Catching Up

Merry Christmas, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanuka, etc! Hope the holidays, whichever you may observe, are great. Even us atheists enjoy the time; parties are always fun. These days I certainly prefer giving gifts to receiving them.

Haven't been blogging much lately because the internet service here is so lousy. Even in the clubhouse it is slow. Heaven only knows what it is going to be like in the future. We are going to try a service that uses accesses the house using a microwave technology. It should work IF they can see a tower from our location.
If that doesn't work, we'll have to go satellite.

Had an amazing experience on Christmas day. We went over to Las Vegas to spend the day with our daughter; had a great time. About 16:00 we headed home; it was raining pretty steadily. Las Vegas is at about 2500 feet above sea level; Pahrump is about the same. However, there is a 5400 foot mountain pass between the two. When the snow level is 4000 feet; you can see the problem. This is compounded by the fact that this is a desert area where they get very little precipitation in any form so they have no snow removal equipment. We were getting into the area where the road was getting slushy when a police car with it's emergency lights on did a U-turn onto the road in front of us. He then proceeded to lead a group of 10 or 15 cars up the pass and down the other side single file at about 35 mph. We even met another cop doing the same thing going in the opposite direction. When we got down the other side, he made another U-turn and lead some other cars up the mountain and down into Vegas. What an idea! It keeps the road open; keeps the speeds down and if someone does go off the road, it won't be long before they get help. I'm just blown away by that kind of thinking. It is FAR too rare. Someone deserves an award.


Now it is the 27th. Haven't been able to use the net here so am simply adding to this text file. It got pretty cold last night - we saw 24 degrees (-3 C) and that is what it was when I walked the dog at 08:00. It is sunny so it should warm up to 50 or so (10 C). Our daughter didn't want the bone from the ham so we have that; I'll be making bean and ham soup later this morning. That will warm up the trailer!

So far it looks like we will be able to close on the house on Monday the 29th but I won't be happy until everything is signed and sealed. This is what we get for wanting to do close this year but the bank owning the property is giving us a bonus for closing in 2008 so we are willing to work for it.

We are getting things going. The electric is being moved into our names on the 29th. We have a guy coming to install a weird microwave internet service on the 31st. Our insurance will come into force on the 29th; including flood insurance! Our furniture and books that have been stored in Florida are scheduled to be loaded on a truck on the 5th to be delivered a week or two later. We have very little furniture, just a few sentimental pieces and a bed that we just bought. Besides that there is our art work; a box or two of clothes; a couple more of tools; and about 30 boxes of books. Because the shipment is so small, we'll have to be on a truck carrying things from several families. So the truck might go from Florida to New York before coming here then going on to California. There is no real way of telling at this point. We'll just wait for the driver to call.

You may recall that I had several difficulties with the water hose freezing. I was in the local museum yesterday and was talking with the curator. In the course of the conversation he mentioned that his well head has frozen for the first time. Oh s*&t, here I was hoping to be done with that particular problem. Not sure what we'll do; but maybe a shed to cover the well and pump might be a good early purchase.

Good morning! Looks like I might get to post this on the 28th. Well, I'll try! Another freezing morning. Cold and clear in the desert. May head over the hill to Vegas to look at furniture today. I was thinking yesterday that we are looking at spending at least $25K to furnish this house. Looks like it was lucky that we got a good price on the house itself.

Now let's see if I can load this - nope! I can read the blog but can't get to the sign in screen. Hmmm, maybe later. At any rate, have a good one!

Now it's Monday the 29th and we have a closing scheduled for 14:00 this afternoon!!! Yes, I'm amazed. Lots of stuff to do this morning but I wanted to post at last. Went out yesterday and bought a new clothes washer and dryer. Wanted to buy the refrigerator but they didn't have any in stock so couldn't sell it. Oh well, we'll try somewhere else. Gotta go. Hope everyone is doing well.