Wednesday 4-29 Rain Storm

Having fun in the rain

We were awakened at 3:30 this morning with thunder and very heavy rain. Last month I wrote that Larry installed a solar attic fan and it works good. The first rain storm we had it leaked a little through the cord from the solar panel so he sealed that up. This morning when the rain came through Larry crawled out of bed and went into the attic to check the fan for leaks. It was a violent storm and the rain was actually blowing back up inside the fan and dripping. He used some buckets and towels to keep the water from dripping onto the insulation and ceiling. Apparently the design leaves something to be desired. He sees no way to fix the fan so he ordered a different vent and will replace it. 

During the day I worked on my daily challenges and The Event: Two Game Tango 10 games of Free Cell and 10 games of Pyramid. It took me 1 hour, 19 minutes and 25 seconds. I came in 7th place in my group. I spent most of the day reading.

When our house was being built we had an irrigation system installed, unfortunately they put some of the heads on our neighbor lots on both sides. Last year Larry relocated a couple of heads from the lot north of us. Today Larry had a surveyor come out and find/replace our property markers so he could fix the ones on the south side. The temperature was in the high 60's, it was perfect to start relocating those heads. After lunch Larry went outside and stretched a line along the property boundary and dug up two sprinkler heads that needed to be moved off the neighbors lot. Then he decided what parts he needed.

Digging out the sprinkler head

The trench Larry dug to relocate the head on property

He didn't have all the parts he needed so he ordered them via The Home Depot website. The Home Depot in Temple now has curbside deliver. When the order was ready we went to pick it up. We didn't have to go inside the store because we used the curbside service. We called the service desk and they delivered the parts to our car. It worked perfect.

In the evening we watched a few episodes of Eureka and I watched a few episodes of Chuck. We had a great day.    

Tuesday 4-28 Just Hanging Out

Just hanging out

We had a hot day of 88 degrees and a lot of wind. 

We didn't do much today. We spent most of the day reading. We watched the YouTube videos we follow. After dinner we watched Eureka and I watched Chuck. I also did my daily challenges and no event challenges today. We had a very relaxing day.

We had a laxing day

Monday 4-27 Just Having Fun

Hold on tight

We had a very windy day with the wind out of the south. The temperature got up to 85 degrees with humidity of 41%. 

We were surprised to receive an email from Progressive insurance saying that due to the coronavirus they were going to refund us 20% of our automobile insurance premium. They also insure our motorhome and motorcycle, hopefully this will also apply to them. 

    

We spent the day inside. Larry played with computer games that you use on the television. Some of the games work while others didn't. Larry likes to play around with technology to see how it works. I did my daily challenges and The Event: Two Game Tango with 10 Klondike games and 10 Spider games. I spent 2 hours, 23 minutes and 7 seconds to complete the challenge. This put me in 15th place in my group. We also read.

Reading is fun

I have had a Garmin Vivo Fit for many years that keeps track of my steps and different activities. My device actually tracks calories burned, miles walked, step goal and how many steps I do, date and time. My daily goal is 17,000 steps but I normally do at least 20,000. I have accepted a challenge on the Garmin connect website of 125K. I came in first place in my group last week. I've been doing 150K a week for a couple of weeks and now the website moved me to the 150K group. I figure in order to reach this goal I'll have to do about 21,500 steps a day. I guess I need to get stepping. I ended up doing 25,000 steps today.

In the evening we watched our YouTube videos. We continued watching Eureka and Chuck.  

 

Sunday 4-26 Laid Back Day

Smile and be happy

I hope everyone had a great Sunday. We did even though we stayed around the house.

Larry finished reading a book and started a new one. I did my Daily Challenges and The Event: Free Cell Mini of 5 games. I came in 8th place in my group of 50 players. I completed the games in 7 minutes and 13 seconds. I missed 7th place by 1 second and I made 8th by 1 second. The Microsoft Solitaire games are a lot of fun and challenging because of the different levels. The levels are Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert, Master and Grand Master. Each level get harder and I'm still struggling getting pass the Hard. At times I just play the Microsoft Solitaire individual games of Klondike, Spider, Free Cell, Pyramid and Tri Peaks at different levels to see how I do. 

