Family Day – April

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Today is May 18th. the day Diane, and other branches of the family who have opinions, and decision-making authority. decided that it’s time for another family get together. Another factor, overriding all opinions is that this is the 3rd Sunday of the month. It’s become a tradition that Diane started. We all eat together on the 3rd Sunday every month. That makes it easy for me to remember.

I’m not aware of any celebrations that are planned. Yet. I just took Max for his first walk of the day at noon. In his honor, it rained cats and dogs. We got pretty wet but I at least had a raincoat to protect most of me, but Max forgot his. I don’t think he even knows where his might be. I also don’t think he really gives a rip because he’s just fine walking in mud puddles. He seeks them out. He likes being wet because getting that way normally results in someone vigorously dries him off so he won’t get water everywhere he goes. He loves that part.

The date has changed since I started this. Today is now May 31st. Since I’ve ignored this for the past 13 days you can readily see that I’m a little lazy. Actually. I prefer to view it as a profound demonstration of my procrastinating skills. I’m really good at that.

During that 13 day delay many things have happened. If it wasn’t for my inability to remember ‘stuff’, I’d share it all with you. The best I can do is do start typing and see what happens. My upfront disclaimer is that, if you read this, and disagree with something I share, please feel free to point out the errors. Doing that will do no good because we’re dealing with my reality here and everyone knows it’s sketchy. Most of my lucid moments are spent in an alternate universe.

OK, here goes. I’m pretty sure that Diane and I had a visit from our Winnebago friend recently. They stayed at the St. Helens Elks’ lodge RV Park. We had a great visit and enjoyed a couple of excellent meals at the lodge. One was a steak; the other was clam chowder. I have photos somewhere.

While our friends were visiting, two guys installed Diane’s new bathtub. It has a door so she doesn’t have to make that high step over the side. The old tub was working OK but I’m at the point in my life where bending and picking her up is beyond my ability. We discussed the tub at great length before making our decision, so we were ready to make the change. It didn’t take long for the bank to pony up some 2nd mortgage money so we could pay cash for it. Those two guys did the job in one day, just like the guy on TV said they would. We just stayed out of their way and let them have at it. We took a peek once in a while just for fun to see how things were going, but we didn’t talk with them for fear of derailing their progress.

I’ve spent the last day or so looking for photos to share that relate to whatever I’m writing about, but they just aren’t on this computer. So, in order to put this post to rest, I’m just going to find photos that has nothing to do with this post. Then I’m posting it.

This is me with a beard from 2019.

Here’s a photo from somewhere in Nevada (I think). Maybe it’s from New Mexico. That’s probably not true because I don’t think we’ve ever been to New Mexico for vacation.

Birthdays and Other Stuff

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Greetings. it’s been a while since I fired up the old laptop so forgive me in advance for making mystakes. There re bound to be many.

So, whzt’s been going on? I tried to check my calendar but can’t seem to find it so I’m stuck with relying on my memory to conjur up something to share.

Diane just got back from shopping so I took a few minutes to help tote her purchases into the house. We’re a real pair about doing that because she’s concerned about my torn rotator cuffs and I’m a bit worried about her ankles, knees, and hips. so, we just worry about each other about stuff like that.

She worries about me falling down, too. Regarding that I’ve begun taking my cane when Max gets his walk around the block. Apparently it’s true that have that extra contact with the ground makes for a sturdier stance and keeps one from making turns too quick for ones brain to keep up. In this small way, not falling down, makes my bride happy. So, my goal each day is to remain vertical at all times when I’m not reclined in my chair. So far, so good.

We had plans to take a trip to Fort Stevens for Mother’s Day Weekend but in my effort to ensure my rotator cuffs could deal with the task of hooking up the trailer backfired a bit. I took two Tylenol with sleep aid Thursday nite and was useless all day Friday, the planned departure day. So, I kinda ruined that plan but I don’t think she was overly upset about it. By staying home we had the pleasure of visits from all the kids on Sunday instead of being stuck in a trailer, at the beach, rain or shine. I turned out to be a wonderful time for all of us.

A big highlight was Baylee’s birthday. We celebrated on April 30th. I know that’s true because I took photos.

She is now officially 16 years old. Time has flown. Seems like only 11 years ago she was only this big.

Daniel also had a birthday, on May 1st. His was the big 50 and Jennifer had an open house for him. It was a really busy day. Diane and I participated for a while but I failed to take copious photos like I normally do. The party was on May 4th so everyone could tell him “may the 4th be with you”. The party had a 50’s theme as well as a Star Wars feel. It was a lot of fun.

The bushes are exploding all around the house. They are pretty, but they are not Diane’s friends.

