Saturday 6-22-24 Car Show, Games & Having Fun

 

Awesome Day

 

We had an awesome day. It was hot, it got to 93 degrees with a breeze.

We started the day by going to Waco to attend The 1st Annual Father Fest car show at University High School. The time was 11:00 to 3:00. 

On the way there we stopped in at the La-Z-Boy store to check out their chairs. They had a tremendous number of chairs and for an additional cost they can be ordered in lots of different materials and colors. We walked around and found the same chair we saw at Rooms To Go. The chair was about $260 dollars more money, it was actually about $60 more but on top of that they all insist you must have their protection plan and fabric protection. The delivery cost was $100 dollar unless you pick it up, then its free. We'll probably buy the one at Rooms To Go.

From there we were off to the Father Fest Car Show, it was only a couple of miles away from La-Z-Boy. It wasn't too big but very nice. We were glad it wasn't too big because it was starting to get hot. It took us about a half hour to walk through the show. A couple of the cars were at the other Waco show. They had some games for the kids, food trucks and a disc jockey. There was a lot of beautiful cars and trucks. It was worth the trip of 41 miles.

 

Beautiful Bel Air Wagon

 

1971 Truck

 

A couple of T-Buckets

 

Chevrolet Impala with fifties accessories

 

A beautiful Harley Davidson 

Rat Rod with a racoon driving

 

On the way home we stopped by Little Caesars and bought one of their ready to go pepperoni pizzas. They also had some Crazy Puffs ready to go, they are four small cups of dough stuffed with cheese and pepperoni. For lunch we had the puffs and for dinner we had half of the pizza. The puffs were good but they were small.

 

Little Caesar Pepperoni Pizza

 

Crazy Puffs

 

I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Pyramid Adventure of 20 games. It took me 1 hour, 39 minutes and 41 seconds, which put me in 19th place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

I worked on the Majestic Winter Haven Refuge puzzle. I'm about half done.

 

The puzzle so far

 

Then I moved onto playing pinball. I played Beavis and Butt-Head, Black Rose, Fish Tales, Guardians of the Galaxy and Johnny Mnemonic. I got a new high score in Beavis and Butt-Head but I still stayed at 46th place out of 56 participants. When I played Guardians of the Galaxy I got the Grand Champion high score. I had a super day of playing pinball.

Beavis and Butt-Head

Black Rose

Fish Tales

Guardians of the Galaxy

Johnny Mnemonic

In the evening we continued watching the 9th season of Grantchester on PBS. Then I watched Top Gun: Maverick and Frozen 2 from our movies. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in 1st place in my group.

          

 

Friday 6-21-24 Couch Shopping, Games & Dancing

 

It's Friday 

We had an awesome day. 

It's time to replace our couch. While it doesn't look bad the cushion and support are simply worn out. We thought about trying to have it repaired but in some places the fabric is starting to show wear. We purchased it 12 years ago from Ashley Furniture. We started today off by going to Ashley Furniture in Temple. We walked around the store and discovered every couch they had was larger than ours, we were hoping to find something a few inches shorter. From there we went to Killeen and checked out their furniture stores.

First stop was Rooms To Go. We walked around and looked at the couches and chairs. Larry has an old Lazy Boy recliner he wouldn't mind replacing, his current Lazy Boy is more than 35 years old. We have looked on and off for years. He never seems to find one he likes. Today while walking around Rooms To Go we found one. It was a Lazy Boy Morrison Slate Blue Recliner. It also comes in a brown color. Rooms To Go said we could get it delivered to our front door free of charge and can have it in a week. He wasn't thrilled with either color and without knowing the color of couch we would find we decided to wait a bit. Once again not a single couch the same size as ours or smaller.

 

 

Lazy Boy Morrison Slate Blue Recliner

 

Next stop was Furniture Row and our luck stayed the same, only large couches. From there was on to Ashley Homestore. They had multiple locations, one was close to Rooms To Go and a couple of them were next door to each other. We stopped at the one near Rooms To Go, we found a couch we liked. It came in two different colors (Smoke and Abringer). The smoke was really dark and Abringer was really light. We thought Abringer was too light and the smoke was too dark. So we went to the two locations next to each other. One was called an outlet, they had some smaller couches and the prices were a little cheaper then the other Ashley Home-stores. We found a couple of couches we liked but went next door to check what they had. 

We went to lunch at Jack In The Box and shared an order of loaded mini tacos. Afterwards we went back to Ashley Homestore Outlet. We decided on the Mathonia Smoke Sofa. It is the same size as our current couch, so much for smaller. We were told we could get it in a week or so but the receipt said it wouldn't be in until 8/3/24. They will call when it comes in so we can pick it up. That's ok because were not in any hurry.

 

Mathonia Smoke Sofa

 

After buying the sofa we went home. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event today was Event: Experts Only Mini of 5 games. It took me 51 minutes, which put me in 11th place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

I played a little pinball. I played Beavis and Butt-head, two Godzillas and Creature From the Black Lagoon. When I played the two Godzilla games I entered my initials for 2nd and 3rd place. I had a great day of playing pinball.