After breakfast I laid down for a couple of hours. When I got up I made lunch. It was easy because we had a a premade Pasta Salad from Walmart. When we do our weekly online grocery order we always order a few premade salads. They taste good, I don't have to chop anything up and they're the prefect size. If we buy the fixings for salads I usually throw a lot of it away because I prefer eating something else but Larry loves salads.

In the afternoon I slow cooked the rest of our pork roast in a crock pot. While that was slow cooking I played some virtual reality games and Larry read. Larry put the final two coats of teak oil on the platform. We watched GizWiz and YouTube videos. I started did a little housework and laundry. I did some Sudoku puzzles.

Removing extra oil from platform

Finished Platform

It took about 4 hours to slow cook the pork roast. After it was done I made it into pulled pork. For dinner we had pulled pork wraps.

Pull pork for our wraps

In the evening we continued watching Eureka and I watched a few episodes of Chuck. I did 20,000 steps. We had a very relaxing day. 
      

Saturday 4-25 More Virtual Reality

Beautiful sunny day

We had a beautiful day with a lot of sun and wind. It was cooler today than yesterday, it got up into the high 70's.

I spent the morning playing my Daily Challenges and The Event: Solitaire World Tour of 30 games. It took me about 2.5 hours. I was doing very well until I got stuck on game #18 and #19. By the time I finished I was in 12th place in my group of 50 players.  

Larry continued playing with our new Virtual Reality Headset. He did more reading about how they work and found that some games don't need a controller at all. Yesterday, we were playing the game where you looked for a target and shoot at it. We thought we had to fire on the target with the controller but actually it worked by just looking at the target. We were wondering why some targets were blowing up without firing the controller. The more you learn about how visual reality works the more fun it is. Today he downloaded Pac Man, Racer and Haunted House. The graphics were good especially the Haunted House. The Racer is where you are a pilot of a jet. The goal is to go as far as possible without hitting a building, to avoid the buildings you have to move your head from side to side. The farther you go the faster you fly. It's very challenging. The Haunted House has great graphics of monsters and other objects. I only played the games a little while. When I removed the headset it took awhile for my eyes to readjust. I had a lot of fun. Some people have problems with virtual reality games causing them to be nauseous. Larry sometimes has problems with nausea at IMax movies or in the round types of movies, especially at theme parks like Epcot. Today while playing the haunted house game he got nauseous and had to stop, it took a couple of hours before he felt back to normal.

Playing more virtual reality games.

For dinner we had hamburgers. After dinner we watched Eureka. When Larry went to bed I started to watch the third season of Chuck. I did 26,000 steps.    

Friday 4-24 Exciting Day

Exciting Day

We had a hot day, it got into the low 90's. It didn't feel that bad because the humidity was low and there was a little wind.

The temperature at our house at 5:00

I'm very excited for a couple of reasons. The first reason was Larry bought a Virtual Reality headset and remote controller. For the last few days Larry has been watching YouTube videos on Virtual Reality products. It looked fun so he decided to order an inexpensive one. We received it this afternoon. Larry set up the headset and downloaded some games (roller coasters, target practice program and movie videos). It took him a bit to get it to work but once it was setup he gave me the headset so I could play the games. When playing the target game, the targets change colors and move so you have to look up and down and turn around to find them. It was a lot of fun. We watched a few movie clips, they were short but ok. We'll continue playing with the new toy.

Where is the target

I found it, pushing the bottom on the controller to shoot the target

Looking for the next target

Shooting more targets

  

The next exciting thing was I finished my Photomosaics jigsaw puzzle. I started assembling this puzzle 11-24-19, it took almost 5 months to finish. When I got this puzzle from Louise I thought it would be easy because it was only 1,000 pieces and I usually do 2,000 pieces puzzles. It was hard because it didn't have a poster of the puzzle to see where the pieces go. The hardest part of the puzzle was that there were a lot of small individual pictures within the puzzle. I also didn't work on it every day, in fact I skipped weeks and even the entire month of January. I think this puzzle was the most time consuming and challenging I have done. I did have fun.

All the pieces of the puzzle

The puzzle about halfway assembled

The puzzle a few days ago

The finished puzzle

We spent the day indoors. Larry put another two coats of teak oil on the boat platform. We watched our YouTube videos. For dinner I barbecued hamburgers.

In the evening we watched Eureka. I finished the second season of Chuck. I did my daily challenges I didn't have an event today. I did 23,000 steps.