This is a typical dinner photo. We do most of our meals in our recliners. Max is in his best position to act like he’s not paying attention to every bite Diane takes. He’s counting on a plate to lick when she’s done. He’s really not very subtle.

Not long ago the shredder got full so I emptied it.

What a mess that was.I

I think it’s pretty evident that my mind is wandering around so I’m calling this one. Hope all is well with all of you.

The Dalles, Oregon

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The Dalles is where we’ve lingered for the past couple of days. We’re here to visit with our Winnebago Group who are staying in their rigs at the local Eagle’s Lodge. We didn’t bring our trailer because Diane didn’t want me to aggravate my poor pitiful shoulders any more than necessary. I was, of course, all in for that relief.

The shoulder (left) is actually getting better after giving me a ton of grief for about three weeks. It was damaged a bit on my last tumble to the asphalt a few weeks ago. That happened just when I thought I was on the mend. Silly me, right? The fall is just now revealing its true damage in the form of a bruise on my left shoulder. When I first fell, I thought the main damage was to my left wrist which hit mother earth first. But that turned out to be the pivot point for me to rotate forward and bang both my head and shoulder on the ground, along with everything else.

It took more than a week for the shoulder to produce a bruise, a sign of its displeasure for being treated so badly. I’ve mentioned before about the beatings I’ve taken over time that failed to produce bruises like everyone else. I feel kind of cheated for that. Seems like I should get bruises just like normal people do.

So, here in The Dalles, we are living in an AIRBNB unit that is pretty much in the heart of the city. The old part of the city. Our travelling friends paid us a visit so I took this photo;

Historically, this house was part of the church you see in the back and was called the nunnery. This porch services the one unit we rented as well as the main house that fronts Fourth Street.

This is our room. It’s a studio with a fridge and micro.

The view out our side window.

Here’s a view of our side windows, all three of them.

Here’s a look from the courtyard.

Today we had lunch in the courtyard. Simple fare from Burger King.

It’s been a fun trip except for last night when I was dealing with high blood sugar because I chose to eat an entire serving of lo mein too late in the evening. It wasn’t a good night.

Tomorrow we return home. Max will miss his time in the sun.

The Truck Update #2

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This might really be update #1 but I’m not sure. The last post was from 3 days ago and I’ve only had to return the truck once, over last weekend. I think I may actually have mentioned that. During that return visit to Emmert, they found nothing wrong. The truck started fine every time they tried. So, I gave back the EV and we got back to normal.

Thankfully, things are just fine. While pondering everything that’s going on it occurred to me that Emmert is looking at the problem from the wrong perspective. They focused on the fact that the truck wouldn’t start but the reality was that we couldn’t unlock the truck at all. When looked at with narrow eyes, I can see how that relates to our inability to start the truck. It’s certainly an empirical truth but not being able to start isn’t the key point. We just couldn’t get to the starter button using the electronics so lovingly installed for our use. I say that tongue in cheek. There are way more bells and whistles than any normal person needs and when trying to figure them out one tends to get very confused. That takes away the fun of having bells and whistles.

So, there is a plan to make this truck go away and replace it with a different version that is easier to figure out. Another aspect on a replacement truck is that it might be a little closer to the ground, so Diane doesn’t have to jump to get out of it. There is not plan to make a change, just a notion to be considered.

There will be more discussion on this at a later date.

The Truck

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It’s been eight days since the truck was temporarily traded for a new Blazer EV and we’ve since returned the loaner, and just today traded back so they can work harder on the truck.

I was told that the problem with the new battery was that it was a bad battery. I found that interesting. We traded the loaner back for the truck and it worked fine for two days before it went belly up again. That was last Friday. I couldn’t unlock it with the FOB.

So, I measured the voltage on the battery and got a stunning 3.36 VDC reading on my handy meter. That’s not quite enough to turn the engine and, apparently, not enough to respond to the key FOBs.

I walked back to Emmert and told them what I discovered and asked them where they would like me to park the truck when I brought it back. They all hung their heads in wonder that I was having such a problem.

I walked back home, hooked up my new battery charger and let it run on high amps for an hour and was blessed with the engine’s roar when I tried to start it. I drove it back to the dealer and left if running in their driveway while we did the car exchange once more. I suppose I could have just walked home, but I’m getting tired of doing that so I asked for the Blazer EV again. They complied.

My opinion is that the truck’s computer is suspect. We should know on Monday what’s up. I’m thinking they need to take the truck back and give me something that’s going to work a while.

Wish me luck.

