Tag Archives: GoDaddy (SLAARC)

2015/06/30 (T) Three Score and Five

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Today was a milestone birthday for Linda.  We had our usual leisurely early morning with coffee, fresh fruit, and cinnamon raisin toast (from Metropolitan Baking) for breakfast.  We talked some more about our long-term ham radio plans and decided we would order one (1) of the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band mobile radios and a slightly more powerful VHF/UHF base station antenna.  Our daughter called around 9 AM to wish her many happy returns of the day.  My Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System (MPSERS) health insurance shifted her to secondary, with Medicare as primary on June 1st, the first day of the month in which she turned 65.

The temperature was in the low 60’s when we got up at 6:30 AM.  The weather forecast for the afternoon had an increasing chance of rain and the possibility of isolated thunderstorms so Linda went for a mid-morning walk.  I headed to my office to order the radio and a Diamond X-300NA 2m/70cm antenna.  All of the online distributors are selling the radio for the same price.  I decided to buy both products plus the RTSystems programming software, from Amateur Electronic Supply (AES).  Their UPS Ground shipping is “free” and since they are based in Ohio the shipment will be here in 1-2 days rather than 4-5 days.

I took a break and spread three more bags of brick pieces around the base of the tower and in front of the cable entry box.  Back in my office I dealt with some personal e-mail.  I sent an e-mail to Scott (KE9FOX) at QTH.com with additional information he needed to transfer the SLAARC website and domain name registration from GoDaddy to QTH.com.  I then gathered up a load of laundry and put it in the washer.

By the time that was all done it was getting close to lunch time.  Lunch was a big spinach and lettuce salad, baby carrots, a few sourdough pretzel nibblers with roasted red pepper hummus, fresh sweet cherries, and the blueberries/strawberries/raspberries that were left from breakfast.

After lunch I transferred the laundry to the clothes dryer and then got cleaned up.  We left around 3 PM for the U.S. Bar and Grill in Wayne and stopped on the way to get a card.  Today was John Smallwood’s last day at Wayne RESA and there was a gathering from 3-to-6 PM to see him off.  John was the VP of the Wayne County Salaried Staff Federation (WCSSF) and succeeded me as President of the local when I retired.  Now it was John’s turn to enjoy a well-earned and well-deserved retirement.  This was the second gathering for a colleague in the span of just over a month.  Besides wishing John well it was an opportunity to reconnect with other former colleagues.

After a suitable amount of time visiting at John’s party Linda and I drove to the Mongolian Barbecue in Novi for a celebratory birthday dinner.  It is a very noisy restaurant but was not as bad on a Tuesday evening as it was the last time we were here on a Saturday.  I would have preferred a quieter and more relaxing atmosphere, but the Mongolian Barbecues have a lot of ingredients that we can eat and we find the method of preparation very much to our liking.  By the time we had a small bowl of soup, a moderate sized salad, and a good size bowl of ingredients we were full.

I had a brief QSO with Chris (K8VJ) on the drive home.  I stopped at the Shell station and topped off the gas tank in my car so we would be ready to go in the morning.  We finally got home at 8:30 PM.  Linda made some hot tea and we each had a piece of Prickly Pear Cactus Jellied Candy.  I restarted the dryer on Touch Up and checked my e-mail.  We were tucked in by 10 PM as we needed to be on the road by 7:30 AM tomorrow.

 

2015/06/29 (M) Website On The Air

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Linda was up at 5:55 AM this morning and left for the bakery at 6:15.  Experience has shown that this is usually early enough to get ahead of the morning rush hour traffic inbound to the Detroit metro area from the northwest.

I got up about an hour later, had granola for breakfast, and enjoyed my morning coffee (Sweet Seattle Dreams half-caff blend from Teeko’s) and then made a run to Lowe’s to purchase a couple of copper ground lugs and 5 feet of #10 green ground wire.  Back home I tried to use one of the ground lugs to terminate the ground wire from the cable entry box (CEB) to the 36″ ground bar on the wall behind the ham radio desks but it’s shape prevented the wing nut from going onto the stud.