Thursday 4-23 Wildlife Friends

Awesome Day

We had an awesome day. It was beautiful with a lot of sunshine. It got into the 80's.

In the morning I did my daily challenges and The Event: Tri Peaks Adventures of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 35 minutes and 16 seconds. I came in 11th place in my group. Larry read.

Around 10:30 we went to town. it's been a week since we have been to town. The last few weeks we have been surprised to see the local car wash is open. Today we stopped by. They were making sure there was plenty of distance between each car, they have also removed the hoses from the vacuums and are not providing any towels to wipe off your car. We didn't even get out of the car, simply rode through the wash and exited. From there we picked up our groceries via Walmart curb service and then we stopped in at The UPS Store to pick up our mail.

Weekly grocery shopping

 

After lunch I worked on my jigsaw puzzle and Larry continued reading. This morning Larry saw a recipe for corn fritters, they sounded good so I made them for dinner. They were not difficult to make and they came out good, however, Larry didn't like them, I thought it they were ok. I probably won't make them again.

Corn Fritters

While we were hanging around the house the hawk returned to do more hunting. A little later when we were watching television our neighbor's dog started barking and ran towards her fence. I looked out the door to see what she was barking at and found it was a possum. I scared it away by saying hi to the dog. I got one picture but it wasn't very good. After Larry went to bed a racoon walked around the backyard and a couple of deer decided to bed down in the backyard. They stayed around for about an hour. We had free wildlife entertainment. How cool is that!!!

The hawk looking for dinner

The possum running away

We spent the evening finishing up the second season of Eureka. Afterwards I watched a few episodes of Chuck. I did 24,000 steps. We had a great day.

Wednesday 4-22 Just Another Day

Just a relaxing day

Our day started out with a little drizzle and the clouds stayed in all day.

We didn't leave the house. Larry spent the day reading. I worked on my jigsaw puzzle. I also did my daily challenges and The Event: Spider Mini of 5 games. It took me 14 minutes and 11 seconds. I ended up coming in 12th in my group.

While relaxing we saw a hawk sitting on our neighbor's fence. Later in the day we saw him eating something in a tree.

The hawk looking for breakfast

After lunch I took a nap. For dinner I barbecued some HEB Jalapeno Sausage Bacon Poppers. Then we watched a few episodes of Eureka. Afterwards I watched a few episodes of Chuck. I did 26,000 steps.

HEB Poppers

Tuesday 4-21 Working on Boat Platform

Smile and be happy

We had a beautiful day of sunshine and a little wind. It got up in the low 80's.  

In the morning I did my daily challenges and The Event: The Hard Road of 16 games. It took me 1 hour, 47 minutes and 43 seconds. I came in 11th place in my group. Larry read.

While we were eating lunch the mailman came and delivered an Air Door Actuator for the truck. It controls the temperature of the heater/AC. Sometimes the air conditioner would blow hot air instead of cold air so Larry would have to turn off the truck and restart it and then the air conditioner would work correctly. After lunch Larry decided to replace it. He said it was very easy. It took about ten minutes. He said that he should have replaced it years ago.

Air Door Actuator

After doing the truck project. He decided to move on to putting teak oil on the boat platform. First he wet sanded down the platform where it was needed. After the platform dried he put a coat of teak oil on the platform. It takes a few hours in the sun to dry so tomorrow he'll put another coat on. The platform is looking great.

Putting teak oil on the platform

The platform drying in the sun

   

While Larry was doing the platform I mowed the yards, took about an hour. Then I worked on my puzzle. It's slowly getting done.

Almost done

In the evening we watched a few episodes of Eureka. Then I watched a few episodes of Chuck. I ended up doing 22,000 steps.

 

Monday 4-20 Washing the Minnie

Hope everyone had a great Monday

We had a super day with a lot of sunshine. It got into the high 70's.

The Minnie has been in the driveway for awhile and it's time to put it back into storage. Before doing that we needed to wash it, it's filthy. We spent the morning washing it. I mean Larry washed it and I dried it off. He started by climbing on the roof and scrubbing it with soap and then rinsed it off. Then he continued washing the rest of the Minnie. While I finished drying it Larry washed the wheels. It took almost three hours to wash the Minnie. Now, it's all clean, we will put it back inside our storage unit.

