Nothing very exciting here.

 Well, it's been right around 3 weeks since I've updated the old blog.  I have an excuse though; my laptop just spent 4 days in the repair shop!  I'm not really sure what it's problem was; things just weren't working right but they did figure out that the battery was deader than anything so I imagine that was it.  It was a $40 part and a $50 install but let me tell you being without a computer for that long was a terrible experience!  I wasn't aware how much of my life is tied to this little thing.  Well, now things are back to normal and I can even update the blog.

The news is all about the election and I've got to admit that I'm spending way too much time reading about it.  There isn't a thing I can do about it until I vote on Election Day and reading all the guesses about what the various courts are going to say about Mr. Trump and his legal problems are just a waste of time.  I have been looking at https://jobsanger.blogspot.com/.  He posts a lot of very insightful comments about Mr. Trump.  I try to find other things to read but, darn it, there doesn't seem to be a lot of other news except the stupid crimes (including bad driving) that people are committing.  I'll tell you, I wish people could suddenly start being nicer to one another!  And not just in this country; those wars going on in other countries are not making my days any brighter either.

I did get a nice sunset photo a few days ago.

And here is a shot of the moon going down behind the mountains.

We have transitioned into summer around here.  Our days are in the 104F - 107F range (40C - 42C); the nights getting down to 65F - 75F (18C - 24C).  Humidity is in the 10-15% range.  Going outside and remaining in the shade is possible but I cannot imagine how the people who have to work out in the sun manage it.  I'd be sweating buckets.  I am thinking about those folks because for the first time in a very long time we are having houses built in our neighborhood.  There is one that has roofing on it already and the wallboard is up.  There is one that only just has it's foundation and there are two that are just holes in the ground.  Around here you dig a hole about 3 feet deep then fill that with gravel or something similiar for the foundation to sit upon.  We have areas in the valley where if you don't do that your foundation will be breaking up in a couple of years.  And that would be nasty for the builder, the realtor, the plumber, the purchaser and anyone else involved in the thing.  Houses in our area also have to have a well dug (ours is 200 feet deep per our well guy - around 60M) and a septic tank/field installed.  It's all very nice but far from cheap.  Houses that are on the re-sale market are in the $450-600 thousand area.  Of course there are some that go way higher!  Needless to say, when we bought this house 16 years ago things were a lot cheaper.

I've been having a lot of trouble standing up and walking is pretty nasty as well.  After all kinds of medical fooling around I finally got an MRI of the lumbar region of my spine.  There are 7 bones down in that area and the doctor looking at the results found something wrong with almost every one.  Now I'm scheduled for some sort of spinal injection to ease the impact of my spinal stenosis.  If that doesn't work then we'll be looking at more surgery and I'd sure love to avoid that.  I've got to admit that while the doctors have all been pretty nice, they sure take their time about scheduling you for care.  That injection is scheduled for August 1st!  I wonder how many patients that doctor has waiting for care.

That's probably all the news that's fit to print.  Take care and try avoiding all the sick people out there.

Hmmm, not a lot to report these days.

 I hope everyone had at least an acceptable Thanksgiving; or acceptable Thursday if you don't live in the states.  We did ok.  We couldn't find a small turkey so we had a chicken.  We decided to go all crazy and get an organic chicken; it was fine but I'm not so sure it was $14 fine.  We tried a recipe my wife found where you wrap brussels sprouts in bacon and paint them with maple syrup.  We cooked it for less time than recommended but they were still burned to the point of tasting of nothing else.  We may try it again at a lower temp and without the syrup but it was not a pleasant side.  My wife did do a key lime pie which was excellent so that is the important memory.  We aren't football fans or particular fans of the Macy's Parade so we watched a movie or two.  Like I said, not a lot to report!

It has been cold lately, like 24F (4C) in the morning and 60F (15C) at mid-day.  We desert dwellers find that kind of chilly so I did what all good Americans do:  I ordered a warm shirt and another pair of jeans from Amazon!  I'm not even complaining about wearing long pants.  

My computer is doing weird things lately so it is probably headed for some time in the shop.  My microphone doesn't work at all.  My calculator app disappeared and every time I start the machine it give me a message about trying to download it then I get a message that the download failed.  The same thing happens for a mahjong game that apparently came with the machine.  It makes me feel REALLY OLD when I can't fix things like that; I mean I did earn my living programming computers but I guess that was quite a while ago.  

