9/3/12

Back home.  Spent the Labor Day weekend with my Dad and Julia.  Great visit with wonderful hospitality.  Michael and Max got to spend some time with Grandad and Grammy and also got to see the beloved Sam and Sylvia. 

There was great conversation, food and drink.  Maybe a little too much drink, but that happens sometimes.  Got home today after an eerily quick passage through L.A.. When we got home I installed the new converter in Irv.  I sure hope that solves the problem. 

Back to work tomorrow and then Max's birthday.  Oh yeah, gotta try to get the next contract ironed out too as we only have a couple of weeks left.  Nothing like being busy. 

8/28/12

Busy few days. 

Sarah's parents came to visit.  WE have been showing them some of the local scenery.  Then I had three workdays.  Today I am off. 

So we did the Montana de Oro hike.  Hike is a little much...walk.  We did get to the tide pools and see lots of cool sea life.  It was nice. 

Another big reason I haven't been posting is that the other night, our lights dimmed. dimmed...dimmed and essentially went out.  Papa and I chased down the problem all night and settled, eventually, on the theory that we need a new converter.  That is after we bought a new battery.  Sigh. 

So the converter should be here in a couple of days.  We will try to get it in as soon as we get it.  I have been dealing with this little gremlin since OKC after leaving Del Rio.  I am not a huge DIY guy anyway and am particularly hesitant when it comes to electricity.  I've been jolted enough to know I don't like it. 

Off again tomorrow, I don't know what we are going to do.  Then another day of work before taking off down to San Marcos to see Dad.  Busy busy busy.

8/22/12

Didn't run today.  Didn't get anything done around the house really.

Washed the dog though.  Had to.  We ended up at the beach and he was filthy. 

Sarah had seen news reports of whales at Avila Beach abnormally close to shore so we went for some fish tacos and a look.  Yep.  Great big ol' humpback whales about 200 yards off shore in a field of boat moorings.  Pretty cool.  The fish tacos weren't bad either.  It was something of a more relaxing day.  I could use it after the past few days at work.  ER nurse can be a trying job sometimes.  Don't let anyone tell you it is easy.

Then we came home and had a good night.  Tomorrow evening, Sarah's parents arrive.  Thus begins the whirlwind.  It is good and I am looking forward to seeing them.  It just gets busy when guests arrive. 

I'm thinking of adding a photography section to the Adventure Nickel site. That would give me a writing area and a photography area.  Add in some music and I can say I have covered the arts and will have to move on to the sciences. 

8/19/12

Woke up, had coffee.

Went outside and played a little catch with Max.

Washed IRV, Flo and Hondo from top to bottom and then ran 5 miles in a personal best time. 

4.99 miles in 40:08.  I would say the transition to Vibrams has been successful so far. 

Now a nice drink and some reading/snuggling.

Ahhhhhhh....

8/18/12

Changed tires around on the house today.  We had the bubble tire on the trip out and replaced it with the spare.  Finally got around to having a new tire put on the rim so I pulled the spare off and put the new tire on.  Then I took a tire off the other side and put the spare there.  The other tire had some damage and needed replacing.  I'll get to the other two soon I guess.

While I was working I heard Sarah admonish the kids to, "Stop jumping around, Daddy has the house jacked up."  Isn't that what ever little girl dreams of saying?

Also got the tool today I need to repair the slide out cable.  Now I just have to order the repair kit.  Probably will buy two and then be ready when something else breaks.

The salt and marine air is hell on the exposed metal parts of anything around here.  I need to figure out a good way to stop that and repair some of the spots that have appeared. 

Yep, my vacation life.

8/17/12

Today, like any day I am not working, Max started bugging me immediately to go outside and play catch.  He would do it all day, every day, if given the opportunity.  So, a few times every day I will go out and play catch with him for 20 minutes or so.  He catches pretty well, but he throws very well.  Of course, I am biased.

While I was washing the dog, Max saw some new neighbor boys visiting one of the RV's here.  They were 8th graders from Davis, CA.  Max noticed they were playing catch with a football and somehow got their attention.  Then they started playing catch with Max.  They, and eventually some other neighbors all came out to watch Max throw.  They asked Sarah his name so they could say they knew him when he was just a kid. 

After dinner I went out with Max and played catch and I got to witness some of this first hand.  All I heard was how awesome Max was.  Apparently several people have taken notice of us playing catch out there and they are impressed with Max's skills. 

Awesome.

Now, another interesting thing happened here.   Michael came out and wanted to play too.  He had been hearing all this adoration of Max and wanted to get in on some of it.  I think he is really used to being the star of the show with his big brain, language and reading skills.  It became obvious pretty quickly that Michael isn't much at catch.  And I'll quote Michael at one point after missing an easy catch, "You have probably noticed that I'm not the best football player in the park." 

I was impressed with his ability to assess himself and most of all his ability to let Max shine.  He didn't belittle or try to minimize what Max was doing.  He wasn't exactly doing PR for him or anything, but he seemed to realize that it was Max's turn to shine. 

Awesome. 

It made me feel like Sarah is doing a great job raising the kids.  :-)

8/14/12

Today didn't turn out like expected.

We got up and did the morning routine as usual.  Then we cleaned the lizard cage.  All good so far.  Then we decided to go into Santa Maria to get some tools I will need to finish a few projects around here.  It was lunch time so we decided to check out a local eatery in Nipomo that I had heard good things about.  It looked like this hole in the wall dive, which is a good start in my book.  Turns out they wanted $9 for their hamburger and up to $17 for their steak sandwich.  Uhhh....no.  So we went to In and Out burger instead.  We hadn't been there before.  When we pulled into the parking lot we noticed the temperature guage was pegged high.  Not good.  As we stopped and shut it down we got a strong whiff of antifreeze. Another not good.  I opened the hood to a cloud of sticky sweet steam for the not good trifecta. 

We went inside to get food while the car cooled.  Pretty good burger really and for a good price.  Simple ordering system too.  It was nice to see them making fries from real potatoes there while you watched.  Not a bad deal.  Too bad we didn't find them before we decided to eat a more vegetable based diet.  Actually that is probably a good thing.  After we finished I walked over to Trader Joe's and bought some bottled water. I went back and filled the radiator so I could find out where it was leaking.  The water was seeping out from the entire top plastic portion of the radiator itself.  It was slow enough that I thought we could make it home.  So we filled everything up and drove home.  On the way Sarah called a local auto parts store and lo and behold...they had a radiator for a 99 Honda Civic in stock.  I drove the truck to the store, picked up the radiator and spent an hour or two putting it in.  The old radiator was a crumbling mess.  The fitting for the radiator hose broke off when I tried to pull the hose off.  Nice.

Got the new one off and drove the car to Wal Mart to buy a new coffee pot.  Everything seemed fine.  Heck...with the truck poser steering hoses, the RV toilets and water heater, the Civic's brakes and radiator, if I'm not careful I could end up Handy.