Good Morning!!!! 73F @ 5:30AM. Plentiful sunshine. High 102F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Was out again at about 4:45AM looking for Neotech, this time with a pair of binoculars. Found it, just above the horizon, right where the Skywatch app said it would be. It was probably there yesterday, too, but too faint for my tired old eyes to see without some help. And too faint for my point and shoot Canon camera, even zoomed up to 40x.
Jay, I'm really glad you were able to figure out what was going on with Peg and get her straightened out. I can't blame her for not taking her meds, I hate pills. It's one of those adult things, though, to admit that the doctor does often know best. Glad, too, you can have a sense of humor through it all. Sometimes that's all it takes.
Thanks for the suggestion, Rick, it's a good one. The CalFire guys have been friendly in the past, but they get a new crop each year and you never know. Worth a phone call. Not sure we still have a volunteer fire department here anymore. The firehouse survived the Camp Fire, but I think all the volunteers moved away. I took a closer look at those 2 1/2" fittings on the firetruck, and the one with the handle is actually the one marked as a suction line. So that's the one I need to match for the new hose. The sun was in a good spot to see into the tank yesterday, and what I saw wasn't good. The bottom of it looked like Kyle's yard, a mix of dirt and mud and RUST that looked like a dried up and cracked lake bed. I need to get that out of there before it gets into the pump, and I'm not sure how to do it. The access port is probably just big enough to get through, but I'm not sure how safe it would be in there from a breathable air standpoint.
Sounds like your daughter has discovered one of the secrets to a happy life, Kyle. No surprise there; she has a good teacher/father!:thumbsup:
I take a small amount of comfort knowing that between the temperatures we are both experiencing, Eric, there is an average that is quite pleasant.:confused2:
Thousands of people moved into motor homes and trailers after losing their homes in the Camp Fire, Drew, and most of them were in the sub 20 foot size range. Most were in them for a year or more before they could find more normal housing. I'm sure the novelty of "camping" wore off pretty quickly for those folks, but most that I've talked to accepted it as a good first step toward a better life on the other end. It's a good idea to have an elevated level of care available as you go through chemo, especially not knowing how you'll react to each new treatment. But it's also a good idea to keep your options open, and get an eyeball on that campground to see if you could be comfortable there. Maybe all you need is someone to drop by in the morning and evening to bring you a meal and make sure you're OK. Even though that kind of service isn't cheap, relative to your current situation, it would be much less expensive. You'd also enjoy much more independence, and that really has no price.
View attachment 662796
First blood on the new Kubota. That's what's left of the outboard eye on the hydraulic top link. When I was shutting down for the day yesterday, I pulled the top and side links in as far as they would go, and slowly lowered the 3PH lifting arms to put the lower corner of the box blade on the ground. Then pushed the lifting arm (draft) control all the way down. That's when I heard a bang, and the eye got transformed into a hook no longer attached to the box blade. Looking at the cross section of the fracture surface, it was only a matter of time. There's not enough metal there. The eye contained a sphere that was cross drilled with two holes, one for 3/4" Cat 1 top link pins, the other for 1" Cat 2 pins. The sphere was so big it didn't leave much room for the ring that held it onto the end of the cylinder rod, so Kubota left the ring thin so it would still work with most of the 3PH equipment out there. But not work for long; I bet they're seeing a lot of these being returned. I'm probably just going to turn a new eye out of some 4130 bar stock, if I can find the stub I think I still have. But the real problem is that the hydraulics on the T'n'T are leaking down so quickly I'm having to fool with the controls every five minutes to keep the box blade from hitting the ground. At this point, I don't know if it's the valves or the cylinders that are leaking, so this morning when I go out to swap out the top link for a normal one, I'll pull in the side link cylinder all the way in and then disconnect the hoses. If it holds, it's the valve that's leaking. Then I'll hook the side link cylinder up to the top link valve and pull the cylinder in and disconnect the hoses. Then I can have a talk with the Kubota dealer on what to do next.
I've been unable to find a HomeKit compatible vertical blind to replace the broken one in the garage, at least not one I can afford, so I stopped in at Home Depot yesterday to just get a new head rail. I was surprised to find they no longer sell, at least in Kalifornia, head rails that use draw cords. It seems that too many Kalifornia kiddies were strangling on the things. Poor parenting, or perhaps just Darwinism at work?:confused3: I was looking at a couple hundred bux for a gen-u-wine Levolor one that would have to be custom ordered, but the clerk showed me a house brand rail he could shorten to the correct length. No draw cord, but it was only forty bux! It'll get me by until technology catches up and prices for the motorized version drop out of the stratosphere.
My consolation prize was finding a very nice, and inexpensive, Añejo tequila at Costco yesterday. Made for some very nice sipping on the back porch when I got home. Even better, I found four new-to-me Jimmy Buffett CDs in the parcel box, and the lizards and I enjoyed
Banana Wind very much.:cloud9:
TGIF gang!:drink:
to get around to painting with a matching colour 
