Category Archives: what the hell are we thinking?

Not happy at all…

We still get zero reception on the dish. We already missed one Indiana Pacer playoff game (Pacers won) and numerous NHL playoff game 7’s that went into overtime as well as the other NBA playoffs.

We want to sit in our chairs, watch our tv, drink our booze, eat our food and just BE HOME while not going to bars or pubs or friends or where ever else we could go to watch the games.

Last month we had a RV park 8′ from our dish, completely blocking the dish, but when we looked, we went from 92% signal strength down to 91% which shocked me, I was always told you had to have a clean direct line to the sky.

We do not have that here due to both trees and a large bathroom. But we have moved the dish as far as our 150′ of coax cable will allow. I have been careful to avoid large trees and tried to get a direct clear line as I could, but still, nothing.

I would think we would at lest get 10-20% which would be enough to let us know, this will not work here. But we have Rangers telling us, yes it will work here, the other camp host have done it.

The other camp host are the ones I must ask about this.

The other camp host was suppose to be here yesterday… And today I asked if they had a new ETA only to be told “Maybe this weekend or maybe later this week”…

Game 7 is Saturday night.

Again, I want to be in my chair, screaming at my tv, drinking my booze, eating my food and beating my cat while I watch My Indiana Pacers…

FRUSTRATED.

Not off to the best start…

We left Fort Flagler State Park a few hours earlier then we had planned. We was told the (only) bridge off the island was getting inspected and was having delays up to 20 minutes long and since we had to get propane we left at noon over the planned 1:30pm.

We got off the island with no issue at all and even got our propane and was able to make the U turn back on the road which was a stress since traffic there can be tricky but all was well and we went to the ferry terminal and tried to get on the 2pm ferry but they was full due to low tides canceling 2 earlier ferries so there was a backup of sorts.

The ferry was also running late, our reservation was suppose to leave at 3:30pm but it was after 4pm before it finally took off. We arrived at South Whidbey State Park just before 5pm.

We parked Ackbar in our space, and since we wanted to use our awning we backed up farther to avoid a tree only to start sinking, lucky for us, we was able to get out. So at the time being, there is no chance we can use our awning.

As we was setting up I smelled propane, and sure enough the relief valve wasn’t all the way close… Grr… I paid for that, the least the propane person could do is make sure she closed it.

I then started to set up the dish for the tv. We was told multiple time that this spot has great DirectTV access… After 3+ hours I gave up. I did not even get a bump of signal.

Good thing there isn’t any NBA playoffs or NHL playoff game 7’s that went into OT or anything… I would be ticked if I missed that sort of thing.

We showered and then “ate” what few leftovers we had left, somehow this week “meal planning” has been completely ignored, normally we have plenty of food to choose from, but this week the fridge seems more bare then usual.

After I showered I went outside to make sure I closed a compartment door and as I was walking past the propane I heard the HISSS and smelled the propane, Pauline brought me some light and together we discovered the T mount we had installed last Fall and still have never used, was leaking at the end of the hose. (The end you screw into a propane tank) I have zero clue why or how, but it was leaking.

Ok. Fine. Whatever. We got the wrench set out and took off the hose and put the plug on and we will just add this to the ever growing list of “what needs to be fixed now”.

I can’t say this has been a bad day, but it for sure was not a good day.

I better not miss the Pacers game tomorrow night…

It’s time to yell at the tv…

The NBA Playoffs are here.

I am a long time, die hard, Indiana Pacers fan. I want to make sure they can hear me via the tv when I give them helpful advice, so I tend to speak somewhat loud at the tv during the game. It is currently game 4 at Atlanta and the #1 seed Pacers are down 2-1 to the #8 seed Atlanta Hawks and after being down 10 points in the 3rd, the Pacers made a comeback so I have been “giving advice” to the Pacers.

Today it is sunny and warm, we have the windows open, and there is a church group here at the park this weekend.