I planned to use the other lug to attach one end of the #10 wire to the ground bar and put a male spade lug on the other end to mate with the connector on the Go Box ground pigtail, but that clearly was not going to work.  I dressed the ground wire and (temporary) coax in the ham shack and put the ceiling tile back in place.  I then started cleaning up the living room and small bedroom per Linda’s request before she left this morning.  Some of our (my) projects have a way of expanding throughout the whole house.  I had hoped to also pick up the coax cables spread out in the recreation room, and at least start to straighten up the ham shack/office, putting materials away and moving tools to the garage.

At 10 AM I made a few phone calls.  The first was to Rick Short at ISRI USA regarding the 6860 bus driver’s seat and a possible visit tomorrow morning.  I got his voice mail (again) and never got a return call (again) so I gave up on getting any assistance from him or from ISRI USA.  I called Linda to make sure she did not have any commitments on Wednesday and then called Josh at Coach Supply Direct to set up a visit to his shop for Wednesday late morning.  Linda and I plan to finalize our Flexsteel furniture order and give Josh the deposit during that visit.  Next I called Scott Adams, AC8IL, at Adams Electronics and ordered a 20 foot length of LMR-400 with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 connector on the other end.  Scotty and I also chatted briefly about tower bases.

I e-mailed Scott Neader at QST.com regarding the transfer of the SLAARC domain name and website from GoDaddy to QST.com and got a reply back right away with an outline of the steps I needed to follow.  First on the list was creating an account for our ham radio club through his billing system.  I took care of that and e-mailed him back.

Keith Kish, from Kish Lawn, care showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass.  When he was done I headed back to Lowe’s to look for an alternate ground clamp and pulley support for the tower but did not find anything suitable.  So as not to have it be a wasted trip I bought three more bags of broken brick pieces to use around the tower base and cable entry box.

I spent some time looking at the Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE on several different ham radio equipment vendor websites.  Yaesu is offering a $100 rebate on this 2m/440 mobile radio through tomorrow.  All of the distributors are selling it for the same price, $599.95 and the rebate brings it down to $499.95, so if I buy one it will come down to who has them in stock and is offering free shipping.

Linda got home from the bakery around 3 PM, earlier than I expected and nice for her.  She went for a walk while I continued to fuss with ham radio and website stuff.

For dinner Linda made a white beans and mustard greens dish.  We eat a lot of lettuce, kale, and spinach, both raw and cooked into dishes, but only occasionally have collard greens or mustard greens.  Mustard greens have a very strong, bitter flavor and I liked them more than Linda did.  I think they are an acquired taste and may be more suitable as an accent ingredient rather than a main one.

After dinner I checked my e-mail and had a reply from Scott at QTH.com.  The QTH SLAARC account invoice was ready so I paid it using a personal credit card.  I then moved the coax from our Icom IC-7000 to Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and turned it on.  Mike was on the South Lyon repeater discussing the Field Day event with Steve (N8AR) and Bruce (W8RA).  Paul (N8BHT) was able to join the conversation but I was not successful breaking in so I just listened.  It was an indication that my power into the repeater was probably still marginal but a good reminder that ham radio conversations are very public.

When they were done I called for Mike and he came back.  We had a good QSO (chat) about the Yaesu FTM-400.  Jim (N8KUE) joined in for a while.  After Jim dropped off we tested my ability to transmit to, and receive from, both the South Lyon 2m and Novi 70cm repeaters.  The added power of the IC-2820H over my IC-7000 (50W vs 35W in the 70cm band) combined with the lower signal loss of the better coax made just enough difference that I could hold the Novi repeater when transmitting although my signal was still on top of a lot of noise coming back out of the repeater.