 

Godzilla created by Marty

Godzilla

 

Creature From the Black Lagoon

 

In the evening I attended Ett McAtee's Weekly A2 dance at 6:30 for an hour. She called five tips to 10 participants. She called a lot of left moves. I had a great time dancing with friends.

After the dance we started watching the 9th season of Grantchester on PBS. Then I watched Top Gun and Frozen from our movies collection. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in 1st place in my group.

 

      

Thursday 6-20-24 First Day of Summer, Mowing, Games & Jukebox

 

First day of Summer

Today was the first day of summer. It got up to 90 degrees, not bad except the humidity was 55%. Hope everyone kept cool with a glass of lemonade or whatever you enjoy drinking.

I didn't have any dances today so I kept busy playing games and working on my puzzle. I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event today was Event: Hard Road Mini of 5 games. It took me 38 minutes and 53 seconds, which put me in 24th place. For some reason I always have trouble with the hard and expert level of Spider and Free Cell. Hopefully I will get a little faster in the future. Then I played Angry Birds 2 and Angry Birds and Friends.

I played five games of pinball. I played two games in 2D, which were Beavis and Butt-Head and Great Houdini. I had a great game in Great Houdini I came in 4th place. The other three were in Virtual Reality (VR). They were Mustang, NASCAR and Theatre of Magic. Larry had upgraded Mustang with a color DMD and he wanted me to try it out. It works great. The score color changed from orange to white. When I played NASCAR I got the 4th place high score. I had  great day of pinball.

 

Great Houdini

Old Mustang DMD

Mustang with new color DMD

 

NASCAR

Theatre of Magic

After lunch I went outside and mowed the frontyard, Larry fertilized last week and it was growing fast. The mowers came and mowed Jason's yards but this wasn't our week for them to mow ours. The rain stayed around until early this morning.

I worked out with the Synth Riders for an hour. Then we watched YouTube videos.

This morning Larry watched three fawns playing in the backyard as two does watched them. In the evening a doe and a fawn showed up in the backyard. They were there a long time. We also saw the fox in our security camera in the frontyard. It's always exciting watching the wildlife .

Doe and fawn

 

We watched a movie on Tubi called The Flying Scotsman. The movie was based on a true story about a bicyclist from Scotland, who won a championship against all odds. The cyclist was Graeme Obree. It was a good movie I enjoyed it very much. Then I watched Hellboy II from our movies. I worked on the jigsaw puzzle. I ended up doing 18,000 steps, which put me in 2nd place in my group.  

 

 

 

 

   

Wednesday 6-19-24 Juneteenth, Dancing, Games & Jukebox Project

 

Juneteenth Day

Today was Juneteenth, which is an annual commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. It has been celebrated by African-American since the 1800s. It's a federal holiday since Present Biden signed it in to legislation in 2021.

Larry spent most of the day working on a jukebox project. He has built three jukeboxes and he would like them to work the same. Two of them have Pi 4s in them and the other one has a Pi 5. He got the jukeboxes with the Pi 4s working perfect. But the Pi 5 is designed differently. Raspberry Pi made significant changes between the two and there is one obstacle he just can't get around. He spent a big part of the day trying different things to get the Pi 5 to work the way he wanted it to. He has done lots of research and tried lots of things. He is finally convinced what he want to do will not work. The Pi 5 will still work but for one function he has to use two buttons instead of one. Maybe in the future something will change with the software and he will be able to revisit the issue.

In trying to solve the Pi 5 issue Larry started loading all the software from the beginning. This will give him all the latest versions but it also means he will need to reconfigure everything. It will take him a bit but he really enjoys the process.

 

The jukebox

 

I attended three virtual square dances. First was Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly plus at 10:00 for an hour. They called five tips to 7 participants. We hadn't seen Di and Terry in over two weeks and it was great to see them. We just danced and when we had problems Di would walk us through the sequence. We danced some four couple moves and Di and Terry cued us through them. I had a super time dancing with friends.

Second was Ett McAtee's Weekly C1 at 1:00 for an hour. She called four tips to 17 participants. She concentrated on the Split Concepts, which we worked with the two side couples. I struggled a bit because I forgot the formation and if we were working with the sides or not. I made some mistakes but I still had fun.

Third was Dave Eno's Weekly C1/A2. Karin Rabe and Greg Moore helped Dave to call the dance. The format was three tips of C1 and three tips of A2 and a Trivia question in between the A2 tips. Karin Rabe and Greg Moore helped Dave call the dance. During the C1 tips there were 8 participants and A2 had 9 participants.  I had a great time dancing with friends.

I played pinball and had a great day. I played Beavis and Butt-head and got a new high score of 6,648,020, which moved me up a couple of spots. I moved to 24th place out of 32 participants. Then I played Attack From Mars, Apollo 13, Big Buck Hunter Pro and Black Rose. I ended up get a saucer for each of the countries (Germany, France, Italy, England and United States) and started to take over Mars. I came in 4th place in the game. I played all the games are in virtual reality except for Beavis and Butt-head, it doesn't have a virtual reality version.

