Sandy Lou, R.I.P.

Today was Sandy Dog's last day on this planet and she is now enjoying a pain-free life on Piddler's Green. She was close to 20 years old, deaf, nearly blind and arthritic. For the past several weeks she has been having more trouble negotiating the stairs and couldn't get herself up when she slipped off her feet on the concrete floor in the laundry room a couple times in the past week.



Sandy had been living with us since about 2002 when the young man next door asked us to babysit her as he was moving on to a job that required him to fly everyday. He had rescued her, healed the injuries she suffered physically and emotionally and loved her with his whole heart. But she's been a part of our family for quite some time now and we will miss her kind heart.

It's been a painful day around here...

Pictures from my weekend-

Well our weekend at Wooster has come to a close and we are packed up for tomorrow's return trip. This has been a great weeekend with my family. I've got an early wakeup tomorrow so I'm not titling all the pictures I uploaded tonight but I will share with you just a couple pictures tonight.

The first one is my family; Mom, Dad, 3 brothers and sister.



This is the birthday boy, Brother and Pastor Mark.


Your humble scribe, relaxing while the family gathers for photos.

As always, click the little'uns to see the full-sized images. You can see the full album here: Ohio vacation

Blogging from Wooster Ohio tonight

Made it safely through 2 airports and 2 flights, arrived on time to find my brother, his girlfriend and Mom already waiting for us, just as planned. Avis put us into a Lincoln Town Car and we needed it for all the luggage we were toting.

We made it safely to the birthday brother's home and relaxed there for a bit then left Mom there and came out to the Rodeway Inn where we are staying. Got a nice room. Tim and Milly and I sat for a bit in the bowling alley next door while I had a couple beers and came back in time to find the BSU soaking in the hot tub in our room.

So it's all good. And bedtime!

So we're going to Ohio for a Brother's birthday

And in preparation for the trip, I was digging through my photo heap tonight. I found a couple pictures to share with everyone so you can see my brothers and sister. These pictures were taken on the steps of Glamorgan Castle, just a few blocks from the house that my folks bought and Brother Mark kept for years after that. As you can see, we are a handsome crowd-


And, as typical for our family photos, it's just not a photo event until somebody has mooned the camera...

This weekend's birthday boy is on the right...


No, we never have any fun when we get together! As always, click the little'uns for the biggie sized pictures.

Sheesh- I've been busy!

So let's see- Saturday Loc and I went to Rockport State Park for some fishing because the state fishing report said the good fishing was there lately. Mostly we got blown around the lake by the myriad of power squadron boats pulling wakeboarders and skiers and tubes of all types. Fish Slayer was acting up and being hard to start and not idling worth a dang so that was a real concern and stressed me out. I did manage to catch 1 rainbow trout but it wasn't a great day of fishing.

On Saturday son Noah had a part failure on his motorcycle- a $200 replacement LED tailight assembly he purchased cracked and fell off so I spent a couple hours after getting home from the lake helping him with a repair.

Which didn't work... He left Sunday morning to head back to Colorado and only got down the road about 20 miles before the light fell off again! This time he lost the whole thing on the highway. By the time he turned around and got home, I already had purchased a 7 dollar boat trailer light and 2 clearance lights from Wal-Mart to fix up something for him to get home safely. We did some blacksmithing on some bar stock pieces from my shop and built a bracket that would hold the tailight and the clearance lights for turn signals and used some Scotch-Locs to wire everything into the wire harness. Noah even found his license plate, balled up and unrecognizable wedged up into his fender. He hammered it flat with a rubber mallet and we were able to put it in place for his ride home.

He left this morning and we haven't heard from him so I'm assuming he made it back to Aspen safely.

Last night we traveled down to see Grandbaby Ryker and his mom and took them to dinner. Ryker's 3 months now and getting really cute. Maybe tomorrow I'll take enough time to upload a couple pictures.