Linda wanted to watch an episode of Scorpion, followed by NCIS Los Angeles, after which I caught an episode of Two and a Half Men and then turned off the TV.  I will have to make a decision about the Yaesu FTM-400 in the morning.

 

2015/05/09 (S) ICAAN, Can You?

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Today started with our usual SLAARC breakfast.  Linda has been cleaning up the financial records for our ham radio club and discovered in the process that the status of our EIN application was murky.  She has spent some time this past week trying to track down just what happened so she can figure out what to do to fix it.  She finally determined yesterday that the EIN that was issued by the IRS was indeed valid and approved but it does not appear that the 501(C.)(3.) non-profit status was ever established correctly.

When we got home we loaded the disassembled plastic foundation from our old Select Comfort mattress into the back of my car along with our usual tubs and bags of recyclables and drove to Recycle Livingston.  We had no other errands to run and returned home directly.

Scotty (AC8IL) reminded me at breakfast that Universal Tower in Mt. Clemens, MI (Clinton Township) sells free-standing aluminum towers that are compatible with the used Heights tower we bought last year.  I may be able to get a tower section to replace the iron clamshell and also a base to set in the concrete.  I made a quick check of their website but some of the pages did not load correctly on my iPad.

I checked the ICANN domain name registry for “SLAARC.com” and all of the owner/contact information still referenced Gary, who set it up originally in 2009.  I dealt with a change in ownership for “dactm.org” years ago and it was not a simple, easy process.  Add in the GoDaddy factor, and moving the domain name registration and web-hosting from GoDaddy to QTH.com is something I am not looking forward to.  I sent an e-mail to Mike and Larry seeking their input and assistance.  I checked and replied to a few other e-mails and then went upstairs.  Our USPS carrier, Michelle, came to the door with a small package that would not fit in our mailbox.  It was my prescription medications that we thought would be delivered on Monday next week.

Linda headed to the grocery store while I changed into my work clothes and started working on getting the dinette in the bus disassembled and removed.  I figured out that the dinette was, indeed, built in two pieces.  The base was screwed to the floor and had a u-channel around the top that was sized to receive a similar upside down u-channel on the bottom of the upper part.  The two channels were locked together by screws inserted horizontally from the inside.  The upper part was the seating and seat backs, most of it with built-in cushioning.  All of the leather furniture in the bus is in less than ideal condition and the foam cushioning is shot.  The furniture was designed so that the only way to replace it would be to remove it, disassemble it, rebuild it, and reinstall it.  We do not like it enough to do that and after owning the bus for over five years we now know how we want to change the furniture and re-purpose the space.

Needless to say, but said anyway, coach converters only care about making the original buyer happy and count on them getting rid of the coach long before any of these design decisions become an expensive maintenance and repair issue.  And that is a shame, really, because luxury motorcoach conversions are elaborate, expensive custom projects and the buses being used for these projects are capable of being driven for 50 years and 2,000,000 miles given the required routine maintenance.  Over that kind of time and miles the house/systems are also going to need maintenance but they do not seem to be designed/built with that in mind.

When Linda returned from her shopping she helped me get the two pieces of the dinette out of the coach and into the garage.  She then got back to work at her desk finishing up the accounting for our ham radio club.  I continued working in the coach figuring out how to disassemble the J-lounge sofa that occupies the rest of the passenger side of the living room and mated to the dinette.  Like the dinette it was a custom designed piece of furniture built specifically for this coach and constructed in the same way.  The differences were its size (longer), and three powered accessories.  From front to rear the accessories were a footrest, center table, and drawer.

The footrest is self-explanatory.  The center table rises up/out of the base in the center of the couch (after removing the loose seat cushion that covers it) and goes back down/in if you need that spot for sitting.  We set it at a comfortable height, level with the tops of the seat cushions, without it intruding into the limited isle space and pretty much left it there.  The drawer would have been just a drawer if not for the large rubber tube used to open and close it at the touch of a button.