 

Apollo 13

 

Attack From Mars

Beavis and Butt-head

 

Big Buck Hunter Pro

Black Rose

 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Easy Street and had 30 games. It took me 1 hour, 4 minutes and 46 seconds, which put me in 14th place in my group. I played some Angry Birds.

I worked out with the Synth Riders for an hour. I continued working on my jigsaw puzzle.

After Dave's dance we watched a documentary about J. Robert Oppenheimer. It was called Oppenheimer: The Real Story. It was very good. Afterwards I watched Hell Boy and Stuart Little from our movies. I ended up doing 17,000 steps, which put me in 3rd place in my group.

 

   

 

Tuesday 6-18-24 Dancing, Errands, Games and Having Fun

 

Having fun

We had a great day. 

Larry started the day out by walking around and checking out the irrigation system at our house and Jason's house to make sure the sprinklers were working correctly. He found two of our sprinklers weren't working correctly. They were both spraying but not rotating. He replaced both heads. 

I did the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. The event was Event: Free Cell Mini of 10 games. It took me 48 minutes and 41 seconds, which put me in 19th place in my group. Then I played some Angry Birds. 

We attended Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly A2 dance at 10:00 for an hour. It was nice to see Terry and Di back in town and calling. They took turns calling 5 tips to 8 participants. Larry danced with them for four of the tips. It is always a pleasure dancing to Terry and Di because they dance with us and cue the whole dance. We had a super time dancing with friends.

 

Get a partner and dance

 

After lunch we went to town to track down some parts. When we built the house Larry used some 3" PVC to build covers for our survey markers. To allow surveyors to see the markers the tops screw off. One of the tops has gone missing and another is broken off. He needed some replacements. He also needed a new vacuum breaker for one of our outside hose bibs, the other day he had to replace one and now he needed a spare. Apparently our house has a fairly rare style of bib and the replacements are difficult to find. Home Depot does not carry them so we went to a plumbing supply store, Ham & McCreight Supply Inc. The customer service wasn't the greatest but Larry got the part he needed. Then we stopped at The Home Depot to pick up more dirt for holes in the yards.

 

Doing errands

 

When we got home. I worked out on the Synth Riders for an hour.

Larry played a few games of pinball and had a super day. He entered his initials in Cirqus Voltaire and Dr. No. When he finished playing pinball I played pinball. I played the weekly challenge of Beavis and Butt-head and four more games. They were Dr. No, James Bond 60th Anniversary, Goldeneye and Cirqus Voltaire. I did do as well as Larry but I had fun trying.

 

James Bond 60th Anniversary

 

Beavis and Butt-head

 

Cirqus Voltaire

 

Dr. No

 In the evening we watched a movie on Amazon called Oppenheimer. It was a three hour movie and very good. It was a biographical drama about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who invented the atomic bomb. Then I watched Angels & Demons from our movie collection. I ended up doing 18,000 steps, which put me in 4th place in my group. 

 

 

 

 

Monday 6-17-24 Home Projects, Dancing & Games

 

 

We had a busy day of doing this and that. It was an overcast day and humidity. '

 Larry started the day out by doing a few projects outside. First he added more fertilizer on the yards. Then using an extension pole with a brush attached he removed the cobwebs and bug debris from the eves. Next he blew off the porches and gravel. Then he treated for bugs using his back pack sprayer. He sprayed the eaves, gravel, yards, front porch and around the house. He sprayed the back porch roof but not the porch because we needed to do a bit of cleaning first. 

While Larry did these projects I danced. I attended Di Green and Terry McCann's Weekly C1 dance at 9:00 for an hour. Di had to take her Mum to a doctor's appointment so Ett McAtee stepped in and called the dance. Ett called four tips to 13 participants. She just called the dance she tried to help us now and then but got confused so she gave up. She did workshop a few moves by calling them a lot. The moves were Reverse Extend, Cross Your Neighbor, Spin Chain The Top and Linear Action. I had a great time dancing with friends and to Ett calling.

 

I played 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, 7 minutes and 58 seconds, which put me in 10th place in my group. Then I moved onto playing Angry Birds.

After lunch we went back outside on the back porch. Larry sprayed off the porch and cleaned the grill. I cleaned the railing. After Larry finished washing the grill he washed the threshold of the door, washed the porch chairs and scraped some spots off the porch. It took us two hours to clean the porch. 

Railing on the steps

Porch railing

Cleaned grill

I played some pinball. I played Beavis and Butt-head, The Get Away, Mustang, NASCAR and No Fear. I became the 4th high score in The Get Away. I had a great time playing pinball.

Beavis and Butt-head

Mustang

NASCAR

No Fear

The Get Away

In the evening we watched Alice Through The Looking Glass. When Larry went to bed I watched The Da Vinci Code and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I ended up doing 18,000 steps, which put me in 4th place in my group.