Seaside and a Broken Truck

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Yup. I’m still sucking air, as my friend Junior used to say. That may surprise some of you since I have a history of harming myself in various ways. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened lately.

Except for my left shoulder. It’s kind of wonky and I’m scheduled for physical therapy to address that malady. That starts on May 8th. If I can still use my keyboard then, I’ll tell you all about it.

Before I go too far into this, I’ll admit that there may be some repetition about previous posts. You have permission to skip the repeated info.

Let’s talk about our truck. As you know, it sat idle in our driveway while we were off sampling the weather in Arizona for the last part of 2024 and a bit of 2025. I may have mentioned the issues we encountered previously, but things have progressed. For the last few weeks it’s been unreliable about starting. The first episode was during a trip to Portland for something I don’t remember, maybe a Costco visit, then lunch at Chang’s Mongolian BBQ. After lunch it wouldn’t start.

It would lock and unlock with the FOBs but the big START button did not function. Therefore, the engine didn’t start. I decided to try the remote start feature which worked fine, but I could not get it out of that mode. That means I couldn’t put it in gear. It’s supposed to shift modes when you press the unlock button after the remote start, but that didn’t work. That meant the truck wouldn’t let me put it in gear no matter how hard I tried.

So, I called AAA for a tow back to St. Helens so they could figure it out. While waiting for the tow truck I kept trying stuff and finally wound up slapping and pounding on the dash in the vicinity of the START button. That apparently caused something to wake up because it actually started the next time I tried.

Feeling lucky, I called the tow truck driver and cancelled the tow and away we went, directly to Emmert where I handed them all the keys and walked home. I was losing faith in that rig.

A couple days later, they reported that there didn’t seem to be a problem because it started every time they tried. Feeling brave, I drove Max to Wiggle Buttz, a dog store, to have his nails trimmed. He was. begging for a trim. When the toe nails were trimmed we jumped in the truck to go home but it wouldn’t start. I only tried once. Then we walked back to Emmert and I gave them the keys again and told them where the truck was parked and we went home.

It was during this period of being truckless that we went to Seaside for the weekend. Diane wanted to see the super low tide in person. So, we went and had a good time. Max got to spend time on the beach running just as hard as he could and, though it rained a bunch, we enjoyed the stay like we always do.

Diane took her Mom’s fancy walker to the beach and discovred that it glides suprisingly easy over the sand.

So, while Max and I played, she sat peacefully watching the surf up close.

Max was perfectly content laying on the table watching the surf from a distancd.

Can’t say I blame him because the beach was very busy with folks carrying clam guns that apparently are very popular during low tide. I’ve never seen Seaside Beach like this before.

Looking north there were a few TeePees people had built and we chose this one for our next home.

We took one long walk, about 2 miles to Norma’s and back just to get this required photo of us at the Seaside Turnaround.

Emmert called and told me they had analyzed about 40 error codes that all pointed to low voltage and deemed that we needed to replace the battery. I said sure, so they did. That was Friday, a week ago but we were at the beach in Seaside so couldn’t get it until Monday.

I went back to the dealer, paid the $580.00 that wanted for the new battery, and they gave me the keys. I happily went to the truck planning for a leisurely drive home, but it wouldn’t unlock with the remote.

I didn’t try anything else before taking the keys back to the service desk to report this failure. We went back to the truck and the service writer couldn’t get it opened with the remote, either. He pulled the manual key out and opened the door but there was a disturbing absence of dome and dash light when the door opened. This was an indication that the $580 was not well spent even though their specific testing of the old battery revealed it was bad.

After scratching our heads in unison for a bit, they said they would like to keep it for another few days to see what more they could find. I said, “sure, if you can give me something else to drive because Diane and I both have places to be at the same time. They wound up giving me one of their rentals, a 2024 Blazer EV which is pretty nice. I drove it home and tried to get the truck out of my head for a bit.

Today is Saturday and the truck will be there until Monday at least. I checked yesterday and it was in the shop, which is good, but they still had no clue what the problem is. That wasn’t encouraging.

So, I think we’ll just go out and burn up all that electricity stored in the EV’s batteries. It tells me we can go 216 miles before it requires a charge. Perhaps we’ll find out if that’s true.

In the mean time, Max is glad to be home and that the crick has dropped low enough to go wading like normal. One of his favorite things to do after a walks is to take a dip in the crick.

Sherwood, Oregon and Seaside, OR

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Before I start this one, please forgive me if the dates are wrong but I have no sense of time anymore. Every day’s Saturday, or Sunday, but never Monday. Anyway, Diane and I took our trailer to the Sherwood Elks Lodge for a few days. We did a lot of visiting, watched the crews behind us put a bridge together, visited the local thrift stores, and gave Max a lot of walks around the parking lot. It rained pretty good during this visit.