The tube, about 1/4″ in diameter, is arranged like a long, skinny race track above the drawer and under the seat.  At the back end, deep in the bowels of the couch, is a motor with a vertical shaft connected to a horizontal drive pulley.  The tube is looped around this drive pulley and the other end is looped around a second horizontal pulley at the front edge of the drawer opening.  That pulley is free to turn.  If that’s all there was to it turning on the motor would cause the tube to just go round and round in one direction or the other.  The top back of the drawer, however, has a little finger sticking up that was clamped to the tube so when the tube moved it pulled the drawer with it.  At least it did before the tube broke.  The big drawer under the sleeper sofa is also powered by a similar mechanism, or was until the tube broke.  Neither of these drawers has worked as a powered drawer in the 5+ years we have owned the coach.  The motors work, but they do not cause the drawers to open or close.

All of these mechanisms are very clever but ultimately completely unnecessary.  Footrests can be actuated manually, drawers can opened and closed by hand, and a table can be built in where it needs to be.  These mechanisms also add weight, require power, wiring and control switches, represent potentially difficult (expensive) maintenance and repair items, and take up space that could be better used to store things.  To paraphrase a popular song of my youth “the things that pass for luxury I can’t understand.”

Because of all of these mechanisms the J-lounge was considerably more work to disassemble as they made it more difficult to access the screws that held the top piece to the base and the base to the floor.  In order to get to everything I had to remove the footrest, the table, the drawer box, and two decorative panels.  The drawer was attached to a pair of substantial double suspension glides by four bolts with Nylok nuts inside the drawer.  The suspension glides did not have release mechanisms so I had to remove the drawer box.  The two rear bolt heads were virtually inaccessible but I eventually figured out where to position the slides so I could push the bolts out from the inside.

Somewhere in the middle of this work Linda came out to bus.  It was good timing on her part as I was at a point where I had to assume awkward positions to reach things and having her hand me tools was very helpful.  The top back edge was wedged under the window trim so once everything was unscrewed we moved the couch out from the wall enough to lift the top off, verifying that it was unscrewed from the floor and the top was completely disconnected from the base.  We did not carry the pieces out of the coach, however, as we need to remove the front passenger seat first and create space in the garage for the pieces.  The couch and dinette are about 16 feet long when installed.

Disassembling the couch was not a problem as we are not going to reuse this furniture nor are we going to try to sell it or even give it away.  The most we might do is see if the metal has any value as scrap.  If not, Linda will call our garbage service to see if they will pick it up on our regular trash day.  I plan, however, to remove and keep the motors, pulleys, and acme screw linear actuators; you never know when you might need something like that.  🙂

I asked Linda if she wanted to go out for a pre Mother’s Day dinner and she said yes.  We went to La Marsa in Brighton and got there before 6 PM which allowed us to find a parking spot and not have to wait for a table.  I had their fresh lemonade, made with juice from fresh squeezed lemons and oranges blended together with ice.  I suspect it also had honey as it was sweet.  It was delicious.  The pita bread and garlic spread were good as usual.  We split the salad, which was god, and an order of zesty almond garlic Ghallaba (vegan).  This is the second time we have had this dish here and it has been a real disappointment both times.  We have come to the unhappy conclusion that the food at this La Marsa is simply not as good as the food at the Farmington Hills location.  Sadly, it is one of the few places in Brighton or Howell where we can get something vegan besides a salad or a no-cheese pizza.

When we got home I made some decaf coffee and we settled in to read, write, and play games on our iPads.  We looked at the website for Polar Power Inc.  They are a competitor to SunFrost and make similar kinds of refrigerators but with some important differences.  They sell to the marine market and have super-insulated units with remote compressors that run directly on 12VDC or 24 VDC.  Unfortunately the only unit they make that will fit in our enclosure is 9.6 cubic feet, and some of that is the freezer compartment.  It would allow us to build a generous vertical slide out pantry, but it is just not enough refrigerator volume.   Replacing the refrigerator is going to be a difficult project but it will be nice when we are done, especially if we can gain a tall, narrow, deep pantry in the bargain.  I plan to call SunFrost and Polar Power to see if they will make a custom sized unit and if so, what the added charge would be, but I expect the answer to be “no.”