Tonight and over the weekend I've been working on Slayer to determine why it was acting badly on Saturday. There had been fuel leaking from the fuel line quick connector when the primer bulb was squeezed so I replaced that tonight. I also pulled the pickups out of both fuel tanks and discovered that one of the tubes was very loose- loose enough that I think it would be likely air was being pulled into the fuel line instead of fuel. I hope that is fixed. But I also tried to add some grease to the lower unit and it ran out as fast as I put it in! I've pulled off the prop and it appears there is a very special Mercury tool required to remove the seal housing so I think the boat has to go to the boat doctor as soon as I can get an appointment. Everything has been shifting fine and I don't think (hope) that there is any critical damage to the drive gears but I'll have to let the doc check it out.

And I got the lawn mowed tonight!

Vacationing in Michigan- contd.

So, when last I left the keyboard, I left the final portion of our trip to Michigan untold. And now it is time to remedy that situation. On Monday Mom showed a couple neat museums in Alpena but she came up with an even better idea for Tuesday- a trip to Mackinac Island, a fabled place in Michigan history which somehow I had managed to never visit in spite of so many summers spent in the northland. The weather looked promising- glorious even and so the decision was easily reached that we would set off on Tuesday morning for Mackinac.

It is a beautiful island resort and it has been a resort area since the end of the Civil War. To get there you have to ride a ferry boat and we picked seats right behind the boat captain’s controls to have a view of the approach. When you get to the island there’s an interesting surprise- NO motor vehicles! There are exactly 2 powered vehicles on the island, a fire truck and an ambulance. Everything and everyone else travels by horsepower, typically 2 horsepower, meaning draft horses pulling carriages or carts. The good citizens of the island banned horseless carriages in 1897, one was snuck onto the island causing havoc and injury in 1902 and after that, the horse lobby won and self-powered vehicles were prohibited. So there are 400 resident draft horses on the island during the summer and they have very nice barns, exercise pens and rest pastures for their maintenance. The horses don’t winter on the island but are instead shipped over to the mainland and boarded with farmers all over the upper portion of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

We took a pleasant carriage ride on the tour around the island, entertained by a driver and tour guide and 2 Belgians that were not so pleased to be back in the harness after their winter break.

We saw and photographed probably the most photographed rock in Michigan, Arch Rock-

spoiled most of the tour guide’s lame jokes and departed the tour at the entrance to Fort Mackinac. The fort was built as a defense for the straits, surrendered to the British without a shot being fired at the outbreak of the War of 1812, held captured Confederate supporters during the Civil War and is now a very nice museum of life on the island and behind the walls during its heyday. There are young men dressed in the military uniforms of the times giving demonstrations- (yeah, cannons!)

and describing life in the fort. Due to the fort’s idyllic location and minimal military necessity, life was pretty good at Fort Mackinac and a desirable place to be stationed.

Lunch was served at The Tea Room, outside on the deck in the glorious sunshine and due to the early season and mid-week timing of our trip, we had the staff’s complete attention. The manager came over and visited with us for a bit and it felt like we were living the lives of The Rich and Famous while enjoying some delicious lunch.

The view from the Tea Room was really nice too, although the harbor was empty of pleasure boats due to the earliness of the season.

Take special notice of how clear and blue the water was. I didn't see water during our Carribean cruise that was any prettier than it was here.

After lunch we left the fort, walked down the hill and did some window shopping and browsing down Main Street. We didn’t buy anything but ice cream cones but we did have a very nice look around at the artist and t-shirt shops. Remember that I said everything gets delivered on the island by horse and cart? Even the UPS delivery guy has a hose cart! He even had a dedicated driver to manage the horses as he unloads boxes and makes his deliveries.

I thought this was the funniest thing I saw all day.

One of the beauties of the day was the early season timing of our visit. Travel to the island between Memorial Day and Labor Day and the place is packed with tourists on horse carriage, foot or bicycle and sight-seeing becomes an effort in avoiding being jostled by all the thousands of people that flock to the resort. Instead, we had lots of elbow room and opportunity to look at the beautifully maintained historic homes, hotels and shops because we visited so early in the year. We were a couple weeks early for most of the flowers to be in bloom and one of the island’s charms are the beautifully groomed flower beds in every yard and corner. But we did see some of the early bloomers and enjoyed some terrific spring weather.