I must remember the windows are open…

Thursday, Pauline and I went to Troutdale to deal with our storage unit. It was holding the last remaining “house furniture” we owned. We wanted to give it a year before we tried to get rid of it, which is exactly what we did, however I kind of wish we tried to sell it off when we was still at the house.

While speaking to another volunteer he suggested trying a consignment store which is something we never thought of. That was the stress of keeping this storage unit, how will we do this? The only answer was to go down to the Portland area for a week or two and try and sell it on our own which is something we just did not want to do since it always came back to the “what if we can’t sell it?”.

We made advanced plans to have a mover suggested by the consignment shop, meet us at 12:30 pm at the storage unit. Pauline and I left here at 7am and arrived at the storage unit at 11am. We moved our King sized mattress to our other storage unit that has our personal items, rearranged that, and put some items into it while taking some items out while we waited.

12:30pm came and went with no phone call from the mover, we waited until 1pm before we started calling him, then we called the office and then we call the consignment shop who said they would try and contact him and let us know ASAP.

We started to do some other small errands that we had planned to do, but was worried that if we stopped at the greek restaurant that we loved, the mover would call and would when we placed our order and its on the other side of town. So we went to the pub next door to the storage unit where we have tried 2 other times but have yet to have a meal that was “good” or even decent. This time would be no different.

The mover finally called and told us he had a flat tire and would be 3 hours or so late… Had this call taken place 10 minutes earlier, I could have been eating a kick ass gyro and not terrible soup…

Ok, whatever, we still had errands to do, so we spent the next few hours going from store to store and then heading back to the storage unit that we waited another 45 minutes before the mover arrived. It took about 45 minutes for them to load everything so that meant we was about 15 minutes late for meeting a friend for dinner.

We met our friend, ate some decent food (At a place that usually was really good food), laughed, talked for a few hours before Pauline and I had to drive the 4 hours back home. We got home around 11:15pm and took time to shower and chill out some before we went to bed around 12:15am.

It was nice to see Troutdale, and the few changes we noticed, but over all, I am much happier living a nomadic lifestyle then a stationary one. We drove by our old house and noticed that the neighbor finally fixed his privacy fence, but other then that, our old house/neighborhood looked the same.

Pacers up 3 with 8.9 left…

 

StReSsInG…

 

PACERS WIN!

It’s gotta be 4:20 somewhere…

Hello!

It is just after 4pm on Sunday April 20, 2014. I have my AC/DC playlist jamming away while I have my window open so I can not only get some fresh air, but I can also hear the Rufous Hummingbirds come and go from our feeders.

While not in the great number or varity of hummingbirds we was so lucky to have while in Patagonia, we still get a kick out of these few 5-6 Rufous’s. With a Anna’s being seen every so often.

Our friends Daphna and Allen visited us this weekend and as usual, we did nothing but laugh… Ok, we ate and drank more, but you know, a good time was had by all. They even brought Maude so Drew could day “Hi!” to her. Sakura of course is above them all and stayed in the bedroom pretty much the entire weekend.

But she made her presence known…

When Daphna and Allen got Maude, we got them a dog toy. One of those “squeak” toys that we thought nothing of. We saw it, squeaked it once, threw it in the cart and later sent it off in the mail forgetting all about it.

Until we visited a few weeks later to be informed, that not only is there 1 squeak in this toy, but 18 of them. And Maude LOVED this toy above all others. To the point that when they took the toy away, Maude would cry. Both Daphna and Allen work from home. They voiced their appreciation in many tones and ways and very colorfully.

So of course we felt bad and decided on our next visit to make this up to them but getting them more squeak toys and putting them in odd places around their house, while leaving a doggie treat next to it. What made this even funnier was at this time of this, Daphna and Allen had many sleepless nights prior to this night, so when we left at 8pm they went to bed…

Only to call us at 11pm letting us know they went to bed when we left but had to get up a hour later to search their house for a full hour for any more squeak toys so they could, at long last, go to bed and SLEEP!

They used many colorful words and gave us an example of what they hear over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… Xs 1,000.