I am once again behind on posting blog entries and need to upload all of the posts so far for May.  I did not take any photos in that time so they will be a bit less work.  I did take photos today, however, so now that we are back in project mode I really need to get back in the habit of off-loading images daily, selecting a few for the blog, posting it, and filing all of them for use in future magazine articles.

 

2015/05/08 (F) Bus Barn Trojans

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Today was a hodgepodge of activity.

Chuck called mid-morning and we had a long chat about bus barns.  I think our needs would be met nicely by a SteelMaster S-model steel arch building 32 feet wide by 56 feet long with a 19 foot inside center height.  We have been quoted a price of $20,400 for two of these ($10,200 each) delivered to two separate but nearby addresses.  The price does not include end walls, roof vent adapters, or skylight panels.  The site prep is going to be about $10,000.  A 16 ft. wide by 14 ft. high overhead door will be $5,000.  If I can get the concrete work for $10,000 and frame in the end walls, pull the permits, and run the electrical service for another $5,000 we can get this building erected for $40,000 and not spend all summer building it.  That’s a lot of ifs and it’s a lot of money, but we have looked at this a lot of different ways and that appears to be the bottom end in terms of cost.

Chuck likes the idea of 40 ft. wide by 60 ft. long building with that same 19 ft. interior ceiling height.  His logic is that he could put two buses in there, or a bus and a really big trailer, and still have room for workbenches, cabinets, and tools along the outside walls.  True enough, but we do not plan to own two buses simultaneously nor do we plan to rent space in our barn.  Chuck and are also not discussing going in together on a building as we both want to store our buses at our homes where they are convenient to load, unload, and work on.  Besides, I have been quoted $25,000 for that size building.  Although I think it included steel end walls with framed openings for an overhead door and an entrance door on one end, this project is never going to happen at that price unless we win a lottery, and that is unlikely as we rarely buy tickets.

After lunch I finally emptied out the back of my car and re-installed one of the back seats that was out all winter.  I was going to vacuum the interior but my Shop-Vac had very little suction.  An inspection of the filter revealed that it was completely clogged with drywall dust.  I closed up the car and put the Shop-Vac back in the garage where Linda wrote down the model number.

I got out the 8 foot stepladder and carried the three roofing samples up onto the roof.  I laid them out side-by-side so we could compare them in the same light.  Linda also viewed them from the west end of the house and from the rear of the house.  We agreed that the Certainteed Landmark Pro Max Def ReSawn Shake was the one we liked.  Linda made note of that in the quote packet while I loaded the sample boards into my car.

I drove to ABC Supply Co. in New Hudson and returned the roofing samples.  I stopped at the nearby Lowe’s to buy a replacement filter for the Shop-Vac.  I think the sales associate who helped had somewhere else to be and something else to do as it did not seem really interested in helping me find the right filter.  I usually shop at the Lowe’s in Howell and the service there is generally very friendly.  The model number of our Shop-Vac did not come up in either the Lowe’s system or the Shop-Vac website even though we bought it a Lowe’s just two years ago.  Apparently it is no longer made or sold.  After looking at the current Shop-Vacs and the replacement filters I selected an LG wet/dry filter as my best bet.

I-96 west bound was fine until Kensington Road at which point it was stop and go, but mostly stop , so I excited at there and headed north, eventually heading west on Hyne, across Old US-23 and over to Hacker Road.  I don’t know if it was faster, but at least I was moving most of the time at a good speed.  I really dislike sitting in traffic.