Before the trip started, I took the trailer around the block and did my best to scrape the passenger side of the trailer off as I left first stop sign I encountered. It wasn’t pretty, but there was mainly a transfer of creosote from the pole to various parts of the trailer. I did manage to scrape the handy dandy assist handle into oblivion and had to buy a new one. Thankfully, I was able to remove most of the creosote. All that remains to make everything OK is to figure out how to bend the door back into shape so it’s easier to close. There is a solution. I just haven’t had time to deal with it.

This is the crew we mingle with. A great bunch of humans.

After spending many days at home after that trip, Diane wanted to visit Seaside to see the King Low Tide. Diane said that isn’t a proper description of the tide tables but I’m going to “King” anyway. Even though it’s just a really low tide. This morning was the first day and it’s supposed to do the same tomorrow morning. That would be Monday, not something I usually talk about. The only problem is it happens before 0900 in the morning. That’s early for me. The deal breaker for tomorrow is the rain. I will walk Max in the rain but I won’t walk a mile to see a low tide in it. Maybe when I was younger.

Diane has decided to use her Mom’s walker since it was still brand new. It was about 10 years old but her Mom refused to use it, so it was still new. We brought it to the beach with us to help Diane with her “failing get around bones” and it did. We took some long walks. It was a good time and will something we can continue through the summer at home. I’m looking forward to that. Here’s proof of low tide.

Tomorrow we go back home for a while. Maybe we’ll be able to clean up the garage a little. Also, maybe someone will drop by and make an offer on our RV. We no longer need it. Any takers?

Jasper is 5

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I know it’s true because we just attended his birthday party. Another reason I know it’s true is because Jennifer made a cake.

It was pretty exciting with all the little kids running around. It’s funny how you can forget how noisy 3-5 of them together can get.

Jeran made a variety of pizza’s for everyone to eat and I’m happy to report that I only had one piece. I could have eaten more but it just wasn’t a good thing for me at this time. By abstaining, I’m sure I’ll sleep better tonight.

We left a little bit early because Max called to let us know he needed to go outside. He wanted to go to the party but there’s a strict “No Dog” policy at Jasper’s house and Max knows it. However, he likes to push the envelope a little and I figured he’d be calling just to let us know he’s thinking about us. It’s always good to get home.

Apple IOS 18.3.1 Update

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There’s a lot of commotion surround this update and I just completed a session with my favorite son, Jeff, in an attempt to correct the issue he’s having with his phone .He has an iPhone 13 pro max which should have tolerated the update, but he’s been plagued with power issues since the install. As a consequence, his phone deteriorated until it was useless. So, he took a chance and allowed me to see what I could do.

Not having a clue about what I was doing, I pushed a bunch of buttons and cycled the phone on and off until it wouldn’t stay on for more than 5-10 seconds. That’s worse than it was originally. Though it’s worse, it was progress, kind of. After all that, I left the phone alone for a little bit and we talked about alternatives. I do not remember if anything useful that came from that discussion but at the end I decided to try one more time.

I’ve discovered over my copious free time on this planet that if you think good things about an electronic device and talk nicely about them in their presence, even when they’re bad, they will eventually yield and cooperate. It just takes time.

With this knowledge fresh in my mind, I talked with the phone a little while, making eye contact at all times, and tentatively touched the on/off button to see what would happen. Magically, it started to power up! The apple logo lit up and I found myself holding my breath as time progressed because it was nearing the moment when the logo previously dimmed, then went away. Happily, it stayed on and continued to boot up and presented me with the home screen.

Then it went blank.

Thankfully, I kept my cool and didn’t say anything bad about the phone, but it stayed off. Before diving into the hole of self-pity, I touched the screen softly and was rewarded with the return of the home screen. It was alive! There was hope!

At this point, the phone was still attached to a power cord that was not plugged into a power source. It was just hanging on like an overly long umbilical cord and that only disturbed me a little bit.

With the success of attaining the home screen we thought it would be interesting to see what might happen if we removed the cord. Since it was imperative that I not jostle the phone we silently agreed that Jeff should remove the cord. I glanced at him as he tentatively gripped the cord and slowly removed it from the phone. I think at this point we were both holding our breath, waiting for a negative response.

Time passed, and nothing changed! It was still working. We looked at each other and I decided to see if it would object when I moved it. Slowly, I inched my hand down to the arm of my chair, giving my muscles a little rest, and everything remained OK.