I tell you this so you can better appreciate this…

When we met up at Daphna and Allen’s hotel room for lunch, one of the first things we saw sitting on the bed, was Sakura’s squeaky mouse. Which is battery operated and very sensitive so any minor vibration will set it off.

My first thought was Maude stole Sakura’s toy, but then I realized I told Drew to watch Maude carefully so she won’t steal anything, so it must have been Sakura coming out of the bedroom when we was site seeing the park, and putting her squeaky mouse in Daphna’s bag just so she can also torture these poor, squeaked to death people.

Cat’s. They are evil.

Our visit even started off on a bang. Daphna told us she planned to leave at 1pm so she should be here by 3pm. We knew there was a zero percent chance this would happen, but we love her for trying. Around 4pm she texted that they just got off the ferry. Around 6pm Daphna text’s me “they are on “whatever road” so will be here in moments”

I heard of this road, but for the life of me, where is it??? Um… Wait a minute… I call Daphna.

After a few questions and a round of debate, Daphna and I concluded that yes, Pauline and I really are at Fort Flagler State Park and no, that we are not, nor have we ever been, at Fort Worden State Park, which is across the bay from Fort Flagler and about a 40 minute drive.

And honestly, this explained so much about prior conversations like “why did you get a room in Squim?” (hour away) and why it took them so long to get here but after hearing about their travel and recent events, it just adds more lore to our dysfunctional, untrustworthy, immoral lives that we all share with each other as we have for the last 14+ years at least.

I made some chili, this time I really went for it, and it turned out really good with a strong kick. Now I know how to get there!

We then took Maude and walked around the park, showing them a small section of Fort Flagler as we talked long into the night and watched the stars from a battery. The weather was as good as we could have had, it could have been 10 degrees warmer, but other then that, it was great.

They left around 12am and we met up at there room in Port Ludlow, WA (20 minutes away) They stayed at the Inn of Port Ludlow which was really nice, nice room, very nice staff, and good food at the restaurant where no one under 21 is admitted which is another reason to LOVE it!

After a really good lunch, we walked around the beach some to let Maude off the leash and she quickly took to the water and even swam with a large branch in her mouth. Apparently this is the first time this dog went swimming willingly.

After this we came back to the park, we walked where we walked last night due to a missing water bottle, we found that and returned home to get our Jeep as we showed them the rest of the park. They left around 6pm and Pauline and I still trying to recover. It has been rare where we have been on the go at this rate for 2 days.

The extra bonus is, we will be just 1 ferry and 1 hour from Daphna and Allen all summer.

This will be a good summer!

 

I hate plastic…

A few days ago our door latch on the screen door stopped working, I assumed the “spring” broke so we ordered a new door latch.

While ordering a new one, we discovered there are “left handed” and “right handed” door latches. The latch is on the right side of the door, but the handle is left of the latch so we ordered a left handed latch.

We received the new latch today and thinking I could put this on in 1 minute or less, I braved the cold winds coming from the Southeast and went outside to install this… and spent about 35 minutes messing with this piece of plastic. I even cut a finger for extra bonus!

Of course the screw holes where just far enough away from the original holes that I had to mess with that, and when I finally got it on and tested it, it worked locking into the main door, but when we tried to have the screen door by itself, it would not lock into the latch at all, so it was just flopping in the wind.

Grrrrrrr…….

I moved the latch around, tried this, tried that, nothing would work and the damn wind so was NOT helping so I said screw it, let’s deal with this later.

I came back inside with the new latch and the old latch when I came up with the idea of just swapping out the “spring” of the new one into the old one. Once I did that, I put it back on the door and boom. Done.

And then I saw what the issue was…

We should have ordered the “right handed” latch.

There is even a large “R” on the old latch, but of course, not in a spot anyone would notice it.

*sigh.

$15 for a “spring” and I also have a few spare parts of plastic.

Yeah… plastic on a metal box… What could go wrong?

And as a side note, it has been too damn warm the last few weeks to have this freaking cold wind hitting us from the Southeast. Yesterday the wind was from the Northwest and twice as strong but much warmer.

Brrr. I am so over this cold wind crap.