Saturday 12-6-25 Speed Creek Motor Show, Jigsaw & Games

 

Awesome Day

 

We had an awesome day. The skies were blue with no clouds. The morning temperature was 41 degrees and the high was 72 degrees. There was a little breeze, which made it nippy.

We attended Speed Creek Motor Show, which took place in McGregor, Texas. It was 29 miles from the house. Actually the car show was at Harris Creek Baptist Church, which is about 5 miles outside McGregor. It started at 10:00 am and ended at 2:00 pm. We didn't leave the house until 10:00 because the last time we attended a local car show people were still showing up when we finished. Today when we arrived they had a food bank going on and there were a lot of people in the parking lot. There was a lot more cars in the this show, which took up three rows in the parking lot. It took us about a half hour to walk through the show. We saw a lot of nice vehicles. There was live entertainment, a lady was playing a guitar and singing, they also had a couple of food trucks. It was very comfortable to walk around and looking at the vehicles. 

 

Mustang Comfortable

 

Chevelle Sport Coupe 

 

Other vehicles in the show

 

Truck decorated for Christmas with the Grinch in a cage

 

52 Sedan

 

Volkswagen Van Camper

 

Once we were at home we kept busy doing this and that. Larry did a few projects. First was fixing the Batman Forever pinball game on the mini cabinet. He got the game working correctly in VR and 2D. Then he played it and had a lot of fun. Second was fixing the icons on the main menu of the television. Third he continued playing with Home Assistant. 

While Larry did his projects I worked on my jigsaw puzzle. I spent most of the day working on it because I'm very close to finishing it. I'll probably finish tomorrow.

 

Jigsaw puzzle so far

 I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire an Mahjong. The event was Event: World Tour Mini of 5 hard games. It took me 1 hour, 6 minutes and 51 seconds, which put me in 32nd place in my group. I played Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds Friends.

I played seven games of pinball, which were Blizzard of Ozz, Cactus Canyon, Dr. No, Fish Tales, Great Houdini, Queen and World Cup Soccer. While playing World Cup Soccer I became high score #2. I had a good day of playing pinball.  

 

Cactus Canyon

 

Dr. No

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Fish Tales

 

Great Houdini

 

Queen

 

World Cup Soccer

In the evening I wrapped Christmas gifts and got them ready to be mailed out. We watched a documentary on Prime called The Eagle Huntress. It was about a 13 year old girl from Mongolia, she became the first female eagle hunter and the youngest eagle hunter. It was in both English and Kazakh with English sub-titles. It was very good. After Larry went to bed I watched Casino Royale from our James Bond group in our collection of movies. I ended up doing 2,000 steps.

    

Friday 12-5-25 254 Craft Mall, Christmas Shopping & Dancing to Ett

 

It's Friday let's dance

 

We had wintery looking day. It was overcast and chilly with the morning temperature of 37 degrees and the high of 53. There was a little breeze, which made it chilly.

We did something a little different today. We drove to Waco, which was 41 miles one way. Larry read the other day that 254 Craft Mall was having a grand opening. 254 Craft Mall is where crafters and artists around the Waco area rent a little booth inside the building and sell their wares. 

The store opened at 10:00 am and we were there about 10:15 am. We were surprised there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. It was in a huge building with booths all over the place. There were rows and rows of different booths. It was very well organized and clean. We were greeted by two friendly women. There was a lot of Christmas nick-knacks. We didn't buy anything but we had a nice time. It took us a half hour to walk through the store.

 

Visiting 254 Craft Mall

 

One of the booths of nick-knacks

 

Hanging signs

 

One of the tee shirts for Christmas

On the way home we stopped to do some Christmas shopping. The first stop was the UPS Store to check the mail. Next was Walmart to buy Christmas cards and other items. The last stop was Dollar Tree. 

While we were in Walmart we bought a rotisserie chicken. When we got home I heated up some of the chicken for lunch.

The county requires our septic system to be inspected every four months. In today's mail there was a letter from our septic inspector saying he was retiring and our account would be moving to a new company owned by his son, along with this the price was going up. 

Another septic inspection company, Brazos Septic Solutions sent us a letter about their prices and they were substantially cheaper. Larry did a little research on Brazos Septic Solutions and the reviews are very positive. The have held a license with the state for more than a decade. He also called the county (Bell) to ask if Brazos Septic Solutions was certified to inspect systems in our county. He left a message and is still waiting for the county to call back.

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: World Tour Mini of 10 games. It took me 42 minutes and 10 seconds, which put me in 13th in my group. I played Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds Friends.

I played seven games of pinball, which were Attack From Mars, Blizzard of Ozz, Dracula, Elvira Scared Stiff, Mustang, Transformers and World Joker Poker. I didn't get on the board playing pinball but had fun.

 

Attack From Mars

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Dracula

 

Elvira Scared Stiff

 

Mustang

 

Transformers

 

World Joker Poker

Yesterday, on YouTube, Larry saw a video of a Batman Forever pinball game that looked fun. It is not a new game, it has been around for years. There are over 1500 virtual pinball games available, new and updated games come out frequently but some games hang around for years without being updated, this was one of those. He decided to install this game on the mini cabinet. It was quite challenging. The newest version had sound issues, he tried a number of things to get it working, he finally got it working using an older version of Virtual Pinball. However, he could not get the sound working with the current version of Virtual Pinball in VR. He found a much older version of the game that was designed for VR. It had a scripting problem but he was eventually able to fix that. This VR version will not work in non-VR so he will have to use two versions of the game. 