It wasn't quite that long ago!  The photo is supposed to be from 1956 but 20 years later the computers I was programming were about that size!

Our area was totally behind Mr. Trump so there are a lot of mad people around here.  We've had people on the main corner in town with signs about Biden cheated and other pro-Trump banners.  We can only hope that the sane Republicans manage to get that idiot to just leave the way he is supposed to do.  Actually I'm currently a registered Republican; if you aren't you just don't have a vote in the preliminary elections around here.  I heard an advertisement on our local radio station for  One America News Network where you can hear all the important stuff from Mr. Rudy Giuliani and others of that sort.  Jeez.  Just what we need:  billionaires telling people what they should be thinking. 

I've talked about balloons flying around before and the other day one landed just across the street.  That's our gate at the bottom of the photo.

The land where it landed is just empty; I think it is part of a 40 acre section that is open for retail development but it could be just residential lots.  Anyway there is a rough road over there and the cars used to transport the balloon crew and their passengers can be seen waiting for the landing.  Some people have been bothered by the balloons landing either on their land or very near by so the county is talking about a balloon ordinance.  Personally I think the balloon people are idiots if they can't stay away from people's yards.  I mean, another two minutes flight and you'll be far away from houses in our valley.  And, of course, if it is an emergency no normal person is going to bitch about them landing anywhere.  (Hmmm, there I go assuming we have normal people in town!)  

So there is all the news from Nowhere, NV.  Keep on washing those hands and wearing that mask.  It might come in handy if you want to rob a bank.  Good luck!

Background Italy

My wife and I love Europe but have differing levels of exposure to different countries.  One place we wanted to visit 'extensively' was Italy.  We started talking about spending a month there last fall.  The idea was that April 2016 would be Italy.  Then I figured out that my neck was making me miserable and that took over.  So we aimed for September 2016 and what a month it was!

We left Las Vegas on August 30 and returned on September 27 flying in and out of Venice.  We visited Rome together in 2000 (not exactly last week but we were looking at the Roman Forum so....).  I had visited some of the hill towns like Florence back in the 1970's but let's face it that was a while ago.  My wife had been in Milan on business but that too is 'a different experience'.  The bottom line is that we wanted to see most of central Italy.

So the first thing we did when we landed in Venice is to find a bus to the train station where we hopped a train to Naples.  Why Naples?  Well, it is close to Pompeii.  That was the draw for us.  Our style of travel is still evolving.  When we are in our rv, it's easy, we are always home.  Traveling without the rv is a whole new business especially in a tourist-centric place like Italy.  If you go to Chicago, travelers are probably 80% business and 20% vacationers.  In Italy it's almost certainly reversed.  In this day of Trip Advisor and the like if you want to stay in a nice place for a reasonable amount you find yourself on the internet more than you might like.  In the end we usually stayed two or three nights in each of the cities we visited.  After the first 10 days we rented a car and visited less traveled parts of the country.  Finally, after two weeks of car travel, we settled in Venice for four days to see that amazing city.

We bought a tablet computer for our trip to Ireland and it has served us well.  It did the same in Italy as most hotels had wifi and it actually worked, usually.  In Ireland the hotels were smaller, it was a couple years ago and things just weren't as good.  In Italy we had a couple of places where we would get dropped from the network then 5 seconds later re-attached.  I've got no idea what was going on but it did happen in more than one hotel.  The tablet enabled us to make hotel reservations a couple days in advance.  It also allows us to make notes easily so that 1) we can remember where we were on a given day and 2) we can update Trip Advisor with reviews of hotels, restaurants, etc.

Our smartphones were important as well.  We didn't know what would happen if we swapped our SIM card for an Italian one so my phone was nominated to be the experiment.  For 35 euro we got a new SIM card and a month's usage with a special deal that gave us international calling as well.  It was way worth it!  We didn't make many phone calls but having the data available via the phone was exceptional.  I'm sure we used it multiple times a day and probably used less than 1 gig of the 4 gig of data we were allowed.  In addition, the international call plan allowed my wife to call her mother weekly as she has been doing for several years.  The calls were as clear as they are here and I don't believe there was any discernable lag.