It was a grand day with the 2 most important women in my life and we all had a great time. Dinner was at Big Boy back in Alpena at the end of the trip. Why don't we have Big Boy's here? I really miss them!

The next morning it was time for a few more pictures-

before getting back into the rental car and setting Magellan in search of the Detroit Metro Airport. That's my Mom on the left, Grandma Manning in front and my uncles- Mike and Glen in the back row. Mom and Grandma really have a great deal in their home, Mike lives in the basement with his wife and Glenn lives next door with my aunt and cousin. There are more aunts and uncles just minutes away and most of them are at the house very regularly.

But we got back to the airport and back to Salt Lake City without much drama. It was raining at our layover in Chicago and our plane left late but we got home safely to 2 very cats!

Well what a day today has been!

We have been playing, swimming and eating french fries with the grandbabies non-stop since noon today. I will tell you this, those two are high speed & low drag critters with seemingly only one speed- fast! They have worn us out quite thoroughly!

We did not get to go to the Nature Center that we had hoped for due to a lashing Midwest rainstorm that ate up most of the afternoon. So instead we went out for lunch then played and splashed and jumped in the hotel pool for quite a while. When we wore out splashing we retired to the room where we played with a Hot Wheels track with 4 new cars and a Fisher-Price airplane with both the kids.

The ex D-i-L was even wearing the locket that we brought for her and gave her last night and it looked really nice around her neck. I hope she likes it and wears it often.

Tomorrow morning we will be meeting with the kids again for breakfast and then heading back to the airport for the 2nd leg of our trip- flying to Detroit and then driving to my Mom's house.

Never Know What Might Turn Up

That's the name of a new blog, written by a friend of mine. His mother turned me on to it and thought he wrote in a style, (I have a style?) similar to mine. Anyway, I want to encourage him, so I'm encouraging you to go check it out and say hi.

I'll be adding a link on my blogroll later tonight when I get some more time to sit down. Right now I'm waiting for a teenager from church to show up and help this old, tired guy with some yardwork- in between rainstorms!

No posting goodness tonight

Its already 11 PM. I didn't even get sat down in my chair until 10:25. So I've only had the quickest look around the interweb tonight and now I need to hustle off to bed.

Grandbaby Ryker even cracked his peepers open and gave me a squint tonight while I held him a couple minutes! Mom is still doing well and they are both going home tomorrow.

We have a new grandbaby!

His name is Ryker Gauge and he was born early this morning- 2 1/2 weeks early. Mom and baby are both fine and mom is beaming. Ryker weighs 6 pounds, 2 ounces and is 18" tall. And he has a head full of very blonde hair!



As always, click the small pictures to see the full size pictures.

Sunday evening weekly wrap up

First of all, a big Happy Birthday to my Beloved Spousal Unit, who has been celebrating with her sisters in Oregon all weekend. Its that big birthday, #50, that nobody that's not there yet looks forward to and so to do it right, I sent her off to the left coast to celebrate with her sisters.

Its also our 26th anniversary, (pretty smart of me to align that, don't you think?) and I want to thank my BSU for putting up with me for all these years. Its been a bumpy ride for some of them and I can tell you that the smooth road we have been on lately has been all the more appreciated for the difficult times we have traveled through together.

I've been plenty busy in her absence this weekend. I did a little housecleaning, I went with friend Carol and her 3 off-spring to the Black Island Farms Harvest Festival and Corn Maze last night and had a wonderful time including a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch so that everyone could chose the perfect pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern and on Friday I spent a couple pleasant hours at an auction with my buddy Kenny.

I got away cheap, just $4.50 for a pneumatic nail gun and two old office chairs, one for the shop and one for the computer room. Kenny spent a little more but did make one terrific purchase, a Makita compound radial arm saw for just 50 bucks! I did look at some 4 foot light assemblies that would have been perfect in my shop for just 10 bucks but I would have had to purchase the entire pallet's worth and there must have been 30 or more lights on the pallet. I just decided I didn't feel like messing with trying to reselling all the lights I couldn't use.