While I danced to Ett Larry continued to debug the game. He still wants to fix a couple of sound issues on the VR version. 

In the evening I attended Ett McAtee's Weekly A2 dance at 6:30 pm for an hour. Ett called four tips to 9 participants. I had fun dancing with friends.

 

Ett McAtee

 

After the dance we watched Tracing the Divide on Amazon Prime. It's about two 40 something life-long friends who  ride their bikes on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The route is 2400 miles long, it runs from the Canadian boarder in Montana to the Mexico border in Texas. They did the distance in 24 days. It was a documentary and was very good. Then I watched Die Another Day, which is a James Bond movie. We have four James Bond movies in our collection of movies. I ended up doing 3,000 steps.        

    

    

Thursday 12-4-25 Rainy Laid Back Day

 

Have a great Thursday

 

We had overcast skies and occasionally there was a sprinkle or two. The morning temperature was 44 degrees and it basically stayed at that temperature all day, The high was 47 degrees. We spent the day hanging around the house.

I wasn't motivated to do anything. I was feeling great but I just didn't do too much. I spent most of the day playing games. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Two Game Tango of 20 games (10 Pyramid and 10 Tri Peaks). It took me 1 hour, 56 minutes and 36 seconds, which put me in 16th place in my group. I played Angry Birds 2 in the evening. I spent a couple of hours playing the new Angry Birds Friends.

I ended up playing seven games of pinball, which were Blizzard of Ozz, Cactus Canyon, Cirqus Voltaire, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Godzilla, Jaws and Medieval Madness. I didn't have a great day of playing pinball but had fun.

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Cactus Canyon

 

Cirqus Voltaire

 

Creature From the Black Lagoon

 

Godzilla

 

Jaws

 

 Medieval Madness

 

 I continued working on the jigsaw puzzle.

 

Jigsaw puzzle so far

Larry finished reading Becoming Hattie Mae, he said it was OK, but not recommendable. 

In the evening we watched Emily off of Kanopy. It was about British writer Emily Bronte, she wrote Withering Heights. It was slow moving movie and depressing. Then I watched Wonder Woman 1984 from our collection of movies. I end up doing 1,000 steps.  

 

Wednesday 12-3-25 Two Dances, Synth Riders & Games

 

Overcast Day

 

We had overcast skies all day and no rain. The morning temperature was 36 degrees and the high was 57 degrees, it was warmer than yesterday. We did get some rain later in the night.

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street Mini of 5 games. It took me 9 minutes and 25 seconds, which put me in 15th place in my group. I played Angry Birds 2. I played Angry Birds and Friends in the new location in Red's Club.

I attended two virtual square dances. First was Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly Plus at 10:00 am for an hour. Di called five tips and Terry danced with her. She the dance to 9 participants. I had a super time.

Second was Dave Eno's Weekly C1/A2 at 6:00 pm for an hour and fifteen minutes. Karin Rabe and Greg Moore helped Dave call the dance. The format was three tips of C1, three tips of A2 and two trivial questions in between the A2 tips. Karin and Greg took turns calling the first tip in C1 and A2 session, Dave called the second tip in C1 and A2 and the third tip all three callers took turns calling. During the C1 session we had 7 participants and the A2 session had 10 participants. I had a very nice evening dancing with friends.

I usually dance three square dances on Wednesday but Ett had to cancel her C1 dance. But that was ok, it gave me a chance to rest and play games.

While I danced and played games Larry continued to play with Home Assistance. He's adding more things to it.  

I worked out using the Synth Riders for 40 minutes to four songs twice. They were Carbon Cult (4:03), From Hell (3.54), Space Rock (3:14) and . I got one outstanding score playing Carbon Cult. I had a great time working out with Synth Riders.

 

 

Space Rock

 

Satanic Panic

 

From Hell

 

Carbon Cult

 

I played one game of Pirate's Plunder on Bounce Arcade. I earned a sliver trophy, defeated my enemies twice, Cutlass Clash and earned two Jolliest Rogers. I played the game for 15 minutes and had a fun.

 

Carbon Cult

 

I played eight pinball games. They were Dracula, Time Lord, Dr. No, Goldeneye, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Indianapolis 500, Blizzard of Ozz and James Bond 60th Anniversary. While playing Time Lord I got high score #1, Dr. No I got high score #3 and James Bond 60th Anniversary I got high score #4. I had a good afternoon playing pinball.

 

Blizzard of Ozz

 

Dr. No

 

Dracula

 

Goldeneye

 

Indianapolis 500

 

James Bond 60th Anniversary

 

Time Lord

 

Tales of the Arabian Nights

 

I worked on my puzzle.

After Dave's dance we watched a movie on Kanopy called Miss Willouhby and the Haunted Bookstore. It was a detective movie starring Kelsey Grammer as Robert Windsor and Nathalie Cox as Miss Willouhby. It was a cute movie about an American (Robert Windsor) who raised Miss Willouhby after her parents died. He was her father's best friend. After Larry went to bed I watched Wonder Woman from our collection of movies. I ended up doing 2,000 steps.