Mike Sharpe was scheduled to come over after breakfast tomorrow to see if we could identify the source/cause of the Trojan notifications I have been getting for a while now from my es|et Smart Security 8 program.  It appears that the notifications are being triggered by the copying of a .tmp file associated with the automatic backup of files from one or more of the four WordPress websites I run.  I was doing online research on the infection and was looking for information on the es|et website when I noticed that they had a live chat technical support feature.  I decide to see if they could help me and ended up spending an hour with Eric.  With his helped I think we found and eliminated the at least one instance of the offending file.

Linda made a nice salad for dinner.  Having had something to eat I pursued the Trojan problem back to the next level; the website from which the infected file was being backed up.  The Small Business WordPress theme (in the “smallbiz” folder) was the source of the problem.  I did not recall installing this theme, however, so I am not sure how it got installed into the website.  I checked the other three websites and discovered that this theme was also installed on our personal website/blog.  That probably explains why I was getting two notifications for what appeared to be the same thing.  It took me a while to find an explanation on WordPress.org of how to delete themes.  It was very easy once I saw it, but like many others I could not find the button on my own.  I eliminated the theme from both websites along with others from all four websites that I did not plan to use.  Only time will tell if that has eliminated the problem.

I then dealt with e-mails that I had neglected for the last several days and took another look at the SLAARC GoDaddy account.  It was almost midnight by the time I got to bed.

 

2015/04/02 (S) SLAARC and Company

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We arrived at the Senate Coney Island before 8 AM for the weekly SLAARC breakfast.  Paul (N8BHT) was already there and we were followed in closely by Steve (N8AR), Mike (W8XH), and Jim (N8HAM, the best call sign ever).  Bruce (W8RA) and Linda (NF8C) came in next followed by Harvey (AC8NO) and Diane, and then Gary (WA8TJA).  Others continued to come in but I lost track after that.  We sit at a long, two-sided table arrangement, so you can only talk easily to the person on either side of you and the three or four people across from you.  Bruce and Linda sat across from us.  The two Lindas like to talk so we try to arrange the seating to make that possible when we can.

Bruce and Linda just closed on a 25 acre property in Florida that includes a very nice house with a ham radio shack and five (5) towers with antennas so that was the main topic of conversation.  Bruce is also thinking about putting up a “barn” with a pad next to it for an RV so we talked about the requirements for the pad and the type/placement of the hookups.  We both had coffee and Linda had her usual dry rye toast.  I decided to change things up and had a dry, toasted bagel instead of my usual dry, toasted English muffin.  Sometimes you just have to live on the edge.

After breakfast we went to First Merit Bank along with Harvey and Diane.  Harvey is the SLAARC President, I am the VP, and Linda is the Treasurer and we are the folks currently on the account.  There was an issue with the bank’s paperwork and they needed to photocopy our driver’s licenses and get our SSNs.  It turned out that they also did not have the club’s EIN even though Linda and Paul, the outgoing treasurer, took care of some of this in late February.  Nancy helped us and was very nice, explaining that the bank had changed its policies and procedures recently and now required more documentation than in the past.  No problem, the bank is open on Saturday mornings and we are almost always in town for breakfast.

With our banking business concluded we headed towards home via Grand River Avenue.  We knew from yesterday that traffic was moving through the I-96/US-23 construction zone just fine, as long as there wasn’t an accident, but we wanted to stop at Brighton Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram which is on GRA just west of US-23.  We walked around the lot looking at the Jeep Wranglers, especially the Unlimiteds, and after a suitable amount of time David Wade came out and introduced himself.  He showed us around, answered our questions, and gave us a nice brochure (book) and features/options guide.  We liked his attitude and demeanor and left feeling comfortable with him and the dealership.