Today I spent a few hours with my friend Ben working on my shop. I got one closet door cut out and installed while Ben was over and have just one more and some hasps to install to finish that job. I also got the swamp cooler on the house roof drained, dried out and covered up, my hand-me-down Bike Barn built and installed under the carport, made a charity drop off and ran almost 1400 45ACP cases through my recently purchased brass cleaner and tumbler. I've got one more small batch of 45 brass to clean and then I can get busy setting up the Dillon progressive reloader that I just purchased from another buddy. I'm planning to reload ammo this winter in my spare time!

So that's it really. I've had a good weekend with my friends and the BSU has had a great weekend with her sisters. She will be home tomorrow night and we will celebrate together later this week. The laundry is done except for the folding, (that's next) and my weekend is just about finished.

One last thing, I've discovered that this humble blog has finally broken into the 6 digit visitor count, some time this past week. Thanks to everyone for making that happen!

The boy should be home shortly.

Noah son is taking a week's vacation from the job in Aspen and is headed home on his motorcycle. I spoke to him about 2 this afternoon and he was on his way. So he should be pulling into the carport pretty shortly.

I think he's got plans to see a bunch a his friends- he wants to show off that motorcycle after all, but I suppose he will stick close enough to home for some home cooked meals.

Tomorrow's dinner is fresh fish, catfish and wiper, fried up and served with hush puppies. I caught 2 channel cats and 1 wiper today and we had 1 more from my last fishing trip so there should be enough to go around.

Home early this Sunday night-

Well after getting home late last week on Sunday, we managed to get home a little earlier tonight. We went to Salt Lake this evening to take Kye & his GF, Stephanie out to dinner to celebrate Mother's Day. Since it was Mom's special day, she got to pick the place and of course, the place was Outback. Its her favorite place and even though I think its way over rated, that's where we went.

The wait wasn't too terrible and the weather was pleasant so it was pretty nice outside while we took our turn for a table. Our waitress was hard working, friendly and eager, in spite of the level of activity she was dealing with on the busiest day of the restaraunt year. And so we're home, over full and happy.

I called Mom this afternoon and we had a nice chat and I got the chance to wish her a happy Mothers Day. I bought her flowers and they were delivered on time and she said they were beautiful, so I guess I did pretty good there. I've a package here to mail tomorrow for her and Grandma and I'm keeping the contents secret until after it gets delivered.

I got the yard mowed- out front, today, for the first time this year. The back yard still awaits. The Murray mower started right back into service after its rest time in the shed but the string trimmer might have finally given up the ghost. I got it working but it won't stay running for any more than a few seconds. Its only provided 18 years of reliable service for the 60 or 70 bucks I paid for it so it might just be time to retire it and get a new one. Just doing my part for the President's Economic Stimulus Package...

Kenny & I went fishing yesterday and we got lucky- the fish weren't biting and so we didn't have to clean any fish when we got home. It was a very nice day with lots of terrific scenery to look at and birds to watch so not catching any fish didn't spoil the day.

What else? I got Loc's pistol repaired by installing a new magazine catch and I'm pretty certain I am going to turn the gun into my gun instead of his now that I've fixed its bugs. I pocket carried it tonight and it was no more trouble than my P3-AT.

My local city of Ogden had a bit of excitement last night when the police had to teargas a house to breakup a party and standoff that eventually got 17 people arrested! I'm sure glad that didn't happen on my block!

So that's it for this weekend from behind the Zion Curtain. There are some other (maybe) exciting things happening that I can't reveal just now until I get some confirmations from a couple places and persons but I will spill the beans whenever it becomes official.

What, no weekend update?

That's right, I missed posting a weekend update yesterday and my dad took me to task for it this morning. I didn't get home until nearly 10:30 last night and I was too tired to even think about blogging. Sorry.

So what did I do all weekend? Let's see-

Friday night I took the BSU to see Leatherheads. Its a reasonably funny movie about the early days of professional football, back when it was played in cow pastures. George Clooney directs and stars in this film, along with Renee Zellweger, who while she isn't my favorite female, still looks pretty good in viintage lingerie. Anyway, this is a simple film obviously created so George could have a fun time playing football and playing in the mud in front of a camera. So its no Oscar nominee but its plenty good fun.