Spraying off the front of the Minnie

Washing the front of the Minnie

Scrubbing the roof of the Minnie

After lunch we took the Minnie to storage. When we got home Larry read and I worked on my puzzle.

For dinner I barbecued some seasoned pork from HEB. In the evening we finished watching the first season of Eureka and started the second season. While watching Eureka we saw a beautiful hawk fly by the back window of the house. Then I finished watching the first season of Chuck and started the second season. I did my daily challenges. I did 25,000 steps. Last week I came in second place in my 125K challenge group. I came in third place for today.  

The hawk we saw

Sunday 4-19 Saying Hello to Friends

Hot and Humid Day

In the morning it was overcast and windy. It was misting a bit. The sun came out after lunch but it still was a humid. The temperature got into the low 80's.

The temperature at the house at 11:30

I spent the morning doing my daily challenges and The Event: Solitaire World Tour of 30 games. I ended up coming in 15th in my group with the time of 1 hour, 53 minutes and 45 seconds. We watched our weekly GizWiz program. Larry did some reading.

Yesterday, we received a text message from our friends in Marble Falls (Sharon and Garry) that they were setting up a Zoom Video for their A group today at 2:00. Larry setup the computer so we could participate. A few minutes before the meeting Sharon sent an e-mail giving us the meeting number and password so we could login. Their were eleven of us who attended the meeting. We had not seen our square dancing friends since we have been in lock down because of the coronavirus. We went around the group and everyone summarized what we have been doing in the last few weeks. It was fun and worked excellent. We really miss all our friends very much.

After the meeting I watered my flowers. It has been almost a month since I planted my flowers and they are growing fast. I don't have any buds yet but the seeds are germinating very well. Below is a picture of the plants.

Update on my flowers

At dinnertime my friend (racoon) came on our porch looking for food. He didn't find any so he climbed back down the stairs and left. He was too fast to get a picture. We continue watching hummingbirds coming to the feeder.

In the evening we continued watching Eureka. I continued watching Chuck. I did 20,000 steps and came in second place in my group of ten people on my 125K step challenge. 

  

Saturday 4-18 Replacing Brakes

Overcast Day

We had another overcast day with a mild temperature in the low 60's. What should we do today.

Larry started the day off by assembling the monitor stand he built yesterday. It came out outstanding. It was the perfect height when we're sitting at the computer. In the picture below the tablet we were using for the cameras is on the left and the new display is on the right, big difference.

Old tablet vs. new monitor

In the morning I did my daily Solitaire challenges and The Event: Medium Mayhem Mini of 5 games. It took me 16 minutes and 51 seconds, which put me in 25th place.

On Thursday Larry ordered new brake pads for the Minnie from Amazon, they said they would not arrive until next week but lo and behold they arrived today.

The last time Larry rebuilt the front brakes was 70,000 miles ago in 2010. When he did it that time he replaced everything, new calipers, pads, lines, bearings and fluid. This time it only needed new pads.

After lunch Larry decided to change the break pads. First he jacked the right side of the Minnie up and put it on a jack stand so he could remove the tire to get to the brake. After removing the brake caliper he had to spread it apart using his brake pad & caliper service kit. Then he put in the new brake pads and reassembled everything. He had a bit of a time torquing down bolts, they are torqued at 160 ft. lbs. and it was very difficult to get enough leverage to fully tighten them. Then he put the tire back on, the lug nuts torque at 140 ft. lbs. and while that is a lot it is not too difficult because he can stand and get good leverage. The last thing he did was lower the Minnie down off the jacks. He moved to the other side and did the same thing. It was a filthy project and took about 2.5 hours but he enjoyed doing it. 

Removing the brake assembling

New brake pads in the assembly

Larry bolting the brake shoe and pads back on to the Minnie

All done now it's time to go to the other side

   

After replacing the front brakes we took the Minnie for a ride to make sure everything is working correctly. When we got home I worked on my puzzle until it was time for dinner.

For dinner I barbecued bratwurst patties. These were something new and they tasted good. While I was barbecuing I had a visitor in the backyard. It was a racoon. It was hunting for food and stayed around for a bit. This gave Larry a chance to take a few pictures of it. 

My buddy

Hunting for dinner

We spent the evening watching Eureka. Then I started watching Chuck. It was a cute TV series that we watched when it was on the air from 2007-2012. It's a nice change from the detective series I usually watch. I did 20,000 steps.