We focused in fairly quickly on the Willy’s Unlimited model as the one that we thought would best fit our needs and budget.  It is similar to the Sport, which is the base trim level for the Jeep, but is available with the hardtop and, most importantly, the Rubicon heavy-duty suspension and off-road (knobby) tires. The Rubicon is the top of the line Wrangler Unlimited (4-door) but it is not just fancier in terms of electronic gizmos; it has an entirely different suspension, transfer case, and other “features” that make it the most off-road capable as delivered by the factory.  We liked the copper/bronze color, as it would go nicely with the paint scheme on our bus, but I am also partial to the canary yellow as it would be the most visible if we were broken down in some remote place.

A new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited would be a big purchase for us but no more expensive than buying a used one as they appear to hold their value better than most vehicles.  With a new one we can order it just the way we want it, leaving off all of the expensive upgrades we do not want/need (in-dash GPS, entertainment system, etc.) and adding only those that we do want/need (hardtop and suspension upgrade).  New also means a 6-year, 100,000 mile powertrain warranty and a 3-year, 36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.  David also told us that we can purchase a lifetime bumper-to-bumper warranty for about $3,000.  We will obviously have to do some research on that.

We finally got home around 10:30 AM Home.  Linda added a few more items to her grocery list and went to the supermarket.  I started a load of laundry and then moved a lot of my “stuff” from the dining room to my office.  After rearranging old stuff to make room for the new stuff I settled in at my desk to work on computer/web-based tasks.

Gary was the SLAARC webmaster before me and indicated at breakfast that he was still getting e-mails from the SLAARC reflector and asked that I remove him from the e-mail forwarding on our GoDaddy account.  My focus for the last two years has been getting the WordPress website built and launched so I had never looked at this aspect of our web-hosting account.  I had some familiarity with the concept, however, from the e-mail accounts that are part of our personal domain and sub-domain.  It was fairly easy to figure out how to edit the existing account and add new ones.  Once I was done I e-mailed all of the club members who were affected by the changes and asked them to review them.  I will check for replies tomorrow and then send test messages.

I got an e-mail from Linda at BCM with the SD version of the March 2015 digital issue attached.  I logged in to the website and downloaded the HD version.  This issue is two months late, the latest it has been since Gary took over the magazine in October 2012, due in part to yet another change in editors that did not go smoothly.  The magazine has been at least a month late for a year now and is slipping farther out rather than closing the gap.  The sad reality is that the magazine does not have enough subscriber base or enough advertisers to be sustainable and Gary is not able to pay enough to get an editor who can/will put out a quality magazine once a month.  But he has not shut it down yet so I will continue to work on articles.  I don’t get paid for my writing and photography.  It’s a hobby and I like it that way as I am not obligated to do anything and I can make my own ground rules.

John and Diane Rauch arrived at 5 PM to visit and have dinner.  They are our longest/best Michigan friends and we always enjoy visiting with them.  They also have two children who went to school with our kids and now have children of their own.  Diane is an educator and is retiring at the end of the school year after a long career as a high school English teacher.  Naturally, our conversation had to do with retirement, travels, and family.

Linda used our outdoor grill to roast marinated potatoes and cook veggie-fruit kabobs.  John and Diane brought a nice Riesling from Woodcreek that we enjoyed before dinner.  We opened a bottle of our 2009 Egri Merlot to serve with the meal and had Biscotti cookies and vegan chocolate “ice cream” later for dessert.  Linda and Diane got a new online game configured on Linda’s iPad and got several things straightened out on Diane’s iPad.  They headed for home around 10:30 PM as it’s a half hour to get back to their house which is only a few minutes from our previous home.

We stacked the dishes in the sink and left any further cleanup for tomorrow.  We tried to watch the 2nd episode of the 1st season of Sherlock (PBS) but either the DVD was damaged or there is something wrong with our player.  The disc was obviously scratched so that may have been the cause, but I want to rule out a defective player.  We have another one in the basement that I will use to test the disc.  If the player needs to be replaced new ones are relatively cheap and I will get one that can also play Blu-Ray discs.