Saturday began with errands around town, on the scooter and a stop at the local Yamaha shop where they were having an open house. Then it was back to the driveway and almost a full day of re-installing seatbelts in the boy's Tempo. I got nearly all the job done and finished up on Sunday.

I did have coffee with Carol on Sunday and got to ogle her new Camry hybrid before returning home to finish up the work on the car. Then it was off to a friend's retirement from the Utah National Guard after 28+ years of military service. The retirement ceremony was down in Salt Lake City and I rode the scooter down there and back home after a really long ceremony for three retiring NCOs.

As soon as I got home there was more work to do on the car as the dinger under the dash wouldn't shut up even when the car was running! That involved tearing the dash apart until I found the offending dinger, disconnecting it and putting everything back together before we could deliver the car to him, back down in Salt Lake City!

It was also his birthday this week and his GF's too, so the spouse and I took them out to a mediocre dinner at Applebees, sat for quite a long time afterwards chatting and then finally, returned home.

So, I was whupped. I had to go to work today to try and rest up and the workload there didn't allow for a minutes rest either.

There's a beutiful new, gray kitten at the boy's house, to replace a cat that belonged to the GF but managed to run away, and a young ferret! They are both just as cute as can be and apparently they like to wrestle and play together when they aren't worn out and napping. And he has the car, finally, and its time to get it inspected and licensed and insured and transferred into his name. He's taking it for the safety and emissions inspections tomorrow and hopefully, (keep your fingers crossed), it will pass ans be on its way to being fully legal.

So that's how I spent my weekend. I still don't have the grass mowed or raked, the Phantom put back together, the driveway floodlight replaced or any of the other numerous chores that need doing around here. But I'll get to them next...

The BSU catches her first fish!

This is exciting stuff folks! A few weeks back, I suggested that maybe the spouse would like to get out and go fishing with me once and a while. To my complete surprise, she called my bluff and said she would! So just a few days back, we made a trip to Sportsmans Warehouse and she picked out her first rod and reel and then bought her very first fishing license.

And Thursday afternoon, we went fishing! There's a small pond in town that used to be private property but was turned over to the city a couple years back. Its been improved somewhat recently and its already been stocked with trout this spring since the ice melted. But its close and easy to access and we just had a little while, so we went fishing. Here's the result!


That's a rainbow trout that she caught and that we put back unharmed. She caught it on an earthworm- that I of course had to put on the hook, and under a float. Except for the squirmy worm, the she really seemed to like the outing. It was fun and I'm looking forward to our next fishing trip!

There's another car in my driveway

And yes, Kenny, its for the elder son. After most of a week's searching through KSL's classifieds and KUTV's classifieds and the Craigslist ads, I finally found a car right here in Ogden that should be just perfect.

Its a 1993 Ford Tempo and it looks just like this one. Its even white like the one at the link. Its a 4 cylinder, with an automatic transmission, a working radio, hot air from the heater and cold air from the air conditioner. There's 4 good tires and all the wheels have covers except for 1 center section. Nearly everything electric works and its pretty presentable inside and out.

We were able to negotiate a couple hundred dollars off the asking price and the seller even replaced the bad window regulator in one of the doors.

Today I replaced a bad motor mount, installed new wiper arms and hosed a couple pounds of grime out of the throttle body. The car still needs an exhaust system as I carried the old one home in the bed of my truck! The muffler needs replaced and both ends of the pipe need some repair but I think most of the pipe can be reused. The driver's side mouse shoulder belt doesn't work right now and neither does either electric mirror. So tomorrow the car will go to the muffler shop and then I'll make some decisions about getting the electrical bits fixed. I've already determined that the applicable fuses are working so whatever's wrong will require some further digging. I'm hoping to have this thing cleaned up and ready for the safety and emissions tests before the end of the week.

Now, for Kenny- I'm not going to give the car. I'm going to sell him the car over a period of months. This way he'll be able to continue getting to work on time, will be invested in the car and its repayment scheme and won't have to get wrapped up in one of those "Buy here, Pay here" outrageous interest rate car dealers. It seems like a reasonable thing to do.

