing about having people over is that we need to clean the house - that is MrsD works in the kitchen and I have to clean the rest! Oh well! It is a lot cleaner now. Remember how people used to do "Spring Cleaning" = in our house it is "Before someone comes to visit" cleaning. I'm not all that good but I'm the only person here who isn't slaving away in the kitchen.

After the dinner there is a traditional game of cards called "Piss and Moan". I don't play (hate cards & especially with her family) so I get to strip the meat off the turkey, package it & do general cleaning in the kitchen. It didn't stop me from taking a nice little nap in my chair though before the game ended. Ha! I sure won that one!

Now we get to the greedy month. Corporate greed at it's best! We usually have dollar limits on gifts so it doesn't get stupid. I read about others who end the month with $5 or $10K in bills. Those are definitely NOT people from Iowa born of Depression Era parents! Work on keeping it down folks, there's plenty of personal debt in this country already. But don't forget your local food bank. There are plenty of less fortunate people around.

I've been listening to the downloads from the 2005 conference on Science and it's relationship to Religion. URL is
http://beyondbelief2006.org/ - it's interesting but, so far, not enthralling even though I agree with a lot of what is being said. Most of the speakers are professors and we've all fallen asleep in class! The 2006 conference was supposed to be held in early November so there may be a whole series more if anyone wants to check it out.

BTW: it's 74 with a projected high of 82 today. Eat your heart out Seattle! Have a good one!

Wine Tasting from Hell

We went to a neighbor's house tonight for a "wine tasting". We were told to bring an appetizer and a bottle of wine from Chile. We got there a few minutes late & were the last ones to arrive. It turns out that the wine tasting was just an excuse to have a quiet little party, drink wine & eat. Now that's ok but it sure wasn't what we were expecting. All the folks brought nasty shit from the grocery store to eat with the wine. For example, a shrimp platter that was still partially frozen. Yecch! And then there was the guy who tried to tell us that brie is a Dutch cheese! We took pate which was totally unknown to everyone there. Never again!

Other than that excitement, we are just getting ready for Thanksgiving. My wife likes to cook and tries to make the holiday special. The only problem is that she thinks that we ought to have sweet potatoes. However, she doesn't like them so can't really cook them. One year she did a sweet potato casserole that no one could stand. She thought the recipe sounded good but it tasted awful. Now I just talk her out of having sweet potatoes and everyone is much better off. She also doesn't care a lot for vegetables so they are sometimes bizarre. Haven't had any that were inedible yet though! Tomorrow I start doing the shopping; I'll start with easy stuff: the wine and maybe the turkey.

Anyway, hope everyone has a good week. Take care!

Still crazy after all these years.....

Had to go out & buy a new computer for my wife the other day. It is a really odd feeling because she is as computer savvy as I and has never asked me to do anything like that before. The problem is that her computer has been doing weird stuff for over a year. It is a Gateway 510 (I think); about 3 years old. It started crashing & restarting occasionally. We took it in & had someone check it out. They said the hard drive was dying so we replaced that. It gave us lots more storage but didn't do anything about the random crashes. Then the monitor started flickering. It just got to be too distressing for her to use it & it was too distressing to go buy another box. I looked around a bit then got an HP from CompUSA. We plugged it in and I haven't seen her since! (Kidding, but not much.)

It's funny how things can assume absurd importance. The fact that this computer was faulty & the tech's couldn't find anything wrong bothered her so much that she thought it was wrong to replace it. It wasn't 'mine' so it was easy for me to go buy another box. Now, maybe, we can be happy little computer nerds for a while.

Oh, and it isn't like she couldn't reach the Internet or play her games or whatever. We have a nice little Toshiba laptop that she uses in the living room while she is watching tv. Are we nerds or what?

Have a nice week!

Why Live in Florida

Today has been one of the days that makes living in Florida seem reasonable. It was warm but not hot; and the humidity that is the curse of our weather was gone. After a late breakfast we sat out by the pool with a drink just enjoying the world. We even had a ham bone for the dog. There are things we need to do; things we planned to do today but they will be done another day and I am glad of it.

Tonight in the early evening I was outside reading when I heard a commotion; a man yelling. It turns out that some of our neighbors was having a "domestic disturbance". After a few minutes a police car arrived. Then the woman put some things into her car and drove off. The police left shortly thereafter. No one was injured; no one arrested but it was disturbing. Marital problems happen, of course. I guess it just reminded me of the fragility of our happiness.

Though I am not a believer, the Compline service says it very nicely:

The Lord Almighty grant us a peaceful night and a perfect end. Amen.

Almost back to normal

We are almost back to normal here in Tampa Bay Land. Put out 6 bags of grass clippings last week from the back yard alone. It was just a little tall! That's what I get for making the back yard too tight for professional yard equipment; I can't hire anyone to cut it while we are gone. What the heck. I need the exercise!

We are working on our long term plan to leave the area; it's starting to look like the process will take a year & a half or so. We have SO much house maintenance that hasn't been done for starters. Then we have to shave our belongings down to some reasonable amount for moving. Finally, it's sell (which may take some time, certainly) and go. Like the rest of the country the Florida housing market has slowed quite a lot. Besides, we have a house that really cries out to be sold either in the early spring or the late fall. When you enter the house, if it can be open to the outside, it sells itself. You have 2000 sq ft of house that connects almost seamlessly to 1500 sq ft of pool deck as your living area. It's great and looks even better. When it is too hot to have the house open (in the summer) you have only the relatively small house to show. It's a nice enough house but in this market you need the extra zing of the outside. Spouse and I have both worked as project managers so you KNOW we'll have list upon list upon list covering THIS project.

