Wednesday 12-31-25 New Years Eve, Dancing, Projects & More

 

Happy New Year

 

It's New Year Eve do you have any plans? We don't go out on New Years Eve, we stay at home. Today's weather was beautiful with sunshine and blue skies. The morning temperature was 33 degrees and the high was 70 degrees. 

 

Beautiful Day

We kept busy doing this and that around the house.

Larry kept busy playing with Thread/Matter on the Echo Hub. He worked on to seeing how far the matter plug can be from the hub to continue working. He put the plug in different rooms and the garage to experiment with it. The hub is on the dining room table and he found out, that when the plug is in the garage it doesn't work. It's too far away, however if he uses a second Thread/Matter plug about halfway in between then that plug will talk to the one further away and it now works. This is the theory behind Thread/Matter, you can use one hub placed where you want it and the individual devices talk to each other thereby building a large mesh network. He is having a great time working with the Thread/Matter plugs getting them to work with the Echo Hub.

Next project was filling propane cylinders for the grill in the Minnie. For quite a few years Larry has been refilling the disposable propane cylinders but he decided to purchase some cylinders designed to be refilled. They arrived yesterday but when he went to fill them the valve on his refill adapter was leaking. He ordered a new one with a different design and it arrived today, after lunch he filled three of the four cylinders. I helped him by holding the big propane tank while he filled the small cylinders. The new cylinders were much easier to fill.

 

Refilling Adapter

 

Larry filling propane cylinders for camping

 

Larry wants to add a new pinball game onto the mini cabinet. He spent a good part of the afternoon trying to decide on one. He downloaded three and didn't like them so he deleted them.

 

Mini cabinet

While Larry worked on his projects I played games. I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Klondike Mini of 10 games. It took me 25 minutes and 28 seconds, which put me in 13th place in my group. I played Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds 2.

I worked out with three songs on Synth Riders for 30 minutes. The songs were Carry On, I'll Fight Back and Voidwalkers. I didn't get any outstanding scores or new high scores but I had fun.

 

Carry On

 

I'll Fight Back

 

Voidwalkers

 

I played one game of Gunpowder Gulch on Bounce Arcade for 20 minutes. While playing I earned a silver trophy and an extra ball. I played four different multiballs five different times, which were Saloon, Safe Crack, Wooden Sign Rally and Jailbreak twice. I played the events five times and was successful two times. The events were Quick Drawl two times, Barrel Barrage once, Gunfight once and Cracked Safe once. I was successful in Gunfight and Cracked Safe. I had a great game.

 

Gunpowder Gulch

I played four pinball games, which were Big Bang Bar, Jaws, The Addams Family and Tron. I didn't get on the board because I didn't play well. It was still fun.

 

Big Bang Bar

 

Jaws

 

The Addams Family

 

Tron

Before going to bed I finished the Dog In Hammock diamond painting. It is really cute. I had a terrific time doing it. It only took me about a week. 

 

Dog In Hammock

 

I cleaned the inside of the Minnie and made the bed. We plan to go on a camping trip Sunday for a week or so here in Texas. We couldn't get in this week because the kids were out of school for the holidays and the parks were full. 

 

The Minnie

 

In the evening I attended Dave Eno's Weekly C1/A2 dance at 6:00 pm. He was the only one having a dance today. Karin Rabe and Greg Moore helped Dave call the dance. The format was three tips of C1 to 7 participants, three tips of A2 to 9 participants and two trivia questions in between the A2 tips. This was the last dance of the year (2025) for most of us and the first dance of the year (2026) for Ross. Ross is from Australia and it was already 1/1/26. I had a super time dancing to Karin, Greg and Dave and with friends from Canada, Mexico, United States and Australia. 

 

Participants in the A2 session

 

Participants in C1 session

After the dance we watched The Dressmaker on Prime video. We have watched it before but I didn't remember it, Larry remembered some of the scenes. It about Myrtle (Tilly) Dunnage, who returns to a small Australian town after being gone for 25 years to take care of mother. It starred Kate Winslet as Tilly, Liam Hemsworth as Teddy (Tilly's boyfriend) and Judy Davis as Molly Winslet (Tilly's mother). It was a good movie. Then I watched the fifth Star Wars movie, which was The Empire Strike Back. It actually was the second movie made. I ended up doing 4,000 steps.