Blogging- and drinking, from Carbondale, Colorado

That's right, the BSU, Noah and I are holed up in Carbondale tonight, enroute to Noah's next job and adopted home in Aspen, Colorado. Carbondale was as close as we could get to Aspen without splitting my debit card in half over the cost of a room, so here we are. Tomorrow we'll finish the trip, get him and his gear unloaded and head back home.

Noah's taken a job with an independent garage that has been owned by the same guy for 32 years. He's promised Noah what seems like a dandy wage but I think its going to be mighty expensive in swanky Aspen so he'll have to figure it out for himself.

Here's a picture of the trailer we loaded yesterday up in Logan. We have all his earthy possessions loaded into this car, the bed and back seat of the truck and his tool box, on the back of the trailer. As always, click on the little picture for the bigger version.


Oh yeah, I'm sick as a dog, with a fever all last night and an unstoppable cough that has been a real challenge while driving 400 miles today!

Kids calling home today

Its unusual when the boys call home on the same day, unless maybe for their Mom's b-day, but that's what happened today. So what could be happening to get them both to call today?

Well, the eldest's POS Escort (redunancy alert!) has apparently given up the ghost, limping into some off street parking with smoke billowing and barely pulling itself. This is the car that I put a used engine in for him, 2 years ago. I told him then that he should be working to shop it off and trade it for something more reliable but he's run it all this time without significant problems. Until now.

So he's walking and I'm guessing the car needs towed off to a pick & pull yard. Hopefully he will be looking at a tax refund very soon that he can use it to get back on wheels.

The youngest boy is job hunting pretty diligently, ever since he was told that he would be laid off at the end of this week. Today he told his mom that he is traveling to south Salt Lake tomorrow to interview at a luxury car dealership where one of his former Job Corp instructors is employed. He also intends to travel to Heber to interview with a small shop that builds off-road truck accessories and custom trucks. And apparently, if he figures out how to get there, he has an interview with another off-road fabrication shop in Aspen, Colorado! Somehow he thinks there are hippie chicks hanging out on the streets of Aspen and he wants to meet some of them!

Everytime the boy changes jobs, he has to load up about 1000 pounds of tool box and tools. He really needs to build a permanently mounted trailer on that toolbox so he can jack it up and attach a tow bar to it for his moves. Or take up piano tuning that might take a little smaller toolbox!

Anyway, they continue to work towards real adult behavior and decisions. But they call their mom, never me. I wonder why.

UPDATE: After thinking about this post overnight, I wanted to make it clear, neither boy called home complaining or begging for either help or money. I consider this pretty grown behavior. Mostly they are calling to keep us informed, maybe to grouse a while to a sympathetic ear and to get some positive feedback about their lives and decisions. I've got to call the oldest boy about that car, after thinking about it fpr a bit. If he has any luck at all, he might just have burst a water hose and overheated things a bit. Maybe I can get the younger brother with all the tools to see if he can help out older brother with the busted car. Wouldn't that be perfect?

Such language!

I got an email from Dad last night and boy was he worked up! He has finally caught up to the 21st century and ditched the dial-up internet connection at his house. Since there are 2 computers at his place, (his & hers), both needed upgrades before the DSL and wireless connections could be implemented. He was getting some computer geek help from someone at his church.

The dial-up has been cut, the DSL installed and the wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun as he figures out all the differences in the new methods and connections. Dad's a long-time AOL user and all his internet favorites, email addresses and links reside someplace in AOhell and he is having to find all the things that aren't in their usual places.

I'm pretty certain that he will get it sorted out in pretty short order. And I assured him that some frustration with new technology was to be expected. I also promised him that there is a whole bunch of the internet that he has been missing that will be opened up now that he has a fatter interweb connection pipe coming into the house.

Plus Carol won't miss any more incoming phone calls while he is surfing the web!

Family pictures from Christmas

I don't know why I didn't get around to loading these pictures from our family Christmas earlier. But better late than never, I suppose.