In the middle of that 'leaving' plan we need to develop and explore places for the 'where the hell are we going' plan! We really have almost no idea of where we want to move. It could be Northern Florida, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico or even somewhere we haven't considered yet. It's odd to be able to move anywhere we would like. We've always moved for and by our work until we moved here & we moved here to be near our mothers. Now that they are gone, we are free to fly. It will be interesting to see what we eventually do. We plan on doing more traveling to visit possible home bases during the months that the house will be on the market. Should be fun!

Have a great weekend everyone. And don't get stuck on Friday, the 13th!

Home Again, Naturally

We got home last Sunday evening and here it is nearly a week later before I manage to get to the blog. Well, let's face it; I'm lazy! Plus there were a few things to handle. Like on any trip you decide not to do laundry until you get home - we had a zillion loads. We had someone cut our front grass but not the back since they can't use their equipment in the back. It was at least a foot high! The house had somehow gotten really dirty in spite of the fact that we weren't here to make it so. Funny, but it really did need cleaning. The mail was impressive; about 3% was actually something we'd care about. But we are making it more like a home again.

The trip was excellent. Drove almost 5,000 miles towing the trailer 3,600 of them. (8,000 km total; 5,800 km towing if I'm to believe the web.) It's a long way for under a month and including all the stuff we did. I was able to meet and talk with relatives that I didn't know I had; actual cousins. We got to visit effigy Mounds National Monument; it is a place the ancient people of North America buried their dead and communed with their gods. It was very quiet, lovely and somehow touching. We got to eat wonderful catfish in Missouri and wonderful pork ribs and pulled pork in Georgia. Had a great time visiting the USS Alabama in Mobile. It brought back some of the hardships that men endured during World War II. Along the way we met some nice people; some weird people and some that I certainly don't want to meet again! We were in Sikesville, Missouri in the wind and the rain with tornados north of us and tornados south of us. The next day was dry when we woke but by the time we wanted to leave we were wading in 3 inches (7.5cm) of water with more landing on us every second.

We love to travel but getting home is pretty great too. I'm reading all the usual blogs; it just takes time to catch up. Have a good weekend all!

Travel

Have moved on to Clear Lake, Iowa. Since we left Columbia we had a wonderful family reunion on a cousin's farm. It wasn't actually fantastic but it wasn't bad and that's good. Met a couple of relatives that we actually liked! We stayed in a city park that was really nice; they were having a Fur Trapper's Meeting. We checked it out but all traps look the same to us!

This is a nice little park with wifi for $1 extra a day. Don't we love it! Next stop is the Winnebago factory; gotta see where all the Winnie's are built. We are thinking about a new RV but haven't any clue about what we want. Seeing how the things are built is at least a first step. Don't know that Winnie is even in the running but you can learn from the losers as well as the winners.

Keep on having fun!

Gone - Definitely Gone

I say at the start of the blog that we like to travel as much as possible. We are doing it now! I'm writing from Columbia, MO on the way to a family reunion. Then we'll wander back to Florida stopping at a couple of RV factories in between. We like to see how they are built in case we might like to buy one some day. So there won't be much updating between now an the end of September; like anyone could tell anyway!

Have a safe rest of the month folks.

Fallen off the Wagon

I see that I've fallen off posting again. I guess think my life is just too dull to be of interest to others. Anyway, what's been happening? Well, we took another 3 day trip in our trailer. The poor thing needed new tires (they degrade from the UV rays and should be replaced every 5-7 years regardless of mileage) so we got tires then went down to Sarasota for a couple of days. Got to see the Ringling Museum. It's pretty nice but didn't really knock my socks off. Had an episode of dumb: left the awning out in the rain. It filled with water and bowed the roller, which is supposed to be nice and straight. Luckily it did roll up again with a little encouragement. We'll need to replace it though.

We are trying to get some work done around the house and it's turning into a giant pain. The sprinkler system hasn't worked for several years & we are getting estimate for fixing/replacing it. One guy wanted to replace it; a second guy was going to fix part & replace part; the third guy didn't show up. What a pain! The guy we wanted to do some lawn cleanup didn't show. These guys doing this type of work are doing really tough work in the heat & humidity but they don't seem to have the greatest work ethic/business sense. Oh well, we'll just keep looking. We'd like to have the house painted too but that's another group of people to deal with!

Our daughter's 36th birthday came & went. She never wants anything special for her birthday so this year I went down & got the information about opening an IRA for her & gave her a check to start it. Thirty-six is really late to be starting an IRA but it's better than 46! She's been in the service industry for a long while & it's tough to save when you have cash tips. Now she has a job with a paycheck so it's easier. If you don't have one; start one!

We are also trying to figure out a 5 year plan. I love the idea that if you don't know where you are going you won't get there. Got our first major plan from a financial advisor around 20 years ago. Now, for the first time, we don't have to take into account work or parents; the freedom is almost scary. We are thinking of trips we want to take; moving from Florida; financial considerations; lots of choices! If you've never made such a plan; DO IT! You will certainly surprise yourself with the things you can accomplish. We did from that very first plan 20 years ago.

Gotta go. Have a good week everyone.