Note: This is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland. Since much of my news these days relates to trying to age gracefully, this series might be called The Geezer Gazette.]
3/29/25
Aloha All!
Can you believe it? April is creeping up on us and April Fools' Day will be here next week. Hmmm. Come to think about it, every day is starting to feel like April Fools' Day.... Anyway, life lurches along, and here are some of the highlights of my week.
On Tuesday Karen and I played golf with our friend but it didn't go well. After about 7 or 8 holes it started to rain.
We seldom have encountered full-out downpours on the course, and a shower can often be avoided by skipping to a hole lower on the course. Not this time. We tried to keep going in the spirit of the tough-as-nails Scottish originators of the game, but we finally gave up and headed for the warmth and dryness of the car. By the time we quit, the greens had turned to ponds, a great excuse for putting badly. We still had our lunch with us, so we drove down to the beach for a picnic.
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| A Swimming Hole? |
We seldom have encountered full-out downpours on the course, and a shower can often be avoided by skipping to a hole lower on the course. Not this time. We tried to keep going in the spirit of the tough-as-nails Scottish originators of the game, but we finally gave up and headed for the warmth and dryness of the car. By the time we quit, the greens had turned to ponds, a great excuse for putting badly. We still had our lunch with us, so we drove down to the beach for a picnic.
My house project this week was to replace a faulty security light, a simple task that of course wound up being a much bigger deal than it should have been. We installed a couple of these on the outside of the house several years ago after we were robbed while we were away on a trip. The theory is that ne'r-do-wells trying to break in at night might be deterred by having a glaring light suddenly shining on them. The light is motion activated by a sensor that detects infrared sources, like human beings, cats, and the occasional feral pig. Occasionally the sensors go bad, which is what happened in this case. The light would sometimes come on when it was supposed to, but often it wouldn't. I went to the big box hardware store where I had originally bought the lights and got what looked like an exact replacement. Same brand, same model, same style. Everything seemed like all I would have to do is unscrew the old light and connect the wires (power off, of course) to the new fixture. Nope. In the intervening years the company had changed the design slightly and it took an exasperatingly long time to figure out why the new light wouldn't attach to the old outlet box. I finally realized the problem and got the job done, but it was a lesson in why you shouldn't take things for granted. The new light works fine, and I didn't electrocute myself nor fall off the ladder!
On Thursday morning I finally got my new Outback in to have the a.c. fixed. Recall that just a couple of months after I bought the car last year the a.c. stopped putting out cold air. The dealership service department is so understaffed that it took almost two months to have the problem looked at. They recharged the system and it worked fine -- for another couple of months. Same deal. I had to wait almost two months to get them to try to fix it again. That was in January. The decision was that the evaporator core, the heart of the system, needed to be replaced. They once again recharged the refrigerant and it has been working so-so since then. The next available appointment was this past Thursday, another two month wait. It took all day Thursday and a good part of Friday to get the job done. It seems to be working ok at the moment, but being the skeptic that I am, I made a follow-up appointment for early June. That way, if the problem returns I won't have to wait a long time to get it worked on again. Geez I wish things would be less of an unnecessary hassle!
Finally, I should say we are going ahead with our plans to visit Yosemite National Park, despite the efforts of our newly appointed Oligarch-in-Chief to mess things up. We've decided that this may be our last chance to see this uniquely beautiful place, and we're determined to make the most of it. We have reservations in the park itself for 5 nights, plus reservations in the surrounding area for another five nights, before we fly to Las Vegas for four nights. The Vegas experience will be an interesting and perhaps lethal contrast. We have tickets to a couple of shows and reservations at a couple of nice restaurants. Should be fun.
Ok, that's it for now. It's hard these days, but keep trying to find your Zen place.... Carpe Vitam .
3 comments:
Have a wonderful time in Yosemite and Vegas! We are making plans to take my first-ever visit to Yellowstone this fall.
Do-it-yourself outside surveillance cameras are another option. Sounds like you don't have a security system to (theoretically) deter bad guys from breaking in.
Well, we do have a security system that activates sirens and cameras, and notifies us on our phones if the sensors are triggered, even if we are halfway around the world. The sirens would deter bad actors, whereas outside cameras by themselves would not, unless the ne'r-do-wells knew they were there. We have signs posted at all approaches to the house to do this. We're not particularly interested in surveillance per se-- if we are home the structure of the house allows us to isually assess anyone approaching, for example before we open a door to them. No security system is perfect -- the goal is to make opportunistic thieves seek out an easier target.
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