The other 'inovation' is GPS, we won't be there without it.  In Europe, when not on a motorway, one does not follow a road, one goes to a place.  You don't follow the A22 you go to Maranello.  This is fine but it does require a certain ablility to adapt to change.  Maranello might not be on the road sign, it might say Carpi so you need to know that Carpi is on the way towards Maranello or not.  Back in the good old days you might have to go around the roundabout two or three times while your navigator (wife) searched the map for where the hell Carpi might lead us.  With GPS all you need to know is that the second turn on the roundabout is the one you want.  Trust me, it makes life much easier.  That's true even if, like me, you end up with TWO women telling you where to go:  my wife and the voice from the GPS.  It was actually kind of funny.  My wife would see that there was a roundabout coming up and we would want the 9 o'clock exit.  She would tell me that then the GPS would wake up and say 'There is a roundabout in 800 meters, take the third exit".   Between the three of us we only got off track two or three times in the almost 1200 km we drove on some of the many back roads of Italy.  It was also a lifesaver in towns.  If your hotel or whatever isn't on the main road you definitely need direction.

Well, that is the overview of our trip.   I'll be resizing photos to share over the next few posts.  There are only about 700 of them to choose from but trust me, I'll keep it to a reasonable number.

More Life in the Fast Lane

We are spending most of our time inside these days since the triple digit days are here.  Actually we are hovering in the high 90's most days but we have seen 101F (38C).  To bring some excitement to my life I have just purchased a new computer:  an HP Envy 17" laptop.  Wow is that some learning curve!  My old machine is from 2008 and had a pretty basic version of Windows Vista.  I know some people had a lot of trouble with Vista but actually I was fairly happy.  The new machine is Windows 8.1; it has lots more screen (!) and it's a touchscreen to boot.  So far it's acceptable but from time to time it decides to cancel what I've typed or delete an email without consulting me.  It's just learning curve I keep telling myself!

 One thing that has me going is the amount of software that I'm needing to download to make this thing work.  I forgot how many extra pieces of software are on the old machine.  Of course the stuff HP put on here is not my style at all.  It's a good thing we have a decent internet connection because I'm going to be using it!

Otherwise we did exciting stuff like having our septic tank pumped out.  That was a thrill!  We didn't know where the tank was; there is a pipe coming out of the ground but as it turns out the pipe is 2 feet west of the actual tank opening and 5 feet south.  Happily the guy who did it knows what he is doing and found the tank relatively quickly.  Then he had to dig down about three feet to the tank, remove both the caps and empty both chambers.  Two and a half hours and $500 later; we should be good for another 8-10 years. 

Anyway, that's it for today.  I'd post a photo or two but haven't resized them.  Maybe there is something on the machine that would do it but I don't recognize it if it is here.  Grrr!  Later

Dummy Alert!

Oh boy, did we do a dumb thing the other day.  We have the trailer out of it's shed and next to the house because we are doing a little work on it - the new bathroom sink.  So we opened the awning to keep the morning sun off the side so it would be cooler.  So far so good but then comes the dumb moment:  we left the awning out and came into the house.  You know what happens next:  the wind comes up and suddenly I hear this whacking sound.  The awning was doing it's best to try to rip itself to bits.  I ran out and grabbed it but it was too much for me.  Happily my wife heard it as well so she followed me out after a minute or two.

We tried flipping the lever to roll it up but it was jammed and wouldn't roll up.  Finally I had the bright idea to release the awning legs from the side of the trailer and just let the awning hang down against the side of the trailer.  My wife couldn't get her end of the awning to release but I managed it and that released all the strain from the 'roll up' lever and we managed to get the awning rolled up.  Damn, that was a near thing!  We've been running around in trailers for almost 15 years that's too long to be making a rookie screwup.

We do have a new sink though.  It looks good and hopefully we'll get the plumbing done later this afternoon.  My wife is the family plumber; all I do is hand her the tools.  I won't be taking any photos of that! Here's a photo of the old sink propped up in the cutout for the new one.

And here is the new sink happily installed.  What a difference!

My computer is officially screwed up.  My battery icon gives me a message that says "6% available (plugged in, not charging)".  It's almost exactly 5 years old and when I took the battery out, it's leaking.  It's just a bad deal.  I checked out batteries online and they are running about $30.  I checked out the ones at the local BatteriesPlus store in Las Vegas:  $100.  Hmmmm.  Guess I'll be buying online again.  On the other hand, there is a nice Toshiba Click 2 advertised for $530.  It's small but maybe I could get used to it.  We'll see what happens.  Stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by.  Have a good one.