It was like a miracle because there was no empirical evidence that we did anything close to defining a repeatable solution. Neither of us had any idea how we got to this point in our troubleshooting exploit, so we just called it a win and Jeff went happily on his way.

I learned later that Jeff’s phone failed again so he pursued a surefire solution by getting a new phone. His was obviously flawed in some way and he was part of a huge iPhone community that had troubles with this particular IOS upgrade. So, he now has a 16 pro max that is immune to failure. I know that’s true because Alibabba.com is selling them for some very reasonable prices,

With that happy ending I will end this and move along to something more interesting like, has President Trump really been a KGB agent since 1987, or was Bob Ross really a political cartoonist and all those videos of him painting happy clouds featured his reclusive twin brother Norman?

Hmmm.

What’s Next?

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If I was still counting days, this would be 175. Yes, it’s been a week since my last post and I have to admit that I feel like I’m falling down on my job. But, the journey is over for a while so I can relax a little, right? The problem with that is that I need something to write about. To do that requires me to contribute a little brain power to these efforts. Let’s see what happens.

First, there’s Max, who doesn’t have a problem with moving around a lot. Any time he gets outside, he plants himself close to his next possible ride. Close enough that he’s hard to ignore. It works, and he gets in his trips around town in addition to his walks around the block, so he knows we see him.

As you can see, there’s a travel trailer parked under the car port and, as far as I know, it hasn’t leaked. I haven’t had the courage to unlock the door and stick my head inside to find out. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.

While taking stuff out of the RV Max assumed one of his favorite positions. I think he was channeling Laurie and Pat, hoping they would show up. We explained to him that they aren’t here, but they think about him a lot. He sat on the back of that couch for an hour or so until we closed it up. Funny guy.

Monday I used my air compressor to blow off 6 months of dust that collected on the air cleaner filters on the furnace. It was pretty fuzzy so I did it when Diane was not here. Actually, it was part of the instructions that I do the cleaning after Diane exited the premises and wouldn’t be back for a while. Max doesn’t care about stuff like that so he was allowed to stay with me and watch the fun.

Also on Monday, Max had a bath. A shower, really. He’s not fond of getting clean, but he loves the part about buffing him off with a towel. He must have heard about the need for a bath because he escaped for a little while and came back partially covered in mud. My first impression was that he found some deer poop and had a good time smearing it all over himself. But, it ws just dirt and it came off easily with the shower wand. That made Jerrie happy.

On Tuesday, I think, Diane drove herself to town (Portland) for her CT Scan to see how things are looking with her lungs. I thought she had an appointment scheduled with her doctor but can’t find it on the calendar so will have to find out when that is. We both want to know if we’re going to be visiting Arizona again this year, or if we’re going to get a sauna instead. Might just do both. You will hear about it as soon as I know..

Diane got her hair cut a little bit on Wednesday. The last trim she got was in Coronado, I think, and I did a pretty good job. Made me proud. I offered to do it again, but she nixed that very quickly. That’s OK because Tracey is her friend and they get to talk which is good. Sometimes I go there and just sit in the waiting area and listen to them. They know I’m there because there’s no way to sneak into the shop. Most of the time they just let me stay as long as I want and sometimes I even get a haicut, too.

On Thursday Diane had a meeting with the church ladies, and Friday she had an eye appointment.

On Friday I also got to do something for Jennifer using the truck. I drove way the heck and gone into the woods above our house, but not far enough to encounter snow. We loaded up a free freezer and took it back to her house and got it installed in her garage. Jeran came along to do the heavy lifting while Diane stayed at Jen’s to watch cartoons with the Little’s. We all had a good time and I only got in trouble a couple of times for trying to help move that thing. To facilitate the transfer, we got a trailer from Don’s Rental. There was no way we were going to get an upright freezer high enough to get it safely into the truck. The trailer worked nicely. It turns out that when someone else does the heavy lifting, it’s pretty easy to get stuff like this done.

This morning Pastor Ingrid cooked pancakes at the church for whoever wanted to walk through the church door, so I went about 9-ish and had breakfast with a few people we haven’t seen in a while. It was a good visit, the pancakes were awesome. Thanks, Pastor.

When I got back Diane convinced me to take Max around the block once more, then I drove her and the truck to Scappoose so we could fill the truck’s gas tank, and she could get her Spring Rolls at Simms Restaurant. She’s been craving those things for many months and couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Sunday, after church is when we usually make that trip. It’s a ‘thing’ with us. I usually get Lomein with shrimp but having just eaten a late breakfast, I settled on tempura shrimp. They were really good.

Oh, and we also had egg flower soup. And tea.

That’s pretty much up-to-date as I can get so I’m going to quit.

See you next time.